Hey Friends,

Toplane lol tierlists for the patch 26.18 are ready!

Today we have a very minor patch to cover with little relevance to toplane. I’d also use new patch update as the opportunity to congratulate Rasmus “Caps” Winther for being 3rd inductee to the Hall of Legends!

Toplane lol tierlists have been updated according to the changes in patch 26.18! Notably, Cassiopeia’s pro-skew adjustment and Zaahen’s Q2 damage bump that will help him out in the early game!

Champion changes

Cassiopeia – Nerfed

Net effect is a power shift out of lane and into items/scaling (this is a laning phase nerf).
R damage down on each rank, E mana cost going up by 5 and Q base damage being 10 less will heavily impact Cassiopeia’s early game
Ratio buffs to Q and R are compensatory- You should consider swapping the build around depending on the matchup- more often than not -> Conqueror over DFT, buy archangels instead of RoA and consider buying rabadons as your 3rd item now. This will result in you doing more damage overall, but much less durable. Notably, if you’re going the same build as before prioritising defensive items- you will feel quite a bit weaker.
Expected win rate loss ~1% in top and mid lane.
Demoted to B tier.

Zaahen – Buffed

Riot framed the first change as QoL that reads like a buff. Previously his Q lined up with his passive so that he’d always come out of resurrection (or GA, or Zilean R) with Q on cooldown. Q2 is now a clean double of Q1’s base damage (straight up buff).

Q2 base going up by 5/10/15/20/25 is a flat early-game buff. Level 1–6 are usually the toughest parts of the game for Zaahen- this will help out a bit but i don’t expect much of a win rate change.

net neutral win rate gain/loss
remains A tier.

Toplane lol tierlist 26.18 competitive overview

26.18 is a very minor patch that will result in no changes to the competitive tier list by itself, though I used up the time to research pro play a bit more and bring you the freshest updates!

League of Legends World Championship will be very soon upon us and I’m hopeful Riot will look to shake up the meta game before the tournament for maximum excitement and to finally see some new changes in the toplane lol tierlists!

toplane lol tierlist high low competitive patch 26.18

Major region playoffs are currently ongoing – LEC(26.17) / LCK (26.16) / LPL (26.17).

Here are the major trends currently happening:

Vayne is not doing well post nerf, but is still seeing some bans across regions
Varus is showing up again to fill the void Vayne left to fill or as a blind pick later in fearless
Camille, Olaf, Jayce, Rumble, Gnar, K’Sante and Ambessa are heavily contested champions that are often traded in the first few games of fearless
Cho’Gath ended up going mostly into the jungle role- as i wrongly predicted it might answer some toplane matchups

Draft interactions:

Rumble is best answered by K’Sante, Galio, other tanks or ranged champions (Anivia, Jayce, Varus- though mostly as a handshake)
Olaf is best answered by Camille and Trundle (+Jax, Kled- some people trying Anivia but not the biggest fan)
Gnar is best answered by ranged champions (Jayce, Kennen, Varus, TF, we’ve also seen some spicy Kai’Sa toplane
Ambessa is best answered by Gnar and Camille- though most champions do just fine into her
Camille is historically best answered by Akali, Gwen, Jax, Fiora, Darius and Renekton
Jayce is best answered by Olaf and Yorick as counters or K’Sante, Sion or Rumble as neutralizers
K’Sante is best answered by Camille, Gnar, Gwen and Vayne potentially

Tier list changes: Camille promoted to high priority, Kled demoted to low priority. Cho’Gath removed from the competitive tier list- replaced by Galio (re-introduced). TF removed in favor of introducing Trundle as it is showing up more than TF as a counter to Gnar. Yone removed from the tier list as it mostly sees play in midlane with ap jungle pairings- re-introduced Gragas into the tier list.

Toplane lol tierlist 26.18 solo queue overview

Solo queue toplane lol tierlist is extremely stable when comparing 26.17 to 26.18 as there are basically no changes to toplane.

toplane lol tierlist solo queue patch 26.18

Cassiopeia demoted to B due to hefty early game nerfs.
Zaahen remains in the A tier as the buffs won’t feel very impactful.
Cho’Gath corrected and placed in A tier (up from B), Trundle corrected to B tier (up from C).

You can compare with the previous tier list here.

Until next time o7.