Cho'Gath

Cho'Gath is the only champion on this roster whose most important stat appears on no item at all. Feast devours a weakened target, and every execution stacks permanent maximum health that stays on you for the rest of the game. A fully stacked Cho'Gath doesn't need premium defensive items to become unkillable, he already is one.

The rest of the kit exists to set up those meals. Rupture launches a whole group into the air and slows them on landing, Feral Scream silences an entire cone, and Vorpal Spikes bolts area damage onto every basic attack you throw. Carnivore refunds health and mana on every unit you kill, which is why you can hold a lane far longer than most tanks ever manage.

Your durability ceiling is the highest in the mode. Stack Feast and you get a body an entire team struggles to chew through, without spending a single item slot on it. Feral Scream is also one of the few area silences on the roster: it cancels an enemy engage at the exact moment it starts. And Vorpal Spikes makes you an honest wave clearer for free, no resource cost attached.

Against that, you are slow, immobile and completely dependent on landing your spells. Rupture has a wind-up anyone dodges by simply walking, and without it Feral Scream reaches nobody. Above all, your death penalty is unique: you lose half your stacks, so one careless death costs you ten minutes of work. And you have nothing at all to escape a dive.

You lane with the patience of someone who knows he wins later. Don't burn mana on missed Ruptures: cast it while the enemy is committed to an auto attack, mid last-hit animation, or immediately after they've spent their mobility spell. A Rupture that lands hands you the whole trade, because the airborne time is enough to chain Feral Scream and two spiked autos.

Carnivore changes how you manage the wave. Every minion you personally finish returns health and mana, so you can stay out far longer than your opponent without recalling. Use that. And never miss a cannon minion at level six: that's your first Feast stack, and the first one moves your survivability more than any of the ones after it.

Your real spike isn't a level or an item, it's your stack count. Three secured meals push you past a threshold where the enemy assassin can no longer delete you in one rotation, and that happens well before your second big item. Farm stacks off minions and neutral monsters when no champion is in range: a free stack beats a risky one every time.

The second spike is your first health item layered on top of those stacks. Cho'Gath gets an abnormal return from health and resistance items precisely because Feast already inflated your base pool, so every point of armor works across a bigger bar. It's also the moment Rylai's Crystal Scepter turns Vorpal Spikes into a permanent slow field on everything in front of you.

You go in, but never first and never blind. Your best fight opens with Feral Scream on the enemy initiator at the instant he presses his button: one well-timed silence cancels an entire engage on its own. Keep Rupture for the carries backing out, or to cut an escape line in a jungle corridor.

Feast in a fight is a decision, not a reflex. On a squishy target already low, it's an execution that makes you bigger mid-fight. On a healthy target you've thrown away the cooldown for mediocre damage. Otherwise hold it for Baron or Dragon: neither armor nor magic resist reduces it, which makes it the most reliable way to steal a contested objective.