League of Legends: Preseason top lane tier list for Patch 9.23
By Josh Tyler
The start of the League of Legends preseason arrived in Patch 9.23 and we’re here to let you know how the top lane meta has shaken out.
Normally, when we do a new tier list, we tend to spend a lot of time looking at which champions improved or got worse following buffs and nerfs. But Patch 9.23 ushered in the end of Season 9 and the beginning of Season 10 of League of Legends.
The sweeping changes to Summoners Rift, Elemental Dragons, multiple item and rune reworks have all thrown the meta into chaos. Knowing what is best to play less than a week after these major changes have come out is basically impossible. Thus, we’re going to do something very different for our tier list aggregations in Patch 9.23: instead of comparing champions to where they were last patch, we’re just going to give a breakdown of which champions are strong and weak.
Before we even get into the tier list, I’ll preface our picks by pointing out that the variance in opinion between the different sites is the highest it’s been at any point in Season 9 (which makes sense, given the breadth of changes in the preseason). As a result, I think these are the least reliable picks or rankings so take them with a grain of salt.
With those caveats out of the way, as usual, we will be creating our tier list based on the average standardized ratings of each champion from eleven different sites from around the internet. We standardize the ratings so that we can compare an A+ grade with a Diamond ranking between sites. You can find the raw data for our tier list here.
All rankings were based on players in Platinum and above. The resources that were used to create this tier list were:
The tier list
S tier: Darius, Garen, Mordekaiser
A+ tier: Fiora, Kled, Jax
A tier: Camille, Renekton, Kayle, Vladimir, Ornn, Akali, Malphite
B+ tier: Shen, Kennen, Illaoi, Tryndamere, Quinn, Teemo, Rengar, Riven
B tier: Aatrox, Irelia, Ryze, Gangplank, Dr. Mundo, Singed, Pantheon, Maokai, Nasus, Heimerdinger, Urgot
C tier: Yasuo, Poppy, Yorick, Nocturne, Cho’Gath, Rumble, Olaf, Volibear
D tier: Vayne, Gnar, Sion, Jayce, Cassiopeia
F tier: Viktor, Malzahar, Swain, Sylas, Warwick
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Observations
- A lot of the champions towards the bottom of this tier list (Warwick, Sylas, Swain, Malzahar) barely made the cutoff of being ranked by more than half the sites. Given all the craziness of the preseason, I wouldn’t be shocked if they fall off the tier list once the meta begins to settle down.
- One champion who I think is extremely undervalued on this tier list is Heimerdinger. He’s only so low because three sites omitted him from the tier list completely. Otherwise, he’s almost universally considered to be an A or S tier pick.
- Rengar is another champion that could be a bit undervalued by this tier list, given his high rankings by certain sites and being left off others.
- Despite what some top laners would have you believe, the meta of Patch 9.23 is pretty similar to that at the end of Season 9. Fighters like Juggernauts and Skirmishers remain high priority.
- One difference, though, is that tanks are definitely doing much better with the reworked Aftershock and the removal of the OP version of Conqueror.