I’ve been spending significantly more time this season playing solo queue, and with each patch comes an entirely new monster to tame. If you’re looking to climb and take advantage of players who are slow to adapt, there are some things you should first understand about this patch.

1. Heal is the go-to summoner spell, and it’s common to see 2-3 Heals on each team per game. It’s has both offensive and defensive capabilities, coupled with the ability to bait your teammates who are low on health.

2. Exhaust is buffed in both range and potency, and in conjunction with the prevalence of Heal, will render assassins significantly weaker compared to previous patches. Try to avoid playing assassin-type champions and lean towards bruisers and pokey champions.

3. The game is slightly slower in pace because of this, and you should look more towards getting CS leads or rotating around the map to get towers/dragons than get kills.

Here is my top 3 picks for each role for the purposes of stomping solo queue.

Top:

Jax – insane lane pressure, option of running TP to screw over enemy bot lane, and once you can get a lead, you splitpush forever and become a monster. Possibly one of the best lategame top laners at the moment

Renekton – Still incredibly strong despite all of the changes, stupid lane bully and can push up and dive with jungler, go mid and take mid tower, or roam down to drag and force a 5v4. Doesn’t fall off nearly as hard as everyone makes him out to.

Ryze – Once again the option of running TP, have to play scared in lane but once you hit midgame are much more useful than other top laners. Super strong for picking people off with TP, and the fact that your team has a bunch of heals only makes his sustained damage stronger.

Mid:

TF – super roam heavy, don’t look for kills 1v1, just kill sidelanes and take towers + pick people off

Orianna – Skill matchup in lane versus all the common mids, long range scaling AP mage that fits the meta perfectly because you’ll most likely have a Feral Flare bruiser/dps jungle and top.

Soraka – insane faceroll, just spam Q to win lane and press R to win the map.

Jungle:

Nocturne – Feral Flare is broken

Shyvana – Feral Flare is broken

Master Yi – Feral Flare is broken

AD:

Graves – Lane dominant and really good for splitting and teamfighting which is what the game has really boiled down to. Also hard to kill for the Feral Flare users.

Lucian – High mobility, damage, good scaling, lane bully. Lucian has everything in his kit and is therefore a high priority pick

Corki – Once again, high mobility and damage. Corki is strong at all stages of the game and only falls off at 6 items. You’ll have to get used to his new Q animation, but he is overall a very safe and high damage AD.

Support:

Karma – Lane bully with a lot of options built into her kit. Can run Spellthief’s without losing lane.

Morgana – High kill potential but risky at the same time. Only pick her if you’re good with skillshots because if you miss 2 binds in a row you will most likely lose lane. Can run Spellthief’s without losing lane.

Annie – Medium kill potential and not very risky, possibly one of the best lategame Spellthief users due to her ability to flash Tibbers the backline. Just remember that you yourself are very squishy and need to be careful with your positioning, no mechanics really necessary.