How to Counter Viego

How to Play Against Viego (6 Tips)

2021 has only just started and Riot has blessed us with another new champion. Viego the Ruined King is the 154th champion to hit Summoners Rift. While he has only been on the PBE for a short period of time, we’ve learned a few tips and tricks to make playing against him a little bit easier for beginners.

If you want to learn how to play as Viego, check out our how to play as Viego guide.

Alternatively, you can check out our Viego champion page which has handy tips and tricks if you want to give him a go. We also have some tips to counter him on our Viego counters page.

How to counter Viego

1. Prevent ganks by warding your lane
2. Track Viego in his jungle
3. Take quick fights
4. Fight him around minions and neutral monsters
5. Watch out for his Passive
6. Try to fight in the open

1. Prevent ganks by warding your lane

A Jungler needs to gank to get themselves and their allies ahead. One of the more consistent ways you can prevent them from getting ahead is by knowing where they are at all times and backing off when you see them making their way to your lane.

Vision is arguably the best way you can see when the enemy is near your lane and if you’re watching the minimap, you can back off before Viego can get into position to gank you.

You should try to place vision whenever and where ever it is needed. Here are some excellent warding locations to help you spot Viego if you’re playing in the bottom lane.

Here are some general warding locations for the red team during the early laning phase.

Having as much vision around the map and as many control wards placed as humanly possible will severely reduce his ability to get successful ganks off. While vision can help you spot him, you need to be able to see him. Placing vision is basically useless if you’re not checking your minimap frequently. Here’s a separate guide on how to improve your map awareness in League of Legends.

Some general warding tips to up your warding game:

• Buy a control ward on your first back and place it somewhere where it will stay alive and give you constant vision.
• Ensure you never have two stacks on your trinket.
• Buy control wards and place them as the game develops.
• Complete your warding quest as quickly as you can and switch trinkets.
• Secure the scuttle crab for free vision around neutral objectives.

If you want to learn more warding tips and tricks or see more warding locations, check our in-depth warding guide.

2. Track Viego in his jungle

Another great way of stopping Viego from getting ahead is by tracking him in his jungle. By knowing where he is at any given time, your team will be able to make plays or stop committing to trades if you know where he is.

Warding the enemy’s jungle as the blue team.

For example, if you see Viego in the top side of his jungle, you could play aggressive in the bottom lane full well knowing that he cannot show up and make the trade 2v3. For Junglers, you can use his positioning to your advantage to gank somewhere else on the map or make the call for an objective.

You can do a few things to track the enemy Jungler or at least make tracking the enemy Jungler easier. These include:

• Securing the scuttle crab. Viego will be spotted if he leaves his jungle and walks through the river.
• Shoot the Scryers Bloom into his jungle. You will see what camps are up and if he is in that part of the jungle. If the camps are gone, he is probably on the opposite side of the map.
• Placing vision inside his jungle. Use our in-depth warding guide to see more of the best warding locations are to track the enemy Jungler.
• See which of his allies get to lane first. If his Top laner gets to lane quickly, then they didn’t leash. This means Viego started bot side (however this isn’t full proof).

Viego is still new and his jungle path does need optimizing. But once he has been out for a bit and you’ve played against him a couple times, you should have a good understanding of his main jungle route. One way of tracking Junglers is by knowing their jungle routes. If you can learn his route (by either playing as or against him), you will naturally know where he should be at any given time.

If you want to learn some other tips and tricks to help track Viego or any enemy Jungler, give our how to track the enemy Jungler guide a read.

3. Take quick fights

Viego benefits from long trades and skirmishes where he can take over another champion’s abilities by getting a kill. Because of this, he wants to take over champions as often as possible in team fights.

Your best bet is to try and kill him as quickly as you can by committing to fights to reduce his chances of getting a shutdown and being able to regenerate slightly and also become untargetable.

If you take slow fights against Viego, it will increase his chances of changing into other champions- which is something you do not want.

4. Fight him around minions and neutral monsters

Viego’s W is a CC tool that locks down the first enemy it hits. When fighting Viego in a 1v1, try your hardest to dodge the stun so he cannot CC you and get a head start in the trade.

This and the other ability descriptions are from LoL Wiki.

If you’re fighting him inside his jungle, try to use the camps to block his W. If you’re fighting him in the river, try to fight around the scuttle crab. These creatures offer you some added protection that can allow you to dodge his W.

If you have a dash or any movement tool like Sejuani Q, try to save it for his W. An excellent time to use this movement tool is to either interrupt his charge (which puts it on cooldown) or to dodge the CC.

5. Watch out for his Passive

Viego’s Passive allows him to possess their body and take their basic abilities (QWE) and items (among other things). When he does this, he becomes untargetable and can dodge incoming damage. Try your hardest to hold on to execution spells when he can become untargetable.

Your best chance of killing him is when there are no dead allies that he can take over and go untargetable. I understand this isn’t always possible, but keep in mind that he can use his Passive to dodge damage.

6. Try to fight in the open

Fighting in the jungle isn’t a good idea vs Viego because of his E and his Ultimate. His E will allow him to gain camouflage and be able to hop in and out of vision which offers him a lot of extra kill protection and survivability.

Similarly, fighting in the jungle vs someone with an AOE Ultimate is not a good idea as teams are usually grouped closely together which can allow him to hit multiple enemies at once. Fighting in the open and slightly apart is a good way to counter both his E and his Ultimate.

Furthermore, as he can become another champion, if he takes someone with AOE abilities like Syndra or Bard, he could deal damage and CC multiple enemies if you’re grouped near one another.

7. Ban him in ranked

We have to end this guide with one of the most important things you need to do if you’re playing ranked right now. Whenever a new champion is released- ban them in ranked. Most players do not know how to play against them and will most likely feed against him. While we have accumulated some tips to make dealing with him easier, your best bet is to ban him if you’re trying to climb.

Even though Riot’s previous releases have been relatively balanced (Lillia, Seraphine, Rell were all either balanced or underperforming) when they were launched, there is no guarantee that Viego will be. I recommend that you ban him so the enemy cannot pick him (or your team for that matter) to increase your chances of winning.

Mobile champions seem to always be incredibly strong once they’re released, and if that is the case for Viego, he is going to run amuck in solo queue. Save a lot of heartache by taking him off the board so you do not have to face him. Of course, if you’re playing normals, then you can skip this tip.

Conclusion

Viego is the 154th champion to hit Summoners Rift. If haven’t played against him yet, these tips will give you the one up over him.

What do you think of the new champion? Is he really hard to deal with or is he a huge threat?



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