2014 Champion Tier List - Solo Queue - Patch 4.21 Update

• Added Top Morgana & Cassiopeia
• Added Jungle/Top Rek'Sai

Buffs: Azir, Cassiopeia, Diana, Galio, Jarvan IV, Jax, Kennen, Nocturne, Shen, Shyvana, Varus, Yasuo. Zac; 

Nerfs: Corki, Fiddlesticks, Jayce, Lucian, Pantheon, Rengar, Warwick; 

Tweaks: Cho'Gath, Sejuani, Soraka

• Cassiopeia [Tier 1 Mid] - Cass's buffs this patch are absolutely insane. The change on her twin fang give her back some of her early game that was missing earlier, and by smoothing out more of her skills that scale by level, she can stack her passive much faster than before. This gives her a decent early game and monsterous mid to late game.
• Jarvan IV [Jungle God] - The buffs this patch around weren't particularly amazing for Jarvan, but the nerfs on the big 3 (Warwick, Fiddlesticks, and Pantheon) mean that his presence is more meaningful in comparison now.
• Jax [Tier 2 Top] - Jax is much more user friendly now, and the cooldown reduction in his counter strike give him more margin to decide when to trade and when to turtle during laning phase.
• Kalista [Tier 3 ADC] - Kalista at the moment seems to offer less than usual in way of a traditional glass cannon ranged marksman. Instead, she seems to rely heavily on making sure her support gets somewhat fed and ahead, which tends to be a little counterproductive. I think she'll be better once more melee heavy cc supports come back into popularity. However, in a solo queue environment dominated by ranged supports, she doesn't synergize nearly as well.
• Kassadin [Tier 2 Mid] - Kassadin is definitely making a comeback, but he still tends to be somewhat of a difficult first pick. He does well against a lot of popular skillshot based champions, but suffers against strong waveclearing sustain champions.
• Kennen [Tier 1 Top] - Kennen received a pretty decent team-fighting buff this patch, which I think works well as a top lane crowd control type addition to most teams. I do tend to believe he's better top than mid though, since he can bully melee type champions harder.
• Lucian [Tier 2 ADC] - Nerfs to Lucian this time around left him pretty stripped. While I think he's still okay to play, he's definitely not as strong as before and requires more finesse and adjusting to his new power levels.
• Morgana [Tier 3 Top] - As a shove/zone champion, Morgana excels, and creates plenty of jungle pressure top lane to gank. However, with her black shield she remains very safe against most gankers. While in a 1v1 or 1v2 situation she does very well, in teamfights her burst tends to be slower and does poorly against highly mobile assassins.
• Pantheon [Tier 1 Jungle] - Changes to Dragon's attack to make it into spell damage have reduced his early game pressure on objectives, meaning that one more early game ward can be used by bot lane to prevent jungle ganks instead of preventing Pantheon cheese.
• Rek'Sai [Tier 2 Top/Jungle]- So far she seems fairly balanced, but as she appears to be a somewhat higher skillcap champion, I expect her potential strength to rise with time as we figure out neat tricks to do with her.
• Sejuani [Jungle God] - Sejuani's "tweaks" this patch have in fact been a blessing, and she's become insanely strong as of this patch. Expect to see a lot more of her in upcoming weeks if not possibly a nerf.
• Swain [Tier 1 Mid/Top] - With the changes to Athene's more people are switching back over to Athene's over Morello's meaning that Swain's power is heavily on the rise again.
• Taric [Tier 2 Support] - I'm not sure why Taric's win rate is spiking so heavily lately. The only direct change I can see is that Targon's brace is now easier to proc and thus easier to get gold with. It seems that Leona and Blitzcrank also shot up a bit this patch so this could very well be the source...were people really having that much difficulty last hitting creeps?
• Twisted Fate [Tier 3 Jungle] - I think that he does require some skill to work into a team composition, although being relatively easy to execute in jungle. Playing into him means one less peeler/front line team member, which tends to reduce chances of winning in solo queue. More information on Twisted Fate jungle available here.
• Warwick [Jungle God] - Nerfs on Warwick have brought him back into line with where he used to be before this patch. However, he's still very strong and does well as a duelist, initiation, and as a team buffer.
• Zac [Tier 2 Jungle] - While Zac did get buffed this patch, I don't see a big change in his status. He's always had high teamfight participation, but more often than not, tends to jump in, make a big splash, and bait his teammates into a losing fight. This isn't to say that he's awful, and if a Zac knows his team's damage ouput his initiation is very good. However, the damage he deals often isn't sufficient in comparison with the enemy jungler's counter-initiation, and often teammates die trying to save his passive blobs with little reward.
• Zed [Tier 2 Mid] - Although Win Rates don't mean everything, Zed is a very high skill, high reward champion that needs intimate knowledge of his damage output in comparison with the enemy's armor and HP. This minute calculation coupled with his complex skill mechanics mean that timing and aim are everything, and thus those who want to dedicate long hours into practicing him may be rewarded against similar level players, but will still get stomped by higher level players.