A picture of League of Legends mid lane
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LoL best Mid Laners - Tier List! Champions to go for this season

Here's the full list of mid lane champion rankings for League of Legends this season.
By Natalia Makarski & Red Bull Editorial Team
8 min readUpdated on
Every time alterations are made to the characters in League of Legends, rankings are impacted, changing how you play the game. It can be hard keeping up with all of the latest developments. Here are some mid-lane champions to explore this season.
What are Mid Lane Champions, and why are they important?
In League of Legends, mid lane champions have optimal positioning to gain control over match outcomes because of their prime location in the center of the map. This central positioning frees you up to lend a hand in some of the other lanes, as well as the jungle. Some of the best mid lane champions are ones who are able to keep the pressure on their mid lane opponent while simultaneously roaming to other lanes.
When choosing a mid lane champion, there are inevitably some who have stronger abilities than others. With that being said, it's still possible to play a certain champ and take out higher tier characters even if their ranking is currently pretty low. In other words, the ability percentages and crit rates can only help a character so much, and ultimately, it's the player that influences how well each character plays.
Top 5 Mid Laner Champions in League of Legends
Though the rankings can change for a number of reasons (and sometimes for no reason at all), here is a mid lane tier list (in no particular order) from League of Legends season 12 based on the game's latest buffs and patches:

1. Qiyana

Qiyana League of Legends

Qiyana League of Legends

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Why they are a good pick in the current meta: After a durability update in 12.10 hindered assassin champs, Riot countered this with buffing lethality items. Qiyana has greatly benefited from this buff, and you could say that she is the best AD assassin in mid lane at the moment. She provides a very strong level 6, which can be used to one-shot enemies. She has very high burst damage with good utility built into her kit, along with a very impactful ultimate.
Playstyle: Qiyana has a fun kit, including invisibility and high mobility. However, she is a fairly difficult champion to play, so you must play her rotations properly. The Empress of Elements suitably has mastery over elemental magic, and controls three elements that affect your abilities in different ways. Any river, wall, and brush on the map help Qiyana to choose which variation will be required for the fight. This can provide Qiyana with either bonus damage, an invisibility cloak, or even some crowd control. This requires a lot of thought process as to which ability variation is most suited for the fight at hand. She is well suited for someone who can analyze a situation and make the optimal choices on the fly. This is a champ who may be harder to pick up, but is rewarding to master.

2. Viktor

Viktor League of Legends

Viktor League of Legends

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Why they are a good pick in the current meta: Viktor is not very easy to burst down for a mage due to his shields and utility, therefore is a safer pick that scales very well. The more minions you farm or kills you manage to get, the further you progress in his evolution. Viktor gets stronger because, as you evolve your skills due to his passive: Glorious Evolution, his basic abilities are upgraded. As games tend to last longer now, Viktor benefits from the durability patch. He’s at his best in the later phases of a match and has more time in game to evolve his abilities.
Playstyle: If you are more of a team oriented player, then Viktor may be the champ for you! With abilities such as Death Ray, Gravity Field, and Chaos Storm, he can dish out lots of AoE damage to help your team. While he may be weaker in the early stages of the game, he is amazing in late games to help carry you to victory. This requires a patient player who will often farm out the laning phase instead of trying to aggressively get kills. Play around your ability evolutions, as they are very impactful and will improve either your damage or utility greatly.

3. Kassadin

Kassadin League of Legends

Kassadin League of Legends

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Why they are a good pick in the current meta: Kassadin is strong in the recent patches by virtue of being a scaling champ who does not fully rely on bursts, and therefore was not as affected by the durability update. If anything, it enabled more damage focused builds for Kassadin to thrive with. He has a strong combination of both burst and consistent damage, along with his low cooldowns late game (takes a while to reach that state). He is a high mobility assassin who is strong against AP matchups, and scales really well. Once you reach level 16, Kassadin becomes nearly unstoppable.
Playstyle: When you’re playing as Kassadin, your main goal is to survive the early game and get to level 16. Similarly to Viktor, he excels mainly in late game team fights. If you choose to play him, you have to be a patient player who is okay with being weak in the early game, but ending up much stronger than most champions in the late game. You have to be able to give up farming minions when needed, and not aggressively chase after early game kills until Kassadin is at least level 6. This champion takes a while before they can pick up the pace, but as he levels he is greatly rewarded for the experience gained. He scales very well with levels, and is not as farm reliant provided that you are not too far behind in gold.

4. Taliyah

Taliyah League of Legends

Taliyah League of Legends

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Why they are a good pick in the current meta: Due to a somewhat recent rework changing her damage numbers and making her more viable in the mid lane again, Taliyah is a great pick. Her Q, Threaded Volley, now deals AoE damage, which is a huge help in farming multiple minions at once. Her cooldowns have also been lowered, and her E ability stuns now instead of just slowing down targets. She is less of a burst reliant champ, and deals more consistent damage which the meta favors.
Playstyle: Taliyah is a very good roamer, who puts pressure on the map to help win the game. She is fun for players who like to help teammates gank, and take part in early game skirmishes due to her quick speed from her passive when near walls. She is however, very squishy and a little slow at the start, but her Threaded Volley starts to devastate enemies with only a few points put in it. She also works well for players who enjoy a combo oriented champ, with a reliance on good positioning in teamfights as she has no dashes or blinks.

5. Vex

Vex League of Legends

Vex League of Legends

© Riot Games

Why they are a good pick in the current meta: Vex is a mage who likes to use her dark magic far away from threats (one of her abilities is even fittingly called Personal Space). She is an AP mid laner who excels at targeting enemies from afar and, along with Viktor, has the option to farm out the lane at a safe distance. She is a very safe pick for a mage, with great crowd control, waveclear, and counters to hyper mobile champs such as Irelia and Yasuo. Despite primarily being a mage, she can also work as a pseudo-assassin, and has the option to either poke enemies or go all-in.
Playstyle: As you could most likely tell by now, she works best for someone who likes to play safe. Her abilities are provided to help keep her out of harm’s way, such as being able to interrupt dashes with a Gloom empowered ability or basic attack. Ironically, only her ultimate is risky to use, so you have to be careful with using it. As the ult causes you to quickly dash into a fight, you must commit to the battle once you are in the middle of it, as it will be hard to escape afterwards. She suits those who like the thought of playing a mage, but still want the opportunity to dive enemies and play a bit like an assassin, as most burst mages don’t have access to such a high mobility move such as Vex’s ultimate.
One of the great things about League is the fact that each character is constantly being updated to make the game as interesting, challenging and fair as possible. All of these consistent updates and quality of life fixes breathe fresh air into many champs, who otherwise would have fallen into obscurity. Just remember, your skills are just as crucial as your mid lane champion. After all, it's really the player that makes the game, not as much the character.