Reign of Gaming

I think that it's something of an illusion that Kassadin can be countered simply by building MR-- for indeed any AP carry can be made less effective by itemizing for magic resistance, but at what cost? If you sink 1K into MR, then you've essentially used 10% of your available resources to survive a single champion, but you've done nothing to enable yourself to kill them or stop the rest of their team. In the particular case of Kassadin, this isn't even true itself since so much of his strength comes from the fact that he can lay down a gank on bottom, and then immediately relocate back up to top and be ready to teamfight (since you've been managing your ult stacks)--something that no other champion can do. 

Utilizing the criteria which you have set forth has a fundamental problem: is Graves is "low-tier" because he has exclusively AD damage, which is "countered" by armour (a myth, as addressed above, especially due to the prevalence of penetration items), then do you suggest not having any AD, simply because AD can be countered by armour? Clearly, that is a fallacy and an illogical premise to begin with. 

The problem with League/MOBAs, as opposed to fighting games, is that you need to look at things in the aggregate. It is not about specific champions, but rather compositions as a whole. Gragas and Janna do not synergize well, yet they are both incredibly strong champions in their own right. 

That is not what I said...

To recap: Wukong is a top ban/first pick. Pantheon is an extremely common first pick. Jayce, despite not benefiting as much from the new itemization options, is still a top ban/first pick. Kassadin is a mandatory ban or first pick. 

The tier is called..? That should answer your question. 

Draven's optimal itemization, much like Jayce, relied on crit: chunking people with axes is a lot better than just hitting them for true damage. BC abuse is good on him, but not as good as other carries like Ezreal. 

Positioning with him to get his axes going is even harder than it is on SR. 

Kennen suffers from long cooldowns and a poor itemization in that he cannot build CDR effectively. He has bursts of speed, but Lightning Rush cannot be be spammed due to energy constraints; even if he does, he'll be out of energy when he arrives to a skirmish. 

Yorick has a lot of trouble starting at top, but I actually think that he can transition up really well. Once he has CDR, his ultimate will be up for every fight, even when they are chaining one after the other. He can really tear people while still being that beefy front line. All of his troubles come from his early game, but once he gets some levels and money he's just fine pretty much everywhere. 

It shouldn't just apply to the start, though; there are some teams who you can afford to stack a resistance against just because they don't have someone else who can sub bottom or would not be able to transition top well. AD Malz is a good example of someone with this affliction  but in general he's alright because he does mixed damage and pushes so very hard.

If you want to get a RoA (it's a good item on him), you need to rush it on order to make full use of the stats. Void timing depends on enemy itemization; you don't really need the %shred until they start to pick up negatrons. I prefer to either choose between Chalice or RoA, but getting both is something of overkill.

An item you may also want to consider is Abyssal, since it adds to his instagib factor (mpen is king) but still offers him enough defensive stats that he'll be able to riftwalk away from anything.

Thank you for the assurance; I feel the same way, though I would like to at least be able to quantify some kind of criteria. 

BFT is most effective on mages who are able to effectively apple the stacks over time. This is not Kassadin. Haunting Guise is a fantastic item, and the base stats from BFT are also excellent, so it is a viable itemization option, but it should not be rushed. Since manatank is a lot less viable than it once was, I would suggest utilizing the new DFG for the instagib potential. 

So much of Kassadin's strength stems from the fact that he can gank bottom lane, and then be up top for a team fight in seconds, so that instagib factor that DFG brings to the field is incredibly impactful. 

This probably isn't a bad idea, but I still dislike it in general; the strength of some picks comes from the fact that they are extremely versatile. Take someone like Diana, who is incredibly strong at both top and bottom. You can then pair then with someone like, say, Olaf, who is also adept at both positions. Now, the enemy team cannot tell who is going bottom, and so directly countering them is even more difficult. Now, lets say that you start Olaf off in the bottom lane, and Diana up top; the enemy decides to counter him by building lots of armor and a moderate amount of health. Diana can easily switch with Olaf, rendering any specific itemization counters null, while simultaneously being able to send a well-scaling character who has been allowed to sit and farm for 15 up into the fray. 

We have used this type of a play numerous times to great effect, and it makes it more difficult to try and quantify specific interactions like that when they are broken down into separate lists. It's something we've considered, but we may eventually break down and just do it. 

I would tend to disagree with this; Wukong has long been one of the most sought after picks in competitive play and with the new itemization options he's even stronger than he was before. Same applies to Pantheon. Jayce, on the other hand, doesn't really benefit from the new options as much. In fact, he's kind of been hurt by the lack of piecemeal crit, since his optimal damage route is still IE/crit. 

Kassadin probably deserves his own tier since his kit is inherently broken on the Crystal Scar, but oh well.

Armor pen runes. 21/9. Open either LS/Ruby or LS/LS. Pots like usual. 

If you have a lot of poke and think you need more kill potential, main level Q.

If you need more poke, main level W.

Level jump last.

Depending on circumstance, evolve jump first. If not, evolve whatever you are mainleveling first.

Build armor pen so that you can hit carries for true damage. BC + LW is very strong. Supplement damage with BF sword items. The murcurial scimitar is incredibly strong on him.