As Season 4 comes to a close, we thought we’d take a look at the least played champions in LoL over the past month leading into the Season 5 preseason and see if there’s any hope of them rising to relevance in season 5 and beyond.
Being the least played champions in LoL doesn’t necessarily mean they’re awful or under-powered champs. After all, no matter how good all the champions are, there will always be ten least played ones, and as our previous list of 5 Clear Reasons LoL is Better than DotA, Continues to Rule MOBAs asserted, LoL’s champ strength is one of its stronger features.
In the case of these champs however, we can see a lot of nagging issues that are holding them back from popularity. Some have old kits that just don’t allow them to compete against newer champs or fit into the current flow of the game. Others just aren’t quite strong enough or fun enough to play.
To gather the data for this list, we used lolking.net’s statistics for the least played champions in ranked 5v5, solo queue, from October 22 through November 21, 2014. As a comparison to the upcoming statistics, the most played champs were played over one million times, more than ten times more often than the following least played ones.
So who are the least played champions in LoL to close out season 4? Read on to find out.
10. Karthus
Games Played: 67,627
Games Won: 34,665
Games Lost: 32,962
Winning Percentage: 51.25%
Karthus’ ultimate is both much-loved (by his team) and much-maligned (by his opponents), and as you can see, he is rarely played despite a notable winning percentage of over 51%. Despite that, Karthus suffers from having only one real damage skill (his other is an aura skill), and building him requires all manner of attention paid to different stats, including his tankiness so he can get close with that aura and his short-range Q, and his cooldown so he can more often use that loved and maligned ult.
9. Yorick
Games Played: 66,577
Games Won: 33,760
Games Lost: 32,817
Winning Percentage: 50.70%
Another champ with a solid winning percentage (and an undead theme) makes the list, this time in the form of Yorick. A strong early-game character, Yorick can be a nice complement to the right team, but he doesn’t have much utility or use in others. He also tends to be a little dull to play, which is likely part of his limited appeal.
8. Kog’Maw
Games Played: 65,684
Games Won: 32,904
Games Lost: 32,780
Winning Percentage: 50.09%
Kog may be the most surprising entrant on the list, a character that was once considered a very strong champ, and still has a slight winning percentage. Yet Kog suffers from not excelling as either an AD or AP carry, and having relatively weak skills. He is better suited as a secondary source of damage, rather than a carry; which doesn’t leave him with a good place in most teams.
7. Trundle
Games Played: 65,060
Games Won: 31,236
Games Lost: 33,824
Winning Percentage: 48.01%
Trundle’s icy makeover has left him less popular than he once was, though his skills for the most part are unchanged. His barrier however doesn’t seem to be quite as effective as it once was, becoming no more than mildly annoying in most cases (though still potentially devastating when placed in the perfect spot in the right situation) whereas it used to be like wading through molasses. Without much else going for him besides good sustain and moderate damage for a tank, he’s fallen into disuse.
6. Poppy
Games Played: 57,085
Games Won: 28,248
Games Lost: 28,837
Winning Percentage: 49.48%
Poppy is a character with limited options for most teams, and the only 450 IP character that makes the bottom ten. She is most often support on bot or a top that probably won’t win her lane, but hopefully won’t lose it so badly that her late game strength won’t make up for it. While Poppy can be a solid character in the right hands, and even fun to play, she is not nearly as good as she once was.
5. Skarner
Games Played: 49,362
Games Won: 24,471
Games Lost: 24,855
Winning Percentage: 49.57%
Skarner is yet another tanky character who just doesn’t fit into the meta like he once did. Once one of the more popular and powerful junglers, Skarner has given way to higher DPS junglers with gap closers. With so many popular carries like Graves, Ezreal, and Lucian (and now Kalista) having high mobility skills, Skarner’s ability to engage isn’t what it once was, back when those pesky champs weren’t jumping all over the place on him.
4. Cassiopeia
Games Played: 44,854
Games Won: 21,144
Games Lost: 23,710
Winning Percentage: 47.13%
Cassi has a decent assortment of skills, but stands as the least played AP carry in LoL. That’s likely due to her skills being relatively weak and requiring a great deal of combo’ing to build damage, which makes her more difficult than many other AP’s. She does however have a great ult, which can turn the tide of battles.
3. Galio
Games Played: 42,547
Games Won: 22,142
Games Lost: 20,405
Winning Percentage: 52.04%
Galio has the best winning percentage on the list, and has a decent skillset for a tanky support, with range, buffs, and debuffs, as well as a skirmish-altering ultimate. His lack of a stun-like skill to help isolate and focus down targets may be the reason why other tanky champs like Alistar, Leona, Thresh, and Taric are more popular.
2. Zac
Games Played: 39,196
Games Won: 18,360
Games Lost: 20,836
Winning Percentage: 46.84%
Zac seemed like the ultimate play thing for junglers upon release, a character that could leap over the jungle’s boundaries and right onto opposing champs in a sticky pile of goo. Yet while his engaging is good, it’s not as game-changing as expected, and his skills are relatively weak (and shed his life to use). Zac is one of the newer champs compared to the rest, which shows how quickly he fell out of favor.
1. Urgot
Games Played: 18,444
Games Won: 8,003
Games Lost: 10,441
Winning Percentage: 43.39%
Not only is Urgot by far the least played champ, he also has by far the worst winning percentage of any character on the list (though not of all champs; that “honor” went to Yasuo at just 42.82%). Urgot’s tanky/range hybrid and weak skills leave him without a defined role or much utility for teams, and that in turn has left him on the sidelines in a majority of played games.
