Today we’re sitting down and analyzing the LCS. However, instead of looking at players and results, we’re looking at Champions. With the playoff bracket set, we now are able to eye the stats from the regular season and see what Champions were focused in the LCS Meta, and which of those work best in Solo Queue through comparing Solo Queue stats!

So, before we jump into things, I want to preface as I have with any guide or tier list that I’ve done with our previous players like Blue and Biofrost, that you can climb with any pick. Just because it’s meta in LCS doesn’t mean it’s strong in Solo Queue, where the level of play is much more chaotic. But, by comparing both LCS presence in terms of picks and bans with Solo Queue win rate and presence as well, we can decipher which LCS picks can work well for our efforts to climb in Ranked.

One more stop before we go further, let’s define what we’re classifying as a ‘good’ Solo Queue pick. Barring an exception or two, I’ll be defining ‘good’ Champions for you to pick-up based on their current winrate on U.GG with our baseline being at a 51% winrate and then by comparing the Champions placements through various popular tier lists, such as U.GG’s own. When it comes to Tier ranking, we’re wanting one of the following rankings: A, S, or S+ to consider the Champion worthy of our time. And of course, as of the writing of this piece it is Patch 12.15 so we’ll be utilizing data from this patch, but if there are reflections on nerfs or buffs that we believe will strongly affect a Champion, we’ll give a nod to those if their listing counters the established benchmark of the 51% winrate.

Now, without further ado, let’s jump into things with the following graphic:

This chart, provided from gol.gg, gives us the entire scope of the LCS regular season in terms of picks and bans. From here, it’s a simple matter of scouting through the picks and bans and finding which Champions meet our benchmark requirements, either 51%+ or within A or better tiers.

And I did the hard work for you:

All of these Champions are regarded by U.GG’s tier list within our designated tiers, or otherwise have a win rate of 51%+ within one of their prominent roles. Now that we’ve got them here, let’s go one list further and define them by their most successful roles. Our role list will feature the Champions in the lane where they hold the highest win rate. This might mean that the sample size is a little lower in some cases to the Champion’s most popular role, but if there is a reason to put a heavy amount of doubt on the success in the off-role, we’ll mention it further down.

And here are you Champions organized by their most successful roles:

With all this in hand, I highly encourage you to pick up ANY of these picks. Especially if they’re a Champion you enjoy. If you enjoy a Champion, you’re more likely to have fun which is going to make you more receptive to learning and improving. And that’s what we’re ultimately all about. But, this is also an opinion piece, so we’re going to pluck out a Champion from each of these roles that we suggest you focus on.

Top Lane - Wukong, the Monkey King

Wu sets off our Top Lane recommendation for being a very straightforward Champion. He’s also one that can be a bit tricky in the middle of a fight while also possessing a ton of fight impact. Naturally, the trickiness of Wukong comes from his W, Warrior Trickster, which allows Wu to become invisible and dash a short distance towards the direction your cursor is in. This ability was updated some time ago to allow Wu to jump over small walls too, so with this ability to reposition and take better angles. So, Wu can now get on top of the carry targets he wants to be on with extreme ease and, of course, once there, his ultimate is fight breaking. Wu’s Cyclone can come from both him and his clone provided by his W, so you can simultaneously impact the frontend and backend of a fight if you’re smart at positioning.

You couple all this teamfight ability with the fact that Wu’s damage is largely auto-attack based and you’ve got the perfect formula for a Champion that is both easy and highly impactful. It’s even better when you factor in his flexibility into Jungle and Mid from our listed position of Top where he can take the most favorable matchup and be successful while being a great draft piece.

Jungle - Trundle, the Troll King… KING!!!

Trundle, like Wu, comes in here with role flexibility being able to be played Top and Jungle. We’ve got him listed at Jungle above since it fits in line with our most dominant role requirements, but the margin between the two positions is very small and you can play him in either to similar success. But what makes Trundle so Meta impacting for both LCS and Solo Queue is his ability to absolutely demolish and remove Tanks from the game… And did I mention he’s also really easy to play?

Trundle’s ultimate, Subjugate, removes a target’s Health, Armor, and Magic Resistance over a short period and gives it to Trundle while doubling the stolen stats. This turns Trundle into a giga-tank that deals a ton of damage since his natural build paths are that of a bruiser. What makes this worse is that he doesn’t even need a tank on the enemy team to be successful, since he can just steal the stats of a primary enemy carry and make them a prime target to be blown up by the rest of his team. This all goes without mentioning Trundle’s pillar which can be extremely ‘troll’ to deal with for the enemy at times and is great at denying chokes, blocking escape paths, and if you’re good, interrupting some high impact dash abilities.

Mid - Swain, the Noxian Grand General

Swain’s presence in the Mid Lane has been defining since his mid-scope update making him a premiere piece in the Mid Lane meta. And he also carries the role flexibility of being able to go Top, Bot, or Support with a flip of the rune page. Swain himself also fits into our ‘ease of access’ mind when considering our Champion suggestions since his kit isn’t particularly difficult to wrap your mind around, but it is important to note that all of his setup and the majority of his damage comes from skillshots, so you do have to be on your game in that regard.

Swain basically swamps over the majority of the Mid Lane pool once he reaches Level 6 or his mythic item. The Grand General ascends from being this short-range Battlemage that’s scratching you all lane, to being this outright DPS-Drain Tank Hybrid Demon God that makes you question your life’s choices. And when considering Mid Lane, since he typically comes packaged with Flash and Ghost, he’s making up for his lack of mobility by being able to stick to you even after you’ve used yours to get out of his deadly range.

Bot - Sivir, the Blade Mistress

While I was tempted to slot Seraphine here, I’m more inclined to throw in Sivir when considering our picks above. In fact, we’re making a rather juicy team comp here as we descend down the list, huh? Anyway, Sivir’s Mid-Scope Update has taken her to god tier like Swain and, even after nerfs from Riot, she remains a fixture in Bot Lane’s meta.

Sivir possesses an insane ability to remain safe all laning phase thanks to her spell shield. And she’s quite flexible in Support pairings, since her early game damage is respectable enough to play off the back of all-in Champions like Nautilus or Leona, or she can sit back and safely scale up into the AoE-Crit Machine Gun that her update intended for her to be alongside the likes of Soraka or Yuumi. Really, besides her ability to pump out tons of damage, this is probably the key component that keeps Sivir so prevalent. She can just simply ‘work’ with whatever your Support is wanting to play. And since she can enable and help defend her allies with her ultimate, On The Hunt, she’s a next-level, team-focused pick which is great in today’s cluttered teamfight meta.

Support - Renata Glasc, the Chem-Baroness

While my heart is screaming for me to put Sona on this list since her face is up there, she didn’t actually have a ton of Pro Play presence and we’re talking about picks with good presence in Pro Play that are good for Solo Queue… can’t lose sight of that. (I’m sorry fellow Sona Mains. At least we got our Star Guardian skin, right?)

Anyway, Renata is a perfect Champion for the Meta right now. While she suffers against traditional Enchanter matchups, with a lot of the other lanes in League right now featuring heavy auto-attack focused Champions like Wukong, Trundle, Master Yi, the Weeb Sword Brothers Yasuo and Yone, Diana, Kai’sa, and more. Renata’s ability to just press R and sweep a teamfight is phenomenal when lined up in these conditions, and that’s entirely disregarding her strong laning ability where she serves as flex between a pick-Champ and an Enchanter herself. You couple all this with her ability to pair with the top tier ADCs/Bot Laners right now and really enable them, then you’re high on your way to ranking yourself up a whole tier if you focus on master Renata.

In an added bit of info, Renata possesses a 52%+ winrate with each Champion listed in our ADC role with her highest being Nilah and Seraphine at 55% overall for both.

Closing Out

So, there you have it. The Pro Pick-Ban Data, the Champion Suggestions, the clarification as to what makes those Champions so impactful.. It’s all there for your viewing pleasure. We hope you guys take what’s provided here and have a good time climbing with any of the picks discussed here or listed on our tiermaker lists. Just remember, what’s most important is that you have fun. So, even if you’re rocking out on a Champion that has a 45% win rate, as long as you’re out to improve and have fun, you’ll reach your end of season goals.

Cheers guys, good luck in Solo Queue