There are a variety of League of Legends top laners that counter each other. Some vary in strength based on metas, others vary depending on matchups.
For top laners, there are three archetypes of champions that fluctuate as the meta changes: hyper-carries, support-style champions, and split pushers.
Splitpushers have a weak laning presence and a weaker ability to trade damage until they get a few items. Once they get some items and can duel with their opponents, they just steamroll through the lane, taking turrets until the enemy team sends forces to stop them.
Support-style top laners are the beefiest tanks in the game, like Sion, Ornn, and Shen. They can trade damage with their lane opponent reasonably well, but their main strength comes from surviving in their lane until they can build up enough tanky items to join their team in all-out team fights.
Top lane hyper-carries put out insanely high damage in the blink of an eye and can usually hit multiple targets at once with high cleave and AoE damage.
This list of top-tier champions can be affected depending on a number of things. Sometimes the meta shifts for no apparent reason other than players’ tastes, but usually there’s some kind of balance change behind it. It can be difficult to keep up on the flavor-of-the-month champs, so let us do that for you.
Shen
Pros
- Great kit
- Game-changing crowd control as a basic ability
- Global ultimate
Cons
- Hard to come back if behind
Darius
Pros
- Strong one-vs-one duelist
- Exceptional sustain
- Good at punishing immobile champions
Cons
- No dash
- Falls of in later stages of the game
Maokai
Pros
- Strong sustain
- Lots of crowd control
- Exceptional teamfighter
Cons
- High mana costs
After being away from the Rift for multiple patches, Maokai is back in action. His counters were nerfed into the ground and his item build was buffed up. The most significant buff was to Bami’s Cinder. The item deals a lot of AoE damage if you use crowd control on a champion and Maokai has plenty of it.
Lulu
Pros
- Strong utility-oriented kit
- Cheap power spike
- Low cooldowns
Cons
- Squishy
- Can’t split push
- Needs a carry in the team
Camille
Pros
- Great duelist
- Can dash over walls
- Game-changing ultimate
Cons
- Item reliant
- High skill-cap
Camille is a powerful pick in the current meta. She singles out immobile carries easily and can destroy them in the blink of an eye. While she has some weaknesses such as being item reliant and having a high skill ceiling, the glaring pros of picking her grossly outweigh all cons she currently has.
