Monster hunting: Developing anti-Gnar technologies
Riot·3/3/2015, 8:33:50 PM·0 votes·6,655 views
Gnar has been a cute, cuddly, monstrous terror since day one. It didn't take very long for top-tier players to realize that his forced transformation mechanic wasn't so much a drawback as it was an opportunity -- a player sufficiently adept at managing his Rage Gene mechanic can switch between being a punishing ranged carry and a terrifying tank at the best moments in a fight. Teams around the world have successfully tamed the young and ancient Yordle.
But the other side of that success is a pressing need to keep it from being used against themselves. Playtime might soon be over for Gnar as League of Legends’ big game hunters set their sights on him.
Gnar’s kit also lends well to dynamic team play. As Jarvan IV’s Cataclysm produces walls on demand for Gnar to slam opponents into, the two of them make a natural core for fighting-focused team compositions looking to win by directly overpowering enemy players.
Origen's Paul "sOAZ" Boyer is more tepid on the champion. "In my opinion, I thought that Gnar would be bad when I saw the champion, because you can just predict when he is going to ult. But at the same time, the players didn't know how to play against him as a team; now I believe people have gotten used to it, and you can handle him pretty easily during teamfights."
ZionSpartan agrees that acclimating to how Gnar plays makes a big difference for teams, but calling Gnar "bad" is probably an overstatement. "When I look to play against Gnar, I feel like there's a lot of champions like Kennen and Lulu that do well against him in lane, but nothing that completely counters him in all aspects of what he does as a champion."
To do so, ZionSpartan prefers neutralizing the threat early on in the laning phase. "When playing against Gnar, it's always good to make sure he isn't really strong out of lane. Any tank that snowballs out of lane will just be hard for the opposing back line to deal with." Lulu, in particular, seems like a strong candidate to do so. Her long range and powerful crowd control effects mitigate much of his effectiveness. "Gnar is one of those champions where he sets up a fight, and if he doesn't get a good ulti setup, then you're probably going to lose the fight unless you're really far ahead. I think Lulu's just probably one of the best picks against Gnar, because you just protect whomever Gnar tries to use his combo on, and when Gnar jumps in, you can Whimsy him."
sOAZ, however, is concerned with Lulu's overall contribution to a team's strategy. "I'm not really sure about how good Lulu is in the meta. She's pretty terrible at laneswaps, and not crazy in 1v1 unless it's a good matchup. But I believe Gnar has more kill potential than Lulu does."
He emphasizes more on a champion’s contribution to team fights than their laning potential. "In the top lane meta, you don't really have to come out on top of the laning phase. You have to not die and be more useful than the opponent in teamfights. Killing your opponent is just a plus, but the meta is a lot more oriented in laneswaps, and with bot and mid lane."
To him, and in reflection of his recent games in the EU Challenger Series, the best answers to Gnar would be Rumble and Morgana. Rumble's Equalizer makes it difficult for anybody to close in on a kiting team, while Morgana's Black Shield prevents Gnar from landing GNAR! onto the targets he intends to drag around.
Of course, the most effective anti-Gnar tactic is to simply keep him off Summoner’s Rift entirely. When all else fails, there’s always the ban.
SIZING UP
Why is Gnar so popular in the first place? Does he justify developing counter-picks and mitigation techniques? As originally designed, it was supposed to be hard to control his switches between Mini-Gnar and Mega-Gnar. But "hard" for a pro player is another way to say "rewards skill." "Not only in his laning phase, but in teamfights, he actually takes skill to play," said Darshan "ZionSpartan" Upadhyaha of Counter Logic Gaming. "You can't really say that as much for other champions like Maokai or Renekton -- they do still take some amount of skill, but it's a lot more simple -- like, 'Okay, I need to stun this target, I need to root this target' -- and that's how you play a team fight and you just kite back." In his opinion, not only does playing around the transformations require more skill, but it's also more fun than the comparably static play styles of other top lane options.
Gnar’s kit also lends well to dynamic team play. As Jarvan IV’s Cataclysm produces walls on demand for Gnar to slam opponents into, the two of them make a natural core for fighting-focused team compositions looking to win by directly overpowering enemy players.
Origen's Paul "sOAZ" Boyer is more tepid on the champion. "In my opinion, I thought that Gnar would be bad when I saw the champion, because you can just predict when he is going to ult. But at the same time, the players didn't know how to play against him as a team; now I believe people have gotten used to it, and you can handle him pretty easily during teamfights."
ZionSpartan agrees that acclimating to how Gnar plays makes a big difference for teams, but calling Gnar "bad" is probably an overstatement. "When I look to play against Gnar, I feel like there's a lot of champions like Kennen and Lulu that do well against him in lane, but nothing that completely counters him in all aspects of what he does as a champion."
SILVER BULLET
ZionSpartan and sOAZ share a common core of ideas for how to counter Gnar, but they approach it from different angles. Both agree that the best way to beat back Gnar is to keep him from closing in on you in the first place. "The key to winning versus Gnar is to have a kite team comp," said sOAZ. If the worst thing to do is to run head-first into Gnar, then the best thing must surely be to keep the little monster from turning into a very big monkey on your back.
To do so, ZionSpartan prefers neutralizing the threat early on in the laning phase. "When playing against Gnar, it's always good to make sure he isn't really strong out of lane. Any tank that snowballs out of lane will just be hard for the opposing back line to deal with." Lulu, in particular, seems like a strong candidate to do so. Her long range and powerful crowd control effects mitigate much of his effectiveness. "Gnar is one of those champions where he sets up a fight, and if he doesn't get a good ulti setup, then you're probably going to lose the fight unless you're really far ahead. I think Lulu's just probably one of the best picks against Gnar, because you just protect whomever Gnar tries to use his combo on, and when Gnar jumps in, you can Whimsy him."
sOAZ, however, is concerned with Lulu's overall contribution to a team's strategy. "I'm not really sure about how good Lulu is in the meta. She's pretty terrible at laneswaps, and not crazy in 1v1 unless it's a good matchup. But I believe Gnar has more kill potential than Lulu does."
He emphasizes more on a champion’s contribution to team fights than their laning potential. "In the top lane meta, you don't really have to come out on top of the laning phase. You have to not die and be more useful than the opponent in teamfights. Killing your opponent is just a plus, but the meta is a lot more oriented in laneswaps, and with bot and mid lane."
To him, and in reflection of his recent games in the EU Challenger Series, the best answers to Gnar would be Rumble and Morgana. Rumble's Equalizer makes it difficult for anybody to close in on a kiting team, while Morgana's Black Shield prevents Gnar from landing GNAR! onto the targets he intends to drag around.
Of course, the most effective anti-Gnar tactic is to simply keep him off Summoner’s Rift entirely. When all else fails, there’s always the ban.
