Quick Answer: Six days into League of Legends Classic, the champions that defined Season 3 are, unsurprisingly, defining Classic: Kassadin, Twisted Fate, Lee Sin, Jax, Vayne, Blitzcrank and Amumu headline our S-tier. But read the methodology before quoting this list: Riot deliberately publishes no winrate data for this mode, so every Classic tier list on the internet — including this one — is editorial judgment built on Season 3-era champion strength and early community play, not match statistics. We'd rather tell you that up front than pretend to precision that doesn't exist.
The loading screen says it plainly: these are the Classic versions — old kits, old rules, old tier logic. (Screenshot: Riot Games / League of Legends, via the official League of Legends Wiki)
What is LoL Classic? (30 seconds)
League Classic is Riot's permanent Season 3 game mode, launched July 29, 2026: the original Summoner's Rift, old runes and masteries, the S3 item shop, and 60 champions on their old kits. If you're new to the mode itself, start with our League Classic hub — this page assumes you know what it is and just want to know who to pick.
Two roster facts shape everything below. First, the pool is 60 champions, all from the game's earliest years — many Season 3 terrors (Thresh, Zed, Elise, Vi) simply aren't in the mode yet, which promotes the champions that used to contest them. Second, champions play their old kits, so your memory of the modern champion may be actively misleading — old Sion, old Taric and old Evelynn are different games entirely (see the champions guide).
S-Tier Champions
The picks we'd take in every draft they're available:
- Kassadin (mid) — the defining ban of the actual Season 3, and nothing about that logic has changed: post-6 he turns the map into his personal flash tutorial. The smaller roster means fewer of his historical counters made the cut.
- Twisted Fate (mid) — Destiny is arguably the strongest ultimate in a mode with slower rotations and no modern wave-clear power creep. Every gold card is a kill setup somewhere.
- Lee Sin (jungle) — the S3 jungle king returns with the S3 jungle he ruled: early skirmish-heavy, sustain-dependent, and full of Wriggle's-era duels he wins.
- Jax (top) — the archetypal "if this game goes 40 minutes you lose" pick, and S3 games go 40 minutes. Old itemization (Trinity Force, Guinsoo's) is exactly his wheelhouse.
- Vayne (ADC) — hypercarry logic compounds in a slower mode: games last longer, peel supports (Janna, Lulu, Alistar) are all in the roster, and true damage doesn't care about the tanks S3 builds produce.
- Blitzcrank (support) — one landed hook decided lanes in 2013 and it decides lanes now; draft-only queues mean he can be answered, but the answer costs a pick.
- Amumu (jungle) — the best teamfight ultimate in the launch roster, on a map and meta that funnel into five-man fights around Baron.
A-Tier Champions
Excellent picks with a real weakness or a higher skill ask:
- Mid: Ryze (the S3 tank-mage machine gun), Karthus (Requiem punishes a mode with less mobility), Katarina (resets thrive in longer fights), Gragas (old barrel logic, strong roams).
- Top: Malphite (the anti-AD lane bully with the game-deciding ult), Dr. Mundo (S3's signature regen tank), Singed (proxy chaos, worse punished in old jungles), Olaf (early-game axe machine).
- Jungle: Jarvan IV (flag-drag engage, healthy clears), Evelynn (old stealth Eve — map pressure the roster struggles to answer).
- ADC: Ezreal (the S3 blue-build safety pick), Kog'Maw (protect-the-Kog comps are fully supported by this roster), Corki (Trinity poke midgame).
- Support: Sona (lane-winning poke plus a teamfight ult), Lulu (the peel package hypercarries want), Leona (all-in engage that punishes 2013-era positioning), Zilean (speed, slow, and a revive — utility that never aged).
B-Tier Champions
Solid, playable, situational — most of the roster lives here, and in a mode with no ranked queue, "B-tier" is not a reason to skip a champion you love:
Ahri, Annie, Anivia, Ashe, Brand, Cho'Gath, Fiddlesticks, Janna, Kayle, Lux, Malzahar, Miss Fortune, Morgana, Nasus, Nidalee, Nunu, Pantheon, Shaco, Sivir, Skarner, Soraka, Taric, Tristana, Twitch, Veigar, Wukong.
A few notes from inside the pile: Nasus scales forever but S3-era early games are long enough to bully him out; Nunu and Shaco are stronger in coordinated play (objective control, early cheese) than solo queue chaos; Anivia and Veigar punish the mode's slower midlane rotations but are immobile in a roster full of assassins; Tristana and Twitch are late-game insurance policies that need the right frontline.
C & D-Tier Champions
The honest bottom — kits that were already struggling in their own era, or that depend on opponents not knowing 13-year-old counterplay:
Gangplank, Garen, Heimerdinger, Master Yi, Rammus, Sion, Teemo, Tryndamere, Warwick.
Context matters here: several of these (Master Yi, Warwick, Garen, Teemo) are still fine picks for learning the mode — they're simple, cheap to execute, and punish disorganized games hard, which describes plenty of week-one Classic lobbies. They're ranked low because their ceilings collapse against players who remember how to itemize and kite, not because they can't take games. Old Sion is the interesting one: the pre-2014 kit is genuinely strange (see pre-rework kits), and AP shield-detonation builds can shock people who've never seen it.
How We Ranked These Champions (Methodology)
Read this section before disagreeing with the list — or better, read it and then disagree with the list, because it will change.
These rankings are based on early community consensus and Season 3-era champion strength, not match data. There is no match data: Riot has stated it withholds all data regarding matches (notably winrates) for Classic, explicitly to "preserve gameplay exploration and prevent aggressive metagaming." Third-party stat sites do not track the Classic queue as of this writing. Nothing on this page is a winrate claim.
What we actually weighed:
- Documented Season 3 strength — how these exact kits performed in the era Classic recreates: who dominated 2013 solo queue and competitive play, who was permabanned (Kassadin), who was a known scaling monster (Jax, Vayne).
- Roster context — 60 champions is not 2013's full pool. Missing counters promote some picks; missing teammates demote others (a hook support's life is easier when Thresh isn't competing for the slot).
- Early community discussion — directional reads from the mode's first week, weighted lightly because week-one metas are wrong everywhere, and doubly so in a mode where half the players are relearning 2013.
What this means practically: treat tier gaps of one step as noise and two steps as signal. When Riot's own patches or roster waves shift the mode — or when a credible data source for Classic emerges — we re-rank and note it here.
Roster & Mode Updates
The list above covers the 60 launch champions. Two kinds of updates will move it:
- Roster waves. Riot's published roadmap begins adding champions on August 12, 2026 (three in the first wave), with Akali, Caitlyn, Fiora, Graves, Irelia, LeBlanc, Mordekaiser and Urgot confirmed as coming. Every addition changes matchup math — several are direct counters to current S-tier picks.
- Mode patches. Per the official wiki, Classic "is expected to branch out from the modern version of the game, with patches expected at the same cadence," tuned to preserve the slow-paced design. If Riot balances within the mode, we re-rank on each patch that touches champions.
Wondering what to build on any of these picks? That's the builds guide — S3 itemization is different enough from modern League that the right champion with the wrong build still loses.
Written August 4, 2026, six days after League Classic's launch. Rankings are editorial, per the methodology above: grounded in Season 3-era champion strength and the launch roster's composition, cross-checked against early community play — not winrates, which Riot deliberately does not publish for this mode. Roster and mode facts verified against the official League of Legends Wiki's League Classic page. Updated as roster waves and mode patches land.
One Hit Kill Guides' League Classic coverage was created under Riot Games' "Legal Jibber Jabber" policy using assets owned by Riot Games. Riot Games does not endorse or sponsor this project.