Disclaimer: It is important to note that this tier list is meant for competitive play and as such Solo Queue data and win rates have no bearing on it.

Baelbad here with another iteration of Cloth5’s Competitive 5v5 Tier Lists.

My intention with these lists is to help shed some light on why certain picks have become popular seemingly without nerfs or buffs as well as which champions have risen to the top due to ability and item changes.

• S-Tier picks are champions that are currently the strongest in their roles. Every team should be prepared to play with and against these champions.
• A-Tier is full of champions that excel at what they are meant to do in the current meta and generally remain strong picks for their respective roles.
• B-Tier is comprised of champions meant to fit into a specific team composition and will generally only be seen as player-specific comfort picks or when better options are banned away.
• C-Tier champions have fallen out of viability in the current meta and will most likely only be seen as team-specific picks in prepared compositions.

TOP LANE	JUNGLE	MID LANE	AD CARRY	SUPPORT
Gragas	Lee Sin	Yasuo	Kog’Maw	Thresh
Lulu	Elise	Twisted Fate	Twitch	Braum
Shyvana				Morgana
TOP LANE	JUNGLE	MID LANE	AD CARRY	SUPPORT
Irelia	Evelynn	Orianna	Tristana	Nami
Dr. Mundo	Rengar	Lulu	Caitlyn	Leona
Nidalee	Jarvan IV	Syndra	Corki	Zyra
Jax	Nunu	Ziggs	Ezreal	Sona
Renekton	Vi	Xerath
Trundle		Ryze
TOP LANE	JUNGLE	MID LANE	AD CARRY	SUPPORT
Ryze	Nocturne	Kassadin	Jinx	Zilean
Kayle	Maokai	Ahri	Vayne	Alistar
Aatrox	Kha’Zix	Zed	Varus	Annie
Yorick	Skarner	Fizz	Draven	Karma
Lee Sin	Xin Zhao	Kayle
	Pantheon	Leblanc
TOP LANE	JUNGLE	MID LANE	AD CARRY	SUPPORT
Rumble	Wukong	Pantheon	Sivir	Gragas
Vladimir	Volibear	Jayce	Miss Fortune	Soraka
Jarvan IV			Graves

Champion Descriptions

Gragas (S) – The Rabble Rouser has proven he can hold his grog in the competitive scene. After some lackluster performances across all regions and mass confusion on how to build the bearded lane bully, Gragas’s identity as a top laner seems to have solidified.

While several builds are still popular on him, schisms in item choice are much more influenced by situational effectiveness rather than confusion. The flexibility in his viable item choices combined with the meta shifting away from top laners splitpushing late-game have catapulted this jolly jiggler back into the spotlight.

Dr. Mundo (A) – With the rise of double AP compositions and the decline of lane swaps, Mundo has thrown himself back into the fray. Zaun’s beloved doctor began to shamble back into the meta as a counterpick to Kayle, but has taken off across all regions as an annoying pick against Gragas and Lulu.

With top laners still favoring teleport over ignite, Mundo is free to simply regenerate all the harass these lane bullies can throw at him with an early Spectre’s Cowl and safely outscale his utility-heavy opponents.

Nidalee (A) – After being disabled for several weeks due to her rework, Nidalee has seen some fringe play in the western regions to varied effectiveness. While having her Aspect of the Cougar available at level one seems to be a boon for the Bestial Huntress, her weaknesses are much more defined post-rework.

Gone are the days of forcing enemies to recall with one successful Javelin toss after ten misses, now Nidalee is forced to jump into the fight in cougar form to make full use of her kit. While her gameplay is definitely a lot healthier to play against, the rework has left Nidalee open to be capitalized upon when jumping in too early.

With more power shifted over to her cougar skills and away from her spears, Nidalee is a champion who tears her enemies apart with a lead and performs about as well as a declawed cat when behind.

Nocturne (B) – While not the strongest or safest pick and extremely vulnerable to early invades, a Nocturne who is allowed to farm up is sure to make the paranoia set in across Summoner’s Rift.

While almost non-existent in terms of early-game pressure, a fast clear speed combined with ample sustain from his passive make the Eternal Nightmare just that. Just as with Evelynn, teams need to invest in deep wards to avoid being blindsided by a Nocturne gank or almost certainly give up a few kills in the laning phase.

The decline of lane swaps and subsequent longer laning phases have made this shadow grow even spookier. Although he is by no means a top-tier pick, Nocturne has found himself more obscured than outclassed.

Maokai (B) – The Twisted Treant may finally get his wish to be returned to the forest. While adding Quill Coat to the game was a step in the right direction for tank junglers, the problems they had before still persist.

Maokai especially exemplifies these issues as once he dives in with Twisted Advance and uses his first rotation of skills, he fails to make much of an impact. Trying to be a frontline tank on a jungle budget is an unattractive option for any champion, and in most cases Maokai has to choose between being safely ignored and being blown up before his ultimate has much of an effect.

With income from a solo lane and an early Rod of Ages, Maokai has the potential to scale into a much stronger mid-late game champion than he would become in the jungle.

Kha’Zix (B) – While Rengar is almost always a better pick for an assassin jungler and Lee Sin for early-game pressure, Kha’Zix has seemingly adapted yet again to his endless balance changes and found a niche for himself.

The Voidreaver’s new style of play revolves around evolving wings first and using his ultimate in conjunction with the Leap resets to skulk around the edge of fights and ideally isolate targets. Evolving Spike Racks second allows for the unseen menace to acquire even more resets with his handy area of effect slow and potentially kite wounded targets into isolation range.

There aren’t a lot of good ways to deal with the bug besides blowing him up immediately (and most likely investing valuable cooldowns). While Kha’Zix assures us that change is indeed good, he’s only a pest compared to the dominant menace we saw earlier this year.

Orianna (A) – Even after the Athene’s nerfs, Orianna remains a reliable and versatile pick against almost every mid laner. With champions like Syndra, that have high kill potential in lane becoming more popular, the Lady of Clockwork is safe to deny them these opportunities and farm safely.

Her Command: Shockwave has the potential to turn teamfights on their heads and is a consistent threat when fighting over objectives or in the jungle. An Orianna that can correctly position The Ball offers strong zone control and can often prevent picks from happening.

Orianna lacks the clear weaknesses that other popular mid laners possess and will remain a strong general pick against a variety of team compositions.

Xerath (A)  –  Long-range mid laners are becoming popular as of late, relying more on sitting in lane and farming up rather than roaming across the map and making plays.

While far from the flashiest champion, Xerath is a slow-moving siege engine of destruction that is hard to jump onto and dangerous to lock down due to his heavy point blank damage. Although not as waveclear-heavy as a champion like Ziggs and much less effective at stalling games, Xerath offers more reliable poke and stronger siege potential than his explosive counterpart.

Expect to see Xerath make arcane magic rain from the skies when the mad bomber is banned away.

Ahri (B) –  Assassins still suffer from the need to make plays in the current meta. Where champions like Xerath and Orianna can simply sit in mid lane and farm up with blue buffs ticking, Ahri has to roam effectively and create map pressure in order to reach the same level of effectiveness.

While assassins do carry an inherent risk with playing them, the threat of a Charm coming out in lane and getting chunked to death by the Nine-Tailed Fox is very real. Champions that do rely on “simply” farming will find it difficult to do against the hyper-mobile kitsune once she gets a lead.

Even with as little as a Fiendish Codex in her inventory, Ahri is a threat that should not be taken lightly and needs to be heavily warded against to prevent being picked off.

Tristana (A) – This little blue Yordle has made fireworks in the competitive scene since the ADC itemization changes. While her powerspike of Infinity Edge/Statikk Shiv comes a bit later than that of other marksmen, her insane scaling combined with the potential resets on her Rocket Jump make Tristana a priority pick as games start to go longer.

Although weaker than Twitch in terms of pick potential and lacking in poke compared to Kog’Maw, the sheer amount of damage the Megling Gunner outputs lategame is too much of a threat for most teams to stack up against.

With her popularity sure to rocket upwards as Lucian moves away from bot lane, Tristana will not run out of targets to gun down anytime soon.

Ezreal (A) – Seeing an Ezreal pick do just okay in professional play is common, but seeing one be dominant is a true display of skill. Essence Flux allows him to add a fair bit of siege potential to any composition and the mobility afforded by Arcane Shift makes the Prodigal Explorer an asset against any pick composition.

Despite the changes to Essence Reaver making it slightly less gold efficient, it building out of B.F. Sword and becoming more slot efficient makes it a more attractive pickup for champions like Corki and Ezreal. A blue build Ezreal is able to single-handedly control the pace of fights when played correctly and his kiting prowess is unmatched.

While his up-front burst damage is lower than that of most other carries, his ability to dance around the edge of fights and consistently apply sustained pressure with his Mystic Shot and Sheen procs allow Ezreal to fill an interesting niche for a marksmen.

Jinx (B) – Having a late-game Jinx on your team is definitely something to get excited about, her problem lies in getting there safely. A Jinx that is safe to stand at the back of teamfights and fire Fishbones into reset after reset is incredibly dominant, but in competitive play that fight is unlikely to happen in the first place.

Jinx has always suffered from her conditional mobility and popular picks like Rengar are able to limit her effectiveness drastically by locking her down for his team to finish off before a fight even starts.

However, she still remains a popular pick in North America especially due to her damage potential than her safer counterparts and will not be zapped out of the meta anytime soon.

Morgana (S) – How the Fallen Angel has avoided balance changes for so long is beyond me. Her Dark Binding alone can change the entire course of a fight and create picks for her team to initiate and capitalize upon at a ridiculous range.

Black Shield offers a unique utility to shut down teams that rely on one form of crowd control for initiation as well as allowing her carry to farm safely during the laning phase.

Allowing a Morgana to flash onto your team and live through the entire duration of her Soul Shackles is one of the easiest ways to lose a fight, and the counters she provides to popular picks like Thresh and Braum make her an amazing pick now that lane swaps are less common and Nami has fallen out of favor.

Zilean (B) – The Chronokeeper was one of the champion placements that caused the most uproar on the last tier list, so I owe you guys the time to explain it.

If the only skill Zilean had was Chrono Shift, he would still offer something no other champion can and remain a mid-tier pick. His unique utility is even more exaggerated by Rewind reducing the cooldown of all his abilities and Time Warp offering a 55% slow/haste for a maximum of 5.5 seconds.

Having a carry like Twitch or Kog’Maw kite whoever comes at them for the first 5 seconds of a fight and then respawn as soon as they finally get pinned down is incredibly valuable and will single-handedly decide the teamfights 40+ minutes into a match that have come to decide games in the current meta.

The incredibly annoying unavoidable damage from Time Bomb is just an added bonus early in lane. While it is ridiculous to expect Zilean to be a contested pick, a prepared Zilean pick wins games and earns him a position at the top of B-tier.