Malphite has suddenly reached S+ Tier with no buffs!
Throughout recent patches, top-lane tankers have had no seats in the meta due to the dominance of bruisers. The reason for the rising of this champion class is obviously the huge buffs in their core items such as Stridebreaker, Goredrinker, or Divine Sunderer. However, according to u.gg, Malphite – a bright star in the dark sky – has finally joined the top-tier list!
Basically, Malphite is the hard counter of bruisers, especially the AD ones. The AS-decreasing effect of his E helps him to avoid adverse trades in the laning phase. Furthermore, his W’s passive provides him with an enormous amount of Armor from the early game. To conclude, his kit can ensure that he will have a safe laning phase to gain enough items for team fights.
Not only does his kit counter most bruisers, but his builds can also make them cry from the first minute, even the OP ones. You can easily recognize that the most powerful top-lane champions like Irelia, Camille, Fiora, or Riven all have strong healing from their kits or builds. Meanwhile, Malphite just needs to purchase Bramble Vest to effectively lessen them. So simple, isn’t it?
On the other hand, having a totally winning laning phase against Malphite appears to be incredibly hard. As bruisers, you cannot buy items having the Grievous Wound effect to do that as Malphite has no particular healing. Additionally, you also cannot buy Armor Penetration items as the first ones as they do not help you to survive in team fights. All of them have helped this champion to have a place on the 11.14 top-tier list.
All in all, AD bruisers are having extremely high popularity in this patch. If you have lost some LP because of that OP champion class, Malphite is obviously a nice choice for you!