Cho'Gath
Matchup Summary
Cho'Gath's early game is easily exploitable by avoiding his Q's and E extended trades, by using your movement to bait either ability or forcing quick trades with your own abilities. Renekton can easily bully Cho'Gath and push him into uncomfortable lane states if he plays the wave on his side of the map, forcing Cho to waste mana for his Q, as well as allowing Renekton to dash into range. Within the mid to late game, Cho'Gath's tanky build and HP scaling will become a problem, however with item rushes like BoTRK or Eclipse, these provide Renekton with the damage to completely nuke his HP, countering Cho'Gath's additional HP stacking out of his passive and items. When teamfighting try to ignore Cho, while focusing on his damage carries to lower his overall relevancy within teamfights,
Detailed Tips
- 01
Level 1 Q Start - Try to push for level 2 advantage while poking Cho’Gath with your Q, on level 2 skill E/W use advantage to chunk out Cho’Gath.
- 02
Respect Cho’Gath’s E Damage - Cho’Gath’s E damage throughout all points of the game is a very strong ability, allowing Cho’Gath to stat check his opponents and win up close duels. Typically we want to walk close enough to help us bait the ability out, in which right after he uses it we simply try to walk out of his range to avoid it from hitting us. As we get stronger in the lane, we’re able to end up tanking his E damage, however we don’t want to tank the damage for free as it will leave us in an uncomfortable position.
- 03
Dodge Cho’gath’s Q - Cho’Gath’s Q is his main ability that he will be playing around in the lane. Cho’Gath’s Q can do a lot of damage, so being hit by this can lead to a lot of problems and set up his overall kill angles. Try to read the patterns of how he uses Q, then try to bait it out by walking towards minions or towards him, as making him miss Q will be absolutely bad for him when trying to fight 1v1. When you are fighting Cho’Gath, try to always walk around him and anticipate his Q placement as this will help you side step his Q’s, allowing for an easier time in shutting him down.
- 04
Respect And Abuse Cho’Gath’s W - Cho'Gaths W is another good tool to help him obtain kills, especially against Renekton as he can use it to silence Renekton before being able to R. When playing against Cho’Gath, there’s a few tricks we can use to avoid Cho’s W. When dashing into him we can avoid the W hitbox if we are fast enough, by dashing when he least expects it or simply E’ing fast enough to land behind him. We can also buffer our abilities into Cho W, to allow us to use our abilities through his silence.
- 05
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.
- 06
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.
- 07
Respect Cho’Gaths’ R - Cho’Gath’s R is an ability you always need to play around, as letting him get his R stack off you or your allies can be very detrimental to feeding him towards his overall powerspikes. Cho R is usually around 80-60 seconds, and within that time he uses it on minions you should look to punish by fighting him. Cho without R won’t be able to kill Renekton, so make sure to hard abuse your Empowered E’s, R damage and item stats to overpower and kill Cho.
- 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
3 Points Q > W Max - I personally prefer doing W max in this match up, as items such as BoTRK can help me easily shred through Cho’gath’s high HP pool, on top of also utilising many W’s within a fight to abuse BoTRK passive a lot harder. As the game continues, W max will also help as a great tool in being able to peel against Cho’Gath’s assault towards your teammates, along with you always having the damage to battle him within most areas of the game.
- 10
Build Eclipse, Black Cleaver or BoTRK - Go Eclipse for consistent power through mid game and damage mitigation with the shield. / Go Black Cleaver for additional CDR and other versatile stats for utility based gameplay. / Go BoTRK to one shot and snowball with a damage focused build.
- 11
Mid Game + Teamfighting Tips - The later the game reaches against Cho, the harder it will overall get to trying to close out the game vs him. While Renekton doesn’t inherently struggle hard vs Cho, his overall strengths as a teamfighting tank can surpass Renekton’s ability to stop him the later the game gets, due to his overall build paths and infinite HP scaling playstyle. As Renekton, once you snowball your laning phase, it should be within your best interest to try and close the game out as fast as you can. Try to utilise your early game lead to distribute it across the map, trying to roam towards objectives and taking towers with your team. Within teamfights, you can either play to nuke Cho’s carries, or try to utilise empowered E and W’s to shred Cho’s HP and resistances. I personally would opt towards killing his carries first, as they’re the ones that are going to likely benefit with a huge tank like Cho within the game. Alternatively, if you can catch out Cho in side lane before a major fight, this can remain very helpful as it will remove the enemies ability to have a front liner within the main fights.