League of Legends has more than 170 playable champions, and more keep coming. For anyone just getting started, that feels more like a wall than a menu: every champion does something different, plays differently and suits a different position on the map. This guide shows you how the whole champion system fits together: which roles and classes exist, how they differ, how unlocking works and, above all, how to find your first champion among a hundred and fifty-plus characters.
How many champions League of Legends has
As of patch 26.18, League of Legends has 173 champions. Riot adds new ones several times a year on average, so the number keeps creeping up; the latest addition arrived in June 2026. You can find the exact, always up-to-date list on the game’s official wiki (wiki.leagueoflegends.com) or directly in the client, where you can browse every champion including their abilities and lore.
This article deliberately doesn’t try to list them all. That’s what the in-client database and the fan wikis are for. The goal here is to understand how the system is put together, so you can find your own way around it.
For comparison, that’s more characters than most other team-based online games have, and the number grows every year. That’s exactly why it pays to understand the logic behind how champions are designed instead of memorizing names. It applies to every champion still to come as well as to the hundred and fifty-plus that already exist.
Roles on the map: where each champion plays
The first way to split champions has nothing to do with how they look or what their backstory is. It’s about where on the map they go and what they do there. League of Legends has five core roles: top lane, jungle, mid lane, ADC (also called marksman or bot lane) and support. Each position has a different game rhythm and a different responsibility within the team, and most champions are designed to work mainly in one or two of them.
Roles and how they differ are covered in detail in a separate article on roles in LoL. For picking your first champion, though, you should know at least this much: before you start thinking about a specific name, figure out whether you’d rather duel on a lane of your own, roam the whole map through the jungle, or play in support of your teammates.
In short: top lane is an isolated one-on-one duel where your own decisions matter most. The jungler doesn’t stay in a lane at all. They move between neutral monsters and help the other lanes, so the role demands awareness of the whole map. Mid lane is the shortest route to the enemy base and is typically taken by champions who want to influence the match quickly. The ADC (marksman) deals most of the team’s damage in the late game but needs protection to do it. Support creates that protection and space for teammates, through healing, crowd control or both.
Champion classes: how the playstyle differs
The second split cuts across roles and describes how a champion behaves in a fight. League of Legends recognizes six main classes, and most of them have subclasses that describe the style in finer detail.
| Class | What it does | Subclasses |
|---|---|---|
| Tank | Soaks up huge amounts of damage and starts or blocks fights, but doesn’t deal much damage itself. | Vanguard (initiates), Warden (holds the line) |
| Fighter | A durable close-range brawler that can deal and take hits at the same time. | Juggernaut (heavy, slow), Diver (mobile, jumps onto targets) |
| Mage | Destroys enemies with abilities from range, built on spell power rather than basic attacks. | Burst, Battlemage, Artillery |
| Marksman | Stays at a safe distance and deals reliable damage with basic attacks. | no official split |
| Slayer | A fragile but fast killer whose goal is to take out one specific target. | Assassin (infiltrates), Skirmisher (cuts through several targets at once) |
| Controller | Protects teammates and controls the battlefield, more supportive than offensive. | Enchanter (buffs and heals), Catcher (catches and locks down) |
The community uses this split far more than map roles, because it describes much better how a champion actually plays. A support can be an Enchanter who spends the whole match healing and shielding teammates, or a Catcher who waits for an opening and locks enemies down with crowd control. Mid lane can be played by a classic Mage like Ahri, but just as well by a Slayer trying to quickly delete the enemy marksman.
A champion’s name alone won’t tell you how they play; only the combination of role and class tells you that. Before you start choosing by name, first settle on the combination that appeals to you, for example a durable Tank in top lane or a mobile Mage in mid.
Many champions also belong to more than one class or can be built differently depending on the situation. A champion designed as a Fighter can be pushed closer to a Tank with a different item build, and a mage can be built for burst damage rather than long casting. The classes in the table describe what a champion is primarily designed for, not a strict box you can’t step out of. That flexibility is one of the reasons the game still offers new combinations to try after hundreds of hours.
What to watch out for when looking up a champion online
Champion names were created in English without regard to the fact that Riot would later translate the game into dozens of languages, and a few of them overlap with completely different, far more commonly searched terms. Viktor shares his name with a common male first name, Lux is also used as a commercial brand name, and Katarina is a common female name. When you want to look them up, always add “League of Legends” or at least “champion” to the name. Otherwise you’ll be wading through unrelated results instead of builds.
The same problem applies to the game itself: in everyday language “lol” is mainly internet slang for laughing, and the name is also shared by the L.O.L. Surprise toy line and another online game. When you search for anything about League of Legends, stick to the abbreviation LoL with capital letters or the full name. It will save you a lot of irrelevant results.
How hard a champion is to play
Right in the game client, every champion has a difficulty rating next to their portrait. It’s a simple scale that hints at how demanding it is to master their mechanics to a decent level. It says nothing about how strong the champion currently is in the rankings, only how much practice it will take before you can play them properly.
Low difficulty usually means few abilities that need tricky timing, simple decisions and plenty of room for error. High difficulty, on the other hand, means abilities that depend on precise aiming, combos of several spells in a row, or decisions that have to be made in a split second. Higher difficulty doesn’t automatically mean a stronger champion, just one that is harder to master.
Difficulty also has several layers worth telling apart. Mechanical difficulty is about how precisely you have to aim and how fast your hands have to react. Decision-making difficulty is about how much you have to think about when to use an ability and when to hold it. A champion can have simple controls but hard decisions (typically many tanks), or a demanding combo but a straightforward call on when to engage. The rating in the client adds both layers together, so treat it as a rough estimate, not an exact science.
How to pick your first champion
The most common mistake new players make is picking a champion based on how they look in a trailer or who their favorite streamer plays. That works now and then, but a more reliable path goes through a few simple steps:
- Pick a role first, not a name. Try at least two different positions in practice mode or against bots and notice which one keeps you entertained for longer than five minutes.
- Within that role, go for low difficulty. During your first few dozen matches you’re learning the map, items and game basics anyway, so there’s no point complicating things with demanding mechanics.
- Use the free rotation. Every week twenty champions are free to try, so you can get a feel for them at your own pace before you buy anything.
- Don’t buy lots of champions at once. Focusing on one to three champions teaches you the game faster than jumping between ten different ones.
- Write down what you enjoyed about your first games and what you didn’t. Whether you liked the moments when you could plan calmly or quick fights with no time to think, it will point you toward other champions of a similar type.
Another good guide is how easily a champion plays solo, without relying on teammates. Champions who need precisely coordinated timing with their support or jungler are fun once you know what you’re doing. For a complete beginner it’s easier to go for someone who can manage on their own.
New players also get their own simplified free rotation made up of beginner-friendly champions until they reach a certain account level, at which point the full weekly rotation for everyone unlocks.
It also pays to ignore what’s currently “strong” in the latest patch. The meta in League of Legends shifts with every balance change, and a champion who dominates the rankings today can look completely different two months from now. For your first champion, whether you enjoy playing them matters far more than whether they have the highest win rate right now. You can worry about that later, once you have more games under your belt and more experience to compare.
How unlocking champions works and what it costs
Every champion Riot Games releases can be unlocked in two ways: with the in-game currency Blue Essence, which you earn gradually by playing matches and completing missions, or directly with Riot Points, a currency bought with real money. The Blue Essence price isn’t the same for every champion. The newest additions cost the most and get cheaper over time as more new champions arrive. It’s best to check the exact current prices directly in the client store, since Riot adjusts the whole price range from time to time.
Besides buying directly, there’s also a shard system: champion fragments that drop from chests and leveling rewards. A shard can be turned into a full unlock for less than buying the champion straight from the store, so in the long run it pays to collect and upgrade shards rather than buy on impulse.
So you don’t have to pay right away to play what interests you. The free weekly rotation lets you try twenty different champions at no cost, and you unlock the rest gradually as you play.
Besides matches, you also earn Blue Essence from the daily first win bonus, from rewards for reaching higher account levels, and from regular event missions Riot runs during the season. If you play regularly, within a few months you can put together a solid core of champions across roles without paying. This isn’t a system where you’re stuck with just the handful from the free rotation unless you spend real money.
Don’t confuse unlocking a champion with buying a skin. Unlocking a champion gives you access to the character itself: their abilities and their playstyle. A skin is a purely cosmetic change of appearance that has no effect on how the champion plays. When you’re starting out, it makes much more sense to invest your time and Blue Essence in unlocking new champions than in skins for the one you already play. Skins can wait until you’re sure you want to stick with that champion for longer.
FAQ
As of patch 26.18 there are 173, and Riot regularly adds more, usually several a year.
No. Every week twenty champions from the free rotation are free to try, and you gradually unlock the rest with Blue Essence, which you earn by playing.
The most reliable way is to try several roles in practice mode or against bots. Top, jungle, mid, ADC and support play very differently, and no description can replace that.
For your first few dozen matches, an easy champion with a low difficulty rating in the client is the better choice. You learn the basics of the game (the map, items, decision-making) no matter what you play, and simple mechanics won’t make it any harder.
The role tells you where on the map the champion goes (top, jungle, mid, ADC, support). The class tells you how they behave in a fight (tank, fighter, mage, marksman, slayer, controller). Only the combination of both gives you an idea of how the champion really plays.
A few champion names overlap with common first names or brands, such as Viktor, Lux or Katarina. Add “League of Legends” or “champion” to your search and the results get much more accurate.
Riot releases new champions in bursts, usually several times a year and without a fixed schedule. The current count of 173 as of patch 26.18 will keep slowly rising.
Information verified as of 27 August 2026, patch 26.18. Once you have a role and a few champions figured out, move on to building a rune page, because without one you go into every match with unadjusted default settings. Roles are covered in detail in the article on roles in LoL, and the ladder in the guide to ranks in LoL. How much unlocking champions costs in real money and what’s worth it is broken down in the article on RP and prices. You’ll find the full hub overview in the League of Legends section.