Ultimate mana costs: 124 of 145 champions stay flat at 100 through rank 3 — only Darius, Kayle and Quinn go free

Checking all 173 champions, 145 pay mana for their ultimate. Of those, 124 — 85.5% — stay locked at 100 mana through rank 3. Among the rest, a handful get cheaper as you rank up, and exactly three hit completely free: Darius, Kayle, and Quinn.

What this number actually is

This is the raw mana cost baked into each ultimate's rank 1-3 data in ddragon — before ability haste or any cost-reduction effect. It's the flat value Riot assigns directly, untouched by items or runes, so what shows up here is pure kit design.

124 of 145 never move off 100

Flat 100 is the overwhelming default. The 15 flat-but-not-100 group includes champions like Kog'Maw at 40 and Vayne at 80. Of the six whose cost actually shifts by rank, three end up free and two get more expensive.

The three that go free, the two that go up

Ultimate	Rank 1	Rank 2	Rank 3
Darius, Noxian Guillotine	100	100	0
Kayle, Divine Judgment	100	50	0
Quinn, Behind Enemy Lines	50	25	0
Teemo, Noxious Trap	75	55	35
Amumu, Curse of the Sad Mummy	100	150	200
Zilean, Chrono Shift	125	150	175

Teemo's cost keeps dropping but never reaches zero. Only Darius, Kayle, and Quinn get there. Amumu goes the other way, maxing out at 200 — double his rank 1 cost — and Zilean climbs to 175. Those two carry the most expensive ultimates in the game.

The free three and the pricier two point in opposite directions

Looking at the free three, there's a pattern: Darius's true-damage execute, Kayle's ally invulnerability, Quinn's movement speed buff and empowered attacks — all single-target finishers meant to land once and decide a fight. The two that get pricier do the opposite: Amumu's AoE stun and Zilean's time-stop revive are fight-swinging area effects. It looks like the free-at-max-rank group is designed so you never hesitate to press it late game, while the pricier group deliberately keeps a cost attached every time you use it. Not certain that's the intent, but the split is striking even across just six champions.

Takeaway

With 124 of 145 — 85.5% — locked at 100 regardless of rank, ultimate mana cost clearly isn't something Riot fine-tunes often. The six exceptions are deliberate outliers, cleanly split between cheaper and pricier. A lot of Darius players probably don't even realize his execute goes mana-free at rank 3.

Finding out Darius's execute costs zero mana at max rank feels like information I should've known way earlier