Engage in League of Legends can easily determine which team wins and loses the game. A team could be miles ahead in terms of kills, towers, dragons, literally anything but if their team gets caught out or if they're properly engaged on then it doesn't matter. In this article, I’ll be discussing the 10 best engage champions you can use to get your team the win
10. Warwick
Warwick excels as a jungler that can be impactful early game with good ganking potential and scale excellently into the late game by becoming extremely tanky and by having a fantastic engage ultimate. A good Warwick ultimate on an important target signals to the rest of the team that now is the time to go in and win the fight
What Makes Warwick Great:
- Many tank junglers struggle in the way that to be impactful they need to power farm and wait until late game. Warwick on the other hand can pull off successful lane ganks to put his team ahead while still being able to become unkillable late game
- Warwick’s ultimate, if used properly to catch out an important target, is the ultimate symbol to the rest of the team that now is the time to fight. It’ll be super easy to kill the fed Vayne or Syndra if they’re locked down, making the rest of the fight an easy 4v5
- Warwick’s E ability pairs well with his role as an engage champion, being able to increase his defenses and provide CC to the enemy team after jumping on someone is a great combo
See Warwick In Action:
9. Rammus
Rammus’ entire concept revolves around engage, he’s all about diving into the enemy team and disrupting them while letting his team do the damage and being tanky enough to live through it
What Makes Rammus Great:
- Rammus has fantastic gank potential with all of the crowd control and movement speed in his kit. If an enemy laner is even slightly pushed up it’s very easy for Rammus to just roll in behind them and keep them in place while his ally laner helps finish the job
- Unlike Warwick, Rammus’ engage ability is one of his basic abilities so it's on a fairly low cooldown. This means that he can more reliably offer engage to his team and provide more opportunities to start a good teamfight
- Rammus is good at locking down one specific target for an extended period. The initial knock up from his Q followed by the 2-second taunt from his E makes it hard to do anything, regardless of how strong you may be
See Rammus In Action:
8. Nunu and Willump
Nunu and Willump have a pretty niche role as an objective focused jungler, meaning that it's really easy to take things like dragons or Baron Nashor. This on its own is already very powerful, but when you add in the reliable engage Nunu has it goes from great to amazing
What Makes Nunu and Willump Great:
- As an objective control jungler, it becomes hard as an enemy jungler to get any major objectives because Nunu essentially always has 2 smites from his Q. League of Legends is an objective focused game, and scoring some objectives like dragons or Baron can give the team that gets them a huge advantage
- Nunu’s engage comes from his E, an AOE knock-up that can hit an entire enemy team if done correctly. Large AOE crowd control is insane, and then being able to charge up a huge ultimate for a ton of damage while the enemy team is still recovering can be devastating
- Nunu’s Q isn’t just used for objective dominance, but for also helping make sure he never dies. If he uses it on an enemy Nunu will receive a heal which increases if he’s at low health. This ability combined with the health regen and tank items Nunu builds makes him very hard to deal with
See Nunu and Willump In Action:
7. Malphite
Malphite is a very straightforward champion, pretty much every ability except for his ultimate is very low-impact. However, this is made up for in spades from his ultimate being one of the most high-impact ultimates in the game
What Makes Malphite Great:
- Malphite is a fantastic tank, having a shield and bonus resistances built into his kit. This tankiness serves Malphite very well with the main strategy on Malphite being to slam into the enemy team on his own
- Malphite’s ultimate ability is super impactful, being able to knock-up and immobilize even just 2 or 3 enemies is powerful and getting a 5 person ultimate pretty much ensures that your team has won the fight
- Malphite is surprisingly functional as an AP burst character. All of his abilities, especially his ultimate, have good AP scaling. If an AP Malphite gets strong enough he’ll just start one-shotting the enemy squishies with his ultimate, which is now on a super low cooldown from all the ability haste he gotten through building mage items
See Malphite In Action:
6. Sion
Sion can be terrifying to go up against. Another tank with a high-impact ultimate and tankiness built into his kit, in the late game he becomes extremely difficult to kill and impossible to run away from
What Makes Sion Great:
- Sion’s W is one of the best abilities that a tank can have. Not only does it grant him a shield that can damage enemies, it passive grants him bonus max health for killing minions. This passive can easily net Sion at least 1500 bonus health in the late game, and getting that amount of bonus health for free is amazing
- Sion’s Q, while a little difficult to pull off, can be super impactful. If Sion can charge it up enough, this ability becomes an AOE knock-up and stun for over 2 seconds which is fantastic for chaining CC with his teammates and making sure the enemy team can’t do anything
- Sion’s ultimate is the best part of his kit, it's like a malphite ultimate except harder to run away from and he can do it from much farther away. Being able to just charge into a teamfight with a massive knockup can easily swing any teamfight in your favor
See Sion In Action:
5. Galio
Galio is an AP tank that has a lot of supportive capabilities to impact teamfights in the late game. He also has a super impactful ultimate that can take the enemy team by surprise and give his team the edge to win any teamfight
What Makes Galio Great:
- Galio can easily be built as either a tank or as an AP burst character, and the great thing about building him as a burst mage is that he’s still able to provide plenty of crowd control and engage while dishing out a ton of damage
- Galio has a really great and easily repeatable cooldown with his basic abilities. Using his E to dash into and knock up any enemies followed by charging up his W to taunt them before they get a chance to respond is perfect for going in and locking down multiple targets
- Galio’s ultimate ability can be huge in the right circumstances. It can completely turn the tide of a teamfight by giving all nearby allies a magic damage shield and dashing in to knock up all enemies
See Galio In Action:
4. Sejuani
Similar to Galio in that she also has an easily repeatable crowd control combo and a high impact ultimate, Sejuani does edge out Galio due to her strong ganking potential and by having a more reliable ultimate
What Makes Sejuani Great:
- Having multiple crowd control abilities, a dash, and immunity from slows, Sejuani has a lot of tools at her disposal to put the rest of her team in a strong position
- Sejuani’s main combo of charging in with her Q and stacking up her E for a stun can leave an enemy unable to do anything for upwards of 3 seconds, which is plenty for her team to catch up and finish the job
- A good Sejuani ultimate is one of the best ways to signal to your team that it's time to go in. Stunning a target for 2 seconds and slowing down everyone else is a great way to chase down an enemy team
See Sejuani In Action:
3. Nautilus
Almost every ability that Nautilus has is a CC ability, and they are all abilities that are easy to chain together and create a chain that leaves the enemy unable to move for upwards of 4 seconds which can feel like an eternity in League of Legends
What Makes Nautilus Great:
- Nautilus is extremely hard to get away from without having to burn a Summoner Spell. Having a root just be apart of his passive and not even on an activated ability not only makes it super easy to trigger but makes it so that he can easily root multiple people throughout a team fight
- Nautilus' basic abilities all combo well together. Q to pull them towards you, W to shield yourself and take less damage, an E to slow them after the root wears off. It's simple, easy, and really impactful
- Nautilus R is a really funny ability because it encourages the enemy team to abandon the person who was targeted. It knocks up anyone on its way to whoever you targeted, so it encourages that person’s teammates to run away from them and make them even easier to pick off
See Nautilus In Action:
2. Alistar
Alistar is very similar to Nautilus in that both of them are tanky supports with abilities that are easy to combo together. What makes Alistar better is that while Nautilus is good at locking down a single target, Alistar excels at locking down an entire team
What Makes Alistar Great:
- It's satisfying to invest a lot of hours into Alistar, he's very much easy to play and hard to master. It's simple enough to get his basic combos down and do them well, but it's very apparent when someone has played a lot of Alistar because of the advanced combos they can pull off
- Alistar has a great kit for diving straight into a group of enemies and wreaking havoc. Being able to completely disrupt an entire enemy team with one ability is a great way to start a teamfight
- Alistar has a perfect ultimate for the type of playstyle he has, not only does it give him a ton of resistances but it cleanses all crowd control from him so he can keep disrupting the enemy team
See Alistar In Action:
1. Leona
The iconic engage champion, Leona is the absolute best pick if you're looking to make sure the enemy team doesn't get to play League of Legends. An experienced Leona can without a doubt carry her ADC out of the lane and her team to victory
What Makes Leona Great:
- Leona has one of the more reliable ways of locking down an enemy. Her E is fairly easy to hit and once she does it's so easy to chain together all of the crowd control and punish the enemy lakers for stepping out of turn
- Leona has an oppressive laning phase, the enemy laners know that if they get hit with her E then they either have to use a Summoner Spell, get their health bars massively chunked down, or just die if they're low enough. This gives bot lane a lot of lane priority and makes the enemy ADC weaker by denying them minions
- Leona’s most impactful ability is her ultimate, a massive AOE slow/stun is the ultimate form of crowd control because it makes sure that the enemy team can’t use abilities to get away or fight back. The enemy team has to play with Leona in mind and not clump up or else she’ll get a good ultimate off and ensure her team wins the fight
See Leona In Action:
Engage and doing it properly can be one of the strongest and most impactful things in all of League of Legends. There's a ton of different champions who can do it in plenty of different ways so you’ll never be wanting for a fun and effective way to set up the victory for you and your team
