Early Game Unit Holds Tier List
Unit priority for early game holds grouped by cost. These will give you a good combination of board strength and direction for your early to mid game.
Last updated: Mar 18, 2026, 9:23 AM PDT
1-Cost Units
S-tier is the Demacia units and Caitlyn to unlock Orianna. I think Demacia is one of the best openers this patch and it's extremely flexible for all AP lines as you don't need to commit any units. The synergies on the Invoker Demacia Piltover boards midgame are really solid and lead you down into an easy AP path regardless.
A-tier pair with the S tier units mostly, and then Ionia is really good conditionally, with Blades, Transcendence, and Spirits being the best paths for Reroll.
B-tier aren't even that bad. I think Briar is very conditional to if you have other Noxus units as well, but is essential for that, but these units just don't give you that straight path to your solid AP line (Kog/Lulu) or Qiyana Briar (Slayers/Jinx/AD Flex) but can be still strong on your early game board so don't be allergic to picking them up.
I put Viego in C-tier mostly because I don't believe in Shadow Isles for top level play nearly as much, but honestly, he's very solid and is definitely playable if you get the opener for him, so again don't be allergic to him.
2-Cost Units
S-tier in this more AP meta and reroll meta, Orianna, Sion for unlocking Leblanc, and Bard for rerolling are just premier 2-costs. They themselves might not be valuable, but they're always strong considerations for holding (Sion and Bard are not great units, but Orianna is).
A-tier have really good traits and often compliment the best openers in the game right now, with Yasuo being really conditional to Ionia and Yone.
B-tier is very similar to A-tier, but just lead you down into different comps (Aphelios Reroll is still decent, and TF Bilge is a practical opener in some spots).
C-Tier is very conditional, but again not bad, whereas you almost never want to pick up Ekko in your early game!
3-Cost Units
All the three costs right now are very good and give you good direction or good strength.
S and A tier have all the best units, not only in unit quality and current board strength, but also direction. Ahri LB Darius are the strongest 3 costs for sure, but A tier has very insane 3 costs as well. I think something worth noting is that I think Vayne is not only strongest board often now, but I think she leads to a good path in Demacia Longshots with Kai'sa pretty well, whereas in previous patches she was C or D tier and not worth holding.
B tier just are a bit conditional but give you good direction and are a copy of a major comp, but often times aren't strongest board (i.e. Malz is good for the Malz reroll comp, but not good on your strongest board for a while).
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