Bureau of Rift Statistics · Follow-up 1 · The labels

Which dashes are real escapes? Every call, and why

Report No. 1 counted every dash as an escape tool. Readers on Reddit pointed out that plenty of dashes only go toward an enemy, so they get you in, not out. Fair. So I sorted all 148 movement abilities in the game into the ones that work without an enemy and the ones that need one, and ran the test again.

This page is every one of those calls: the rule it meets, Riot's own text, my reason, and where I checked it. If you think I got one wrong, tell me in the common room or on the Reddit thread. Calls that change go into Report No. 2's run, with your name on them.

What the split showed

• Engage-only champions spend more time dead: +7.4% (+6.7 to +8.1). Clear in 8 of 8 tiers.
• Real escapes don't keep you alive either: +1.8% (+1.3 to +2.4). Clear in 4 of 8 tiers; can't tell in the rest.
• Real escapes still beat engage-only: −5.2% (−5.9 to −4.5). Clear in 7 of 8 tiers.

So the readers were half right. Dashes that need a target carry most of Report No. 1's result. But champions with real escapes still spend a little more time dead than champions with none.

Read this as a lead, not a finding. The question came from readers after Report No. 1 was out, so it gets tested again, unchanged, on Report No. 2's new games. And it isn't cause and effect: engage champions are picked and played to walk into danger. Doctors call this confounding by indication. The sickest patients get the strongest drug, so the drug can look like it hurts.

The rule

One question for every ability: can it move you without an enemy? If yes, it's escape-capable. If it needs an enemy, it needs a target. Six labels say how.

Edge cases, decided before any result was run

• Two-part abilities count by their first cast. Akali's E backflip needs nothing, so it's escape-capable, even though the recast needs a mark. If the free part only comes after hitting an enemy, like Akali's second R, it needs a target.
• Terrain, allies and your own things count as no enemy needed: walls, wards, daggers, flags, soldiers, shadows.
• Flash is on everyone, so it isn't counted. Speed boosts aren't movement abilities (Yunara's base E is a speed boost; her R version is a dash).
• Untargetability, stasis and revives aren't labelled here. Stress test C leaves out those champions instead.
• The four stress tests each call one kind of borderline ability the other way:
  • A: enemy minions count as an escape route.
  • B: snap-backs count as needing a target.
  • C: kits with untargetability, stasis or revives are left out.
  • D: free moves that crowd-control where they land count as engage.
  Each row in the table shows which tests flip it.

How the calls were checked

Riot's text first. Every call starts from Riot's own ability text for patch 16.20.1, shown in the table. 29 calls were judgment calls. For those I also checked Riot's champion spotlights, the League wiki, guides and Reddit, and the source that settled each one is quoted in its row.

Then a second coder. Meraki Analytics publishes how every ability is targeted, built independently from the game's data. I wrote down how to turn its targeting field into the same two groups before comparing:

• "Unit" with no allies counts as needing a target.
• Everything aimed at a location or direction, or cast automatically, counts as escape-capable.

The result. We agree on 124 of 142 abilities (87%). That's a Cohen's kappa of 0.70, the standard measure of agreement beyond chance, where 0.61 to 0.80 is usually read as substantial. 6 weren't compared: Ambessa P, Locke E, Rengar P, Samira P, Zaahen E, Zaahen R. Meraki has no record yet for Locke and Zaahen, and lists the rest as passives.

Here's each of the 18 disagreements. Most are abilities where the aim and the movement are two different things: you aim a hook, but you only fly if it lands.

• Ambessa R (Public Execution): Aimed in a direction, but she only blinks to an enemy champion in the line.
• Amumu Q (Bandage Toss): Meraki records how the cast is aimed. The movement only happens if it hits an enemy.
• Azir E (Shifting Sands): Meraki lists the enemies it damages. The dash goes to his own soldier.
• Briar W (Blood Frenzy): The leap is aimed freely, but the frenzy then forces her onto the nearest enemy. Changed after review.
• Briar R (Certain Death): Meraki records how the cast is aimed. The movement only happens if it hits an enemy.
• Elise E (Rappel (spider)): Meraki records the ascent. The descent needs a target enemy, or she lands where she started.
• Illaoi W (Harsh Lesson): Meraki records the empowered attack. The leap goes to that attack's enemy target.
• Jax Q (Leap Strike): Meraki lists enemies only, but Riot's text says he "leaps toward a unit", allies and wards included.
• Kai'Sa R (Killer Instinct): Cast at a location, but only near an enemy champion marked by her passive.
• Lee Sin Q (Resonating Strike): Meraki records how the cast is aimed. The movement only happens if it hits an enemy.
• Lee Sin W (Safeguard): Meraki lists no affected units. The dash goes to an ally, his own minion or his ward.
• Leona E (Zenith Blade): Meraki records how the cast is aimed. The movement only happens if it hits an enemy.
• Nautilus Q (Dredge Line): Meraki records how the cast is aimed. The movement only happens if it hits an enemy.
• Nocturne R (Paranoia): Meraki records the map-wide darkness. The flight needs an enemy champion.
• Pyke R (Death from Below): Meraki records the aimed area. He only blinks when it executes a champion.
• Rengar R (Thrill of the Hunt): Meraki records the camouflage. The leap needs a nearby champion.
• Thresh Q (Death Sentence): Meraki records how the cast is aimed. The movement only happens if it hits an enemy.
• Vex R (Shadow Surge): Meraki records how the cast is aimed. The movement only happens if it hits an enemy.

Disclosure: before writing that rule, I had looked at a rough cross-tab of my labels against Meraki's field. The rule and this page were written afterwards, on 23 Oct.

Every call

148 abilities: 97 escape-capable and 51 that need a target. Download all of it as a spreadsheet (CSV).

Credit

The split was designed by readers: u/GigarandomNoodle and u/Careful_Purple2838 on r/LeagueUnfiltered, and u/F0RGERY and u/ZioSam2_dad on r/leagueoflegends. Second-coder data: Meraki Analytics' lolstaticdata, retrieved 23 Oct 2026 (file c4d2266c). Ability text: Riot Data Dragon 16.20.1.

Method references: the labels follow the content-analysis approach in Neuendorf's The Content Analysis Guidebook (a written codebook, then agreement with a second coder). The stress tests are a small version of the multiverse analysis in Steegen and colleagues (2016).