Most Mobile Legends tier lists you will find are a screenshot of a win-rate table with no explanation attached. That is not useful, because a hero can hold a perfectly healthy win rate in low lobbies and still be a liability the moment the enemy team drafts around them. This list ranks heroes on three things that survive real ranked play, and it keeps the reasoning visible so you can disagree with it properly.
The three inputs, and which one actually decides games
Every placement below comes from the same three questions.
- How the hero performs at Epic and above. Below Epic, players are still learning fundamentals, so win rates there mostly measure how forgiving a hero is rather than how good they are. A hero whose numbers collapse once opponents start rotating properly does not belong in the top tiers, no matter what their overall win rate says.
- Draft flexibility. A hero who is safely first-pickable is worth more than a hero who is only correct as a late counter. Flexibility compounds across a whole season: you get to keep your comfort pick instead of rebuilding your pool every time the draft goes sideways.
- Punish factor. This is the input most lists ignore, and it is the one that costs you stars. Ask what happens when the enemy team answers correctly. A hero who becomes close to unplayable against two specific picks is a coin flip, not a climb.
We do not publish decimal win rates. Numbers we cannot trace back to a source we trust are worse than no numbers at all, because they imply a precision that does not exist.
This patch’s list
The table is the summary; the sections underneath are where the actual argument lives.
| Tier | Hero | Role | Why they sit here |
|---|---|---|---|
| S | Fredrinn | Fighter / Jungler | Farm speed plus a kit that stays useful after the first item spike. Carries early pressure into the late game without falling off. |
| S | Valentina | Mage | The only mage who is genuinely first-pickable in almost any draft. Stealing an ultimate is a permanent answer to whatever the enemy team builds around. |
| S | Tigreal | Tank / Roamer | The most reliable engage in the game. In a meta where one clean initiation decides a fight, reliability beats flash. |
| A | Atlas | Tank / Roamer | Stronger teamfight ceiling than Tigreal, lower floor. Punished hard by mobile backlines who refuse to group. |
| A | Lancelot | Assassin | Still the cleanest snowball in the jungle role. Falls off if the game reaches full builds, which is why he is not S. |
| A | Wanwan | Marksman | Answer to tanks that nothing else answers as cheaply. Needs front-line support to survive the lane phase. |
| A | Angela | Support | Best roaming support for a coordinated team. Effectively a free second life on your carry every fight. |
| A | Yu Zhong | Fighter | Wins lane against almost everything and converts a won lane into a won fight. Punished by hard crowd control chains. |
| A | Xavier | Mage | The best long-range siege mage right now. Fragile, so lanes with him need to commit. |
| B | Chou | Fighter | Enormous skill ceiling and a pick-off threat at every stage of the game. Demands a lot of practice for the payoff. |
| B | Khufra | Tank | Strong against dash-heavy drafts specifically. A matchup pick rather than a default. |
| B | Beatrix | Marksman | High damage but a slow, punished lane phase against aggressive jungle pressure. |
| B | Pharsa | Mage | Elite teamfight damage if the enemy team lets her stand still. They usually will not. |
| B | Hayabusa | Assassin | Great split-push and objective control, weaker in straight five-on-five fights. |
| B | Estes | Support | Perfect if your team actually groups. A wasted slot if they do not. |
| C | Fanny | Assassin | Still the highest mechanical ceiling in the game, and still the most punished by organised invades. |
| C | Karrie | Marksman | True damage answers tanks, but other marksmen do her job with a safer lane. |
| C | Selena | Mage / Support | Devastating early, close to irrelevant past the fifteen-minute mark. |
| C | Diggie | Support | A hard counter to heavy crowd control and almost nothing else. Never a default pick. |
Why the S tier is only three heroes
A tier list that puts a dozen heroes in S tier is not a tier list, it is a list of heroes that are fine. The S tier is reserved for picks that are correct regardless of what the enemy team does. Fredrinn, Valentina and Tigreal all pass that test: none of them needs the draft to go a particular way to be good, and none of them becomes a liability when answered.
Tigreal is the clearest example of why flexibility matters. He is not the flashiest roamer and his damage is negligible, but a roam pick that your whole team already knows how to follow is worth more than a shinier pick that requires a five-player conversation.
The A tier is where most climbs actually happen
If you are climbing in Epic and Legend, do not start with the S tier. Start here. A-tier heroes are strong and less contested, which means you get to pick them in more games. Playing a hero you actually get to lock in is worth more than a theoretical half-tier of strength you lose to a ban.
Angela and Yu Zhong are the two best examples. Angela is only as good as her team’s willingness to commit, so in solo queue she is closer to B tier; in a coordinated five she is close to S. Yu Zhong is the opposite — he converts individual lane pressure into team gold, which is exactly what solo queue rewards.
How to use a tier list without becoming a tier-list player
A tier list is a filter, not a plan. Here is the way to actually get value out of one.
- Pick two heroes from S or A that cover the same role. Not three, not five. Two. You need a second pick for when the first is banned or taken, and that is all you need.
- Learn one counter from the B tier. Khufra against dash comps, Diggie against heavy control. One situational answer is worth more than a broad, shallow pool.
- Play twenty games before you re-evaluate. Hero strength is real, but so is familiarity. A hero you know beats a stronger hero you do not, for the first twenty games at least.
If you are in Epic, the tier list barely matters yet. Rotations, map awareness and not dying to a gank you saw coming will move your rank faster than any hero swap. If you are in Mythic and above, the tier list matters a great deal, because at that level the players around you are already doing the fundamentals — the draft is where the remaining edge is.
What changed this patch
The pattern this patch is familiar: sustained damage in the jungle got better, and everything that relies on one big cooldown got slightly worse. Two consequences follow.
- Fighters with built-in sustain climbed. Fredrinn and Yu Zhong both benefit from a meta where fights last longer, because longer fights mean more value per point of regeneration.
- Burst assassins slipped a rung. Not because their damage changed, but because teams are grouping earlier and leaving fewer isolated targets to punish.
Balance moves fast in this game. We review this list after every major patch, and again mid-patch if a balance change lands that meaningfully shifts a role. If a placement here looks wrong to you, the reasoning is written out above so you can point at exactly which of the three inputs you disagree with — that is a much better conversation than arguing about the letter.
