League of Legends: Aphelios lands strong in the Patch 9.24b ADC tier list

League of Legends. Photo Courtesy of Riot Games. /

We take a look at the League of Legends ADC meta in Patch 9.24b.

Just a few short weeks after hitting the Rift, Aphelios has already made a huge splash in the League of Legends ADC meta. He did get some adjustments in Patch 9.24b, but the big question on everyone’s mind is where he will end up on our aggregated tier list for the first time. Well, good news for you Aphelios players because the answer is: quite high.

ADC tier list

S tier: Caitlyn, Miss Fortune (⇑⇒)
A+ tier: Aphelios (*), Ashe, Lucian, Jhin (⇑)
A tier: Vayne, Jinx, Senna (⇓)
B tier: Kai’Sa, Heimerdinger (⇓), Tristana (⇑), Draven, Xayah (⇒), Ezreal (⇑⇒)
C tier: Yasuo (⇐⇓), Twitch (⇓), Kog’Maw, Sivir, Varus, Cassiopeia
D tier: Kalista
F tier:

Dropped: Swain

Key

* = new to the tier list this patch
⇑ = improved (rated at least one tier higher than the previous patch)
⇓ = declined (rated at least one tier lower than the previous patch)
⇐ = borderline-up (within 10% of being in the next-higher tier)
⇒ = borderline-down (within 10% of being in the next-lower tier)

Observations

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Once again, early game ADCs seem to be the ticket for climbing in Patch 9.24b, with Caitlyn, Miss Fortune, Ashe, and Lucian all being in the top five. The newcomer, Aphelios, also has one of the strongest early games among ADCs on this patch, posting the sixth-best winning percentage among AD Carries (52.13%) in games that end within the first 25 minutes.
Speaking of Aphelios, he seems to be doing very well in the first patch on which he’s been featured. He does have one of the highest variances of opinion, with him being rated between S and B tier, but that’s to be expected for a champion that people are still trying to wrap their heads around.
The biggest drop in our ranking from the last patch belongs to Yasuo, who fell from high-B tier down to high-C tier in Patch 9.24b. Interestingly, though, his win rate remained stable and he actually does quite well into Aphelios both in laning phase and in-game. If I was to guess a reason for this improvement in our rankings, it’s a course-correction from his big bump in our rankings last patch.
The biggest riser in Patch 9.24b was Jhin, who has actually seen his pick rate rising over the last few patches (although his win rate has remained stable). He’s now in the mid-A+ tier, which is up from the high-B tier where he was the previous patch.
With Swain dropping out of the tier list, Miss Fortune has the highest win rate in the ADC role at 52.87%. She’s followed by Cassiopeia (52.7%) and Ashe (52.1%) but MF has the highest pick rate at 12%.
Once again, Kalista is the worst ADC in the meta in terms of win rate (46.6%). She leads Kai’Sa, who has the second-worst winning percentage (48.3%) but Kai’Sa has the highest pick rate in the AD Carry role (32.1%) compared to Kalista’s paltry 1.5% pick rate.

Buffed Champions

Ezreal

He got a slight buff to the damage ratio on his Q – Mystic Shot that gave the Prodigal Explorer a nice bit of help. He only jumped slightly into the low-B tier and his win rate stayed flat, so this is looking to be somewhat inconsequential.

Nerfed Champions

Aphelios

The Weapon of the Faithful came out guns blazing (all five of them!) on release so Riot took the opportunity to nerf the ratio on his Calibrum rifle along with the damage ratio and explosion radius on his R – Moonlight Vigil. I guess, thanks Riot, for not making him S tier in his initial ranking on our tier list?

Heimerdinger

Dongers are doing down after Heimer got a damage nerf to his W – Hextech Micro-Rockets and his Empowered E – CH-3x Lightning Grenade. Sadly, these nerfs were enough to take him out of the A tier. His win rate also fell by about 1.3% to boot.

Next. How to dominate lane with Caitlyn. dark

Methodology: These rankings were determined by finding the average standardized score of a champion from nine different tier lists from sites around the internet. This is done by assigning a certain weight to each different score, rank, or grade given by these sites (for instance, both a “Diamond” rating and “A” grade would be worth a 90 score). The standardized score is then determined by looking at the average score given to all champions in every role by that site as well as the standard deviation of scores given (so that sites that give out more high grades will not have their As be worth the same as a site that gives out very few high grades).

The full, underlying data can be found here. This link also includes the full listing of how the scores are assigned. Champions must be rated by at least half of the sites audited in order to qualify for our tier list.

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