Karma

Detailed Tips

1. 01

   Alcove Strat - Karma is a pretty horrid match up at most points within the game, mainly due to the fact her damage, sustain and overall tankiness from potential builds, make her very difficult to play against. With that said, use the alcove strat to help you prevent tanking unnecessary level 1 damage, while waiting for the 1st wave to push towards your side until you come out.

2. 02

   Play For Sustain Early - Karma’s ability to have low CDs, high damage and high factors of sustain makes it a very hard match up in being able to be aggressive. With that said, try to play to survive with abusing items like D Shield and Second Wind to help you bypass her horrible poke, up until you’re able to get ganks or reach level 6 for a potential kill angle within the lane.

3. 03

   Respect Karma's R - Karma’s R allows her to empower her abilities to provide the following variables; Empowered Q allows her to do even more damage, on top of slowing her targets even harder. / Empowered W allows her to root her target longer, while also providing her the ability to heal 17% missing HP back from her target, which also heals her for the same amount if she completes or kills her target with W active. / Karma’s E provides a bigger shield, while also providing her teammates an AoE and movement speed shield. Overall, respect Karma’s empowered ability as this allows her to force strong trades against you.

4. 04

   Avoid Karma Q Poke - Karma’s Q is primarily her main poking tool, to which she will try and use this whenever you walk up towards her or the minion wave. Karma’s empowered Q poke also deals a truck load of damage, which you need to try and avoid at all costs. When you understand how Karma Q’s, try to use that pattern against her by baiting her Q to force it on CD, allowing you room to potentially fight her. Alternatively, you can also play around your minion wave to help you block her Q, especially if she’s running towards you and looking to stun you directly in front of her.

5. 05

   Respect Karma R W - As mentioned, Karma’s W can help root and heal from her target based on her missing HP. Karma’s W is a VERY frustrating ability into Renekton, mainly due to the reason she prevents Renekton from putting her into a lethal range, while providing peel against Renekton’s combos. The only thing we can really do into Karma at this point, is let her hit the first W to put her R on CD, following on from that we then use our dash to escape out of her tether range. This allows her to only heal once, rather than twice, which can help remove her additional healing within the lane. This ability is pretty aids in general, so unless you can stay out of healing range and spam ping your jungler, that’s the best thing you can really do.

6. 06

   Rush Mercury Treads - Mercury Treads are a really great rush into Karma, as it can help you mitigate against her magic damage abilities, on top of providing the mobility and tenacity needed to survive or fight against Karma. Personally if you don’t go Mercs, Karma just gets to do whatever she wants with you, so make sure to rush these to have a chance into Karma.

7. 07

   Play For Ganks - This match up is practically very boring and very reliant on Karma running out of mana, or massively misplaying to the point you can kill her. Aside from that, try to get your jungler to help snowball your side of the map by playing the wave on your side, while spam pinging them when they’re on your side of the map. Karma only has her E for mobility, yet that isn’t enough to stop Renekton from bursting and catching her out with his dashes. If your jungler comes, make sure to use empowered W in a trade to help burst Karma down, while presenting your jungler an easy way to engage onto Karma. Getting any lead from ganks can massively change the lane, so make sure to play waves to where you’re able to get them.

8. 08

   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.

9. 09

   Build Eclipse, Black Cleaver or Stridebreaker - 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 Stridebreaker to cripple Karma’s mobility and provide teammates with additional utility.

10. 10

    Mid Game + Teamfighting Tips - Karma’s overall presence with the game will focus on her buffing her allies with her movement speed and shield gameplay, on top of using her Q to burst your back line or stun her targets with her W. As Renekton, now that we reached these points of the game, we need to play with the ability to focus her carries while trying to avoid Karma’s main abilities. Within teamfights, it’s best to play as a distraction or engage for your team, trying to intentionally bait Karma’s focus onto you. Karma will typically use her E to peel and protect her carries, to which Renekton will need to prioritise his empowered W to instantly break these shields. Alternatively, you can go Serpent’s Fang to help deal with her abundance of shields for the team, but if you’re already weak-sided you’re better off just focusing her main target with W to instantly remove all her value she provides onto them.