Rankings in Godtear are meaningless out of context. A huge amount depends on scenario and opponent. We all hopefully know this. Grimgut if your opponent has no Maelstrom is very different than if they do. Mourneblade into Maxen is very different from Mourneblade into some other list compositions. Helena in Quest is quite different from Helena in Life. Need I go on?
However, I think ranking is an interesting exercise because it might force us to think about the game just a little bit harder by forcing direct comparisons between champions. Also, it's fun. It's fun to argue about. I expect lots of disagreement about these rankings.
I want to hear form you, though! If you want, submit your rankings here. Leave your name in the comments if you want (or not).
Without breaking it down into any particular methodology or categories or anything, here are my subjective overall power rankings of all 20 current champions:
Subjective Ranks
You may agree or disagree and that's fine. This is a nonsensical exercise to begin with. This is based mostly on how I FEEL when I draft. Again, it all depends on who my opponent picks, what my list composition is, and what the scenario is. Overall, though, this is my answer.
Here's how I recommend reading this list: ask yourself where we differ. If I rate a champion higher than you do, ask yourself what you might be missing about them. If I rate a champion lower than you do, ask yourself what I may be missing about them. Maybe try out someone I rate higher than you do. I am certainly willing to try out champions you rate higher than I do. Hit me up.
This also reflects play style significantly. I like to fight, so I probably have Rangosh and Keera higher than some others might.
I'd also like to add that I think all champions are playable. I do not actually hate Morrigan in the right list composition, but overall she's at the bottom here because she only blooms in a very particular climate.
Category Ranks
So, ok, these are subjective too. I know that. I just.. couldn't think of a better term for the previous category. In an effort to get a bit more granular, though, broke different roles a champion might play into eight categories and ranked the top 10 crews in each. By a "crew," I mean a champion and their follower unit. Here are the categories:
Champion KOs: How many steps do I expect this crew to score by KOing champions?
Champion KO Denial: How many steps do I expect this crew to give up by having its champion KOd?
Follower KOs: How many steps do I expect this crew to score by KOing followers?
Follower KO Denial: How many steps do I expect this crew to give up from having its followers KOd?
Banner Protection: How many steps do I expect this crew to score by having banners on the board in the End Phase?
Banner Denial: How many steps do I expect this crew to prevent by crushing banners?
Support: How well does this crew buff other crews (not themselves) and/or debuff enemies?
Board Control: How well does this crew manipulate the board state through sudden, drastic movements of other models and/or objective hexes.
Ok... ready? Here are my top 10 champions in each category, ranked. Don't hate me.
Obviously, this is nonsense. For example, Grimgut is definitely the BEST at not surrendering follower KOs if there is no enemy Maelstrom, but sometimes there will be, so I went with large followers and Armor 5 Dwarves ahead of him. Obviously, the way you think about squishier concepts like "support" and "board control" may lead you to rank champions differently. This table is what happened when one player had a go. I encourage you to try it yourself.
If we were to assign each champion points for being top 10 in a category, we might come up with a composite ranking based on these categorical rankings. So, I awarded 10 points for being ranked 1, 9 points for being ranked 2, etc. all the way down to 1 point for being ranked 10th. Here are the resulting composite ranks.
They are a bit different from the subjective ranks I started with. Mostly, the Slayers are lower in these ranks. Part of that might be my personal preferences, but part of it also might be the overly simplistic way in which I have made all of these categories equally valuable. Champion KOs are probably more valuable than some of these other categories, so the Slayer dominance in that category is probably not sufficiently valued here.
Still these are interesting! Jeen is good, but Raith-level good? Hmm. This high ranking reflects her strong standing across multiple categories. She is amazing at banner denial and also not a slouch at follower KO scoring, etc. A recent opponent of mine, while deciding what to do with a Jeen activation commented, "I just want to do everything." Yup.
These rankings look good for some dwarves I don't see much of these days. Nia is legit good and sort of underrated. These rankings vindicate her a bit.
Poor Blackjaw. I think he's good, but these rankings seem to reflect that other Maelstroms have kind of moved in and taken his corner. Jeen is faster, Titus can kill tougher followers, and Luella is more durable. Blackjaw isn't bad, he's just crowded out of his best categories. We might say the same for Lorsann. Rattlebone is fascinating because she is the queen of support (ranked #1) but does little else and so finds herself in the basement here.
Again, if you don't agree, rank them yourself!