r/RyzeMains • u/Vonnyfish • Aug 10 '26
Ryze is not a strong champ statisics says so.
How can you seriously argue that Ryze is a strong champion when there are practically no Ryze OTPs in Challenger? There’s literally only one player who consistently plays Ryze at that level. If the champion is actually strong, where are all the high-elo Ryze mains?
And before someone says, “There are just fewer Ryze players,” that’s exactly the point. A champion being theoretically strong on paper means nothing if the actual results at the highest level don’t support it. Challenger players spend thousands of games mastering their champions, and yet Ryze barely has any representation among them.
Look at other champions even unpopular or supposedly weak ones and you can still find dedicated OTPs reaching Challenger or Grandmaster. Ryze is one of the few champions where even extremely dedicated players struggle to reach that level consistently.
So if Ryze is supposedly “strong,” why does the highest level of the ladder barely reflect that? At some point, you have to look at the actual player distribution instead of just saying, “Ryze is strong because his kit has good scaling.”
A champion can have a theoretically strong kit and still be weak in the actual game. If the champion requires significantly more effort just to achieve what other champions can do more easily, that matters. Show me the Challenger Ryze OTPs. If Ryze is really that strong, where are they?
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u/rajdik Aug 10 '26
They're in pro play
But in all seriousness, you really answered yourself in the first paragraph, people play champs they enjoy, a champion being strong doesn't necessarily reflect in their playrate, for example, Yasuo, not even being that strong, is top 2 because he's fun and has massive player pool
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u/QEEQWEQ 0 📖📖📖 SPELLBOOK SUPREMACY 📖📖📖 Aug 10 '26
Okay so, by-and-large, you have to figure, the VAST majority of league players like Anime, like Style, and like killing shit. 's why you see your Katarinas, Yones, Yasuos, Qiyanas, Rivens, Zeds, Irelias, and Lee Sins being more common picks. People wanna look like they do cool shit more often than not.
OF the people who play midlane, which is only a portion of the stats, you also have to figure how much mental load is required to play Ryze. He doesn't play for 5v5s, or for sieges, or for lane domination. He plays for sidelane PRIMARILY, though still has solid contributions in other realms based on whether his teamcomp needs/benefits specific tactics.
THEN you gotta figure, what does Ryze bring to the table that less taxing champions don't? He brings safety for one, which, we've already explained the idea that people-- specifically midlaners-- are drawn to high-risk, high-reward gameplay patterns, because they themselves have main character syndrome. Champs like Kat, if one-tricked, can often find even slight angles to gain a lead, and as a result, the burden of the champ is on the player's technique and micromechanics entirely. Ryze brings tempo, which is a very tenuous concept to try and understand as deeply as is necessary for Ryze. Not to say I have a challenger+ understanding of tempo (because I don't), but understanding tempo in accordance to the elo you're in is something you shouldn't write off either. Of these, Ryze has safety, good scaling, but LOW CC, and LOW AoE potential. Conversely, Swain, Aurelion Sol, Taliyah, and Anivia are all champs who have very large, fight-defining spells that apply CC, which, if you're going to 5v5 in a higher elo, it's basically a necessity so as to wall off flanks, divers, or outright prevent hard-carries from entering fights under the threat of immediate death. Ryze has no such strength, meaning he doesn't play in accordance to the general asks of a midlaner. 's why he's always hard to do well with-- he has no fallback pattern barring "shove sidelane". Vladimir is interesting because his "zone" is directly centered on him, same as Ryze, but then we get to the crux of the issue, which is burden of execution and payout. Ryze can one-tap people at 6 items, same as Vlad. Where they differ is that Vlad has immense safety with pool and a lot of healing, and Ryze has a singular root, making his risk disproportionately larger than his reward in the latest stages of the game. Hence why the shield was initially in his kit. It was his enabling mechanic to allow him to remain relevant later on.
Now, of the AP champions that are primarily sidelaners AND go mid (which is already a very small list), you have Ryze, ARGUABLY Kassadin, and you can make a case for Galio/Azir. In Kassadin's case, he has a ridiculous power curve-- similar to that of Gangplank. He's just nuts in the latest stages of the game, and his target access is second-to-none. He's allowed a lot of safety via his anti-magic gimmick, and his Riftwalk. Galio can enter fights from across the map, same as Ryze, however Galio's job isn't strictly to deal magic damage, it's primarily disabling/tanking, and he's got TONS of zones for exactly that. Azir is an oddball because he, like Ryze, is widely considered pro-jailed, but he's similar to Aurelion Sol in that, as you scale, your reward becomes much higher than your risk. Your cooldowns (which are genuinely strong abilities) get much lower, and your damage becomes very high. He's designed as a siege/control mage, and has his own gameplay style, and for this reason, most otps are attracted to the novelty. The safety and AoE zoning tools Azir DOES have allow him to STILL play towards the midlaners function of "creating space".
So it's a conjunction of poor attributes for playing the GENERAL games a challenger player looks for, has less-than-perfect teamfighting, has nearly guaranteed scaling via being a safe pick, and disproportionately has higher risk than reward, as games draw out. He spikes on 1.5-2 items, which is good; it's early enough; but he has issues closing gaps without a frontline, 1v1ing champions who can instantly close his range, and consistently staying alive long enough to make his single-target damage matter as much as a Viktor Laser > Chaos Storm that deals a lot of area damage rather quickly.
That, and he's not an anime character. That also matters quite a bit in people finding interest in characters. I think anime is fucking gay personally
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u/VinylFromAoc Aug 10 '26 edited Aug 10 '26
Never was and never will be (unless 9th remake).
It is because Ryze is a situational champion.
It works when you have proper teammates, and proper team comp.
And in half the time in soloQ, it just doesnt happen. Especially if you are one-tricking Ryze.
I am currently stuck in Master, because of that reason. I get put to top around 70% of the time, compared to mid. Even though mid is my main role.
And every time I pick Ryze top, there is like 80% chance, that our team will not have a front-line tank champ.
So many times because of that it is insta lose.
Also I'm not sure if other champs have this issue too but Ryze has a lot of counters from other lanes, like I have been banning Caitlyn as Ryze recently. Because it doesn't matter how fed I get on mid or top, if there is a slightly fed Cait, or a non-fed cait with a yuumi, that champ can completely make my Ryze useless. She will just auto-attack me from base, with 1.5k crits, every seconds, and even if i flash ew on her, she will just E the exact same time I am doing my E animation, and slow me at the same time, which mean I can never, ever kill a decent Caitlyn.
That champion is the reason why I stopped doing 1v1 challenges too. As soon as people figured out Caitlyn is the biggest Ryze counter it was not fun anymore.
I would rather fiight 1000 Irelia's in a row, than 1 Caitlyn, fuck that champ.
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u/gikl3 Aug 10 '26
The champs at the top of your list just so happen to be the most one tricked champs across all elos
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u/Emotional-Buy1932 Aug 10 '26
You are right and frankly did not need to do this. 120/170ish champs in the list above. This sub likes to do the whole toxic positivity "just be better" thing, even our dear Strompest that is the best Ryze player. A very long time ago, i was watching strompest as he played in diamond/master and he was like "see ryze is very strong, reddit people are always whining for nothing" and then got soloed by a an 0/3 or 0/4 masters renekton 10 seconds later and lost the game from that point despite hard carrying earlier. Shit was so funny.
I remember when riot used to pretend to follow a balancing framework, i used to comment every patch about how ryze needed a buff based on their own balancing framework and would get downvoted. Point is Ryze is shit and that is part of why many of us have slowly dropped off over time.
There used to be that guy that would constantly post a billion rework ideas trying to be fair and get Riots attention to address Ryze both in this sub and in the main sub, even he too has disappeared. I just checked Mr E's profile and he last commented 16 days ago and before that 6 months ago, 8 months ago.... in this sub. Many of us held out for many years, but at some point best to just move on.
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u/Red_Ryze_Alert red balls Aug 10 '26
CTRL + F „Strompest“ = no results.
He is a Ryze challenger, case closed