Hello Summoners, welcome to another episode of Underrated picks.
My name is Krystoph and in this video, we’re going over champions who
aren’t getting the spotlight or attention they deserve for patch 9.14.
Feel free to leave any comments or feedback below.
Also let us know if you think we missed any champions!
But before we get started, make sure to go to Proguides.com
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First up, let’s talk about the top lane.
With “stat-check” champions like Mordekaiser and Tahm Kench receiving
major nerfs this patch, there’s still one more left that people
seem to have forgotten - Garen. These “run at you” champions typically depend on simply being strong enough to fight you and win
After their nerfs this patch, Tahm won’t be as common of a pick and Mordekaiser is a
bit weaker. Garen fills a similar niche, he’s tanky and is a strong fighter well.
While he doesn’t sport the same CC as Tahm, or isolating ultimate like Mordekaiser,
Garen makes up for it with Tankiness, Tenacity, and his ability to purge Slows.
Although many find his kit underwhelming, Garen is simply a
strong champion in terms of his in game stats and numbers. He’s
simple and effective at what he does: tanks damage, silences
his priority target, and executes champions when they’re low.
For the last 5 patches, he’s held between a 51 and 52% win-rate, with a
high-enough playrate to demonstrate that it’s not based on chance alone.
Darius aside, Garen is able to hold his own across many match-ups. Even in losing ones, he can opt for more
defensive builds and look to farm. In lane, look to trade with your Q, especially if you’re running Grasp.
The burst damage and silence makes it nearly impossible for most opponents
to outrade Garen in these single auto attack trades. While you’re W has a
long cooldown, don’t be afraid to use it when your enemy has an ability that
is essential to their damage output like Aatrox’s Q3 or Gangplank’s Barrel.
Spin on your opponents with E when they’re isolated for the bonus
damage, or if you’re trying to push the wave simultaneously.
In the later stages of the game, your best option is to push in lanes and flank. Definitely consider swapping to sweeper
because the only realistic way you’ll reach the backline is by flanking through the jungle or having a great teleport.
Next up, we have Tryndamere. Everyone hates playing vs. Tryndamere. Even when he’s not in team-fights,
his split pushing always manages to lead to his victory. Beating Tryndamere in lane is pretty difficult.
He’s great at is creating leads in lane with his sheer strength,
then using those leads to pressure tower dives or take turrets.
In lane, punish your opponents anytime they waste abilities or when you’re on an even
footing. Several matchups let you even go for a level 1 all in with E. Since you’re
able to stack up fury for crit chance and have high base health, many champions will
have to respect you or risk death as early as the first two minutes of the game.
A random crit can earn you a solo kill, or you can trade evenly and heal back up with your Q.
If you trade enough damage, your enemy puts themselves at risk to get dove under turret.
During the mid to late game, focus on split pushing because it’s what
makes Tryndamere so strong and annoying. With more items, he’s able
to kill opponents faster and the tower-dive pressure he gets from
his ultimate makes it terrifying for opponents to try to match him.
You’ll almost always pull several enemies into your lane to stop you, or find free
kills on your enemy under their own turret. Playing versus him is really fun isn’t it?
God, I hate playing against Tryndamere!
Before we jump into the jungle, there’s another pick we want to talk
about and that's Volibear. In both top and jungle, he holds solid win-rates and
functions similarly to Garen. Although his kit might seem underwhelming,
he deals so much damage that most champions have difficulty fighting him.
We’re going to talk about him later on in the video as our focus isn’t on his jungling or
solo laning. He’s still an under-rated pick in both roles, so feel free to give him a try.
Another jungle champion we want to mention is Skarner. While statistics indicate that he’s a middle of the
pack pick, he’s probably one of the best solo queue junglers because of his pick-making and engage potential.
Even in the case that his opponents build QSS, he’s served
a great purpose, making them fork over 1300 gold just
to counter him. We’ve all been there, one member on your team gets caught out and the game is suddenly over.
Skarner is a champion who’s able to make these
scenarios a reality for your team, so definitely don’t
write him off. With his spires, he’s quite a strong
duelist as well and also has great clear speed.
The only down side to Skarner is that after his ultimate, he’s pretty easy
to kite. The way to play around this is buying tons of pinks and
sweeping for wards often. You want to use the fog of war to help
you make picks or take engages that successfully lead to picks.
That way, it doesn’t matter if you get kited.
Okey, onto the next one.
While he received nerfs in the past, Karthus is still a great jungler.
Definitely not broken anymore, but still very strong. His clear is still quick
and he scales excellently into the mid and late game. The global kill
pressure he adds with his ultimate is also a great way to find random kills.
Press R and you’re honestly Faker. People tend to write off Karthus’s dueling power because he’s squishy, but it’s
also deceptively strong. Since he can cast spells following his death, he’s actually great for 2v2 or 3v3 skirmishes.
In terms of 1v1’s, immobile champions will struggle anytime they run into Karthus
because he can slow them and shred through their health bars with isolated Q damage.
When playing Karthus, your best jungle path is almost always to farm from one side to the other and only look for ganks
that are convenient to your pathing. You need to make sure you stay even or ahead as Karthus; since you’re squishy
falling behind means that the enemy jungler can look to invade you and push you out of the jungle. Ensuring
you have steady income and EXP will let you scale into the
late-game to be the monster that everyone has nightmares about.
Alright, let’s talk about more mages in the mid lane.
In the mid lane we have two picks - Vel’koz and Veigar. What both of these champions have in
common is that they’re able to abuse the pick-making glacial augment build in favorable match-ups.
In losing ones, or based on player preference, they can instead
take defensive or more aggressive masteries to help them win lane.
So start with Vel’koz. Simply he's just not getting
the recognition he deserves. Especially with how the
meta is right now, there are so many match-ups where he can thrive in. In terms
of how common skirmishes and team-fights are, he’s also a great pick because he
sets up picks or engages so well with slow items followed up by his ultimate.
One of the biggest reasons he’s starting to see more popularity is because he’s able to keep Mordekaiser in check. Mordekaiser
and other low mobility melee champions simply lack kill pressure versus Vel’koz because of his long range and wave-clear.
Conversely, Vel’koz can also take lane priority versus many mid laners because he can poke them out and pressure his enemies for
solo kills. With the increased emphasis on neutral objectives, Vel’koz thrives because of the choke points in the jungle.
They make it easier for him to land his abilities and also hit several enemies with
his ultimate, allowing him to take up a role both a control and poke mage role.
When laning, you’ll either play aggressively to look for poke, or try to farm for free. Especially
in more difficult match-ups, you’ll just be clearing waves and farming up for your power-spikes.
With Glacial Augment, you can look to start making picks as soon you as you finish your hextech-glp.
Lead with it, and then follow up with your E, W, and R to pick up free kills on enemies who are nearby.
Veigar has been seeing competitive play as a niche counter-pick to safe, scaling mids like Corki and
Azir. This is just a testament to his current power-level and players need to realize his potential.
Combine him with Glacial Augment, Veigar becomes a hard scaling utility
carry. While his infinite AP scaling and ultimate execute are core parts
of his kit, what makes Veigar so strong is his cage. The amount of
zone-control and utility it provides makes it his strongest ability.
After using slow items, you can either land an instant
stun, or instead use it to block off an opponent from the
rest of their team. In tight corridors, it’s even stronger
because of how much space it can take up or block off.
Laning as Veigar is pretty simple. You’ll be looking to farm minions with Q to scale and
also earn gold for your items. Since your Q has long range, you can also look to poke your
enemy with it after you finish clearing waves, or if they’re trying to engage on you.
In the later stages of the game, use your Glacial Augment to engage fights or make picks.
The combination of GLP, twin shadows, and your cage forces your opponents
to fight back or to ditch a team member when you pick them off.
Alright, now let’s move onto the bot lane.
Our first pick is Varus. We already mentioned him in our OP pick
or ban video for 9.14, but wanted to shout him out again because
he is severely under-rated. Go check it out to learn more about
him. He’s oppressive and can scale to become a giant threat.
Next up is Tristana. With buffs to more aggressive supports and the
risk factor of picking ranged supports increasing, Tristana is set up
to thrive in the correct meta. Her potential to play hyper aggressively with a support
for all-in 2v2s makes her a pick that players should watch out for.
In terms of playrate, she stands as the least played “popular”
marksman but that can definitely change soon.
With her ability to force all-ins, she’s also a great pick
into champions like Varus and Jhin who are gaining a ton of popularity right now.
As Tristana, play aggressively or passively based on your 2v2 match-up. With strong lockdown or engage
from your support, you can follow up with your strong all-in, otherwise playing safe and just scale.
You can always default to scaling since you’re
one of the best late game carries in the game.
Jhin’s not gonna be to happy to hear he’s number 3. I'm sorry bud. While Jhin doesn’t have the excel against the
high winrate ad carries in the meta, but he DOES excel against champions with the highest pick rate.
Even in matchups that don’t favor him, there’s room for him to take favorable trades as a
result of his fourth shot execute and also set-up ganks. Because of the movement speed
bonus and upfront burst from his fourth shot, long range on his abilities, and potential
bounce his Q off of minions, there’s definitely room to outplay any bad match-up.
While lane matchups will heavily impact how you play, make sure to always use your
fourth shot to pressure your enemies. You can zone them off of minions, or get some
decent damage off. But don't follow on to the trap of tunnel visioning on executing minions with Q, any Q
that can bounce to extend its range and hit an enemy is a good one, regardless of bonus damage.
Realistically, your opponents should be watching their minion’s health anyway, so they likely won’t walk up to let you
get an empowered Q. Set-up ganks anytime they come and transition into a utility carry role later on in the game
You can follow up with CC and damage when your teammates make plays,
or initiate fights with your ult when you see good opportunities to.
Alright, let's wrap it up with support.
Remember how we mentioned Volibear? Well it’s time, and yes you
aren’t dreaming and no we're not memeing, Volibear support IS a thing.
While highly situational in high ELO, his high base damage and tankiness will definitely help lower ELO players crush their games.
High ELO players might scoff and think this is just a troll pick, but the fact remains that
his E has a knockback to it creates lots of outplay potential. You can cancel
several dashes or abilities by timing it well, so don’t write him off; he’s
easy to pick up, but has a high skill ceiling as timing his E can be pretty difficult.
What makes Volibear strong in the bot lane is his high damage and tankiness, supplemented by a passable amount
of utility. What you wanna do is use brushes to pressure your
opponent and hard engage on them when they move too far forward.
Don’t be afraid, your passive heal and aftershock make you
deceivingly tanky, especially if your opponent doesn’t have ignite
up or isn’t running it at all. In the mid to late game, you to
play as the initiator, or a secondary DPS threat in team-fights.
As support, you likely won’t be able to dive into the backline
alone, so play to maximize your damage or peel for your teammates.
Our last pick is going to be Taric.
Regardless, of whether he is against Ranged or Malee supports, Taric has answers to all of them.
If you're interested in getting better at Taric then check
out Proguides.com. Use the subscription link below,
we have a great guide with Bunny Fufu where you can master Taric support.
With acces to one of the strongest ults in the game, is quite surprising that his playrate is so low
People also undervalue Taric's damage output.
Following his stun is able to deal tons of
damage with his passive empowered auto-attacks,
and also build up stacks for his heal as a result.
Don't underestimate his all-in potential, but do know that you can be easily kited.
When your oponents aggress onto you try to bait them into
moving too far forward and then turn the fight on them instead.
Once you hit six, don't be afraid of tower diving. Call over your teammates to help you
or try to trade with your lane oponents before you crash the wave into their turret.
Alright, that concludes this episode of Underrated Picks. Thank you guys so much for watching.
If you guys want more content to help you improve, check out proguides.com where we’ve
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That's it for the video. Good luck in your
next few games and we'll see you on the Rift.