League of Legends has over 150+ champions in the current lineup as of 2021. With that amount of champions in a single game, it’s surprising that most of them are well-represented in the game’s pick rate. Unsurprisingly, there are unpopular LoL champions that end up with a less than 1% pick rate globally due to a variety of reasons that turn players off from playing them consistently. Let’s take a look at the champions that have always been at the bottom of the popularity polls since their release in the game.
The Most Unpopular LoL Champions
When it comes to the popularity of a champion, we can only measure them by their lifetime pick rate. There’s no such thing as a champion NEVER seeing play since all champions are being used on a regular basis. However, there are champions that have low pick rates because the vast majority of players don’t see any charm in playing them for more than one game. Unpopular LoL champs are rarely seen when you’re either playing ranked or normal games with only one-tricks or casual players really taking the time to use them.
There are a lot of reasons why unpopular LoL champions almost never see play. Factors such as aesthetics, difficulty, playstyle, and representation in the media. The problem with League of Legends is that popular champions stay popular and unpopular LoL champs stay unpopular until a shift in the meta brings them back up to the top. While there are times that these champions become popular, they quickly fall back down after one or two patches when they lose even the slightest stats.
10. Maokai
The first champion on our unpopular LoL champions list is the Maokai. The vengeful tree spirit isn’t a champion that sees a lot of play and there’s a simple reason why – he’s a tank. Most players try to avoid playing tanks because they don’t have exciting playstyles nor do they make flashy plays unlike traditional carries in League of Legends. Since the vast majority wants to play champions that aren’t slow and deal a lot of damage, this champion looks simply unappealing to them.
Maokai has seen spikes of popular in the support role thanks to items buffs. However, most of the time he becomes popular, he immediately drops down back to the bottom the very next patch. One of the biggest reasons why Maokai is so unpopular is because his abilities takes a lot of patience to execute. They either have really long cooldowns, requires players to walk into them, or have really slow animation so it’s understandable why players have given up on him.
9. Cho’gath
Cho’gath is a champion that has seen really low pick rates in the past few years but was one of the most popular champs in the first half of the lifespan of League of Legends. And yes, while we did mention the most unpopular LoL champions of “All-Time”, it still felt like he deserves to be here looking at how low he’s fallen since. The gigantic monster of the void has fallen so low that it’s actually really sad to see his state in League of Legends today.
The biggest problem on why Cho’gath is so unpopular is because he’s such a difficult champion to play. All of his basic abilities require positionals and skillshots so it can be frustrating to use since they all have reaaaaallyyyy slow cast animations. Combining that with the fact that he’s a tank makes it too much of a drag to play him. Nowadays, there are too many good top lane champions that players can use that both have a ridiculous amount of defensives and a decent amount of damage.
8. Zilean
Bjergsen’s best champion is unsurprisingly not a part of the cool kids of League of Legends. There are so many issues to playing Zilean that the mainstream playerbase might not find appealing. For one, the aesthetics of playing a floating old man might not be the most appealing character to use. The mid lane is home to some of the flashiest and most exciting assassins and mages in the game so a utility champion like Zilean just doesn’t seem to have a place for those that play in that lane.
Zilean is also very slow and doesn’t have a lot of damaging skills aside from his Q ability. If people wanted to play a support in the mid lane, they’d rather play something like a Karma since she does a lot of damage and isn’t as complicated to use. In addition, players are very critical towards Zilean players, blaming them if they don’t manage to use their ultimate ability “properly”. Using your ultimate on yourself or someone else will always make someone upset that you didn’t choose them instead.
7. Udyr
The champion might seem like it’s popular but its actual pick rate is really abysmal. Everything about this champion is really underwhelming especially considering he hasn’t been updated ever since his release all those years ago. Despite seeing a popularity spike fairly recently, he’s come back to being one of the most unpopular LoL champions simply because Turbo Chemtank saw a hard nerf, an item that Udyr is heavily reliant on to become a strong gank jungler.
Riot Games doesn’t seem to have any plans on changing Udyr’s design anytime soon. While he has been a really strong champion, his abilities are not something that players find interesting at all. Udyr has 4 stances that pop-up an icon of an animal that does different things. I mean, they could at least give him at least one non-stance ability. Even though he has one of the rarest skins in League of Legends, the fact that his design is too simple makes him a bit boring to play for a long time.
6. Neeko
Neeko is one of the champions whose popularity died out fairly quickly right after her release. There’s really no specific reason why players don’t want to use her, they just simply don’t. One of the reasons we speculate why players don’t want to use her is because of her abilities and how they are all a bit funky to use. All her abilities are difficult to use and are only relevant in certain scenarios. In addition, a lot of people don’t consider her “waifu material” because of her chameleon-like aesthetics.
Despite being intended for the mid lane as an AP mage, she has been thrown around Summoner’s Rift in the hopes that she might find a home in one of the 5 roles. She has gone from top to bottom and even switched from AP to AD. This champion is extremely confusing and players might not know how to build her. For a champion that has chameleon characteristics, it’s seems only fitting that she has lost her identity along the way which makes people not want to play her at all.
5. Skarner
Captain Flowers may not take this news too well as we place Skarner on our Top 5 spot of the most unpopular LoL champions list. The champion is definitely at the very bottom of the play pool since he’s extremely difficult to use as the champion and has too many counters to become relevant in the game. Aside from the fact that he needs to constantly maintain control over his spires, he is countered by an 1300 gold item that makes him practically useless.
The champion is really strong and was one of the most broken champions during the juggernaut patch. Nowadays, he’s really reliant in enemy players having 0 counter-build knowledge and strong item supports to cover his need for hyper-mobility. When you’re champion literally does nothing after the enemy team builds one item, it’s no wonder that players don’t want to use this champion regularly since it can be really frustrating to not do anything for the entire game whether you’re winning or not.
4. Rumble
When it comes to champions that have really low pick rates, we often see champions that have really high difficulty levels above. In the hands of players with really low mechanical skills, Rumble is basically just a tin can trying to shoot sparks at enemies. It takes a really long time to master this champion with very complicated skill shots and resource management that exposes players who have only managed to get a high rank by going OTP or getting boosted by other players.
Rumble is useless if the player has average skills or below. Only the 1% of players that really know how to use his abilities are incentivized to play him for a few games straight but even then, you’d rather use simpler battlemages such as Kennen or Sylas. When players realize how difficult this champion actually is or get frustrated on how the overheat system works and how difficult it is to get a good ultimate, they instantly quit the champion, never to pick him up ever again.
3. Yorick
No surprise that Yorick is on the list since we don’t see him often in play. It’s easy to forget that this champion even exists with how low his appearance rate is in all game modes. We’re pretty sure this champion even has a less than 1% appearance rate in ARAM modes due to how unpopular he is as a champion. The reason why he is unpopular is because he was so weak on his release that even the champion spotlight had trouble making him look good for the viewers.
The terrible release of this champion has made him die out quickly which stuck for years to come. Even though Yorick is fairly decent today, he just hasn’t managed to build his reputation back up for players to even want him. His ultimate ability and basic abilities are so boring to look at and use. There’s also the fact that his aesthetics are a bit dreary and sad to look at. Everything about this champion from his release up to his presence in today’s League of Legends meta makes him simply unplayable.
2. Aurelion Sol
When it comes to champion difficulty, there’s probably no other champion that beats Aurelion Sol. This champion has a very unique design that makes him only really playable by Diamond players or above. While a lot of people think they know how to use this champion, they simply actually have no clue what makes this champion really strong. This is why Aurelion Sol has a really low win rate in low ELO games because he can’t even be considered a champion when players don’t know how to use him.
At first glance, his abilities really look weird and unappealing. Being able to extend or draw in the distance of your passive ability seems more like a gimmick than an actualy ability. From his release to this day, the number of players that can probably win with Aurelion Sol is pretty low. With a champion as difficult as this in the League of Legends list, it’s no wonder that he’s made it quite high into our most unpopular LoL champions list.
1. Ivern
The name that you probably knew would make it to the top of our list is Ivern. This jungler is the ultimate gimmick champion with very little detail about him simply being a bad meme. He’s really boring to play as a jungler with a lot of waiting time involved and he doesn’t even have the flashiest plays as a champion. It’s just boggles the mind how Riot Games simply had the need to create a Jungler-Support hybrid when the role requires aggressiveness and independence.
While the champion was intended to have a silly look to it, he simply looks creepy. Heck! Even his trailer was absolutely horrifying. When it comes to the most unpopular LoL champions, there’s nobody else that can take Ivern’s spot since he’ll forever be the most unused champion in the game. When the day arrives that he finally gets reworked, we’ll look back at how terrible this champion was and laugh about it for a long time.