Whether you currently find yourself in Bronze 5, or have been placed higher in Diamond 1, every player has a fixation with grinding elo in Solo Queue as quickly as possible. With the ushering in of Season 5, as well as coming into the halfway point of the Spring Split of the LCS, we have already seen many Champions come and go into the meta game, as well as Champions rising and falling out of popularity. Throughout the rest of this article we will be looking at the Top lane, what champions are rising to the top tier in their respective roles, as well as some insight as to why they are the most popular right now. I must issue this disclaimer however:

Note: At the time of writing this article we are currently in the League of Legends Patch 5.3. The following information was written during this time for this patch. Please be aware that with future patches, things are subject to change.

4. Irelia

I wrote an article on Irelia a while back so to add to what I wrote before, the advantage of having an Irelia in your team comp is her versatility. Irelia has the capability to itemize against any opposing team composition, while still being able to both be a tank for your team and a high damage output hyper carry. The reason why I place Irelia so low into my list is that every matchup in lane is a skill matchup. This means that you will have to put in multiple games against multiple champions in order to understand not only her kit to be able to use it to her max potential, but also be aware enough to know how to play against every other Top lane Champion. With this being said, let's go into the Pros and Cons:

Pros:
1. Trinity Force providing “Tons of Damage”

The only offensive item you need to buy is none other then the Tons of Damage Trinity Force itself. This item gives you all the offensive stats you need to be a decent damage dealing carry, synergizing well with your abilities allowing for good burst from the interaction between the Sheen and your kit. The Phage also gives some good early health stats in lane with the Ruby Crystal, making it nearly impossible to die in lane without a gank.

2. “Riot, Nerf Irelia”
The fact of the matter is, Irelia has is a very powerful champion and always has been. Irelia in the Top lane cannot easily be dealt with without jungle attention from the other team. Due to the fact that almost every lane matchup is a skill matchup, she has the ability to outplay every Champion once perfected. Being able to dash around with Q, shred through Tanks with W, stun or slow with E, as well as have a high damage Ult, high skilled Irelia players bring honor to Ionia.

Cons:
1. High Skill Cap
Her advantage is actually still generally her downfall. Just with every other Champion, you do need to make sure that you have a good understanding of how to play this Champion in order to help you climb in solo queue. Also if you are going up against another laner who knows the weakness of Irelia, such as if you fail to hit your reset on your Q, they can abuse your misplays and Irelia can fall behind really quickly.

2. Run Irelia, Run!
Irelia as a Champion is also very weak to Team Comps that have high mobility, or good amounts of shields. For example, picking Irelia into a team that is running a Sivir and a Lulu bot lane, would not be a good idea. Sivir’s Ult will be able to speed both of them up, making it very difficult for Irelia to stick onto the targets, even with a BoTRK and her E.

3. Gnar

Gnar has been a god in the top lane for the last few months and for very good reason. Gnar is a Champion that everyone knew would be really ridiculous, if players could take advantage of his very unique play style. Gnar is a Champion that can safely be blind picked, as well as a Champion who plays rather well in the lane swap 2v1 situation. His high scaling damage works well enough throughout the game so that you can build tanky with your items while still being able to dish out damage, similar to Irelia. The stuns in his kit also provide great crowd control for the AP mids and ADC’s in case the Support misses a pull or a hook. This way, you have more than one initiation in your team if something were to go wrong.

Pros:
1. High tank, high damage playstyle
2. Intense amount of CC from a Top laner
3. Blind pick and not feel bad
4. If playing with team, teamfight potential is endless

Cons:
1. Easy to play around “Gnar” bar
2. Basically useless without Mega Gnar

2. Lissandra

Lissandra is an interesting champion to take in the Top lane. She is technically also a mid champion, however she is being played Top to great effect. The reason why she is able to be played top lane is because she is such a lane bully. Furthermore, her team fighting is super strong because with her ult and with Hourglass, you can dive into a team fight, ult, then get out without losing that much health overall.

Pros:
1. Liss is hard to gank because of her escape potential, as well as being a massive lane bully.
2. She has the ability after getting her Hourglass to roam or teleport into teamfights and turn the fight.

Cons:
1. Liss is SUPER vulnerable when behind. As well, as if she gets shut down early, she will do almost nothing in team fights.
2. If the enemy builds magic resistance, she is no effect on the game.
3. Short Ranged.

1. Riven

I have been considering leaving Riven out of this list, but because I play her so much and have success with her, I feel bad not including her in this list. Riven is a Champion that is really similar to Irelia in the sense that she is very skill reliant. Obviously to climb solo queue, you do not need to be Box Box with Riven, but you will need to be skilled to a point where you are not whiffing your ult casts, and also learning how to auto animation cancel to get more speed from your combo. While I will not go into those things in this article, here are the pros and cons.

Pros:
1. Strong lane phase and early game
2. High amounts of damage because of her kit and does not rely on items
3. Can snowball out of control if left unchecked
4. Good escape potential with use of wall jumps w/ your Q
5. Can have different skill orders against certain lane matchups such as maxing E before Q to provide better sustain in lane

Cons:
1. Riven gets destroyed by Hard CC. Would not pick into Morgana.
2. If Riven falls behind, it will take a while for her to catch back up, due to the fact that she will be underleveled and the rest of the enemy team will be scaling well and getting tanky.

Once again, I will remind you that playing these champions for one game before going into ranked will not help you climb ladder quickly. These are also not the only Champions as I have left some such as Rumble or Kassadin out. However I did not feel like I could talk about Champions that I have little to no ranked experience playing with. These are what I use in Top lane and I hope that you also find success with them.

As always, if you wish to keep up with me, follow me @TheRealistSloth and if you want to stay up to date with all things Team Dignitas follow @TeamDignitas and make sure to check out our website frequently for other blogs. Finally, just to remind everyone the new Team Dignitas Jerseys just went live on our store so if you would like to support the team, go pick one up!

Stay safe Summoners and I will see you, in the next article.