Solo Queue Tier List Archive: Patch 5.9 (May 18, 2015)

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Hi everyone and welcome back to the newest edition of the Solo Queue Tier List "Division Climbers". This update features some slow movers from the introduction of the new Black Cleaver and the somewhat old Luden's Echo. However, the largest changes are definitely in the jungle and top lane, where Riot decided to finally slam Cinderhulk with the nerfbat. Check out the full scoop below!

SEASON 5 - PATCH 5.9 SOLO QUEUE TIER LIST

"Division Climbers"

This List has been updated, and new versions are available via this link

Preface Chatter

Hi everyone and welcome back to the newest edition of the Solo Queue Tier List "Division Climbers". This update features some slow movers from the introduction of the new Black Cleaver and the somewhat old Luden's Echo. However, the largest changes are definitely in the jungle and top lane, where Riot decided to finally slam Cinderhulk with the nerfbat. Check out the full scoop below!

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The purpose of this list is to pick out the champions that when played, will allow you to climb divisions the fastest by winning more games.

If you're looking for a more meta based tier list based on popularity, be sure to check out the FOTM list as well!

For a list of champions with the highest *potential* in the game without regard to difficulty or team synergies, check out the list of strongest potential champions in each position! 

Patch 5.9  Summary

BUFFS: Nocturne, Olaf, Renekton, Tristana, Trundle, Xin Zhao;
NERFS: Akali, Annie, Kalista, Morgana, Riven, Ryze, Zed;
TWEAKS: Ashe, Hecarim;

Toolkit and Options

Click to toggle champion movement history

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Updates

• 5/19: Nasus, Cho'Gath, Udyr jungle moved down
• Rek'sai, Rengar, and Nocturne jungle moved up
• 5/22: Added explanation link for Ashe
• Rengar jungle moved up
• Fizz jungle moved down
• 5/29: Lee Sin Jungle moved up

The Tier List

God Tier [Highest Influence]:
Mid-Lane Gods: Ahri, Annie
Jungle Gods: Nunu, Sejuani, Amumu
AD Gods: Jinx, Sivir, Ashe
Top Lane Gods: Hecarim, Irelia, Wukong, Riven
Support Gods: Janna, Sona, Leona, Nautilus

God Tier Rising: Ashe (ADC), Irelia (Top), Nautilus (Support)
God Tier Falling: Amumu (Jungle)

Tier 1 [Strong/Preferred Choices]:
Mid-Lane: Katarina, Anivia, Malzahar, Talon, Cho'Gath, Morgana, Swain, Ziggs, Diana, Vladimir, Brand, Twisted Fate, Cassiopeia, Vel'Koz, Karthus, Wukong, Kennen, Heimerdinger
Jungle: Shaco, Fiddlesticks, Nidalee, Gragas, Hecarim, Rek'Sai, Warwick, Wukong, Evelynn, Volibear, Xin Zhao, Maokai, Sion
AD Carry: Draven, Vayne, Graves, Kog'Maw, Kalista
Top Lane: Tryndamere, Renekton, Fiora, Vladimir, Heimerdinger, Nasus, Malphite, Cho'gath, Swain, Sion, Aatrox, Rumble, Rengar, Teemo, Cassiopeia, Rek'Sai, Pantheon
Support: Morgana, Brand, Taric, Nami, Blitzcrank, Zyra, Vel'Koz

Tier 1 Rising: Blitzcrank (Support), Cassiopeia (Top), Evelynn (Jungle), Fiddlesticks (Jungle), Graves (ADC), Hecarim (Jungle), Katarina (Mid), Nasus (Top), Nidalee (Jungle), Rek'Sai (Jungle), Renekton (Top), Shaco (Jungle), Swain (Top), Teemo (Top), Tryndamere (Top), Warwick (Jungle), Wukong (Jungle)
Tier 1 Falling: Cho'Gath, Swain (Top)

Tier 2 [Viable/Balanced Choices]:
Mid-Lane: Orianna, Zed, Mordekaiser, Kog'maw (AP), Xerath, Fizz, Lulu (AP), Kayle, Nidalee, Galio, Leblanc, Pantheon, Lux, Zyra, Viktor, Lissandra, Varus, Karma
Jungle: Pantheon, Nautilus, Vi, Rengar, Lee Sin, Udyr, Fizz, Cho'Gath, Skarner, Diana, Kha'Zix, Jarvan IV, Nocturne, Poppy, Irelia, Kayle, Master Yi, Trundle
AD Carry: Corki, Miss Fortune, Caitlyn, Varus, Quinn, Ezreal, Lucian
Top Lane: Kennen, Singed, Darius, Diana, Gnar, Xin Zhao, Morgana, Maokai, Garen, Lissandra, Malzahar, Nidalee, Jarvan IV, Gangplank, Lulu, Jax, Volibear, Urgot, Warwick, Poppy, Shen, Zed, Quinn, Trundle, Udyr, Karma, Lee Sin, Jayce, Galio, Kayle, Olaf, Yorick, Viktor, Kha'Zix, Vi
Support: Thresh, Braum, Soraka, Annie, Karma, Alistar, Lulu, Bard, Xerath,

Tier 2 Rising: Bard (Support), Garen (Top), Kog'Maw (Mid), Lulu (Top), Mordekaiser (Mid), Nocturne (Jungle), Quinn (Top), Rengar (Jungle) Varus (Mid)
Tier 2 Falling: Cho'Gath (Jungle), Kayle (Jungle), Lissandra (Top/Mid), Nautilus (Jungle), Shen (Top), Skarner (Jungle), Udyr (Jungle), Xin Zhao (Top), Zyra (Mid)

Tier 3 [Needs Higher Skill/Knowledge Than Usual]:
Mid-Lane: Jayce, Syndra, Fiora, Zilean, Master Yi, Gragas, Jarvan IV, Ezreal (AD), Yasuo, Ryze, Urgot, Ezreal (AP), Sona, Riven, Fiddlesticks, Kha'Zix, Sejuani, Malphite, Tristana, Azir, Kassadin, Akali, Teemo, Veigar, Elise
Jungle: Zac, Rammus, Malphite, Olaf, Nasus, Karthus, Gangplank, Jax, Fiora, Zed, Malzahar, Leona, Elise, Riven, Darius, Shen, Dr. Mundo, Shyvana, Yorick, Garen, Tryndamere, Aatrox, Alistar
AD Carry: Urgot, Twitch, Tristana, Twisted Fate, Kennen
Top Lane: Master Yi, Mordekaiser, Talon, Fizz, Dr. Mundo, Gragas, Zac, Shyvana, Alistar, Yasuo, Leblanc, Vayne, Akali, Nunu, Elise, Taric
Support: Fiddlesticks,  Lux, Gragas, Maokai, Volibear, Kennen, Zilean, Nunu, Kayle, Malphite, Nidalee, Pantheon, Anivia, Teemo, Lee Sin, Gangplank, Veigar

Tier 3 Rising: Fiora (Mid), Mordekaiser (Top),
Tier 3 Falling: Akali (Top/Mid), Dr. Mundo (Top/Jungle), Malphite (Jungle), Nasus (Jungle), Rammus (Jungle), Shen (Jungle), Shyvana (Jungle), Taric (Top), Teemo (Mid), Zac (Jungle)

Tier 4 [Low Benefits for Effort Used]:
Mid-Lane: Soraka, Janna
Jungle: Yasuo
AD Carry: 
Top Lane: Ryze, Kassadin, Azir, Rammus, Soraka
Support: Orianna, Poppy, Elise, Galio, Syndra, Shen, Yorick, Lissandra, Ashe, Leblanc

Tier 4 Rising:
Tier 4 Falling: Rammus (Top), Ryze (Top)

Instructions and Caveats:

• Champions in BOLD I will talk about shortly
• Champions UNDERLINED may be over/undervalued, but aren't/haven't played enough for me to make a better judgement.
• Within each tier the champions are strongest from left to right, but within a tier each champion's strength is relatively close. This is especially true for Tiers 2 and 3 where these champions are ALL highly playable and player dependent on how strong they are in-game.
• This tier list takes data from ALL players; however, since the majority of players fall in the first three tiers, the majority of data points will come from there.
• Win Rates are important in analyzing each champion's strength, but are not the end-all criteria for any champion's position.
• The creator of this list is diamond, so there may be some personal bias towards higher tier play on certain champions.

Click Here for a description of the tiers

God Tier: These champions are almost impossible to keep down. If your team doesn't make it a priority to shut down these champions and shut them down hard, even if they lose their lane, lose in CS, and it's their first time playing the champion, they can be a massive nuisance for your team. On the other hand, if they're actually good at the champion...that's when it's time to throw in the towel.

Tier 1: These champions generally do very well regardless, and have some sort of advantage over most other champions. When they do well, their team does well. Even when they don't do well, their team still has a good chance of a comeback victory by utilizing one or more aspects of their late game utility.

Tier 2: This is the Tier of balanced champions where Riot shoots to place their designs. These champions generally do well in their own right, and are very strong picks with a good chance of winning. However, they're not overpowered by any means and do have their weaknesses.

Tier 3: These champions can still do very well, but tend to need a little more snowballing to get rolling. Even if they get an early lead, it's still very possible to turn the tides on them with just a mistake or two. They may also have some weaknesses that can be capitalized on.

Tier 4: These champions are either underpowered or offer less reward than other champions for the same amount of effort. These champions basically start winning from the get-go or get made fun of for the rest of the game. They need gold to do their job correctly, and if they don't get enough of it, they become sandbags for the enemy team to punch. Chances of a comeback with one of these champions feeding on your team is almost none.

Champion Explanations

Top

• Akali [Tier 3 Top] - Akali's changes were originally meant to be a buff, but unfortunately, against an aggressive laning opponent, they tend to be more of a nerf as her ultimate now puts her behind her target and makes it difficult to quickly chain Q procs.
• Cassiopeia [Tier 1 Top] - With so many melee making their way back onto the top lane scene with the advent of the new black cleaver, Cassiopeia is gaining power as an extremely effective level 1-3 lane bully.
• Garen [Tier 2 Top] - Black cleaver's synergy on Garen is extremely potent and I wouldn't be surprised to see a strong surge in his success and popularity, especially considering he's an excellent counter to Riven (the most popular top lane champion on the rift at the moment).
• Hecarim [God Tier Top] - Despite nerfs to Hecarim's laning ability, I think that he's still extremely strong top lane. He doesn't synergize very well with Black Cleaver, but his TP ganks are still unparalleled at level 6. 
• Irelia [God Tier Top] - Trading better than nearly everyone else, Irelia is coming back into the mix, doing absurdly well against the people that haven't quite caught on and still like running no flash against her.
• Quinn [Tier 2 Top] - An ever popular lane bully, she does excellently against Riven. Her blind/range allow her to effectively trade against almost everyone in the game in a 1v1 scenario early to mid game.
• Renekton [Tier 1 Top] - The latest buffs on Renekton coupled with the advent of Black Cleaver's new stats have made Renekton very strong. He's definitely going to be back as a staple top laner soon.
• Shyvana [Tier 3 Top] - Shvyana has effectively been taken off the radar as a good top laner. However, you'll definitely see a lot of people try to play her, even running smite + TP to live for the glory days.
• Teemo [Tier 1 Top] - Similar to Quinn, Teemo's starting to see success again, especially since he does well against champions like Renekton and Garen, sporting a 60% win rate against both.
• Tryndamere [Tier 1 Top] - An early cheesing master, Tryndamere does excellently early game in all-ins. This performs especially well against mid-game sustain champions with weak early games, like Cho'Gath and Vladimir. Additionally, with his split push strategy he's able to limit many AOE top laners to staying top, resulting in a huge overall damage reduction for the enemy team.

Support

• Annie [Tier 2 Support] - The nerf on her auto attack range looks like it hit her supporting power much more than her mid lane power. As a mid laner, her major benefit is still mostly in her insane burst damage, but now that her support harass has been reduced, so has her potential early game gold gain through her blue item.
• Bard [Tier 2 Support] - Now that Bard received a few buffs and people are getting used to him, I think he's about balanced and sports a fairly average win rate at the moment.
• Nautilus [God Tier Support] - His trading power, peel, initiation, and free stats are extremely high at the moment, and I think he is well deserving of his God Tier status. His hook hitbox is absurdly large, and his potential CC with this passive is also very strong.

ADC

• Ashe [God Tier ADC] - Ashe's latest rework is very beneficial to her. I think she's already been strong for the last few patches, but the streamlining of her abilities has made using her much more fluid.
• Graves [Tier 1 ADC] - The power of the marksmen below God Tier have always been fairly deterministic upon how well they match up to the God Tier marksmen. Graves is definitely weaker after his nerfs from last patch, but it's true that he's still definitely a viable ADC, and likely slightly above average at that.
• Kalista [Tier 1 ADC] - The slight nerf on her bonus distance definitely reduces her survival abilities, but she's still fairly strong in the current meta, especially with so many more melee on the rift to hunt and so many black cleavers to boost her damage.

Mid

• Cho'Gath [Tier 1 Mid] - Bumping Cho back down to Tier 1, although he's definitely very strong mid lane and simple to use, the fact of the matter is that he still has difficulty carrying without a decent team around him.
• Katarina [Tier 1 Mid] - With nerfs all around the rift and an extremely strong synergy with Luden's Echo, Katarina's back and stronger than ever. Her resets are still absurdly good to create comeback situations, and snowballs extremely hard with the extra burst from Luden's.
• Mordekaiser [Tier 2 Mid] - Mordekaiser is yet another champion that does extremely well with a Luden's Echo on hand. His waveclear was always very good, and with the extra burst from Luden's, he's able to clear his lane and some jungle camps on the side with ease. This allows him to farm quickly and gain a strong advantage. He's also very good against squishy, immobile mid laners, which we're also seeing a revival in.
• Varus [Tier 2 Mid] - You've all no doubt seen the insane spike in mid lane Varus' win rate this patch, but before you get too excited I have to point out the extremely low play rate on him at the moment. That being said, I think he's still very good for the damage he puts out and his cheesy poke ability.

Jungle

• Fiddlesticks [Tier 1 Jungle] - With nerfs on Cinderhulk, it's back to the beginning of the season where sustain junglers are back at the top of the food chain. Fiddlesticks jungles extremely efficiently in the Season 5 jungle, and has only been held back by the outrageously unkillable, high damage, Cinderhulk junglers. However, with the latest sizable nerfs on Cinderhulk, his damage is comparatively much better now.
• Hecarim [Tier 1 Jungle] - The tweak to Hecarim's laning strength conversion to jungle strength is definitely helping him in the thickets, and we'll likely be seeing a slow shift for him back into the jungle if this is the direction Riot plans on steering this horse.
• Malphite [Tier 3 Jungle] - With nerfs on Cinderhulk, Malphite jungle is much more ignorable in teamfights now. Despite the buff on the damage to monsters, junglers still tend to end up with less items than laners since a lot of their value goes into their jungle item. That being said, he's now a bit lacking compared to other junglers, especially with his laughably low early game pressure.
• Nidalee [Tier 1 Jungle] - Nidalee's back in action with nerfs on Cinderhulk. With her abursdly potent invading power at level 2, she can safely wreck havoc on pretty much any jungler. This combined with the fact that she can just jump back over a wall to safety without even burning flash means that your jungler is effectively on his own during that early invade. If you help him, you'll likely just fall behind in lane and still won't be able to catch her. By setting up strong early game pressure, she's able to snowball quickly. This combined with the late game nerf on Cinderhulk means that she's effectively buffed.
• Shaco [Tier 1 Jungle] - Similar to Nidalee but more lane gank oriented, early game snowball junglers have a much better time with the nerfs to Cinderhulk scaling into late game. As far as early game snowball junglers are concerned, Shaco is king, prince, and jester.
• Warwick [Tier 1 Jungle] - Similar to Fiddlesticks, sustain junglers are seeing a comeback with nerfs to Cinderhulk. This being said, tanky junglers are still very popular in the jungle, and Warwick's natural blade of the ruined king build works extremely well against them.

Disclaimer:

• The purpose of this list is for discussion and to provide a starting point for champion selection.

Agree? Disagree? Comment below!