Often, playing League can mean sticking to the same role and the same few champions for hundreds of games on end. If you’re ever feeling like your games are getting too repetitive, it’s nice to have a champion to lock in as a pocket pick or curveball — as something your opponent has rarely seen before to try and gain an outside edge in the laning phase. It can be incredibly beneficial to mix things up in your play once in a while, both to give yourself a new perspective in game and to keep your opponents on their toes.

Top - Lillia

Lillia has been trapped in the jungle since her release, but with some changes to make her difficult kit more accessible, she’s become a niche option in the top lane — one that I can verify is incredibly annoying to play against. Now that Lillia has the ability to clear minion waves, she’s able to act as an oppressive lane bully, excelling in top lane because of the decreased jungle interaction with that role. The constant poke-and-burn from her trade pattern is incredibly hard to deal with for the largely immobile top lane cast, who struggle to trade back against her because of her movement speed.

Essentially, Lillia’s entire game plan is to play tantalizingly out of reach, trading consistently for her Conqueror keystone, but with enough patience to understand that she’s essentially using the lane to scale. Champions like Irelia are largely unable to hit their skillshots on such a mobile target, but Lillia struggles into aggressive opponents with lockdown, like Renekton. Be wary of anything that can shut down your pesky playstyle early, though in experienced hands Lillia should still be able to reach her first two items (Liandry’s Anguish and Demonic Embrace) with relative ease.

Jungle - Pantheon

It’s been a long time since Pantheon was remotely viable anywhere but support, but the last few months have seen him sneak back into Jungle and Mid. Despite some nerfs and role changes, he remains a really fun choice especially if Jungle isn’t your main role — Pantheon is incredibly simple and doesn’t rely on a fast early clear or a complicated path through the jungle. Simply, he runs around the map early and presses W on any enemies he can find, armed with a terrific setup combo for just about any laner in the game.

There’s almost no better feeling than popping out of a bush and nearly one-shotting an ADC who stepped slightly out of position, and Pantheon fulfills that fantasy perfectly. You may struggle to clear your red-side camps like Raptors and Krugs, so focus on getting your buffs and contesting the enemy jungler at Scuttle Crab spawns and other major neutral objectives. Pantheon plays purely to frustrate the enemy, ruining their plans and getting in the way until one of his teammates gets enough of an advantage to win the game — as disruptive as it is for the enemy, it can be immensely satisfying to play.

Mid - Sett

Sett Mid was once immensely popular, as one of the 4 roles he was being infamously flexed between in late 2021. Since a series of nerfs to his itemization and kit, he’s been bouncing around a few different positions, but he’s quietly stayed fairly viable in mid (and stayed one of my personal favorite pocket picks as a mid laner). Sett has always been a terrifying force to reckon with in lane, so taking advantage of that unexpected power early in the game is key and can lead to a massive snowball.

As early as the first wave, Sett wins a brawl with basically any mid lane opponent in the game — starting his E and punching out the largely squishy group of champions that normally head into mid lane. The importance of picks like this is that players in these roles aren’t used to playing against them, so champions with surprisingly high damage or unexpected trade patterns excel at “cheesing” out your opponent. Sett, if piloted correctly, can exploit the inexperience of his opponents and chain kill them — once he gets a lead, he can (at the very least on the cooldown of his flash) instantly kill most mid laners.

Bot - Ziggs

Mages have been niche picks in bot lane for years, but picking Orianna or Syndra sadly isn’t nearly as viable as it once was, because of lower base armor on these mages. However, Ziggs excels as a safe counter-pick to nearly every ADC in the game — as an artillery mage, he can farm well outside the effective range of most bot laners, and outside of the engage range of supports, while stopping engages onto him with his significant zone control. The nature of his laning phase means he’s a guaranteed scaling carry, with terrific wave clear and pick potential later into the game.

Ziggs is certainly the least interactive of the champions on this list, because (especially in bot lane) he spends his time dissuading the enemy team from engaging onto him, rather than finding unexpected trades or bullying them. There are matchups where he can shove waves repeatedly into the opposing duo, proceeding to take advantage of his tower destruction and snowballing his gold lead, but usually jungle intervention best facilitates that. Ziggs is a great way to make sure an enemy Draven or Kalista gets as little as possible out of their early power — they may zone him off the wave, but it’ll hardly ever be far enough to deny him the gold.

Support - Nasus

Nasus support sounds like it makes no sense. The entire character is based around farming champions with his Q, and building up stacks over the course of the game — how could he possibly fit into the role which isn’t supposed to farm a single minion all game? The simple answer is that you don’t need to farm minions. In support, Nasus takes advantage of the incredible utility presented by his W and E (Wither and Spirit Fire), and indexes purely into using them as set-up for strong, physical damage carries.

Nasus’ Wither decreases attack speed and slows so significantly that it’s nearly a stun at max rank, which is why he focuses on leveling it up as soon as possible. In lane, Wither can prevent most ADCs from finding lethal if used correctly, and in combination with Spirit Fire (which decreases targets’ armor), can be a layup for his laning partner. Nasus takes Arcane Comet and plays purely for his W and E, not even putting a point in his Q until he absolutely must — taking advantage of his antiquated, “stat-stick” design to suppress and frustrate enemies. His odd, disruptive playstyle makes him a perfect pick to round out this list.

Conclusion

While I don’t recommend immediately jumping into ranked with any of these picks, enough practice can make them decent curveballs to catch opponents off-guard — not to mention that each of them is incredibly fun, cheeky playstyles to dip into once in a while. I hope you enjoyed reading this list of niche champions for the next time you want to mix it up, and I wish you good luck in trying them out!