Counter Tips from a 154k Tahm Kench Main

Hi, I'm ClockworkSheikah, a Tahm Kench main practically since his release, 154k mastery on him and several hundred games on him in all roles- yes, even mid and ADC. Good times, good times. I realize that this will probably make the vast majority of you angry at me (:P), but I assure you that I am here to help. Tahm Kench's unique kit has caused him to be an outlier in champion balance for a while now, especially since he was buffed waaaay back in 5.14, then had some nice QoL buffs from then onward until 5.24 and 6.2, which saw a large nerf to his Devour utility, passive duration, and the damage on his ult.

Now, I'm not going to try and be partial and say that those buffs were necessary, at least all of them. Tahm defeinitely was in a strong spot in top lane and his dueling and tanking potential could be seen as toxic to some, so even I aprreciated some nerfs to the big guy. However, I always find it a little disheartening when champions like Tahm are swiftly and brutally nerfed when they have some time in the limelight (a la SIon and Fiddlesticks), whereas champions like Lee Sin, Zed and Riven are allowed to maintain a relative level of potent strength. But I digress; that is not the topic of my discussion, and I would hate to make further enemies.

Tahm is currently sitting at a 48.63% win rate top lane and a 44.68% win rate support, with a whopping 40% ban rate but only a 7% pick rate. Most recently he has become infamous as a powerful, perhaps overbearingly so, top laner whose kit is notorious as toxic and unfun to play against. He has seen play as a top laner and support in pro play with moderate showings. This has caused a recent string of hard nerfs to be thrown at him, and he is now one of the least-liked champions to the community, with many threads and comments here on the boards demanding further nerfs or bemoaning his continued strength. I would like to adress this.

Tahm Kench is played traditionally as a tank, in top lane, bot lane as a support, and a Cinderhulk jungler. I would like to take the time today to give the community some (hopefully) useful counter-tips to Tahm so that maybe, just maybe, people will hate him less and cry for even more nerfs, which I personaly find ridiculous as these latest nerfs definitely hit him hard. So, without further ado.

Top Lane

Tahm Kench was initially designed as a tanky top laner, but his natural utility led to him also prosper as a support. He has decent waveclear, can poke outside of waves, and duels very well thanks to his stun and devour, which we will discuss shortly. Top Tahm Kench is often seen as the most furstrating of all of his 3 major roles as he can set up ganks really well and wins trades thanks to his % damage. However, he does have several counter-picks and tricks to help you come out on top, this coming from my experience and observations personally.

• You can beat a Tahm Kench from champ select. Lots of the people who are frustrated by his ability to win trades by proxy probably pick champions like Rumble, Malphite, or Gangplank who rely purely on melee dueling if they want to attack their lane opponent, and don't have strong poke, reliable CC, or steroids to help them duel (Teemo, Riven, Nasus/Renekton respectively). A Tahm Kench (or at least a smart one) probably won't be going too ham early game without his jungler's help because he has a weak early game, and I often find myself pushed into turret farmingas him, which is perfectly okay. Tahm is a Juggernaut in all but name, and you should counterpick as such. If you see a first-or-second pick Tahm Kench whom you suspect is going top, consider the following champions:

  1. has all the shields, mobility, and hard CC to dodge Tongue Lashes and prevent him from shielding preemptively. She also has a really potent execute to punish him for blowing his shield.
  2. follows a similar suite as Riven. He has tankiness, CC, and mobility, as well as a powerful dueling ultimate that can negate the damage of Devour.
  3. Did someone say Raid Boss? Nasus has the sustain to survive whatever trades Tahm tries to commit to, as well as a powerful zoning tool with his Spirit Flame. Tahm also has very few ways to stop a Nasus from stacking as he pleases, and like Renekton, his powerful stat-ultimate can help him trade back effectively with the River King. Wither also essentially shuts down a stat a lot of people underestimate on Tahm - attack speed - so, that's good too. Unless you're Tahm. Then it's bad.
  4. I suppose it's only natural for Satan to counter the prime river demon. Teemo is frustrating for any melee top laner - why should Tahm be any different. You can't apply Acquired Taste stacks if you're blinded, and Toxic Shot eats through both of his health bars effectively.
  5. is actually really really good against Tahm. For one, he's ranged, so he can farm safely without worrying about tangoing with Tahm's tongue. Secondly, he has strong self-peel by way of Thundering Blow that also happens to deal % health damage - and everyone knows Tahm likes to build health. Jayce also has really good kiting and poke, which Tahm hates. Grey health is very strong against burst, because it will regen back a lot of it, but sustained poke is hard to deal with because you'll never want to shield it and the regen you get back is really weak.
  6. has a lot of sustain to just negate Tahm's shenanigans. He also outdamages and outranges Tahm at all stages of the game. Tahm is infamous for being able to infinitely trade and stall a duel for a very long time - but so is Vlad. His pool and healing is very potent at going toe-to-toe with the looming threat of Devour.

• As mentioned previously, Tahm is essentially a Juggernaut - a big, beefy tank that deals a lot of melee damage. He's very easily zoned away from minions, and he can't farm exclusively with Tongue Lash without some form of mana regen, or an early , which isn't all that optimal for a top Tahm Kench, unless you're going AP, which, let me tell you, is a noob trap. Don't do it. Tank Kench is infinitely better than Mage Kench. If you can find a way to zone him from minion waves, then you're golden.

• Feel free to trade wtih him early, but don't mid game. If you have enough magic resist, Devour isn't all that scary earlier in the game, because Tahm will most likely max Tongue Lash first (usually). If you have some CC and early game damage, go for it, and try to kill him straight out, or pressure with some early game ganks. Tahm is like , almost. He's tanky and he's got damage, but he literally has zero mobility and relies solely on self-peel and raw stats to waddle back to tower.

• If he's ahead, e.g. through kills of farm or he counter-picked you, he'll have a very strong mid-game and will be very aggro on you. Ask your jungler ot help, because Tahm is a great duelist but not the best 1v2er (that's Riven's job). While this is some pretty general advice, it goes a long way. You don't want to fight a Tahm Kench who's ahead one on one, just as you wouldn't go full ham on a or a . He's a great tanky duelist, so let him push and then gank that slimy not-so-little motherfucker.

• Tahm doesn't have the best waveclear outside of his Devour. If he eats a siege and then spits it out at a wave, there's your chance to strike, because Devour has a decent cooldown in and of itself throughout most of the game unless he has CDR. He has used his one trading tool on the wave, so go get him, champ. You can also pick one of the champions above with strong waveclear to keep him constantly pushed in.

Bot Lane [Support]

There is one bot lane duo that is literally impossible for Tahm to win against. They can counter him at all stages of the game and hunt him down and kill him whenever they please. You may have already guessed or encountered this for yourself, but its and . Why? For one, Dark Binding shut's down Tahm's ability to chase down your ADC and gobble them up. And if he does somehow reach them (report supp no peel gg) Black Shield will negate his slow, stun, AND Devour, which is probably the most frustrating thing as a Tahm player I have ever experienced (oh boohoo I know XD). Her ult also continues through his Devour (if he ever eats her, that is). Vayne, on the other hand, has the low-CD mobility to dodge every Tongue Lash he manages to throw at her, and also the self-peel to knock him back. And if that weren't enough, Silver Bolts is really really bad for Tahm. He likes to stack health for his ult and so true % will utterly wreck him, especially if Morg has locked him down long enough for Vayne to get to work.

Tahm is a really strong support due to his ability to literally save his ADC from the jaws of death (or is it the other way around......? #confused). He can save them from hooks ( ), and any other support CC that happens to be relevant in this meta (coughcough). He trades very well, synergizes with Relic Shield, and otherwise is very solid overall. A bit too solid, in some's eyes. How come he's allowed to just pop his ADC out of all the CC you worked hard to stack on them? Why does he have two fucking health bars? Rito plz.

• Your first mistake was to CC the ADC. I realize how crazy that sounds, but hear me out. Any stun or hook or knock-up is really easy for Tahm to eat out of, provided he's close to the ADC, which is a given, and smart enought to not let himself be affected by the CC as well. A quick Devour and then spit out behind himself (or a scurry back to the tower), can completely negate a trade and allow the wave to push in. However, by devouring his ADC, Tahm has acknowledged how he and his lane partner are scared of you and yours, and that he won't be able to trade back or save his ADC for several more seconds.

• Back to the don't CC the ADC bit. When Tahm swallows an ally, he basically makes it so that two champions are contained within the same frame, right? Tahm is sort've the opposite of Soraka - you put your CC on him, but damage on the ADC, as opposed to killing Soraka while CCing the ADC. If you have a high-burst marksman such as Corki or Lucian (which is even better, because they have dashes), you can quickly force a trade by doing a full rotation on the ADC, which will msot likely scare the Tahm into devouring them. At this point, the gank or engage should be underway and your support or jungler's CC should still be up and ready to go. By CCing Tahm while he's got some poor yordle or white woman in his belly, you've effectively CCed them both and forced both of them into one spot. Does that make sense?

• As for Grey Health. In more recent patches, this ability has become even more hated than Devour, be it allied or enemy. So many times I've heard complaints or remarks about how it is unfair for Tahm to effectively have 2 health bars. Firstly, I would like to dismiss that. Every shield in the game has a set duration during which it will absorb all the damage it can handle, usually scaling off of AP or maximum health. Or AD, if you're Riven. Kappa. Tahm's shield has the potential to be ridiculously large, literally thousands of health, but you have to realize that it decays. It gets weaker the longer it is out, and it decays fast, baby. That is, assuming he turns on the shield at all, causing him to lose valuable regeneration that is curcial to his sustain in the lane or jungle. Salty he can tank much more than your average bear, "dodging" powerful executes or spells with his large shield? There are countless other champions that can do that - , , , , , and practically any other champion that has dashes, a list too long to enact. I've never found it unfair, playing as and against Tahm that he can have a brief window of relative power that is over before you know it. Why?

• Tahm is a tank, and you'll notice he lacks a lot of the things tanks require. Tahm has zero engage, zero AoE CC, and his overreliance on health means that people who can shred resistances, or who have % damage, are very effective at taking him down. Every tank in the game has some way of running into a team and locking them down, possessing powerful AoE tools to turn the tides of a teamfight. , , , are some of the ones that I can think of off the top of my head. Tahm's Champion Insight [found here] does a really good job of explaining this - Tahm's tanky and annoying as hell and he has a lot of unique aspects to his kit, but he's balanced around the fact that he's not a tank in the truest sense of the word. He can't engage, and his peel effectively rewards enemies who focus him instead of the carries. At least until he gets full and has to spit them out again.

• This is also important because Tahm can't eat everyone. In a teamfight, I often find myself forced to choose whether I have to eat the that is utterly wrecking my back line, or save my f****** Vayne who thinks that she can 1v5 just because she has ult on. And sometimes, yeah, I choose wrong. I've lost teamfights, and games, because I ate the wrong target, or maybe even the right target but at the wrong time. If Tahm saves his allied champion, he's made the teamfight a 4v5. If he eats an enemy, then how did he reach your backline in the first place, even long enough to land 3 autos? That's not a matter of Tahm being a broken champion, it's a matter of proper positioning.

Hope these 3-4 last ones helped in particular. [slayer-jinx-catface]

Jungle

Tahm has been seeing some play in Solo Queue as a jungler thanks to his ability to quickly clear by Devouring the large monsters and sustaining with his Thick Skin. He synergizes very well with and a or second item is really good on him. He has decent ganks, provided he can land an initial Tongue Lash, and his Devour is a really strong tool to lock down a target and secure a kill for his laners (or himself, he's the carry after all :P).

• From personal experience I can tell you Tahm has a really weak first clear. I always start Gromp and work my way from there, and due to the fact that his sustain comes from Thick Skin, which usually isn't unlocked until Level 3, he can have trouble doing a full jungle rotation without a strong first leash, especially with the removal of Ranger's (RIP my sweet). This is where I'd recommend someone who can cheese him early - , , and all work wonders at shutting down the River King's jungle presence. And if you can kill him, all the better.

• Tahm's ganks are shut down hard by counter-ganks, due to the fact that his whole offensive kit revolves around enemy Devour. If he's spent it, providing that you're not dead, he doesn't have the tools to fight back against a wild enemy jungler that has no also appeared, who is free to fight back and peel for you. He doesn't have the strongest ganks in the first place, due to the fact that his CC and lockdown potential comes is tied exlcusively to his passive, which requires the big guy to get a taste of you first. Kiting and mobility are really good against him, as are wards. Wards save lives, my friends.

• Tahm also doesn't have the best dragon and Baron, er, taking? You can't eat dragon - or Baron, or red buff, or blue buff, or Vilemaw. (However, you can eat ghost dragon, which is hilarious. Tahm FTW), so Tahm essentially just has Tongue Lash and his autos, which aren't that much. However, what he can do is tank the damn thing for forever and ever, so if you can muster good dragon control (read: ), Tahm definitely is not the best jungler for securing objectives. But his laugh is good for spamming. There's that, right? Kappa.

• I'll also point out here that Tahm has zero mobility. Zip. You catch the River King out and he will be dead, just like most other tanks. However, he is a very strong duelist mid-game, so if you invade and catch him in his jungle (or if he invades and catches you in yours), he will definitely put up a very good fight. That is why it is important to establish early dominance. Show that motherfucker who's in charge here!

Well, I think that just about does it. I really, really hope this helps, because I'm getting a bit tired of the hate on him as a champion, because I truly feel that there are champions we should be worrying about more right now, and that are more powerrful, more harmful to the game, and more deserving of a ban than he does. I'm guilty of bias but I'm also guilty of laying down the facts, and the fact is that Tahm has plenty of counterplay and lots of ways to shut him down by exploiting his weaknesses.

Please tell me if I had any grammar or spelling errors so I can fix those ASAP, and also feel free to leave your opinion below so that I can adress those as well. Again, I hope this helped, see you on the Rift!

The world's one river, and I'm its king. Ain't no place I ain't been, ain't no place I can't go again.