Don't Tell Anyone About the AD Carry Stomping Solo Queue!

Here's a question to think about: Tell me, who as of right now, is the AD carry with the highest % win rate? Unless you've been paying attention to recent statistics posts, or regularly stalk various stat sites, I doubt you'll actually know. The answer may surprise you, because she's only the 5th most popular pick in regards to AD carries these days.

Turns out Miss Fortune is actually good, guys. I'm serious this time.

As of right now, Miss Fortune boasts a win rate of 54.9%. This puts her 6th in overall rankings, and a full 2.3% ahead of the next most winning AD carry. Miss Fortune is a full three points ahead of Ezreal, who is still considered to be an extremely strong pick. She does however see about a fourth of the number of picks that Ezreal does, so many will argue that this simply means that the people who play Miss Fortune are the ones that know how to play her, and will regularly do well with her.

Using this argument is dangerous however, as an argument such as this ignores the fact that an unpopular champion can be strong. And this appears to be the case. There have been arguments for Miss Fortune's strength in the past, but they have often been fleeting, and her popularity has waxed and waned a fair amount over time. There was a period where one or two high profile players considered her super powerful, but this disappeared relatively quickly, and she went back to her days of seeing little to no play.

However, season three has rolled around. The holy trinity that used to be so popular? They aren't the dominant and driving force in bottom lane anymore. Sure, they see regular play still, but Corki went from being a top tier AD carry to now having the lowest win rate among all AD carries. His win rate is lower than the post nerf Diana that so many people cried was underpowered, and it's even lower than Urgot. Ezreal is still very powerful, but has lost a ton of his dueling capability, and so is not the absolute horror that he used to be. Graves didn't lose anything, but he was always arguably the weakest of those three, and so he remains at an average power level. So who has risen to take their place?

Recent tournaments have seen Vayne and Caitlyn budding in popularity once again. This presents an interesting early game dominance vs. late game killing machine dichotomy, with Vayne naturally playing to the late game duelist/horror role, while Caitlyn is her powerful lane winning self that falls of quite a bit unless she happens to have a Nunu helping her out. The fact that pure lane dominance can push an AD carry into viability now is very much indicative of a shift. Champions still have to be mobile, but they do not have to be the low cooldown blinky-dashy of Graves and Ezreal to be useful.

Actual in-game footage of when Corki was winning every game, ever.

Vayne and Caitlyn have been the popular tournament picks, but what about in Solo queue? As of right now, Ezreal, Graves, Caitlyn and Vayne are the top four most popular.  However, if we take a look, we'll see that Vayne may be the third most popular AD carry, but she also has the second lowest win rate.  On the other hand, if we take a look at Sivir, she is the second least popular AD Carry, ahead of only Varus, but boasts a win rate higher than even Ezreal's.

Miss Fortune is a champion that utterly manhandles opposing carries that are trying to simply farm with autoattacks. The bounce on double up travels up to 500 units, and this is on top of the 550 range that her autos have. This means that she has an effective 1050 range on her Double Up harass, and in case you didn't know, this ability hurts. Like, a lot. For reference, Graves's Buckshot? That's only 750 range. Corki's Phosphorous Bomb? 750 range, at the highest.

Vayne's autoattack range doesn't even come close as we all know, and Caitlyn's Piltover Peacemaker outranges Double-up by 250, but its effect is diminished by going through minions. This means that as long as there are minions in your lane, you will win every trade against your lane opponents, and you will push your lane significantly less, than other characters will, as your double up hits only one target. It also means you'll spend more time towards your tower, and less having to worry about ganking; Miss Fortune can compensate for her lack of escape simply by not pushing the tower and not needing to. She has the option of using Double up to last hit, while the bounce harasses, and let me assure you that skill hurts.

If, at level 1 you decide to take Long Sword, with your AD Quints and Marks, you'll be rocking around 75 AD, 65 if you start with boots instead. You land a second bounce with your Q? Unmitigated, that's almost 100 damage, and that's only on a 9 second cooldown. While there will be some mitigation there, that is a large chunk of your opponent's health, and that will make it really scary to farm. If your support is able to land any skills or auto attacks, you have immediately zoned them out of CS as well as burned through at least one potion very quickly. Miss Fortune is amazing at creating these sorts of advantages through her high damage on Double Up and her passive, which can actually be relevant!

Long Sword is actually the best item in the game, and that is not an exaggeration.

Long sword and potions is, as it turns out, an awesome start to anybody who wants to trade and hit people.  You lose one potion for the ability to beat the crap out of people for the first few levels.  This is a very good thing; losing the singular potion is often mitigated by  a support with a bit of sustain, and even if it isn't, through some smart trading, you can still come out ahead.  It works better if you're playing very aggressive, obviously, so the effect of that third potion doesn't get a chance to kick in, but you are able to create awesome advantages for yourself based off of a Long Sword, especially on Miss Fortune who has her passive to compensate for the 25 lost movement speed.

Yes that's right kids, that passive that so many people thought was just worthless? No more. A little while back that knocked that passive down some; now it only takes 5 seconds to get it kicking in and moving you fast. By abusing her double up range, you can make it so that your movement speed buff doesn't go away during trades. You don't gain any aggro from minions for using Double up and hitting a champion; spells do not generate aggro in the way that autoattacks do. Simply double up and use your 400 level one movespeed to run the hell away and enjoy your HP advantage.

This movespeed advantage also allows you to get out from ganks when your dragon ward has picked up a fast moving opponent. It won't get you out of a situation in which you have already been caught; you're going to have to rely on Flash for that, as your passive simply will not be enough. And by that I mean it won't do anything, which really is unfortunate.

CHOO CHOO FULL SPEED AHEAD

Perhaps the niftiest buff that she's received? That ultimate? Yeah, it doesn't have a windup any more. It's much more than a farming tool now; you can actually effectively use it during a gank and not have to worry about them simply moving to the left and being able to avoid all damage. The upside is also that Miss Fortune's ultimate does terrific damage. If you manage to catch someone in it at level six, you can be sure that they will not live through it if they take any significant number of waves. This means that Miss Fortune is extremely powerful when it comes to helping her teammates gank, and is very good at following up on any amount of crowd control.

Miss Fortune's lane dominance is going to push her to become more popular now that the world is not being dominated by carries with blinks and dashes that can reduce their cooldowns. She can out-trade and outrange nearly anyone, and can even rival Caitlyn when it comes to harass range, while having a much more consistent steroid, even if it is less extreme in regards to damage than many other AD carries.

This lack of steroid is the greatest reason that she falls of in the late game; her ultimate, now that it relies on armor penetration as opposed to magic penetration and has no windup is actually rather powerful now. She is viable. She is strong. She beats out just about anyone in lane; due to her healing reduction and Double Up she is able to beat out nearly anybody in lane. She deserves to be more popular than she is; maybe not the 50%+ Ezreal popularity, but she deserves more than she is getting.

She can win a lot of games, and stomp lanes hard. She is as brutal, if not more brutal than anyone else in a 2v1 lane, and if you can abuse this well, then you can expect to do great things.  They can't stay in the creeps, for fear of being autoattacked, and can't stay just behind them, for fear of double up.  Miss Fortune is better at zoning bruisers off of experience than anybody else.

She's played, yes, but not enough.  Stop playing Ezreal, you guys.  I'm serious.  Yes, he's strong, but Miss Fortune not only has a more powerful ultimate in the laning phase, she doesn't have a useless W, and she can check bushes.  If you need blink to escape, get better at positioning, or don't pick Miss Fortune against a million gap-closer comp.  She's worth taking a look at, and you'll win a lot of lanes.  I promise.