Leona
Matchup Summary
Leona is practically a free match up for Renekton, as Leona doesn't provide any offensive capabilities to really deal with Renekton's early game. Renekton's only difficulty within this match up, is simply trying to get consistent kills against her tanky kit. Instead, Renekton can look to abuse his waveclear and look to proxy behind her turret, allowing him to create tempo advantages or kill Leona's jungler. Overall, Renekton can practically do whatever he wants within the match up. Only thing Leona can do within the later stages of the game, is use her CC to stun lock targets for her team. Try to avoid any situations where you're isolated vs her and her team, as her high CC can potentially shut you down. Within team fights, simply ignore her and focus her carries to easily win the fights.
Detailed Tips
- 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 and look for a level 2 kill.
- 02
Play For Level 2/3 Kill Angle - Once you chunk out Leona you're most likely able to kill her with your W, Dash or Flash up. Look to shove the wave around your kill timer, so you're able to make Leona lose a lot more.
- 03
Don't Combo Vs Leona W - One of Leona’s safety tools into Renekton, is being able to time her W into Renekton’s combo. When Leona uses W, she’s able to obtain from 8% to 24% damage reduction, alongside 20 to 50 armour scaling from her bonus armour. Leona W allows her to soak up any kind of incoming damage, making it a core ability to play around before committing to any all ins. Usually Leona will use her W if she’s engaging on to her target, or if you’re walking up with the attempt of using your abilities. Make sure before any committed fight you simply bait it out by auto attacking her, or waiting for her to force an engage. Once Leona has no W you can abuse its 14 second CD to force any fights you want.
- 04
Respect Leona Chain CC - Leona’s whole kit is focused on using her CC to catch out her enemies, as well as using it for core ganking or teamplay setups. When laning vs Leona, make sure to always ward river bushes as she can easily apply her CC in quick succession. When playing around Leona, try to also time your E’s to reposition away or cut her overall CC animation if she tries to hit you. (E’ing vs Leona E, allows you to dash away within the stun animation, on top of repositioning away from her original hitbox location.)
- 05
Abuse Renekton's Early Game - In this match up Renekton is essentially able to do whatever he simply wants. With that said, really hone into your strong early to mid game strengths to help you dominate and win the game. Play to deny your enemy of gold and xp, play to proxy and generally lead any top side skirmishes with your insane lane advantage.
- 06
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.
- 07
Heavy Trades - Being that Renekton carries a lot of high damage, Renekton is able to just jump on his target nearly at will. Whenever your laners present you with the ability to jump on them, simply take the opportunity to burst them as much as you can. If you didn't kill them already from that, use your options of freezing or your tower diving ability to help you finish off your opponent.
- 08
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.
- 09
Mid Game + Teamfighting Tips - Leona’s overall role consists of playing around her team, using her CC as her main attribute to make offensive or defensive plays. Leona cannot really do a lot when it comes to fighting Renekton, which instead she will continuously opt towards playing around her team looking for the right moment to engage. When playing against Leona, always be sure to ward around fog of war territories and key objectives. Leona’s strength is catching her targets off guard, allowing her and her team to easily dogpile onto her target. As long as you can ward before she’s able to make engages, Leona will lose her relevancy to find plays. Renekton’s strength within the side lane also creates many problems for Leona, as Renekton’s instant wave clear and dueling potential is too much for her to handle. As Renekton, we can typically look to abuse these strengths to force Leona into an uncomfortable position, or we can continue to push and dominate any side lane fights. Make sure when pushing to also ward around you, as Leona’s overall engage set up is enough to instantly deny Renekton from playing his game. Within teamfights, try to ignore Leona and look towards focusing on her carries. Leona players typically autopilot most teamfights by looking for core engages on her enemies backline, taking away her ability to defend diver champions such as Renekton from killing her teammates. Once Leona loses out on her main carries, Leona’s role will simply fall into obscurity.