LoL Solo Tier List: This Tier List will always display the best top lane Champions, based on the latest patch (11.2).
Updated: 25 January 2021
LoL Solo Tier List Methodology
This LoL Solo Tier List (best-in-role) is based on:
- Personal experience and feedback taken from multiple players, across multiple ranks.
- Based on a Champions skill floor, and their ease of play (and skill ceiling).
- The difficulty of a Champion, and their potential in the hands of a highly skilled player.
- The ability to climb with the Champion, from lower ranks to high, with ease. In effect, these Champions will do the heavy lifting for you.
- We’ve also colour coded Champion difficulty based on the above factors, using a Traffic Light system. It’s subjective, but should give you a steer (red challenging, orange moderate, green accessible).
Top Lane
Darius isn’t challenging to play, and can easily punish most Champions in top lane. His ability to bleed, deal burst damage, and pull opponents ensures that he can snowball quickly. With a potent slow, and forgiving telegraphs, he’s hard to play badly.
Garen is unquestionably strong at the moment, and performs well in this Solo Climb Tier List, with a kit that’s simple but undeniably effective. The fact he has no mana requirements provides him with amazing amounts of sustain, while his ability to silence – and spin-to-win, makes him a potent, accessible Champion.
Kled’s a challenging Champion to play, thanks to a robust kit. What’s potent about him as a top laner, is simply the fact he has so much utility in pinning enemies down, largely thanks to Beartrap on a Rope. If you also factor in the disposable play of Skaarl, he’s fantastic at aggressive play.
Maokai has good sustain, good dive potency, and reasonable zoning. I think his Sapling Toss is the weakest part of his kit, as they aren’t a huge threat, while Nature’s Grasp is fairly slow. Still, in a team-fight he performs well, and manages comfortably top lane.
Volibear purely because his damage potential is outrageous, and his mobility thanks to Rolling Thunder is brilliant. When Volibear comes online, he can be pretty unstoppable with the right setup and chews through most Champions with ease. His only downside? Coming up against Dr Mundo: you’ll never reach him.
Jungle
Dr Mundo is everywhere right now and yet again in this LOL Solo Tier List. In fact, I can’t remember the last game I played where he wasn’t in it in some form. It’s not entirely surprising, considering his simple kit and no-mana ensures he’s pain free to play, but with all the payoff.
Master Yi isn’t particularly difficult to play, and hard to play badly. The only challenge to him, is clearing quickly and ensuring you gain some early ganks. He’s a point and click Champion, with Alpha Strike – his strongest ability – being targetted and gaurenteed.
Jax probably has a higher skill ceiling than some here, but there’s no mistaking that with a little bit of effort, he’ll take you far when climbing. His kit is simple, but requires a bit of concentration. His ability to evade damage and stun opponents, combined with his dive potential, sees him become a fairly aggressive top-laner.
Nocturne is easy to play, and difficult to play badly. He has solid clear thanks to Unspeakable Horror + Dusbringer, while his gank potential is high due to Paranoia. The fact he has a brilliant defensive ability in Shroud of Darkness also allows him to play aggressively. Nocturne’s basic clear isn’t bad either, thanks to his regular AOE attack.
Nunu comes with tons of utility, and while she’s fairly tricky to play well, she has brilliant clear and can control the flow of any team fight. Her Snowball takes a bit of getting used to, but its gank potential is huge as it can be wound up way before an encounter. Her Snowball Barrage also ensures she can comfortably slow/root multiple players, if she lands each seperately.
Shaco is an amazing Champion that despite his difficulty, is forgiving as you climb. His ability to stealth ensures you can get out of most situtations, while his ganking potentially – largely due to the fact his abilities are targetted – ensures he’s a monster in the right hands. His camp clear is also really, really good (just throw out a Jack-In-A-Box).
Mid Lane
Dianna can absolutely destroy opponents in mid lane, thanks largely to her AOE clear, mana sustain and poke through Crescent Strike. She also has amazing damage and shielding through Pale Cascade, meaning that if he she does get a few kills under her belt, she can dive and play aggressively, guaranteeing that if anyone does fight back, they’ll kill themselves in the process.
Fizz is a brilliant Champion for our LOL Solo Tier List, and a really potent mid laner, simply because he’s so easy to play, and has a fair amount of mobility and utility. Whether it’s bleeding enemies passively, being able to become untargetable, or dash away with Urchin Strike, he’s a slippery number. His Ultimate, Churn the Waters, is also incredible late game in a close-quarter team fight.
Heimerdinger has incredible zoning potential, is able to bully a lane with ease. He can actually play just about anywhere – such is the flexibility of his kit – but he tends to boss mid lane with real ease.
Swain can boss mid comfortably and performs exceptionally well on any Solo Climb Tier List, thanks to solid poke and utility. He also has considerable clear and push, through most of his abilities. While he lacks mobility, he more than makes up for in crowd control, with a root that can hit multiple enemies. Best of all, his Ultimate ability is fairly impossible to fail with and yet again provides sustain and high AOE damage.
Vladimir will always do well in mid lane, simply because his kit has so much sustain and utility. Solid poke, AOE clear, immunity from damage and a life-steal ensures he can poke with relative ease. Not easy to play, but worth it with practice.
Zed is probably one of the harder, higher skill ceiling mid laners, but he’s incredibly strong in mid lane. Largely thanks to Living Shadow (he can switch with it), while Death Mark (Ultimate) can pretty much boss any opponent. Even his poke, through his Razor Shuriken is solid, and allows him to hold mid with relative ease.
Bottom Lane (ADC)
Caitlyn is incredibly popular, and you’ll see her often. There’s a reason for that: she’s great. Good zoning with her Snap Trap, valuable gank potential with Calibre Net, and Ace in the Hole (Ultimate) can comfortably finish off opponents. She lacks mobility, but with use of her traps and net, she can comfortably keep foes pinned down for easy kills.
Miss Fortune is near impossible to play badly, and is incredibly forgiving. With an Ultimate that’s near impossible to miss with, and plenty of AOE zoning she can punish enemies quickly. Throw in her slow, and a competent Support, and she’ll ensure that she snowballs quickly. Top tier in our LoL Solo Tier List.
Jhin is the go-to ADC at the moment for most players, even at high ranks. His basic attacks hit hard, thanks to the critical element on his last shot, while Dancing Grenade offers solid AOE poke. His ability to root, and slow ensures he can kite and zone easily. Curtain Call (Ultimate) also ensures anyone low health, is pretty much a free kill. Jhin is fairly forgiving for an ADC, and while he requires solid positioning (like any other), he’s incredibly strong when paired with someone like Senna.
Jinx is a Champion I haven’t seen in a while, but there’s no doubt she’s super easy to play and climb with. Increased mobility when she attacks, while she has brilliant clear and single target damage due to her ability to swap weapons. Similarly to Caitlyn, she has zoning potential through her Flame Chompers! while her Ultimate can comfortably wipe a close-knit group of enemy Champions.
Ashe is a bit of a slow burner, who lacks the flash of some of her peers. What makes her particularly powerful is her base ability to slow through basic attacks, while Ranger’s Focus, allowing her to attack rapidly, sees her deal amazing damage. Lastly, Hawkshot provides much needed vision and ensures she doesn’t always have to rely on a Ward to comfortably lane, if her Support is down.
Support
Blitzcrank is really easy to climb with, and is one of the most accessible support Champions in the game. A simple and straightforward kit, that’s hard to fail with. As long as you land his Rocket Grab, everything else is pretty much a button mash while your ADC does all the work.
Janna is a popular Support, and you’ll often see her on any solo climb. Her ability to speed up allies passively (if looking at her), while Zephyr grants even more mobility and light crowd control. It’s Eye of the Storm however, that allows her to bring the most value, as the shielding ensures her ADC can be particularly aggressive, especially if she uses her Ultimate at the same time (which later heals).
Leona is my most played Support Champion. While she lacks a lot of the utility of Senna, she makes up for it in other ways. She’s particularly “tanky” thanks to Eclipse, while her Immobilise through Zenith Blade is amazing for quickly shutting down an opponent. Her Ultimate is also exceptional thanks to the stun it provides. Great for our LoL Solo Tier List.
Nami is another regular support you’ll often see on any climb. His stun from Aqua Prison is invaluable, healing solid (Ebb and Flow), while Tidecaller’s Blessing ensures your ADC can hit hard, early game. The strongest utility of Nami, however, is from her Ultimate, as it’s often hard for new players to dodge, and it gaurentees you and your team will zip up to the enemy for easy kills.
Senna is incredible strong right now. She can support, carry, and comfortably sit at top lane all day long, wrecking face. Her kit pretty much does everything: there’s little point listing it all. Roots, stealth, sustain, poke, burst – it’s ridiculous. Draft her, melt opponents, enjoy your climb.
