Champion tiering and when they should be banned.

In Pokemon, there are currently over 700 different creatures to pick from. It's quite easier, up front, to see who is ridiculously powerful, and who simply gives great synergy to another Pokemon. IE: Specially defensive Heatran and Physically bulky Gliscor are of great synergy, but both have glaring weaknesses; while combating spikes teams well due to rapid spin capability of Gliscor.

I think such tiers also exist in league of legends... and they must be made without regard to "skill cap". For example, just because more skill is required to be nearly the "best lee sin" doesn't mean it's fair to give that champion better likelihood and ability to win, while playing him at that level compared to a Swain.

Let me know how you feel, and while I haven't played Pokemon in a long time. I will try to organize this in the same way. Eventually even Nintendo adopted a more strict tier system since they were noticing simply more diversified game-play and strategy, rather than, say, simply letting Jirachi and Darkrai into every tournament, for example. Now she's in many tournaments, but not most.

As I see it now in 5.2 Not every champion is up yet, because I am including them slowly alphabetically

Uber (ie: Overpowered, and deserves a meta-game where they are perma-banned, as in Pokemon). Ahri: She may have less damage, but like the days before Double-Team was banned, she now reliably escapes from sticky situations on-demand with her Orb of Deception while simply doing enough damage (and some True damage).

Overused (ie: Standard meta-game, those who would not be banned permanently given the current situation, as they fit perfectly into a most diverse game-play). Akali: Nearly unanimously banned in any tier below Platinum and making unexpected clutch appearances between the two best teams in the entire world, Akali at least deserves Overused status. Even after her range nerf, she locks down targets and destroys... while healing damage off. She is reliable. Amumu: A reliable clear time, strong ganks, he can duel certain enemy champions early on, and escape in all the other situations. A proper build sees his endgame as not only annoying CC, but as a high damage tank. Nearly Uber, but since he can be baited, he remains OU. Annie: While she has a particularly high power output given not too intensive skill requirements, she does has her mechanics to watch out for, and also for the enemy to watch out for. She is no Brand when it comes to complexity, but her power level is of the same calibur, anyways. Anivia: High damage burst on a decent cool-down. Utility to save (or troll) her entire team at any moment. Blitzcrank: While his skill cap is so immense that is can produce a lot of amazing plays in the right hands, the total output is not comparable, to another high skill cap champions, say Lee Sin. He definitely is harder to play, its just his reward for skill is far more balanced, in my opinion. He sees frequent play, and has his occasional ban. Brand: A high skill champion with pretty high rewards; yet he is not designed with no counter play. You get rewarded for good plays, but in a particular way that may not carry you as far as would be unfair. Caitlyn: If you've seen a Caitlyn in a game, and if you've played this week, there was one this week in your life, you know this is simply right. Cassiopeia: Cassiopeia takes he DPS of an endgame adc, and applies it to herself, through her kit, in a linear way rather than multiplicatively. This allows you to do a variety of fun things. You don't even need an ADC, just some AD champions to make sure they don't building only Magic Resist. Bruiser bots become possible with her, as she dishes out over 1k damage - after resistances are calculated - per second to a target. Her escape requires a strike, and that can easily be dodged. Skill vs skill isn't considered, so here, we understand cassiopeia to be easy to lock down. That is how she avoid Ahri status. Cho'Gath: Irrelevant to skill, and literally allowing this champion to win a lot, is the idea that Cho'Gath can switch his roles at the start of the game. He can tank from top or mid, since his base damages are high, and he can also carry from both since he gets so much free health. Dive him, and you might have a fed cho'gath because of all his CC. Leave him alone, and prepare to get harassed by high damage Crowd Control from an relentlessly tanky foe. Corki: One of those ADCs, that, if they invest a little into cooldown reduction, can take care of themselves 100% of the time. They can do this through runes, masteries... or by simply taking a cdr detour in their build. Also having a heap of True and Magic damage make this ADC the hardest one to itemize against (with the exception of Vayne, who you cannot itemize against, ready Vayne later on why). Dr. Mundo: It's hard to push a mundo out of lane, even before 6. He builds health well. Also, hit kit has so much innate damage, that even those with % max health kits see themselves being (assassinated) run down and killed in 1v1 situation vs a Dr. Mundo. Draven: No one can burst harder and few (kayle) can outduel him at level 1. He is near reliably going to secure this early game advantage and dominate bottom lane (and sometimes top lane, max the Steroid for your escapes).

Borderline (ie: Probably underused due to skill or synergy requirements, but power is aligned with Overused champions, they just simply see less play in favor of easier to put together or easier to use set ups) Alistar: He lacks reliable range isolation like many champions are capable enough, but he can punish the dim witted and initiate better than Thresh. He certainly sees a lot of synergy into Overused, he just simply isn't being praised competitively anymore or being overplayed. Azir: Half of his passive is useless in measure, and simply allows his kit to actually work. Otherwise, he'd be a horribly Neverused champion. The other half of his passive is half-useful in forcing enemy teams to switch objective goals. Otherwise, he strikes it up there with Karthus, Ryze, and Cassiopeia in Magic Damage per second, and nearly has the burst of a Ryze as well. But is his long range enough to balance his lack of say, Cassiopeia's master of DPS? or Karthus ability to pentakill in death? Or say that Ryze is tankier than mos melee bruisers in endgame? I'd say he's borderline. Braum: A viable support that readily defends his carry. He excels mostly with carries that desire projectile protection while dishing out more than the enemy can chew. A particular synergy is with Vayne. If Braum plays right, anyone on the front line is dead, in that combination. However, his shortcomings have got to be in ADCs who simply can take care of themselves more reliably. His kits power is still what it is, but it's like building health on poppy. The potential scale is negative. Darius: There is no doubt. There are lanes Darius can bully and smash all the way to their tower. And if the opponents jungler is not a certain type, he can do it safely, least you give him a double kill at level 3. Darius forces you to have an early game jungler that can out-scale him, like Shyvana, if your top lane vs him is not so powerful. But he is a very unsafe pick. He has no escape, some top lanes he appears designed to fight actually just outduel and destroy him (looking at you Jarvan IV), and he isn't just an unsafe pick, but if first picked in his lane, will see someone like Kayle or Teemo just poop all over him. Because of this, he doesn't see excessive use. Diana: Who wants to help me here? I know she's strong, she isn't just all over the scene like a normal OU champion, in my opinion. And there are those that do her job better unless a part of her kit is explicitly demanded (like to initiate on a whole team like a malphite while assassinating like a fizz). Ezreal: If somehow Ezreal's Q became a targetted ability, he would become the most powerful ADC that could realistically go any lane, dominating anything. However, this is not the case. It's only a sure thing on a chase, when routing is more predictive. Otherwise, you're only going to reliably hit opponents with about a fifth of your mystic shots, and even that is dubious. It's like playing against nidalee. He can feel oppressive while waiting or the wave, but when it's there, Ezreal is doing nothing. And even when waiting for it, just use wide strafing. However, in team fights, he lands a lot of damage as those abilities and his mobility become more effective.

Underused (ie: Those that see falling out due to the Standard meta-game, but are accepted as a fallout because more bans would be required than the number of these champions to be inclusive of them. They are still quite balanced in most situations and very effective.) Aatrox: He has a pretty straight forward kit, and it is quite effective. Seemingly a knock-off of Vladimir, it out duels him and has potentials for a lot of team fight burst. Sadly, he is overshadowed by other characters who particular quirks simply meld better into the Overused scene. Ashe: She sees very little games, yet a measurable number of games sprinkled throughout all tiers. She even pops into every level of competition, simply because she can double as an initiator, work around that concept, or act as a magnet to targets that would otherwise escape! Elise: Despite her appearance in world's 2014, the reason her general winrate has been so low for a while was evident. Her potential was a burden on her team. She can be an effective CDR tank that utilizes % damage to shred frontline tank enemies, but then she sacrifices her ability to combat enemy carries. One can build her with burst and do both; it just takes more skill... and that skill requirement isn't producing anything extraordinary above the former build. Evelynn: We've seen her fall from the highest winrate in 2013 after a series of nerfs to nearly her old 2011/2012 status. With DFG gone, her ult and E could go back to their stronger states, but that has yet to be done. Her wonky kit either needs some increasing scaling so she can become the 2012 Jax of today, or more base damage, so she can become another modern Jax. Or like I said, revert it back to its mage assassination form.

Neverused (ie: Those that need significant rework to bring into the meta-game. Whereas underused see almost as much play as Overused, due to synergies into overused category, and such, Neveruseds, simply put, are rarely used)