Nerf Phobia and The OP Mentality (Part 1)

I was going to post something about the meta of League of Legends, you know, how the word meta means "Beyond" in Greek and all that blah, blah, blah that you have heard in every video and forum post about League. I'm going to spare you that,  for now, because I want to talk about something that has really bothered me about the LoL community and it's not the refusal to touch a ward even if their life depended on it. It's actually the mentality towards changes in the game.

Nerf Phobia

It's pretty obvious what this is. It's when a champion or item gets 'nerfed' in a patch and, suddenly, using that item or champion is to bring defeat crashing down on your team. There is a long list of champions that have been 'beaten with the nerf bat' and are no longer 'viable'. The argument that "You don't see them in competitive play for a reason." comes up a lot, but you can't really say a champion isn't viable because pro don't play them, when the professionals are looking to push any champion they play to their limits with mechanical skills and animation exploits to win a tournament match that could mean the difference between having a job and being unskilled and unemployed.

There are few champions that have actually been nerfed so hard that they legitimately have no place in the meta, however, if you look at popularity of champions as an indicator of what champions are considered to have fallen out of the meta.

Image from LoL King

This indicates is that Zilean, Hiemerdinger, Galio, Poppy, and Urgot are considered the least viable champions in the current meta. Why? What makes these champions useless? Because pros don't play them? The fact that Urgot is so unpopular even thought the new Blue Build would be just as impactful on Urgot as it is on Ezreal, perhaps even more so, is a sign that Nerf Phobia is a real thing at it is something that effects the champions people play.
 
Just food for thought with no hard stats or facts. The OP Mentality post will be coming soon.