How We Ranked Them
This list ranks ten characters that canon credits with the deepest understanding, the longest view or the biggest breakthrough. Every rung is judged on one measure from that: how far ahead of everyone around them their understanding put them. It counts up from #10 to #1.
#10. Viktor
Viktor, the Herald of the Arcane, is a scientist from Zaun, the polluted undercity, who worked at the Academy in Piltover, the city of inventors above it. When a laboratory accident exposed unauthorized experiments on Academy property, Heimerdinger, a yordle professor there, sent him to remove anything hazardous. "But instead of danger, Viktor found intrigue—pages of handwritten notes, speaking of a feverish ambition to master magic through science." The notes led him to the inventor Jayce Talis, who shared that ambition.
It was here that he struck a friendship with the wayward inventor Jayce Talis, and their shared vision would change the world forever. The fruit of their labors was, of course, hextech, a technology so revolutionary that it propelled Piltover into a wondrous new era. Viktor and Jayce were not just peers in innovation, but brothers in all but blood.
— Viktor - Biography
From Viktor - Biography
Hextech is technology that runs on magic, and it is the biggest breakthrough on this list. Then Viktor's illness worsened. He pushed the pair toward an adaptive runic matrix, the Hexcore, a device that could "seemingly evolve its own configuration," hoping it could "augment organic matter and heal him… but was met only with failure." He knew self-experimentation would likely cost him "his standing in the academic community, as well as his loved ones," and he believed Jayce Talis would be the exception.
Viktor starts the list because his breakthrough was never his alone. It began from notes he found, it was built as a pair, and the one idea he chased by himself, a matrix to heal his own body, failed.
#9. Heimerdinger
Heimerdinger, the Revered Inventor, is the professor who sent Viktor into that lab. He is a yordle, and his biography opens on what Piltover thinks of him:
A brilliant yet eccentric yordle scientist, Professor Cecil B. Heimerdinger is lauded as one of the most innovative minds and esteemed inventors Piltover has ever seen. Relentless in his work to the point of neurotic obsession, he is fascinated by mysteries that have confounded his contemporaries for decades, and thrives on answering the universe’s most impenetrable questions. Though his theories often appear opaque and esoteric, Heimerdinger believes knowledge should be shared, and is devoted to teaching all who desire it.
— Heimerdinger - Biography
The same passage names the cost. He works "to the point of neurotic obsession," and his theories "often appear opaque and esoteric," so the colleagues he outpaces cannot always follow where he went. He still teaches anyone who wants to learn.
Hextech changed Piltover more than anything his biography records him building, and the ranking does not dispute that. Heimerdinger sits above Viktor because his biography credits him alone with going past his peers, on questions that had beaten them for decades, while Viktor's breakthrough started from someone else's notes and was shared with Jayce Talis.
#8. Ekko
Ekko, the Boy Who Shattered Time, grew up in Zaun. "Born with genius-level intellect, Ekko constructed simple machines before he could crawl." His parents, Inna and Wyeth, worked "too many hours under dangerous conditions in suffocating factories" while "greedy factory owners, and sneering Piltovan buyers, profited immensely from their labor."
Working with a broken hextech shard, Ekko tore a hole in reality. His biography sums it up: "He’d really done it this time." The tear loosed his paradoxes, other versions of Ekko pulled out of time, and together they fixed it:
After some tense coordination between Ekko and his paradoxes, they managed to contain and repair the hole he had torn in the fabric of reality. Eventually, he harnessed the shattered crystal’s temporal powers into a device that would allow him to manipulate small increments of time… at least in theory.
— Ekko - Biography
From Ekko - Biography
On his name day his friends badgered him into climbing Old Hungry, an ancient clocktower, and he took the untested device with him. Ekko ranks above Heimerdinger because, as a boy, he went further past everyone around him: Heimerdinger beat his peers on old questions over a long career, while Ekko understood time well enough to tear reality open and close it again.
The factory owners of Ekko's Zaun include its chem-barons, the bosses who split the undercity's trade between them. One of them, Renata Glasc, owns dozens of factories, built on the work of poor young inventors she signed "in perpetuity." In her biography's words, "The poorest among them couldn’t afford to say no."
#7. Singed
Singed, the Mad Chemist, began as "an ordinary man in Piltover" with "a prodigious intellect and a boundless sense of curiosity," and won a scholarship to the University of Piltover. He took up alchemy, his fellow academics ridiculed him, his funding ran out, and "Singed had no choice but to begin a new life—in Zaun." His biography records the first thing he understood better than anyone:
Nonetheless, he pushed his new field forward at an incredibly rapid pace, but often at the expense of his own health. Understanding better than anyone the chemical needs of a living body, he engineered stimulants that could keep him alert and working for weeks at a time, before he would collapse, shivering and feeble, and sleep for days on end.
— Singed - Biography
From Singed - Biography
Then Emystan, a military commander of Noxus, the conquering empire, hired him "to help her break the bitter stalemate of the war in Ionia." She wanted "a new kind of weapon from him, the like of which no one had ever seen before."
Putting aside all other concerns, Singed poured all of his intellect, knowledge, and experience into the synthesis of this new weapon. The result of his efforts was an alchemical fire that was unstable, volatile, and utterly horrifying. When it was finally unleashed in Ionia against the enemies of Noxus, it burned hot enough to fracture stone, and tainted the earth around it with dense, metallic poisons so completely that almost nothing would grow there.
— Singed - Biography
From Singed - Biography
Ionia's land paid for it, and so did his name: "Even Emystan’s own allies were appalled, though not quite enough to name her and Singed as war criminals." Singed ranks above Ekko because his work left everyone further behind in practice: Ekko's device worked "at least in theory," while Singed built a weapon no one had ever seen, and it broke a stalemate a whole war had not.
#6. Zilean
Zilean, the Chronokeeper, is a mage from Icathia, a rich civilization "ruled by benevolent Axamuk, last of the Mage Kings of old." As Shurima, an empire of god-warriors, spread across the continent, Axamuk's calls for peace were ignored and "his armies destroyed by the god-warriors of the Ascended Host." Icathia answered by unleashing the Void, the abyss below the world that consumes everything it touches.
Zilean saved the people around him by removing his whole tower from time. "The Void was halted, but only within those walls—outside, where Icathia once stood, there was nothing."
Zilean had spent decades trying to comprehend the mysteries of time and causality, and it seemed only he could move freely back and forth within the anomaly he had somehow created. These people had been saved, true enough. He just didn’t know how to undo what he had done to achieve it.
— Zilean - Biography
From Zilean - Biography
He could not undo it, so he studied it. "Through deep meditations and esoteric devices of his own design," he learned to follow the strands of past and present, looking for a future where he had already succeeded. "It was there that he found the true threat: the end of everything. The great unmaking that awaits Runeterra."
His own passage says he does not know how he did it, and that cuts against him. Zilean still ranks above Singed because no one can follow him at all: anyone could use Singed's fire, while only Zilean moves through the time he stopped, and only he has seen the end that waits for the world.
#5. Swain
Swain, the Noxian Grand General, was born Jericho Swain into a patrician family and "seemed destined for a life of privilege." The noble houses had helped Boram Darkwill, the Grand General who ruled Noxus before him, rise to power. His parents had been seeking a power of their own, and Swain later glimpsed it: "The power his parents had been seeking, the demonic eyes blazing in the dark…"
The army threw him out, and he went looking inside the Immortal Bastion, the ancient fortress at the heart of Noxus:
Cast out of the military for his “failure,” considered nothing more than a cripple, Swain set about uncovering what truly lay within the Immortal Bastion—an ancient entity, preying upon the dying and consuming their secrets, as it had attempted to consume his own. Swain stared into that darkness, seeing what even it could not: a way to wield it.
— Swain - Biography
From Swain - Biography
His biography keeps "failure" in quotation marks, so canon does not take the charge at face value. "Though his meticulous preparations took many years, Swain and his remaining allies seized control of Noxus in a single night." Physically restored by the demon in the Bastion, he crushed Darkwill in front of his followers and left the throne "shattered and empty."
Swain ranks above Zilean because of who he saw past: Zilean saw further than every mortal around him, while Swain saw what an ancient entity that feeds on the secrets of the dying could not.
#4. LeBlanc
LeBlanc, the Deceiver, is the Matron of the Black Rose, a secret order "that has existed far longer than Noxus itself" and draws the rich and powerful into its ranks. Her biography doubts even her name: "Perhaps it is unknown even to herself, after so many centuries of mimicry and deception…"
Its legends describe a pale sorceress in the inner circle of Mordekaiser, the Iron Revenant, a conqueror whose empire drew on the Immortal Bastion as "the well of death that fueled his nightmarish empire." She betrayed him and pledged to cut him off from it. The barbarian tribes who fought him went on to build Noxus:
Yet, even as the barbarians built an empire of their own in the bastion’s shadow, they failed to realize that the arcane secrets it held had not completely been locked away. The pale sorceress had always been gifted at illusion, and her greatest trick was to make Noxus forget the dark power roiling in its own heart, before she was burned from the pages of history around the time of the Rune Wars.
— LeBlanc - Biography
From LeBlanc - Biography
It cost her the record of who she was. The Black Rose still serves "those who can wield such magic," and "Even the most powerful military commander could only ever serve the cult’s true masters."
If the entity Swain found is the power she made Noxus forget, his canon has him uncover what she buried, and that cuts against her. LeBlanc still ranks above Swain because she saw it first and kept a whole empire from seeing it, where Swain needed years of preparation and his parents' search to find it.
#3. Lissandra
Lissandra, the Ice Witch, is one of three sisters who lived before Shurima rose, in an age when "beings of old magic freely walked Runeterra." They fought the wars of that age together, and "each sister had lost a part of themselves." Lissandra lost her sight.
Blind, she walked in other people's dreams instead, and there she saw what the darkness under the world was:
As she navigated the fitful visions of those around her, she realized only she could see the darkness below for what it was: the lingering abyss promised not only an ending, but infinity. It was death, both dangerous and full of potential. Unknown to her sisters, Lissandra struck a deal on their behalf with the god-like entities she had communed with—the Watchers would grant them near-immortality in exchange for preparing Runeterra for the coming of the Void.
— Lissandra - Biography
The Watchers are the god-like beings of the Void that she had been speaking with. The deal made her sisters and their strongest followers the Iceborn, able to "withstand the worst of the numbing frost" and "spared until the very end." Her sisters never knew what she had traded for them.
Lissandra ranks above LeBlanc because she saw past more: LeBlanc saw what one empire forgot, while Lissandra, in her biography's words, was the only one who could see the Void for what it was.
#2. Nasus
Nasus, the Curator of the Sands, is one of Shurima's Ascended, the god-warriors of its empire. "Nasus’ brilliance was recognized long before he was chosen to join the ranks of the Ascended." He "memorized and critiqued the greatest works of Shuriman history and philosophy before he was ten," while his younger brother Renekton "tended to bore quickly, and fight with other local children instead." The Collegium of the Sun was the empire's elite school:
When he came of age, Nasus was welcomed into the prestigious and exclusive Collegium of the Sun. He had the best teachers in the empire, and developed a keen understanding of military strategy and logistics, eventually becoming the youngest general in history. While a competent soldier, his genius lay not in fighting battles, but in planning them.
— Nasus - Biography
From Nasus - Biography
He kept his soldiers "well provisioned, paid on time, and treated fairly," and Renekton rose under his command. He also saw a use for conquest beyond winning it:
But despite his triumphs and accolades, Nasus did not enjoy war. He understood its importance—for now, at least—in the empire’s rapid expansion, yet firmly believed his greatest contribution to Shurima was the knowledge they could gather and preserve in the wake of each conquest. At his urging, all the books, scrolls, and teachings of the cultures they defeated were added to libraries and repositories throughout the empire, to bring wisdom and enlightenment to generations still to come.
— Nasus - Biography
From Nasus - Biography
The cost came later, and not from a battle: after decades of service he was struck by "a terrible wasting sickness," and his physician said he "would be dead within a week." Lissandra saw one thing no one else alive could, and that cuts against him. Nasus still ranks above her because he was ahead of everyone around him in every field canon gives him: Shurima's great works as a child, its generals in planning, and its empire on what learning was worth keeping.
#1. Vel'Koz
Vel'Koz, the Eye of the Void, is a Voidborn, a creature of the Void, the realm "beyond the material plane, outside and somehow below it." He is "perhaps the oldest surviving Voidborn, certainly existing the longest outside of the abyss." Thousands of years before Icathia unleashed the Void, early Shurimans feared him as the devil "who crept forth from the underworld to steal the dreams of wiser men." His name "equates roughly as “to understand by unmaking.”"
His insatiable hunger for knowledge has led Vel’Koz across the world, to its highest peaks and darkest depths. Cunning and methodical, he has quietly watched entire civilizations rise, stagnate and decay, spent centuries combing the ocean floor for its secrets, even scrying the movements of the stars in the heavens above him.
— Vel'Koz - Biography
From Vel'Koz - Biography
None of it is for himself. "He carries all of this knowledge back to the great rifts in the fabric of Runeterra—so that the Watchers might know what he knows—and will annihilate, without hesitation, any mortal who stands in his path."
Vel'Koz ranks above Nasus because no one has stayed ahead of the world around them for longer: Nasus outpaced the scholars and generals of one empire, while Vel'Koz has watched whole civilizations rise and decay and studied what none of them reached, from the ocean floor to the stars.
Your Verdict
Who do you think is the smartest character in the lore?
