The triangle of mid lane counters

I've been thinking about this a bit. In the meta, we can basically put champs that go mid (that benefit from short lanes i.e. burst damage, tower safety i.e. denial of sustained damage, and ability to roam both top and bot i.e. gank potential) into 3 categories.

Champs that combine traits from 2 or more of these classes are usually OP, at least in solo queue.

1. short ranged "reliable" burst mage - Annie, Lissandra, Swain, Viktor, Cassiopeia, Ryze etc. They have strong CC, high damage point and click nukes, decent AOE, no/few skillshots, relatively tanky for being mages, but low mobility and range. This means that they can wreck melee assassins incredibly well, since even though they're short ranged, they are still longer ranged than melees, and due to their reliability of not many skillshots and lots of point-and-click nukes, they are very good at locking down then bursting down mobile melees. They can also absorb the burst of melee assassins with their tankiness and burst them right back. However, in team fights, they're mostly going to be used as peel or initiation, not as a source of DPS, since their range and lack of mobility are strong limitations.

2. long ranged "skillshot" poke/siege mage - Xerath, Brand, Lux, Ziggs, Orianna, etc. They have strong CC, very high AOE damage, moderate single target damage, almost all skills are skillshots and have extremely high range. They can instagib entire minion waves, output significant DPS in teamfights, will almost never be the initiators, and usually play from complete safety. In exchange they are extremely squishy and once someone gets in their face, they're dead. They counter short ranged burst mages because without mobility, the short ranged burst mages have to tank their skillshots (which usually chunks them to half or below) to even get near the poke mages, and then they're close to being in range, the long ranged mages can just CC them for the rest of the team to burst down. However, they're really weak against mobile assassins who can dodge their skillshots, get in their face and wreck them in a few seconds.

3. mobile melee assassin - Fizz, Kassadin, Akali, Talon, Zed, etc. They are melee, have extremely high single target damage, might have a few skillshots and strong mobility. In exchange, they have very weak/no CC, are squishy, and have weak waveclear, meaning they must farm champions or get outfarmed and outscaled. They're bad against short ranged burst mages like Annie and Lissandra because if they get close, they'll get stunned and bursted down by their point and click nukes due to their squishiness. However, against long ranged mages, they can dodge all their skillshots with mobility then burst them down.

From these attributes, we predict the champs that may be very good in solo queue:

Nidalee, Katarina and Malzahar

Nidalee combines high ranged poke skillshots, with mobility, an execute, and sustain. Thus she combines attributes of both long ranged mages, and assassins.

Katarina combines mobility with extremely high short ranged, non-skillshot AOE burst, making her a combination between short ranged mage, and assassin.

Malzahar combines extremely safe long range waveclear and poke, with a point-and-click nuke/stun to deal with divers. A W+R will wreck any diving assassin. He combines the advantages of both short ranged and long ranged mages.