The status of Snowball in League of Legends
Riot Scruffy talked about the status of Snowball in League of Legends, and published graphs illustrating how snowballed a game is in seasons 7, 8, 9, and 10.
Snowball means to gain an advantage in the early or mid game, abuse it to dominate the enemy team, keep growing your gold/level gap, and eventually win the match.
Of course, not all the champions are able to snowball, some characters can do it better than others, and sometimes they can snowball only against certain team compositions.
The status of snowball
Mark “Scruffy” Yetter, Lead Gameplay Designer for League of Legends, explained how they work to balance snowball.
The developers must monitor a vast number of key statistics to understand if LoL is balanced: the amount of snowball in a game is one of them.
After exploring and examining several strategies along the years, they found out that there is a “sweet spot” to get all the core benefits from snowball with minimum downsides:
1. There is enough snowball that early game leads matter (if the game had no snowball, you could sit in the fountain for the first 15 minutes and still win).
2. There is not too much snowball so that early game decides the game entirely.
Snowball in seasons 7, 8, 9, and 10
The following graph shows some metrics that track how snowballed a game is at 15 minutes in each season.
Red - Large Lead: One team has a 90%+ chance of winning the game.
Green - Medium Lead: One team has a 75%+ chance of winning the game.
Blue - Even Game: No team has a 75%+ chance of winning the game.
We’ve found that this “sweet spot” for snowball in LoL is when at 15 minutes, roughly 25% of games have a large lead, 35% of games have a medium lead, and 40% of games are close to even.
Factors influencing snowball
In the past few seasons, there have been spikes and dips in snowball, but the devs have always been able to restabilize it via systematic game adjustments.
Mark provided this list of factors they influence over time when they must fix excessive or limited snowball:
Kill gold/rewards
Early objective rewards (towers, dragon, etc.)
Shutdown gold
Death timers
Finally, he affirmed that League of Legends snowball is in a good state.
Best snowball champions by position
The following tables contain data gathered from over 70k matches played at Platinum and above in early March 2020 (all regions are considered).
They list the top 10 champions with the highest win rates as Mid, Jungler, Top, AD Carry, and Support after scoring 2-0 or 3-1 at 10 minutes, their standard win rate at Platinum and above, and the win rate difference.
Obviously, scoring 2-0 or 3-1 is not a flawless factor to determine if a player snowballed or not, but I believe it still gives us a good idea on how likely a champion with an early kill lead is able to win the game.
All the tables are responsive and sortable. If you are using a phone, turn it sideways for a full view. Otherwise, zoom in or click the grey area of each table to swipe and sort them.
Mid
| Champ | Name | Win% +2 Kills | Win% Plat+ | Win% Diff |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 |
Taric | 93.0% | 55.3% | 37.8% |
 |
Kassadin | 70.7% | 50.8% | 19.9% |
 |
Cassiopeia | 70.6% | 51.9% | 18.7% |
 |
Vladimir | 68.9% | 50.3% | 18.6% |
 |
Viktor | 67.9% | 49.7% | 18.2% |
 |
Aurelion Sol | 67.7% | 51.4% | 16.3% |
 |
Anivia | 67.2% | 50.2% | 17.0% |
 |
Diana | 67.2% | 51.7% | 15.4% |
 |
Ekko | 67.0% | 51.2% | 15.7% |
 |
Annie | 67.0% | 50.0% | 17.0% |
Jungle
| Champ | Name | Win% +2 Kills | Win% Plat+ | Win% Diff |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 |
Skarner | 72.1% | 50.6% | 21.5% |
 |
Nunu | 68.3% | 51.7% | 16.7% |
 |
Rammus | 66.9% | 51.0% | 15.9% |
 |
Master Yi | 66.9% | 51.0% | 15.8% |
 |
Karthus | 66.5% | 50.0% | 16.6% |
 |
Zac | 66.3% | 51.1% | 15.1% |
 |
Ivern | 65.8% | 51.4% | 14.5% |
 |
Volibear | 65.3% | 51.2% | 14.1% |
 |
Shyvana | 65.1% | 50.9% | 14.2% |
 |
Amumu | 64.9% | 51.6% | 13.2% |
Top
| Champ | Name | Win% +2 Kills | Win% Plat+ | Win% Diff |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 |
Singed | 68.8% | 50.6% | 18.1% |
 |
Wukong | 68.4% | 50.9% | 17.5% |
 |
Kayle | 67.7% | 51.1% | 16.6% |
 |
Cho'Gath | 67.2% | 50.4% | 16.8% |
| |
Vladimir | 66.2% | 50.3% | 15.9% |
 |
Garen | 66.1% | 51.7% | 14.4% |
 |
Maokai | 65.7% | 51.6% | 14.1% |
 |
Sion | 65.5% | 51.4% | 14.1% |
 |
Camille | 65.5% | 49.8% | 15.7% |
 |
Nasus | 65.3% | 48.4% | 16.9% |
AD Carry
| Champ | Name | Win% +2 Kills | Win% Plat+ | Win% Diff |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 |
Tahm Kench | 67.6% | 50.7% | 16.9% |
 |
Heimerdinger | 67.2% | 51.1% | 16.1% |
 |
Senna | 66.8% | 51.8% | 15.0% |
 |
Kog'Maw | 66.3% | 52.2% | 14.2% |
 |
Jinx | 66.0% | 51.3% | 14.7% |
 |
Ashe | 65.7% | 51.1% | 14.6% |
 |
Miss Fortune | 65.7% | 51.9% | 13.8% |
 |
Vayne | 65.7% | 51.1% | 14.6% |
 |
Aphelios | 65.1% | 47.8% | 17.3% |
 |
Caitlyn | 64.8% | 50.6% | 14.2% |
Support
| Champ | Name | Win% +2 Kills | Win% Plat+ | Win% Diff |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| |
Taric | 71.6% | 55.3% | 16.3% |
 |
Nami | 70.6% | 53.2% | 17.4% |
 |
Sona | 70.4% | 49.4% | 21.1% |
 |
Karma | 69.0% | 49.6% | 19.4% |
| |
Senna | 68.3% | 51.8% | 16.5% |
 |
Bard | 68.1% | 53.2% | 14.9% |
 |
Janna | 67.9% | 53.5% | 14.4% |
 |
Lulu | 67.8% | 51.7% | 16.1% |
 |
Rakan | 67.2% | 50.2% | 17.0% |
 |
Zilean | 67.0% | 51.3% | 15.8% |
Note that it is extremely more difficult to score 2-0 in 10 minutes for a support than a mid laner, so if a support gets early kills, the bot lane is usually snowballing.
The supports are able to achieve such a high win rate because it means that two champions (both Support and AD Carry) are ahead in gold and experience in the early game.
In the video below, RvzStealth talked about some of the best snowball champions in Season 9. Most of his tips work well also in the new season.
How to prevent snowball
Lots of players complain that League of Legends is too snowbally, but they often end losing their early game and feeding several kills to the opponent laner; who has the chance to snowball :P.
“To not die” is one of the most important lessons a player must learn, and it is also a relatively challenging one because we make many wrong decisions while attempting to get a kill or a few more CS.
In the early game in particular, experience is worth a lot more than gold, and if you die a couple of times, you will give a huge experience lead to the enemy.
Give up on CS, dragon, and even objectives if you are outnumbered. Make your decisions according to the game state and the picks of both teams.
More League of Legends articles:
Header images and graph: Riot
