League of Legends: ranking the free champion rotation

Here at BlogofLegends, we’re committed to helping you improve at League of Legends, and there’s no better way to improve than trying out a bunch of new champions available in the weekly free champion rotation.

Every week the free champion rotation gives League of Legends players the opportunity to experiment and try out new champions. The newer players, especially, who don’t have all the champions purchased, should take advantage of this free champion rotation to try new champions they haven’t seen.

To help newer players know which champion is the best one to try and get games in on this week, we’re ranking all the champions in the free champion rotation based on five factors: popularity (will you be seeing this champion a lot, thus benefiting from knowing how it works?), fun factor (is the champion fun to play?), difficulty (is this champion’s kit geared towards a newer player?), cost (will you be able to buy this champion soon or will you have to play a lot and save up blue essence to buy it?), and versatility (can it be played in more than one role, if you’re not sure which role you’ll main?).

We’ll give each member of the week’s free champion rotation a score on a scale of 1-5 (5 being best for a new or inexperienced player). Here are our rankings for this week’s free champion rotation.

Irelia (18)

Popularity: 5 (often picked in pro play and very popular in soloQ/normal games)
Fun factor: 5 (she can dash around, make flashy outplays, and is a lot of fun to learn)
Difficulty: 2 (her kit has a lot of skillshots and you need to be able to learn how to get her Q resets by hitting abilities because if you mess it up she can be shut down easily)
Cost: 2 (4800 BE)
Versatility: 4 (can be played top, mid, and kind of bot)

Vladimir (18)

Popularity: 5 (contested pick in pro play and very popular in soloQ)
Fun factor: 3 (he has great flank ability and huge team fight impact, but he has to play very passive in the laning phase)
Difficulty: 3 (learning how to best utilize his passive to get the max damage and healing out of your kit can be tricky, but he’s quite forgiving with his insane heals)
Cost: 3 (3150 BE)
Versatility: 4 (can be played mid, top, and kind of bot)

Kassadin (17)

Popularity: 3 (picked in certain situations in pro play, is a fairly popular pick in soloQ/normal games)
Fun factor: 5 (a late game hyper carry who has tons of mobility with his dashes)
Difficulty: 3 (a big part of learning Kass is managing his mana costs and surviving his early game, but once you’ve done this his kit is fairly intuitive)
Cost: 3 (3150 BE)
Versatility: 3 (can be played top or mid)

Urgot (17)

Popularity: 4 (a highly-contested pick in pro play and gets played a lot in soloQ)
Fun factor: 3 (hitting the ult is satisfying and all, but you’re just a giant meatball sitting in the middle of a team doing damage, not a lot of skill required)
Difficulty: 4 (easy kit to figure out, has a shield and dash for survivability, but a lot of his key abilities require hitting your skill shots)
Cost: 3 (3150 BE)
Versatility: 3 (can be played mid or top)

Leona (16)

Popularity: 4 (she can be picked in pro games sometimes, but she is definitely a popular soloQ support)
Fun factor: 5 (she can single out a straggler and cc them for a year, or she can hit a five-man ultimate and win your team a fight)
Difficulty: 4 (her big engage tools are skill shots, but they’re not too difficult to hit)
Cost: 2 (4800 BE)
Versatility: 1 (can be played support)

Viktor (16)

Popularity: 4 (often picked in pro play, sometimes gets chosen in soloQ)
Fun factor: 4 (a team fight monster with an AoE ult and cc that can carry his team, Viktor’s only real downside in terms of fun is once he dumps all his abilities he has nothing to do)
Difficulty: 2 (almost all his damage is skill shots, and he has no escapes or survivability other than his Q shield)
Cost: 2 (4800 BE)
Versatility: 4 (can be played mid, top, or kind of bot)

Brand (15)

Popularity: 3 (he’s rarely played professionally, but is decently popular in soloQ)
Fun factor: 3 (do you think one-shotting squishies is fun?)
Difficulty: 4 (yeah, there are a lot of skill-shots but most of his power is in being a giant stat-check champion, so if you land abilities you’ll do damage)
Cost: 2 (4800 BE)
Versatility: 3 (can be played mid and support)

Darius (15)

Popularity: 4 (he doesn’t get a lot of pro play, but is very popular in soloQ)
Fun factor: 4 (he’s a 1v9 machine who is built to get pentakills)
Difficulty: 4 (no skill shots, healing built in, tanky, he’s very forgiving for newer players)
Cost: 2 (4800 BE)
Versatility: 1 (can be played top)

Miss Fortune (15)

Popularity: 2 (rarely picked in pro play and not one of the more popular ADC choices in soloQ)
Fun factor: 4 (she’s one of the few ADCs with a game-changing team fight ult and she can bully out most lanes)
Difficulty: 4 (hitting her ult and figuring out how to properly use her Double Up are really the only complicated parts to her kit)
Cost: 3 (3150 BE)
Versatility: 2 (can be played bot and kind of support)

Renekton (15)

Popularity: 4 (he will be picked sometimes in pro play, but is an extremely popular choice in normal games)
Fun factor: 3 (he’s a lane bully, he has some ability to express skill and dominate lane, but he doesn’t tend to do much if he doesn’t scale)
Difficulty: 5 (he has one of the most linear trading patterns in the game and still has an escape with tankiness built in)
Cost: 2 (4800 BE)
Versatility: 1 (can be played top)

Jinx (13)

Popularity: 4 (she will be picked occasionally in pro play, but is very popular in soloQ)
Fun factor: 4 (she’s a massive late game carry with huge potential for cross-map snipes and objective steals)
Difficulty: 3 (she has a bunch of skill shots, not real escapes or defensive tools, and she’s easy to kill once you cc her)
Cost: 1 (6300 BE)
Versatility: 1 (can be played bot)

Sejuani (13)

Popularity: 3 (she is a heavily contested pick in pro play, but doesn’t get a lot of love in soloQ games)
Fun factor: 2 (she’s a tanky engage champ, which is fun, but she does no damage)
Difficulty: 4 (her big engage ult is a skill shot that is easy to miss but she has an escape and great survivability)
Cost: 2 (4800 BE)
Versatility: 2 (can be played jungle and kind of top and support)

Vi (11)

Popularity: 2 (not picked in professional play, not a high-priority champion in soloQ)
Fun factor: 3 (she has fantastic engage and single target damage but really struggles to find anything to do in team fights)
Difficulty: 3 (her early game engage is reliant on hitting a skill shot and often comboing it with flash, but otherwise she has a very binary “go in” button on her ult)
Cost: 2 (4800 BE)
Versatility: 1 (can be played jungle)

Sona (10)

Popularity: 1 (she is not a viable pick in pro play and is rarely seen in soloQ)
Fun factor: 2 (she’s a heal bot, does decent poke, and has a nice ult but doesn’t have a lot of intricacy or playmaking ability)
Difficulty: 2 (her passive requires a Ph.D. to figure out how to use it effectively, and her ult is a skill shot that isn’t that effective except to disengage)
Cost: 3 (3150 BE)
Versatility: 2 (can be played support and kind of mid)

Which of these champs will you be checking out from this week’s free champion rotation?

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League of Legends: ranking the free champion rotation – 3/25

By Josh Tyler | Mar 25, 2019