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So, About those SLEEPERS.

Palantair·8/14/2016, 8:15:29 PM·3 votes·883 views

I don't post often, but I figured I'd go ahead and put my thoughts on champions people are sleeping on still this season, and I'm honestly surprised no one has been abusing them. I made a thread at the beginning of the season detailing some champions that were borderline broken. Turns out many of those champs are still flying under the radar even though they are exceptional currently. To reiterate, this is a list of champions that you probably don't think about much and_ might not_ be considered "Meta".

The Rundown:

  • The monster Illaoi This champion is an absolute monster in lane. Just start corrupting pot and win lane hard. Level 6 you can do Riven Season 2 shenanigans and 2v1 the jungler gank for double kills for days. Contender for one of the best top laners in my opinion behind only GP and possibly Olaf. item 3071 >item 3812 >item 3053 Literally wrecks everything. She is truly a monster if you don't gank her hard pre-6. Post 6, forget it.

*Mother F'in Chogath Chogath This guy is so strong right now it's silly. I find him strongest in the jungle. He clears fast and safe including objectives very early. Ganks hard with his combo. Has great item path/choice depending on the game and doesn't need to build damage to be a threat. Play him like Korean Tahm kench and carry games. His top lane is very safe too and counters many meta tops. Regularly have 3k+ health by level 9 with JUST Cinderhulk, Nom stacks and SotA. Max E then W for the most reliable damage and CC.item 1401 item 3742 item 3512 item 3102

*The Cigar: Graves Still doing Graves things like at the beginning of the season. Monster jungler and an abusive top laner. He is more well known but deserves a mention because he's been dominating this entire season and no one talks about him (except cigar meme's).

*The booster monkey: MonkeyKing Why is no one playing this guy? Again, one of the most abusive top laner's and exceptional jungler's in the game as soon as he gets a lead. Requires only 1 damage item then goes full tank. Destroy's squishies and has a lot of in's in fights. There isn't a team he doesn't fit. Can nearly solo carry games which is great for soloqueue.item 3071 item 3748 item 3053 or item 3071 item 3142 item 1412 are incredibly strong.

*The Spooky Scarecrow Fiddlesticks An oustanding Jungler. His only problem is he can be invaded fairly easy early against invade junglers (Xin, Lee, ect) however you get past that you have a monster ganker and easy team fight starters with this dude. Add in a thresh for crowstorm to lantern shenanigans and there's not much to save you against him. All his weakness' are negated by a team that covers for you which gets easier the higher you go. Lower elo they don't abuse his weak early game so take advantage.

*Broken Pirate Gangplank Ok not so sleeper. But honestly he's pretty busted the higher you go in ranked. I don't see how he hasn't received significant changes yet. If you can play him and abuse the keg minigame he's freelo. Watch any high elo streamer and they will tell you the same. Higher you go the more pick/ban he is.item 3078 +item 3031 into anything else you want and wreck. Start doran's ring for easy lane farm for days or if you feel uncomfortable get Corruption potion for ease of mind. Final word, Busted. Rito please fix. /salt

*The lost at sea tank Nautilus This guy. Uncleansable, inescapable, and click targeted CC on demand. Gapclosers and stuns for days. Abusive AoE damage from E and W +sunfire. Never dies. What more can you want in a tank top/jungler? He is super safe in lane and he can actually put that money to use and win teamfights by just being there. Might become more popular if his buffs go through on PBE. Very solid pick and easy to pick up.

*The Wrektful Barbarian Olaf He may fall off after the ADC's can kill him before he gets to them, but before that he literally kills everything he gets in range of. Olaf's Level 1 is arguable the strongest in game. Has great item choice. Builds tanky and wrecks anything that moves. Closes games very early. What is not to like? Oh, and that immune to CC is the BkB of league and lets him do things that should best be unseen by those faint of heart.

*The Hypercarry Jax Another case of Olaf. His level one with E is very scary. Very strong flex pick either for top or jungle. Gets one damage item item 3078 and can afford to go full tank from there if he's ahead and carry by himself. Flexible build path. Can 100-0 anyone who isn't full tank in one rotation and kills everyone else in 2-3 seconds. Great solo queue champion. Popular one shot jungler build on him thats seeing success is item 1419 item 3153 item 3124 . You are squishy but you destroy everything you get your hands on including tanks with all that %health damage.

*The Deeeeeeestruction ADC. Jinx Not sure why she isn't played more then she is (maybe Jhin/ashe were seen as better). She fights them just fine in lane, scales super hard and has nearly broken levels of teamfight damage. Proc the passive and she isn't getting caught anytime soon. The buffs to R help her a lot too. All ADC's outside of Kalista and possibly Corki are more then viable so if you haven't check her out, she's going to be picked more after the Ashe/Jhin/Sivir nerfs.

*3 wolves 1 moon Diana This is again, a very abusive champion. As soon as you establish a lead you destroy anyone who gets in your range in one rotation. She's very much like akali only she has a lot more survivability in the initial burst phase. All you have to learn to start having success is learning the Q>W>R>R>E combo throwing in the AA animation cancels in as you get better at it and you just win. The only window of counterplay is don't get in range/dodge Q which is much harder the more the game gets into the teamfight phase.

*The troll Trundle This guy is so good in the tank jungler meta. You have lots of health/armor/mr?.... I have high health/mr/armor now. R makes him a monster. W is huge MS/AS. E is great to interrupt/stop people. Q is that "Get wrekt" ability. Steal your AD and increase his. This guy is never weak and can afford (again) to build one damage item to full tank and still wreck anything.

This isn't to tell you which champions to play or even how to play them. HOWEVER, I felt the need to bring these champions up because the more I see/play them the more I recognize how truly strong they are. They abuse the Tanky damage items and Masteries to very good effect and from the majority of my games have been VERY impactful on how the game plays. Most of my suspicions are backed by stat sights like op.gg and such. I still think League has too much free damage thrown about, however I've adapted and learned to use it. I highly recommend trying these guys out. None of them can be considered "bad" and in many cases are in a position to be best in lane/role.

**What do you guys think? **

EDIT: League forums suck for formatting things. Sorry it doesn't look as pretty as it should. I'll try fixing it as time goes on.

6 Comments

Eedat8/14/2016, 8:23:12 PM1 votes

You leave my KarryKong alone! MonkeyKing

I will agree that he's strong at the moment, but you're examples are off. Strong, but not for the reasons you listed

AnCa8/14/2016, 8:35:44 PM1 votes

Illaoi not that sleeper, I mostly ban her or kled atm. (Weeeeell, and soraka.)

Chogath mobility creep is his problem. Basically need to walk up to do his full combo, but late game it becomes harder to land Q, and or walk up without getting ktied etc. And him walking slow and have a huge hit box cause of stacks don't help either. But early mid game opop sustain.

Graves Graves is graves.

MonkeyKing don't know about top, but he has some bad match up in jg that is very crippling, I won't go into details. But I think in the last 2 patch he basically got out shine by hecarim due to their overlapping role in teamfight. And hecarim being way more reliable at pre6 ganks.

Fiddlesticks Difficult to play due to his very distinct playstyle. So less ppl play him.

Gangplank I don't have to ban him cause other people already does it for me XD

Nautilus AND Riot buffed his ult with extra cc, wait. what?? why rito?? (P.S. Did you ever try a on hit atk spd build with him? Its hilarious and does pretty decent damage with the same boat load of cc.

Olaf Don't scale to late game. Early mid game king. And struggle against league of jumps late game. But man his first clear is probably one of the fastest.

Jax Need time to farm, and in the mean time team might dies or feds. But definately feels like a better mastery yi atm. Scale super hard, and early ganks are decent with stun. (Edit: His damage build is also very very very expansive for a jungler.)

Jinx Ppl already notice this I think. I see ppl picking her up again. But ashe and jhin are still doing better most of the time. And she still suffer the "need team to pick a tank, but they all picked squishy" syndrome.

Diana Don't know about this one. Probably cause the good one requires animation canceling and ppl don't really learn that and feels she is weak. I don't play her or see her much so I can't say for sure.

Trundle Pillar requires a bit of practice. And his kit is relatively boring to some cause its not flashy at all. (On a side note, in low elo you can just counter trundle jg by picking weewick Warwick .)

Astôlfo8/14/2016, 10:01:35 PM1 votes

Illaoi Not against anyone that actually knows how to play against her. Chogath Just no. Graves Eh, I guess. MonkeyKing Eh, not really. Fiddlesticks I guess. Gangplank First of all, not sleeper. Second of all, he's still incredibly hard. But yes, he is stupid strong. Nautilus I guess. Olaf He can be plenty strong but he's still hard countered by a lot of things and not too good in higher ELOs without a fair bit of experience. Jax He's sort of more just a pubstomper at this point. Jinx Just currently out-classed by Jhin/Ashe. Her crit rockets + tower killing is still good as ever. Diana Ehh, she's in a weak spot right now and suffers a lot until one gains a good bit of experience on her. But she's still a pubstomper. Trundle This guy's sustain and his ult are cancerous to play against, and he's quite strong with a good bit of experience. His utility and CC are always helpful too.

Wind Whistler8/19/2016, 9:20:56 PM1 votes

Galio and Yorick are pretty stupid, if you ask me. They're ridiculously tanky late game, and both deal a ton of damage.