Death, taxes, 200 years of balance, and URF. Constants in life that you can always count on. A break from the regiment of normals and ranked gameplay, URF single handedly increases every League of Legends player's APM to the levels of Starcraft Pros. In today's article, we will be breaking down a variety of picks that will skyrocket your enemy's blood pressure and leave you in a fit of giggles. More often than not, you might even want to consider banning these champions. Especially if you or anyone on your team is not showing interest in playing them.

General Tips for URF

• URF buffs
  • 100% Mana and energy consumption reduction.
  • 50% Health cost reduction.
  • 80% cooldown reduction on abilities, activated items, and summoner spells.
  • 25% tenacity and tenaciousness. +60 movement speed.
  • 25% additional damage for Critical Strikes.
  • 100% bonus damage to infernal dragons
• Champions with high mobility and easy to hit CC tend to be pretty broken in this game mode.
• ADCs are actually pretty decent in this game mode due to their natural scaling.
• Where possible, go Precision in your secondary and run Legend: Tenacity. Against some comps you go up against, that sliver of tenacity is the difference between being able to play the game and being perma-stunned
• REMEMBER! When the game starts, everyone runs top and the fiasco begins, never be afraid to run in there! URF is the land of limit testing.

WARNING: BUSTED

Ekko

Much like how Ekko's in normal games get away with jumping into impossible situations and one-shotting someone before zipping out to safety and regaining all their HP, URF Ekko is more of the same on steroids. With his ultimate at a jaw dropping 10 second cooldown, Ekkos can - and does - just run it in as recklessly as possible and make it out while the poor mages in the back pop faster than their false sense of security. Mobility? He has it. Safety? He has it. His only weakness is getting smacked in the face with CC and being one-shot before he can press R.

Ezreal

Caution: Your Q button is at risk of falling out from this one. While Ezreal provides no CC whatsoever, he deals a ton of damage, is highly mobile, gets even more AS from his passive, and has practically a 0s CD on his Q if he hits something. This low-to-no Q CD also means he has no problem stacking his passive super fast and maintaining it. What's even better is that while AD is probably easier to play, you also have the flexibility to go AP if your team requires some diversification in the damage department. Then again this is URF, looking at team composition rarely matters and is one more step than you generally need to take in this game mode.

Kai'Sa

If you are thinking, go AP and shoot Ws like crazy, you are only half correct. Ideally, just go for the usual build of Muramana into Rageblade and then full AP from there. Your Ws will hit like trucks and you can fearlessly dive in and finish off opponents. If you just go AP, theres a good chance you hit your W, almost one-shot the opponent, R in, and then end up not killing the enemy. There is no need to put all your damage onto your W. I find going for the regular build to be much more fun, at least for you.

Katarina

Truly endless mobility and tons of AOE damage, Katarina jumps around and one-shots things. You would figure that 80% CDR wouldn't be considered much of a buff to a champion that has resets incorporated into her kit but that is where you would be surprised. Also, while she may normally be punished for bad dagger placement, she can now afford to spray her daggers wherever she pleases without fear of being punished. If the enemy team has no hard CC, they might as well give up immediately. If they have hard CC that are skill shots, they had better start praying because that is the only thing standing between them and instant deletion.

Kayn

The only walking Kayn does in URF is through walls. Otherwise just spam your 1 second CD Q to get wherever you want to go, especially through your enemies. It is a legitimate strategy to just run at the enemy during the pre-minion spawn top lane brawl in order to speed your way towards your transformation. The most difficult choice in the game will be deciding between immortality and one-shotting enemies. The healing you get as Rhaast from your low spell CDs is nutty while the damage potential from Shadow Assassin is absurd. You also have perhaps the strongest level 1 in the game when everyone separates into lanes, abuse this to the maximum by sitting in the bush and jumping on enemies the second they get in range. You can roam throughout any point in the game and tower dive super safely when you hit 6.

Lee Sin

Although a seemingly mechanical pick, rest assured that in URF you do not need to be Insec in order to play him. Just build full AD or Lethality, hit your Q on squishy targets, Lee-Sin-drome right on in there and press R. If they aren't dead, hit them with another Q and they will be. Nobody plays tanks in URF anyway. Counterplay against this champion is pretty much not allowing him into range to kick you. This becomes much harder against proficient regular Lee Sin players who can use the insanely low cooldown trinkets to close the distance between you to land their kick. Forget about team play and trying to kick the enemy into your team. Kick the enemy into their team and one-shot the lot of 'em.

Lucian

Ready to have your fingers and forearms seize up in a fit of cramps? Lucian is one of the most fun champions to play in this mode. Surrounded by assassins and mages looking to explode you, you build pure damage as Lucian and use your E to stay alive. Simply put, Lucian's E cooldown is negated if he manages to get his passive shots off after using it. His level one all-in 1v1 in unbeatable. He just weaves his passive between Es and becomes too hard to hit with skill shots. If you are a mage, prepare for an agonizing experience as he just slides around. If you are melee, you need to get on top of him and one-shot him, or he is just gonna slide away from you as well. If you are ranged, you need to consider his damage output from his passive constantly being up.

Morgana

Where to start with this pick? Alluding to the earlier point about CC, she negates it with her E. Broken. Furthermore she can even constantly bind chain you with her Q to death if you do not have any tenacity. With her W, she can push waves insanely easily and sustain extremely well in lane. Aside from that, her W only serves to add insult to injury to whoever who is unfortunate enough to get hit by CC within the same screen as her. Her ultimate movement speed can be pretty handy in the beginning, but it tends to fall off as the enemy will likely kill you long before you get in range to use it as the game progresses. That is really all there is to it. That being said, she is really quite weak to enemy champions with high mobility as she is completely reliant on being able to land Q after Q on enemy champions.

Qiyana

This hula hoop repping assassin is no joke. With great mobility and tons of damage, she can happily pick up elements with her W and hurl element after element at her enemy. This combo also constantly refreshes her cooldown which amps up her damage output stupendously. Additionally, her all-ins are lethal if she gets on top of you (which she has no problem doing) with her E since her dash allows her to hit an assured Q. In the side lanes, Qiyana can literally remain permanently invisible by grabbing elements from alternating lane bushes. Finding Qiyana in the jungle in URF is kind of like bumping into Talon in the jungle when playing norms. Tilting. Extremely tilting.

Volibear

Perhaps the only tank on this list. In lane, Volibear has extremely potent poke with his E being invisible till the last second. As tempting as it sounds to go AP, going full tank with 1-2 damage items like Titanic Hydra and Triforce will feel amazing as champions try to kill you to no avail through your microscopic W CD and ginormous HP pool that is further boosted by your E shield and R. I would say that getting on top of people might be a problem, but your Q movement speed buff and R leap are a great boost. Otherwise, run Ghost and spam your reduced CD Flash.

Xin Zhao

Going full crit Xin Zhao is insanely fun. Your biggest obstacle is getting on top of enemies and praying that you do not get one-shot before you reach them. Make no mistake, once you are on top of your enemy, you are unshakable and will likely one shot them without counterplay. With one attack speed item on top of the innate bonus of the game mode, you will knock the enemy up within seconds of reaching them and explode them before they land. Xin Zhao is an insanely strong pick against many of the assassins that roam URF as they tend to be completely reliant on getting within range of Xin Zhao to deal damage. Trust and believe, that is a bad idea.

Yuumi

Simply the most braindead champion in the entire game, Yuumi is so insane in this game mode that she literally makes any champion look busted. The compilations of Yuumi-powered-full-crit-Jhins zipping about one-shotting people are too numerous to count and she can make anyone who decides to build full crit look insane. Trust me, a full-tank-Yuumi-powered Lulu is about the most soul crushing thing you can lose to. There is nothing much more to be said, grab a paper weight and lay it on your W key, press Q and R when you feel like it, runes and spell order are the same, and just build Athene's and as much AP as possible.

Zed

A pick that can make Yuumi mains look like Faker in this game mode, Zed eradicates waves with his spells while forcing the enemy to dance away from wave after wave of shurikens. Once he hits 6, Zed will one-shot you. Period. He will one-shot you and there is little you can do about it. Things might get better once you get a Zhonya's but until then, if he is even remotely close to you, he will at least try to one-shot you. That being said, there is counterplay when playing against Zed. You can always try to time your CC to hit him as he emerges from his ultimate and use that brief duration to one-shot him back. After all, that's all URF is. A series of one-shots after another. Back to Zed, what makes him crazy? Endless shurikens, insane mobility with his W, and safety (which is hard to come by in URF) with his R that helps him one shot you faster. Pretty solid.

Not Busted, but Fun and Strong

Lux

For many of the same reasons that Morgana is busted, Lux can bind you for decades and has an easier time binding enemies due to her Q going through things. Furthermore, she can constantly shield her team which adds up, especially in such a high damage game mode as URF. Her ultimate cooldown also becomes reduced to nearly nothing and can be used on a whim to chunk enemies from such long distances that they haven't the slightest hope of retaliation. Just a quick note, Lux is extremely immobile and therefore gets utterly destroyed by high mobility champions. Against Lucians, you won't be able to hit anything and will literally become a shield bot for your team in between grey screens.

Malzahar

Not going to lie, the more sadistic you are, the more fun this is. If you have had enough of high mobility champions styling on you. Pick this, press R, spam emote. Just make sure you DO NOT BUILD AD while constantly spamming your Q, W, and E. You are super good against assassins and pretty much any champion that doesn't outrange you. That is until they build QSS. That being said, that honestly doesn't happen as often as you think since the phenomenon of people wanting to build pure damage is even more prevalent in URF. Your spell shield passive also hard counters certain champions and is a great safety blanket against other champions with tons of CC and frontloaded burst like Malphite.

Wukong

In the legendary top lane battle before minions spawn, you can feel pretty useless. But it only gets better from there! Once you unlock all 3 of your abilities, thats when the fun begins. You are impossible to escape with your E and W providing tons of mobility and allowing you to stick on top of people as you slowly beat them down with your Q. Thats pretty much it. Your keyboard will get a nice spread of button pressing as all your spells are on relatively low CD. Not to mention, Wukong E gives you even more AS on top of the URF buff which puts your Q on about a 1 second CD. Finally, while constantly fighting your passive healing and resistances are insane, especially against AD opponents.

APM SPAM!

A nice break from the routine of regular summoners rift, URF is actually a great game mode. Nobody tries hard and winning is not the ultimate goal. People are more encouraged to expand and try champions that they may otherwise never have tried and you rarely, if ever, see anyone flame another person. To me, it represents the entire community embracing an attitude of just enjoying the game, which I think is amazing. But if you go full scientist and none of your experiments succeed, rest assured you can always return to the old faithfuls on this list to boost your spirit and the amount of grey screen the enemy sees. Good Luck!