During the start of 2018, the League of Legends meta underwent a dramatic shift with the re-emergence of one of the most hated strategies, the gold funnelling meta. A strategy centered around the idea of a single carry in the team getting most of the gold and experience in the map, enabling them to 1v5.
Many pros vocalized their concerns about the funnelling meta. The playerbase hated it, and Riot tried to patch it out. Regardless, funnelling would continue to be the dominant strategy during Season 8 in proplay.
In this article, we'll talk about what makes gold funnelling possible, why it was such a dominant strategy, what Riot did to push back on it, and the possibility on whether or not we'll ever return to seeing pros whip out Yuumi or Taric on the mid lane for yet another round of gold funnel strategy meta dominance.
Funneling is a strategy in which two streams of income are allocated to one hyper carry champion, usually between a laner and a jungler. This results in an accelerated carry, effectively getting them fed without kills. As you can imagine, it was quite dominant whenever it was possible.
It classically involved funnelling gold into the midlaner by letting them take jungle camps, but in its most recent iteration in 2018, it is instead the midlaner who funnels their own lane minions into a hypercarry jungler. Sometimes, teams would double down and additionally play a supporting toplaner who would also always prioritize helping the jungler over taking minions.
The strategy itself isn't new at all. Gold funnelling has emerged, faded back into obscurity, then re-emerged several times in League of Legends history.
In Season 2-3, some midlaners in competitive play would clear the first mid lane wave, then take wolves or wraiths from their own side of the jungle, and were then given the first blue buff. A midlaner who didn't do this and instead stayed behind to shove the next wave would use up mana clearing the wave, just to face a lane opponent who's now one level ahead and can freely spam abilities with blue buff, all for just a comparatively negligible benefit to their own jungler.
This, however, remained as just a small spike that would allow a mid laner to cheaply seize priority early. They couldn't run around with the jungler because at this time, EXP on jungle monsters would be shared between nearby allied champions, rather than giving the full EXP to whoever killed the camp.
Although this cheese ended as better options for mana regen in the early game emerged, we still see ramifications of it today. It cemented the strategy of giving blue buff to a mana-hungry midlaner for years to come, which would end up in Riot embracing it and giving us the mechanic we have today, where killing a jungle buff with a fully upgraded pet will drop an extra buff for your allies to pick up.
In Season 5, we saw this strategy reemerge again with smite Ezreal mid lane. The new AP jungle item, Runeglaive, was able to fix all of AP Ezreal's issues in the mid lane, converting his Q into magic damage and giving him immense waveclear, while also allowing him to efficiently get EXP from jungle monsters. It became more efficient for Ezreal to prioritize nearby jungle camps like Raptors, Blue or Wolves, either on his own jungle or the enemy's, than to stay in lane 24/7. The strategy would eventually die off with the nerfs to the new jungle items, which would disincentivize getting gold from both lane minions and jungle camps in the same role.
Throughout Season 6-8, we also saw this strategy rear its head every now and then. Some champions like Karma, Lulu, Viktor, Janna and Senna were able to run Spellthief's Edge in top lane and mid lane, "fasting" on minions to give them to the jungler or another laner, since they were able to keep up in gold just with their support item and the Kleptomancy rune.
Gold funneling also saw quite a bit of success in Twisted Treeline, becoming the main meta strategy in 3v3 for many years, since the jungle only has 3 camps and the hypercarry just has 3 opponents to worry about.
The reason 3v3 had such a limited ranked scene was precisely because the meta had been mostly funneling comps for years, leading up to Twisted Treeline being deleted. It became incredibly unfun to play, essentially becoming a 1v1 between two funnel comps every single time in higher ranks.
Riot Games was unable to add any changes that would counteract the meta, though. The entire design of the map and gamemode incentivized gold funneling, and so, they decided that Twisted Treeline was better off permanently disabled.
In 2017-2018, boosters in the Chinese servers would shift the funnelling strategy, by running a support midlaner that would follow the jungler around, funnelling all their gold and EXP to them. This strategy blew up in Chinese solo-queue leading up to LCK 2018, as a swath of changes that incentivized funneling came in the preseason.
Funneling remained a boosting strat until it broke into professional play in the first game of LCK 2018, with ADD and Yondu from MVP picking Master Yi and Taric for their first picks, to which bbq responded with Nunu and Karthus. The teams ended up looking quite different from what anybody would expect in the LCK.
In this game, both Nunu and Lucian helped Bono around with camps and skirmishes. Shen would help with his ultimate, and Gragas for extra CC. In response, MVP picked Lulu and Ornn for the CC and utility, along with Fiddlesticks for both CC and AP threat.
At the 10 minute mark, Master Yi was sporting 137 CS against Karthus' 142. Gold funneling can create an overwhelming amount of cs/minute. Eventually, the game ended in a win from MVP. ADD was able to secure early kills, and that's all it took for MVP to create a lead that would stretch for the entire game.
The strategy is simple. The jungler picks a late game hyper carry champion (Master Yi, Twitch, Karthus, Kayle, Cassiopeia, etc) while the midlaner would grab Smite and go a support (Taric, Nunu, . Botlane will usually pick a utility-heavy lane, but they can still go a normal botlane duo.
In the early game, the midlaner will follow the jungler around, helping them clear their camps for the first minute or so, and then go catch the stacked-up wave in mid lane. Since it's a 2v1 and the enemy midlaner will often be underleveled, they won't be able to punish this. Relic Shield would also make the waveclear even faster.
Ideally, the jungler would be farming 24/7. If for any reason they'd need to show in top or botlane, usually the laners will give up the gold to the hypercarry. Enchanters are high in the priority list for other picks, with some comps even running Janna or Lulu toplane to play around the jungler as well.
As the game progresses into the mid-game and the hypercarry starts hitting their two/three item powerspikes, the funnel comp will start looking to bruteforce objectives while their jungler has an item lead. A Master Yi with Blade of the Ruined King and Guinsoo's could take baron and rush down midlane at this point, or force team fights.
By farming one or two lanes on top of taking all their jungle camps uncontested, the jungler was able to get 14 to 15 CS per minute, securing obscene level and gold leads while their midlaner remained relevant through extremely gold-efficient support items.
Ideally, the carry would finish their build (or get pretty close to finishing it) before late game comes around. Stretching too much into the late game would mean allowing the enemy carries to catch up, since the jungler obviously won't get any stronger when they're full build.
Master Yi and Taric was the most popular duo by far for funneling. They synergize well because Taric can give Master Yi a ton of much-needed utility, while also granting him even better chase potential with his E. Their combined ults also allowed them to survive pretty much any dive and engage they wanted.
Master Yi and Taric also had the Alpha Strike-Dazzle combo. Due to how Alpha Strike worked internally, Taric's Dazzle would automatically target whoever Master Yi targeted with Alpha Strike.
While ulting, they couldn't be slowed, couldn't be damaged and had a targeted stun on potentially the entire enemy team. This led to an incredibly safe funnel duo where the only actual counterplay was somehow CC-chaining Master Yi for the entirety of Taric's ult, and then some.
Karthus and Nunu was the second most popular duo at the time, with the older version of Nunu being able to slow targets for Karthus to pick off. This duo did have the issue, however, of depending in somebody else in the team having CC and other forms of utility. Karthus is able to output more damage at a safer range compared to Master Yi, but the lack of Taric's stun, heals and invuln would make this duo less consistent.
Nunu would also be incredibly dominant because of his W, Blood Boil, giving an absolutely bonkers 50% attack speed for 12 seconds. It didn't matter in the slightest if Nunu was ahead or not, he could just give Blood Boil to any autoattacker and turn them into a nightmare for an incredibly long duration.
Other picks for funnel strategy were Kai'Sa & Braum ,Lucian & Lulu. Twitch & Bard and Kayle & Yuumi.
The meta in 2018 made funneling appealing for a few reasons:
In Season 8, the support role was hitting rough patch. The role was pretty unpopular, so Riot tried to buff support item gold efficiency more and more to make playing the role more appealing. Along with leading to the funnel strategy, this same approach to support items also caused the Ardent Censer meta, which promptly caused Riot to turn down the value on support items again.
With support and support-adjacent items (Zeke's Convergence, Knight's Vow, etc) being so full of stats and utility for a low price, a lot of high-utility champions could afford to be underleveled and low on gold and still be useful. A team having 2 supports would mean a massive vision advantage, as Tracker's Knife and Sightstones were recently removed.
Relic at this time was cheaper, had more stats, and would passively give more gold than most support items in the current season. Along with this, it also enabled quick pushing, so a midlaner running Relic Shield could easily keep up the pace with a mage up to the midgame.
The natural way to counter this would simply be for the enemy midlaner to freeze the wave, but this came with its own set of problems. This would grant the supporting midlaner priority to skirmish with the hypercarry, on top of the fact that freezing waves in midlane is way harder than anywhere else. Even if midlaners were to freeze, it'd eventually turn into a slow push, ripe for the enemy jungler to come pick up, who would have way more efficient ways to utilize their gold than the opponent.
Instead of jungle companions, back in Season 8, junglers could choose between two jungle items: Hunter's Machete and Hunter's Talisman. The latter was great for mana regen, and gave every jungler a burn on abilities. Between Scuttles and Talisman, any mana-hungry carry would have infinite mana sustain even without bluebuff. Moreover, junglers like Master Yi that would struggle with multi-target camps would have their clear times increased when they bought Talisman.
This rune offered 25 movement speed rather than 10 back in the day, which meant it was incredibly efficient to run comps that would roam early and roam often.
With a support following the jungler around, they would be able to guarantee both scuttles every single game, pretty much every time, which would give mana and health to whoever killed it. This enabled the hypercarry to farm and roam around for even longer without needing to back or get blue buff.
Champions like Elise, Rek'Sai and Lee Sin, who would be really good against funnel strategies due to their immense map pressure, were all affected by direct or indirect nerfs around this time. Elise fell victim to mobility creep, Lee Sin suffered from the removal of sightstones, and Rek'Sai, despite her recent buffs, was seeing her early game pressure deflate faster and faster as EXP in the jungle became more abundant.
Along with this, funnel comps would often have a relatively defensive botlane duo, so the only avenues for pressure left for early game junglers were either ganking toplane (which would often be shoved in regardless, since toplaners would run utility-heavy tanks and enchanters that could further help the jungler in the midgame), or directly invading the enemy jungle (which would often be a 1v2). Thus, the only real option to counter a funnelling strat as a jungler, would be to have gold funnelled into you. It became incredibly common for midlane and toplane proplayers to drop their main pool at the drop of a hat if they needed to pick Nunu or Taric to respond to a funnel pick.
Although an ADC who's not behind could theoretically shut down a funnelled jungler if they just waited and scaled, ADCs were hit in Season 7 and 8 with changes that would delay their scaling. When they take even longer to come online and start dealing damage, the funnelling strat can build up even more momentum and win the game before the enemy ADC is able to hit their powerspike.
Also known as Red Smite, Challenging Smite was probably the best jungle item during this season. Smiting champions would mark them for 4 seconds, reducing the target's damage dealt to the jungler by 10% and giving a true damage burn on every autoattack. This smite being so good at the time heavily rewarded autoattack heavy junglers, and made it incredibly hard to 1v1 the jungler if you don't have a jungle item yourself, let alone 1v2.
Most cheese strats tend to be proactive rather than reactive. Sion intentionally dying for platings, or the botlane duo playing something fully focused on shoving 24/7, or a toplaner that's exceedingly good at baiting you and dragging you into tower.
The difference with funneling, and the reason it's landed as one of the most hated strategies in League of Legends history, is that it's a reactive strategy. When playing against a funnel comp, you lose simply by not responding accordingly. Not everybody at the time knew how to respond to this strategy, though.
Despite the incredible midgame power and safety of funnel comps, there are chances in the early game for the enemy team to shut down the hypercarry before they're able to get their powerspikes, invading in levels 1-6 to deny the enemy team their win condition. Team coordination is key for shutting down a funnel strategy like this, which is why funneling would be such a problem in solo-queue.
It's also possible to identify a funnel comp early in champion select and pick around the hypercarry, ignoring the rest of the team.
The last way one would be able to play against funnel comps would be to play around the sidelanes, picking strong early toplaners and marksmen, diving the enemy and getting them fed. The midlaner would often be able to come help in dives as well, since they enjoyed permanent priority in mid.
As you can guess, it felt pretty unfun to go against a funnel duo . It demanded a specific comp to counter, along with team coordination, and you'll find that less and less in low elo.
Competitive players and esports fans didn't find funneling very fun, either. Non-junglers who had been building a champion pool for years were suddenly told by their coaches to drop all their picks at the drop of a hat, since a safe response to a funnel comp was another funnel comp. They'd have to start ignoring wave mechanics entirely. Since 1v2ing the duo early on was suicide, games would become incredibly boring and inactive for both sides. Even in a match between two funnel comps, games would have very little interaction between both teams as they both raced to their three item powerspikes and completely ignored kills. It wasn't pleasant for the viewers, it wasn't pleasant for the players, and it wasn't even pleasant for the casters. What do you even talk about when people have been doing jungle camps for the first 20 minutes? The weather?
The problem with funneling was not that it was dominant. The issue is that it actively rewarded not interacting with the enemy team, and it punished taking any sort of risk or fight. The only thing a funnel duo has to do is not lose before 20 minutes.
Over time, it became painfully apparent that emergency measures had to be taken against funneling.
In 8.13, Riot would nerf Master Yi, Taric and Nunu, specifically what made them so great for funneling. Master Yi would have his Q damage to minions reduced, and Taric and Nunu would take a hit to their buffs and main problematic cooldowns.
While this did stop them from being picked as much in funnel comps, the strategy kept popping up in LCK and LCS regardless, just with different picks.
Not keen to go for half-measures, though, the balance team finally threw funneling in the bin. In 8.14, jungle items would get the Monster Hunter passive, which would heavily reduce the amount of gold you'd get from lane minions if you have the most gold in your team. This would mean the hypercarry would no longer be able to efficiently farm minions, leading the enemy midlaner and jungler to eventually catch up with the hypercarry jungler.
In 8.23, Monster Hunter would be removed, however, as Riot implemented more long-term and constructive solutions to the funneling problem.
The first long-term fix to funneling is the new kill bounty system. Kill bounties would be higher, and they'd also factor in minion and monster gold. The team that has less gold would also get lower bounties. This would mean that any funnel hypercarry would give out a huge bounty every time they're caught out, which allows teams that weren't able to punish the funnel comp's early game could easily catch up.
Another long-term change in 8.23 would be turret plating. Turret plating was introduced in order to extend laning phase and reward lane bullies with gold for shoving and having priority. It'd be harder to run enchanters and supports in every lane, since they'd be unable to clear waves by themselves and would be passively leeching gold to the opponent, even if they were to turtle and freeze near their tower the entire game.
With more rubberband mechanics for the losing team to catch up and a more equal gold share between lanes, funneling would finally fade from professional play.
Riot’s future patches and item changes will likely determine whether funneling could feasibly return to the meta. However, the possibility of another funneling resurgence at the scale of the one we saw in 2018 seems unlikely.
We probably won't see mid lane proplayers picking Yuumi and Janna again, but some forms of funneling still survive in small quantities. For example, fasting Senna was a variant of funneling in Season 10 and 11, where Senna would only start taking CS after completing her support item, and allowing a tankier "support", like Ornn, Malphite or Gnar, take all the CS up until that point, which would overall leave Senna's botlane in a gold surplus relative to the enemy botlane.
As recently as Season 12-13, there's still traces of funneling. High utility midlaners such as Galio, Karma, Seraphine and Brand would get their core items and then buy the starter support item, and begin fasting on minions. By around 14 minutes, the passive on jungle items that make lane minions give less experience and gold would expire, which would mean the jungler would then start taking the midlaner's waves to accelerate their scaling, hitting their second and third items before the enemy jungler. Ideally, the midlaner would be able to survive on support item income for the rest of the game, as they'd only need their mythic, or their mythic and one item, to do their job properly.
The mechanics for this last funneling strat are technically still intact. The only drawback is that World Atlas gives less and less gold for minion kills the more support items there are in your team. Just a few small balance changes or buffs to specific champions or summoner spells could potentially make this viable again, in some form.
Funneling consists of diverting the gold income from one or more other champions into one hyper carry champion who can 1v5 the game.
Gold funneling has shifted the meta heavily every time it's appeared, giving us entirely new mechanics every single time, and even arguably shutting down an entire gamemode with how incredibly oppressive it was.
Since it has popped up before, it's almost guaranteed that some form of gold funneling will appear again. And once it's allowed to exist, entirely new measures will have to be made counteract it.
