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Counters to Popular Ban Champions

Nebuul··5 votes·1,561 views

There are champions I see get banned that I'm like, "why you ban!" Then there are other champions I want banned 100% of the time. So, lets put together ways for people to deal with popular ban champs:

MasterYi - Hard CC. Anything that just stuns/roots/whatevers Yi makes him squishy like a fly under a swatter. Don't use slows (no Nasus, no Viktor, etc) Akali - AOE Skillshots and CC. The aforementioned Viktor completely destroys Akali. Any champion that can 'ignore' her invis zone, especially if they can add in some CC, will beat her. Katarina - Anyone with a low-CD stun/interrupt can beat Kat. A pinch of MR and a touch of CC makes Kat a dull girl. She also has a problem against high-mobility champions that can outrange her ult. A well-played Syndra destroys her. Nasus - Countered by Range and/or Sustain champs. Basically any champ that can overcome wither should win this lane. Be sure your jungler helps you since his jungler will come withergank. The key here is to stay in lane and deny him farm the whole game. If he leaves lane to farm elsewhere, either chase or push the lane to their base. Teemo, ryze, swain, garen, whatever. Jax - Countered by champs who can dish out damage without relying on attacks while out-sustaining him. Garen is textbook counter.

disclaimer: I'm a noob.

16 Comments

Onegarion2 votes

For the most part you actually have it pretty spot on. Might help though to have some more examples and maybe a brief Explanation.

Good counters to MasterYi :

Morgana can bind him easily when timed right and he can't Q out of the damage and is a sitting duck. Amumu Same as Morg. Holds him in place to get destroyed.

Good Counters to Akali : Malzahar His pool is literally just as big as akali's shroud and his ult will lock her in place to deal sustained damage while your voidling deals damage. Morgana She is good against akali too for similar reason as yi and malz combined. Also she can mitigate some damage while she ults to lock down akali.

Good Counters to Katarina :

Pantheon Can stun as soon as she uses her ult and will dish out tons of damage just as fast as she can. Lissandra Tons of CC to keep kat in place and not let her jump around. Her ult can either stop kats ult or shield herself from damage. Also has the mobility to get away if need be.

Now here is my one criticism. Nasus isn't countered by range as much as he is countered by constant harass early. Shoving him to his tower so its hard for him to farm with Q. Keeping up constant pressure and causing him to back as many times as possible will slow down any nasus from ramping up to late game monster. Its also hard to completely stop a nasus from scaling into late game, but its very possible to make it a long time before he becomes relevant and making it possible for your team to attempt an early end before he can be a real problem.

Good Counters to Nasus

Aatrox I love playing this matchup early. Aatrox destroys Nasus early and there is very little he can do. Getting the early lead gives you a huge advantage and can either draw aggro from their jungler or make nasus weak while you harass him all laning phase.

Nidalee The constant harass makes it very hard for Nasus to stay in lane and farm early on.

Good Counters to Jax :

Garen Just as you said garen is great for not relying on AA to win and its also that he can get tanky and still deal out the damage and heal back up.

Malphite He gets very strong with armor and will just shrug off Jax's attacks in the mid game to make sure that jax can't really do much. Also he should be able to CC him enough to let the team destroy jax.

C13Magnum1 votes

I don't like seeing yasuo bans because fiddle is such an easy counter to him and just gets stronger against him as the game goes. Bring exhaust and that yasuo will be lucky to get any farm in laning phase.

ModCaptainMårvelous1 votes

While, we're at it, stop banning Braum. Yes, he is tanky, but there are WAY more dangerous supports out there. Morgana should always be banned due to her olaf-ult on a CC. Janna is the queen of disengage, Zilean can restart your ADC being gutted. I mean really, there are WAY worse options than Braum.

Tsunday1 votes

I got home from work yesterday and all I wanted to do was peel for bronze carries who don't know what positioning is with my baby Janna. The first game I get into my team 3rd bans Janna and when I'm like 'why?' the 1st pick guy goes 'Well I didn't know who to pick, and honestly Janna really sucks but nobody in bronze knows how to handle her disrupt'. Someone told me they thought a champion sucked and banned them anyway. Made me so sad.

Honestly though I hate when my team bans Braum. I've never lost a game against Braum when I pick Thresh into him. I will always pick Thresh if I see the enemy has picked Braum. I don't know why it is exactly that I've never lost a game like that. It might be my ability to reposition somebody caught out with Braum's Q, or the better lockdown Thresh has, it's not bad that in lane Thresh can double Q his way behind Braum to kill that almost dead carry, and that Thresh is tanky enough to live through a stun often being able to bait dives because of it.

I think Zilean doesn't get banned though because nobody on the NA server seems to play him (from what I can tell). He's not really an American pick, if that makes sense.

ploki1221 votes

To be fair, I really believe that Janna is a pretty terrible support for low-level solo queue (and still not the best for high level ones). Unless you're in duo queue, the shield's low duration means you're gonna lose a lot of your actual trade potential compared to standard healing supports. Similarly, you won't find many players that orbwalk well enough to actually use that %MS bonus.

The ult/Q also relies on teamplay, but insanely less, so I can agree to them being good tools (then again, a lot of allies will ignore that 300-700 healing, making you feel pretty terrible)

Tsunday1 votes

As a bronze player who recently picked up Janna, I just have to say if you're a good Janna, it really doesn't matter how good your team is as long as they know what damage is and you know who is doing the damage. I build Janna pretty much the same every game Locket, Crucible, Talisman, Sightstone, boots, and normally a frozen heart unless they're an heavy AP team. Between her Howling Gale knock up, the knockback on her Monsoon, the slow on her Zephyr, her MS boost on her passive, the AoE MR on her Locket, the shield on her locket, and the heal/cleanse on her Crucible (not to mention I always go heal AND exhaust on my supports) you aren't getting to her team, you shield whoever is either getting focused of killing things, it doesn't matter if they know how to use that AD or not, you Q their team, ult when you need to reposition a teamfight, you slow the bruiser chasing your carry. I can save teammates who find themselves in a 1v5 as Janna with this build, I can peel myself out of a 1v5 as Janna with this build. Give me anyone who does a decent amount of damage and I can 2v5 as Janna. I have a 54% winrate with Janna atm I average about 1/4/18 I've had a few bad games but a lot of my losses are games I still manage to do very well in.

Janna is one of the most forgiving supports for her team if you know how to use her. Since she can easily get over 400 MS without boots, she can rush a lot of other supportive items her team needs. She does really well with a tanky build (I use my Leo/Braum runes and masteries on Janna) because she's more about peel than damage anyway, Janna punishes a lot of lower Elo players who think they can set up plays because engaging on her team often means getting CCd to death to turn it into an easy 4v5.

I feel like the real problem is learning how to play Janna. Compared to someone like Nami or Sona or old Soraka, Janna is a lot harder to pick up in lower elos. Janna's tornado is harder to land, knowing when to ult can be tricky, how to use your abilities offensively without making yourself vulnerable to the 14 seconds your Howling Gale is on CD. If you know how to play Janna though, she doesn't require a duo partner to do well. if the adcs are trading giving your ADC a shield, or if you see an ADC throwing a skillshot buffing it with your shield is often enough to win trades.

Ult/Q also only rely on teamplay when used offensively. If you're peeling for someone with your R/Q you don't need any follow up.

To be honest Soraka has been the only support I've had any trouble laning against as Janna. Soraka isn't up in your face, you don't need to peel her off of anyone, new Soraka is going to go for the same kind of passive lane bully phase you're going for, except she's going to out damage you and she's going to heal for more than you. I've never had problems against Morgana, Thresh, Leona, Blitzcrank, Nami, Lulu, Sona, etc as Janna.

Hullabaloo9071 votes

The question is not whether you can counter a champ, its whether you can stand being countered by them. Morg is my favorite ban because of how many supports she is a hard counter to and how much she brings to late game when she and her adc do well in lane.

My favorite strategy when i am first pick is to ban out Tristana and morg and then taking ezreal. I like to do this because usually there first two picks are not in bottom lane, allowing the maximum amount of countering for my team. It also allows me to at least do ok in lane, bringing some sort of safety to my team as a whole.

MrBuffington1 votes

I liked old Gragas as a counter to Akali; she tries to use her shroud to escape, just ult in the center and watch her go flying out. If you don't want to use your ult, just Q one part of the shroud and E the other side; your two abilities can basically cover the entire shroud but alas, he was reworked.

The problem with Akali though is that she can almost always find a way to get back into the game; even if you destroy her early, she can just hit 6, get a few roam kills on an unorganized team, and just snowball. That's why you see her banned a lot in high elo solo Q too.

Nebuul1 votes

What are some other examples? I've also seen these bans quite frequently:

Braum Morgana Maokai Riven Nidalee Yasuo Amumu

Braum seems to be banned because of his presence in team fights. Morganna is, at least for me, a 100% ban (unless I'm on blue team first pick!). Maokai is basically unkillable in some cases it seems and has some good cc/damage. His lane sustain is crazy. Riven seems to be the top snowball champ in the game, from what I can tell. Nidalee was nerfed recently, so she might not be as bad anymore. Yasuo is Yasuo -- Mr. Click-n-Kill. Amumu has that crazy engage bandage/ult and tears.

The Red Warden1 votes

Olaf jungle is actually pretty effective against most of them, since they almost all are based around heavy cc. So just take Olaf and Ragnarok their faces as they realize why Olaf is still deadly.

Tank junglers are easy to abuse with ap xin, since usually they won't invade meaning you can farm your nashor's and lich bane quickly and completely destroying everyone you see late game. AP xin op, trust me. No one believes in ap xin until they see how he can enter a 3 vs 1 with half health and kill everyone and leave with full health

The Red Warden1 votes

Mordekaiser is probably Yasuo 's hardest counter in the game. Your e and ult are not blocked by windwall meaning endless harass, you have a much better shield allowing you to win almost every trade, and almost no one can beat Morde in melee range so just abuse the laning phase as much as you can.

That is said, that playing Morde in today's mobility meta is something that could end up biting you

PhoenixOfHeaven1 votes

Somebody told me on a thread that Swain is a greart counter for Yi. and I know tha the best Counter for Jax is Jax.

WOOHOOTROLLTIME1 votes

Akali Katarina Fizz Yasuo I'm only silver, so I might just be a noob, but as I play, darius destroys all of these champs(ik its awkward, darius mid lane lol), because akali can't really do crap to darius as he dishes out way more damage early game, and is naturally tanky enough to kill her or escape at level 6 and beyond, same thing but less with katarina and fizz, and yasuo loses one of his skills(windwall) against darius because darius has no ranged attacks, and easily outbursts him early and midgame.

Tsunday1 votes

I swear by Lulu against Akali and Katarina. Lulu can pretty much CC both of these champions down. If Akali uses her shroud you E her the second she tries to attack you so she can't go invisible again (or if you start an engage you can start with your E to put off the shroud). If Kat shunpos to you, you have your Whimsy, and if she ults a lot of the time I can R, Q, W, E and then AA her to death. Against both of them Lulu can rush a Negatron Cloak. She matches them in damage early, and then if she gets the cloak, she still does enough damage to tear them down really quick and they have no way to catch up to her.

Greenheath1 votes

If you're against Akali seriously, buy a pink ward. Everytime I end up against an Akali I just make sure I always have a pink ward. I can't remember the last time an Akali was a problem. Yeah she spikes midgame but then the pinks come out and shes' done.

Also the upgraded red trinket works.

ploki1222 votes

She spikes mid game, but the real threat is late-game Akali that can 1-shot your support. Once she's done dealing with your support, she expended like 3-4s of cooldowns (4s Q but can be reduced by CDR) and maybe 1 charge of ultimate (given that kill gives 1 back and she shouldn't need much more than 2 ults). Then, sure you can try to focus her down with pink ward/red trinket, but the damage is already done and you're fighting mostly 4v5.

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