Top Lane LOL Tier List 26.10 - Ranged Is Trending!

Hey Friends,

Top lane LoL tier lists have been updated according to the changes in the patch 26.10! First, let’s quickly summarize the impacts of the patch before we jump into the tier lists.

Ambessa received compensation buffs as we called it in the previous post. They will help her navigate the “pre eclipse” part of the game more easily now. Anivia got hit with the classic Riot -armor change that will impact her on Toplane quite hard. Niche junglers like Wukong got some buffs that, if good enough, will maybe see play as a counter to Jayce or other ranged champions.

Likewise, Galio received notable buffs that will probably bring him back as a counter to Rumble. Less impactful changes include small buffs to Quinn and a small nerf to Naafiri. You can compare with the previous tier list here.

New starting items and Runes have settled in.

Stormraider’s Surge received a notable buff in 26.10. The best users currently are the champions with high burst that can easily trigger the threshold, such as: Veigar, Anivia, Gangplank, Garen. It’s also still a solid option on the old school users such as Hecarim, Vladimir, Ryze, Gragas, Darius, Galio and Jayce.

Deathfire Touch received another follow up nerf in 26.10. DFT keystone has incredible synergy with cutdown (even after the bug fix) and has proven to be still incredibly strong on champions such as: Smolder, Senna, Karthus and Singed. It’s also incredible on majority of mages (Brand, Malzahar, Viktor, Aurelion Sol and many more) and Gangplank.

Doran’s bow grants +2 ad since 26.10 and will continue to be a good starting item in the matchups where you get to completely control the laning phase (Imagine playing something like Vayne into K’Sante). It’s consistently showing up on champions like Vayne, Varus, TF and Yone.

Doran’s Helm also received +30 flat health in 26.10. It is still the best item on K’sante exclusively, but this should allow other champions to consider is as well (eg Garen, Sion or any weaker early game champ that wouldn’t benefit from the Doran’s blade/Doran’s Shield flat ad or health regen respectively.

I also wanted to quickly touch on Statikk Shiv as we now have more data. Champions that are using it well currently are: Teemo, Varus, Xin, Volibear, Kayle (and some adc’s like Senna). It is still unclear for majority of these, outside Teemo, if Shiv is to remain a 1st item buy for them or not. On botlane Shiv is doing well for Varus, but on toplane you will buy Hexplate more often due to matchup needs. Likewise for the remaining champions.

Top lane LoL Tier List Overview

As we haven’t really seen anyone pull out the GP or Xin, I have removed them once again from the low priority. Ambessa is back, while Anivia got a tap down. Overall, no major changes in the solo queue tier list. The Ranged meta is still very dominant and will remain so until Riot decides on some systemic changes to fight it.

Aatrox has been removed from the competitive tier list. He just doesn’t function in the ranged dominated meta. Ambessa is back in the high priority, after buffs, though she is still less impactful than before.

Skarner and Galio are niche tanks that might show up more often now due to needs to survive the laning phase.

Rek’Sai is back due to buffs to Ambessa, though direct buffs to Ambessa’s power in the early laning phase might make the matchup not favorable to play anymore.