Same as Yasuo, you can play those champs even if you don't use their respective trademark feature (shadows/dashes) effectively. So they both showed up on the rift and became cores pretty much instantly. A week after his release he felt as if he had been part of the game for a year. Smooth, if you ask me.
no babe that's not what I said orianna is harder to play than zed orianna is easier to master than zed orianna can't be played without constant monitoring of the ball zed can be played without shifting back to previously used shadows zed was much cooler + is an assassin so lots of peeps delved into his interesting kit orianna was a sleeper for a few months, same as syndra or xerath; strong, but not that many people played her/hadn't made a big splash in the scene ("boring" mage) + keep in mind that LoL's population rise curve is pretty ridiculous, I began playing just a few months after Ori's release; Zed was released much after LoL's boom. SO ANYWAY what I'm saying is Orianna was a family reject for a while, whereas Zed was always the cool kid on the block.
