Akali
Matchup Summary
The Akali match up is Renekton favoured, due to his ability to avoid her damage using his movement and dashes, taking away Akali’s damage and allowing Renekton to force advantageous trades. Make sure you always play with this playstyle in mind, if Akali hits her abilities she can do a ton of damage, potentially allowing her to kill Renekton. Make sure to play the wave on your side of the map, while abusing fast trades to help take her health down. Eventually make sure to protect your carries from her, using your W to completely lock her down and prevent her ability to carry fights. Renekton can build high damage items to help him duel Akali, or he can build defensive items like Hexdrinker or Kaenic later, to help him make Akali’s damage non-existent.
Detailed Tips
- 01
Level 1 E Start - Try to cheese PTA proc or Conq with E1 > 3 auto's > disengage with E2.
- 02
Play For Level 2/3 Kill Angle - Once you chunk out Akali you're most likely able to kill her with your W, Dash or Flash up. Look to shove the wave around your kill timer, so you're able to make Akali lose a lot more.
- 03
Avoid And Punish Akali Q's - Avoiding Akali Q is crucial for the early stage of the lane. From level 1, you want to be constantly weaving in and out of her, to help you bait out her Q and punish her long energy usage. An easy way to know if Akali will Q is walking into low HP minions, then quickly using S or clicking back to bait the animation. Once she does miss, make sure to abuse your combos within this time.
- 04
Avoid Akali E - Akali E is a big game changer for Akali if she is able to land it. Typically it will allow her to proc her Conq or Electrocute super fast, while allowing her insane damage onto her target. Simply bait or avoid it by E'ing towards her, but just around your minions, or try to walk in then side step to the side. If Akali misses E, she simply can not win the fight vs Renekton.
- 05
Buffer W into Akali E or W Stealth - Another tip to dominating the lane is utilising W buffer into Akali W or E frame. When Akali goes invisible, make sure to hold W and as soon as she comes out, instantly click or use attack move to get the instant hit to help you shred out, or utilise a full combo. For Akali E, you can time it as she's in E1 or at the end of E2.
- 06
Abuse Renekton's Waveclear - A giant advantage Renekton has within this match up, is his overall ability to easily clear minion waves. This can help him achieve perfect tempo resets, or allow him to proxy waves to help increase his gold lead, while also hostaging the enemy top laner under their own tower. Being able to fast clear also forces the enemy into contesting push, allowing you to easily mana burn and create advantageous positions from it. Abuse this strength to cheat out bad laning situations, or increase your overall power within the game.
- 07
Play Waves Accordingly - Simply assess whether or not you want to play for freeze, to help you deny XP and CS, while presenting yourself more opportunities to create fights. Or, play to shove waves to create proxy angles, tempo resets or create a dive opportunity. Renekton has all the cards to do whatever he wants with wave management. Also respect that if your laner tries to proxy, simply proxy back or coordinate a kill on them with your jungler.
- 08
Quick Trades - E > Q > AA > W > AA > E Out / E > Q > W > E / E Q E - These combos allow for Renekton to get quick damage off in being able to keep health up and whittling his opponent down, use these to get your laner low and look for a low HP kill with flash
- 09
Respect Akali R Damage - Akali's R2 damage is increased based on your missing HP, so make sure you use your R to mitigate damage against reaching her execute threshold or try to simply time your flash or E to avoid her R.
- 10
Abuse Renekton's R Powerspike - Abuse Renekton's R Powerspike - Once you reach level 6 your ultimate will essentially help you consistently stat check and dominate any match ups you were winning or losing. Make sure to always wait for your R CD to help you make plays, otherwise it will lead you towards a major disadvantage in dueling your enemies.
- 11
Build Hexdrinker, Eclipse, Stridebreaker or BoTRK - Go Hexdrinker to lower Akali's overall damage and have a MR shield / Go Eclipse for consistent power through mid game and damage mitigation with the shield. / Go Stridebreaker to cripple Akali’'s mobility and provide teammates with additional utility. / Go BoTRK to one shot and snowball with a damage focused build.
- 12
Mid Game + Teamfighting Tips - Akali's role within the mid game is trying to actively search for your squisher teammates with the objective of trying to one shot them before any major objectives. Your role to stop her in the game is simply putting out wards in fog of war, trying to spot her out and deny her flank opportunities. In each fight simply use W as soon as you can on her, whether that’s the beginning of her engage, or just as soon as she comes out of W. Make sure to use your full combo on Akali as you will be able to easily one shot her alone, or with your teammates' damage on top. Once Akali is dead, her team will lose out on a lot of backline focused damage, allowing you and your team to steamroll the rest of the fight.