What’s up guys it’s me Jeremy!
A lot of people like to try copy their favorite League of Legends players by using the champions
they are seen playing in the LCS and bringing them into the ranked environment, so champions
that are strong in competitive pretty much always end up being super popular in soloqueue.
But soloqueue isn’t competitive play, and champions that are strong in competitive aren’t
always necessarily that good in Solo Queue, and vice versa.
Overpowered picks in competitive play are often first in line for nerfs and changes.
And so today we’re looking at another bunch of champions picks that you can use in ranked
games that are both powerful in Solo Queue while being maybe not so powerful in competitive
play for assorted reasons.
These champions are always awesome picks for soloqueue in my eyes, since they are at a
much higher likelihood of not getting banned out, or picked by other players, giving you
some nice advantages, and they are also much more likely to avoid nerfs in the future as
well!
And if you enjoy the video hit that like button, if you don’t please hit the dislike.
The first champion I want to talk about is Wukong.
The best part about the Monkey King is his versatility.
You can play him either top or jungle to great success, so if you play both those roles you
can have a powerful pick to pull out in either situation.
He’s constantly over a 50% winrate, and he’s been really moving up in strength over
the last few patches, yet he’s still not played that often in ranked.
Another super cool thing about Wukong is that he’s really flexible when it comes to choosing
items.
I love playing Wukong like an assassin, using his stealth and dash to close the distance
and kill squishies fast, but you can also do really well with tanky items if your team
needs you to take some heat.
To top it all off, his Ultimate ability is a total gamechanger.
It’s one thing to be able to snowball through duelling 1v1, but it’s really important
to be able to use that power in teamfights too.
Wukong’s high damage and high utility Ult is perfect for this - let’s just say if
one of your premades plays Yasuo, you definitely want to add Wukong to your champion pool for
that epic wombo combo.
With all that said, you might wonder why a versatile pick like Wukong is left out in
the LCS - and it’s probably for two main reasons.
Firstly, jungle Wukong really wants to snowball with ganks, but in the LCS vision control
is on such a high level that it’s really hard to pull them off.
As for top lane Wukong, he’s a strong laner in a 1v1, but if the enemy team decides to
laneswap it is insanely difficult for him to be useful.
Being able to handle a 2v1 is a huge factor in choosing a top laner for pro level drafts,
and unfortunately he really suffers here.
Well, it’s not all bad, because that means that he’s all yours to dominate Solo queue
with!
Next on our list is Sejuani as a jungler.
It’s kinda crazy to see a champion go from being such a highly contested competitive
pick to being almost never picked in competitive play.
This probably comes down to the fact that she was so OP that she was picked because
of that alone.
Back in Season 5 when Cinderhulk was released, Sejuani was unbelievably powerful, to the
point where Riot both nerfed her power and then nerfed Cinderhulk afterwards.
This really took away her position as a must-pick in the LCS, so her play rate dropped pretty
hard too.
Despite all that though, she still has a good clear, powerful ganks and an ultimate that
will win you games all by itself if you can land it!
Sejuani is one of those champions whose power is gated by their long cooldowns, but with
cooldown reduction being more available now than ever before, there’s never been a better
time to hop on the boar.
High winrate, low playrate, none existent ban rate.
The stars have really aligned on this one, and you should definitely give her a chance
if you enjoy tanky junglers.
Just remember to be careful with your ultimate, because teamfights will be won or lost based
on how you use it.
Timing is everything, make sure your team is ready to back you up!
I don’t think our next pick has ever been a bad choice to play in the history of the
game.
Every mid laner should know how to play Annie.
She teaches you a lot about managing your cooldowns and how to position yourself safely.
It’s always scary to use an immobile champion when the game is so fast paced, but if you
are careful you will be rewarded with some of the most amazing raw power in the game.
Annie mid has never really had a chance to shine in competitive.
The problem is her abilities all have pretty short ranges, and her passive stun is quite
easy to avoid for professional laners.
She saw a ton of play as a support though because of her long auto-attack range and
flash-Ult stun playmaking ability.
Combined with high base damage, this one trick wonder was awesome to watch as she stunned
up entire teams.
That doesn’t really translate into a good mid laner for pro play though, where champions
need to be able to contribute more consistent damage that’s harder to avoid.
That being said, in solo queue your ability to take one enemy champion out of the fight
is ridiculously valuable.
If you can turn a 5v5 into a 4v5 with the push of a button, your team is gonna be way
better off.
Oh, and if you get fed enough, you can just delete everyone with
Tibbers instead of one person.
So, that’s kinda fun!
Miss Fortune is a bit of an oddity.
Now, unlike others on this list she does see some fringe play in LCS, usually because coordinated
teams can use her ultimate to great success.
It’s quite a fragile strategy though because she’s total fodder for assassins and will
be often taken out of a fight before she gets chance to put a lot of damage down.
This doesn’t translate directly to the ranked experience though.
You’re far more likely to be able to get a full ultimate off as Miss Fortune in ranked,
and that is a serious beating for the enemy team.
Most of the time when a champion is strong in teamfighting later on, they have a kinda
weak laning phase to balance it.
This isn’t really the case with Miss Fortune though, her early levels are incredibly powerful
for an ADC.
If the enemy bot lane stays behind their creeps, you can unleash amazing poke with your Q.
I really recommend partnering up with a premade support if you’re going to play Miss Fortune.
She’s really easy to partner with too, you can go for a support that can help her escape
ganks, one that will compliment her lane dominance, or one that sets up her Ult for an epic wombo
combo.
She has a few different viable item builds that you can use to stomp ranked with.
It blows my mind that amount of damage this champion can dish out.
One to look into for the ADC mains amongst you.
As if Annie wasn’t bringing enough fire into this video, next up is Brand - specifically,
support Brand.
We love Brand’s raw firepower, and his early poke it’s not to be taken lightly.
It’s no surprise that support mains have been using Brand to snowball their ADCs ahead,
and that’s really the important thing about Brand.
He’s fantastic early on, but the longer a game goes, the weaker an aggressive support
like him becomes.
This is probably what prevents him from seeing competitive play as a support.
Pro teams are able to stall out games far better than ranked players can, so the early
advantages a Brand can give your team are way easier to use in Solo Queue.
On top of that you have his Ultimate - both his greatest power and his greatest weakness.
A targeted nuke that bounces around dealing huge damage and helping you trigger your passive
for even more AoE burst is awesome, but with the randomness of the bounces and the fact
that it’s such a slow moving projectile just makes it too unreliable for pro use.
Definitely worth a look for those of you who like to play with fire, but don’t count
on seeing him as a support in a professional game any time soon.
We have another champion who is great in two roles next - Kayle, totally viable as a top
laner or a mid laner.
I think it’s really important to preface this pick with a warning.
Kayle is really weak when playing from behind.
This is one of those champions with a deceptively simple kit that really needs you to be familiar
with her to use the pick properly.
Kayle shines brightest when you’ve got a full bag of items, and she can dish out awesome
sustained damage.
This comes at the sacrifice of raw burst power though, and can be hard to get used to for
players who are used to bursting people out.
On the plus side she can prevent a lot of enemy burst with her fantastic Ultimate, making
her a great counterpick for high burst picks in Solo Queue.
If you put the time into learning how to manage her power spikes, you can definitely tear
up the ladder with her.
In the mid lane you have to play pretty safe, whereas in top lane you can bully a little
harder, but aside from those differences she pretty much builds the same way.
Using her Ultimate to prevent damage is a great way to bait big ults like Zed’s, and
can also be used to bait enemy champions under your tower - or kill them under theirs!
Kayle is a great choice for carrying ranked games, but her item dependance makes her easy
prey for the highly organised pro teams who will do everything they can to deny her the
gold she so desperately needs.
Her Ultimate is actually less useful in competitive play too as enemies are more aware of it and
can play around it or even force the Kayle player to use it in sub-optimal situations.
Last on our list for today is Jarvan, and what a note to end on.
We’re going to primarily talk about Jarvan has a top laner because that’s where he
really shows his strength at the moment.
Riot nerfed Jarvan pretty hard out of the jungle in Season 4, and he’s never really
recovered his strength since.
He’s still playable with a good leash to help that first clear, but top lane is definitely
where this fighter belongs now.
He has some of the highest kill potential out of any top laner, and his damage seemingly
comes out of nowhere.
If you want to get surprise kills in lane, Jarvan is a fantastic pick to do so with.
If you’re laning against a top laner you think you have kill pressure on, take Ignite
to dominate the lane.
If not, he has some of the best Teleport ganks in the game and you can totally snowball a
game for your team with a well timed TP.
He synergises scarily well with the bruiser items such as either Hydra item and Black
Cleaver, but I kinda like to play him as an assassin.
He’s similar to Wukong in a sense - a strong duellist who can also deal massive damage
to an entire team, especially since the change to his Ultimate that deals damage in an AoE.
So why isn’t he played in competitive with all that going for him?
Unfortunately, his similarities to Wukong don’t end with the strengths.
His lack of sustain can really hurt in poke lanes or 2v1 situations.
He’s also a lot more all-in than Wukong.
Your E-Q engage combo is also your only means of escape, unlike Wukong who has his decoy
if he needs it.
This means with Jarvan it’s kill or be killed, and that’s simply too much of a liability
for professional teams.
Still, it makes him insanely fun to play in ranked and he’s definitely worth picking
up if you want to dunk some teams.
That pretty much wraps up my list for this edition champions that are OP in ranked yet
weak in competitive play.
Give me your thoughts on the champions listed, or tell us about your favorite OP ranked picks
that don’t see competitive play in the comments below.
That’s gonna be it from me, if you enjoyed the video drop a like, subscribe if you want,
thanks for watching and I’ll see you guys next time!