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Best mid lane 1v1 champions in League of Legends

During Cloud9’s LCS 2024 season, Jojopyun shared what he believes are the five strongest 1v1 mid lane picks in League of Legends.

By Jack Stewart

5 min readUpdated on 06/04/2024 · 5:00 PM UTC

The middle lane is League of Legend’s centre stage. It’s in the heart of all the action and because of that, midlaner is one of the most important and difficult roles in the game. And it’s one in which you have to skillfully fight on your own.

Few know that better than Cloud9 midlaner Joseph 'Jojopyun' Pyun, an aggressive and talented pro player who has won trophies and competed with the strongest players at the World Championships.

Using his expertise, here are the five strongest 1v1 mid lane champions in Season 14 of LoL.

Zed

Zed from League of Legends — Zed is at his best in 1v1 League of Legends fights
© Riot Games

When asked for the strongest 1v1 midlaners in the game, Jojopyun’s mind immediately went to the assassin, Zed: “Zed is really strong in 1v1s, his strength is fighting when he has items alone.”

Zed is built to work alone. Despite being a melee champion, his abilities have a lot of range which allows him to stay safe and farm on his own versus ranged mages.

And his high mobility gives the assassin a lot of outplay potential, meaning in the hands of talented players like Jojopyun he can skilfully defeat most champions in the game. It’s why the most iconic 1v1 fight in LoL history is the Zed mirror match-up where Lee 'Faker' Sang-hyeok makes the commentators dizzy with his dodges and jukes around his opponent.

But the ultimate tool of Zed is his ultimate, Death Mark, which stores up a portion of the damage he and his shadow deal in a short time window which then detonates at the end of the combo to execute his target for an easy solokill. At the start of this season, a hotfix buff to Zed reverted a previous nerf to bring Death Mark’s AD ratio back up to 100% and Zed has been terrorising solo queue ever since.

Sylas

Jojopyun has picked yet another champion with a high skill ceiling in the very versatile Sylas.

The Cloud9 midlaner is keen on using the mage whenever his lane opponent has a powerful ultimate as he can steal it and use it for himself. That likely explains why Sylas is Jojopyun’s most-played champion with an impressive 55.9 percent win rate over 34 pro games.

While versatility is one of the best parts of Sylas’s kit, the major reason he is so good in 1v1s is the healing from his W, Kingslayer. With all of his mobility, Sylas can dodge around skillshots and then outlast his opponent thanks to the built-in sustain of those heals.

It’s extremely difficult to kill Sylas on your own.

Akali

One champion who always has a presence in pro play: there’s a reason players of the highest level always favour Akali.

As one of the most mobile characters in the game, Akali has the potential to outplay any character in the game. Plus, she has the ability to go invisible and untargetable in her Twilight Shroud.

The cherry on top of all of that, as Jojopyun explained, is her impressive damage: “Akali is strong, especially in late game when she hits items. She can one-shot anyone that’s meta right now.”

After buffs to her base health in Patch 14.8 and her Assassin’s Mark passive which since 14.2 can no longer expire during its wind-up, Akali is an excellent pick if you’re hunting for solokills. It’s no surprise she was one of Jojopyun’s most played champions last split.

Cassiopeia

Next up is Cassiopeia, who can be brutal to try and 1v1 – especially as a melee champion. Because of that, Jojopyun believes you should only pick her if you know you’ll be against a short-ranged opponent.

The reason Cassipoeia is so powerful against melee characters is because of her ability to rapidly cast spells from afar and her naturally high movement speed, which together allow her to chase after and run down her target.

Once she lands her Q, Noxious Blast, Cassiopeia’s target is poisoned, meaning not only will they slowly take damage over time, but also she will receive bonus damage and healing from Twin Fang, which has a cooldown of less than one second.

And with the powerful crowd control of her ultimate and her W, Miasma - which prevents dashes - it’s almost impossible to escape from or chase down Cassiopeia as a melee champion. She will bully any short-ranged champion.

As for against other ranged champions, Jojopyun says she “struggles.” With no dash of her own, a Cassiopeia can easily be punished if they aren’t smart with their positioning and ability usage.

However, her ability to easily face any melee champion is still more than enough to earn her a place on this list.

Qiyana

Finishing up this list, it’s no surprise to see Jojopyun has opted for yet another assassin. Though it’s a somewhat surprising one considering Qiyana hasn’t been picked at all in pro play in 2024.

You might be expecting a really complicated, high-level explanation from Jojopyun for her inclusion but his reasoning is actually very simple: “Qiyana is strong if the enemy is squishy and able to be one-shot.”

At the end of day, 1v1s are where assassins shine. Finding the perfect opportunity to single out a high-priority target and eliminate them as fast as possible is the dream scenario in a single fight.

And though that may sound easy, Qiyana is another champion that requires a lot of skill as you have to correctly order her combos while selecting the right element in the heat of battle.

However, the speed in which she can roam and the adaptability of her kit makes Qiyana one of the best snowballing champions in the game. She can easily outplay 1v1 fights and rack up the solokills.