Top Lane – Akali
In terms of champion design in general, Akali – an assassin – should never have a win rate too high in solo queue, as she is a champion highly dependent on player skill. However, bestowing her with excessive mobility in the past made Akali more “cancerous” than ever.
After a long time of only reducing peripheral stats like energy regeneration and interactions with AP and AD, Riot finally transformed the first part of R – Perfect Execution into a targetable ability. Since then, Akali’s win rate and pick rate have plummeted dramatically, peaking at version 10.10 when she only had a 2.3% pick rate.
Jungle – Sylas
A significant change in the latest Sylas update that many people overlooked is that all of this champion’s skills no longer grant the ability to regenerate basic attacks; instead, the number of stored passive attacks has increased to 3. This may seem minor, but it makes Sylas much weaker in the jungle during the early game due to his slow clearing speed.
Furthermore, currently, there are too many strong early-game champions like Lee Sin, Rek’Sai, and Xin Zhao along with champions that scale well like Graves dominating the jungle. Sylas fits neither category and remains weak from the beginning to the end of the game; perhaps you should only play this champion when facing Sejuani.
Mid Lane – Lucian
It sounds contradictory, but in reality, Lucian in mid lane is not the most optimal choice in solo queue unless you want to win the lane early and counter specific matchups. The common weakness of ADCs currently is that their items are too expensive and do not provide direct damage. Lucian is a champion that relies solely on damage, but in team fights, this is insufficient as he lacks dangerous crowd control abilities.
An indirect reason why Lucian in mid lane is weaker than in top lane is that it forces your top laner to play champions with strong magic damage. The characteristic of these champions is that they do not perform well against Fighters, so losing lane and subsequently the game is a common occurrence. Perhaps Lucian is only suitable to be picked in certain matchups.
ADC – Kai’Sa
The laning phase is perhaps the most crucial part in solo queue as it almost determines which team has the advantage and which side initiates fights. Therefore, champions that play passively and only farm like Kai’Sa seem to be at a significant disadvantage and often lose the lane. Moreover, with a champion like Kai’Sa that upgrades her skills based on items, falling behind in items due to losing lane is a heavy hit to her power threshold.
Our advice before you decide to lock in Kai’Sa is to ensure you understand this champion well and can lane as effectively as possible. It is best to pair up with a skilled Support player to help you survive the laning phase.
Support – Lux
In fact, Lux is not necessarily a weak champion; if anything, she is strong in lower ranks, but due to various reasons, she currently has the worst win rate among Supports. The primary reason, and the biggest one, lies in the mindset of most Lux players; many have no intention of playing support, but when they find themselves in this position, they have to play it. For such players, understanding what to do during the laning phase or controlling vision is often considered secondary.
This mindset also leads to the second reason why your team’s ADC receives fewer resources and is often neglected, resulting in them falling behind in both kills and power threshold compared to the first game. Perhaps if you genuinely want to play Support, you should choose a champion that can assist your teammates instead of picking Lux out of preference and making life difficult for your lane partner.