League of Legends: 5 best top laners for your end of the season climb

Darius

Darius is one of those obnoxious champions who are easy to play but annoying as all hell to deal with. This means that the player facing off against Darius has very few tools to deal with him if they don’t play and position perfectly, which tends not to happen in lower elos. Darius had an average Season 9 ranking of A+ but currently is in our S tier as one of the strongest top laners in the game.

Like Jax, Darius has a fair amount of flexibility in his build as you can go more or less tanky depending on what your team needs. His kit also has very few skill shots (really only his Q – Decimate and E – Apprehend) which reduces the risk that you will misplay with his kit. With his R – Noxian Guillotine also resetting on kills, Darius has the ability to be the perfect cleanup champion if his team has good initiation.

Now Darius doesn’t quite have the same win rate success as Jax does in low elos (just over 48% in Silver and below) but that’s no reason to shy away if you can pilot the champion. He can easily fit into a team fighting comp or push towers depending on your build and what the team needs.

Kled

I am a Kled fanatic and I do not apologize for that, but I also think he is one of the best top laners to climb with. He has been one of the lowest variance top laners in Season 9, largely vacilating between the A and A+ tiers throughout (though he did drop into the B+ tier at one point).

In low elos, Kled does very well sporting a win rate over 50% and an average KDA over 2, which is higher than most others in his role. Kled does not have the diversity of build paths that Jax or Darius might (you basically always build him Black Cleaver + Tiamat + GA + Steraks) but his kit is incredibly simple and forgiving.

For one, the kit basically tells you when you should trade whenever his W – Violent Tendencies is off cooldown. He also has the ability to recover from bad trades with his Mount/Remount ability during fights, which also grant him invulnerability for a brief moment. Finally, between his R – Chaaaaaarge! and E – Joust Kled is incredibly slippery to escape ganks and he can get into fights across the map with ease.