Worst Champions in League of Legends

Bad champions are often the product of being outdated and/or overshadowed by new champions or game mechanics.

To cope with this, League of Legends often gives older champions gameplay reworks that would overhaul their kit without taking away from their original identity as a champion. Depending on their performance in all the ranked divisions, Riot Games may make small or drastic changes.

Riot Games has released over 150 champions in the past 12 years of the game’s existence, with a number of them making a lasting impact on players’ memories.

With League of Legends’ meta shuffling the most viable options each patch, we get to see familiar names rise and fall alongside the regular rotation. Unfortunately, some simply don’t make it into the spotlight as they are considered the worst champions League of Legends has to offer.

It’s easy to find the best champions in League of Legends but trying to see which ones are justifiably the worst champions in the game is simply too difficult for a person to decide on their own.

Having a low win rate or being the least played champion isn’t enough to determine whether such a champion is terrible in the current League of Legends metagame.

Some champions have low win rates or pick rates because they are extremely difficult to play, so they’re not exactly the worst champions to play.

To justify a champion being bad, we will take a look at their overall design, relevance to their respective lanes, and presence throughout its time after being released.

We won’t be looking at fleeting criteria like meta and win rate because those can easily change in a few days or weeks. While we’re not saying the following champions won’t have their time to be “strong,” it’s safe to say that even players who main these champions will agree to our reasoning on why they are considered the worst champions.

Udyr

Udyr is a champion that has always been a hot topic of discussion among the League of Legends community because of his lazy design. Riot Games tried to create him as a champion that controlled the power of nature spirits, but that isn’t well depicted in the game. He simply shows a short animation of the spirit animal being used and starts slapping at different speeds, depending on the stance. There’s nothing creative about that at all.

Every Udyr player knows that this champion has no playstyle except for the “slap-and-run” strategy that most users are familiar with until today. Beginners will also have difficulty trying to play this champion because they have no idea the rotations needed to make him work as a champion. At the hands of a total newbie, Udyr will look like a confused child running around Summoner’s Rift.

Teemo

Teemo isn’t only one of the worst champions to play but also one of the worst champs to play against in League of Legends. Every player despised Teemo’s existence, with many players dodging games when they see this champion pop up either on their team or the enemy team. This is because he only has one purpose in the game, which isn’t exactly to win. Teemo exists to annoy every single person playing the game.

Playing Teemo is hilarious, but players will quickly realize that they are always vulnerable and can easily be a liability to the team. He has no teamfighting abilities and can easily be countered by getting a Sweeping Lens and some control wards.

As an enemy, he ruins your mood by placing annoying mushrooms around the map that don’t kill you but damage you enough to force you to recall even though you’ve just come back from the base.

Tahm Kench

Ever since Tahm Kench’s rework, he has lost his entire identity and has become a champion that’s barely used either as support or top laner. He doesn’t have any redeeming feature, whether in the early or late game.

This champion’s rework came as a surprise since no one thought there was a better way to change him up without either breaking him or making it so that he’s extremely overpowered. Unfortunately, this champion ended up becoming an absolute mess that was simply fun to play for a few games.

There are simply a lot of better options to play than Tahm Kench, with his abilities being nerfed to the ground. His only purpose in the game was to protect the AD Carry from being placed in a bad position, but after being reworked as a solo laner, he immediately lost everything that made him good. The rework was aimed at giving him a new identity but taking a look at this champion’s current state, we can’t help but feel sorry for whoever has to play him in any competitive setting.

Kalista

Kalista had his moments in the World Championships all those years ago as a huge objective threat, but with the games being shorter and AD Carries being less powerful in the early game, she has become a champion that has nothing to offer in the game’s current iteration and even in the future. At this point, this champion is practically just waiting for Riot Games to give her an overall rework to make her playable in the constantly evolving meta.

The best part about Kalista was that she was extremely mobile and secured the game once it got to the late game. However, late game strategies are almost ineffective in today’s meta, with her damage output being subpar throughout the game.

The introduction of mobility items for marksmen in the shopkeeper patch also removed any remaining qualities that could redeem her as a champion. With Riot Games removing duo queue, this champion can only really find relevance in Flex Queue, normal games, or competitive esports.

Overall reworks don’t always fix the problem. Most of the time, the design team releases a champion that’s too overpowered because they wanted to give her a new champion design that’s an upgrade to their previous version.

This overambitious way of thinking does more damage to the champion. This means that they’ll have to nerf it to the ground, sometimes making it less useful than before its reworked form.