Annie
Matchup Summary
Annie's high range and annoyingly defensive playstyle, can also be an issue for Renekton within the early stages of the game. Renekton must try to play waves on his side of the map, waiting for Annie to use her stun to allow him to look for all in engages. Annie without her stun is practically useless, so make sure to abuse her any chance she doesn't have it. Renekton can rush raw damage or go Mercury Treads or Hexdrinker, allowing him to fight through Annie's magic damage and stun, making her easily killable in any overextended positions. Through the game, Annie's main focus will be trying to look for your teammates through her roams or flanks, make sure to always ping Annie's location and try to deny her from reaching your teammates with her stun and R combo.
Detailed Tips
- 01
Play For Sustain - Early on within the lane, Annie’s oppressiveness comes from her auto attacks and her long range Q. Annie will typically farm with her Q as it refunds her mana from each minion kill, providing her plenty of sustain to easily farm from afar while also allowing her to play safe and very annoying. As Renekton, she will try to use her damage to poke you out of the lane, alongside use her passive to deny any attempts to fight her. With that said make sure to use D Shield and Second Wind to help you get through the first few levels until you’re able to abuse your level 3 and Mercury Treads powerspike.
- 02
Play Around Her Passive - Annie Passive when she reaches 4 stacks provides Annie with a free stun within her next ability, allowing her to stun her targets from her Q, E or R. When laning vs her, try to abuse Annie if she uses her passive stack to farm minions with her Q. Most often you will be able to look for your trades once she has no passive stacks, make sure to also coordinate team plays around her having no passive.
- 03
Respect Annie W - Annie W is low key strong into burst champions, due to the fact it provides her movement speed to kite away, on top of the fact it provides her a shield and a thornmail based passive. Within the lane, if Annie has 0 stacks she may use her W randomly to generate her a passive stack for her stun. If she does this and you’re safe to do so, you can look to heavy trade Annie before she gets her Stun up. Be wary if anyone is around in the times you abuse this, as she will most likely reach her passive stun in the time you’re finishing your trade.
- 04
Rush Mercury Treads - Rushing Mercury Treads helps you reach the necessary stat checking power to start overpowering Annie in fights. The tenacity easily helps you escape her stun combos providing you with the defensive and offensive capabilities to easily solo kill Annie. The additional movement speed also helps you easily stick onto her, in combination with being able to escape her range a lot easier.
- 05
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.
- 06
Play Wave On Your Side - Playing the wave on your side essentially means playing wave states on your side of the map, via abusing wave manipulation tactics or freezing on your side of the map. Simply use this to help you combo on your laner, taking away any space from them being able to trade you back (This also helps prevent the enemy running you down with their extended or sustained movement speed abilities). You can also use this wave state to run down your opponent with your abilities up, helping you obtain kills a lot easier vs stalemate or ranged match ups. Look to do this when your opponents are below 50% HP, or potentially make a mistake to provide you an all in opportunity to run them down.
- 07
Ping Annie’s Roams - Annie is a great skirmisher champion, as Annie can utilise a huge AoE burst stun from her R, helping her easy one shot targets as well as allowing her teams to easily win the fights. Try to constantly ping her whereabouts within the game, don’t let her roam for free and punish her by shoving the wave every time she is missing. Getting a lead through platings and CS is a big way to overpower Annie, as these moments can help you reach your item and level spikes faster.
- 08
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.
- 09
Build Hexdrinker, Eclipse, Stridebreaker or Profane - Go Hexdrinker to lower Annie'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 Annie’s mobility and provide teammates with additional utility. / Go Profane for full damage focused playstyles.
- 10
Mid Game + Teamfighting Tips - Annie’s role within the mid to late game is to essentially play around her flash R engages. These are crucial for her having any key success to win the game, as it provides mass utility which is relatively easy to do. If Annie doesn’t have her stun or flash ready before fights, then this becomes a giant indicator to try and look for a fight while she doesn’t have either ready. If Annie cannot successfully reach your backline, she simply becomes irrelevant as she doesn’t have the total damage to deal with bruisers or tanks. Within the fights, try to stop Annie running at your backline by trying to peel her off with your W and your overall damage. You simply win if Annie can't play her game, so do the best you can to nullify her attempts. Try to also respect fog of war points, as Annie loves to also pick off her opponents this way. Utilise yellow or blue trinkets to assert vision and safely play around these situations.