Viktor was trash tier for like two years. Before his rework he was a niche mid game power spike mage with no mobility and no instant stun/whombo with one of the lower win rates in the game. After the rework we was a niche lategame power spike mage with no mobility and no instant stun/whombo and with one of the lower win rates in the game. His sole redeeming feature was that he was actually good against Azir; and this was only particularly valuable in competitive because Azir is the poster child for the second category. Its only recently that he has become legitimately strong.

As for the question

1) I am thinking Shen, Corki, Janna, Morgana, Maokai, Gragas, Lee Sin are all strong contenders depending on how you define the meta. A few of these champions have had consistent roles (Maokai) and a few have swapped around (gragas from AP mid to tank top to jungle, Morgana from mid to support), some have been strong in competitive the entire time but shit in solo and some strong in solo but shit in competitive.

2) I am thinking: Azir, Reksai, Elise, Ekko, Thresh, maybe Kalista, maybe zed

I would not pick Alistar because he was not that great a support early until he was picked up in the jungle and abused. After he was nerfed out of the jungle he saw a very long stretch where he wasn't good until buffs brought him back. Ezreal for similar reasons. He had too long a stretch where he was just plain bad, both before the W max was discovered, and after W max was nerfed.

Frolossus

United States4779 Posts

July 18 2016 01:56 GMT

#123

lee sin has definitely been used in the most metas.

Slusher

United States19143 Posts

July 18 2016 04:04 GMT

#124

Ekko seems out of place main reason he got so over buffed was nobody playing him for 10 months

kongoline

6318 Posts

July 18 2016 10:35 GMT

#125

but he was played occasionally in tournaments even before buffs and was popular in soloQ, i feel now hes worse than before riot decided to touch him

VayneAuthority

United States8983 Posts

July 18 2016 13:19 GMT

#126

i mean these questions dont even really seem like a contest, seems like 2 clear cut answers.

Ezreal has stood the test of time for a very long time. I did a quick once over of the champ list and yea I don't see any other champ thats been out as long as him and been in meta as often.

the second question is even easier, reksai has never been out of meta since release basically. Maybe theres some that tie reksai at 99% but thats an easy answer to the question.

Gahlo

United States35174 Posts

July 18 2016 13:32 GMT

#127

I feel Thresh is pretty close, if not on par with Rek'Sai.

Prog

United Kingdom1470 Posts

July 18 2016 13:40 GMT

#128

Janna definitely shows up regularly throughout the years.

General_Winter

United States719 Posts

July 18 2016 15:34 GMT

#129

Wow they really went over board with the kindred nerfs. Looks like she's down to 43% win rate on champion gg. Hope they revert some of that since she used to be really fun (all that hopping around)

JimmiC

Canada22817 Posts

July 18 2016 15:43 GMT

#130

--- Nuked ---

Jek

Denmark2771 Posts

July 18 2016 16:03 GMT

#131

On July 19 2016 00:43 JimmiC wrote:
Sona is officially broken right now. I was playing her tons before this patch and she was good. Now it is just bonkers. get the freelo before the bans and nerfs show up.

Yeah. I agree. She's decently strong in lane and scales absolutely monstrously for a support. Definitely a top tier at least in soloQ.

Gahlo

United States35174 Posts

July 18 2016 16:07 GMT

#132

Yup, and Leona dropped a little over 5%.

Slusher

United States19143 Posts

July 18 2016 16:17 GMT

#133

On July 19 2016 01:07 Gahlo wrote:

Show nested quote +

Yup, and Leona dropped a little over 5%.

combined with the fact that Sona. who she traditionally does well against is seeing a ton of play, I think it's pretty clear her changes were a nerf.

Gahlo

United States35174 Posts

July 18 2016 16:24 GMT

#134

On July 19 2016 01:17 Slusher wrote:

Show nested quote +

combined with the fact that Sona. who she traditionally does well against is seeing a ton of play, I think it's pretty clear her changes were a nerf.

Doesn't help that the buffs in her changes went in early last patch, so it was a pure nerf this patch.

Uldridge

Belgium5232 Posts

July 18 2016 16:32 GMT

#135

Well.. who thought that getting to this amount of CDR wouldn't be broken?

iCanada

Canada10660 Posts

July 18 2016 16:46 GMT

#136

On July 19 2016 00:34 General_Winter wrote:
Wow they really went over board with the kindred nerfs. Looks like she's down to 43% win rate on champion gg. Hope they revert some of that since she used to be really fun (all that hopping around)

LOL yeah.

I dunno, I said they'd shot can her before, no one believed me. I think they gonna rework her; removing the health in conjunction with the armor made her lose almost 400 ehp in level 3 duels. Ridiculously huge nerf for a champion who won the game by creating early snowballs.

I'd rather jungle kog or ezreal. She is so weak at early levels. Her late game isn't awful but getting there is too hard. It isn't good enough considering how picking her often shapes poor fight comps with low cc, low peel, and poor ability to soak damage aside from lambs respite.

Her kit is too reliant on skirmishing / ganking / counter jungking for scaling to be as poor as she is at dueling. She can't farm for late because all her damage is from marks after the Q and passive changes a few patches ago.

Prog

United Kingdom1470 Posts

July 18 2016 17:05 GMT

#137

The Leona winrate certainly tanked way more than I expected it. However, one should take it with some caution because oddly enough her pickrate nearly doubled and is now close to 20%. One way to interpret this is that people picked up Leona who did not play her before, which also lowers the winrate in addition to the nerfs.

PS: I don't think Leona ever did particularly well against Sona. And she certainly does not right now. Leona's worst winrate is vs Sona.

Jek

Denmark2771 Posts

July 18 2016 18:00 GMT

#138

Leona was ok against Sona back when you had to use gold gen runes, since Sona was stupidly squish without the tank runes you can now run. Now Sona have time to actually flash away instead of being instagibbed and then procede to heal up while poking Leona down. At the moment I dont think Leona has any good match ups outside of maybe Blitz, in lane she relies entirely on the enemy to misplay.