There's no marksman on this side of the lane, and after about eight minutes there's no enemy marksman either.
Bot lane belongs to ranged champions for one very good reason (ranged champions get to hit things that can't hit back). Udyr has had the same answer for fifteen years: he walks at you, and then he doesn't die.
So how does this work anyway?
Weird Pick #175
Bot Lane Udyr
How to Play Bot Lane Udyr
- Abilities
- Q, W, E then prioritize Q > W > E, with R whenever it's available
- Summoner Spells
-
Flash 
Heal - Starting Items
-
Doran's Blade 
Health Potion - Strategy
- Give up the first two waves, get to your first attack speed item, then make the enemy bot lane play every trade at melee range whether they want to or not
- Core Items
-
Trinity Force 
Berserker's Greaves 
Wit's End 
Titanic Hydra 
Sterak's Gage
Bot Lane Udyr Runes Setup
Precision
Resolve
When to Pick This
The enemy bot lane has to be short on disengage. Udyr has damage and survivability to spare. Arriving is his problem, so a lane holding a knockup, a hard root or a wall is a lane that gets to say no to him all game. A pairing with neither is a pairing that has to fight him on his terms every single wave.
Your own support decides more here than usual, and this pick genuinely doesn't work with a poke support. Somebody has to close the gap with you or slow the people running from it. Pick this after your support locks.
It's also a reasonable answer to a bot lane built entirely around one scaling marksman. Titanic Hydra and Wit's End are a lot of magic damage and a lot of health aimed at a champion who has neither, and there's no point in the game where that matchup gets better for them.
How It Works
He Has The Stun Nobody Is Watching For
Blazing Stampede [E] is movement speed and a stun on the first attack against each target, so Udyr closes the gap and locks the target down with one button. Bot lane players read that button as a jungle clearing tool. In lane it's the reason a trade that looked survivable wasn't.
Two Health Bars Instead Of One
Everything a bot lane does to a melee champion assumes the health bar goes one direction. Udyr's shield and heal go the other way on a short cooldown, so the poke that would have forced a normal marksman to back just costs him a few seconds. Ten minutes of that adds up to a lane the enemy can't actually win, only survive.
Attack Speed Turns Him Into A Real Carry
Trinity Force and Berserker's Greaves make a carry build that happens to have a lot of health attached, and the reason it works is that Udyr's damage scales with how many attacks he lands rather than how many spells he casts. Buy attack speed and he stops being a nuisance and starts being the thing your team plays around.
The Draft Never Sees It Coming
Nobody bans this. Nobody drafts a support to answer it. The enemy bot lane picked into an imaginary marksman and now has two champions with no way to create distance (the one thing they needed). That edge is temporary and it's enormous while it lasts.
Support Synergies
Nautilus
Dredge Line [Q] solves the only problem this pick has. Udyr only needs the fight to start, and a support who drags someone into melee range for him turns every wave into a coin flip the enemy lane keeps losing.
Lulu
Whimsy [W] is the movement speed that gets him there and the polymorph that stops whoever's peeling, and Wild Growth [R] is a pile of health on the champion who's already the hardest to kill in the fight. She makes the dive survivable and then makes it not matter.
Milio
Breath of Life [R] cleanses the slow or the root that would have stranded Udyr halfway to his target, and Cozy Campfire [W] keeps him in range of the lane rather than walking back to base. Less flashy than the other two, and the most reliable.
Potential Pitfalls
The First Six Levels Are Miserable
You'll lose farm. Two ranged champions get to hit you for free while you stand outside your own minions, and there's no clever way around it. Take what you can reach under tower, don't contest anything, and treat the early lane as something to get through rather than something to win.
A Wall Or A Knockup Deletes The Plan
Any support who can physically stop him arriving takes the pick apart, and so does an enemy bot laner with a dash on a short cooldown. There's no item that fixes it. This is a draft-dependent pick, but to be fair the draft happens before you lock in.
Your Team Has No Ranged Damage Now
The other four players drafted expecting a marksman, and a comp with nobody who can hit an objective from range struggles in exactly the fights that decide games. If your mid and top are also melee, this is how you end up unable to take a dragon you're winning the fight for.
Bot Lane Udyr Conclusions
This is a bully pick with a bad first ten minutes, and both halves of that matter. Survive to your first two items with a support who can start a fight, and the enemy bot lane spends the rest of the game standing further back than they'd like (which is another way of saying they stop farming).
What it isn't is a marksman replacement. Somebody else on your team has to be the one who shoots things from a distance, so check the rest of the draft before you decide this is funny. It works best on the games where you've already got that covered and bot lane is the last slot to fill.
Suggested Tier: Tier 3
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