Surprise your opponents with an off-meta pick that can lead your team to victory, or just set yourself a fun challenge with these four unusual champion builds.
The League of Legends player base has tried every type of champion build over the past eleven years. Most players stick to the meta, or “most effective tactic available”, because they think it gives them the best chance of winning the game. But sometimes you just want to break the monotony and not swim with the crowd.
With off-meta builds, you can have an incredible amount of fun and, with enough practice, even great success in the Gap. Here are four of our favourite off-meta builds that work surprisingly well
Lethality Factor Poppy
Imagine you need help and out of the jungle emerges not the outlaw Graves, the villain Kha’Zix or the deadly Elise, but the tiny (and powerful) Poppy! Have you ever tried playing Jungle with lethality factor Poppy? If not, don’t miss out on the fun!
In addition to being fun, you can surprise your opponents with this high damage off-meta build in the early game. You can burst your opponents from 100 to 0 with just one item. You don’t want to let the game go too long though, because in later teamfights it will be hard to get through to the enemy carries. You should also keep in mind that you are not a tank with this build and can be quickly razed to the ground yourself.
Items, Runes & Skills
The item build might look like this:
– Dawn Blade of Draktharr
– Youmuu’s Ghost Blade
– Black Axe/Fringe of Night
– Guardian Angel
Lethal Factor Poppy is best suited for early carnage in the Jungle, where you can ram enemies into the wall with your E Heroic Rush and finish them off with your Q Hammer Shock and R Judgement Spell of the Guardian. The best way to maximise your abilities is as follows: Q☻E☻W.
Attack Speed Ivern
Classically, Ivern is played as a jungler due to his Passive Friend of the Forest and is quite successful in this role. You build supporting items for your teammates and try to keep your team alive with shields and bushes.
So why should you play Ivern in a solo lane and then also build attack speed on him? Well, for one thing because it’s a lot of fun. But also because he does a surprising amount of damage and can win you the game. Besides all his useful abilities, he gets bonus damage to his normal attacks when he attacks out of bushes due to his W Wunderwuchern.
Admittedly, Ivern isn’t exactly a lane bully. Against champions that can push quickly, Ivern struggles at first and therefore rarely has priority to invade with his jungler. Later in the game, however, attack speed Ivern becomes a real problem for the opposing team. In addition to his high damage, Ivern can protect himself and his teammates with shields and brings considerable CC for teamfights with his Q Rootcaller and R Flower! By the way, attack speed Ivern works best with a tank in the team.
Items, Runes & Abilities
You basically have a lot of options when it comes to item choice. Typically, you start with Dorans’s Ring or Shield and want to buy the Blade of the Overthrown King as your first item. As a second item you should then go for Nashor’s Tooth or Guinsoo’s Rage Blade to get as much attack speed as possible. When choosing the other items, you can either opt for more damage via End of Wisdom or Deadly Admonition or go for the resistant variant with Warmog’s Armour and Dead Man’s Carapace.
When it comes to runes, it’s best to go for Deadly Speed as your primary rune in conjunction with Triumph, Legend: Zeal and Coup de Grace. As secondary runes, complement the build with Shield Strike and Freshness.
According to your item choice, you want to focus on maximising your W first to develop the optimal synergy. So you maximise your abilities as follows: W☻E☻Q.
Tank Kog’Maw
This build is not as unusual as the previous one, but it shows that off-meta can become meta quickly.
Kog’Maw is known for doing a lot of damage and especially taking tanks apart pretty easily. On the other hand, the champion has hardly any mobility and therefore makes it difficult for you to stay alive for a long time. This is where the tank build or off-tank build comes into play. Because of the percentage of life damage he can deal with his W Biorarkane’s Tumbling Fire, Kog’Maw is not as reliant on extra AD as other ADCs. This makes it possible in the later game to rely only on tank items to stay alive as long as possible.
Items, Runes & Abilities
For items, we recommend buying the two on-hit items End of Wisdom and Runaan’s Hurricane first and then investing in Tankiness with, for example, Randuin’s Omen. With these items you will be able to absorb damage and deal even more. Already after the first item (End of Wisdom) you have great 1v1 potential against other ADCs. At the latest after you have bought Raduin’s Omen, ADCs and assassins will despair of your tankiness. Once you get the 3 core items together and haven’t fallen too far behind in the game, you should soon be unstoppable. You can now choose between even more tank items, like Frozen Heart and Sterak’s Level or more damage with a Guinsoo’s Rage Blade or Blade of Infinity.
For the runes, there are no major differences to classic Kog’Maw builds. So you take Deadly Speed as your primary rune and can choose between Dominance and Inspiration for your secondary rune. In terms of abilities, you can ignore E Void Ooze for now and put all your points into W Biorarkane’s Tumbling Fire and then Q Corrosive Saliva. Accordingly, you maximise W☻Q☻E.
AP Varus
AP Varus is an absolute burst wonder. While Varus is usually found more in the bot lane and is more likely to be played with AD items due to his high AD scaling damage, the AP variant takes advantage of the high AP ratio of his W Corrupted Quiver and R Chain of Corruption. AD Varus can dominate when the enemy team is less mobile, allowing you to apply your damage with a strong frontline and good peeling. However, if the opponent has a frontline that prevents you from doing damage with normal attacks, AP-Varus can shine.
AP Varus does a lot of burst damage, but relies on a few factors. First and foremost, you need to have your Ult always available to get stacks of Corruption on enemies. Alternatively, you need to be heavily buffed by your team so you can stack Corruption over normal attacks. Either way: Once Corruption is stacked, you can finish off unsuspecting tanks who haven’t built Magic Resistance items yet with one shot of your Q. Your damage is based on the maximum health of your opponents and therefore scales perfectly until late in the game.
Items, Runes & Abilities
At the beginning of the game, a “lethality factor” or “on-hit” Varus would do more damage, but the later the game the better AP Varus becomes. An example build looks something like this:
– Manamune
– Ludens Storm
– Horizon Focus
– Rabadon’s Deathcap (or other situational item)
Often with this build, it feels like you’re playing the usual AD Varus if you choose Manamune. Your Q will still give you solid waveclear and good poke damage even without stacks of corruption.
Remember to always look at the opponent’s composition when buying items as well. If the opponent invests in magic resistance early, then you should buy the Void Staff. Against assassins, it makes sense to get Zhonya’s Hourglass, and if the opponent’s team has a lot of healing, buy Morellonomicon. As a primary rune, you should usually choose Blade Hail in combination with Ultimate Hunter. For the secondary rune, we recommend Mana Flow and Superiority.
You should maximise your abilities as follows: Q☻W☻E.
We wish you a lot of fun and success when trying out these off-meta builds.
