I'm sure you guys are off and have hit the ground running with ranked, having already probably gotten back to where you previously were and are working your way up to the heavens. I'm also sure that some of you are just getting started but have a clear path in mind. But I'm also sure that there are some of you that may be wondering: Just what exactly should I play?

Well, today I'm here today to give you some recommendations on statistically some of the best and most consistent picks to consider learning, maining, and abusing (if you want to call it that) this season in order to better your chances of hitting whatever goals you have this season, from Patch 10.2 onward. Before I start, I'd like to say thanks to U.GG for providing me with the statistics for this article. 

Let's get started.

Top Lane

Darius is the first mention of the top lane and comes in with overwhelming force. While his win rate worldwide as of patch 10.2 is just a bit shy over 50% at 50.57%, it's his 32.8% ban rate that should tell you just how good this guy really is. Darius naturally has the early game advantage against both tanks and melee bruisers alike and is one of the most unforgiving champs to play against if you make a mistake. This makes him one of the best and most consistent top lane picks. When Darius says "Don't expose your neck," he really means it, because he'll not only crush yours with his Noxian Guillotine, but he'll reset off of it and proceed to pentakill your entire team. His kit is very simple to execute (no pun intended) and he gets a passive bleed effect that adds more to your damage. He has a heal, which allows him to excel at sustained combat, and he gets as bulky as any tank while still packing some serious damage late. His early game is perhaps one of the strongest in the game, and he really only suffers against ranged champions and people who can kite him, but these can generally be remedied by building Trinity Force and running the Ghost summoner spell.

Garen is basically the Demacian version of Darius. They're even rivals! Garen trades the bleed passive for a huge amount of regeneration and is the literal definition of a vanguard. His preferred way of beating champions (when he's not brute forcing his way into them) is through attrition, which he can do primarily thanks to the fact that he isn't limited by a resource in order to cast abilities. While sharing the same general weaknesses as Darius, Garen is better able to play against them as he has a movement speed boost and silence built into his Decisive Strike, which allows him to not only better catch his opponents but also prevent their escapes. Garen is a relatively solid pick that can put out a lot of damage and take a lot of hits, making him a worthwhile mention on my list.

Mordekaiser is my last mention. Quite one of the most influential, successful, and game-changing reworks in recent history, the Iron Revenant has been an extremely powerful pick in the top lane, even going so far as to make waves and migrate periodically to the mid lane! Across all ranks worldwide, Mordekaiser has a 30% ban rate, almost on par to that of Darius. In addition to having a shield and sustain that makes him incredibly hard to kill, Mordekaiser trades speed for pure power and tenacity and, unlike Darius or Garen who one could just kite and run away from, the ability to hold a target in place as he beats them to death in an isolated one-versus-one. Not only that, but he steals part of his enemy's stats while he does it and, if he wins the fight, keeps the stats for the remainder of his time in combat! He can ult a tank and steal their bulk, a mage and steal their burst, or an ADC and steal their attack speed! He not only excels at direct pressure with his great laning phase, but also by the indirect pressure he puts on every enemy team that faces him. Do you stall your build to spend 1300G on a Quicksilver Sash? Or face the wrath of Mordekaiser when he finally catches you and sends you to the death realm?

Jungle

Jarvan IV is one of the best gankers, countergankers, and initiators in the game. His job is to go in, and he does that from the moment he hits level 2 and looks for that first gank. Jarvan brings to the table creative mobility, versatile build paths (you can go for burst, a bruiser build, or even full tank), and the ability to pick and start a fight whenever you want, wherever you want. He is great into enemies with low bulk and/or mobility. His ability to quickly snowball games from an early lead have made him not only a successful pick in solo queue, but also in professional play. As a result of this, he has already made quite a few appearances in professional games around the world.

If you'd rather take the fight to the enemy jungler and beat on them early, Olaf might be the champion for you. Another contested pick both in solo queue and professional play, Olaf comes with a ferocity unmatched by most junglers and one of the strongest early games in the game. He can kill enemies as early as level 1. At level 6, his ult, Ragnarok, literally enables him to "run it down" and kill almost anyone, as he becomes immune to all forms of crowd control during his ult. He gets stronger in fights as his health gets lower, and, like Jarvan IV, he's great for snowballing and getting explosive leads in your games.

Taking a drastic turn away from the aggressive and explosive early game junglers in Olaf and Jarvan, we arrive at Shyvana, one of the fastest clearing and versatile junglers in the game. Her objective control and clearing speed in the jungle are some of the best in the game, and she is fortunate to have both an AP and AD build path, both of which are incredibly good and give you the freedom to pursue either a sustained fighting style or a bursty one. Her teamfight initiation and presence are also really good, and she can serve as a decent split pusher in tough situations. If none of that really grabs your attention, then perhaps the fact that she can shapeshift into a dragon will! Shyvana puts the onus on the enemy to shut her down, as a Shyvana left unchecked will eventually farm and scale into something monstrous, all while devouring your own jungle camps and taking every objective on the map at the same time.

Mid

Fizz, The Tidal Trickster has unironically been a tricky and polarizing champion in the game for quite some time. The only assassin that I'm listing here, Fizz brings not only the fast mobility that most assassins are known for, but also one of the best teamfighting ults an assassin can have, second probably only to Katarina or Qiyana. Fizz is another champion that can heavily punish and snowball off of a single mistake, and he does well into both tanks and mages alike. He sets up ganks really well and is extremely slippery. He's not hard to kill because he's tanky (though he can actually build bruiser and do pretty well), he's hard to kill because, first, you have to catch him. Fizz lives for the big numbers and mechanical outplays and can help you ride the waves to your next LP gains. As of 10.2, he sits at 52.69% win rate in the mid lane worldwide across all ranks.

Malzahar is probably the most consistent mid lane mage to ever touch League of Legends. In addition to superb waveclear, he brings a very potent damage-over-time spell that spreads to other enemies after it kills the previous one in Malefic Visions and a terrifying ult that utilizes the most powerful form of crowd control in the game, suppression, to immobilize his enemies and completely incapacitate them as they slowly drain of life. Both his gank setups and his teamfight pressure are phenomenal, and a Malzahar that knows how to position can be incredibly hard to catch due to the spell shield in his passive, Void Shift, that deflects the first form of crowd control thrown at him. Malzahar sits comfortably at a 52.40% win rate over 70,000 matches worldwide and across all ranks as of patch 10.2.

The tiny master of evil strikes again as Veigar rounds out our mid lane tier list. What's not to love about a champ that infinitely scales as the game progresses and has an ultimate that literally serves as a heat-seeking nuke to whoever is unfortunate enough to get hit by it? In addition to that, he has 2 other hard-hitting area-of-effect spells (that also serve as fantastic waveclear and are on relatively short cooldowns late) and a massive zone-of-control spell that renders the targets hit by it stunned, and the targets trapped in it are often forced to make a difficult decision. After farming up to your first item, you should be able to quickly, reliably, and comfortably kill anything that isn't specifically itemizing against you. This little guy also puts a lot of pressure on the enemy team to end the game early. Though he may seem small in stature (don't tell him I said that), he becomes the biggest deal in the late game if left unchecked. His win rate as of 10.2 sits at 51.09%.

Bottom

Miss Fortune makes it rain from atop the number one spot on my list of ADCs that you should pick up for this season. She makes trucks look like they tickle with how much damage she puts out. She's fast on her feet by way of the passive ability on her Strut spell, quick to the draw and deadly with it by way of her passive, Love Taps, and her ultimate, Bullet Time, is one of the most powerful and game-changing ultimates in the game, especially if you get the full channel off. She's reliable building lethality or crit, and her strong laning phase means that you'll generally have no problem reaching teamfights, where you'll really shine. She's also incredibly easy to learn and master. Miss Fortune commands a whopping 52.92% win rate in the bottom role across all ranks worldwide.

If you're confident in your ability to reach the late game but you still want some heavy firepower for when you get there, Jinx might be the girl for you. You can Get Excited! knowing that you'll have no shortage of damage, whether splash or single-target, as you scale up into the hypercarry you were meant to be. Going as far back as release, Jinx has consistently been a reliable solo queue pick because of her ability to thrive in chaotic situations and immediately ramp up into an uncontrollable ball of fire once she gets the slightest lead. Two guns means never having to say you're sorry, but also having a 51.73% win rate worldwide across all ranks.

Ashe trades raw damage for some of the most annoying and overwhelming crowd control in the entire game. She is the only champion whose autoattacks automatically slow the enemy, making her excellent for both chasing down enemies and kiting would-be-assailants. She has a safe laning phase due to her respectable range, and at level 6, the enemy has to respect her newfound form of engage, the global Enchanted Crystal Arrow. Her Hawkshot allows her to grant her team vision across the map in any area, making it easier to not only keep track of the enemy jungler but deter ganks on your allies as well. If you don't necessarily need the big damage numbers to be useful but want to be able to enable your allies a bit, consider Ashe and her 51.10% win rate.

Support

Soraka is the archetypal healer support, and man, is she good at it! Excluding her area-of-effect silence on her Equinox spell, all of her other spells are tailored around reactively healing damage that was done to her or her allies, including a her ultimate, a global teamwide healing burst known as Wish. She also takes the pressure off of her ADC because she almost always becomes the primary target in a teamfight, but for good reason. If you leave her unchecked, her team will always outsustain yours, and you will almost always lose the fights, and that's assuming her teammates don't also have their own built in forms of healing. With a 51.92% win rate, Soraka is a (gentle) force to be reckoned with.

I know that at first glance I might be biased towards Leona with how often I've mentioned her in my previous writings, but that should really just serve to reinforce just how potent she is. If that's not bad enough, she's slated for nerfs in patch 10.3 because of her dominance in the bot lane. She is great into both ranged and melee champions and her ability to not only catch but lock down a target (or more, if they're caught in her Solar Flare), can be a prime source of frustration for priority enemy targets unfortunate enough to be matched against her. She is incredibly tanky and offers a versatile and tanky build path. She can also be played very aggressively, serving as the vanguard and initiation for her team or very defensively, locking down the poor target that tries to threaten her ADC. Leona has consistently withstood the test of time on the Rift, and though she may not maintain her 51.14% win rate after next patch, I am wholeheartedly confident in her ability to still have a sizeable influence over whatever games she may be picked into.

Taric turns the tides of teamfights with a potentially teamwide invulnerability ultimate, Cosmic Radiance, and can even bind his spells to his allies, using them as a conduit for his effects similarly to how Orianna can cast her ball abilities through her allies. A near-spammable area-of-effect heal at max ranks and some of the best defenses in the game mean that Taric is constantly alive and providing value to his team in some way or another. I like to call him the "tank that plays like an enchanter" because he can take the brunt of hits while also bolstering his allies in the process. Taric has come a long way from the "pizza feet" days and, though his laning phase is a bit weaker than most, he will deliver truly outrageous teamfights. This, coupled with his 53.40% win rate, will hopefully convince you that you can climb high and look good while doing it if you pick him up.

Conclusion

So that's it! There's not really much else to say here except to give one of these champs a go as you progress through your season! A few of them may be a bit harder to learn, but once you get consistent with one of these guys, you're going to find that they offer plenty of rewards for the time and risk you put into them.

Best of luck. I'll see you on the Rift.

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