Duelists (also known as Skirmishers) are a class archetype in League of Legends that focus on outputting DPS through long, extended fights. Duelists are typically lacking in burst damage and have limited mobility, but they make up for these weaknesses by having sudden and powerful defensive abilities that allow them to survive sticky situations and reach their peak damage output.

While many Duelists call Top Lane home, over the years there have been additions to the duelists category that have expanded their presence across all other lanes in the game. With all these new options, it might be hard to narrow down on which options are best. Or, maybe you’re already an established Duelist main, and are just looking for a familiar playstyle for when you’re off-roled in Solo Queue. Regardless, we’re going to break down the best of these options going into Season 13.

Fiora, the Grand Duelist

We’re starting in Top, and we’re starting with the first Duelist that many think of when the class is mentioned. And it’s totally not just because her title is literally ‘The Grand Duelist’! Okay, jokes aside, Fiora is popping off in our Pre-Patch Meta, and we honestly expect her to stay strong going further into Season 13.

A notorious talking point for this Preseason is how the new Tank items have reintroduced a Tank Meta to the game. While Tanks certainly are capable of reaching tankier heights, I think the jury is still out if we’re officially there just yet. But, while new players toy with the options provided to Tanks, Fiora is feasting.

Fiora is a classic option to counter the game’s most prominent Tank picks and it’s largely due to her ability to instantly minimize any CC with her Riposte, her unique defensive ability that parries, negates, and disables all crippling effects flung her way. And, the cherry on top, if the effect is an immobilizing one, Fiora’s follow up stab *stuns* the opponent she hits, giving her an opportunity for damage.

Riposte essentially removes the primary function from Tanks, their ability to crowd-control. And when you’re playing the entire lane essentially down an ability, things can get rough for you especially since Tanks are notoriously weak laning Champions as it is.

This is all without factoring her high damage output whenever Fiora procs her Vitals that appear around her opponents, which reward her with healing and movement speed. Hitting a Vital allows her to reach her next Vital for more or extend her assault to proc Conqueror and cut down her enemy. So, again, while the community still figures out if Tanks are viable or not, experienced Fiora players are more than capable of reaping the rewards of that experimentation.

Gwen, the Hallowed Seamstress

Staying in Top Lane for just a stitch longer, we’re going to chat about Gwen. Gwen operates a lot like Fiora, in that she’s an excellent option for shredding through Tanks and absolutely dominating them in lane. Through the Pre-Patch and early into Season 13, it’s highly likely that Gwen will remain a significant presence in the Meta by being, perhaps, the best AP option that Duelist Players have available.

But, like with Fiora, let’s talk about Gwen’s defining defensive tool, her W - Hallowed Mists. ‘Gwen is Immune’ is a phrase that gets memed about a lot since it’s literally what is thrown up on screen when Hallowed Mists is active for Gwen. You see, as Gwen is inside her Mist, she’s untargetable to enemies outside the Mists’ large circular range. This means skill-shots, autos, and anything that’s looking to strike Gwen from beyond the mist will simply miss and the phrase ‘Gwen is Immune’ will mock whoever tried.

This makes it hard for Champions to lock down Gwen since she can just instantly drop her mist and be protected for 4 seconds. And to make matters worse, she can move the mist once by moving outside of its range, causing it to adjust to her new position. While she lacks any heavy mobility beyond a simple dash, the movement of her mist can make Gwen extremely slippery in a pinch, almost giving the impression that she has more mobility that she appears to have on paper since she can just approach targets uninhibited if they are foolishly playing outside her mist range.

And, again, there’s a cherry on top. Gwen’s Hallowed Mist also boosts her Armor and MR, so if you decide to get real and get in the Mist with her, she’s going to be harder to put down even if you’re trying to square up. Once you square up, you’re in range for her true damage building passive, the deceptive burst from her Q, and of course, in the perfect range to be shredded down by her ultimate which can receive its full stacks as she snips her way through your exchange allowing for easy reactivations.

Master Yi, the Wuju Blademaster

Moving away from Top and getting into the Jungle, we’re going to find our eyes resting on Master Yi as our best Duelist option for the Jungle. Master Yi has a notorious reputation as a ‘pub-stomp’ Champion that has a highly viable playstyle in the lower ranks of Solo Queue that becomes worse as you climb, allegedly. But, even still, the nature of the Champion makes it so that once you start popping off on Master Yi, there are few compositions that can stop you. Especially in Solo Queue, where it’s common for compositions to feature only one Tank.

Like Fiora and Gwen, Master Yi thrives against Tanks since he can easily shred them down once he gets his core items going. But, unlike Fiora and Gwen, he gets to operate from the Jungle, which gives him one of the safest paths towards his itemization since he doesn’t have to worry about pressure from a lane opponent. Instead, as a Full-Clearing Jungler, Master Yi rewards proper optimization of camp clearing and solid pathing which can translate into faster backs and faster items in the bag. Once you nail down core pieces like Blade of the Ruined King, Guinsoo’s, and Kraken Slayer, Yi’s team-shredding potential is through the roof if anyone can supply a little setup or enemies are foolish enough to walk within his range.

Speaking of being in range of Yi, Yi’s passive, which grants his auto-attacks a double strike every so often, becomes core to his right-click and DPS-focused style. Enemies that approach too closely are setting themselves up to be shredded down quickly by this effect if they’re not respecting its output. But that’s not the most frustrating part about Yi. What really makes him frustrating is his Q - Alpha Strike, which makes YI untargetable, completely removing him from the map during its duration while it slices through nearby enemies. This ability isn’t even Yi’s defensive option but skillful Yi players can utilize it as such, allowing him to get closer to prime targets to hopefully kill them! But wait, there’s more! Whenever Yi lands a kill, Alpha Strike resets allowing him to do it all over granting him more mid-fight elusiveness.

This resetting, damaging, and gap-closing ability makes Yi extremely volatile if he’s allowed into a fight unchecked. Then, when you factor in his actual defensive tool, his W - Meditate, Yi gets even more frustrating since while channeling his Meditate, Yi heals himself and takes extremely reduced damage. Well timed Meditates can be used to soak damage, extend fights, or allow for Yi to catch an assist, resetting his Q for more untargetable shenanigans.

Sylas, the Unshackled

Sliding into Mid Lane, Sylas, again, is a notorious Tank busting Champion that is thriving right now in the Tank Meta. But it’s not just because he possesses the ability to out-maneuver and fight Tanks that makes him so viable in Solo Queue. That’s simply a helpful factor.

What is separating Sylas, and what always will, is his ultimate. For the uniformed, Sylas’ Ult - Hijack, allows Sylas to literally steal an enemy’s ult and use it against them. It also tunes the ultimate to utilize Sylas’ damage scalings, or amps up the damage if it’s already an AP scaling ability. This always assures that Sylas can find some viability in the ultimate he steals since there is a cooldown gimmick that prevents him from just stealing the same ult over and over.

So, as you can imagine, in an atmosphere like Solo Queue where large fight-breaking ults are often the deciding factor in games, Sylas can thrive as a pocket answer to compositions that are looking to abuse the chaotic fighting atmosphere of Solo Queue by banking on Wombo Combo. And tying back to the Tank Meta talk, Tanks have notoriously strong ultimates. Now just imagine if they also nuked whoever they hit too. That’s what Sylas brings to the table and why he’s always going to reign as a top pick for Solo Queue.

And that’s not even talking about his multi-role flexibility between Mid, Top, Jungle, and Support, if you’re feeling cheeky.

Nilah, the Joy Unbound

Though it was tempting to mention the Sword Brothers of Yasuo and Yone, I wanted to highlight Nilah since she’s been quite overlooked since her release. Thankfully, this overlooked status hasn’t really knocked her out of viability since she pairs extremely well with Bot Lane’s premiere Support class, Enchanters… She just doesn’t have the same level of ‘pizzazz’ as other Bot Laners, often being compared as a ‘more boring version of Samira’, which isn’t entirely wrong.

However, Nilah stands on her feet as the defining Bot Lane Duelist and, again as we’ve mentioned, it’s all about her defensive option, her W - Jubilant Veil. Jubilant Veil operates quite similarly to Gwen’s Hallowed Mist, in that it makes Nilah immune to damage. But, unlike Gwen, Nilah’s immunity is entirely centered around auto-attack focused damage. So, while her Veil is active, she’s disarming Marksmen and other Duelists of their primary form of damage output, their auto-attacks, as she gains a burst of movement speed and starts running towards them to whip them down with her own pseudo-melee autos. Oh, and did I mention that she can also grant this to her lane partner too? It’s really neat in a duo setting!

Anyway, package this defensive avoidance alongside a flexible dash that can move to enemies and allies, -and- an ultimate that’s essentially a miniature Diana Ult, and Nilah can just as equally start larger fights as she can clean them up. And since she utilizes Conqueror and her attacks are coded as melee, she quickly stacks up the passive effect, accenting her sustain and damage through most any situation. “Just CC her.” is the name of the game if Nilah gets rolling. You just better hope she’s not packaged with a Sona or Lulu that’s enabling her.

Closing Out

There you have it folks! The hottest Duelists for Solo Queue right now! Again, we expect these already successful picks to remain strong through the Preseason and into the early stages of Season 13. Riot, unless something is absolutely game breaking, is typically a bit reserved with their changes in the early season and will likely hold off judgment on these picks and the strength of Tank Itemization until well into Season 13 where more players are playing to reach their ranked goals.