Even though League of Legends is a team-oriented game, winning a fight 1v1 is the best expression of one’s skill and showing the enemy who’s the boss.
Champions that are strong in a 1v1 situation are called duelists. Duelists have many tools in their arsenal to outplay their opponents. In League of Legends, dueling can be a lot of fun. Players can express their skills, reflexes, and game knowledge through dueling.
One thing to keep in mind, winning a fight 1v1 can depend on various things. Some champions are more robust in the early game, while others shine late. Also, being higher rank on our list does not mean that a champion can always beat other champions ranked lower.
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It all comes down to the skill and understanding of the players. I haven’t included any ranged champions because you cannot really win any 1v1 without good kiting skills. The champions I included will shine in a 1v1, melee vs. melee, all-out brawl.
5 Best 1v1 Champions in League of Legends
5. Warwick
Warwick doesn’t have high DPS, true damage, and doesn’t take flashy mechanics to pull off. But in a 1v1 situation, he can win pretty easily with his incredible sustain, shield, and fear. On top of that, his passive makes him stronger when he gets low, and his w passive gives him massive attack speed steroids if the enemy has less than 50% health.
Strengths
- Sustain
- Fear and CC on his Ultimate
- Attack speed
- Can stick to opponents
4. Nasus
As I mentioned before, not all champions will have the same dueling potential at every stage of the game. For example, Nasus is not strong in the early game at all. He gets bullied by most champions and is forced to farm under the turret. But once he gets his stack, he can win almost all 1v1s.
With Nasus, if you can stack adequately, you should have more than 500 stacks in 20-25 minutes. He becomes almost unstoppable then. His Q deals massive damage, and he can constantly slow his opponents. And his ult gives him a 50% cooldown reduction on his Q, along with armor, magic resistance, health, increased range, etc.
Strengths
- Massive slow and attack speed reduction on low cooldown
- Can deal a lot of damage while being tanky
- Maximum of 22% lifesteal (capped at level 13) just from his passive
3. Master Yi
You may think you can quickly kill him with crowd control. But we are only talking about 1v1 situations here. Maybe in the early game, you can kill him with crowd control as he is very weak in the early game.
But the longer the game goes on, the stronger Yi gets. He is undoubtedly the highest DPS (damage per second) champion in League. Once Master Yi has some items under his belt, in a 1v1 situation, if you can’t burst him down during CC, he will win the duel most of the time.
Strengths
- Becomes untargetable with Q, can also be used to dodge a lot of things
- W gives a huge number of damage reduction
- True damage that scales with Attack Damage
- High DPS
2. Jax
Though Fiora can beat Jax if she can parry his stun, I still believe Jax to be one of the best Duelists out there. He deals consistent damage and gains stack up to 8, increasing his attack speed to 88% at level 16. Also, his E lets him dodge all incoming auto-attack, which is the best source of damage for most duelists. His kit may be a bit outdated now, but still, he is one of the best duelists in the game.
Strengths
- Ability to dodge auto attacks and reduce AOE damage
- E also has a stun
- Passive gives him huge attack speed buff
- Gap closing ability.
1. Fiora
There is no surprise here. Fiora is one of the best duelists in the game, if not the best. She is called The Grand Duelist for a reason. Her whole kit revolves around dueling and outplaying her opponent. She has good mobility, a ‘Riposte’ that she can use to parry any attack from her opponent, and massive damage. Riposte takes good reflex and prediction, as it can help you win any duel if you time it perfectly to block incoming crowd control and parry it back to your opponent.
Strengths
- Mobility
- A parry ability
- Passive lets her do percentage of health damage, so she can easily kill tanks
