Welcome to our patch notes breakdown for League of Legends Season 12! Let’s break down all the new changes in LoL coming this week.

We recommend following along with the official 12.20 patch notes since we won’t be listing all the specific stat changes, but rather, focusing on the impact of the changes and the champions updated place in the current meta.

If you’re wondering how these changes will affect the meta, check out our LoL champion tier list!

Buffs, nerfs, and changes

Aatrox (nerf)

• His heal is reduced.
• It will impact him negatively in the Top and Mid roles.

Akshan (buff)

• His E Duration is increased. He can now swing for longer, which is a buff overall.

Blitzcrank (adjust)

• The passive shield is adjusted. His base stats are also changed.
• Q damage is decreased. W monster damage is adjusted.
• E damage is changed, but deals more damage to monsters.

Elise (buff)

• Q range is decreased. Hitbox changes

Evelynn (buff)

• Q damage is increased slightly.
• W charm duration is increased too.
• Some good buffs to Evelynn. I just hope they don’t make her meta and OP again.

Gwen (buff)

• Q damage is increased. This will help her in both the Top and Jungle roles.

Jayce (buff)

• Melee mana restoration is increased a little bit.
• The bonus defensive stats now scale with AD!
• It will help Jayce in both the Top and Mid roles.

Kennen (buff)

• E attack speed buff will now allow him to get over 2.5x attack speed limit. It’s a buff overall.
• It could bring back attack speed Kennen.

Maokai (nerf)

• Heal is down, and his Ultimate cooldown is increased later on.
• This will negatively impact him in the Top and Jungle roles.

Rammus (buff)

• W slow is removed, and R speed is increased.

Sett (nerf)

• Magic resistance is down; passive regen is reduced early on. Damage ratios are down.

Wukong (buff)

• R AD ratio increased a little bit.
• It will help him in all the roles he is played in.

Ziggs (buff)

• Q damage is increased. It will help with poke and wave clear. This buff is going to help him in the Mid and ADC role.

Items

Demonic Embrace

• Health reduced, more AP, and less damage per tick. It’s a nerf overall.

Frozen Heart

• Cost is increased, but gives a little more armor. However, the Rock Solid Damage reduction is changed a bit.

Mortal Reminder

• The amount of autos required to trigger it has been reduced.

Sterak’s Gage

• Bonus AD is increased. The shield amount is increased. Decary time is increased. Overall some nice buffs to Steraks.

Runes

Lethal Tempo

• Bonus range is reduced to 50 for both melee and ranged champions.

Thank you for reading, we hope you enjoyed this patch breakdown. How do you feel about this patch? Let us know in the comments. As always, if you have any questions, find us in our Discord!

The post League of Legends 12.20 Patch Notes Breakdown appeared first on Mobalytics.

Ready to hit your ranked goals for League of Legends Season 12? Our panel of experts has you covered for every role and rank.

Below, you’ll find our two League of Legends champion tier lists, one for general ELO (low ELO up to high Plat/low Diamond) and one for high ELO (high diamond up).

LoL Tier List 12.20

Click the icons for champion builds, counters, and more!

Latest Champion

Nilah

Top (God Tier)

Maokai

Sejuani

Olaf

Nasus

Singed

Poppy

Shen

Mordekaiser

Darius

Ornn

Jungle (God Tier)

Amumu

Nunu

Volibear

Zac

Rammus

Bel’Veth

Mordekaiser

Udyr

Fiddlesticks

Ekko

Mid Lane (God Tier)

Diana

Seraphine

Swain

Vex

Viktor

Ekko

Zed

ADC (God Tier)

Miss Fortune

Seraphine

Twitch

Kai’sa

Support (God Tier)

Soraka

Maokai

Janna

Amumu

Sona

Nami

Blitzcrank

Zilean

Renata

For everybody else, we have prepared much more:

Jump to General Tier List

Jump to High-ELO Tier List

If you have any questions about our choices or process, ask us on Discord!

Now that you know the best champions for LoL, get the best champions for Teamfight Tactics with our TFT tier list or Wild Rift with our Wild Rift tier list.

We also have a best decks tier list for LoR and an agent tier list for Valorant.

Methodology TLDR: This list was curated in collaboration with our League Experts: Adam ‘Moriarty’ Isles, Dan ‘Aux’ Harrison and Phy, and our Role Specialists: Shikari, Only, Command Attack, and Yen. Unlike most tier lists, we publish ours before, or as a patch goes live, according to the predictions of our in-house experts.

• Our first tier list aimed at lower elo, specifically gold elo and the surrounding brackets. These picks are effective when utilized in lower ranks and are the best tools for helping you to climb the SoloQ ladder as far as Diamond.
• Our second tier list is for high elo, aimed at Diamond 2 and above. These picks are curated by our experts and are an indicator of the champions inherent strength when played at the highest level. For a lot of the user base this information isn’t super relevant for their games but provides invaluable insight into the game itself.
• We made the decision to return to two tier lists after heavily reviewing the feedback from our users. Ultimately we agreed that a general tier list aimed at Plat+ wouldn’t serve a majority of the playerbase and we had missed the mark.
• Our difficulty system relies on “Skill Floor”, meaning that a Simple champion will yield results faster (around 5-10 games of learning)
• If a champion has a higher skill floor (Hard or Severe), it will take more time to learn them (20-50 games +) but you will be rewarded with better results over time whereas a Simple champion may fall off as you climb higher.

For a more in-depth explanation for our methodology, head to the bottom of the article.

Jump to High-ELO Tier List

General LoL Tier List for Patch 12.20

Jump to High-ELO Tier List

Top Lane Tier List:

Jungle Tier List:

ADC Tier List:

Support Tier List:

Expert pick commentary

To see all the explanations for our expert picks and more, head to our tier list feature!

Top – Maokai

• Maokai is back with a vengeance and this brick wall Top laner is one of the best tank picks to go for right now. In lane, he packs a ton of sustain, decent trading power and an unrivalled ability to set up ganks.
• His W & Q make him the ideal lane to play for, almost guaranteeing successful ganks every time.
• Maokai then turns into a monstrous team fighting crowd control monster offering peel, engage or whatever it is your team needs! If you enjoy the frontline fantasy, Maokai is a top choice.

Jungle – Bel’Veth

• Bel’Veth has cemented her place in the jungle recently, especially in Solo Queue. She absolutely thrives in unorganized games, and the Solo Queue chaos suits her perfectly.
• Her mobility is incredible, she has solid damage in both short bursts and long extended fights and her E is a fantastic defensive ability making her very difficult to shut down.
• Bel’Veth tears down the Rift Herald and those tanky Dragons with ease, and as the game goes on, she only gets stronger with that permanent attack speed from her Passive.
• If you have low crowd control and burst damage, Bel’Veth will just stay alive forever, and if she’s got that Void form- good luck taking her down.

Mid – Swain

• Swain has been having the season of his life ever since that mid-scope update and with still no nerfs this patch, he’s going to remain one of the best champions in the game.
• Swain is fairly straightforward to play and works into most team comps which is ideal when playing in those lower-ranked games.
• Swain has solid laning, fantastic team fighting and immensely good snowball potential, becoming unkillable with his scaling health and itemization but also dealing a crazy amount of AOE damage.

Bottom – Miss Fortune

• Miss Fortune is the most popular and the most successful AD Carry in the game right now. She starts off by being an oppressive lane bully in the early game and turns into a monster with a few items. Her Ultimate alone is enough to tear through teams and if you catch enemies in chokepoints, you can genuinely ace them with this ability by itself!
• Miss Fortune isn’t just reliant on her Ultimate now though as she was in the past as now with her crit build she also packs a big punch with her auto attacks and Q. This allows her to kite and burst down enemies throughout fights rather than just waiting for her R to be back up.
• There are not many easier and safer options to go for than Miss Fortune at the moment if you’re looking to carry from the bot lane.

Support – Amumu

• Amumu Support is just so simple in the way that it’s effective. You’ve got 2 charges on that Q which can setup fights and ganks in the early game and then you’ve got your Ultimate which allows you to lock down 5 enemies in those big teamfights.
• Amumu is very simple to learn and easy to pick up but his impact on games is without question. As long as you can get into the right position to engage for your teammates and press R, you’re good to go.
• If you can combine Amumu support with other strong AoE wombo combo picks, you’re in for a treat.

High-ELO LoL Tier List for Patch 12.20

Jump back to the general tier list

Best Top Laners for Low Elo:

Best Junglers for Low Elo:

Best Mid Laners for Low Elo:

Best ADC for Low Elo:

Best Supports for Low Elo:

Top – Singed

• Singed has had periods this season of pure domination in the Top Lane and right now we are definitely experiencing this.
• He has such an infuriating playstyle which is undeniably effective, and at those higher ranks is really where players are abusing this champion.
• Singed usually has a way to make it through any matchup. He has good laning power, a fantastic gank setup, and an incredible ability to roam and influence the map.
• Even if you get behind on this champion, all you have to do is sprint at those high-priority carries and throw them back into your team.
• Whether you’re proxying waves or camping other lanes, Singed is a very impactful champion in High ELO right now, and has been for quite a while.

Jungle – Elise

• Elise hasn’t been the most popular or consistent choice in the jungle for a while, but over recent weeks, she’s seeing more impressive results.
• Elise is an aggressive early game ganking Jungler with the ability to easily punish and dive lanes taking certain players out of the game completely. She’s one of the few Junglers that can dive turrets so early and so easily and at higher ranks people can abuse this every single game.
• Elise’s solid early ganks translate into a terrorising mid game: snowballing out of control and one shotting anyone who gets close. As long as you’re confident enough in your Elise capabilities, you can end games early enough before you start to fall off.

Mid – Zed

• Zed’s been a heavily prioritized pick in that Mid-lane for quite some time recently and he doesn’t seem to be showing any signs of slowing down. Zed ticks so many of those High ELO champion boxes.
• He’s got a super high skill ceiling, fantastic carry potential and the ability to outplay his enemies against all of the odds.
• Now, if you get fed on Zed at the moment, you have a very good chance of carrying the game, you can pop down enemy carries in a matter of seconds and you can often just get out of there without too much risk of trading 1 for 1.
• Zed’s mobility, burst damage and overall ability to snowball games by himself make him a very scary Mid-lane pick in the right hands.

Bottom – Draven

• Draven will always be a fantastic AD Carry to play at higher ranks due to the intense mechanical gameplay that can be insanely rewarding in the right hands.
• If you can manage those axes and keep on the move whilst pumping out damage and farming efficiently, Draven is just such a great champion and if the meta allows him to be more viable, then he’s always a top Bot lane pick to go for.
• Draven’s Passive makes him arguably one of the best snowballing marksman in the game as all that bonus extra gold can allow him to spike so early and then just kill his lane opponents in 2 or 3 axes.
• He’s got self peel with his E, a global Ultimate that help him cash in on that Passive from across the map and of course that huge movement speed steroid in his W as long as he keeps catching those axes.
• Draven works super well with a variety of supports too making him a solid champion to One trick from that bot lane in high ELO.

Support – Pyke

• Pyke has always been a real terror in the right hands, but recently he’s started to really come back into popularity. His crazy ability to carry is almost unrivaled from that Support role and his pick potential, his clean-up damage, and his overall impact on games are back at full strength.
• Pyke has a crazy high skill ceiling so, the better you get at him, the higher the reward is, and at the top ranks this is a huge factor as to his success rate.
• Pyke has several itemization options, he has a solid range of matchups and if the lane is that bad he can just roam and carry the map instead. If you can pull him off, he’s a fantastic choice to play in high elo this patch.

Format and Methodology

Our difficulty ratings focus on how long it would take to start seeing a champion’s power level on our list in terms of the number of games invested.

Let’s say you’re debating between learning and climbing with Jax (A-tier | Simple) or Rengar (A-tier | Severe) – you’re going to want to go with Jax. Why? This is because Jax has a lower skill floor and would require less games to play at an A-Tier level in solo queue. If you tried to pick up Rengar, you wouldn’t get the full value of A-tier until after about 15 matches of practice whereas with Jax, you would get that full 15 every time you play him.

Another example would be between Nidalee (S-tier | Intense) vs Xin Zhao (B-Tier | Simple). Let’s say you’re about to play your last match before promos and you get auto-filled to Jungle (a role you’re not too familiar with). Even though he’s lower on the list, you’d be better off choosing Xin because you don’t have the required number of games to break the skill floor of Nidalee.

Higher skill floor champions will scale better with time investment – Severe champs will outperform Simple champs in the long run because Simple champs generally have their weaknesses exposed the higher you climb.

So if your question is, “How long until I’ll start seeing results?”, the answer would be harder = longer time, easier = shorter time. If your question is. “Will this champion still be strong as I climb in ranks?”, the answer would be harder = moreso, easier = less so.

Disclaimer #1: If a champion isn’t on our Tier List, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you can’t climb with them. You’ll just have to put in more effort to get similar results as our Optimal, Great, and Good choices for climbing.

Disclaimer #2: This list is meant to evaluate the champions that we believe are best for climbing Solo Queue. Although there can certainly be some overlap, we are NOT looking to name the champions that are the best in pro-play or organized, competitive 5-on-5. This is why champs that require a ton of team coordination such as Ryze, may not be included or ranked highly.

As always, we welcome all discussion and feedback. If you have any questions about picks that we didn’t expand on or would like to let us know how you feel about Patch 12.20 and our predictions in general, join us in our Discord! If you’re wondering how we make our tier list, check out our video explanation.

The post League of Legends Tier List Patch 12.20. Best League of Legends Champions to Climb with in Solo Queue appeared first on Mobalytics.

Looking forward to the next patch for League of Legends??

We’ve got you covered with the latest information from Rioters and other trusted sources that have been revealed for Patch 12.20.

Our preview will cover all known buffs, nerfs, and other changes to champions, items, and more.

If you want to see our breakdown for Patch 12.20 that’s on live now, check out our LoL patch notes breakdown.

Let’s dive into our preview for the new patch coming soon!

League of Legends New Patch 12.20 Preview

Champion Buffs

• Jayce
• Wukong
• Gwen
• Evelynn
• Ziggs
• Rammus

Champion Nerfs

• Sett
• Aatrox
• Maokai

Champion Adjustments

• Elise
• Blitzcrank

Item Changes

• Sterak’s Gage
• Frozen Heart
• Demonic Embrace

Runes

• Lethal Tempo

Next Patch Preview Sources

Patch 12.20! Buffing Rammus, because he went down a lot after a change to how his W calculates. Small buffs to others in the list. Blitz JG changes are a buff, but he needs a decent tap down for Supp.

Aatrox is still too strong after Eclipse changes, so tapping him down pic.twitter.com/66q99qEeoB

— Matt Leung-Harrison (@RiotPhroxzon) October 11, 2022

That’s all for now! Check back again every Tuesday before the next patch notes release to see our previews for future patches. In the meantime, see the best champions for our current patch with our LoL Tier List.

The post League of Legends Upcoming PBE Patch Preview (12.20) appeared first on Mobalytics.

Hey all! To help prepare you and your teammates for Clash, we’re recommending team comps dominate your bracket.

The team comps have varying playstyles so you can find the best fit for your squad.

The recommendations are made by our experts, Flaress, Aux, and Moriarty who have spent time as pro players, coaches, and commentators.

For each team comp, we’ll have a set of five ideal champions along with alternatives in case some of the champs get banned or picked by the enemy team.

Best Clash Comps (Updated Mid-Season 12)

1. Single Target Shutdown

Ideal Champs and Substitutions:

• Top: Camille/Tahm Kench
• Jungle: Trundle/Viego
• Mid: Twisted Fate/Syndra
• ADC: Ezreal/Ashe
• Support: Braum/Thresh

This comp is very effective at effectively playing teamfights by dispatching one target at a time with their high amount of single target CC and damage.

It’s also a very effective composition at invading due to the strong level one provided by Braum and Twisted Fate. Your early game is dictated by Trundle’s early dueling paired with Twisted Fate’s roaming ability to spread pressure to the side lanes.

When it comes to teamfighting, your goal is to kite backwards and lockdown and burst anyone who steps too close.

How to Counter

To beat a teamfight comp that excels in single target lock down, try a poke comp that uses its range to kite and keep the enemy comp at a distance.

Lux and Sona can provide shield utility and Lee Sin provides additional peel.

The longer you’re able to skirmish and poke, the harder it will be for the lockdown comp to find an opening.

2. Hard Engage Wombo

Ideal Champs and Substitutions:

• Top: Kennen/Camille
• Jungle: Jarvan IV/Nocturne
• Mid: Lissandra/Galio
• ADC: Ashe/Ziggs
• Support: Leona/Rell

This comp does not give the enemy team any space to breathe.

Heavy engage across the board combined with some really strong AoE power will make it incredibly difficult to play against if your enemies have an immobile carry and often even if they don’t.

If you like big high-impact teamfights then this is the comp for you.

How to Counter

Against a team that relies on strong wombo engages, pick a team that has high mobility and disengage.

Wombo/AoE abilities tend to have longer cooldowns so if they don’t get a lot of value out of them, such as only hitting 1-2 members, you can often win out in the long term.

Your carries should have enough tools to stay at a safe distance while still being able to output damage.

3. Buff Bruisers

Ideal Champs and Substitutions:

• Top: Wukong/Sett
• Jungle: Xin Zhao/Jarvan IV
• Mid: Irelia/Graves
• ADC: Seraphine/Karma
• Support: Sona/Lux

This comp revolves around strong skirmishing champions who do well in tight-knit fights and supporting them with the powerful shielding/sustain/CC from a double enchanter bot lane.

With the amount of self-healing and sustained damage available to the bruisers combined with the enchanter healing, it becomes extremely difficult to deal with this composition if you don’t take someone down as they’ll quickly heal back up again.

How to Counter

Here’s an example of an anti-bruiser comp.

Bruisers want to get into the thick of things and these five champs excel at short to mid ranges.

You have many ways to swing fights in your favor and control space with AoE spells.

Cassiopeia and Taric ultimates can each singlehandedly deter the enemy from thinking about engaging.

Season 11 Clash Comps

Hey everyone! We’ve got a batch of brand new team comp recommendations to give you and your Clashmates more options heading into Season 11.

Although these are more in line with the latest meta, if your team is used to playing a certain way, feel free to use an older team comp recommendation from Season 10.

After all, Clash is heavily reliant on coordination and synergy, it’s better to use a non-meta comp that your team is good at over a meta comp that your team needs more practice with.

1. Double AD lanes + AP Jungler

Ideal Champs and Substitutions:

• Top: Camille/Renekton/Fiora
• Jungle: Lillia/Evelynn/Karthus
• Mid: Lucian/Yasuo/Zed
• Bot: Senna/Caitlyn/Ashe
• Support: Thresh/Lux/Morgana

This was a staple in pro play toward the end of 2020 and it’s a great choice if your team doesn’t really have tank players.

It allows your AD laners to play aggressively while your AP junglers scale to 6 quickly and makes it easy to contest early Dragons and Rift Heralds.

If all goes according to plan, the enemy team will have difficulty itemizing since your team will have a balanced attack of AP/AD.

Note that Lucian can effectively act as a triple flex, so make sure your top, mid, and ADC can all play him proficiently to maximize that perk.

How to Counter

To defeat the two AD carry + AP jungler comp, your goal is to stop the AD carries from snowballing by recognizing that you need to play for farm pre-6.

Another key is to try to invade the AP jungler as most are squishy.

Malphite shuts down ADs, Kha’Zix has good invade and snipes squishies, Twisted Fate helps to prevent snowballing lanes, and Ezreal + Yuumi can easily play to scale.

2. Scaling Teamfight

Ideal Champs and Substitutions:

• Top: Ornn/Malphite/Sion
• Jungle: Kindred/Graves
• Mid: Orianna/Azir
• Bot: Ashe/Kog’maw/Twitch
• Support: Nautilus/Lulu/Yuumi

This team comp may be better suited for lower skill levels due to its easy execution.

It uses a basic front to back set up to protect your carries and it offers many ways to engage and find picks.

The gameplan is very simple but effective.

How to Counter

Scaling teamfighting gets defeated by early aggression, so if you want to beat it, the double AD + AP jungler comp is a great choice.

The teamfighting comp is great in 5v5 situations but will struggle against the more early-mid game comps that excel in smaller engagements.

3. Delivery System

Ideal Champs and Substitutions:

• Top: Camille/Shen/Akali
• Jungle: Lillia/Hecarim
• Mid: Galio
• Bot: Caitlyn/Kog’Maw/Twitch
• Support: Lux/Lulu/Yuumi

If you’re looking for a versatile choice that has satisfying wombo payoffs, try out this version of the Galio delivery system.

It shines most in the mid game, but its other win conditions include teamfighting and split-pushing.

How to Counter

To defeat the delivery stystem, TF + jungler need to take over the early game.

TF and Senna can help nullify Galio’s roams to prevent engages that favor the enemy team.

You also have options to match any late game split pushes you may face.

4. Anti-Dive

Ideal Champs and Substitutions:

• Top: Gangplank/Ornn
• Jungle: Lee Sin/Kindred
• Mid: Azir/Cassiopeia
• Bot: Cait/Ezreal
• Support: Thresh/Rakan

If your Clash team hates playing against dive comps, this is the comp for you!

Your strong backline carries work in tandem with a healthy helping of peel to handle divers with ease.

The comp provides incredible scaling while still offering respectable early agency.

Look to front-to-back and keep your flanks under control to maximize your effectiveness.

How to Counter

Early pressure champs like Galio can cause issues for the comp by speeding up the tempo of the game with roams.

This is especially devastating with scaling split pushers like Camille since the comp wants to be grouped and a strong side lane threat prevents that.

5. 1-3-1

Ideal Champs and Substitutions:

• Top: Camille/Jax
• Jungle: Kha’Zix/Karthus
• Mid: Galio/Twisted Fate
• Bot: Senna/Ezreal
• Support: Thresh/Rakan

If your team has strong individual players or doesn’t like to teamfight, this may be for you.

By combining a top lane duelist with a global mid laner, you can play the map wide and force the enemy team into uncomfortable positions.

Your safe bot lane can transition to hold mid while your sidelaners are pushing.

The jungler looks to attack sidelanes to help find a pick – in the case of Karthus, this can be as easy as pressing R!

How to Counter

Strong engage options make it difficult for the enemy team to successfully set up their 1-3-1 without getting picked.

It’s important that your top laner isn’t the only engage option in case they’re forced to defend.

Graves and Cassiopeia offer high DPS to burn through neutrals which can force enemy sidelaners to teleport in and then you can find a favorable teamfight.

Older Comps (added Patch 10.9)

It’s your Jungle expert Flaress back yet again and it’s been far too long since our last Clash Comps rundown. The meta has definitely shifted over the last couple of months so we’ve got some new comps for you and your Clash-mates.

Before I start you should keep in mind a few things:

• If any of these picks got picked or banned away from you, consider picking up our recommended alternative picks that should round out the comp similar to what was taken away.
• The draft doesn’t usually go the same way every time and especially doesn’t compare to what you’d see in LCK, LPL, LEC, or LCS. So taking things earlier or later really depends on who you’re facing and can be decided on during your scouting phase.

1. Teamfighting with strong solo laners

Ideal Champs and Substitutions:

• Top: Aatrox/Sett
• Jungle: Morgana/Taliyah
• Mid: Pantheon/Renekton
• ADC: Ezreal/Varus
• Support: Yuumi/Nautilus

Starting off, we have a well-rounded teamfight comp that utilizes the strength of the solo laners early and falls back onto a strong scaling ADC as a contingency plan.

Can you just picture a fed Aatrox getting reset after reset with a Black Shield and a Yummi attached to him?

And surely you remember the ease of execution of the Taliyah + Pantheon combo that was popularized not too long ago.

Well, if you take that one step further you got Morgana Jungle subbing in for Tal.

Morg’s definitely going to throw a wrench in your opponent’s draft strategies as she can be flexed mid and support and if you’re unsure of how to play her in the Jungle, I conveniently made a video covering it not too long ago *cough * cough*.

Look to use the priority and kill pressure from the mid + jungle duo to impact and snowball your top and bot lanes.

Morg can negate CC from her Black Shield and enable the team to go HAM.

Ezreal and Yummi have a safe, yet strong laning phase that ascends past God Tier of brokeness.

And you have Aatrox who’s going to pump out loads of damage and be unkillable thanks to the 2 supports on your team.

Overall, your win condition is to play around your mid & top side early while your bot lane looks to play it cool and scale.

It’s alright to forfeit the first Dragon if it means you secure Rift Herald for your mid or topside for platings.

Use the leads from top and mid to then bring your bot lane up to speed while you force team fights around neutral objectives.

How to Counter

Fiora has better mobility and skirmishing in the 1v1 than Aatrox.

Olaf will just run Morgana over like a bug on the side of the highway thanks to his R.

Anivia will never let Pantheon get on top of her once she’s 6.

Finally, Kalista + Blitz combo punishes the Yummi/Ezreal combo much harder than other bot lane duos thanks to their gap closing and lockdown.

2. Lockdown + Scaling

Ideal Champs and Substitutions:

• Top: Garen/Camille
• Jungle: Karthus/Shyvana
• Mid: Lissandra/Galio
• ADC: Senna/Ashe
• Support: Maokai/Nautilus

Next up is an amazing scaling + lockdown comp that remains strong in the early and mid-game.

A minus ten movement speed nerf isn’t gonna put the nail in the coffin with Karthus Jungle. Your clear is still going to be exceptional and when you have the likes of Lissandra and Maokai to root your targets for free Q’s, it’s night time for your enemies.

Lissandra recently got a nice buff to her waveclear which will help her have more favorable roam timers and priority in lane to assist Karthus for scuttles and neutral objectives.

In the bot lane, you have fasting Senna paired with Maokai who is a great counter to the many melee champions in the game at the moment.

Lastly, does Garen really need an explanation? Press Q, Spin-to-win, yell DEMACIA, make the enemy top laner rage in all chat. EZPZ.

Your win condition revolves around not allow your Karthus to be invaded with this comp.

As long as your team can collapse when needed on the time you’re pretty much set for the game.

You’ve got a great lockdown from your Maokai and Lissandra for your Karthus and Senna to dish out plenty of damage while also having good tankiness from Garen and Maokai.

Just play safe, scale, and fight on item spikes or when Karthus Ult is available.

So pretty much if you don’t hiccup in the early game and go even at 15min you’ve won.

How to Counter

Darius is favored in the Garen matchup and can look to derail the solo power of top lane by countering it with even more solo power.

AP Shyvana clears brilliantly and has burst to boot thanks to her slinging Fireballs that’ll 1-2 shot Karthus – she also provides better Dragon pressure.

Kassadin will look to take the free passive lane and scale to level 16 easier thanks to the noninteractive matchup.

Finally for bot lane, Yasuo/Taric will look to punish the low mobility of Senna/Maokai to get uncomfortably close for easy kills.

3. Front-to-back Teamfighting

Ideal Champs and Substitutions:

• Top: Sett/Fiora
• Jungle: Trundle/Sejuani
• Mid: Azir/Cassiopeia
• ADC: Xayah/Kai’Sa
• Support: Rakan/Nautilus

Despite Trundle getting a slight nerf he’s still excellent for countering the many melee picks in the current meta.

You’ll be able to set up great ganks from your pillar and allow for your Sett to have an easier time to feed your foes a couple of knuckle sandwiches.

Xayah isn’t the best ADC in the game alone, but when slotted into team play and paired with Rakan she easily is on par with God Tier. The Lovers duo’s early power and priority are great.

At mid lane, you’ll have an Azir to scale up and add even more obstacles for your opponents to deal with thanks to his Emperor’s Divide.

Your main win condition going to want to play out the first 10 minutes through mid and top side. As long as you secure Rift Herald for tower plating gold it’s okay to lose out on the first Dragon.

After the first ten minutes of a match, if your team properly sets up your mid and top to succeed, refocus on your bot laners and be sure to pummel your opponents with 4 man ganks.

Afterward, you should be in a great position to control the flow of the game through pressuring Dragon Soul, Rift Heralds, and Barons.

How to Counter

Despite Wukong’s nerfs, his stats still beat out Sett’s early and he has a kit to avoid a lot of Sett’s damage.

Trundle may be able to disrupt Nunu with his Pillar but it doesn’t stop the utility and objective control Nunu brings that outshines him.

Ekko thrives to get in the face of Azir and can easily get out of his Sand Soldiers and get on top of Azir.

Ashe + Morgana look to abuse the aggressive nature of the Xayah/Rakan matchup and by having multiple forms of hard CC, it’s easier to chain them together especially because Morgana R will remain tethered on Xayah if she ults.

4. Wombo Combo Teamfighting (Delivery system variant)

Ideal Champs and Substitutions:

• Top: Maokai/Malphite
• Jungle: Jarvan IV/Zac
• Mid: Orianna/Galio
• ADC: Varus/Kog’Maw
• Support: Lulu/Nami

It’s always hard to not put some iteration of the ball delivery wombo combo when recommending comps for coordinated 5v5.

It’s a tried and true ol’ reliable method that never ceases to stay relevant.

Add the extra tankiness and peeling that you get from Maokai as well as the sheer utility that Lulu brings to the table.

She can not only protect her carries but can also use her ult to layer on top of the wombo to keep the J4 alive.

The Varus brings a little extra added bonus thanks to his ultimate but please be sure to build him on hit and not the lethality build that has been more popular recently.

Otherwise, you’re going to lack consistent damage in teamfights.

With this comp, it’s sink or swim when it comes to your bot lane.

You need to play mid + bot with this comp and remember you have a Maokai when he groups for team fights.

If you can make it to Blade of the Ruined King and Rageblade on Varus, everything else will fall into place.

How to Counter

Morde already has some penetration in his kit and generally rushes Liandry’s for the % health burn which is convenient against tanks like Maokai.

Graves offers good mobility and kiting against Jarvan and just outclasses him in many other aspects of the game at the moment.

Talon will have mid priority all early game and be able to roam and influence other lanes while also having great kill pressure on Orianna as well.

Lastly, the MF/Bard combo packs a big punch at the moment and can easily punish micro mistakes from Varus/Lulu.

5. Wombo Combo Teamfighting (Scaling variant)

Ideal Champs and Substitutions:

• Top: Wukong/Kled
• Jungle: Fiddlesticks/Shyvana
• Mid: Yasuo/Renekton
• ADC: Miss Fortune/Kai’Sa
• Support: Leona/Nocturne

If you aren’t feeling like playing the delivery system variant but still want to have a potent wombo comp, this may be up your alley.

This comp is honestly pretty foolproof if you just don’t feed early.

The insane scaling and damage output this comp pumps out is surely NSFW.

It’s hard to put a timer on this comp when it really activates, but when most of your team (except your support) is all on 2 item power spikes generally you’re golden from here on out.

Look to force neutral objectives until you eventually get Dragon Soul or a Baron and be sure to play off of Fiddle ultimates to capitalize off his fears.

Overall, you’ve got the knockup synergy with the Wukong and Yasuo, the AoE monstrosity that is Fiddlesticks that covers your AP damage, and MF + Leona which add some CC and wombobility (yes I just made that word up) to make this comp quite frightening.

How to Counter

Singed can quite literally glue Ornn’s feet to the ground and stop him from using the second cast of his ultimate.

Zac is able to disrupt Fiddle’s drain, as well as itemize for magic resist (such as Spirit Visage) to keep him alive and not get burst down as easily.

Pantheon is a great counter to Yasuo as he has point-click CC and an ability to block his damage.

The Jhin + Bard pack in a lot of bursts and some utility of their own that’ll hold the line vs the MF/Leona.

6. Dive Comp

Ideal Champs and Substitutions:

• Top: Ornn/Sion
• Jungle: Graves/Kindred
• Mid: Diana/Kassadin
• ADC: Kalista/Caitlyn
• Support: Taric/Rakan

Your win condition for this comp is definitely reliant on your team’s coordination to pull the trigger on engaging fights. And not just every fight you see, but the right ones.

It’s also important to play around item spikes and play the neutral objectives game to sway the tempo of the game in your favor.

By doing this you can easily dive towers with ease since you’ll likely have the item advantage.

Speaking of item advantages, you have Ornn upgrades available to boost your late-game power.

If you can stay afloat for about 15 minutes of the game and really, really drive the nail in the coffin in the mid-game this comp will do you wonders.

Just be sure to close out around 30 minutes otherwise you may be outscaled by certain teams.

With this comp, you’ll be wanting to play very riskily by diving your opponents. This should be made easy thanks to the long-range engagement from Ornn and survivability from Taric’s ultimate.

Your 2 AD carries are primed and ready as well with great damage to round the comp out.

How to Counter

Your reason for choosing Mordekaiser here is the same as the anti-Maokai explanation we gave earlier.

Trundle is able to steal valuable AD from Graves and be able to stick onto him and run him down.

Any armor Graves has will just be stolen by the Troll King and just make graves a caster minion.

Galio fits in perfectly with the anti-dive comp as well as the anti-melee/anti-magic damage that makes him a natural enemy to Diana.

Finally, Vayne + Janna just get a free non-interactive lane phase to allow for harder scaling in the mid-late game.

Feature Recommendation: Team Comparison

We strongly recommend using the Team Comparison feature within the Live Companion on our platform for your Clash matches.

The Live Companion gives you a ton of analysis before your match with player scouting, imported builds and more.

The Team Comparison allows you to see how you stack up against the enemy team with helpful average stats and power spikes.

To learn more about all the other tools the feature has, check out our Mobalytics Live Companion guide.

Older Comps (added Patch 10.4)

The game has changed quite a bit since we last added these comps but we decided to include them in case your Clash team found success with them or in case the meta eventually returns for these comps to be good again.

If they worked well with you in the past, be sure to be aware of what’s changed in terms of buffs/nerfs and discuss with your team how you’ll be adapting to those changes if necessary.

1. “Game Over” – Pick + Teamfight

Ideal Champs and Substitutions:

• Top: Ornn/Gnar
• Jungle: Rek’Sai/Elise
• Mid: Cassiopeia/Viktor
• ADC: Caitlyn/Jinx
• Support: Leona/Nautilus

For this first team composition and my personal favorite, we have a well-rounded pick & teamfight comp that is consistently strong in the early, mid, and late game.

Going into draft be sure to get your hands on Ornn immediately if left open, then follow that up with Cassiopeia. Ornn provides massive stats thanks to his upgradeable items and Cassio will help secure and lockdown kills thanks to the many synergies the team provides such as Rek’Sai Unburrow or Leona CC.

Rek’Sai will allow the team to get rolling early thanks to her favorable early game in the current meta. Caitlyn and Leona will have lockdown synergy thanks to Leona’s lockdown and Caitlyn’s traps.

Also, due to the nature of the bot lane, Caitlyn will be able to maintain lane dominance and help provide priority for the Dragon Soul win condition.

Your win conditions are simple. Let your jungler set up plays and accumulate a small lead and make it unscathed until 10 minutes. After that, group up and fight over neutral objectives until you blast their Nexus into oblivion.

How to Counter

Yasuo can Windwall an essential Ornn engage. Elise is a natural hard counter to Rek’Sai thanks to her Rappel. Orianna keeps Cassiopeia at bay and doesn’t allow her to walk up to use her Twin Fangs.

Tristana can use Rocket Jump resets and her early snowball potential to throw a wrench in bot lanes scaling. And lastly, Morgana, is the bane of every engage player’s existence. Her Black Shield will stuff any playmaking potential as well as snaring you until your hair turns gray or you’re done pulling all of it out.

2. “The Wombo” – AoE

Ideal Champs and Substitutions:

• Top: Kennen/Vladimir
• Jungle: Jarvan IV/Zac
• Mid: Orianna/Viktor
• ADC: Miss Fortune/Kalista
• Support: Nautilus/Taric

Rolling into team comp #2, we have a hard engage style team that excels when grouped and feels oh-so-good when you wombo-combo in sync.

Be sure to utilize your team’s strength of forcing engages and layering ultimates. The best part about this comp is that you have multiple engage tools from Kennen, Nautilus, and Jarvan IV with deadly followup from Orianna & Miss Fortune.

Try to focus more on Rift Herald over Dragons early as you want to transition Shelly for tower platings to reach your item spikes quicker. With this team, as long as you do not run it down pre-10 minutes, you will shine in the mid-to-late game portion of the match.

Pick this comp if you are a team who prides themselves on their synergy and chains ultimates so well the enemy team has no other choice but to give you props.

How to Counter

Beware of picks like Cho’Gath who will silence you and one-shot you as you blink in the late game. Kindred can single-handedly save a teamfight and kite thanks to her Lamb’s Respite. Veigar who seems like it would easily be abused, can actually confine you and dismantle your dive/engage comp thanks to his Cage.

Senna & Morgana scale well and stifle ganks thanks to Black Shield and the Sustain from Senna Q. Senna’s ultimate can also provide shields to dilute your AoE damage in teamfights.

3. “We’re better than you” – Strong Early/Mid Game + Dive

Ideal Champs and Substitutions:

• Top: Kled/Jayce
• Jungle: Elise/Pantheon
• Mid: Qiyana/Taliyah
• ADC: Draven/Lucian
• Support: Alistar/Thresh

Moving forward to comp #3, we have an aggressive early-to-mid game team that you will absolutely love to use against teams you’re certain you’ll have them FF’ing in 15 minutes.

Your win-condition is to outplay your opponents early during laning phase and to close out the game pre 30 minutes. Use the aggressive nature of the comp to snowball and dive with Elise since she has synergies to gank and dive in every lane.

You will need to prioritize Rift Heralds for income and to bait teams to defend their structures before you all in them under the tower.

This is a high-risk high-reward playstyle that requires a good amount of synergy between teammates, so be sure to practice this one a couple of times in your scrims before gameday.

How to Counter

Despite the nerfs on Singed, Singed’s Sticky Glue patch inhibits Kled, Elise, Qiyana & Alistar from playmaking thanks to the grounding effect. Olaf would also ignore everybody and go 10-0 before your team can even say “200 Years Experience.”

Lissandra stalls and locks down your comp fairly easily while Ashe and Morgana slow, snare, stun your champions, as well as your mentals as they deny your strong, aggressive early game.

4. “The Icebreaker” – Scaling + Teamfighting

Ideal Champs and Substitutions:

• Top: Sett/Ornn
• Jungle: Sejuani/Skarner
• Mid: Sylas/Irelia
• ADC: Jinx/Vayne
• Support: Braum/Tahm Kench

Continuing forward with comp #4, I wanted to throw in a slick lockdown scaling teamfight composition that’ll reward those of you who like to play reserved and calculated to slowly choke out your opponents.

What allows for this comp to synergize so well is the insane crowd control you get just from Sejuani and Braum which is supplemented by the Sett and Sylas picks to help proc the on-hit effects.

This comp strives to get to the mid and late game so try to play safe early and wait for your team’s item spikes. If all else fails, you have Jinx as a hyper carry to rely on in the late game with plenty of peel to boot.

How to Counter

Sett may seem like he may counter Maokai, but Maokai can really disrupt and avoid a lot of Sett’s damage thanks to his Q and W. Trundle will absolutely tear Sejuani to shreds thanks to his stat stealing abilities thanks to his Q and R.

Mordekaiser will be able to death realm anybody on your team and stand on you with Conqueror and his passive as he emotes over your grave.

Miss Fortune and Taric can sustain and poke in the lane as well as peel and have amazing stalling potential in the later stages of the game thanks to Miss Fortune R and Taric’s invulnerability from Cosmic Radiance.

5. “Secretly OP” – Skirmish

We will take skill expression to a whole new level and help make your hook champions lives easier in the form of Trundle’s Pillar since it will slow and make hooks easier to land. Be prepared to laugh uncontrollably as Pyke will single-handedly purchase your team Rolex’s & Loui Vitton thanks to his insane gold share from “Your Cut” on his ultimate.

Ideal Champs and Substitutions:

• Top: Mordekaiser/Gnar
• Jungle: Trundle/Karthus
• Mid: Pyke/Qiyana
• ADC: Vayne/Kog’Maw
• Support: Thresh/Braum

This comp may seem a little wonky at first, but believe me, people have forgotten the sheer power and gold Pyke mid provides. Pyke synergizes really well with Hail of Blades which conveniently got buffed recently. The Pyke pick will roam and help kickstart the Vayne train to snowball for late-game.

Picks are essential to this comp so be sure to use Trundle Pillar to narrow their chances of dodging skill shots and if all else fails your team is equipped with above-average peeling tools for your Vayne to get you across the finish line.

How to Counter

Be wary as Tryndamere can steal the game from under your noses as he can cancel Pyke R as well as be a consistent threat in the later parts of the game due to his strong split pushing potential. Trynd will force two or more players to deal with him and if he pulls Mordekaiser away from team fights then he already has done his job.

Nunu & Willump will be able to secure neutrals far better than Trundle can while Diana will be able to keep Pyke honest in lane phase with decent kill pressure.

Kog’Maw and Morgana will be able to scale exceptionally due to the fact Vayne is looking for a passive lane to farm as well – and in my opinion, I’d be more worried about a Kog’Maw free hitting with Blackshield than a Vayne who’ll likely be spotted and executed on sight

6. “Poke Me on Facebook’ – Poke + Siege

Ideal Champs and Substitutions:

• Top: Rumble/Gnar
• Jungle: Jarvan IV/Nidalee
• Mid: Zoe/Corki
• ADC: Ezreal (Varus)
• Support: Thresh (Yuumi)

Alrighty y’all are you still with me? With comp #6 we will shift from the primarily teamfight comps that we have covered so far to a more poke based composition, that at the end of the day, will still accomplish what a purebred teamfight comp could achieve if not better.

If you’re looking to annoy and watch as your enemies mentals deteriorates the more you land skillshots, this composition is right up your alley.

How to Counter

Be on the lookout for Sett as he can chase down your Rumble thanks to his Q which negates Rumbles movespeed on his W. Amumu can strip Magic Resist from off your team as well as provide a decent AoE lockdown ultimate if he manages to land a Bandage Toss.

Heimerdinger would prove challenging thanks to his turrets being able to block Zoe and Ezreal poke. And finally, Twitch and Taric would be able to stealth stun you in lane phase and outscale you harder in the mid-game.

7. “The Submarine” – Globals + Dive

Ideal Champs and Substitutions:

• Top: Shen/Gangplank
• Jungle: Nocturne/Gragas
• Mid: Twisted Fate/Oriana
• ADC: Jhin/Varus
• Support: Leona/Nautilus

For the last and final comp, we have a comp that’ll have your enemies barking in all chat for how much you were willing to commit to picking off a player. To me, this is the true one and only submarine comp.

I suggest playing this comp if you’re confident in your split pushing and 1-3-1 abilities as a team. Not only that, but you would also have some very decent team fighting as well.

Look for opportunities to dive with Nocturne + Shen R as your Twisted Fate would be able to ultimate and teleport without being noticed to follow up.

You’ll have another great initiation tool from the Jhin & Leona combo to make picks all the more easier for your Nocturne and Twisted Fate.

Be sure to play safe and farm until level 6, and make plays around your TF or Nocturne and prioritize Rift Heralds early so that you can get to your item spikes much quicker.

How to Counter

Dr. Mundo will truly go where he pleases all over your team as your team lacks steady damage. His tenacity and healing regeneration will surely prove a problem if he is left open versus this team.

Trundle counters Nocturne by Pillaring him away and separating him from his fear target while Ziggs will never allow TF to roam thanks to the amazing wave clear Ziggs provides.

Xayah and Taric will prove difficult thanks to the kiting, sustain, disengage, and invulnerability, and can deny any chance of your team to burst or lockdown any of their fellow teammates.

Conclusion

That’s all from me folks! Good luck with your Clash brackets and be sure to let me know down in the comments how these team comps worked out for you and if you’d like to see more Clash content in the future.

The post Best Clash Team Comps and Counters (Updated for Season 12) appeared first on Mobalytics.

9 Champion Duos for Climbing Ranked

When you think of duo queue strats, you either think, “Oh great it’s a Yi/Taric funnel comp,” or “Oh great someone has to get their Diamond smurf friend to carry them out of Silver”.

Even with these factors, there are ways to duo without spending money on account boosters. So we made not one but nine duo comps to 2v5 the game and finally spam “Duo Diff” when you collect that LP.

Each of the duo synergies we list will have builds, items, runes, and playstyles listed so all you have to do is load it up and stomp some kids (not physically that would be illegal).

Our list will be covering a wide range of roles and difficulties as well to give you and your duo partner more options.

Here are the 9 duos we’ll be covering:

1. Darkin Bros (Aatrox + Kayn)
2. The Emperor and his Pet (Azir + Gnar)
3. Wombo.png (Malphite + Orianna)
4. Void of Demacia (Jarvan IV + Vel’Koz)
5. Gate Busters (Diana + Nasus)
6. Instant Transmission (Shen + Twisted Fate)
7. Wait, Two Supports? (Ivern + Pyke)
8. Assassin Bullies (Galio + Pantheon)
9. Saviors of Ionia (Yasuo + Yone)

1. Darkin Bros (Aatrox + Kayn)

Playstyle

• Difficulty: Medium
• Top/Mid/Jungle duo
• Juggernaut/Fighter playstyle
• Team fight destruction
• Adaptive duo comp

Aatrox destroys laners while being a massive threat in team fights. He can play both mid and top as long as Kled or Sylas are banned and becomes a Dark Souls player’s worst nightmare: A Raid Boss with built-in lifesteal.

How to Build Aatrox

Aatrox’s Skill Order

Kayn on the other hand has two kinds of Raid Boss forms that counter both of Aatrox’s weaknesses. Blue Kayn to flank and roam as fast as other high mobility Mid laners while Red Kayn shreds tanks and offer more CC.

How to Build Kayn

Red Form

Blue Form

Kayn’s Skill Order

Together, these two destroy teams, especially in low elo because Grievous Wound items are just a tale of legend to that player base.

2. The Emperor and his Pet (Azir + Gnar)

Playstyle

• Difficulty: Hard
• Top/Mid Duo
• Late game scaling with hard CC
• Split push monsters (Gnar in a literal sense)
• Build diversity
• Mixed Damage

Both champs can either be useful in teamfights or split push with their built-in attack speed and escapes.

Gnar offers 1v1 dueling potential and doesn’t suffer the usual weakness of being immobile like other tanks.

How to Build Gnar

Gnar Skill Order

He is also very flexible with items going from juggernaut setup to even building support items to help Azir.

Gnar also deals with most melee top laners in the meta like Sett, GP, Darius and Garen.

Azir, on the other hand, is one of the hardest scaling champs in the game and can destroy a team himself when wielded by a good player.

How to Build Azir

Azir’s Skill Order

By outranging most champions while staying safe and with Gnar as his guard dog, Azir can go to town.

Azir provides an extra wall with his ultimate to give Gnar more areas to chain CC entire teams.

3. Wombo.png (Malphite + Orianna)

Playstyle

• Difficulty: Easy
• Top/Mid Duo
• Layers of safety and CC
• Win games even when behind
• Low elo friendly
• Minimum skill floor

This duo is for when you need one enemy chain CCed and not playing the game. Just by both champs pressing R, the duo either provides enough damage to 1-shot the enemy team or enough CC for your team to 1-shot them.

Malphite is great for being the only champion with an AoE attack speed slow for the pesky fighters and ADCs that want to out-DPS Orianna.

How to Build Malphite

Malphite’s Skill Order

Orianna has similar traits such as being useful when behind because she deals a lot of damage even when building utility.

How to Build Orianna

Orianna’s Skill Order

Both champs can trade blows with their opponent, go aggressive even with the slightest of leads, and dominate games with it.

So if you want an easy duo synergy while being 70cs at 15 minutes, give this a shot.

4. Void of Demacia (Jarvan IV + Vel’Koz)

Playstyle

• Difficulty: Medium
• Mid/Jungle, Bot/Support Duo
• Mixed damage
• Adaptive build paths
• Excellent Team fighters
• Engage + high DPS

This is if Azzapp and Nidhogg became duo partners and just like these two streamers, Jarvan and Vel’koz can destroy a team alone.

Jarvan can get Aftershock + Cinderhulk, Electrocute + Lethality or go Conqueror + Juggernaut and will still be effective because he is that flexible.

How to Build Jarvan IV (Conqueror)

Jarvan IV’s Skill Order

He can do this while getting very little resources so even when behind, he isn’t a free-roaming melee minion.

Additionally, he has great engagements, can lvl 2 gank, and will still be a useful late game engage compared to Olaf and Rek’sai.

Vel’koz is the only artillery mage that does full true damage as well as offer set up for picks.

How to Build Vel’Koz

Vel’koz’s Skill Order

Having the slightest set up will eliminate any champion that can’t dash or Flash away.

Since you do true damage they can’t resist you and you’ll sometimes kill without even needing your ultimate

With these two together there is no escape and no resistance to the disintegration of an entire team.

5. Gate Busters (Diana + Nasus)

Playstyle

• Difficulty: Easy
• Top/Mid Duo
• Split push
• Team fight
• Trick2g’s wet dream
• Low elo friendly
• Mixed damage

D’cane and his heretic prodigy Diana are not only the fastest but the most reliable split pushers in the game, each offering their own set of tools for the team.

One can split push if they are ahead while the other breaks whatever lane they are in.

Nasus is a fantastic late-game scaler with Siphoning Strike stacks and building tank items.

Even in team fights, having Spirit Fire armor shred and Wither’s attack speed slow is every ADC’s worst nightmare.

How to Build Nasus

Nasus’s Skill Order

So when Nasus has to join the team he helps by crippling the main carries and the tanks that defend them.

In lane, max W second if you are against attack speed fighters like Jax, Tryndamere, or Irelia and max E second if you’re against tanks like Ornn and Maokai.

Diana herself is the queen of low elo solo queue because no one respects the power of switching two abilities.

Not only does she offer much needed AP damage but her dueling and team fighting are great for an assassin.

How to Build Diana

Diana’s Skill Order

Just blowing her whole kit on a team is enough to end the fight and have people spam “Nerf Diana” in chat.

So those wanting to become the comp Trick2g and Cookie always wanted here you go

6. Instant Transmission (Shen + Twisted Fate)

Playstyle

• Difficulty: Map-I mean…Medium
• Top/Mid, Jungle/Mid, ADC/Support Duo
• Instant roams
• Split push
• Safe and solo carry picks
• High map presence
• Please ban Nocturne

We all know the importance of keeping a numbers advantage so why not get there instantly? Let’s face it, both lanes are just two free kills for everyone to grab.

You might as well pick two champs that both protect your bot lane and kill theirs. Shen and Twisted Fate are your safest options.

Shen top is great against tanks for his max health based dueling while having an ultimate to help the team.

How to Build Shen

Shen’s skill order

Shen with only Bami’s Cinder and Tiamat makes him wave clear reliably and duel whoever tries to fight him.

As a side note, taunting someone who’s greedy to hit you under tower is the funniest thing ever.

Twisted Fate can’t kill tanks but he sure can destroy everyone else. He has a great split push with built-in attack speed and rotating through cards with W can activate Sheen’s passive twice.

How to Build Twisted Fate (Spellbook)

Twisted Fate’s Skill Order

His builds can be Spellbook AP, on hit with Trinity Force, or hybrid while still obliterating the enemy regardless of your option.

So if you want to do a little bit of everything even when you’re behind, I suggest this for any high elo duo comp.

7. Wait, Two Supports? (Ivern + Pyke)

Playstyle

• Difficulty: Carry difference
• Jungle/Support, Mid/Jungle duo
• Multi-lane influence
• Roam-heavy
• Carry assistance (not funnel)

Now, we could just put any Support/Jungle champ together but most combos tend to do similar things.

Because of this, we made sure both champions “support” in completely opposite ways.

This duo is for you if you want to give tools to help people carry while not being completely useless solo. These two can do just that while not overlapping in goals.

Ivern is as unique as you can get since he can go full Support items and still be an efficient Jungler.

How to Build Ivern

Ivern’s Skill Order

The jungle has very little resources to help you scale like Yi but it does give enough to be a secondary support with a lot more gold.

Especially if you have a Pyke Support, you will be a shielding/healing enchanter that can defend for himself unlike a Nami or a Lulu.

Pyke is competing with Senna for a Support that can solo carry games. I picked Pyke because again we already have someone that shields so we don’t want to double whammy on one thing.

How to Build Pyke

Pyke’s Skill Order

Pyke can give gold directly to whoever needs it while still winning 1v1’s. That’s why he is brought mid lane because who cares about CS when you can get 1200 by executing bot lane with ultimate?

With Pyke funneling gold to carries and Ivern protecting them, there is nothing stopping whoever is ahead on your team.

8. Assassin Bullies (Galio + Pantheon)

Playstyle

• Difficulty: Abusively easy
• Mid/Jungle, Mid/Support, Jungle/Support
• Press R to Roam
• Low elo friendly
• Team fight turner
• Mixed damage
• Early/Mid game abusers

If you’re dealing with assassins roaming bot and top instead of staying mid, this is the duo comp for you. This is a more tanky and straight forward version of the Shen + Twisted Fate duo.

The rise of assassins made it impossible not to add a duo that utterly destroys them in every way. With Zed being one of the assassins back in the meta, why not have 2 champions that mess up Zed be in the same game? These two can do that while being useful for other things

Pantheon offers great dueling potential as early as lvl 2 regardless if he’s Mid, Jungle, or Support.

With his passive enhancing abilities, he can burst someone with Spear, stun with Shield Vault, and best of all, use enhanced Aegis Assault to tank entire combos just by standing in front of them.

How to Build Pantheon

Pantheon’s Skill Order

Pantheon is the chad that beats up anyone thinking they can build to 1 shot because they instalock an assassin for the ADC.

Galio does the same thing against AP champions like Diana and Fizz who are the main mid laners in low elo.

Just like Pantheon, he can tank hits and obliterate whoever tried to kill him but with magic damage.

He has a very up close and personal style but has more reliability with farming thanks to his Q offering range and poke.

How to Build Galio

Galio’s Skill Order

If all else fails, build him like the AP juggernaut that Riot never wants to give us with Liandry’s and Protobelt.

So if you want to destroy assassins in every aspect from their farming, their roaming, and their dueling. Pick up these two and make any assassin main regret selecting their champion.

9. Saviors of Ionia (Yasuo + Yone)

Playstyle

• Difficulty: Extreme
• Top/Mid, Top/Jungle
• Chain CC
• Split push
• Team fighting
• 1v1 outplay
• Mostly AD

This is an upcoming duo comp that will absolutely destroy teams while being as stylish and as toxic as possible. Just like Sett, the release Yone is definitely going to be in every lane and probably a Support because of his built-in poke, CC and Spirit Form doing free damage over the minion waves.

How to Build Yone

Yone’s Skill Order

Yasuo is no stranger being matched up with duo comps since anyone with a knockup can match with him. With high damage, easy trades, and the builds to boot.

You will climb the ladder regardless of enemy composition. Just don’t pick him into Poppy or Cassiopeia because grounding effects neutered Yasuo harder than Riot to their ADCs.

Yone and his kit provide a lot of utility for a team especially having not one but two AoE knockups for Yasuo ultimate.

How to Build Yasuo

Yasuo’s Skill Order

His W gives max health damage and a shield for each champion hit and his E offering poke while social distancing. Yone has the kit to do the mixed damage Yasuo can’t do while tanking more damage than Yasuo tank back in season 6.

If you and your boy/girl want to show those Xayah/Rakan or those Lucian/Senna what a real duo can do, give the Ionian brothers a shot!

Conclusion

If you have any questions about comps, other duo strats, or guides to playing, I stream almost everyday on Twitch at https://www.twitch.tv/strateg1st_. There, I do all my testing, theorycrafting with chat while having fun along the way. So if you want to know who this crazy person is, be sure to tune in!

I also upload videos on YouTube for the topics I post so if you want a video version of this and other topics that will be right here

Anyway, thank you for reading. I’m Strategist, thanks for letting me share my knowledge and let me know how it goes.

Thanks for reading! Be sure to follow Strategist on Youtube, Instagram, and Twitch where he streams everyday from 4PM – 8PM EST.

The post 9 OP Duo Queue Strats for League of Legends by Strategist appeared first on Mobalytics.

Every patch, our experts curate a predictive tier list for climbing solo queue. We created this Q&A series to address the most common questions for each individual tier list, this one is for Patch 9.22. If you’d like your question to be answered, leave a comment in our tier list article, in our Youtube video’s comments, or send us a message in our Discord.

We don’t answer every question but we do read all of them so you always have a chance! Note that some answers within this article may be slightly altered for readability.

If you want to know the best champs to climb with this patch, here’s our LoL tier list for Patch 9.22. If you want to know what our experts thought of the patch as a whole, check out our 9.22 Patch Breakdown.

Overview

1. How is Heimer S-tier in top, mid, and bot?

2. Why isn’t Qiyana on the normal list?

3. Did jungle Pantheon really fall that hard?

4. Why isn’t Olaf on the normal list?

5. Where is Braum?

Questions and Answers

1. “Explain to me how the frick Heimerdinger is s tier in top, mid AND bot.”
– Synn Ly (Youtube)”

• The main thing it comes down to is how flexible Heimerdinger is a champion. He provides so many different things for his team: waveclear, CC, consistent damage, pick potential, and split push potential.
• He honestly has so much flexibility in his kit outside of his lack of mobility. What this means is that if Heimer’s stat numbers are strong enough, he’ll be able to play multiple roles.
• Once the buffs to his turrets and grenade CC came in on 9.1,9 Heimer’s numbers were high enough for him to comeback into a meta that favors him do to all of the melee or short-ranged champions that are popular at the moment.
• The other bonus for Heimer is how consistent and easy it is for him to win lane, or at minimum, go even with very few matchups that he isn’t able to do this in. This gives Heimer many win condition options and a stable early game, making him an extremely optimal pick for climbing.
• Plus he beats Teemo!

2.  “May I ask why Qiyana is not on the normal list?” – Stewe119(Instagram)

• Qiyana, as shown by her performance at Worlds, is an incredibly strong roaming mid laner who can make insane outplays and 1v9 teamfights with her ult…so why would she perform worse at lower levels of play when her playstyle should suit it with the heavy roaming and teamfight ability?
• What it comes down to is mechanical ability. Although her combo in lane is pretty simple and easy to execute, it’s after that part of the game where she starts to fumble.
• In general, AD assassins, don’t scale well and are usually unforgiving in teamfights as 1 misstep can cause them to die.
• The issue with Qiyana, in particular, is how reliant she is on hitting a good ult. If she doesn’t, 1 of 2 things will happen: go in anyway and die or back off unable to contribute to a teamfight as it’s far too difficult for her to get in to do deal effective DPS.
• Think of her teamfighting like Evelyn. If eve doesn’t have ult she can only wait around to clean up it’s the same with Qiyana.
• With players being less consistent at teamfighting at lower levels of play and games dragging out longer so that the game often boils down to 5v5 in mid lane, lesser skilled Qiyana players just won’t outperform things like Malzahar or Anivia without proper flanking and mechanical outplays.

3. “Did jungle Pantheon really fall from grace this hard? I feel his E still makes him plenty useful.” – Alejandro.fm.radio (Instagram)

• Short answer, yes. The long answe is that his E makes him useful but it does not enable him to be useful enough to win on a consistent win rate.
• Regardless of the skill level, Panth’s jungles win rate falls below 47 percent and for good reason. From the jungle, his itemization is actually worse than in lane as he would much rather have a Ghostblade for the move speed over Warrior’s.
• Aside from that, after repeated nerfs, his early game farming and gank potential decreased. He can still snowball early on and dive towers with his E but he is god awful if anything goes wrong.
• He just ends up being a worse Xin Zhao as his early game dueling isn’t over the top powerful anymore so he can lose to common picks like Nocturne, Lee Sin, or even Vi as his early game numbers aren’t super high and his W post nerfs gives you a lot of extra reaction time.
• Panth is still a great top laner though and can utilize the E well along with getting a better item path.

4. “Why isn’t Olaf in any tier for low ELO?” – Mihac_pavlovic (Instagram)

• Olaf is a champion you’ll see in competitive play or even high-end solo queue hard stomping the early game with his insane dueling and clear speed.
• The reason why he doesn’t show up on the low ELO list anymore is actually for 1 simple reason – he’s possibly the worst scaling champion in the whole game.
• What this means is that if you fall behind on Olaf, or do not end the game by 30 min then your team has to play 4v5.
• At lower levels, where mistakes happen more often and people are less objective focused, either the Olaf themselves or the team will not close the game out quickly.
• This has been mentioned before but the average game time for lower levels is around or over 30 min, perfectly negating Olaf’ss primary strength.
• At higher levels of play, average game times are well below 30 min so Olaf’s insane early game can and is utilized more often resulting in him losing one of his major loss conditions as games are decided before 30 min anyway so the only issue he runs into is if he snowballed or not.

5. “Where is Braum?” – Hjawish2k (Instagram)

• Braum is in the shadow realm and for good reason. He has always been a staple in competitive play due to his peeling ability so he was continually nerfed to keep him in check despite his terrible solo performances over the years
• For solo queue specifically, what it comes down to is something similar to why support Tahm Kench sucks in solo queue and that comes down to Braum having teammate scaling.
• He not only needs to position well to peel for his teammates but then his teammates also need to actually stand behind him and auto-attack to proc his passive.
• His teammates actually need to work with him to have him effective at a base level which is never a good sign in solo queue.
• Not only that, but if that baseline is met, his engage potential is pretty weak, meaning its hard for him to make proactive plays on his own compared to something like Leona. Instead, he must rely on peeling for someone who might not be worth peeling for.
• Even compared to enchanters like Janna or Soraka, Braum just isn’t able to as easily deny the enemy team without the person he is peeling for working with him.
• He’s just too difficult to pull off with so little gain. Just pick Leona or Nautilus who are still tanky and can still peel but can actually make plays way easier on their own.

Thanks for reading and watching! We’ll see you next time for Patch 9.22. As always, you can reach out to our team on Discord if you have any questions or feel free to leave a comment below. 

The post Mobalytics Patch 9.22 Tier List Q&A appeared first on Mobalytics.

Every patch, our experts curate a predictive tier list for climbing solo queue. We created this Q&A series to address the most common questions for each individual tier list, this one is for Patch 9.21. If you’d like your question to be answered, leave a comment in our tier list article, in our Youtube video’s comments, or send us a message in our Discord.

We don’t answer every question but we do read all of them so you always have a chance! Note that some answers within this article may be slightly altered for readability.

If you want to know the best champs to climb with this patch, here’s our LoL tier list for Patch 9.21. If you want to know what our experts thought of the patch as a whole, check out our 9.21 Patch Breakdown.

Overview

1. What’s the bad matchup for Shaco support?

2. How the hell is Soraka in S tier for low ELO? She has no carry potential.

3. How’s Tryndamere A tier though?

4. Where is Gnar? He is OP?

5. Kha’Zix A tier seems a bit low for him, he goes electrocute and one-shots or conqueror and he heals so much while doing so much damage.

Questions and Answers

1. “What’s the bad matchup for Shaco support? – Free Gaming (Youtube)”

• With the ever growing popularity of this OP pick this is a good question. To find the answer, you need to look at why he’s strong in the meta.
• Shaco support works because he has the poke and all-in to kill mage supports and with his boxes, he can easily deny the popular engage supports.
• This leaves us with the enchanter class which does the best into him as they can sit back in lane and outscale him during the teamfight phase.
• Out of the main enchanters, we have Lulu, Janna, Soraka, Nami, and Sona, but the champions who do the best are the ones with heals to out-sustain his poke in lane like Nami, Sona, or Soraka.
  • Sona does the best versus Shaco statically but both Raka and Nami are higher up on the tier list our final recommendation would have to be Banana Girl Soraka.

2.  “How the hell is Soraka in S tier for low elo? She has no carry potential.” – Rizz1212 (Youtube)

• You are right that she doesn’t have 1v9 potential, but more importantly, she scales well in teamfight and has anti 1v9 potential.
• Contrary to popular belief, champions that do best at lower levels of play are not champions like Kha’Zix, Talon, or Thresh. They might make make highlight plays and 1v9 in high level solo queue but in fact, stable consistent teamfighters like Amumu, Malzahar, or Soraka are the most successful in lower ELO.
• This is because games tend to drag on allowing easy-to-execute champions who do well in the late game come out on top more often as it’s just straight up easier to do.
• For Soraka specifically though, she has an added bonus of being an anti carry. With her ult and silence, she is able to deny the enemy playmaker or diver a chance to carry, often causing them to overextend in a fight thinking they can secure a kill only to get denied.
• In short, she carries because shes a consistent teamfighter who denies the enemy a chance to carry.

3. “How’s Tryndamere A tier though?” – Svaban (Instagram)

• When looking at our internal data or even other stats sites, Tryndamere’s win rate isn’t amazing at lower levels of play nor is he difficult so he wouldn’t get a big bonus so it makes sense to question his placement.
• If you look into the stats a bit deeper though you’ll notice that most Tryndameres haven’t swapped over to the Essence Reaver + IE + Triforce style which is just significantly stronger stat wise than any other build style. You can add in a Tiamat as well.
• So with the build style increasing in popularity, we rank him as if he is using his proper setup instead of when he uses suboptimal builds, hence his placement seeming off compared to his win rate.

4. “Where is Gnar? He is OP.” – Luky.krusina (Instagram)

• Gnar is shadow realmed for solo queue as his win rate is pretty low at 48 percent. We do think the term overpowered is thrown around a bit too often lately as they should be reserved for champions that are so strong, they no longer lose to their intended counters, kind of like Season 3 Kassadin.
• Now you might have seen Gnar being picked at Worlds and doing well but that’s because he thrives in a competitive environment. In terms of drafting, he is often used as a safe early pick or counter to melee matchups, but more importantly, teams will play around his Mega Gnar form properly.
• In solo queue though, his potential as a champion is wasted as your team will likely not fight around your transformation and likely engage right after your Mega Gnar form ends it happens all the time.

5. “Kha’Zix A tier seems a bit low for him, he goes Electrocute and one-shots or Conqueror and  heals so much while doing so much damage.” – Tomasdelalic09 (Instagram)

• We get this kind of question a lot actually when it comes to assassin junglers. We totally agree that Kha is super versatile and strong, hence he S tier status on the high ELO list.
• However, non-teamfighting champions who are not tanky have proven time and time again, especially from the jungle, that they do not perform well on average at lower levels of play.
• This is because if they fall behind, they becomes useless and they often do not close out games quick enough before they fall off compared to champions like Mundo in terms of usefulness in a late game teamfight.
• Most of the time, what happens with Kha or Eve players at lower levels of play is they lack team fighting ability so even if they snowball they will throw a major fight, they will end with what looks like a good score.
• This will cause most people to remember how well they did but they won’t notice how they took all the team’s gold and then weren’t able to translate it into a strong teamfight performance to close the game out.

Thanks for reading and watching! We’ll see you next time for Patch 9.21. As always, you can reach out to our team on Discord if you have any questions or feel free to leave a comment below. 

The post Mobalytics Patch 9.21 Tier List Q&A appeared first on Mobalytics.

Every patch, our experts curate a predictive tier list for climbing solo queue. We created this Q&A series to address the most common questions for each individual tier list, this one is for Patch 9.18. If you’d like your question to be answered, leave a comment in our tier list article, in our Youtube video’s comments, or send us a message in our Discord.

We don’t answer every question but we do read all of them so you always have a chance! Note that some answers within this article may be slightly altered for readability.

If you want to know the best champs to climb with this patch, here’s our LoL tier list for Patch 9.19. If you want to know what our experts thought of the patch as a whole, check out our 9.19 Patch Breakdown.

Overview

1. Why did Bard’s difficulty change?

2. Does Nasus deserve S-tier in low ELO?

3. Why is Volibear S-tier?

4. Why is Leona only A-tier?

5. Why is Nocturne rated so highly?

Questions and Answers

1. “I noticed that you changed Bard’s skill floor from “Severe” to “Hard”. Just curious, what instigated this change? – HiltCoW (Youtube)”

• This is actually something we had been tracking for a while. The average champs in the severe category do pretty poorly on the normal list as they require a lot of mastery to even reach a 50 percent win rate like Akali or Irelia for example.
• Bard though has been performing well on the normal list for quite some time so it made us rethink how difficult he really was.
• We then discussed if he’s performing well at lowers levels because he was too strong or if he really was just easier to execute than we initially thought.
• We understand he can be pretty troll with portals missed stuns or ulting people at the wrong time but with just autos and Q landing, he provides quite a bit of pressure for his team.
• Especially since he’s tankier in the early game now compared to past versions so we decided to move him to Hard difficulty to better match his mastery to LP ratio.

2.  “Isn’t the point of the S tier the fact champs you find in it are OP/godlike? Because I got serious doubts when I see more than 10 champs in S tier, Nasus S tier? Even in lower ELOs he doesn’t deserve an S.” – Solal Robinne (Youtube)

• This is actually something we’ve brought up during our tier list meeting recemtly as we have considered that we might have too many S tier champions and that we should potentially be a little more strict on who we let in.
• However, the core principle of this tier list is to help you climb and if a role has 10 S tier champs then all that really means is that role has a large difference in between its top end and lower end or that the role itself is just very strong currently in solo queue compared to the other roles.
• This kind of information I feel is more important to display to viewers rather than arbitrarily limiting S tier to a limited number like we did in the past as it feels like the integrity of list gets hurt if we do that.
• As for Nasus on our low ELO list, he does outperform the other A tier champions but he is for sure at the bottom of S tier and may fall out soon.

3. “Hi, please tell me why Volibear is in S tier? I have been seeing him there for a long time, but it’s not entirely clear why.” – Tsunami World (Discord)

• Currently, the jungle is in a very heavy skirmish meta which is something Volibear thrives in as he is both tanky (due to his passive in the early game) and provides a lot of damage while being very easy to execute.
• At lower levels of play, this kind of reliability is extremely valuable and his passive often catches people off guard allowing him to snowball even more consistently.
• Is Volibear some god tier champ though? No, otherwise he would be on the high ELO list as well.
• Think of him like the Garen of the jungle – a consistent champ that is good for climbing at lower levels of play in early game metas.
• If it’s a late game meta though. you better believe we are dropping him as jungler faster than TSM replaces their junglers.

4. “Why is Leona only A tier? She tanks pretty well, synergies early with a lot of ADC, and has a short CD on her ult.” – Julien Liou (Facebook)

• Leona has been rising in popularity for some time now and is a very solid A tier champ but what stops her from reaching S tier is something I mention a lot but it’s consistency.
• Leona as a champion is very linear since she can only really go in by design. This means if she falls behind or her team falls behind and she can no longer engage she runs out of options.
• Though this concept is true for many pick champs champions like Blitzcrank, Nautilus, they can at least look for picks from a safe distance, or in Naut’s case, he can use his Q for mobility to get out.
• Leona, on the hand, will engage looking for a pick, realize it won’t work, then waddle away and die as the rest of her team spams missing pings on her.
• She would need to be either too tanky or have very low CDs on her CC to overcome her current kit limitations to be consistent enough in solo queue to be S.

5. “Why is Nocturne so high, compared to others? Like Kha for example.” – davide.milan.27 (Instagram)

• Good question, this comes up quite frequently for our normal list. Nocturne currently has a very consistent and easy-to-execute kit, and thanks to the buffs he received a couple of patches ago, he has become quite a strong duelist even in the early game with a quick clear speed which is why we have his S.
• But why is Kha’Zix not also S tier on our normal list as he is considered by most to be OP and is S tier on our high ELO list?
• Well, that’s because if you scan the jungle list you’ll note how consistently tanks or bruiser champs have dominated the current jungle meta as they are either easy to snowball on, farm on, scale well, or are usful in some way from behind.
• Assassin junglers have almost none of those qualities, they aren’t consistent, require you to snowball, and require you to end games before they get outscaled in the teamfight phase which means the Kha player needs excellent knowledge on how to get picks.
• This means if you don’t have the skill level required to snowball games consistently and close them out quick that your win rate will be pretty bad on assassin junglers hence why they don’t do well on the normal list compared to the high ELO one.

Thanks for reading and watching! We’ll see you next time for Patch 9.19. As always, you can reach out to our team on Discord if you have any questions or feel free to leave a comment below. 

The post Mobalytics Patch 9.19 Tier List Q&A appeared first on Mobalytics.

Every patch, our experts curate a predictive tier list for climbing solo queue. We created this Q&A series to address the most common questions for each individual tier list, this one is for Patch 9.18. If you’d like your question to be answered, leave a comment in our tier list article, in our Youtube video’s comments, or send us a message in our Discord.

We don’t answer every question but we do read all of them so you always have a chance! Note that some answers within this article may be slightly altered for readability.

If you want to know the best champs to climb with this patch, here’s our LoL tier list for Patch 9.18. If you want to know what our experts thought of the patch as a whole, check out our 9.18 Patch Breakdown.

Overview

1. Why is Teemo S-tier?

2. How is Jax “Average”?

3. Where is Ryze?

4. Why is Zyra “Easy”?

5. Why isn’t Renekton mid?

Questions and Answers

1. “Teemo S tier ? Good joke.” and “Teemo S tier. Now all the Bronzies will think that Teemo is OP and will play him. Why Mobalytics, why?” – 123123123123 and Johnny.50 (Youtube)

• We’re normally pretty happy when people say our jokes our good but this time, we’re being 100% serious about Teemo’s S-tier ranking.
• After his recent buffs, such as the increase to his R shroom charges, Teemo’s win rate increased from 51.61% to 53.12%.
• Combine that with his 9.2% pick rate and you have the highest win rate ratio out of any top laner in patch 9.18.
• He also happens to counter some of the most popular top laners in the current meta such as Garen, Darius, Pantheon, and Illaoi.
• His only noteworthy losing matchups are Yorick, Dr. Mundo, and AP Malphite.
• So yes, it’s a good thing we are letting Gold and below players know how strong Teemo currently is because he’s pretty easy to climb with right now.

2.  “Jax average? Are you kidding me? Do you have any idea how hard it is to survive the early game as Jax?” – Unseen Spy(Youtube)

• Similar to champs like Kassadin, Jax scales very well with items, but unlike Kassadin though, he comes online after just 1 item and becomes insane with his 2nd item.
• As far as champ difficulty goes, a weak laning phase doesn’t really apply to learning a champion’s kit.
• For example, imagine that Nasus (who already has a bad early game), was hypothetically nerfed to 0 armor. His laning phase would be so bad, he’d be unplayable.
• Does this make Nasus’s kit harder to play? Should we mark him as Severe? No, because he’s very mechanically easy to execute and you could probably grasp his kit without reading his abilities and figure them out by the end of a single game.
• Bringing it back to Jax, although his laning phase is somewhat weak, by no means does it make him a hard champion because his kit is so easy and straightforward to use.
• Learning curve is how easy the kit is to pick up, tier list ranking is how easy they are to win and climb with.

3. “Hey, I’m obviously a Ryze main. Where do you guys put my boi on the tier list and why? What are his weaknesses and strengths?” – Ryze (Discord)

• As you know, you may have seen how Adam feels about Ryze from our streams.
• He’s been an advocate for Ryze being vastly overrated as a pro pick since he’s held negative win rates over the past couple years unlike actual OP champs like Qiyana, Sylas, or Akali.
• As for his actual strength, he is performing extremely poorly in solo queue because the current iteration of his kit performs worse than the last one which wasn’t doing well in solo queue either.
• He has seen some play in LCK playoffs as a flex pick with some decent success so bias aside, he seems to at least be playable due to his amazing waveclear, DPS, and scaling, but we recommend that you stay away from him in solo queue since he can be set behind easily and dies too often.
• He’s not Kalista tier but still bad.

4. “Why do you class Zyra as “easy”? She has no mobility or escape and is quite squishy, positioning is far more important than most other champs due to seeds, all of her abilities are skill-shots which have a delayed cast time so harder to land.

League itself lists her as medium difficulty, while they list Morgana (who you have as Average) as easy… 🧐” – @thepigletsquid (Twitter)

• To start off, we are finally almost finished with our difficulty rework and have moved her to easy in the revamped version.
• As for Zyra, to make a comparison, we have other squishy champions with no mobility that are skillshot reliant and easy like Lux.
• Zyra specifically is marked as easy because she is easy to pick up even without fully understanding the seed mechanic.
• A lot of times, Zyra doesn’t need to hit all of her skillshots without still contributing because her Q can miss but if it hits a seed, the plant will still deal a decent amount of damage.
• She’s forgiving enough that a new player can pick her up and still be effective in a short time without needing to play her optimally.
• The next thing you mentioned how hard it is to position with her in teamfights. This is true, she does die a lot more than more champs in fights.
• However, the initial burst and then the damage from the seeds afterwards can often still deal more damage than her ADC even when she dies. So again, even if she isn’t being played optimally, she still sort of does her job.

5. “Why isn’t Renekton a mid pick?” – Yungdietwater (Instagram)

• This is a pretty good question because he’s been seen a lot as a mid laner recently in competitive play.
• One thing to pay attention to is why he’s picked as a mid laner.
• Currently, he’s used to counter melee champions like Qiyana, Sylas, and Irelia, and can be used as a flex to follow the last two to either solo lane and smash them.
• To keep it short, he’s not a mid lane champion but he’s used as an option to counter mid laners and be used as a flex pick.
• He’s by no means considered to be a staple mid and is more so a symptom of the current meta.
• If you see that juicy melee assassin matchup, feel free to lock him in but there’s just too many ranged matchups for him to be viable as a blind pick.

Thanks for reading and watching! We’ll see you next time for Patch 9.18. As always, you can reach out to our team on Discord if you have any questions or feel free to leave a comment below. 

The post Mobalytics Patch 9.18 Tier List Q&A appeared first on Mobalytics.

Every patch, our experts curate a predictive tier list for climbing solo queue. We created this Q&A series to address the most common questions for each individual tier list, this one is for Patch 9.17. If you’d like your question to be answered, leave a comment in our tier list article, in our Youtube video’s comments, or send us a message in our Discord.

We don’t answer every question but we do read all of them so you always have a chance! Note that some answers within this article may be slightly altered for readability.

If you want to know the best champs to climb with this patch, here’s our LoL tier list for Patch 9.17. If you want to know what our experts thought of the patch as a whole, check out our 9.17 Patch Breakdown.

Overview

1. Why is support Nautilus only A-tier and not S-tier?

2. How is Veigar great when he his bad matchups are popular?

3. Why isn’t Aatrox in the low ELO top list?

4. Why is Shen considered A-tier?

5. Does Ryze really not belong on either list?

Questions and Answers

1. “I still don’t get why Nautilus support is only A tier in your opinion since he only needs to land a hook to perma-CC someone and boy do that ultimate carry teamfights. He’s a durable kill lane tank with a strong all-in who works well with every ADC, he should be S IMO.”  – Stefan Ene (Youtube)

• Nautilus is an A+ champion and as you mentioned, he has a lot going for him and is easy to execute. Up until the recent patch he had been hovering around 50 percent win rate though for quite a number of patches. Interestingly enough, his win rate suddenly jumped up by 1.5 percent on the most recent patch without any direct buffs to the champion.
• This could be due to matchup reasons where Zyra, Thresh, Pyke, and Lux are all increasing in popularity and he wins winning matchups into them but it is pretty puzzling. If he is able to sustain this win rate and isn’t just a half patch cycle win rate variance we will strongly consider putting him up to S tier.
• I should mention that judging a champion solely on their kit and not the numbers behind that kit can make any champion seem good. For example, support TF is broken in theory. He has target CC on a low CD, poke, great roaming potential and can peel easily peel for his ADC. Then you remember that none of that matters since his targeted CC is short-ranged then gets all-ined and dies instantly or that his poke is actually pretty bad in terms of base damage.
• So when judging a champ like Nautilus remember to incorporate not just what his kit does, but also the numbers and win rates behind them.

2.  “How is Veigar great when every mid laner is a Fizz, Katarina, Yasuo or Zed ?” – Hatake Kakashi (Youtube)

• Right at the start, we’d like to mention that Veigar is actually considered a counter pick to Yasuo by Apdo. Moriarty also shares that opinion.
• That aside, the main idea here is how can he do so well in a meta with a lot of assassins when he isn’t strong versus them in lane?
• It’s mostly due to how he can stall out games and outscale them. It’s true that he loses to them in terms of pressure in lane and can get solo killed by things like Fizz or Zed but he outscales them and performs better in teamfights than them.
• At higher levels he isn’t given the time to do this hence why he doesn’t show up higher on that list but at lower levels of play where the assassins players struggle to close out games and play for objectives, he tends to be able to stall the game and then cage the assassins who bullied him early game and outplay them with R.
• So TLDR, at lower ELOs, Veigar can stall out a game and outscale assassins during teamfight phase since assassin players tend to have trouble closing out games where they don’t snow ball hard.

3. “Why isn’t Aatrox in the low ELO top tier list? I basically one-trick him top now in Gold 3 and I’ve had a great time climbing.” – thomase (Discord)

• The reason why Aatrox isn’t on the low ELO list is actually kind of like why GP isn’t. It’s not that people in low ELO can’t climb with him if they put in the time and 1 trick him.
• It’s just that his time investment to LP ratio is pretty bad. You could spend a lot of time to learn the micro behind Aatrox, then learn proper macro on him, then climb up slowly or you could just pick Malphite, hit R, and climb faster.
• Or, you could play against better players, even play versus some better Aatrox players, then learn from them see what they do and try out yourself. This second option will actually let you learn Aatrox faster and climb faster than if you mained him the whole time like in your current option.
• For example, Moriarty learned how to play Orianna after losing a bunch to Bjergsen, Jensen and even Faker’s Orianna. It meant that when he tried to pick her up he knew what she could do and what she should be doing so all he needed to do was practice execution rather than having to learn all that stuff on his own through repeatedly grinding games on her.
• This is the main premise behind not including Aatrox on the list along with his poor win rate of 48 percent across most brackets including Masters+ and Diamond.

4. “How does Shen get considered A tier when most of the S/A tier champs abuse him in lane?” – Tyleruntitled (Instagram)

• You’re completely right that he currently sucks in lane versus almost all the tier S tier champs and some of the A tier ones.
• This would of course matter more if he was a lane dominant champ to begin with which he isn’t. The reason he is winning despite poor matchups is his unique strength as a tank.
• He is the only tank top laner whose primary goal and specialty is to peel. This is particularly valuable in this meta as everyone is playing dive comps, but if Shen can peel properly and keep his Xayah or Jinx alive in a team fight, even if he down from lane phase, he will win that game. This is the real reason why he does well right now.

5. “Does Ryze really not fit anywhere on this list? I would of figured he’s at least B tier in high elo?” – Bakern4851 (Instagram)

• Ryze is in a pretty bad state at the moment. Since he lost his shield, people have struggled to position with his properly or even figure out what he should build.
• Should he go full AP? Some mana tank items? Go oldschool 3 ROAs? None of it really matters since he loses regardless of build.
• Jokes aside he is seeing some promise for high elo in top lane at the moment and has seen some competitive play in that role as well as mid. Is it enough for us to recommend him yet? Nope, not yet.
• We just don’t want to put him on the list yet until more people in high ELO start to play him. He is kind of like Leblanc, Lee Sin, or Thresh who are so popular in high ELO that if they are at all playable, everyone spams them regardless of stats.
• We are just waiting and scouting for that moment to happen before adding him to the list as that is the true test of his current power level.

Thanks for reading and watching! We’ll see you next time for Patch 9.17. As always, you can reach out to our team on Discord if you have any questions or feel free to leave a comment below. 

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