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Picking your champ before your opponent in toplane is just a death sentence for your laning phase

PaffWasTaken··53 votes·16,544 views

Counterpick meta has been at its strongest in the recent months/years and pretty much every questionnable balance decision Riot makes just makes this problem even bigger each time. You can't pick a champion based on your appreciation/experience either if you pick second since you basically HAVE to pick a counter to the opponent to make every chances yours.

Even Riven , the single most broken champion in the game right now, has been forced upon her Renekton and Poppy as direct and unavoidable counters. So, even if you pick first and you chose the safest option you have, you WILL get counterpicked and get your laning phase taken away from you if the opponent knows whats up.

How is this enjoyable? How is this even BALANCEABLE? Toplane is now a huge net of interconnected counters each more broken than the last and pretty much every change done to one of them just makes it even more problematic. You can't even first pick your favorite champion anymore and get to enjoy the game at all for the first 10 minutes or so, IF you get any fun out of the game at all. Counterpick meta is just another reason to name toplane the "boring lane", yet nothing has been done about it for so long.

65 Comments

Sirsir25 votes

I feel like that's yet another melee problem. If I'm countered as a range champion I can still scrap together some CS and exp with my kit. Most melees don't have that luxury, doesn't matter if they are against ranged or melee champs.

Eedat25 votes

Y'all just really, really suck at playing unfavorable matchups. I dunno maybe it's because I've mained MonkeyKing for so long who gets bodied in lane against the majority of tanks and fighters that you just get used to not inting your face off.

Oh I'm playing Wu and they picked Darius Renekton Riven etc? I'll just sit back, let them push, and wait for them to fuck up or for help to come. I can push back out and reset when I have a big enough wave. Use some basic wave management and proper back times and you'll be down some, but not out of the game.

Or just int your face off then cry about it. Idrc but you people need to stop crying because you int every time you don't go 3/0 in lane

Sewer Side7 votes

The real coinflip meta is the people who make posts like OP

OHminus1 votes

Yea, its just people like being the carries. As they say in Korea, they like being the bus driver, not a passenger.

Let's say top picked Vlad, and then the enemy picks Renekton. I can guarantee that in Gold (where I play) the Vlad will 9 times out of 10 just int his face off trying to get the farm. There's NO NEED for the vlad to do anything other than to stay back, maybe pool to disengage if the Renek goes hard. But no ... Vlad NEEDS that protobelt by 10 minutes or he's going to be useless! All this without realizing that Vlad hard outscales Renek and that if he goes 0/0/0 in lane, 20 cs down he'll still be a menace in teamfights.

Crescent Dusk3 votes

{quoted}

Y'all just really, really suck at playing unfavorable matchups. I dunno maybe it's because I've mained MonkeyKing for so long who gets bodied in lane against the majority of tanks and fighters that you just get used to not inting your face off.

Oh I'm playing Wu and they picked Darius Renekton Riven etc? I'll just sit back, let them push, and wait for them to fuck up or for help to come. I can push back out and reset when I have a big enough wave. Use some basic wave management and proper back times and you'll be down some, but not out of the game.

Or just int your face off then cry about it. Idrc but you people need to stop crying because you int every time you don't go 3/0 in lane

Yeah, they're going to push instead of starving you off CS and xp by freezing. good example 10/10

Eedat1 votes

They don't have a choice if you manage waves correctly. How are they going to harass you while also have the wave shove to them? They can't. The second they harass you in an even wave it automatically shoves to you. Odd they push it all rice way to your tower then it'll stay pushing back out. You then wait for your wave to stack up and use the minion advantage to push into their tower to reset then back. They can't freeze if you don't let them. They can't tank an entire stacked wave and you at the same time.

Or just continue to cry because you'd rather be a victim than learn anything. Good example

Spicy Rice2 votes

You realize that the problem in these lanes, is that if they "harass" you, it's generally for a good 30% or more of your hp?

So yeah, I'll 100% break my own freeze in order to force you to back or risk getting all inned.

And then the moment you back, I push to tower, and either force a tp, or get a few plates, giving me a major gold and exp advantage, which I then use to snowball further and further.

And it's now like that's anything new, Top lane has always been snowbally. The problem now, is that counterpicks are feeling too strong, to the point where matchups you used to be able to win through skill or stalling, now end up as total wipes.

Crescent Dusk2 votes

{quoted}

They don't have a choice if you manage waves correctly. How are they going to harass you while also have the wave shove to them? They can't. The second they harass you in an even wave it automatically shoves to you. Odd they push it all rice way to your tower then it'll stay pushing back out. You then wait for your wave to stack up and use the minion advantage to push into their tower to reset then back. They can't freeze if you don't let them. They can't tank an entire stacked wave and you at the same time.

Or just continue to cry because you'd rather be a victim than learn anything. Good example

They harass you by all-inning you knowing full well a minion advantage doesn't mean shit in many match ups.

Case example, Nasus. I pick a Fiora or Darius, ignore the minions and jump on him and chunk him down for half his health, at best if he traded back with a minion advantage I still come out positive and the next time he even considers approaching the wave I kill him off. I do this all the time as well as Riven against ranged top lanes, ignore the minions and jump on them 24/7, you stat check the living shit out of them regardless of a stacked wave.

It's not just top lane, you do this with Zed and Qiyana midlane as well. Both of them lacking wavepush early, but with the ability to half health someone in one rotation and threaten it again shortly thereafter means you start snowballing xp advantages by killing your opponent out of lane or zoning them off the wave.

Z3SIeeper1 votes

This strategy only works at level 1 against all champions other than Riven and Tryndamere, and then level 2 against a small minority, and then never again because everyone nowadays is capable of 100-0 all-ins unless you flash out.

Wave in the middle of the lane slightly pushing towards level 3 Riven? Don't even think about trying that strat, you're just dead if you do.

holystack7 votes

Riot wants counterpick meta to be a thing I think. The changes to Renekton, changing Sylas' shield to negate magic damage only, gutting Kassadin's armor so he struggles even more vs AD matchups.

They want champions to have specific weaknesses that can be abused by certain champions. They don't want champions to be blindpickable. I'm not a fan of it either, but it's how Riot wants it :/

NoizyBoii3 votes

Riven The single most broken champ? Hahahaha....oh wait you're serious? cracks knuckles let me introduce my facts. According to u.gg Riven Winrates are as follows: Iron: 43.14% Bronze: 44.93% Silver: 46.16% Gold: 47.33% Platinum: 48.42% Diamond: 48.57% Master: 43.94% Grandmaster: 51.17% Challenger: 53.54% As you can see Riven Winrate does not even touch 50% till Grandmaster. Honestly i was expecting her Winrate to be higher because by that time she is only played one tricks. Now lets look at a character who easily takes less skill to playJax . His Winrate in Challenger is 58.7% while his lowest winrate is 50% in iron. Matter of fact his winrate in every rank is higher than Riven . So can we please hop off the X champ is op when most of the time we really mean X champ is really annoying to play against. This concludes today's Ted talk.

Kuponya4 votes

{quoted}

Riven The single most broken champ? Hahahaha....oh wait you're serious? cracks knuckles let me introduce my facts. According to u.gg Riven Winrates are as follows: Iron: 43.14% Bronze: 44.93% Silver: 46.16% Gold: 47.33% Platinum: 48.42% Diamond: 48.57% Master: 43.94% Grandmaster: 51.17% Challenger: 53.54% As you can see Riven Winrate does not even touch 50% till Grandmaster. Honestly i was expecting her Winrate to be higher because by that time she is only played one tricks. Now lets look at a character who easily takes less skill to playJax . His Winrate in Challenger is 58.7% while his lowest winrate is 50% in iron. Matter of fact his winrate in every rank is higher than Riven . So can we please hop off the X champ is op when most of the time we really mean X champ is really annoying to play against. This concludes today's Ted talk.

That information simply means that these players are incompetent at Riven when faced with an opponent of almost similar skill level

Yääto1 votes

I'mma have to digress... Jax is easily the most broken champion in the game right now. Riven doesn't even come close.

Ragnaveil2 votes

Because of his recent buff paired with other things. Before that Riven was pretty much King Kong. 14 straight patches of being top tier till this patch's nerf to her finally did something (Possibly, it depends on the good mains).

Yääto1 votes

I really disagree. Why is it the Riven player is incompetent being the reason they perform poorly and not the enemy being incompetent making it an easy matchup for the Riven player? There's a lot of conflicting reasoning from people. Riven's just a champ that's incredibly easy to punish the simplest of mistakes. However, there was never a point Riven was above Aatrox/Jax/Akali/Irelia. It's simply the fact that there were more competent Riven players than those specific champs. But w/e.

Ragnaveil1 votes

No, shes been above those champs plenty of times this year. She could get nerfed over and over and yet still survive, while the rest would fall into a pit.

The thigh guy3 votes

That’s quite literally EVERY role.

You want to play AurelionSol cool. Better hope they don’t grab Talon

You want to play Kayn cool. Better hope they don’t go LeeSin

Want to play Jinx great. Better hope they don’t choose Draven

I see you want to play Sona . Well I hope you know you’re screwed if they even hover Pyke

Acemaster811 votes

Better add Kassadin, Fizz, MasterYi, and Lulu too as they can easily ruin your day as AurelionSol if they want to only focus on you XP

Somebody Love Me3 votes

[{quoted}](name=The thigh guy,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=JFAAxGEA,comment-id=0010,timestamp=2019-08-21T22:38:36.212+0000)

That’s quite literally EVERY role.

You want to play AurelionSol cool. Better hope they don’t grab Talon

You want to play Kayn cool. Better hope they don’t go LeeSin

Want to play Jinx great. Better hope they don’t choose Draven

I see you want to play Sona . Well I hope you know you’re screwed if they even hover Pyke

P sure no mid wants to play against Talon at ALL

And my personal belief is that everyone who plays bot lane should ban Pyke until he is fixed

Mordepool1 votes

I would pick morde into talon anyday.

Dabrick011 votes

Lol AurelionSol is such an awful case. I think he's got an interesting kit, but damn is it weak against anything that can attack him from inside or outside his range.

They gutted this champ before they even put numbers into the kit bro

TekkenPlayer2 votes

Its kindve the same for mid except when you get countered you just afk farm for 15 minutes

Somebody Love Me1 votes

{quoted}

Its kindve the same for mid except when you get countered you just afk farm for 15 minutes

I wanna say support is the same way, but then you gotta factor ADCS, which can make counter matchups either easier or much harder

Tailypo2 votes

I've been dipping into top lane a bit more lately (usually jg), and I was wondering what are some of the safest picks for that lane that are also strong picks for the team more often than not. Especially when picking first or second, what are some of the hardest to counter top lane picks? I've been going with Vladimir and Swain as two champs that I'd like to improve with, but I don't have a whole lot of experience with top lane. Learned that Swain is not so great vs Yasuo last night.

mrmeddyman6 votes

{quoted}

I've been dipping into top lane a bit more lately (usually jg), and I was wondering what are some of the safest picks for that lane that are also strong picks for the team more often than not. Especially when picking first or second, what are some of the hardest to counter top lane picks? I've been going with Vladimir and Swain as two champs that I'd like to improve with, but I don't have a whole lot of experience with top lane. Learned that Swain is not so great vs Yasuo last night.

I semi OTP swain in midland and I gotta say say is actually one of my more favorable matchups for swain.

CrazyMonkeyCZ

Ban Kled, pick Aatrox, should be gg if you invest enough time into him.

Minimac20004 votes

{quoted}

Ban Kled, pick Aatrox, should be gg if you invest enough time into him.

I main illaoi and have to say I obliterate aatrox in lane even mains. The obvious positioning of aatrox kit makes landing spirit pulls a breeze and every aatrox main thinks they win if they go balls deep at 6 (spoiler, if illaoi has your spirit and you all in at 6, you don't win that)

Ragnaveil1 votes

Yet we nerfing Aatrox because he's "strong" in pro play when its just pros not picking his counters. For LCS Semis, the only person I saw who picked the correct counter to Aatrox was Impact, who picked Renekton.

Minimac20001 votes

{quoted}

Yet we nerfing Aatrox because he's "strong" in pro play when its just pros not picking his counters. For LCS Semis, the only person I saw who picked the correct counter to Aatrox was Impact, who picked Renekton.

I mean illaoi is also definitely unusable in lcs even if she aboslutely stomps lane. She has no cc and pros are smart enough to not ever get caught in her safe space ergo she will never be picked there

PaffWasTaken1 votes

You pick ranged champions like Jayce Kennen or Vladimir if your kind of thing is being a back-up carry, but then again their performance are still based on a coinflip and how well you do with them.

Otherwise, utility picks with teamfight potential and lots of cc are really usefull even if you end up doing very very bad in the game, champs like Shen ,Poppy ,Ornn ,Urgot and things like that comes to mind. They may not be the most broken things in top (by far actually), but at least they are amongst the most constant in results and you won't end up looking like a 0/15/2 Akali

Ahris2 votes

Mordekaiser imo has no counters. Maybe im missing someone.(maybe darius? But ban him and not much problem. So as long as you can ban, wont the counter picks no longer rlly exist?)

Minimac20001 votes

{quoted}

Mordekaiser imo has no counters. Maybe im missing someone.(maybe darius? But ban him and not much problem. So as long as you can ban, wont the counter picks no longer rlly exist?)

Mordekaiser has both no counters and every counter. Basically stomp on him cuz his pre-6 sux. Then try not to deal with him at all as much as possible bc everyone loses to his broken ult. Then buy qss->mercurial = ez win, profit

Tychusfindlay9182 votes

{quoted}

Mordekaiser has both no counters and every counter. Basically stomp on him cuz his pre-6 sux. Then try not to deal with him at all as much as possible bc everyone loses to his broken ult. Then buy qss->mercurial = ez win, profit

Morde doesn't really do well into GP for the most part.

GP can scale with the ez pre 6 and just orange any time morde tries to ult him.

NightKnightRen4 votes

{quoted}

Mordekaiser imo has no counters. Maybe im missing someone.(maybe darius? But ban him and not much problem. So as long as you can ban, wont the counter picks no longer rlly exist?)

HAHAHAHAHA Cassiopeia

Void Kaiju4 votes

Mordekaiser doesn't have fun vs champs like Darius and Singed who have higher sustained damage than him and the ability to force trades to start/end. He really needs to get liandries/Rylais to start having truly painful trades and before that his lane is profoundly mediocre.

Cho'Gath is also a terrible matchup for him. Grab a triple dorans, rush liandries, poke through wave with E and use your W/Q to deny him passive procs and end trades. Unless he manages to chase you halfway down the lane with his passive burning you he will not be able to outtrade. You can use W silence to deny him the last-second shield and finish him off with R.

U R Good At Game2 votes

It's because of melee match up. Every other lane has ranged and skill shot counters. If someone counter picks you with xerath it doesn't really mean anything if you dodge his Q's. If someone counter picks you as AD, you are still often able to gather CS and play back and if your support is strong you can even still win...BUT TOP....nope, dodging is irrelevant because it's melee. You are forced to walk up to farm or just give them wave after wave of gold advantage on you.

Dabrick012 votes

Lol, I just pick Yorick Yorick.

Sure, he has disgusting counters like Trynd, Irelia, Jax, and PLENTY more.

But does anyone know what Yorick does? No. Does Anyone respect my damage at any point in the game? No. Does anyone even know what counters him even when I first pick him? Eh, not usually.

But I do agree with this post, as it just feels awful to first pick in toplane. I feel bad when I pick Kennen or Shen into something because I know they won't be able to do anything. I like the idea of natural counters, but it can be awful when the Fiora just one-shots you and then is unstoppable.

14daysuspensionk1 votes

Well sadly it's just how the system works, you get assigned to a random waiting position to pick in champ select and there's not much you can do about it.

DarwinTheory4 votes

{quoted}

Well sadly it's just how the system works, you get assigned to a random waiting position to pick in champ select and there's not much you can do about it.

Ha ha ha ha it ain't random buddy. You're assigned based on whether MMR wants you up or down. Getting 1st or second pick several times on the trot is not random....

14daysuspensionk1 votes

{quoted}

Ha ha ha ha it ain't random buddy. You're assigned based on whether MMR wants you up or down. Getting 1st or second pick several times on the trot is not random....

Never had any info that told me that's how it works.

DarwinTheory2 votes

{quoted}

Never had any info that told me that's how it works.

Have RIOT ever disclosed info on that? Or matchmaking in general.

Or MMR workings?

Nope.

14daysuspensionk1 votes

{quoted}

Have RIOT ever disclosed info on that? Or matchmaking in general.

Or MMR workings?

Nope.

No idea how you even got the info.

JoeMG1 votes

{quoted}

Ha ha ha ha it ain't random buddy. You're assigned based on whether MMR wants you up or down. Getting 1st or second pick several times on the trot is not random....

Never knew that. I was curious as to why I always seem to end up with 1st or 2nd pick.

hoganftw1 votes

It's best to pick a safe pick top. Unfortunately you can't just pick a tank and chill in lane until teamfights start anymore.

floo1 votes

Excluding patch 9.14 which emphasized counter mechanics, you will always have counterpicks, simply because champion kits have interactions with each other. Poppy naturally counters Riven because of her W effect, not only because of the added grounding effect.

JoeMG1 votes

I think it's not just that counterpicks help decide the lane, but also that top lane is super infamous for snowballing. A lot of times whomever gets first kill ends up being able to consistently out trade their opponent and usually end up 2-3 levels higher and win their lane with 3-4 kills advantage.

Düff McWhalen1 votes

If I'm first pick top lane I typically pick a jungle or mid champ that can flex into top lane to try and avoid being counter picked and get a skill match up. My go-to flex tops are Galio, Shyvana and Viktor . All three can either all in or trade with with your annoying ranged tops like Teemo or Quinn, and poke out something like a Jax or Fiora early if you play around their cool downs.

Shyvana these days is very unexpected and people do not respect her early game E debuff. I bodied a Renekton one time because he thought he could all in and out sustain me.

ShyImagoghnar1 votes

Just always first pick jax. Even if you get shafted in lane, you'll scale to a 1v3 split pushing demigod

HoldMyPlank1 votes

(Low Plat Elo) If I am first pick I usually just pick Chogath because he can handle Darius Garen Nasus Renekton Irelia . And then I just ban Aatrox because that's really the only threat to my fp.

My champion pool is Gangplank Nasus Chogath Poppy , and its hard to pick anything else as FP because if I pick Poppy, then the enemy picks nasus. If I pick Gangplank, I get a renekton who can 100-0 me.

Yet if I pick cho… well If the enemy has a lot of kill pressure I just afk in lane and stack ult asap. As soon as I hit 11, suddenly they can't duel me(Max E) and I can just roam. And if they don't, well I can pressure their lane super hard and bully the jungler/get stacks blah blah the rest is history.

Either way, Im tired of playing chogath in 90% of my games because hes really the only thing worth first-picking in the meta.

Mortismo1 votes

just play akali then

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