Effects of Lag on Champion Selection

Ever wonder why certain champions like Lee Sin seem insanely good and highly contested in tournament play, but have dismal win rates in solo queue?

Or how about Nidalee, a precision champion that's great at higher leagues, but awful in lower leagues?

Sure, skill plays a huge part, but there's also another aspect that people often ignore - Lag

Check out this old chart from below from Elophant:

Although it's a simple correlation, there's an old adage that rings true here:

For want of a nail the shoe was lost.
For want of a shoe the horse was lost.
For want of a horse the rider was lost.
For want of a rider the message was lost.
For want of a message the battle was lost.
For want of a battle the kingdom was lost.
And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.

In this case, it means that while there might be other reasons why your team lost a game (e.g. bot lane fed, trolls, afks) you should always put yourself at the most advantageous position.

If you play a high precision, squishy champion, a single missed spear or sonic wave could decide the outcome of the game (and everyone knows how many we miss...)

Meanwhile, with Riot servers getting hit by massive lag spikes as of late, sometimes lag will come on suddenly and without reason, resulting in maybe just a second of failure.

So what should you do about it?

Solo queue is all about consistency. I've got two champions for you folks that are not only insanely strong, but the majority of people almost never bother banning them (even though I've put them in God tier for about 6 patches in a row, nobody believes me).

1. Wukong

It's only until recently that people have come to accept the fact that he's really good, although he's played more in jungle than top now. He's still only banned 3% of all games, even though the monkey's got the 3rd highest win rate in the game. 

Wukong has invisibility, a gap closer, % based armor penetration, and an insane AOE knockup. If you manage to get Yasuo and Wukong on the same team in solo queue, it's basically an autowin.

Meanwhile, in jungle the new item changes have been very kind to him, and let him make up the gold difference between laning and jungling.

Gogo gadget monkey!

2. Amumu

Ah yes...Amumu. The "Bronze Elo Champion". Also known as the "too easy to counter-jungle", "useless without blue", and "weak" champion at silver and gold Elo. Let's break down these common misconceptions:

1. Too easy to counter-jungle: Be ready to get counter-jungled, if I can jungle Fiddlesticks and Malzahar, you can jungle Amumu without fear.

2. Useless without blue: Actually, you can easily start red. If you get your buff stolen from you, then yes, like every other jungler you will be behind and your clear time will be slower.

3. Weak: Well, this is just blatantly false. His late game is one of the strongest in the game, and with his percentage based damage and insanely short late game cooldown on his bandage toss, the damage he can put out with liandries (although I don't recommend you rush this item), is absolutely off the charts.

TLDR; Play easy champions, win more games since when you lag it won't make a huge difference. Wukong and Amumu are OP and can easily carry you through to platinum.

Thoughts? Got more champions you prefer? Comment below!