Hello everyone and welcome to another Tier List by Arcane Rebirth? No, not really. This time it’s my own, alone* work. Welcome to Koella’s Patch 4.8 3v3 Tierlist! 🙂

* (But you might see some elements that were in the ArcaR Tierlist since I’ve used that as my draft for this one.)

For those who don’t know me yet: I am Koella, a long-time-experienced and devoted 3v3 player who has preferred this mode ever since it was revealed before Season 1, when it was only a Custom game mode.

I’ve achieved top 3v3 rewards in each season and played amongst the very top ever since the end of Season 2. As for Season 3, I achieved being placed on Rank 1 of the EUW ladder with my team Arcane Rebirth. However, not long after Season 4 began, ArcaR disbanded and I began to focus on 5v5 and other games outside of League for a good amount of time.

Recently, I’ve started playing 3v3’s again. At first, only with random people who were online just to play for the fun of it, but currently, I’m very close to forming a proper team again with which I might climb the ladder all the way to the top once more. Doing this, I’ve made a comeback into the current S4 Meta and I’ve analyzed what is going on at the level I currently play on, as well as what’s on even higher levels. Therefore, I believe I’ve gathered enough experience and knowledge once again to be able to make a Tier List – So here it is! 🙂

Enjoy and feel free to discuss!

Tier Description

Important: Before I begin describing the Tiers more in-depth, I’d like to say that a champion is not unviable only because they are not in God Tier or Tier 1. Oftentimes it’s also very important to think about possible counter-picks or what would fit your team comp better. If this is the case, then a Tier 2 or Tier 3 champion could fit better than a higher-tier champion.

God Tier

These are Champions who are mostly safe picks and outclass a lot of champions in their role. They’re also not vulnerable to counter-picks and often used as first-picks to take them away from your enemy.

Tier 1

Generally pretty strong and safe picks that usually offer multiple options for your team and are guaranteed to have an impact on the game. You can first-pick them without fearing harsh counterpicks.

Tier 2

Decent picks, but be careful when using them. If you pick them too early, you may get countered. Plus, they may not fit into a lot of team comps you’re trying to build.

Tier 3

The Champions in here are rather situational niche-picks. You should probably only consider using them as a counterpick or if you need them for a very specific reason in your team comp.

Tier 4

Champions in this Tier either don’t fit the Meta or are generally not really usable for any purpose. Try to stay away from them.

Meta Shifts

Before I begin discussing individual champions, I would say few words about the meta itself, because the recent changes to the Summoner Spells and AP Items like Blackfire Torch (BFT) and Hextech Sweeper affected a lot of champions and how I then placed them.

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Because of the buffs to Heal and Exhaust, champions who only have single target burst with limited sustained damage suffer significantly nowadays. Burst mages like Ahri fell out of favor again and the new go-to mages have either multiple consistent bursts (Syndra, Lissandra) or general sustained damage (Soraka, Karma, Orianna).

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What also contributed to the above changes were the slew of nerfs to Blackfire Torch. The preferred item nowadays is Morellonomicon because it can prevent high heals from a low HP target and it offers a lot of cheap AP, CDR, and some Utility in the form of Mana Regeneration.

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The new Hextech Sweeper allowed Ryze and Singed to rise from the depths once again, while also helping some supportive champions with their mana problems and tankiness.

In general, bruisers are less affected than mages. However, AD-casters with a single burst, like Lee Sin and Zed, got hit quite hard, and other champions with high sustained as well as some burst damage, like Xin Zhao and Wukong rose up the ranks.

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These are Champions who are mostly safe picks and outclass a lot of champions in their role. They’re also not vulnerable to counter-picks and often used as first-picks to take them away from your enemy.

God Tier:

Braum, Diana, Jax, Kha’Zix, Pantheon, Syndra,Wukong, Xin Zhao, Yasuo

Champion Explanations

Braum: He is a ridiculously strong Support nowadays. Not only does he have a lot of lane-pressure against single targets with his passive, but he’s also a good lvl 2 brawler and contributes a ton in lategame-teamfights.

What he also does great against is the fairly new, but increasingly popular double-AP-teamcomp, since he can prevent a lot of burst-damage that was aimed at his allies by blocking threatening projectiles for them.

In general, Braum doesn’t have a real weak point at the moment and is probably together with Syndra, the most solid pick on Twisted Treeline.

Diana (Mage): The buff she received to her passive during the patch Lichbane got nerfed was a huge deal for her. It now scales even better on AP!

You can build a tanky-flat-AP Diana (Wooglets, Rylais, Moonflair Spellblade) with Berserker Greaves as boots, and you’re going to deal a lot of damage without ever dying. Plus it’s consistent, sustained damage so you’re not going to be useless if you’re exhausted a lot or if the enemies have multiple heals.

Her only downside is that she doesn’t synergize too well with an early Morellonomicon, but the strength that she gains from other items evens that out quite well. Her laning phase is also very good: By maxing your W first (I recommend to do this as a standard!) you are not too susceptible to poke and your jungle clearing-speed in-between minion waves is insanely quick.

That’s also why I mostly recommend playing her in a Support-Meta as opposed to a Jungle-Meta because then she doesn’t have to hurt her teammates for her own benefit. If you know your team is going for an overall passive playstyle and that you’re going to be jungling a whole lot in the earlygame you can even pick up the AP-jungle-item first.

If you manage to stack it up it benefits Diana insanely well for being such a cheap item and you can build really tanky right after it.

Jax: There were a couple of changes that really benefitted Jax in his viability, making him the dominating scaling monster that he currently is. The new runes help him both to survive the early game and to scale faster and more strongly into his late power position.

Burst mages who build a lot of Magic Pen early on have fallen out of favor and against sustained mages, he can now prevent a lot more damage with his Ultimate. AD casters fell out of favor to be replaced by auto-attacking bruisers. This obviously compliments his Dodge-mechanic on Counterstrike by default and as such he is often a Counterpick to the common Bruiser picks such as Xin Zhao, but especially against the currently dominating Yasuo.

Syndra: Even though Burst mages fell out of favor, Syndra is still extremely strong. If you take Ignite on her, she can still blow up targets with Heal, and her follow-up damage is quite strong because her cooldowns aren’t particularly high. Also, she’s out of Exhaust range on all of her spells, which can be a huge deal when casting Ultimate.

Yasuo: He is the king of constant bursts. Basically, every single AA and Q count as burst and he doesn’t get bursted down himself anymore since bursty characters fell out of favor so much. He out-duels every other AS-based bruiser, has a lot of Utility with his Windwall and a ton of Mobility through his E. Many people think that he needs a knock-up on the team to be effective, but in reality he doesn’t even need to use his Ultimate to be able to join a fight in 3v3.

Of course, he still combos extremely well with knockup-champions like Vi, Wukong and Thresh, but it’s not a necessity for him as much as it is in 5v5. However, always remember to ban Jax if you’re going to pick Yasuo!

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Generally pretty strong and safe picks that usually offer multiple options for your team and are guaranteed to have an impact on the game. You can first-pick them without fearing harsh counterpicks.

Tier 1:

Ahri, Annie, Cassiopeia, Evelynn, Jarvan IV, Karma (Mage), Lee Sin, Leona, Lissandra, Lulu, Malzahar, Morgana (Mage), Nasus, Orianna, Renekton, Ryze, Shyvana, Soraka (Mage), Thresh, Trundle (Bruiser), Udyr, Vi, Ziggs

Champion Explanations

Malzahar: Due to Burst-Mages and Lee Sin falling out of favor, along with AS-based bruisers and mages with sustained damage coming into play, Malzahar got a huge boost in his viability. He has a lot of sustained damage with all his spells and Voidlings, and can pretty much duel any champion with sustained damage as long as he has enough Mana (which can sometimes be a problem with him).

His only real weakness lies against quick, long-ranged gapclosers. But neither Jax, Xin Zhao, Yasuo or Soraka have those. So, he often is free to just spam out his spells and eventually lock a target down with his Ultimate for an easy kill. His laning phase, while not being really strong in terms of being aggressive, is extremely safe in a similar way to Diana where he just sits there and farms all day without taking any poke or being in danger of getting ganked.

This is because he can just push quickly and then get off the lane again and either take jungle camps on his own, gank for toplane or group up with his team to take objectives like an Altar. Malzahar is also extremely versatile in build paths: You can go for a tank-shredding build that also makes yourself tanky by purchasing Liandry’s into Rylais with early Sorcerers boots.

You can go for a burst-heavy anti-heal build where you go for a Morellonomicon into Wooglets or you can even go for a mix of flat AP and MagicPen to get the most consistent damage output you’ve ever seen on a mage. And you don’t even need certain runes for different buildpaths so you can adjust your build to the enemies summoner spells etc.

Tip: He’s also a secret counterpick to Yasuo: Windwall can’t really be utilized against Malzahar and Yasuo is squishy enough to just be bursted in one ability rotation.

Nasus: Nasus is yet another champion that became strong due to the rise of AS-based bruisers. That’s obviously because of how strong W(ither) is against them. The new Hextech Sweeper is also a really powerful item that gives Nasus a smooth transition out of the early game even if he didn’t manage to farm up too many Q-stacks. Plus it can help him farm them up quicker once he got it.

Be careful about not picking him into too much magic damage (never pick him into the recently popular double-AP-comps!) since he profits a lot more from Armor items. If the enemies dare to pick a full-AD composition and you have last pick, feel free to pick him anytime, even instead of an AP carry. He can and will do well against them.

Lee Sin: The long-time 3v3 god finally fell off. With all the nerfs Riot blessed him with, plus the changes to heal and exhaust, which screw him over really hard he got punched out of his what seems like century-long godlike dominance.

But okay let’s put the fun away and get this straight: Even though he got nerfed so much and the changes to Heal and Exhaust affect him a lot he is still a really strong pick but harder to play than ever before. He can and will work in hands of people that are able to play him extremely well but for all those who can’t I wouldn’t recommend counting on him anymore. There are easier, more rewarding champions to pick nowadays.

Annie: She’s still good as both Mage and Support but she suffered a lot from the BFT nerfs and the Summoner-Spell buffs. Also she’s in Exhaust range while casting her burst-combo.However her damage is so high that she can often still just blow people up on the spot and her AoE stunning potential didn’t decrease either.

Karma (Mage): Due to other mages not dealing as much damage anymore she can now keep up in that aspect again. Plus her damage is (mostly) sustained as opposed to burst-based and she synergizes really well with a first-item-Morellonomicon. I would highly recommend only running her in a Jungle-Meta though because she still is one of the lower-damage-mages with a lot of Utility for her team.

In a Support-Meta you already have your Support to provide Utility for your team and having two supportive champions would be way too much for 3v3. Karma works really well if you have to deal with melee champions, but is a lot weaker against backline-targets because she can’t get to them and her spells aren’t that long-ranged.So be careful about when you pick her.

This is also a reason for her being stronger in a Jungle-Meta, because having two bruisers that can run into their team will have a way easier time getting onto important backline targets than only one which relieves Karma from that task and enables her to focus down melee targets and support her teammates.

Soraka (Mage): She was already strong in 3v3 before, but the recent buffs to heal and exhaust, which made burst-heavy champions a lot less common in 3v3 made her life even easier.By co-ordinating the team’s exhausts and heals as well as her own heals she can keep her team alive forever while still dishing out a ton of sustained damage.Plus she synergizes extremely well with a first-item-Morellonomicon.

Even her MR-shred can come in handy if you run Bruisers or Junglers that use magic damage like Jax, Shyvana or Evelynn. BUT the current Meta lately also involves a lot of double-AP-teamcomps, at least in high Elo. She’s not that great if she can’t get close before receiving too much damage so be very careful about picking her blindly nowadays.

That Meta-Observation alone is the reason why she ended up in Tier 1 instead of God Tier. So if you don’t see a lot of double-AP-comps in your Elo, then you can safely count her as a God Tier-Champion. As a Support she lacks base-damage, survivability, strong heals and peel and she can’t really build the items she wants to in 3v3. I’d really recommend using her as tanky mage.

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Decent picks, but be careful when using them. If you pick them too early you might get countered plus they might not fit into a lot of teamcomps you’re trying to build.

Tier 2:

Aatrox, Akali, Brand, Cho’Gath, Darius, Diana (Jungle), Dr. Mundo, Elise, Fiora, Fizz, Gangplank, Hecarim, Irelia, Janna, Jarvan (Jungler), Karma (Support), Kayle, LeBlanc, Mordekaiser, Nocturne, Nunu (Support), Olaf, Riven, Singed, Swain, Taric, Vayne, Viktor, Vladimir, Volibear, Wukong (Bruiser), Zed, Zyra

Champion Explanations

Diana (Jungle): As mentioned before she synergizes really well with the AP-jungle-item: Just build that and Berserker Greaves and you’ll have enough damage for days BUT she doesn’t gank well, is incredibly susceptible to early invades and junglefights and often times as Jungler just doesn’t get the farm she needs to become effective. It’s a risky pick that can either work out really well or fail horribly.

Karma (Support): As opposed to 5v5 the poke isn’t a particularly good thing to have on a Support: It’s not going to do much. But she still has a lot of Utility and Survivability to provide for her team plus she helps the Bruiser at clearing early Jungle camps a lot quicker with her AoE on Q.

Fizz: Many people believe that Fizz is incredibly strong nowadays because his activated W works so well against heals in general. But the better it works against the new Heal, the worse it is against the new Exhaust. It just takes away way too much of his damage which is all-melee. Plus the little buffs they gave him don’t compensate for the incredible nerf of Lichbane.

That said he is still a good pick against Soraka and is therefore better than before. Also because you can make use of the buff he got and build Blackfire Torch into Wooglets first and only build a Lichbane later in the game. So he’s an OK pick overall but I wouldn’t recommend prioritizing him over other mages.

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The Champions in here are rather situational niche-picks. You should probably only consider using them as a counterpick or if you need them for a very specific reason in your team comp.

Tier 3:

Alistar, Amumu, Caitlyn, Corki, Ezreal, Galio, Garen, Gragas, Graves, Jayce, Kassadin, Kennen, Lucian, Lux, Malphite (Mage), Morgana (Support), Nami, Nidalee, Quinn, Sejuani, Sion, Skarner, Soraka (Support), Trundle (Jungle), Tryndamere, Twisted Fate, Twitch, Vel’Koz, Volibear (Jungle), Warwick, Xerath, Zac, Zilean

Champion Explanations

Sion: He bursted onto the scene but also vanished just as quickly again. Why? Because he only has one single burst and the Summoner Spell changes prevent that from happening. His shield can get taken down easier nowadays because sustained damage-dealers (be it mages or bruisers) can focus his shield down without losing all of their damage like bursty characters would. He just fell out of the Meta again.

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Champions in this Tier either don’t fit the Meta or are generally not really usable for any purpose. Try to stay away from them.

Tier 4:

Anivia, Ashe, Blitzcrank, Draven, Fiddlesticks, Heimerdinger, Jinx, Karthus, Katarina, Kog’Maw, Malphite (Jungle/Bruiser), Maokai, Master Yi, Miss Fortune, Nautilus, Nunu (Mage/Jungle), Poppy, Rammus, Rengar, Rumble, Shaco, Shen, Sivir, Sona, Talon, Teemo, Tristana, Urgot, Varus, Veigar, Yorick[/tab][/tabgroup]

Conclusion

I hope you enjoyed reading this and maybe learned a thing or two about the 3v3 Twisted Treeline Meta. I’d like to reiterate that these are just my opinions and my opinion is not the end-all to everything. If you’d like to discuss my choices or anything else about the Twisted Treeline, feel free to contact me at my Facebook or just leave a word in the comments below. Thanks for reading!