Blessing the Rift - Kayle in the LCS
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Kayle rose to dominance with a Lich Bane build last split, and after the changes to her core item and the nerf to her Reckoning, fell slightly off of the radar. Recently, however, she has come back with a righteous fury. This is not the first time Kayle has faded out of the meta, only to come straight back. What makes Kayle such a robust champion?
First, one item in particular makes her kit: Nashor’s Tooth. ROCCAT’s Overpow “can’t really see any build without it being one of her core items”, thanks to “attack speed mixed with decent AP and 20% CDR”. Everything about the combination synergizes with her kit. The AP ups the scaling on all of her abilities, while the attack speed scales multiplicatively with the AP scaling on her Righteous Fury, while the CDR allows her to have Righteous Fury up almost constantly. On top of that, Nashor’s Tooth’s passive compounds with her Righteous Fury, adding another even more AP to her autoattack damage.
After that, a number of items synergize well with her kit. Traditionally, due to her reliance on auto-attacks, Lich Bane has been a strong purchase, as it gives her additional burst and mobility. However, Rabadon’s can simply give her a huge damage spike, while also supercharging her heal.
Recently, however, LCS players like SK’s Jesiz have been purchasing Runaan’s Hurricane. Runaan’s Hurricane does not spread the splash damage, but it does put Kayle’s passive onto every champion it hits, amplifying the damage of her whole team immensely. The higher damage output slightly reduces her ability to heal, and as a result, in their Week 4 victory against Copenhagen Wolves, SK Gaming ran three tanks - Braum, Jarvan, and Renekton - in order to allow Kayle and Twitch to rain down immense damage from behind them.
Essentially, Kayle allows you to pick your own style based on your choice of second items: Runaan’s Hurricane for shred and consistent damage, Rabadon’s Deathcap for healing power and overall damage, and Lich Bane for mobility and burst damage.
She is currently 7-6 in the mid lane, but seems to perform particularly well from top lane, with a 4-1 record. She is not particularly strong in the top lane during the early period, where she seems to fall behind every game, but the fact that she boosts the damage of her whole team and can protect any focused target makes her very strong in a 3 carry composition. Gambit Gaming used such a composition, running no tanks but 3 heavy damage dealers against Alliance to beat them late game, despite an early 0-4 start from Darien’s Kayle.
Kayle has not come from nowhere, to be sure, but Ackerman thinks that her recent resurgence in top lane is at least in part due to the fact that “lots of tanky top lane champions have been nerfed”, which allows top lane champions that contribute utility the team - like Kayle and Lulu - to become more powerful. On top of that, the discovery of the strength of Runaan’s Hurricane has helped her by allowing her to “either split-push or engage in teamfights depending on the needs of the team”, as she now provides “strong AoE damage” in addition to her “ability to provide protection”. She leaves the team without a tank, making her a risky pick vs AoE and hard CC, as a pick comp can burst anybody on the team quickly.
One thing is certain, Kayle is a tenacious champion with many builds and playstyles, so expect her to stick around despite nerfs, much like the Irelia of old.
Versatile Kit
Kayle’s kit has landed her in mid, support, and now top lane in the LCS, and the reason is simple: she does a little bit of everything. Base Utility She has a lot of basic utility that she can get out regardless of how many items she manages to pick up. Her ultimate is one of the strongest and most unique abilities in the game, making any allied champion immune to damage for 2-3 seconds. No matter how far behind she falls, she can always at least protect a team’s priority target for 3 seconds. As well, her passive, Holy Fervor, allows her to debuff armor and magic resistance of enemy champs by up to 15%, again, regardless of her itemization. This, in turn, makes her team more lethal, not just improves her ability. Scaling Damage On top of that, she has extremely strong scaling damage. While Righteous Fury is activated, she gains 60 + 40% AP in autoattack damage, which allows her to be one of the AP Casters in the game who gains a huge amount of consistent damage, much like an AD carry. Her Reckoning also does decently high burst damage, especially in combination with Righteous Fury and Holy Fervor. While Holy Fervor allows her to scale off of her carries’ damage, when she is the carry, that damage scales even higher.Pick an Item, Any Item
Kayle’s kit versatility gives her great item versatility as well. Kayle has been one of the most dynamic champions in the LCS as far as builds are concerned, with a seemingly endless glut of builds cycling through.
First, one item in particular makes her kit: Nashor’s Tooth. ROCCAT’s Overpow “can’t really see any build without it being one of her core items”, thanks to “attack speed mixed with decent AP and 20% CDR”. Everything about the combination synergizes with her kit. The AP ups the scaling on all of her abilities, while the attack speed scales multiplicatively with the AP scaling on her Righteous Fury, while the CDR allows her to have Righteous Fury up almost constantly. On top of that, Nashor’s Tooth’s passive compounds with her Righteous Fury, adding another even more AP to her autoattack damage.
After that, a number of items synergize well with her kit. Traditionally, due to her reliance on auto-attacks, Lich Bane has been a strong purchase, as it gives her additional burst and mobility. However, Rabadon’s can simply give her a huge damage spike, while also supercharging her heal.
Recently, however, LCS players like SK’s Jesiz have been purchasing Runaan’s Hurricane. Runaan’s Hurricane does not spread the splash damage, but it does put Kayle’s passive onto every champion it hits, amplifying the damage of her whole team immensely. The higher damage output slightly reduces her ability to heal, and as a result, in their Week 4 victory against Copenhagen Wolves, SK Gaming ran three tanks - Braum, Jarvan, and Renekton - in order to allow Kayle and Twitch to rain down immense damage from behind them.
Essentially, Kayle allows you to pick your own style based on your choice of second items: Runaan’s Hurricane for shred and consistent damage, Rabadon’s Deathcap for healing power and overall damage, and Lich Bane for mobility and burst damage.
Matchups
Kayle is easiest to play against melee champions without poke or sustain, as she can trade with them at range and kite them with the slow from Reckoning. However, Overpow finds her to be “a good pick against anything”, thanks to “low mana cost wave clear and sustain, combined with a movement speed bonus” for escaping or following up on ganks, not to mention Intervention, which allows her to play aggressively or recover from a mistake or gank. She struggles slightly in the early game, especially vs “high mobility champions with hard CC,” according to LMQ’s Ackerman, as “without any dash, Kayle is vulnerable to ganks”, especially to “champions like Lee Sin or Elise”. This is the worst situation to be in, according to Overpow, as “there is no coming back from being 0-2 for Kayle”. However, the many tools her kit offer all but guarantee that Kayle will make an impact in every game.
She is currently 7-6 in the mid lane, but seems to perform particularly well from top lane, with a 4-1 record. She is not particularly strong in the top lane during the early period, where she seems to fall behind every game, but the fact that she boosts the damage of her whole team and can protect any focused target makes her very strong in a 3 carry composition. Gambit Gaming used such a composition, running no tanks but 3 heavy damage dealers against Alliance to beat them late game, despite an early 0-4 start from Darien’s Kayle.
Kayle has not come from nowhere, to be sure, but Ackerman thinks that her recent resurgence in top lane is at least in part due to the fact that “lots of tanky top lane champions have been nerfed”, which allows top lane champions that contribute utility the team - like Kayle and Lulu - to become more powerful. On top of that, the discovery of the strength of Runaan’s Hurricane has helped her by allowing her to “either split-push or engage in teamfights depending on the needs of the team”, as she now provides “strong AoE damage” in addition to her “ability to provide protection”. She leaves the team without a tank, making her a risky pick vs AoE and hard CC, as a pick comp can burst anybody on the team quickly.
One thing is certain, Kayle is a tenacious champion with many builds and playstyles, so expect her to stick around despite nerfs, much like the Irelia of old.
she WRECKS towers and it's easy for her to escape if necessary. Her burst is above subpar. I've seen Kayle 1v3 easily because she can kite well and kill squishy targets VERY quickly because of her passive, which also helps her against tankier targets.
does well enough usually because of all the attack speed. 
is actually even stronger at destroying towers since it increases Kayle's damage to towers drastically and makes her wave pushing ungodly.
Some people ask why BL? Then I let a 40% armor shred on 3 people do the talking.