Counter Guide

How to Beat Aurora

Matchup Guide · Evergreen · 3 Counter Picks

You land a skillshot on Aurora, she hops away invisible, and the bolt she left on you comes back for the kill.

Laning against her is tiring. Every trade you start, she ends on her terms, because she carries three different ways to leave and two of them come with a slow. Her damage also grows the lower you get, so the fight you think you're winning at half health is the one she's been waiting for. She isn't untouchable, though. Everything she does runs through those hops, and the mid laners who beat her most often punish movement itself or stop her from moving at all. For how she's doing overall this patch, our solo queue tier list keeps the current read.

Matchup Snapshot Aurora, the Witch Between Worlds

Where You Meet HerMid lane

Damage TypeMagic

Why She Is FrustratingShe vanishes mid-trade

MobilityThree hops

Biggest ThreatBetween Worlds [R]

Hardest CounterVex

What a Counter Needs

A reason for her to regret every hop she takes
Crowd control that lands before she can leave

Patch 26.18 Matchup Data

Who Beats Aurora on Patch 26.18

Best Picks Into Aurora

Vex641 games59.1%
Fizz840 games54.5%
Xerath653 games54.4%
Viktor1,210 games53.4%
Malzahar836 games53.3%

Picks Aurora Beats

Orianna528 games46.8%
Mel484 games46.9%
Zoe419 games47.5%
Ekko518 games47.7%

Win rates are for the champion listed, in the mid lane against Aurora. They come from Nerfplz's own ranked solo queue games on Patch 26.18, Silver and above, 25,059 Aurora games in all. Only matchups that show up in at least 1% of those games are listed.

Aurora Overview

Strengths: What Makes Her Dangerous

Across the Veil [W] makes her disappear. She hops, turns invisible for about a second (a little longer at higher ranks) and picks up bonus movement speed. If she gets a takedown on someone she hit in the last three seconds, the cooldown resets.
Twofold Hex [Q] punishes low health. The recast pulls the curse back through you (it fires on its own if she waits too long), and it hits harder the more health you're missing.
The Weirding [E] slows you while she backs off. It's an 80% slow in a line, and she hops away from you in the same motion.
Between Worlds [R] turns a small area into her arena. She can bounce from one edge of the rift to the other while untargetable, and you're slowed every time you touch the border (by half, which is a lot).

Weaknesses: Where You Get In

Her escape has a real cooldown. Across the Veil [W] is a 22-second cooldown at rank one (18 at max). Without the reset, that's a long time to be a mage with one backwards hop.
A spell shield stops Twofold Hex [Q], curse and recast both, which takes most of her burst off the table.
She can't act while hopping. Abilities and item actives are locked out during Across the Veil [W] (Flash too), so her escape can't double as an attack.
The rift only helps if she stays inside it. Walk out of Between Worlds [R] instead of fighting along its edge.

Countering Aurora

You only need one of these:

Make her movement cost her. A champion who gains something every time she dashes turns her strength into a liability.
Stop her before the hop. A silence, a stun or a suppression that lands first means the hop never happens.
Hit her from past her range. Twofold Hex [Q] reaches 900 units, and a mage who can fight from farther out never walks into it.

If you're already locked into the matchup without one, it's still playable.

Playing Into Aurora Without a Counter

Watch for the curse. When Twofold Hex [Q] tags you, she's going to pull it back, so step sideways out of the return path instead of walking toward her.

Count her hops. Once Across the Veil [W] is down, she's left with the short backwards hop from The Weirding [E], and that's your window to trade. When she ults, don't chase her around the rift. Leave it, and fight her where she can't bounce.

Best Aurora Counters

Pick whichever one suits the way you play mid.

Vex Punishes Every Hop

Vex's kit reads like it was designed for this lane. Any enemy near her who dashes or blinks gets marked with Gloom from Doom 'n Gloom [Passive], and her next ability or attack on them pops it for bonus damage while taking a quarter off her fear's cooldown. Aurora can't play the lane without hopping, so she's feeding Vex marks all game (Gloom even marks her while she's untargetable in the rift).

The fear is what wins the fight. When Doom is ready, Vex's next ability fears everything it hits, and a feared Aurora isn't hopping anywhere. Personal Space [W] also reaches a bit farther against enemies who are mid-dash, which catches her as she lands.

Malzahar Holds Her in Place

Malzahar walks into lane with Void Shift [Passive] up. It makes him immune to crowd control and cuts incoming damage by 90% until someone hits him (it recharges once he's gone a while without being hit), so her opening Twofold Hex [Q] mostly gets wasted on it.

Call of the Void [Q] does the rest. It silences, and a silenced Aurora can't hop out of anything. When she commits, Nether Grasp [R] suppresses her for up to 2.5 seconds, long enough for his jungler to show up before she's allowed to move again.

Xerath Outranges Her

A fully charged Arcanopulse [Q] reaches 1450 units, well past the 900 on her curse, so Xerath fights the lane from a distance she can't answer. If she hops in to force a trade, Shocking Orb [E] is waiting, and it stuns for longer the farther it travels. Just don't start charging with her in range (he's slowed while the beam charges).

Itemizing Against Aurora

Nearly all of her damage is magic, so Mercury's Treads are the easy boots. On a mage, Banshee's Veil blocks the next ability that hits you, and when that's Twofold Hex [Q] she loses the recast too. Maw of Malmortius does the job on AD champions (it shields you once her burst drops you low). Kaenic Rookern builds a magic shield whenever you've gone 15 seconds without taking magic damage (long enough between her all-ins, most of the time).