The Top 5 Best Late Game Champions

The Late Game is the most volatile stage of a match in League of Legends because one mistake can cause the game to be over in an instant. While it’s less common to reach the late game in average and high ELO games nowadays, it’s still a legitimate strategy for some teams to draft entirely for the purpose of reaching that mark. That’s why we’ll be taking a closer look at the top 5 best late game champions in League of Legends.

The Best Late Game Champions

Late game champions aren’t favored that much in solo queue, especially during this era of League of Legends where games are often decided during the early to mid stages of the game. However, it isn’t uncommon for games to reach the late game but it’s pretty seldom that solo queue games draft champions that don’t have an immediate impact in the game. After all, everyone wants to play actively throughout the match.

There are some champions who are known for being late game monsters. These late game champions often have minimal impact during the early stages of the game and don’t really play to get kills immediately. They prefer spending the first few minutes farming minions and gather solo experience alone. To determine the best late game champions, we’ll be ranking champs that are considered monsters once they hit level 16 or the 40-minute mark of the match.

5. Cho’gath

Cho’gath is a literal monster when it comes to the late game with his hulking character model taking up about 25% of your screen when zoomed out. He is an extremely tanky champion who can tank for days at end and even provide the threat of executing enemies even at 50% HP or easily stealing an objective even against a jungler whose far ahead. It only gets worse as the game drags out since his ultimate ability stacks infinitely on champions devoured.

Sion was another choice and would definitely be here if it were a top 10 list but for now, we’re only including Cho’gath because of how tanky he can be. However, tankiness doesn’t always win games and is an unreliable factor when measuring an individual’s usefulness in a teamfight. That doesn’t diminish the fact that he’s still an extremely powerful teamfighting champion and has full monopoly over important objectives in the late game.

4. Kassadin

Kassadin is often regarded as the original late game champion with his abilities only really being activated once he reaches Level 16. This is because he has limited usefulness at lower levels and even more so if he doesn’t have the items that he needs to pop off. Once he reaches Level 16, he becomes an extremely powerful AoE assassin that can single-handedly rend the entire enemy team regardless of how fed they are by warping in the middle of the enemy team and popping everyone in range.

If we’re talking about overall usefulness of the champion, Kassadin would be far below. However, we’re only measuring the champion’s usefulness in the late game so he makes a name for himself in the top 5 list of our best late game champions. Given the fact that a battlemage is still relatively fragile in fights, he’ll have to settle for the number 4 spot for now.

3. Veigar

Veigar is the a champion no one really takes seriously both in lore and in game but once he starts stacking up enough Phenomenal Evil Power, everybody stops laughing and they all start running for their lives. It’s also not like his abilities are extremely easy to dodge since his kit basically allows him to hit everything easier and make it so that enemies are slowly being dragged towards an inevitable doom by simply harassing them to death.

Phenomenal Evil Power is such a threatening ability because he can stack it infinitely. Combining this with Rabadon’s Deathcap, Veigar becomes an absolute menace on the rift that can immediately one-shot an AD Carry without any magic resist. With his strong defensive and offensive abilities, he’s almost always guaranteed to stack. However, if he or his team gets pushed behind, it’s hard for him to find opportunities to stack Phenomenal Evil Power because he can’t walk up to his opponents.

2. Kayle

Kayle is a late game terror and is a threat that most teams try to shut down early in the game. The basic strategy against Kayle in League of Legends is to camp her out of the lane and keep bullying her so that she’s forced to either miss out on exp or share experience in the safety of another champion. However, most solo queue players aren’t coordinated enough to do this so she gets to do as she pleases in most games.

Once Kayle reaches Level 16, there’s barely anything that you can do to stop her. If you’re a top laner, you know how frustrating it is to be left dealing with Kayle alone and be blamed later on for allowing her to reach this point. Her strong Level 16 state makes it so that she can literally 1v9 the game while playing with one hand and three fingers tied together. The problem is that she’s very vulnerable once she gets dove on and/or hard-CC’ed.

1. Nasus

Nasus makes it at the top as our best late game champion because he is the bane of every player’s existence. Everyone knows the pain of having to deal with a stacked Nasus since he basically just runs everyone down with ease and takes objectives like he’s the king of the world. Even as a 5-man team, it’s extremely difficult to take him down even if you do so in a coordinated fashion.

Nasus has everything in the late game. Powerful damage output, high sustain, good defenses, crowd control, and the swagger to make any opponent run at the sight of him. Even a new player learning how to play this champion can easily abuse the mechanic and carry their team to victory. That’s why he’s the best late game champion in our books.