Season 12 has come to an end, so how has the game settled over the year, and who are the best and worst champions by popularity in 2022?
League of Legends has over 160 playable champions, but who have players gravitated to more than the others this year? Season 12 saw Nilah, Bel’Veth, Renata Glasc, and K’Sante added to the game, but have any of them cracked the top champions of the year? Here are the best and worst champions over the 2022 year in League of Legends. From Aatrox to Zilean, we’ve examined how popular certain champions have been throughout the year and come up with a list of the most popular ones.
Out of all the champions in the game, who do players love and hate the most? We’ll examine the most popular champions in solo queue, the most banned champions, and how the newest additions to the roster have faired. We’ll start with what you’ve seen in your games with champion popularity over the course of the year in global ranked and unranked environments.
The most popular champion in all of League of Legends continues to be Ezreal, one of the earliest champions added to the game, arriving in 2010. Ezreal has lots of reasons that he resonates with fans, drawing a high appeal and play rate throughout many years of League of Legends. He’s a self-sufficient AD carry with the ability to keep enemies at arm’s reach or to chase them down if he needs to get aggressive. Throughout more than a decade of League of Legends, Ezreal’s play pattern has remained fun and engaging.
Caitlyn is the second most popular champion, a consistent and long-range AD carry with tons of zoning tools and some of the highest damage of any in her role. Added in 2011, Caitlyn is another example of an evergreen champion whose aesthetic and playstyle have stayed consistently popular, especially after her previous visual update.
The third most popular champion, and another 2010 arrival, Lux is so near and dear to fans’ hearts that both founders, Marc Merrill and Brandon Beck, consider themselves Lux players. She’s so popular, she has the most skins in all of League of Legends, and fans often joke about new content by Riot Games being more and more Lux skins.
The most-banned champions in League of Legends for 2022 are Zed, Yuumi, Fiora, Udyr, and Morgana. Zed is one of the most feast-or-famine assassins, able to escape or close the gap with ease and deal mind-boggling damage with an item advantage into squishy targets. He’s fast, flashy, and frustrating.
Yuumi is so hated by League of Legends players that Riot Games has felt the need to rework her. As an untargettable enchanter with high scaling, losing to Yuumi can feel like losing to a ticking clock you could never have stopped. It’s for these reasons that Yuumi is the second-most banned champion. Morgana is banned for similar reasons, except her black shield can completely invalidate key tools for other supports, so she’s often targeted.
Fiora is one of the scariest top lane fighters in League of Legends. With her high damage, low cooldowns, and ability to riposte telegraphed crowd control and turn it back on the user, Fiora can absolutely destroy champions who struggle against lane bullies. With her primary damage ability now being able to affect towers, Fiora can split push through structures at lightning-quick speeds. Given how poorly many of the games’ tanks and juggernauts fare into Fiora, it makes sense why she’s the most commonly banned top laner in the game this year.
Udyr’s new form after his Visual Gameplay update has been terrorizing Summoner’s Rift. With low cooldown abilities, plenty of tankiness, and tons of base damage, he’s had many jungle players on edge. He clears his jungle quickly, scales well, and can track down and fight many of the game’s lesser early game-focused junglers. This feeling of being a “stat stick” is what makes Udyr so frustrating for many players, and thus placing him as one of the most banned champions in League of Legends.
With the release of K’Sante, the Pride of Nazumah, there are 162 playable champions in League of Legends.
That’s all you need to know about the best and worst champions in terms of popularity in League of Legends.
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