Champions regularly come and go from the League of Legends metagame. While many enjoy high-profile rises or spectacular falls from grace, one off-brand AD carry has been rather stealthy about his rise to power in Season 13—and he hasn’t actually received any buffs throughout this season’s thirteen patches either.
That secret meta-beater is Karthus, the Harbinger of Death.
Just like in his job description, Karthus has been bringing death and more to the Rift this season, despite not receiving any direct updates since Patch 13.1. Notably, that change wasn’t even gameplay related either; all it did was fixed was a visual bug.
Karthus has a 54.45 percent win rate across all ranks, according to League stats site U.GG, when he’s built with the Domination and Precision rune trees. More specifically, you’ll want to build him with Dark Harvest, Cheap Shot, Eyeball Collection, and Ultimate Hunter, Presence of Mind, Last Stand, Offensive (Adaptive), Flex (Adaptive), and Defense (Armor). In the last five patches, that build has seen him win 53 percent of matches.
Seeing as the Riot devs have implemented a more ‘attack damage over attack speed’ approach since the item update in Patch 13.10, this has somewhat leveled the playing field for ADCs that are ability power-focused and that’s certainly helped Karthus thrive.
If you want to try this build, his items include Liandry’s Anguish, Sorcerer’s Shoes, Shadowflame, Rabadon’s Deathcap, Mejai’s Soulstealer, Void Staff, and Rylai’s Crystal Scepter.
Out of every meta AD carry in Season 13, Karthus is one of the easiest to learn too. His kit doesn’t really require you to perform complex combinations, and if you die, you can still attack your enemies for a short while.
So, if you’re worried about dying, you have a bit of a grace period to do more damage, just like Kog’Maw. This means if you’ve never really played Karthus, you’ll understand his kit and how to play him in lane and team fights in no time.
One of the only downsides to playing Karthus is he is seriously squishy, so you’ll want to pair him with a tanky support champion to help lessen your weaknesses.
