Arena is League of Legends’ newest game mode, featuring a wide variety of maps, Augments, and 16 players battling it out. While many might see the mode as heavily chance-based, there are Champions who stand out in the metagame. This article lists some of the most consistent picks for Arena, explains why they are powerful, what Augments to look out for, and why they consistently place highly. The list is not necessarily the absolute best champions in the Arena, but ones that you can often pick and dominate games with.

What Makes a Good Champion for Arena?

Consistency is key for winning games in the arena. We all remember that time when Master Yi hits an infinite Q setup, becoming completely untargetable, but these kinds of setups rely on very specific Augments, items, and even teammates to get to that point. In Arena, consistency is the following criteria.

Number of Powerful Augments Across Rarities: Nautilus might be a near unkillable god with the prismatic Courage of the Colossus, but he may not get this Augment every time you play. Champions that have a large amount of Augments powerful on them across the Silver, Gold, and Prismatic tiers are often the powerhouses of the game mode. If a Champion has access to game-changing Augments no matter what rarity they roll on, they tend to consistently place top 4 because they will more frequently hit these power spikes.
% Health Damage – The base stats for Champions in Arena are much different from your standard Summoner’s Rift or ARAM games. With so many Champions getting increased maximum health from base stats, items, and augments, some of the best Champions and items have access to dealing damage based on the opponent's health. These Champions also love items like Hellfire Hatchet, Liandries’ Torment, and Blade of the Ruined King, giving them an easier time at dealing with all the increased health pools.
Terrain/Map Strength – Many Arena players are familiar with Poppy and Alistar, who love the many walls and flaming circle encroaching upon players fighting long battles. There are also champions with fast attacks and auto-resets like Leona, Trundle, and Urgot who take plants extremely fast. The classic Zac revival or the dreaded Yuumi stalling team also comes to mind. These kinds of advantages using the Arena’s terrain and features are often what makes many Champions powerful in the mode.
Counters Strong Champions – As straightforward as it gets: Does your Champion match well against popular Arena picks like Darius, Trundle, Swain, Vi, Brand, and many more unnamed Champions.
Teammate Variety - Some Champions pair better than others, and Arena is no exception to this. If a Champion can work with many of the best picks, they already have a great advantage in the pick/ban phase. This matters especially if you are picking first, because it allows you to secure a power pick while denying your opponent access to that Champion in the second phase of Champion Select. It can also be that your Champion is capable of achieving things regardless of the partner, such as winning a 1v2 scenario, or stalling/running long enough to revive your partner.
Ease of Use – We cannot always assume that every player plays Champions at a similar skill level, but we can narrow down picks that anyone can play, or have a low margin for mistakes. Point and click Champions and bulkier Champions like bruisers/tanks are more forgiving than playing your first game of Riven or a squishy low mobility marksman in Arena. Arena has players from the Summoner’s Rift, ARAM, casual players, and even Teamfight Tactics. This list considers the large variance of skill levels across these players all playing Arena.

The Best Champions for Arena

As of Patch 14.10, here are some of the best Arena Champions that follow this criteria.

Garen

To no surprise, Garen hits many of the criteria for a powerful Champion. He’s a straightforward champion with the option of going a critical damage and attack speed build, or the standard bruiser. Garen has easy to understand skills that while less threatening in a standard Summoner’s Rift teamfight, becomes much more threatening in a 2v2 scenario. It also happens that Garen has many tools at his disposal that take advantage of augments, plants, and common opponents.

Augment Variety

For many Garen players, they dream of hitting Augments like Vulnerability or Jeweled Gauntlet, taking advantage of stacking critical damage scaling on his signature spinning ability Judgment. Garen also loves access to items like Galeforce that help close the gap. Here are some of his best Augment options:

Vulnerability (Silver Rarity): Vulnerability allows item effects and damage over time effects to critically strike, while also providing an item worth (25%) of critical chance. Garen’s main source of damage is Judgment, his signature spin that scales off critical damage. The scaling from vulnerability applies on top of the critical scaling of Judgment, giving him a huge amount of extra damage on the level of a Prismatic Augment. Garen also appreciates items like Trinity Force, which also benefits from not needing an extra slot for a critical rate item.

Jeweled Gauntlet (Prismatic Rarity): A similar effect to Vulnerability, except it now also applies on his ultimate Demacian Justice. Champions in Arena tend to have large pools of health compared to their normal counterparts in the Rift, and a missing health true damage nuke that can now critically strike catches many players off-guard. This is also in combination with the similar interaction of Judgment getting additional critical damage, leading Garen to threaten his opponents with near instant kills.

Blade Waltz (Prismatic Rarity): Blade Waltz is a versatile tool for damaging and sticking on the opponent, but also a defensive tool. At first, it may seem redundant as Garen rarely applies on-hit effects and has ways to stay on his target. However, Garen has a very powerful interaction where he can use Judgment before using Blade Waltz, guaranteeing that he is on top of the opponent while dealing the damage of the spin. It leads to a low counterplay damage tool that easily leaves the opponent in range for Demacian Justice as a finisher, while protecting Garen from any attacks or crowd control.

Terrain/Map Strength

In the more standard game modes, Garen is often seen as a juggernaut that you simply have to kite to defeat. In the more close quarters arena, Garen excels because he has much easier target access than normal. The Arena mode pressures players to come closer and closer together through the flaming circle, and Garen tends to stick around longer than the average Champion. He secures plants easily with his Decisive Strike as an auto reset, and has the bulk to wait out arena fights. Given the game is a 2v2, Garen’s ultimate easily secures a lead for his team because it can swiftly remove an opponent from the fight.

Shyvana

Shyvana is an oddball Champion to those familiar with Arena. She is not particularly popular, likely due to a less than stellar gameplay pattern, lacking flashy mobility tools, and truthfully only feels satisfying when she uses her Flame Breath during dragon form. However, Shyvana has the makings of a great Arena Champion, and is almost never banned out.

% Health Damage

While many know Shyvana for the once popular AP build shooting explosive fireballs that deal half of a squishy Champion’s health bar from a screen away, her on-hit bruiser build is more powerful in Arena. Shyvana’s Flame Breath applies a debuff to targets that lets Shyvana deal maximum health damage to her target. In combination with her basic attack reset Twin Bite, she procs this effect multiple times very quickly.

If that is not enough, Shyvana also takes advantage of many on-hit items with % Health damage like Blade of the Ruined King, where her Twin Bite procs the effect multiple times on-hit.

Terrain/Map Strength

When we think of Shyvana’s play pattern, it revolves around her ultimate Dragon’s Ascent, before either running at the opponent to melt them down with her percent damage, or shooting long-ranged fireballs with high AP. In the close quarters arena, Shyvana has tools to play fights from both close range and a distance.

One of Shyvana’s key strengths is her ability to instantly take a plant, as her Twin Bite counts as two separate attacks. By using the simple combo of auto-attacking and then immediately pressing Q, Shyvana secures plants before the opponent can even react.

Augment Variety

While not as game changing as Garen hitting Vulnerability or Jeweled Gauntlet, Shyvana has many useful augments at her disposal.

Master of Duality (Prismatic Rarity): Shyvana has hybrid scaling with both attack damage and ability power, with Master of Duality emphasizing this to a great extent. With a bulkier build, Shyvana’s damage escalates very quickly out of control because her Twin Bite lowers its own cooldown while you hit targets, letting you quickly stack AP/AD together at the same time.

Bread and Butter (Q) (Gold Rarity): Low cooldowns on an ability that lowers itself by a flat cooldown are some of the most abusable interactions in League of Legends. Shyvana is no exception, as this augment enables her to constantly proc her on-hit damage in rapid succession even with average attack speed. In a similar fashion, the Prismatic Mystic Punch is also powerful.

Heavy Hitter (Silver Rarity): As her stronger Arena build, on-hit effects that also take advantage of her bulkiness are some of her most powerful options. Her Twin Bite and Dragon’s Ascent play into this effectively. Shyvana gets a large pool of max health, tends to build high health bruiser items in-between her on-hit, and consistently procs it rapidly from Twin Bite.

Nasus

Nasus is seen as simply a good Arena Champion by most. His clear weakness of a weak early game compared to other juggernauts like Darius tend to leave him at an average play rate in Arena. However, Nasus brings many effective tools to counter powerful team combinations and is one of the most straightforward Champions in the game.

Counters Strong Champions

Aside from Nasus being known for bonking his opponents with Siphoning Strike, his Wither ability is one of the most notorious disruptive abilities in the game. Providing both a slow and attack speed slow, a short cooldown, and a long duration, most auto-attack reliant Champions are terrified of getting anywhere near Nasus. From marksmen like Vayne and Ashe to auto-attacking bruisers like Trundle and Vi, the skill cripples their ability to fight back. Against bulkier targets, Nasus’s Spirit Fire reduces armor by a significant amount, letting him punch through bulkier targets who often stay within the Spirit Fire while also getting hit by his %MaxHP damage from Fury of the Sands.

Nasus excels at skirmishing in small fights and duels, the centre focus of Arena. In many scenarios, a decently stacked Nasus will stat-check their opponent simply by walking up to them and bonking them.

Augment Variety

What makes Nasus powerful is not necessarily having access to powerful Augments (although he does have plenty of those), but rather his consistency to perform even with weaker augments. A lot of Nasus’ power revolves around Siphoning Strike stacks, and that passively increases per round. For Nasus, it is simply a waiting game before he becomes a monster, rather than hoping that he hits his best augments. Regardless, here are his most powerful augments.

Mystic Punch (Prismatic Rarity)/Bread and Butter (Q) (Gold Rarity): These two augments are combined as they perform similarly in mind, allowing Nasus to consistently spam his Siphoning Strike for big damage. Mystic Punch has the added benefit of arguably better synergizing with his abilities due to his ultimate already reducing the cooldown by half.

Stackosaurus Rex (Silver Rarity): To no surprise, Nasus loves more stacks. If Nasus obtains this as his first Augment, it is a near must-pick because it allows him to become relevant faster in the game. It arguably even lets Nasus build tankier options because he has more damage from a normal rarity augment where other champions might find something less than appealing.

Vengeance (Gold Rarity): Vengeance is not particularly a favorable Augment, as it implies that your teammate dies before you, and may not always be active especially if Nasus dies first. However, Nasus loves the extra damage and omnivamp more so than other champions, as he tends to survive as long as traditional tanks, while being strong enough to win a 1v2 scenario.

Malzahar

At first, you may be thinking that Brand is simply better and more powerful. But in comparison, Malzahar is much less banned, while similarly loves similar items/Augments to Brand in the damage over time mage pool. It also helps that in comparison, Malzahar’s abilities are much easier to land, with only his Q being a fairly wide skill shot, as well as having better defensive tools in his passive and ultimate.

Ease of Use

Malzahar is a fairly straightforward champion, with his most complex mechanic being resetting the duration of Malefic Visions by hitting his abilities. But the key factor in his ease of use is his ultimate, Nether Grasp. It is a simple, powerful suppression ability that both locks down an opponent, deals a respectable amount of percent Health damage, and tells your teammate to focus down that target. Many Champions also do not like having to build Mercurial Scimitar just for one Champion, leaving Malzahar a consistent threat.

Malzahar’s abilities and typical items also give much needed breathing room that other Champions might not have. His Call of Void provides ample silence time in an area, his favourite items are the combination of Liandries and Rylai’s Crystal Scepter, and he has his passive Void Shift to block the first crowd control and burst damage on him. It is very difficult especially for close ranged Champions to reach Malzahar even with his lack of mobility, leaving less room for mistakes.

Augment Variety

Malzahar loves Augments that amplify his damage over time Malefic Visions and his Liandries’ Torment.

Magic Missile (Gold Rarity): The notorious Magic Missile is a staple among Champions like Brand and Lilia, as well as Malzahar. Arena is full of high-health Champions, and damage over time effects like Malefic Visions consistently proc Magic Missile for extra damage.

Phenomenal Evil (Gold Rarity): Damage over time Champions abuse Phenomenal Evil exceptionally well because they can proc it multiple times in a single ability. Malzahar is already a fairly safe Champion due to his itemization and access to crowd control, letting him safely stack.

Ocean Soul (Silver Rarity) – Malzahar’s biggest weakness to spamming his abilities is his mana pool, which is further hindered by his tendency to go Liandry's Torment and Rylai’s Crystal Scepter first. Ocean Soul is easy to keep up for Malzahar, solving his mana issues where he may not always have access to plants. It also provides an easily underestimated amount of bulk for Malzahar, as he often adds quite a bit of health into his pool while granting himself time to get the full healing effect.

Poppy

Poppy’s notoriety in Arena is very deserved: Slamming Champions into the wall-heavy maps of Arena, knocking players far beyond the bounds of the flaming circle, with high max health damage access. However, she often remains at an average presence in the metagame, which makes her a very consistent Champion to pick.

Terrain/Map Strength

The many walls of the Arena play well into Poppy’s ability to slam Champions into walls. But the key factor is that these same walls are often near vital objectives like plants. Poppy can disable the opponent while taking the plant, giving her team a significant advantage in the fight. Her charge is also versatile for knocking opponents out of bounds into the flaming circle, especially as she can deny dashes with her Steadfast Presence. It provides a similar role to Alistar, who also takes advantage of his abilities to keep opponents out of the safe zone.

Most notably is Poppy’s ultimate, useful as a tool to secure plants, keep opponents locked into her crowd control, and knock them into the flaming circle. Poppy’s ultimate is one of the most game-warping effects for Arena as the circle closes in. Given Poppy is often running a tankier build, she more than likely will survive long enough to use her ultimate to its full power.

Augment Variety

Slap Around (Silver Rarity): Poppy’s E has an interesting interaction with Slap Around, granting her twice the value if she is able to stun the opponent into the wall. This is because both her charge and her stun apply as separate effects of immobilization. Poppy appreciates having the extra attack damage, having relatively respectable damage ratios on her abilities.

Bread and Cheese (Gold Rarity): While the current iteration of Arena now has the “Combo Breaker” feature to prevent a near infinite chain of crowd control, Poppy loves more access to her Heroic Charge. The ability is what allows Poppy to land her other abilities and is her main threatening tool for taking plants and keeping the opponent locked down.

Courage of the Colossus (Prismatic Rarity): In a similar manner to Slap Around, Courage of the Colossus makes Poppy much bulkier as she can consistently activate it. The augment lets her soak damage from the other opponent during the time that she is locking down the first one. Shields play into Poppy’s strength of getting extra armor/magic resist from Steadfast Presence, making her far bulkier than normal.

Conclusion

This is not a comprehensive list. Many notorious Champions like Darius, Trundle, Brand, and Vi are all also power picks. However, this list is more of a helpful guide to understanding how to play into Champion strengths. Many of the Champions on this list are effective even without their main Augments, and more importantly perform similarly in the hands of different skill levels. With the metagame ever changing in Arena with balance changes and players getting more familiar with the game mode, it is important to stay on top of what Champions are the most effective consistently.