The launch of a new champion always brings chaos to the Rift, but the mid laner Aethel has caused an immediate and definitive shift in the meta. Released just ahead of Patch 16.01, Aethel is an artillery mage whose unique abilities center around deception, spatial control, and burst damage. He has quickly become a problem, boasting high pick/ban rates across all competitive tiers.

Aethel’s success lies in his ability to maintain lane priority while simultaneously threatening the side lanes, a combination that has historically defined top-tier mid lane dominance.

The Core Mechanic: Deception and Displacement

Aethel’s defining tool is his ability to create a temporary, controllable clone or phantom of himself. This ability grants him unmatched deception and safety:

  • Lane Control: The clone allows Aethel to effectively zone out enemy laners, forcing them to guess where the real threat is coming from. He can use the clone to safely check bushes, bait out enemy cooldowns, or simply maintain pressure on the minion wave while he remains safe under his tower.
  • Safety and Escapes: When deployed strategically, the clone acts as a crucial escape tool. Experienced Aethel players can instantly swap places with the clone, allowing them to reposition across large distances to evade ganks or quickly re-enter a skirmish.

This mechanic gives him the lane safety of a traditional control mage combined with the burst potential of an assassin.

High Burst and Ultimate Threat

Aethel is not just about tricks; his damage output is significant, scaling aggressively with Ability Power.

  • Artillery Range: His main damage spells have excellent range, allowing him to poke and trade effectively against other mid laners without putting himself in immediate danger.
  • The Final Act: His ultimate ability is an enormous, delayed area-of-effect (AoE) attack centered around his current location or the location of his clone. The long cast time is offset by its massive damage potential, forcing the enemy team to scatter or face a huge chunk of their health vanishing instantly. The ability to cast this powerful AoE from a safe location using his clone makes it a terrifying tool in team fights around objectives like Dragon or Baron.

Meta Domination: The New Pick/Ban Threat

Aethel’s kit directly counters the current trend toward slow, methodical mid-lane control:

  1. Roam Pressure: Because he can quickly clear waves and then use his repositioning mechanic to traverse the map faster than most competitors, his presence puts immense pressure on the Top and Bot Lanes.
  2. Unreliable Ganks: Enemy junglers find it incredibly difficult to pin Aethel down. Just as they commit to a gank, Aethel can swap with his clone or use it to distract the incoming damage, rendering the gank useless.

Simply put, Aethel is too slippery to catch and hits too hard to ignore. Until Riot tunes down his scaling or reduces the safety of his clone mechanic, he will remain a top-tier pick/ban threat in competitive play.