No matter what the flavor of the month is, what’s first pick worthy, or where the meta is, some champions always seem to be played. Other champions can suddenly appear as a first pick or ban, or may suddenly disappear from competitive play entirely. What determines whether a champion falls into the former, meta-immune group?

Who just doesn’t want to leave?

When I think of champions who always see competitive play, three names in particular immediately come to mind. Orianna, Thresh and Lee Sin. Granted, Lee Sin might be at his weakest state ever in competitive play being completely outshined by tank junglers but he still saw play for years straight. These are the three champions all have something in common. They can have a significant impact at every point in the game no matter who else is viable.

Orianna is the standard when it comes to control mages. She has an excellent mix of utility and damage throughout the game. Her passive allows her to win any auto attack trade during laning phase. Her high utility between Command: Dissonance, Command: Protect, and Command: Shockwave make her extremely useful throughout the mid and late game with the damage on Dissonance and Shockwave scaling extremely well into the late game. She also sets up for excellent team fights with Shockwave and the area of effect slow/speed boost from Dissonance. The low cooldowns on her Command: Attack, Dissonance, and Protect also allow her to remain relevant at all times during a teamfight.

Thresh acts as the support to which all other supports are compared. While he may lack the area of effect crowd control that most teamfight initiators have, his ability to find that one person out of position and punish them is devastating. The most important part of his pick potential is that he is not forced to commit when he does land a Death Sentence. He can land it, stunning the enemy for a second and a half and stay safe himself during the entire duration. Or he can follow the hook in and drop The Box, placing a massive slow on multiple enemies. Dark Passage also allows his teammates to get out of sticky situations without having to burn a major cooldown.

Lee Sin might be leaving this group because for the first time in years he is being heavily outclassed by other junglers. His strength lies in his early game, in particular, the early 2v2 and 3v3 skirmishes. His early game damage is higher than nearly every other champion making him an excellent duelist from levels one to seven. His mid game with two items is still strong and he can dive the back line and act as a threat to the enemy carries. He can also set up excellent picks in the mid game with his ultimate and the slow off of Tempest/Cripple. This ability still continues into the late game. The reason that Lee Sin has begun to fall out of favor is that people are just too tanky. Lee Sin’s early game is still strong and can be used to quickly snowball lanes with early ganks but once a tank jungler gets two items, Lee Sin gets out scaled. For the first time, he is not the standard to which all junglers are compared.

Why Top Laners and AD Carries can never gain this title

The defining factor of the three champions is that they can have an impact at every point in the game. An AD Carry should never be able to fulfill this quality. They would have to be strong at all points in the game. As an AD Carry, that is fundamentally unbalanced and would be worthy of a ban every single game. This is what Jinx was on release. She was instantly nerfed, with good reason.

Top laners can’t be meta-immune. The choices a top laner makes has become an extremely important part of the meta with the increase in importance of lane swaps. The diversity of these choices has also increased since the convention of top laners with smite became common place. However, for each of these choices that can be made, there is a counter-play. There is no perfect set of choices for top laners which is evident from the evolution of the shotcalling concerning the lane swap. The lane swap has been evolving since it first started to appear at the end of season 2. It continues to evolve. The champion selection has to evolve constantly as a result making it extremely unlikely that any champion could stay relevant in the top lane meta for more than six months.

Who is close to meta-immune?

One thing that allows champions to become meta-immune is utility. The two champions who I think could be added to this group but currently aren’t are Lulu and Azir because of their large amounts of utility. Both bring ranged disengage/peel and some decent engage. Again, the defining factor for a champion to be considered meta-immune is being useful at all points in the game in any meta. Lulu and Azir are close to this.

Lulu has seen play for the past year and a half or so as a solo laner and while she may not have been top tier for the whole time, she was viable. She is able to turn a bruiser into a tank, has solid laning, and can prevent a team fight entirely. She is a relatively low damage champion though when compared to other mid laners. She can be played as a top laner pretty safely but lacks the tankiness of more common top laners. She also hasn’t benefited heavily from the introduction of top lane smite, so she is at a weaker point than usual. However she can also be played as a support making her an excellent flex pick.

Azir is a slightly different situation. He has excellent zone control, possibly the best in the game. His constant long range damage gives him the ability to take down tanks or squishy targets with relative ease. His mobility is lower than that of Lulu but he still has excellent disengage, or counter-engage, with his ultimate, Emporer’s Divide. His safety in long lanes is significantly lower than his safety in mid given his proclivity to push a lane. He has yet to see significant play in the top lane and I don’t believe that’s going to happen anytime soon. He can peel for himself very well which is why he is seeing a fair bit of play at the moment, especially from Easyhoon and Kuro.

I am cautious to include Lulu and Azir in the group of meta-immune champions because it takes a bit of time in game for their utility to build up. The early game is where each of them can lack the overall impact/utility. However, the utility and wave clear that they each bring isn’t needed until the mid and late game. For this reason, they fall into a gray area with Lulu being a little bit closer to the meta-immune group than Azir. Azir also received some pretty significant nerfs after his initial spike in play and has just started to see play again so it will be a few weeks before we can accurately judge his power level. They are extremely strong champions however they each lack that little edge that would include them in the meta-immune group. Lulu lacks the damage while Azir lacks the crowd control.

Why do these meta-immune champions matter?

A professional mid laner should be able to play Orianna. A support should be able to play Thresh. A jungler should have been able to play Lee Sin, although that isn’t critical anymore. These are champions that they can always fall back on regardless of who else is viable. These should be the core of a player’s champion pool because this way, they have something they can play even after a large shift in the meta. Mastery of one of these champions will ensure that your team always has a threat. Players will still need to adapt and develop some picks according to the meta, they should have one of these as the core, if their position allows it. The combination of damage and utility that they can bring is powerful and should be considered when selecting players for a team.