Top Lane Agency in Season 16

Top Lane Agency in Season 16

Riot set out to give Top lane more agency in Season 16. Six patches in, these charts suggest Top lane agency is still a problem.

What This Measures

Two role-impact tests across the last three patches of ranked solo queue:

1. Early lead conversion: When a role gets +500 / +1000 / +1500 gold ahead by 10 minutes, how often does that lead become a win?
2. Rank gap swing: When one team has a 1+ full tier advantage in a role, how much does that gap move win rate?

Five roles. Three rank brackets. Same result each time.

Checking the last three patches keeps the sample recent while smoothing out single-patch noise.

Method

• Queue: Ranked Solo/Duo
• Roles: Top, Jungle, Mid, Bot, Support
• Lead thresholds: +500, +1000, +1500 gold at 10 minutes
• Patch window: Last 3 patches
• Rank brackets: All ranks, Platinum+, Diamond+

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Early Lead Conversion

All Ranks

Platinum+

Same test, Platinum and above only.

Diamond+

Same test, Diamond and above only.

At +500 gold at 10, Top converts at roughly 61.5% to 62.0%. The other four roles sit at 63.4% or higher. That 2 to 3 point gap holds across all three rank brackets and persists at +1000 and +1500 gold. A gold lead in Top buys less win probability than the same lead in any other role.

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Rank Gap Swing

A different angle: ignore gold and look at player quality. When one team has a full-tier advantage in a given role, how much does win rate shift?

Top is last here too. A 1+ tier advantage in Top swings win rate by 5.49 points. The same advantage in Bot swings it by 6.08. Being the better player matters less in Top than in any other position.

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What The Data Says

Top finishes last in both tests, at every threshold, at every rank bracket. Getting ahead early converts less often. Having a better player matters less. The gap is consistent, not dramatic: roughly 2 to 3 points in lead conversion, about half a point in rank swing. But it shows up everywhere.

Six patches into S16, if the goal was to close this gap, the last three patches of ranked data show it still open.

Comparing To Last Season

Here is the same lead-conversion view on late Season 15, using patches 15.22 to 15.24.

Platinum+ In Late S15

Same test, Platinum and above only.

Diamond+ In Late S15

Same test, Diamond and above only.

Late S15 does not rescue the Top-lane story. Top was last there too, but the gap was smaller.

At +500 gold, the gap from Top to the best role widened from 0.85 to 3.16 in all ranks, from 1.74 to 3.43 in Platinum+, and from 3.11 to 4.23 in Diamond+. The same pattern holds at +1000 and +1500.

So this is not just "Top is still last." On this lead-conversion measure, the Top gap is wider in the current S16 sample than it was in late S15.