League of Legends Top Solo Queue Picks: Week of 6/25

Heimerdinger

If you find yourself in the unenviable position of facing Heimderdinger as a melee top laner, there's really only one thing you can do: beg your jungler for ganks. Heimerdinger tends to push rather hard all on his own, and is thus susceptible to jungle ganks, especially from champions that don't need to run through the river in order to gank him. If you can get ahead enough of Heimerdinger via ganks that you can stand toe to toe with him then the game is all but won, as Heimerdinger is very, very weak against champions that can consistently all-in him without dying to his turrets' damage.

Junglers, don't be afraid to gank Heimerdinger early and often. Wait too long, and he might just kill you both and snowball the game out of control. Top laners, make sure you control the minion wave such that Heimerdinger is vulnerable, or else you'll quickly become better acquainted with the underside of your turret than you might like. Heimerdinger players, ward early, ward often, and make sure you just don't die. Pushing the lane in and scaling is good enough, you don't need to always dumpster the enemy entirely.

Nunu

Nunu is not only the highest win rate jungler in the game right now, he's the highest win rate champion, period. A variety of factors have catapulted Nunu to the top of the metagame, and none of them look to be changing soon. The recent changes to Static Shiv and Rapid-Fire Cannon put Infinity Edge ADCs back on top, and you haven't felt pain until you've tried to get to a Blood Boiled Caitlyn that has a Nunu standing in front of her. That's only talking about Nunu's late game, however, and his early game is where he is most terrifying. He can steal whatever buff he wants, ward wherever he wants, and can solo both Dragon and Rift Herald as early as level 5.

How do you take on Nunu? Well, the best way to handle Nunu is simply to ward up. He's not a particularly strong ganker, so if you keep vision of him at all times it will be difficult for Nunu to do more than just sit in the jungle and farm, which is definitely not what he wants to be doing. Certain champion picks are also strong against Nunu, specifically Ivern or Sejuani, both of whom pray upon Nunu's tendency to not gank early and use it to scale past their weak early game.

There's not question that Nunu is a monster right now, and perhaps in need of nerfs, but he's a moster that's easily managed once you know what you're doing.

Anivia

Anivia once again get our nod as the best mid laner in solo queue at the moment. She neatly counters almost all of the other popular mid lane champions, specifically Karthus, and doesn't really suffer from any weak matchups. There's few things that you want more in a hyper-carry focused metagame like the one we're currently in than an AOE zone control mage that absolutely thrashes anything that comes to her. Both Glacial Storm and Crystallize are very well positioned right now, as the former is effectively an impassable wall, while the other is one of the strongest pick tools in the game, especially against short-range and low-mobility carries like Twitch or Draven. Conveniently, those two are currently the two highest win rate ADCs in the game, ensuring that an Anivia pick will rarely be wasted.

So how do you beat Anivia? The two best options are to split push against her or to pick a team composition that doesn't need to dive in order to be effective. Anivia is extremely effective against, say, a diving Fiora. Not so much against a Heimerdinger in a side lane or a Ziggs who's 1000 units away. Anivia's strength comes entirely from how effective she counters much of the current meta. Refuse to play to that meta, and you rob Anivia of much of what makes her strong.

Draven

It's been a few weeks since anyone but Twitch held the honors for top ADC, but Draven has finally managed to edge the Plague Rat out thanks to some sick new itemization that works perfectly with Draven's kit, but is practically unusable for any other ADC. What put Draven over the top? Death's Dance. It complements his snowballing nature perfectly and makes him not only impossible to trade with, but also impossible to bust down. Paired with The Bloodthirster, another common pick for Draven, and you have an ADC who's practically as hard to kill as any tank in the game.

That being said, Draven does have a very real vulnerability. He absolutely needs to snowball. Without the chance to cash in on his passive, League of Draven, Draven is just a short range, predictable ADC that lacks late game scaling. Countering Draven is all about ensuring he doesn't get to get a huge cash in from his passive, either be refusing to fight him in lane or ganking him relentlessly. Accomplish that and you're well on your way to removing Draven from the match entirely.

Thresh

Thresh remains the support with both the highest pick rate and win rate this week for the third week in a row, and everything we've said about him before now still rings true. A new challenger is on the horizon, though, as the continued success of Thresh and Blitzcrank has been slowly empower their greatest counter, support Sion. While his play rate doesn't compare to Thresh or Blitzcrank whatsoever, his win rate is just a half a percentage point lower than Thresh's, and he's the direct counter to the Chain Warden.

With that in mind, the route to countering Thresh should be quite obvious. Play Sion. The easiest way to counter hook champions in lane has always been to play champions that can engage harder and for longer periods of time, and Sion exemplifies that better than anyone. He's far from the only option, however, as both Braum and Leona are excellent counters to Thresh, though the latter still tends to get bullied before level 6, where she starts thrashing Thresh.

All that to say that if you're the type of support that likes to go in, then the current metagame is a dream come true. Bottom lane is often decided simply by who can go in hardest at the moment, so get in there and enjoy it!