Introduction
I will try to break down the best league of legends champions to 1v5 that I have used over the years and successfully gotten pentakills up to Platinum elo. This is a very controversial topic and I figured I’d give you my perspective on it, particularly which champions I believe have chronically across patches been able to 1v5. But before I go into any details let me first explain what I perceive when someone says 1v5. Someone would say 1v5 assumes your team does nothing and you basically can fight the entire enemy team. But there’s a lot of different variations between those words for example you might be able to do 1v4 but not 1v5 or 1v3 and so on. The other aspect which confuses things even more is if you have someone that’s intentionally dying (feeder) or is just not a good player and acts in a negative way to your team and holds you down in that case that would be a 1v6, 1v7 if you have two and so on. Obviously the term 1v5 covers all of those scenarios the idea is that you have very little to no help from your allies and can basically carry the game. Why did I not just name the title how to carry a game then? Well because I believe there’s a subtle difference, let me explain. Carrying a game automatically assumes you will be victorious at the end of it, however being able to 1v5 doesn’t necessarily mean you will be winning the game it just means you can probably win team fights and do well for your team but lose in the macro level such as objectives (dragon, towers etc). Lets just dive into it and start exploring which champions are good. I tried to start with the easiest to play and then go into the harder ones.
How to 1v5 as Annie
It’s no secret that Annie is one of the best and easiest champions to play in league of legends summoners rift by far. Her skillcap is very low, her abilities are mostly point and click which allows you to focus more on strategy and winning the game rather than mastering animation cancelling, auto cancelling and rotating your abilities multiple times while going in and out a team fight.
The main advantage of Annie is that she does 2 things very well which can alter the game and really kill 5 opponents at once. And yes if you haven’t guessed it yet the answer is tibbers. Tibbers or also known as her ultimate has an AEO damage and stun at the same time. The damage output from it is insanely high which can bring down the enemy team to near 0 so if you combine it with a single spell rotation like a q/w you can probably kill 2 people easily. The other three like the support and top laner/jg will be low that your cooldown reduction will probably kill them with your next q/w. This assumes you build zhonya hourglass so you can get back some quick cd, the q is on very low cool down anyway but avoiding a cc is important. If you want to read more on my Annie you can read an article I wrote on the best champions to carry in low elo.
To learn more about Annie’s abilities you can read the official League of Legends guide.
How to 1v5 as Malphite
Very similar to Annie, Malphite is also another one of these champions that shares similar attributes to Annie. Additionally he’s very versatile and can be played in multiple roles such as jungle, top, support and mid lane. This makes him extremely good as a pick when not sure what to do. Furthermore his kit is mainly point and click which takes away any thinking of landing your abilities or aiming. His ultimate which I believe is his best ability is what will give you the edge to 1v5 a team fight. Similar to Annie he has an AOE knock-up and damage output which could be off the charts especially if you build him as a full AP. His cooldowns can be low depending on your build but the zhonyas hourglass can solve that anyway. Another major point for him is that he can rotate in and out a team fight fairly easily as his passive makes him tanky and his q passive gives him insane movement speed additionally to being able to damage and slow a champion!! As you can imagine if you combine all those together you end up literally with a beast for carrying games and being able to 1v5. I won’t hide this he’s probably one of my favorite champions in the game specifically for the high reward with his ultimate. If you want to read more on my malphite you can read an article I wrote on the best champions to carry in low elo.
To learn more about Malphite’s abilities you can read the official League of Legends guide.
How to 1v5 as Jax
Jax is one of those champions in the game that has been consistently very good at scaling in late game. However in the last few patches his early game is insane too. Unlike Annie and Malphite, jax can be non-forgiving if you don’t play your spell rotation properly. Aka he’s not as spammy as you may think and would require more effort to get him to 1v5 an entire team. Having said that a good jax player is pretty much unstoppable and can easily carry a game and kill an entire team on his own. Lets break how you can become a 1v5 monster. By the way this applies in all elo’s particularly in lower ones. Think of your team mostly as meat that will initiate a stupid or good fight for you. Once the fight breaks out you want to look for an opportunity of your engage. Your engage is a fairly simple one in terms of mechanics however the execution and timing is vital to be done right. You want to wait for the opportunity where the enemy team is pilled up together and close where you can stun multiple people with your e ability. So basically if not in range don’t hesitate to use the jump with your q followed mid-air with e to do the stun. Once you stun then what you may ask? Well do what Jax does the best, auto-w-auto-w-auto etc. The low cool down of your w will allow you to do insane damage, heal and basically kill everyone. As the game moves on your ultimate gives you a lot of tankyness so don’t forget to activate it when you get cc’d or start receiving damage to reduce as much as you can from that. Generally speaking you should be able to kill fairly easily the squishes and then have time to kill the tanks too.
To learn more about jax’s abilities you can read more on league of legends official guide.
How to 1v5 as Riven
Getting now into the more complicated difficult champions, Riven is probably the best 1v5er in the game in my opinion. I’ve seen it happen over and over even in high elo’s. A good riven is basically unstoppable and this can be attributed again to her very versatile kit. She has an AOE stun and damage like Annie which is her w. So when trying to win a fight always initiate with that and try to stun as many people as possible. Quick rotate your e to get in and out of the fight followed with Q-Auto cancelling. This may take a very long time to master even though it sounds very easy on principle. The idea behind it is that your low cooldown in your abilities makes it easy to spam to dodge, stun, damage and kill your enemies. Don’t be afraid to say that you can’t do any of that when I started playing Riven I couldn’t even do basic animation cancelling for my ulti, later on it started setting in and it became second nature. This process took me at least 50 games until I got a good hang of her and hundreds of games until I was able to 1v5 teams. If I had to give a suggestion to old me I’d say stick with Malphite as he can accomplish similar results with much less effort and time spent to master the champion. Another worthwhile notice here about riven is never falls off so you will be strong in the entire game.
To learn more about riven’s abilities you can read more on league of legends official guide.
How to 1v5 as Yasuo
I think by including Yasuo here I opened pandora’s box. Lets be honest who wouldn’t be hesitant on writing about yasuo League’s potentially most popular champion. And yes let me start by saying you can be the 1v5 or the opposite (setting your team behind) by playing him. In this article I don’t really want to go into details of when or how to play him I’ll just focus on what makes Yasuo unique in order to 1v5 an entire team. As you already know by now the champion is a game of his own. His abilities are so simple yet so hard to use properly in a game. His cooldowns are so low that it feels that he doesn’t have any. And yes this last statement is the reason that makes Yasuo one of the best 1v5 champions in the game. The low cool down of his ability along with his slippery kit which can quickly target a new champion let him 1v5 an entire team. The trick offcourse relies on how good you are on landing your Q tornado which basically lets you combine with your ulti. If you can land it on 3 champions that’s great, if you can land it in 4 that’s even better but if you can land it in a team of 5 you are winner. And it doesn’t stop there, Yasuo does well with certain ally champions which can help him do that but since this article is a 1v5 I will not discuss it here. The difference between a good and a bad yasuo though isn’t so much on how well he can land his q it’s also on how good he can use his w to mitigate the incoming damage from ranged champions particularly ad carries. Having a good w can make a significant impact on whether or not you win a 1v5, yes hiding or playing around a properly positioned windwall is so important and your life depends on it. Another important part is having some form of lifesteal since you will be doing a lot of damage and receiving some from enemies you need to lifesteal some back to keep you alive. Those two aspects combined with a good q/ulti will win you the fight. And if I haven’t bored you already you can understand that this is a very complex things to do as a lot of stars need to be aligned for that to happen.
To learn more about yasuo’s abilities you can read more on league of legends official guide.
Conclusion
We went over a wide range of champions that can help you accomplish the 1v5 goal but the most important rule is which one you are comfortable playing. I can rant all day about liking Riven but if you don’t enjoy her there’s no point trying to master her as you will soon get bored and move on never achieving your goal. I personally play a lot of mid-lane so Annie and Malphite are my goto champions these days as my brain has slowed down to be able to process both macro and micro league of legends play. What your is favorite champion to 1v5? Do you think I forgot something in the previous champion list that I can add too? Please let me know in the comments below. If you really want to Best league of legends champions to 1v5 you have to also learn the general aspects and dynamics of the game and for this I have written many articles which you can find in my section here about League of Legends.
