So you’re playing a game, you push your lane in the top, you win your lane, have your objectives under control, and see your bot lane duo popping off. You breathe a sigh of relief because you think the game is already won, then you suddenly see a Vayne double kill; no big deal, you’re winning; that’s what matters. Then you see another Vayne kill announcement and another and another, and all of a sudden, their Vayne is killing your entire team. She has farmed her core items and is now snowballing her team to victory; what do you do? Is there a way to stop this? Is there a way to prevent this? Well, if you’re asking yourself that question, you are reading the right article because I will show you all the ways you can counter Vayne and prevent her hyper-carry late game. Read on as we study her skills and different champions and items to counter her.
Vayne’s Abilities
- Passive – Night Hunter – Every time she moves towards enemies, she gains a bonus movement speed, perfect for chasing down enemies and dodging skillshots.
- Q – Tumble – Vayne tumbles to a certain location. She then gains a bonus attack damage on her next basic attack. This is perfect for positioning and even dodging enemy spells cast on Vayne. She can also use this to chase enemy champions even faster.
- W – Silver Bolts – With every basic attack, Vayne puts this stack on the enemy champion. On the third stack or third hit on the same unit, Vayne deals true damage on the enemy depending on its max health. Attacking a different unit would transfer the stack instead of to that unit, and the stack would back to one. This works perfectly against champions with lots of armor.
- E – Condemn – Vayne can cast condemn on enemies, which will push them back. If the enemy hits a terrain when pushed, that champion is stunned for a certain duration, depending on Vayne’s level. Condemn also puts a stack of silver bolts on the enemy.
- R – Final Hour – With her ultimate skill, Vayne unsheathes her large crossbow on her back, and she gains bonuses on her skills. Vayne gains a flat amount of physical damage and also doubles the movement speed she gains from her passive. Every time Vayne uses a tumble, she becomes invisible, and the cooldown of her tumble is also greatly reduced.
As you might hear from different videos or read from different articles, the best way to know your way around a champion is to play it yourself; that way, you can get familiarized with its strengths and weaknesses. This way, when playing against a Vayne, you’ll know when her vulnerable moments are, how to lane against her, and even different factors. Now let’s move on, knowing the champions to use against Vayne especially early game. Vayne’s early game is very weak so harassing her early game with ADC champions with long-range or junglers with high mobility is a great way to shut her off. So let’s take a look at the candidates.
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Best Champions That Counter Vayne in Season 12
1. Ashe
Vayne primarily loses to champions with very long ranges, and Ashe specializes just like that. She has a very long base attack range that has a passive that slows every enemy she hits with her basic attack. With this, you can easily win an early game matchup with Vayne by bullying her in the lane. Ashe also has her W ability which fires a volley of arrows that damages and slows enemies hit with it. Vayne would really have a hard time facing Ashe in the early game, even so in the late game when Ashe farms faster than Vayne
2. Lux / Caitlyn duo
This bot lane composition has many ways to counter and kill vayne many items, be it early or late game. With Lux being aggressive support, she can zone Vayne out of the minion exp range. Lux can also cast her Q ability to root Vayne. Caitlyn can follow up on her W’s ability to further the crowd control. The duo can burst her down with this. If Vayne manages to get away, both champions have very long-ranged ultimates, which they can both use to secure the kill on Vayne. This bot lane duo is very effective from early to late game.
3. Shadow Assassin Kayn
Vayne is considered a glass cannon, which means in exchange for her very high damage output in the late game, she is squishy and easy to kill throughout the game. So it means she is very susceptible to assassinations of champions such as Kayn with very high burst potential. With Kayn, you can surprise Vayne wherever she is with your ability to walk through walls. Suppose you choose to be blue Kayn or shadow assassin Kayn. In that case, you can easily build lots of lethality items and literally one shot vayne with your basic combo and passive; if she manages to survive, you can cast your ultimate to finally finish her off.
With all that in mind, these are just a few champions to counter Vayne; with this next section of the article, I will teach you the general counters for Vayne to figure out which champions counter her.
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The Best Tips On How To Play Against Vayne
- Outranging her would put her at a very huge disadvantage.
- Build anti-heal items because Vayne uses lifesteal to make up for her squishy nature.
- Burst champions like assassin mages and assassin junglers are champions made to counter glass cannons like Vayne
- Champions with gap closers and crowd control abilities lock her down in one place.
- Immediately using exhaust on Vayne just before a fight erupts is the perfect way to counter her, slowing her down and bringing her damage output down to 60%.
- Constant harassment would prevent her from farming, thus shutting her out of the game.
- Wave management to put her in a very susceptible position to ganks so you can repeatedly kill her.
- Don’t pick champions with no gap closer against her as she would just run around and hit you, and you will never get to touch her.
Best Items to Counter Vayne in Season 12
1. Duskblade of Draktharr
This item is the best friend of almost all assassins. It deals bonus damage to champions that have not seen you in a while. Champions like Shaco can surprise Vayne with his burst damage along with Dark Harvest and Duskblade. With this item’s high damage and lethality passive, you can surely burst Vayne before she can even do some damage to your team. Sometimes, the best defense is killing the enemy fast enough they won’t have time to react.
2. Frozen Heart
This item is great for champions that rely on basic attacks and attack speed. Not only will this item slow Vayne’s attack speed down, but it would also help mitigate her very high damage output because of the large amount of armor it gives.
3. Thornmail
The only way to counter Vayne’s damage is through building lots of armor and lots of health and sustain. With thorn mail, you can have both, and it’s passive that reflects damage, which is perfect because Vayne relies mostly on her basic attacks. This item also inflicts grievous wounds on champions that hit the wearer with a basic attack, also a great way to counter her lifesteal.
Also read: How to Counter Riven?
Conclusion
After everything you have read, you should know how to stop a Vayne from snowballing by now. After all, if a Vayne gets fed and is practically doing a 1v9, you lose the game unless your team focuses on locking her down with stuns and roots. Vayne deals a percentage of health, so tanks really aren’t that great against her too, so working as a team will always be the best way to counter her. After all, league of legends is a team game and should always be played to win more frequently. Thank you for reading and GLHF summoner; see you on the rift.
