Aatrox's 50% winrate in Plat+, and my opinion as a player who really enjoys aspects of his kit

As much as I think Aatrox should be taken into consideration as one of the next Champs to be slated for a considerable buff, he feels really good to play as a toplaner right now. Mabye not in Ranked--and certainly not in the jungle--but his lanephase feels a lot better than it did in previous seasons.

I took a break from League for a pretty lengthy period of time and, upon returning, felt deadlocked into playing champions that were 'in-favour' as far as the meta was concerned because the Champions I previously played had either undergone kit changes or had been hit with nerfs. For the entire preseason I had been avoiding Aatrox, based on criticism on the forums regarding how he still suffers from the problems he did before, coupled with BotRK and slow-stacking nerfs that made him even less effective at locking kills.

I forget what spurred me to play him but, when I send him toplane with something like and however much extra armor/MR I'd need to survive an all-in, I've found him to be both extremely strong and super-safe to play. Even against Champs I'd previously struggled with--like Irelia--I found him extremely easy to roll toplane with, and by the time lanephase ends I can either splitpush like a Hero or pick fights with people and pretty much outsustain/win against numerous comps.

His synergy with Gunblade as a rush item, which he can get on first B if he farms hard, is immense because being kited is his biggest crux in lane--adding a means of sustain beyond autoattacking, giving him a bunch of mixed-damage potential to build off of for poke/waveclear, as well as an extra slow all greatly contribute toward his ability to smear his lane opponent. His synergy with the new Rageblade is also petty good, and BotRK still works against people stacking HP.

When I checked champion.gg today I saw that Aatrox was floating slightly above 50% in winrate, and is being sent top most often. Jungling used to be a huge facet of his play and he definitely sucks in there in comparison to how he performed when the OP aspd jungler items were around, but it seems like everybody has completely discredited his effectiveness when sent elsewhere, and how he's stood up fairly well in the new preseason as a lane-bully reminiscent of the days when Aatrox was new and people were playing him up and down in all sorts of wacky ways.

I urge people who play this game to take everything they read on the board with a grain of salt. A grain of salt at least twice the size of the salt-content in any given thread about champion/item balance you read. I skimmed through so many threads earlier about how Aatrox should be reworked entirely--even into an AD support to fit his lore, presented in a way that looked really questionable in terms of balance and fun-factor--and, as someone who actually still enjoys playing him, I find this kind of thing extremely disappointing.

If a Riot person is reading this, please don't gut his kit to the point where he feels like a completely different champion. A buff to his jungling strength would be cool, but otherwise he is still very satisfying to play.