Mastering a select group of champions isn’t only incredibly rewarding, it’s also one of the best ways to climb the ranked ladders. That being said, imposing a limit on your champion pool also comes with it’s own set of unique risks.
League of Legends follows an ever evolving meta based around which champions and items are perceived as the strongest. Over time certain champions and items are determined to be too strong, or too weak, and are nerfed and buffed accordingly.
What happens when your best champion gets hit hard by the nerf hammer? If it’s bad enough, you’re going to need to find a new go-to champion. The majority of time nerfs won’t be enough to push a true master off of their favorite champion. Even the objectively weak champions in League of Legends can be scary in the hands of a player who has truly mastered them.
Nerfs can make champions much less fun to play. Whether your favorite champion has been nerfed into the ground, or you just don’t enjoy playing the watered down version of gameplay you had grown to love, this guide will help you discover which new champion you should invest your time into.
Making Your “No Way” List
There are so many champions in League of Legends that it is considerably easier to focus on ruling out which champions you know you are not interested in playing than it is choosing the ones which you want to play.
Start by creating a list of all the champions which can fit into the role you are looking to play. You can find a complete sortable champion list which takes into account role, win rate, ban rate, and more on lolking. Once your list is complete you can cross out your “no way” champions.
Experience Gets Priority
Next highlight the champions who you have put some time on. Any champion who you have played more than a couple games on gets highlighted. These champions have an edge over the others.
If you enjoyed a champion enough to play it a bunch of times in the past you’re probably more likely to be willing to invest time into mastering them more so than a champion you’ve never had the desire to play before.
Is there a common theme between all of your highlighted champions? Check to see if they’re mostly one damage type, ranged or melee, fast clear speed or gank reliant, etc. There may not be any theme at all, but it’s worth a look.
Determining Your Needs
Pls no.
There are certain parts of the game in which you probably don’t enjoy as much as other parts. For example, I almost exclusively play junglers with a strong initial clear. I don’t have the stomach to tip toe around my jungle below 40% HP and pray that I don’t get invaded.
This fear of being invaded acts as a filter to rule out many champions for me. Because I know I don’t like slow/unhealthy clears, I can instead look for junglers whose strength is fast and/or healthy clears. Identifying what you don’t like about your role can help you find the perfect champion to get you past that point in the game.
Keeping the Meta in Mind
Being cognizant of which champions are being perma-banned at your ELO is important. There’s no point in mastering Kindred or Zed if they are being banned in over 70% of games. The best picks are those which aren’t banned often, but can be deadly in the hands of a player who has put in significant time on the champion.
The only reason to mind the meta is if your champion is often banned. Don’t worry about how many other people are playing your chosen champion. No champion in the game is bad enough that they aren’t worth mastering. The player is the bottleneck, not the champion.
Choosing Your Champion
We cut down our potential options by removing the ones we already know we don’t enjoy playing. Next, we highlighted the champs we have notable experience playing. These are all champions we already find enjoyable so they become front runners.
Finally, we looked for a champion whose strengths could cover up our weaknesses and dislikes as a player, and made sure they aren’t perma-banned at our ELO.
Following these steps will help create a short list of champions suitable to become your main champion at any given role.