Everyone knows the popular picks in League of Legends, but there are plenty of champions that aren’t at the very top of the metagame that are still powerful but not quite as popular. These champions can win games and throw off opponents that don’t know how to play against them.
From patch to patch, there are some champions that never leave the meta fully. No matter what balance changes are made you’ll find someone locking in a Yasuo or Zed. At the same time, there are champions that are strong, that simply aren’t played enough for players to take full notice of their strength. They don’t appear in the balance changes either, often allowing for those who play those champions to have consistent picks and answers to many situations.
There are picks like that for every role in the game, and as someone who likes to flex between roles often, I’ll take you through some of the picks that I use in each role that feel good to play but are not as popular.
The top lane is perhaps the most volatile lane in the game. Here you’ll find a lot of players that are going to try and solo carry 1v9 the game. The popular picks often revolve around solo carry potential and getting an early lead to snowball out of control. Playing the lane to stay even, and neutralize their pick while providing plenty of utility to your team is an underrated way to play top lane, and there are some champions that do it quite well.
The god of the forge is my first underrated champion for the top lane. There are a lot of things that Ornn does well, and one of them is simply surviving. He is nearly impossible to dive because of how tanky he is naturally. Being able to forge items while staying in the lane is one of the most underrated abilities in all of League. Catching the first couple of waves, and then turning them into an early Bramble Vest or Warden's Mail can nearly eliminate all kill pressure in the top lane and provide Ornn with a free lane to scale.
Ornn’s opponent has to respect his damage as well because if they don’t they will probably be surprised. Stacking Grasp with the brittle auto from Ornn’s W can chunk people surprisingly low, and with the amount of crowd control Ornn brings, there is some solo kill potential with this tank.
Shen does a lot of similar things to Ornn with the added benefit of having a global ultimate. Shen is another champion that is hard to kill early and snowball the lane against. In certain matchups, Shen’s W can completely rid the lane of the opponent’s kill threat. Shen has more room to play offensively in the lane and can get solid damage done by taunting the enemy. I like to rush a Titanic Hydra and then build into full tank with Shen. Titanic Hydra gives Shen a lot of early damage and some bonus health to go with it. Building tank items makes Shen nearly impossible to kill when he has his W available.
Shen has more impact across the map earlier than Ornn with his ultimate. He can turn around a losing fight on the opposite side of the map by shielding his teammate and going in for the taunt. If you are looking to stabilize the lane, but have more global pressure, and some more upfront damage, Shen is a really good champion to pick up.
There is a lot of room for expression in the jungle pool. You can play tanks, assassins, marksmen, mages, and bruisers in the jungle and have success with all of them. Some picks fly more under the radar than some, and in the jungle can be quite oppressive in the right hands.
Being able to play an AP jungle pick is a highly underrated aspect in itself. Many of the popular picks in just about every lane are AD champs, so being able to add some damage diversity from the jungle can really help a team out, and that is where Fiddlesticks makes his entrance.
Fiddlesticks can clear insanely fast and can stay healthy with his W. For the most part, you’ll want to farm up to level six to unlock your ultimate, and that is where the real game begins. For the rest of the game, the opponents will have to track Fiddlesticks for fear of him jumping out of a bush and wiping them. His team fighting makes him stand out from other AP jungle picks like Karthus and Echo. The rest of his kit is not to be messed with either. Fiddlesticks has plenty of crowd control in his kit with a fear and a silence on regular abilities, plus the fact that he fears when attacking from the fog of war.
Fiddlesticks also has the added bonus of his effigies that he can place instead of wards, giving him the ability to confuse the other team with fake flashes and ults, and controlling vision at the same time. If you want to scare your opponents, and make them second guess every bush, while also providing plenty of damage and utility, I would suggest giving Fiddlesticks a try, you might be surprised.
I am also a strong advocate for Zac, whose full name is Zaun Amorphous Combatant, as a jungle pick. Zac has been a solid pick for quite some time now, but he never sees an exceptionally high play rate. Despite being a jungle pick Zac functions as a standard tank, but one with exceptional crowd control.
With his Q Zac has the ability to pull two targets towards one another, which in a team fight scenario is very disruptive. His E allows him to gank his lanes from places that some players might not expect, launching himself over walls and knocking them up while he and his teammates unload all their damage. Zac’s ult bounces him up and down several times, bouncing enemies up with him, doing so on an important target in a fight can make it so they can’t play the game.
One of the most underrated parts of Zac’s kit is his revive passive. It can be used as a get-out-of-jail-free card for Zac, allowing him to go all in, die helping his team win the fight, and then come back to life as if nothing happened. If you are looking for some tankiness and crowd control in the jungle, Zac is one of the best picks available.
Mid is another lane where there are a lot of different options. Most of the time though, having some form of AP scaling or an all-out assassin is what you’ll find yourself playing against. These picks are not only solid options when facing those champions, but can be blinded pretty safely and have high value in the game, but they may not be the first options on everybody’s mind.
The most underrated character in Arcane is also one of the most underrated champions on Summoner’s Rift. Heimerdinger can also be played top lane, but I prefer him as a mid laner.
Once you get your first item it becomes very easy to shove in your lane and poke your opponent out of it. Setting up your turrets correctly can make it nearly impossible for the enemy laner to contest for farm, and poking them with one of his other abilities when they step up causes all the turrets to target them, forcing them back. He has a deceptively short ultimate cooldown, even at early ranks, and has a lot of flexibility on how he wants to use it.
The most underrated part about Heimerdinger mid is how hard it is to gank him. Landing an E on the enemy jungler when they are in the range of his turrets can stop just about any gank in its tracks. If they persist, dropping the empowered turret can almost always turn the fight into a one-for-one in Heimerdinger’s favor. Just running in circles around the turrets as they try to gank you has proven in my experience to get kills. These reasons make Heimerdinger a really safe and strong mid laner, and one of my go-to champs for the mid lane.
In my experience, Xerath is one of the most frustrating champions to play against, so why not pick him up. Xerath also sees playtime as a support, and while that is viable, the added resources of the mid-lane can easily turn him into a monster to play against.
Xerath is a poke monster. He can sit back and farm basically off the screen of any enemy, and later turn into a champion that can kill them from a screen away. Xerath’s passive auto allows him to regain mana to keep the poke up in the lane phase before he even gets any items. Adding to his safety is his E, which stuns whoever it hits, so if he ever has to step up, he has some options to get back to the range that he thrives at.
Xerath can output damage like any other mage can, but the range at which he can do so is what makes him so strong. If you want to be able to tilt your opponents by killing them from a screen away and be safe doing so, give Xerath a try in the mid-lane.
Admittedly, playing ADC is one, if not, the hardest role in the game. More often than not you are relied on as the late game insurance, and at the same time have a massive target on your back because of how squishy the champions are. There are good options to survive the lane and output plenty of damage while you do so, and these are some options that fly under the radar.
Ok, I know Ziggs isn’t AD, but Ziggs as a bot lane carry works quite well. As I said earlier, being flexible enough to pull out AP champions in roles where they aren’t exactly dominant is an underrated skill in itself, and Ziggs is one of the best picks to do it with.
Ziggs is incredibly easy to farm with. He can spam out abilities to last hit, and his passive auto can easily finish off low health minions. He can constantly push in the enemy bot laner, and depending on the champion, it can be really hard for them to farm under tower while Ziggs is constantly chucking bombs. Ziggs comes with the added benefit of being able to shred turrets. Quickly taking the bot turret, and then rotating Ziggs to other lanes to take other towers is really strong, and can get an early gold lead for your team.
Also, because he is a mage, Ziggs can take Teleport to the bot lane, which really helps him out with early mana problems. Being able to back either for your Lost Chapter or an early Tear and Teleport back to lane without missing any of the action can keep the pressure on the enemy carry.
Later into the game, Ziggs can machine gun out spells to poke enemies out before the fight begins, and can finish them off will his ult. Overall, Ziggs can work quite well as a bot lane carry, especially when your team is particularly AD heavy.
Varus never seems to have an extremely high play rate, but I still think he is an underrated option in the bot lane. In the past, and still in ARAM, lethality Varus can quickly delete champions, but I’m advocating for an attack speed build for Varus.
His passive gives him bonus attack speed for non-champion kills, this bonus is increased to 40% when he gets a takedown on a champion. In other words, Varus can attack very, very fast when he gets going. He can quickly turn from an archer to a machine gunner by getting a takedown, and can quickly melt through champions. On top of this, he still has solid poke with his Q even if he doesn’t opt for the lethality build, and it gives him some safe farming earlier on in the game.
Going for an Immortal Shieldbow/Kraken Slayer build with a Rageblade will have you attacking at lightning speed in no time. It’s Varus’ insane attack speed that makes him one of my most underrated champions to play in the bot lane.
A lot of the time supports fall either into one of two categories. Support the bot laner by providing engage/peel, or by simply killing the other bot lane. I’ve picked one of each that I think works pretty well right now.
Pantheon is my “kill you” support. It’s been popular before, seeing professionals even pick it. The pick has tapered off some, but I still think it’s a really good option if you are going for a kill lane.
Rushing an Umbral Glaive can give Pantheon a cheap burst of lethality and vision control, which for a kill lane, is everything he could want. Pantheon has a strong early game, going for empowered W stuns can quickly result in early kills and snowball the game. The lethality build lets him work in a low-resource lane as a support, and still gives him a lot of kill pressure, especially early on.
Once he hits level six, Pantheon’s global means he can help out his mid/jungle if they get into a skirmish and turns him into a solid roaming support pick. Be careful if the game goes late, Pantheon will tend to fall off and struggle against champions that he can’t burst down. For an early game kill lane though, Pantheon is an underrated support pick to get the ball rolling in your team’s favor.
Zilean fits more into the peel type of support. He has solid damage, but his overall utility is incredibly underrated. When used correctly Zilean’s ultimate is one of the best abilities in all of League of Legends. Being able to bring someone back from the dead after the other team puts all of their damage and cooldowns into them is insanely strong.
His E has a ton of versatility, he can speed up his teammates to chase down the enemy, or slow the opponents to a crawl so they can’t escape. Landing a double bomb on multiple people can be an effective engage tool in fights and do some solid damage. Damage is not the main concern with Zilean though, focusing your ultimate usage on the right targets at the right times can win fights and win games.
He scales really well into the late game with his ult cooldown getting low enough for Zilean to use it in just about every fight or skirmish. When in the right hands Zilean can be one of the very best champions in the game from the support role.
These champions tend to fly under the radar when people gauge the strength of champions in the meta, but their kits and playstyles can take over and win games when paired with proper execution. They may not guarantee you more wins, but you may realize these champs are stronger than you once thought.
