Gragas
Matchup Summary
Gragas's difficult comes from the ability to nullify Renekton's trading patterns with his E and run away playstyle. Renekton from the get go should abuse E start if Gragas tried to be annoying, allowing him to use E back and punish Gragas for forcing the play. Renekton's strong wave clear will allow Renekton to easily get good back timers, while mana burning Gragas from contesting push. Renekton's main kill window appears at level 6, once Renekton has Mercury Treads or Eclipse components, Renekton's ability to easily break out of Gragas E and use his high damage simply remains too much for Gragas to contest. Later on, Renekton's objective should be to ignore Gragas and focus his carry teammates. Make sure to watch out for Gragas's pick style engages with his flash, as this allows him to be lethal within teamfights. If Gragas has no flash, fights are a lot easier to take against him and his team, as Gragas entirely relies on this spell.
Detailed Tips
- 01
Skill Ability Accordingly - Level 1 is within your favour, as Renekton can skill accordingly to counter Gragas’s ability start. For example, if Gragas takes E and tries to cheese you before the wave, or he simply tries to walk in and use it, you can skill E and trade back after he uses his E, which overall helps you setup a level 2 kill with W. If he takes Q, or W level 1, you can simply take Q and try to out push him, presenting you a level 2 trade window, or the ability to have complete wave control.
- 02
Respect Gragas’s Combo - At level 3 onwards gragas will typically W > E > Q > AA, which allows him to burst your HP, on top of him receiving phase rush to completely nullify his opponent from trading pack. The best way to avoid this is simply playing around minions, as he won’t be able to get his E hit, and if Gragas does E a minion, this presents you in a free trading opportunity to help you chunk out Gragas.
- 03
Abuse Your Waveclear - Renekton's waveclear typically allows for gragas to use a lot of Mana back in trying to secure CS, or deny Renekton's push. This leads to Gragas losing mana fast on his early levels, leaving him unable to contest Renekton's roams or even tower dives if Gragas is low enough. If you’re able to crash waves and deny any Gragas roams, or skirmishes, this is huge for Renekton to have total control, on top of him also being able to easily reach his own powerspikes a lot easier.
- 04
Abuse W Buffer vs E - One of the biggest tools to deny gragas's play pattern is abusing Renekton's W into Gragas E interaction. The way this works is that if you activate W just before Gragas collides, Renekton can spam right click to help him stun Gragas right on the collision animation, stunning Gragas right on top of him. Doing this sets Renekton up to use his E's and the rest of his abilities to out trade Gragas and hard punish him from playing recklessly.
- 05
Rush Mercury Treads - If Renekton is able to buy Mercury Treads, this allows him to easily escape Gragas’s E stun, allowing him to punish Gragas even harder with the W buffer trick. Buying boots also allows you to easily lower Gragas’s overall damage, while providing you more mobility to help you manoeuvre against Gragas Q and his overall combos.
- 06
Respect Gragas Combos - Gragas has a ton of combos that can most certainly catch you off guard, these consist of plays such as his E Flash if you’re low or if he’s trying to setup a gank for his team, or using his R into Q combos to help one shot or push you towards his tower. Make sure to read the situation accurately by taking into account where you are in the lane, while also taking into account how much HP you’re around too. You can also use this foresight in your advantage to bait Gragas with your R to turn the fights, or waste his R and Flash with your movement, E or Flash.
- 07
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.
- 08
3 Points Q > W Max - I personally love W max in this match up as I’m able to consistently provide W’s around the same time as Gragas has E, allowing me to counteract his negative playstyle to help provide me consistent access to getting my damage off on Gragas, as well as being able to find more kill opportunities onto him. Once I have more Haste, this presents me with an even much easier time to find kills and easily shut down his playstyle.
- 09
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.
- 10
Mid Game + Teamfighting Tips - Gragas as a champion has a lot of tools, playstyles and overall gameplans to help him provide plenty of utility towards his teammates, or enough damage to easily nuke people from the game. Some of these come in the form of him playing as a tank, bruiser or a full damage carry, all of which come with their own strengths and weaknesses. Currently as a top laner, Gragas prefers playing a more heavy AP playstyle, as this is what can easily help him maintain his relevancy within the game as much as providing him a clear win condition to play around. Overall Gragas’s win condition is playing off his flash, followed by his E and R, allowing him to create disgusting full damage combos. As Renekton, before any major fights, you want to try your hardest to make sure you can burn his flash out within the side lane or skirmishes. Try to hard focus him when you get the opportunity to, as losing this will severely weaken his overall team fighting plays. Within teamfights, try your hardest to block his E and his path to reaching your teammates, as this will nullify Gragas’s overall strengths as a pick.