Should You Main Karthus? Tier A
Yes. Karthus is tier A for maining. 4 Challenger and 10 Grandmaster mains across Korea, Europe West and North America, on 164,873 games played worldwide.
Reviewed for League of Legends patch 16.15.
Verdict. Karthus scores 8.46 high elo mains per 100,000 games played, against a median of 2.26.
The numbers
Score 8.46 high elo mains per 100,000 games played, ban-adjusted · 4 Challenger · 10 Grandmaster · 104 tracked mains in KR, EUW and NA · 164,873 games played worldwide · 1.79% pick rate · 0.42% ban rate
What this means
From the video: Vambient's breakdown, lightly cleaned from speech
Karthus on the other hand very strong right now. So, Karthus has always been around in Hyo. You know, we all know, I guess, a lot of Karthus mains, that have made it as streamers.
Made it as I guess I can even name like Karthus, Eloent. There was even back in the day like Phantom Lord, like Karthus, like he's always been around, like if we remember Phantom Lord, right? Like you know like there's just so many there's so many caruses like I can't even like I don't even know where to begin.
Four challengers right now, 10 grand masters, less than 2% pick rate.
How this was measured
Two numbers, one division. First, how many players are currently in Challenger or Grandmaster maining this champion in Korea, Europe West and North America, from onetricks.gg. Second, how many ranked games the entire playerbase plays of this champion worldwide across every rank, from op.gg. The result is high elo mains per 100,000 games played, then reduced by the champion's ban rate, because a champion you cannot pick is a champion you cannot main.
This is not a win rate list and it is not a patch strength list. It measures availability-adjusted high-elo main density: how much Challenger and Grandmaster main representation a champion has relative to how often it is played. It is not the probability that maining this champion will get you to high elo. The score counts Challenger and Grandmaster mains only, drawn from a tracked pool that starts at Master; it does not include the Chinese server, and it counts accounts rather than people, so one dedicated player with several high elo accounts shows up more than once. Patch 16.15. The full plain English explanation, including everything this list cannot tell you, is on the main list page.
Popularity is not the signal. What matters here is how densely high elo mains appear relative to how often the champion is played.