How to Counter K’Sante

How to Counter K’Sante

K’Sante will be released in patch 12.21. He is the 162nd champion to be released on Summoners Rift, and for those who do not know anything about him yet, he is a tanky or bruiser champion who will soak up a lot of damage for his team. He has a lot of CC tools and has good pick potential too.

We’ve already made some articles for K’Sante already, including a how to play K’Sante guide, which I would recommend reading if you want to learn how to play as him.

If you want more tips to counter K’Sante, play as K’Sante, or play any champion in League of Legends, then make sure you sign up for a Free Mobalytics account to help improve your climb.

Here are the things we will be covering in this article:

1. Invest in Healing Reduction
2. Get Some Armor or Magic Pen
3. Ward your Flanks
4. Avoid Using Burst Abilities When His W Is Up
5. Ban Him at Launch
6. Counter Picks

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1. Invest in Healing Reduction

We will start this guide with a very basic tip that is good against tanks. Get some healing reduction! K’Sante will get items that increase his sustain and make him tankier. Getting any form of healing reduction and grievous wounds will make killing him a lot easier as his sustain will be cut down.

If you’re an AD champion, get an Executioner’s Calling, or if your are AP, go for an Oblivion Orb.

You may wish to get healing reduction during the laning phase if yo’re struggling to kill him, or alternatively, you may wish to go for some armor pen or magic penetration.

2. Get Some Armor or Magic Pen

Armor pen for AD champions and magic pen for AP champions is a must against any champion who will be stacking armor and magic resistance. You need to get an item that will help make your damage break through his defensive stats and kill him. If you don’t buy any items that do this, you will struggle to kill him.

Depending on who you’re playing, you may need to get an item that will penetrate his defensive stats earlier compared to other champions. If you’re a damage dealer, then you might want to get this early, but if you’re a bruiser- you might not want an item like this early on.

Items such as Serrated Dirk and Sorc Shoes will both pen the enemy’s defensive stats.

3. Ward your Flanks

Team fighting as K’Sante is pretty simple. There are 3 different ways to team fight. He will either soak up damage for his team, focus the enemy carry or flank and launch someone into his team.

If he can Ult the carry into his team, you’re going to lose the team fight as you will miss out on damage, and it will make the team fight 4v5, resulting in you most likely losing. Because he wants to Ult someone into his team, the best way for him to get on to them is by attacking from the side.

When he attacks from the side, he can get onto the enemy quickly without them disengaging or dealing damage to him. Ensure you ward your flanks to spot him before it is too late. You should disengage if you see him running towards you from the side.

Here are some recommended warding spots in the mid lane to help you counter his surprise engage.

You can find more suggested warding spots by checking out our Mobalytics In-depth warding guide, which has many other recommendations.

4. Avoid Using Burst Abilities When His W is Up

K’Sante’s W reduces all incoming damage while it is active. This means it can keep him alive for longer, which could allow him to escape with his life.

If you’re playing a champion with a lot of burst such as Syndra, Brand, Leblanc or Zed, you need to try and bait out this ability before you try to blow him up. Alternatively, don’t use your high damaging: high cooldown abilities on him when his W is up as he can heavily reduce your damage output.

It is better for you to use this high damaging ability on somebody else you can probably kill rather than commit to using these spells on him instead.

5. Ban him in Ranked

Every counter guide I create when a new champion is released always has the same tip: ban him when he is released! Players will first-time champions in your games, and the chances of you winning a game with someone who is first-timing K’Sante is very low

Historically, Riot has created champions who are quite strong on launch, so if you ban them, you will not have to deal with his potential OP-ness.

6. K’Sante Counters

Here are some champions that we feel will be good against K’Sante. Note that time will only tell who is good and bad against him, so please keep that in mind.

Darius

• Darius is a strong early game Top laner who can abuse him constantly throughout the laning phase.

Vayne

• Vayne’s W is very good against tanks, and as he will be stacking armor, you can naturally pen his defensive stats. Furthermore, you can also abuse him freely with your basic attacks.

Olaf

• He has amazing all-in early, and his Ultimate can prevent K’Sante from using it on him throughout the laning phase. Olaf could be a good pick in the top lane!

Ending Points

K’Sante is going to be out soon, and we hope that this article will help you counter him when he gets launched. Please remember that this guide is just supposed to be basic and give you the basics you can use to counter him. If you have any more tips and suggestions, let us know!

For extra tips and tricks to counter K’Sante, head over to Mobalytics!