What is the Right Champion to Choose? A Guide to Flex Picks and First Picking

13 Jul 20

Guides

harizin

What is the Right Champion to Choose? A Guide to Flex Picks and First Picking

Learn how to choose the right champion for any role!

When League of Legends players queue up to play a game, normally they have a certain champion in mind that they want to play. It could be because it is a champion they are particularly fond of, or it could even be a champion that the player relies on for an easy win. However, this mentality can be a pitfall that can give the enemy team an edge. By having one champion in mind instead of multiple can allow the enemy team to make an easy counterpick. So, if you have a wide enough champion pool and want to play one champion in particular, make that champion one that can be flex picked. If you flex pick a champion, it gives you and your team an edge to throw your enemies off balance and catch them in a weak matchup.

Now, if you are a new player you are probably wondering, what is a flex pick? Or, if you are a veteran player, you may be looking for a new champion to give you an edge. Well, this article will cover all of that. We will discuss what a flex pick is, why it can be vital to a win, and what champions can be viable flex picks.

What is a Flex Pick?

A flex pick literally means a champion that can be picked flexibly into a matchup. This means that if you want to make a counter-pick or confuse your enemies as to what role you are going, a champion that can play multiple roles is a good option. An example of this would be if a player was assigned the jungle role and they are picking first. Picking a champion that can easily be counterable first is not always a good pick, and your allies may not always want to trade spots with you.

Because of this, picking a champion like Elise first may not be the best option because she is so squishy and relies on the early game. Picking Elise first in this situation means that the enemy team can pick a champion with a strong early game and completely shut Elise out of the game. However, if this player picks a champion like Ekko first, it gives a bit of confusion to the enemy team, as Ekko can be played, top, jungle, or mid. Now, by having picked Ekko first, this player already has a leg-up on the enemy team, as they need to respond and correctly guess what role you will be playing.

Why are Flex Picks Important?

Now that you are aware of what a flex pick is, we will now go deeper into why it is so important. Flex picks can easily allow your team to win a game for many reasons, and knowing what these are and how to implement them are a big part of what makes them so valuable.

First, flex picks are important because, at the moment, most champions that can be flex picked are already fairly powerful. For example, Wukong can be flex picked as top, jungle or mid. Wukong is meta because of the buffs to Blade of the Ruined King (BORK), so using this to your advantage could be a great way to pull out a win. There are plenty of other champions that can work like this, some of them being Mordekaiser, Jax, and Vayne.

Secondly, flex picks are important because they throw a wrench in your enemy team’s plans. As discussed earlier, first pick can be a weakness for most players, as it gives the enemy team a chance to counter-pick your champion and get an advantage over you. However, by flexing a champion you can disrupt their thought process and take back your advantage. If you are assigned mid and are worried about being countered by the enemy laner, picking someone like Mordekaiser is a great option because he can be flexed into multiple roles, which makes the enemy team have to think even harder as to what champion they need to pick.

Lastly, by flex picking a champion, it gives your whole team an advantage. By flex picking one champion, it confuses the enemies to the point where they may accidentally pick the wrong matchup, allowing your teammates to pick favorably into them. An example of this would be if you flexed Vayne in the top lane and the enemy bot lane chose Draven. Because you are going top, the Draven counter doesn’t matter to you, so your ally ADC can pick a champion bot lane that counters Draven, giving your whole team an advantage by shutting down a potential threat.

Best Champions to Flex

Not all flex pick champions are good in any situation, flex picks are best used in the first few picks of the game because the point of them is to confuse your enemy into picking the wrong champion and put them at a disadvantage. Because of that, flex picking support isn’t always the best option. Yes, champions like Pyke or Brand can be flexed, but it is better to use that pick on a champion that can better use the advantage.

It can also be difficult to flex pick an ADC, because they aren’t the most flexible picks. There are champions like Vayne, who can be flexed top, or champions like Twitch, that can be flexed jungle, but these champions have a weak early game and scale very well, so keeping them in a role where they can scale well is the best option (there are obvious exceptions to this but it is still true for most ADC champions).

Now, the best roles to flex for are for solo laners and the jungle, this is because they have a much wider champion pool, giving them a much better advantage by flexing than it would give any other role. But out of all the flex champions to choose from, which ones are the best? Well, here we will discuss just a few of them for each role.

Top:

Mordekaiser - Mordekaiser can be flexed into Mid or Jungle as well. He is also an incredibly strong pick because he works so well with the new Conqueror rune. He can easily shut out enemy champions with his ultimate and has tons to offer his team.

Sett - Sett can be flexed jungle and sometimes support. He thrives in fights and his ultimate allows for great initiation into these fights as well as a potential escape if used correctly. Sett packs a powerful punch that makes him an asset the whichever team he is on.

Jayce - Jayce is one of the few champions that can be played in every role. That being said, he does best in top and mid. He scales very well and is most useful when he is fighting champions 1v1, but can also snipe enemies with his long ranged abilities.

Jungle:

Ekko - Ekko can be taken into top and mid as well. In the jungle he starts out a bit slow, but once he hits his level six power-spike he can be a huge threat. He is hard to kill and can do some serious damage to enemies if they aren’t careful.

Olaf - Olaf is best in the jungle, but in a pinch he can also be taken into the top lane. Olaf has been at the top of the charts for quite some time now because he is such an unstoppable force. His ultimate allows him to run into the enemy backline and take them out before they can kill his team.

Jarvan IV - Like Olaf, Jarvan IV is best in the jungle, but can be taken top and potentially mid if needed. With his tanky nature and good crowd control he is an asset to have on any team.

Mid:

Yasuo - Yasuo may have a bad stigma to him, but because he can be played in top, mid, or ADC, his flexibility can make it hard for enemies to know which role he is going to take. Because of this, the enemies have to stay on their toes and hope they picked into the right matchup.

Diana - Diana can also be played top or jungle, which is always great to have such flexibility. She is also great at bursting down squishy enemies before they even get the chance to fight back.

Vladimir - Vladimir can also be taken top lane, but he is played in both mid and top so often that it can be hard to tell which role he is. He is a valuable asset in teamfights with his ultimate and makes a great frontline because he is so tanky as well as putting out some good damage.

Now, in this article we discussed what a flex pick is, why it is so important, and what champions make for good flex picks. With all of this in mind, there are plenty of champions that can be flexed besides the ones I listed, and there are plenty of exceptions to champions that I may have listed. For players looking to mix up any game, flex picking any champion into any role can be a great way to just have a fun game! With all of this information, I hope this will help you out the next time you are stuck picking first, but remember, you can always pawn off first pick onto that Yasuo main who needs his fix.

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