I guess this is my post on my thoughts of Nautilus being released. I currently have no information other than what the Forum Reds have posted and hinted at. However, from what I gather he will be a tank who is capable of jungling with a decent amount of CC.


I'm thinking he's going to be a disabler; think Leona, Blitzcrank, Sejuani, Alistar, etc. Now moving on, these champions are all somewhat similar. Alistar and Blitzcrank have fairly decnet laning phases I suppose. They're pretty much restricted to the role of support although both can jungle, and recently Alistar jungle has regained favor among some people. Leona can also be played as a support, but like Blitzcrank she has no real role anywhere else. She could become a FOTM jungler, infact I wouldn't be surprised if she did shortly, but until then she like all the other champions I've listed have fairly awkward laning phases, mediocre-subpar jungling. In addition, they all emerge late-game as incredible walls that become nearly unkillable with great disables, etc. (again bar Blitz and Ali from this for the time being).

In anticipation for Nautilus, I suspect that he will be very similar to a Leona / Sejuani type champion. Very weak early laning phases, not exactly great in the jungle, but will emerge as an incredibly beefy tank late-game. Now most people would say "what's the problem with that". Now the problem is, if you've been watching higher elo tournaments or any commentary by TSM, M5, CLGeu; you would notice that the meta is shifting to having extremely strong early game, and then snowballing to victory off of it. Now that said, I think it will take a while for that slight shift in the meta to occur, if it does at all, lower elo players might not even be able to grasp it/master it (i would identify myself as a lower-mid elo player, I have certainly not mastered it). So this issue could become very minor but that still hurts the quality of game-play of the champion. Volibear and Sejuani are decent picks, not great, but they can hold there on. But when's the last time you've seen Volibear or Sejuani picked during a non-free week? They were pretty much labeled as weak laners and junglers and it's stuck with them since. Just as no one ever plays Yorick despite how strong he is.

In all honesty I hope I'm wrong, judging by the art spotlight he looks pretty cool (which is shocking based on how awful most of the recent releases have looked and played; bar a few champs).
Thanks for reading guys, let me know what you think/what your expectations are for this guy.