Caitlyn
Matchup Summary
Caitlyn's early oppression and range can lead to Renekton having a harder time to find his damage and kill angles onto Caitlyn. Renekton's gameplan early into Cait, should be taking Doran's Shield and Second Wind, allowing him to sustain against her damage, as well as rushing Plated Steelcaps to help provide him the utility to tank her damage and create additional kill windows to run her down the lane. Renekton should also try to play the wave on his side, allowing his jungler to gank and provide Renekton more opportunities to fight. Once reaching level 6, Renekton can look to double dash onto Cait, allowing him to get in range and use his R to stat check and help kill or put Cait into lethal range, providing Renekton a free tower dive or recall. Within the mid game, Caitlyn's damage will slowly scale until she reaches her late game items, providing Renekton a window in the game to force his natural strengths to help win skirmishes and teamfights.
Detailed Tips
- 01
Play For Sustain Early - Caitlyn as a pick is very unusual as a top laner, however her kit is relatively pretty decent in poking down Renekton and keeping him at bay with her abilities. Early on in the laning phase, try to utilise the bushes to avoid Caitlyn’s range early with the intention of trying to keep your HP up the entire time. Utilise D Shield and Second Wind to survive her early poke and play to over power Cait with your Plated Steelcaps and R powerspikes.
- 02
Play For Mana Burn - This matchup is very difficult with how high range and oppressive caitlyn is. To secure kills early, you need to burn her mana out, which then follows up to the ability to kill her by yourself or with your own jungler. By trying to initiate with E in the lane, you can play to bait out her E and traps, with the intention of using E2 to reset and burn her mana. Eventually this will stack up and present you an easier time to combo onto her, or present you the ability to kill her.
- 03
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
- 04
Rush Plated Steelcaps - Rushing Plated Steelcaps into Caitlyn will essentially allow you to counter her pick and provide you an easier time to deal with her. Utilising the armour and on hit passive will completely cut Caitlyn’s ability to have poke you down effectively, or have the damage to over throw Renekton. Once having boots try to play more aggressively and look to play for kills when the wave is on your side of the map.
- 05
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.
- 06
Play For Ganks - Her kit is almost tailored made early to deny Renekton from his strengths, however Renekton's gank setup is what can easily obtain kills on Caitlyn. Try to spam ping assistance to help you receive a gank, to take advantage of Caitlyn's low mobility and squishy stats. If you’re able to burn Caitlyn’s flash, you may be able to dive her or present yourself the overall opportunity to solo kill her.
- 07
Abuse Renekton's R Powerspike - Prior to this point in the match up, if Renekton has farmed safely and rushed defensive boots in the match up, Renekton is now ready to fight his opponent in an all in. Renekton's high base damage and stats from his R, allows Renekton to completely stat check his counter match up. Simply wait for the enemy to make a mistake, then go all out and kill your opponent.
- 08
Build Eclipse, Stridebreaker or Profane - Go Eclipse for consistent power through mid game and damage mitigation with the shield. / Go Stridebreaker to cripple Caitlyn’s mobility and provide teammates with additional utility. / Go Profane for full damage focused playstyles.
- 09
Mid Game + Teamfighting TIps - Once you get into the mid game, Caitlyn’s mid game is generally a lot weaker than her early or late game stages are, due to the fact her item prices cost a lot and overall she needs to have a solid early game to really make use of a good mid game. With that said, try to abuse Caitlyn’s downtime power by using Renekton’s advantage over taking objectives and trying to force plays. Renekton generally will be able to have a much easier time into her potential team comp, due to the Caitlyn pick losing out the defensive frontlining abilities a team comp like hers would need. Mid game will be your total advantage, building items like Randuin's Omen to nullify crit damage as well as mobility will be giant in being able to soak up damage and carry off this role alone.