Choosing Champions Series: Top Lane

Because top lane is one of the most independent lanes, lacking a lane partner like bottom lane or central location like mid lane, top players can often have a huge impact on the direction of the game. Without a laning partner, players must consider their synergy with the jungler instead, as well as their viabilty against their opponent in normal draft or ranked games.

The characteristic top laner typically has medium to high health, health and/or mana sustain, escapability, and crowd control. As with any role, a champion lacking some or all of these skills may still be a viable pick depending on the situation, so don't let these guidelines dominate your selection.

 

Your Jungler and You:

Much like picking in mid lane, considering your jungler is extremely important to executing successful ganks and gaining an advantage over the enemy team. If your jungler is playing with relatively low crowd control (cc), like Shyvana, it may behoove you to add some sort of stun, slow, bind, or root to the game.

This can allow your jungler to close the gap between themself and the opponent to use red buff or slowing items like phage to continue the crowd control. Without any crowd control in the lane, positioning must be set up and executed almost perfectly to prevent an easy escape.      

If your jungler does have reliable crowd control, like Udyr, Riven, or Nautilus to name just a few, then you will be able to play a cc-lacking champion. In most cases, you will have to weigh certain trade-offs between champions in the advantages they will offer you in lane.

Vladimir, for example, has fantastic sustain and no mana, but does not offer heavy cc. Malphite has a strong slow with Siesmic Shard, but has no healing or mana regenerating abilities. These differences are ones that you will grow used to in your own personal play style, and will learn how to balance the importance of.

Counter Picking:

As with all of the Choosing Champions articles, counterpicking and banning lists can greatly help you to decide what lane matchups will work best. Certain champions just don't stack up well to others for a number of reasons including: crowd control, burst ability, range, sustain, tankiness, and escapes. It is always important to keep in mind, however, that what works for one player may not work for another.

Each person has their own individual play style along with its strengths and weaknesses that a pick list could not possibly take into account. Using these lists as a baseline to test your own strategies and theories is not only the best way to get better at picks and bans, but also helps you to be a better player overall.

          

This being said, remember to keep in mind the list of considerations I mentioned in the last paragraph. With some practice and enough games under your belt, it will become easy to identify what factors influence your top laning phase the most. If you find yourself being consistently shut down by a certain champion, then try exploring picks you haven't tried yet, or changing up your build to a more defensive focus. Watching professional play can also help you to get a handle on how champion select works, and how to pick around the composition of two teams. Always keep in mind, however, that what works for a pro player may not work for you.

Other Considerations:

Aside from trying to outpick the enemy top laner and synergize with your jungler, remember that there are still three other players on your team that you will interact with a lot more during the mid and late game stages. Not only is it important to ensure the success of ganks from your jungler early game, but you must also make sure that you can actively contribute to a teamfight later on in the game and work well with the rest of the team.