K'sante

Detailed Tips

1. 01

   Level 1 Q or E Start - As mentioned through other notes, playing off Q and E both require different plays, however in this match up you can essentially do either of them and have pretty good success. With that said, play around the strengths of level 1 while avoiding K’sante’s Passive and Q trades, with the aim of potentially setting up a level 2 or 3 kill.

2. 02

   Respect K’sante’s Early Game - On the contrary to popular belief, most people think Renekton completely counters K’sante. While this used to be somewhat true, since K’sante’s changes K’sante actually has a way better time at being a neutraliser pick into Renekton, preventing Renekton from playing comfortably into the match up. K’sante’s early passive, Q and threat of W, provide K’sante with an easy solution towards Renekton’s trading patterns. While it isn’t impossible to play around it, he does always have an upper hand early with his overall potential. Try to play with the intent of scaling into the mid game, as Renekton’s overall role and strengths surpass K’sante’s.

3. 03

   Avoid K’sante Q - K’sante’s Q allows him to consistently fight and trade damage with his opponents, allowing him to also apply his CC knock up to help him synergise with the rest of his kit. K’sante Q is a very important ability to always avoid, as this can ultimately set him up to W, or use R if near a wall. Try to utilise your movement at all times to avoid K’sante’s Q, use short clicks to bait in and out movements, followed by the ability to punish it right after if you have any abilities up.

4. 04

   Avoid K'sante W - K’sante’s W is essentially a make or break ability, meaning if he hits his W, he can basically win out and heavily trade his opponent. If he misses W however, K’sante loses out on a lot of serious damage and damage reduction, making him a lot easier of a target to abuse. Renekton should never try to look for a W or fight when K’sante has W, as his damage reduction reduces all of what Renekton can provide into a fight against him. Try to bait K’sante’s W by using your E, to dash in then out, as this can usually bait K’sante to whiff his W completely. Do remember that K’sante’s W can only go in 1 line, so with that said we can E or side step to an angle to avoid it.

5. 05

   Abuse Renekton W Shieldbreak - An underrated aspect to K’sante is actually his dash ability, which allows him to dash in a short multidirection way, or he can use it onto an ally or minion to extend his dash range. His dash also provides him with a shield that scales with his overall HP. As Renekton, trading into his dash can be painful without our empowered W, but do note that we can’t always use our shieldbreak onto K’sante until he uses his W. When K’sante has no W, he most likely will try to dash and poke, meaning we can space our W within these situations.

6. 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.

7. 07

   Abuse Empowered Q/E - K’sante’s weakness against Renekton is typically through Renekton’s Q poke and empowered E shred. When trading vs K’sante, most of our damage comes from our Q as it's the safest way to trade back into him. When fighting K’sante, using empowered Q against him and the minions, will present you in being able to outsustain his short attacks while being able to whittle his HP down. Later on in the mid to late game portions of the game, I recommend using empowered E to shred his overall resistances. Using empowered E early isn’t as recommended, as it leads into unfavourable laning positions with overextending on his side of the map, or using it while he has his CC or dash available, losing out on any additional value from the empowered E shred timing.

8. 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.

9. 09

   Respect And Punish K'sante R - K’sante’s R is a very conflicting ability, as when he uses it he becomes very much weaker in his overall tankiness, allowing Renekton to easily kill if K’sante is low. However, K’sante also obtains a crazy amount of damage that Renekton can’t risk to tank whatsoever. K’sante’s R abilities upgrade making them deal even more damage, while also resetting once he uses R. Meaning, he can do a full combo then R into resetting his entire CDs (Riot Please). When fighting against K’sante with R, simply try your best to avoid his Q’s and make sure not to tank his W whatsoever, in which case we should use our dashes or flash to simply avoid it. Alternatively, before K’sante R’s try to stand on the outer lane’s side of the walls, otherwise he will be able to ult you through the wall and take you away from your turret, allowing him to secure an easy kill if you’re low.

10. 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. 11

    Mid Game + Teamfighting Tips - Renekton’s overall power surpasses K’sante when we reach the mid game, as his overall role allows him to apply a ton of utility within the fights. Renekton’s Cleaver rush and empowered E synergy, allows him to shred through K’sante’s abundance of armour, which subsequently lowers his overall damage too. Renekton’s W can also stun K’sante when he’s in his all out mode, making him a much easier target to burst down with your team. Overall, if you can prevent K’sante from jumping on your carries while utilising your strong utility options, K’sante will overall struggle in trying to play the fights vs your team. When it also comes to the side lane, Renekton’s overall power outscales K’santes with his overall potential items allowing him to do much more. Black Cleaver, BoRTK, Shojin or Eclipse, all of which provide great damage for Renekton, on top of his R AP damage, which helps him shred K’sante’s stats and provides consistent DPS within the 1v1’s. Within teamfights, our objective is essentially trying to block K’sante from jumping onto our team, as this provides him the inability to CC and potential kidnapping when your teammates are near a wall. Be aware of K’sante’s flash engages, as these can be a great setup to help his teammates initiate the fight.