How to Play Evelynn (Rework, Patch 7.20): A Quick Look at Builds, Combos, and Synergies

The newest champ rework will arrive when Patch 7.20 hits! Evelynn, the Agony’s Embrace will make her return to Summoner’s Rift after a much needed retooling. This article, written in collaboration with our experts, will cover the reasons why you’d play Eve, her item choices, champion synergies, and more! Even if you aren’t a Jungler, this guide will help you understand the nuances of what Eve wants to do and can help you work with or face off against her.

Here’s her shiny new kit – check it out or the Spotlight before you continue or some things may not be clear.

Why pick Evelynn?

Evelynn will still be at her best in the Jungle. Her kit provides bonuses against monsters, so playing her anywhere else will likely be sub-optimal.

Despite her changes, Eve retains her core identity of being a stealth assassin that can put intense pressure on an enemy team. The difference between her old self and her new self is that now, she’ll have to wait until she hits 6 before she has access to her invisibility.

In exchange for her delayed invisibility, she now has regeneration from her passive, more immediate burst potential, and CC capabilities that allow her to lock down her victims.

The primary reason why you would choose Evelynn over other Junglers is her ability to force the other team to change their overall mindset and approach to the game.

Since she can be “anywhere and everywhere”, she requires her enemies to coordinate at a greater degree in terms of communication and awareness. They’re forced to play more passively or risk being slain (we’ll be covering ways to keep her in check later in the article).

Due to her percent health damage and MR shred, Eve will also maintain more viability than other assassin Junglers due to her ability to still inflict damage on tanks.

Build

Eve wants to build full ability power damage and magic penetration as her primary stats. She wants to get in, burst, and get out so you want to maximize your immediate impact instead of opting for CDR.

Core Items

1. Boots of Mobility
2. Stalker’s Blade
3. Runic Echoes
4. Hextech Protobelt-01
5. Other good items/situational(s)

Other good items/situational(s)

• Liandry’s Torment
• Zhonya’s Hourglass
• Banshee’s Veil
• Rabadon’s Deathcap
• Void Staff
• Lich Bane

Champ and Composition Synergies

Eve is a “lone-wolf” type champ who primarily operates and excels on her own. She’s not a great team fighter and doesn’t have many tools to set up her teammates. Teams will often instead, have to build themselves around Eve to give her CC and gank assist. In terms of composition, Eve thrives in situations where she can enemies in isolation or in smaller numbers than usual.

• Champions
  • Lulu (gives Eve ton of utility and protection to pull off assassinations)
  • Shen (you can pull off surprise submarine tactics)
  • Thresh (gives hard-CC and can help her get out with lantern)
  • Twisted  Fate (champs with good map presence can combine with Eve to turn Top lane into a 3v1 or Bot lane into a 4v2 tango instantly)
  • Twitch (combine to create insane map pressure and unpredictability)
• Compositions
  • Pick (Evelynn thrives in catching enemies off guard, turn number advantages from picks into gains toward victory)
  • Skirmish (Messy fights give Eve more angles to do her thing, if her enemies can’t peel from all sides, more openings are created)
  • Split-push (Forcing the enemy team to send resources to stop split pushes reduces their ability to group. She can easily get the jump on the player they send to waveclear if they don’t establish proper vision control)

Playing as Eve

Runes

Primary Path: Domination

• Keystone: Electrocute
  • Eve REALLY wants to be able to full rotation someone so that her ultimate can secure the kill and help her escape. She can have a hard time procc’ing Electrocute if she whiffs her Q because she will only have E and an Auto to trigger it. But when she purchases Runic Echo’s and Protobelt, she’ll have no issue accessing that extra burst damage on a relatively low cooldown compared to the rest.
• Sudden Impact
  • Evelynn’s empowered Whiplash counts as a dash allowing her to gain access to the extra 5% damage but more importantly, Hextech Protobelt is a dash. This is important since Protobelt will be your opener to get into range on your opponent allowing your full combo to get the 5% increased damage rather than just the latter half of your combo if you used Whiplash.
• Eyeball Collection
  • Evelynn wants to gank, assassinate, and snowball. Eyeball Collection checks all those boxes. Ganking gives you extra AP which makes you snowball harder and have an easier time getting more Takedowns for more AP, etc.
• Relentless Hunter
  • You could take Ravenous Hunter but Evelynn thrives on getting in position for flanks as well as giving her opponents the least amount of time to react when she enters vision range from stealth.

Secondary Parth: Sorcery

• Gathering Storm
  • Extra AP is always welcome to Evelynn. Eve has great AP ratios and crutches on the fact that she needs to hit a damage breakpoint (below 30% health) to finish off her opponents.
• Absolute Focus
  • Evelynn will always be opening up on her opponent and have the drop on them. Combine this with the fact that Demon Shade almost always helps Evelynn stay topped off, Eve will consistently be able to hit the 70% HP threshold to get that extra AP and one shot enemies.

Pathing

Here are three different Jungle paths given by our Challenger Coach, Morïarty. “Q-Raptors” refers to a step that is unique to Eve – this means using her Hate Spike on the Raptors camp as you run by in order to get some free health. These paths and purposes stay the same whether you’re on blue or red side.

1. Blue buff – > Wolves -> Q Raptors -> Red buff
This is the healthiest path. You’ll end up on red side jungle so it will allow you to gank either top or mid.

2. Red buff -> Q Raptors -> Wolves -> Blue buff
This path can be the fastest gank (level 2), and lets you end up on blue side jungle for a gank. The downside is, you may be leaving your Raptors open for a steal and forcing your Bot laners to leash.

3. Raptors -> Red buff -> Blue buff
This is your safest path from counter jungling. You’ll take more damage but it hides your path fairly well compared to others since you don’t need a leash.

Playing Eve in team fights

• Team fighting as Evelynn is all about seeing opening and opportunities.
• Look to flank from the best angles where the enemy team is unprotected.
• Lust Dust has incredible range, so if you can’t find an angle to flank, you can cast it on a carry while near the frontline and look for an angle to Flash forward or land a Q when the Lust Dust is ready to trigger.
• If you can’t reach a carry, Lust Dust is a very powerful tool against tanks as well since it can shred 35% of their MR for 4 seconds and charm for 2 seconds. This should never be your main plan though because it isn’t optimal since it takes 2.5s before you can trigger it.

Combos / Patterns

W > Protobelt > E > Q (wait for charm)
This is Eve’s gap-closing combo for when you want to get in. You’ll almost always open with it because it shreds magic resist and increases your damage potential.

W > E > Q (looking to kill without waiting for charm)
If you’re close and stronger, this combo provides the most immediate burst.

W > Q > E (from a distance)
This is a riskier option – it’s harder for your enemy react to but not guaranteed since you have to land your Q’s skillshot.

W > R > E > Q (wait for charm)
Allure and wait for charm, R backward to blink into E range, E to trigger charm, land guaranteed Q on charmed target.

W>R
Can do this instantly or wait for charm trigger. Use this as an escape mechanism because the R damage will trigger the slow/charm from the W so you can gain more distance when escaping with R.

Countering Eve

Evelynn thrives on building momentum and feeding off chaos. Facing her will require more coordination than usual in Solo Queue, so be sure that you and your teammates are on the same page in order to keep her in check.

• Make an effort to stifle her early
  • Evelynn snowballs incredibly hard if she manages to get a lead – if she falls behind, however, she won’t be able to make picks due to her lack of items and levels.
  • If you’re successful in killing her or setting her back in the early game, she’ll have a tough time catching up and will lose a lot of her pressure potential.
• Don’t hesitate
  • Remember that Eve’s Allure is her central mechanic which determines her CC-potential, keep in mind the 2.5 second window of time that makes the difference between a slow or charm.
  • Commit to either jumping on her early so she has to use the slow and prevent her from activating the charm OR immediately look to make an escape and find safety.
• Don’t be greedy
  • Against most champions, you may be able to shove a little further or stick around to grab that extra wave…do NOT do this against Eve. Evelynn players that know what they’re doing will be aware of their foes who look to grab that extra farm or step out just a little further to farm. Your life isn’t worth a few more extra minions.
• Track her movements with deep vision
  • Overall, you’ll want to do your best to track her movements – the more information you have, the better.
  • Evelynn will reveal herself when she’s farming, so look to place deep wards if she reveals herself on the map elsewhere.
• Champions
  • Champions that have healing capabilities or tend to stack health will be good options against Evelynn because she’ll have a harder time getting them below 30% and enable her extra damage.
    • Try out champs like:
      • Mundo
      • Tam Kench
      • Soraka

Thanks for reading! For more discussion about Evelynn’s rework and tips on how to play her from our coaches and community, we welcome you to join our Discord.