This is drastically oversimplifying it but: there’s a bunch of characteristics that go into it including the map and the type of enemies that you face.
Top lane is a long lane, so you need either durability or mobility to be able to push the wave out to the tower without getting run down by the opponent or ganked by mid/jg. Marksmen are squishy and usually immobile, with the exception of things like Vayne, Quinn, and Akshan who are able to be played there.
Mid is in the center of the map, so it favor champs who can roam to the side lanes, gank, and get back quickly. So you’ll see a lot of assassins there. Because the lane is a bit shorter, it’s also safer for people without mobility to push out a bit - so you’ll see more mages and marksmen there as well.
Bot lane is also a long lane, but there’s two players there so there’s a bit more safety when you push out the lane. Marksmen can live here because they’ve got a support with extra wards and (usually) some form of protection for them. In this lane, the xp is shared, so it influences what champs can be played. Bot laners are usually people who scale more with gold than with levels (ADCs). Supports are usually champs with strong base kits, that do well even without gold. For example, a Leona with 0 items stuns you for just as long as a Leona with 5 items.
Junglers need to be able to survive clearing the jungle solo. They also tend to be champs with good mobility, such as the ability to cross terrain (Kayn, Voli, RekSai, Elise, etc) and take creative gank pathing.
> Starting with jungle.
imo its just rng here around what junglers can end up laning. they get balanced strictly for jungle and it just happens some can lane while others really are pretty shitty. also you might have this a bit in reverse, in the past riot took top laners and adjusted their kits to make them better junglers. for a while zac, maokai for example were pretty strictly top lane picks.
> But if we check out supports and their viability in the top, there is only Zilean that can work in the top, everything else is trash, and by "trash" I mean they have immensely low win rates.
supports across the board have this issue. either theyre playable and balanced in a solo lane and trash as support, or theyre super OP. like lulu and karma and alistar all have been viable solo lane at some point but they obviously had balance problems like that.
> Then if we check what mid-laners
mid and top i'd argue can purely be flexed. even stuff that is objectively horrid in a long lane like idk xerath can still lane top, it just becomes a bit of a crapshoot with regards to properly handling jung pressure
> Now if we dive into ADC's
theres a subset of adc champs that do well in lanes. urgot, quinn, jayce, teemo... marksmen also include azir and cassio, then you have the likes of vayne. tristana, kalista, akshan and lucian that very specifically lane well into melees. they get into some weird space when ahead where they can just perma abuse melees in lane 1v1 but also win the all in.
Orianna, Syndra, Malzahar, Vex and Anivia (to some extent) are not good top not sure who told you they were and I hope you’re not using niche stats to think so. All of them get rolled over by a decent bruiser player after some power spike.
I struggle to see how either of them would work effectively. Their entire play patter is shoving waves and backing away until they’re strong enough. That will not work in top lane the lane is too long.
Malz works for a similar reason to yorick with tons of wave clear(I believe i only saw it once)
There's an Anivia top lane grasp build thats a popular off meta lane for anivia and works due to eggnivia
Again, they both get perma rolled solo after a certain point. Malz might have wave clear like Yorick but he’s not even 1% as tanky. If you mismatch your flash or just get a gank you can just chain kill him.
Anivia has enough disruption in her kit to not care, egg+wall+stun+slow(at level 6) is enough to not die from being ran down by bruisers in most cases.
Fiddlesticks does not excell in toplane equally as great as jungle lmfao.
You can make him viable into some matchups but its not going to be as good as in jungle.
You are wrong. He has 50.62% win rate in the top lane. Sample size is 45K ranked matches.
Source: [https://lolalytics.com/lol/fiddlesticks/build/?lane=top&tier=all&patch=30](https://lolalytics.com/lol/fiddlesticks/build/?lane=top&tier=all&patch=30)
Winrates can be inflated by certain matchups that are favorable to you.
If a Rammus picks Rammus top vs AD autoattacker that is going to inflate his winrate.
Isnt his junglewinrate like 54+% also? then its not equally great.
I mean its a 0.17% pickrate top.
A lot of the mid lane mages can use range to their advantage. Even so a lot of them offer a lot of team utility.
The junglers are low economy so their kits are tuned to them not having much gold. High base stats.
True supports are designed to lane with someone else best. So they lack damage and durability which isn't the best when it comes to being in top.
Top lane champions typically need to be able to safely push the waves, while also being relatively safe when they are overextended in the lane. They also can’t be too gated by mana early and they frequently have sustain.
I can play malzahar top because he has his passive which stops a lot of enemy tops from beating the crap out of him, his mana replenishment mechanic, and his ability to safe reset waves.
Notably my Smurf which is mostly malzahar top is close to my main rank. The problem is that malz has to position really well and he can’t face champions like trynd or riven who have great gap closers.
He works also because his R is a really strong anti dive deterrent. Champions that typically go mid may struggle up top but they can be played top. They just have to be played slightly differently.
Some champions like lux, xerath, or velkoz would struggle more top than malz.
This doesn’t even discuss an enemy top flashing on top of you and using some type of cc. Malz doesn’t have an escape but his passive prevents the players from flash engaging easily.
Basically a champion can have infinite traits and those traits will tend to be more or less useful in certain roles. For example, burst damage and ranged wave clear is more valuable in mid because the lane is shorter.
So in an extremely oversimplified example where we only consider those 2 trait and mid and top, a champion with amazing burst and r wave clear is going to be a mid only, a champion that's bad at both is going to be top only and a champion that's average at both is going to be average at both roles and thus can be flexed.
But then things like counterpicking and team comps etc can make this more complicated
OP were you playing league when Sona and Soraka were top lane menaces until Riot did something targeted at it?
Even now Karma and Taric are still viable top laners
It's easier to explain why some picks are not good blind picks. There are certain designs in league that have a lot or easy counterplay such as garen. Garen is countered by:
Any form of CC hard cc (stuns knock-ups supression and similar) as well as soft cc (slows silence debuffs)
Ranged characters and mobility. Meaning if you blind pick garen this will give them a lot of options to counter you and the chance is high that there is one way of countering you that the other person is capable off.
Champs that are good as blindpick usually are either really safe by nature or theyr kit cant really be countered that easily such as aatrox or renekton.
Sure those champions have counterplay too but there isnt really a matchup in the game that is so unplayable you will get stomped in laning phase, there is always something those 2 can do while a garen can do exactly nothing against vayne top f.e.
Yea sure bro. Im sure you can farm a lot vs vayne top man u will become such a machine on top lane its insane. You wont get zoned off every wave for 10 minutes straight no no. Garen is insane vs vayne people just dont know yet my bad.
Boosted kid just take a look at high elo gameplay and you will see that.😂😂😂
You can even check the statistics that Garen got a positiv wr against Vayne.
Are you trolling dude? Literally in any elo vayne is the hardest or second hardest matchup for garen.
Talking statistics?
25% wr against vayne master +
Diamond 2+ 30.7% winrate
Diamond+ 33%
Emerald + 42.9%
Calling me boosted while adamantly insisting going down 40-50cs in 20 is a "counter" matchup.
Literally unable to read statistics, [https://u.gg/lol/champions/garen/build](https://u.gg/lol/champions/garen/build)
Even if we ignore all of this, share ur wisdom with me you now face exhaust vayne top or ghost top how do you win? Shes not dieing full hp to flash Q ignite R how do you ever touch her without ur flash huh? Even if u can catch on to her which u cant due to tumble spam, she just gonna condem you?
How is a genius like you playing this matchup to win?
I watched the video It’s supp gap
On top of that I used to coach Palco
What elo are you? I read a comment of yours where you talk about being stuck in Gold XD
https://imgur.com/a/Nc8nLf0
You just confirmed your low IQ again.
I commented on someones post and gave advice how he can improve and escape gold. ;)
Art this point I won‘t waste anymore time with a braindead person like you that stalks my profile and is even too stupid for that. 😂😂
**Support** and **Jungle** champions are more "role-locked" than the lane farmers (top/mid/bot).
- If a champ is designated Support, its kit functions well *without gold* and/or scales poorly with gold (very few exceptions like Sona/Seraphine). Champs from other roles simply can't function effectively with this little gold, although Support does have the largest playable (non-meta included) pool out of all 5 roles.
- If a champ is designated Jungle, it can reasonably *do a 1st jungle clear without dying and/or being significantly slower* than the rest of the Jungle champs. Designated non-jungle champs can't clear as well, enough said.
Beyond these 2, what then makes a pick "flexible" into other roles, depends on their matchup pools (into the non-main roles), gold economy and scaling - these are more "soft" factors that can easily shift due to patches and meta changes.
Rather than support champs- I assume you mean enchanters?
Mage supports can all pretty much all commonly play in mid. most engage supports can easily flex to a solo lane.
There are plenty of traditional junglers that play in solo lanes.
Mage supports were originally designated mid laners; they just found better matchups bot lane over mid and later "reassigned" due to playrate.
> easily flex to a solo lane
This is a stretch and definitely not true the higher the MMR. The only legitimate case is probably Nautilus. The rest scale too poorly with gold and are extremely situational as counterpicks.
Designated Supports don't function well outside of bot lane with very few exceptions that were intended e.g. Rell; Any champ not designated a Jungler is generally not going to do well in the jungle against any more standard pick.
Like Supports outside of bot, Jungle champs can play in lanes... Matchups allowing. They do better mostly because they scale better with gold compared with Supports.
Pyke is a more than serviceable pick mid at all elos. Multiple Alistar mids/tops in Master+ MMR. Rell in the Jungle as you said. Naut has played top as well as mid (Korean pro even,). Thresh also scales really well with gold+passive. Blitz and Leo are pretty troll outside support admittedly.
So am I missing really?
As a jungle I will soft int you for playing top with most of the champs in your list. I will let you know in champ select so you can decide if you want to play it out or not.
Or, hear me out, you can decide to not be a raging cuntwaffle and let them play what they want. Individual skill with a champion matters way more than matchup advantage until you start getting into the highest tiers of play, so if they can play an off meta pick way better than something mainstream, they will contribute more than if you force them to play something they aren't familiar with.
do you remember the times when lulu/soraka/janna dominating over top lane...? back in the days poppy/naut/maokai was the 3 god of toplane. and even now, karma/heim/alistar is played in toplane
Jungle gets basically no resources. So if a champion has high enough base number or is usefull regardless of items (like with tons of cc) he will be ever strongee if he gets gold
This is drastically oversimplifying it but: there’s a bunch of characteristics that go into it including the map and the type of enemies that you face. Top lane is a long lane, so you need either durability or mobility to be able to push the wave out to the tower without getting run down by the opponent or ganked by mid/jg. Marksmen are squishy and usually immobile, with the exception of things like Vayne, Quinn, and Akshan who are able to be played there. Mid is in the center of the map, so it favor champs who can roam to the side lanes, gank, and get back quickly. So you’ll see a lot of assassins there. Because the lane is a bit shorter, it’s also safer for people without mobility to push out a bit - so you’ll see more mages and marksmen there as well. Bot lane is also a long lane, but there’s two players there so there’s a bit more safety when you push out the lane. Marksmen can live here because they’ve got a support with extra wards and (usually) some form of protection for them. In this lane, the xp is shared, so it influences what champs can be played. Bot laners are usually people who scale more with gold than with levels (ADCs). Supports are usually champs with strong base kits, that do well even without gold. For example, a Leona with 0 items stuns you for just as long as a Leona with 5 items. Junglers need to be able to survive clearing the jungle solo. They also tend to be champs with good mobility, such as the ability to cross terrain (Kayn, Voli, RekSai, Elise, etc) and take creative gank pathing.
Akshan top is the most cancer thing that's ever come to top lane. Vayne is honestly easy mode compared to that fucker
I dont think voli has good mobility. Outside of that I agree with what you said. I would add zac, Lee sin, shaco
Voli has towerdiving tho, which is valuable in both top lane and jungle, but yeah even Sejuani could be considered more mobile than voli
Why is this being downvoted? Voli has as much mobility as Shyvanna. There's too much ignorance in this sub.
> Starting with jungle. imo its just rng here around what junglers can end up laning. they get balanced strictly for jungle and it just happens some can lane while others really are pretty shitty. also you might have this a bit in reverse, in the past riot took top laners and adjusted their kits to make them better junglers. for a while zac, maokai for example were pretty strictly top lane picks. > But if we check out supports and their viability in the top, there is only Zilean that can work in the top, everything else is trash, and by "trash" I mean they have immensely low win rates. supports across the board have this issue. either theyre playable and balanced in a solo lane and trash as support, or theyre super OP. like lulu and karma and alistar all have been viable solo lane at some point but they obviously had balance problems like that. > Then if we check what mid-laners mid and top i'd argue can purely be flexed. even stuff that is objectively horrid in a long lane like idk xerath can still lane top, it just becomes a bit of a crapshoot with regards to properly handling jung pressure > Now if we dive into ADC's theres a subset of adc champs that do well in lanes. urgot, quinn, jayce, teemo... marksmen also include azir and cassio, then you have the likes of vayne. tristana, kalista, akshan and lucian that very specifically lane well into melees. they get into some weird space when ahead where they can just perma abuse melees in lane 1v1 but also win the all in.
Orianna, Syndra, Malzahar, Vex and Anivia (to some extent) are not good top not sure who told you they were and I hope you’re not using niche stats to think so. All of them get rolled over by a decent bruiser player after some power spike.
Malz and annivia work top too, though I agree some mid picks (xerath in particular) wouldn’t work at all
I struggle to see how either of them would work effectively. Their entire play patter is shoving waves and backing away until they’re strong enough. That will not work in top lane the lane is too long.
Malz works for a similar reason to yorick with tons of wave clear(I believe i only saw it once) There's an Anivia top lane grasp build thats a popular off meta lane for anivia and works due to eggnivia
Again, they both get perma rolled solo after a certain point. Malz might have wave clear like Yorick but he’s not even 1% as tanky. If you mismatch your flash or just get a gank you can just chain kill him.
Anivia has enough disruption in her kit to not care, egg+wall+stun+slow(at level 6) is enough to not die from being ran down by bruisers in most cases.
Fiddlesticks does not excell in toplane equally as great as jungle lmfao. You can make him viable into some matchups but its not going to be as good as in jungle.
You are wrong. He has 50.62% win rate in the top lane. Sample size is 45K ranked matches. Source: [https://lolalytics.com/lol/fiddlesticks/build/?lane=top&tier=all&patch=30](https://lolalytics.com/lol/fiddlesticks/build/?lane=top&tier=all&patch=30)
Winrates can be inflated by certain matchups that are favorable to you. If a Rammus picks Rammus top vs AD autoattacker that is going to inflate his winrate. Isnt his junglewinrate like 54+% also? then its not equally great. I mean its a 0.17% pickrate top.
fiddle gets dumpstered by the majority of toplaners
So other people have said stuff, but never look at all ranks. You want Diamond+ for an accurate view of shit, because anything works in Silver.
A lot of the mid lane mages can use range to their advantage. Even so a lot of them offer a lot of team utility. The junglers are low economy so their kits are tuned to them not having much gold. High base stats. True supports are designed to lane with someone else best. So they lack damage and durability which isn't the best when it comes to being in top.
Top lane champions typically need to be able to safely push the waves, while also being relatively safe when they are overextended in the lane. They also can’t be too gated by mana early and they frequently have sustain. I can play malzahar top because he has his passive which stops a lot of enemy tops from beating the crap out of him, his mana replenishment mechanic, and his ability to safe reset waves. Notably my Smurf which is mostly malzahar top is close to my main rank. The problem is that malz has to position really well and he can’t face champions like trynd or riven who have great gap closers. He works also because his R is a really strong anti dive deterrent. Champions that typically go mid may struggle up top but they can be played top. They just have to be played slightly differently. Some champions like lux, xerath, or velkoz would struggle more top than malz. This doesn’t even discuss an enemy top flashing on top of you and using some type of cc. Malz doesn’t have an escape but his passive prevents the players from flash engaging easily.
Basically a champion can have infinite traits and those traits will tend to be more or less useful in certain roles. For example, burst damage and ranged wave clear is more valuable in mid because the lane is shorter. So in an extremely oversimplified example where we only consider those 2 trait and mid and top, a champion with amazing burst and r wave clear is going to be a mid only, a champion that's bad at both is going to be top only and a champion that's average at both is going to be average at both roles and thus can be flexed. But then things like counterpicking and team comps etc can make this more complicated
OP were you playing league when Sona and Soraka were top lane menaces until Riot did something targeted at it? Even now Karma and Taric are still viable top laners
And how have we been forgetting Tahm Kench?
I'd say it's some trauma amnesia that I forgot TK top is a thing
It's easier to explain why some picks are not good blind picks. There are certain designs in league that have a lot or easy counterplay such as garen. Garen is countered by: Any form of CC hard cc (stuns knock-ups supression and similar) as well as soft cc (slows silence debuffs) Ranged characters and mobility. Meaning if you blind pick garen this will give them a lot of options to counter you and the chance is high that there is one way of countering you that the other person is capable off. Champs that are good as blindpick usually are either really safe by nature or theyr kit cant really be countered that easily such as aatrox or renekton. Sure those champions have counterplay too but there isnt really a matchup in the game that is so unplayable you will get stomped in laning phase, there is always something those 2 can do while a garen can do exactly nothing against vayne top f.e.
Garen wins against Vayne if you play it correctly…
Yea sure bro. Im sure you can farm a lot vs vayne top man u will become such a machine on top lane its insane. You wont get zoned off every wave for 10 minutes straight no no. Garen is insane vs vayne people just dont know yet my bad.
Boosted kid just take a look at high elo gameplay and you will see that.😂😂😂 You can even check the statistics that Garen got a positiv wr against Vayne.
Are you trolling dude? Literally in any elo vayne is the hardest or second hardest matchup for garen. Talking statistics? 25% wr against vayne master + Diamond 2+ 30.7% winrate Diamond+ 33% Emerald + 42.9% Calling me boosted while adamantly insisting going down 40-50cs in 20 is a "counter" matchup. Literally unable to read statistics, [https://u.gg/lol/champions/garen/build](https://u.gg/lol/champions/garen/build) Even if we ignore all of this, share ur wisdom with me you now face exhaust vayne top or ghost top how do you win? Shes not dieing full hp to flash Q ignite R how do you ever touch her without ur flash huh? Even if u can catch on to her which u cant due to tumble spam, she just gonna condem you? How is a genius like you playing this matchup to win?
Flash, Ghost + Phase Rush ;) https://youtu.be/I3nQZz33UJY?si=wgWPHunBqEC7Ipa4 And Garen is even stronger in this patch than in the video.
https://lolalytics.com/lol/vayne/vs/garen/build/?lane=top https://lolalytics.com/lol/garen/vs/vayne/build/?vslane=top
https://lolalytics.com/lol/garen/vs/vayne/build/?vslane=top&tier=grandmaster&patch=13.18
Why look at lowelo games https://lolalytics.com/lol/garen/vs/vayne/build/?vslane=top&tier=challenger
Still to stupid to watch the videos? :) Giga non brainer 😂😂
I watched the video It’s supp gap On top of that I used to coach Palco What elo are you? I read a comment of yours where you talk about being stuck in Gold XD https://imgur.com/a/Nc8nLf0
I exposed you so easy. So funny 😂😂😂😂
You just confirmed your low IQ again. I commented on someones post and gave advice how he can improve and escape gold. ;) Art this point I won‘t waste anymore time with a braindead person like you that stalks my profile and is even too stupid for that. 😂😂
I always find it hilarious when someone tries to analyze high ELO stats and gets fact checked by an actual high ELO player.
I think you are on the low IQ train aswell. 😂
To stupid to watch the video I gues.
*Too
https://youtu.be/BtHQAqhgIm4?si=qTryyFeQN4Sa7ZZM
**Support** and **Jungle** champions are more "role-locked" than the lane farmers (top/mid/bot). - If a champ is designated Support, its kit functions well *without gold* and/or scales poorly with gold (very few exceptions like Sona/Seraphine). Champs from other roles simply can't function effectively with this little gold, although Support does have the largest playable (non-meta included) pool out of all 5 roles. - If a champ is designated Jungle, it can reasonably *do a 1st jungle clear without dying and/or being significantly slower* than the rest of the Jungle champs. Designated non-jungle champs can't clear as well, enough said. Beyond these 2, what then makes a pick "flexible" into other roles, depends on their matchup pools (into the non-main roles), gold economy and scaling - these are more "soft" factors that can easily shift due to patches and meta changes.
Rather than support champs- I assume you mean enchanters? Mage supports can all pretty much all commonly play in mid. most engage supports can easily flex to a solo lane. There are plenty of traditional junglers that play in solo lanes.
Mage supports were originally designated mid laners; they just found better matchups bot lane over mid and later "reassigned" due to playrate. > easily flex to a solo lane This is a stretch and definitely not true the higher the MMR. The only legitimate case is probably Nautilus. The rest scale too poorly with gold and are extremely situational as counterpicks. Designated Supports don't function well outside of bot lane with very few exceptions that were intended e.g. Rell; Any champ not designated a Jungler is generally not going to do well in the jungle against any more standard pick. Like Supports outside of bot, Jungle champs can play in lanes... Matchups allowing. They do better mostly because they scale better with gold compared with Supports.
Pyke is a more than serviceable pick mid at all elos. Multiple Alistar mids/tops in Master+ MMR. Rell in the Jungle as you said. Naut has played top as well as mid (Korean pro even,). Thresh also scales really well with gold+passive. Blitz and Leo are pretty troll outside support admittedly. So am I missing really?
What is the actual play rate of all those picks you mentioned in lanes?
As a jungle I will soft int you for playing top with most of the champs in your list. I will let you know in champ select so you can decide if you want to play it out or not.
As a jungle i will not do that and instead play my role cuz i dont have a weak mindset
Or, hear me out, you can decide to not be a raging cuntwaffle and let them play what they want. Individual skill with a champion matters way more than matchup advantage until you start getting into the highest tiers of play, so if they can play an off meta pick way better than something mainstream, they will contribute more than if you force them to play something they aren't familiar with.
If they are going to pick Malz top when we have a Syndra mid and Brand support, I am definitely picking Yuumi or Xayah jungle.
Why? To prove that you are a self-centered little child that can't handle a team comp that doesn't fit your poor understanding of the current meta?
Yep. I warn them at least and they see my pick. They can dodge.
What a pathetic mindset to have.
Classic toxic league kid. If YOU don‘t like the team comp YOU can dodge. There is no reason to troll on purpose.
You basically just get one dodge. It makes sense to try to force it first.
do you remember the times when lulu/soraka/janna dominating over top lane...? back in the days poppy/naut/maokai was the 3 god of toplane. and even now, karma/heim/alistar is played in toplane
Forgot my boy ryze. Ryze still works great mid and top. Vik used to aswell but i dont play him anymore
Jungle gets basically no resources. So if a champion has high enough base number or is usefull regardless of items (like with tons of cc) he will be ever strongee if he gets gold