Counter Guide

How to Beat Gnar

Matchup Guide · Evergreen · 3 Counter Picks

Gnar spends half the lane refusing to fight you and the other half deciding he wants to, and you don't get a vote on which half you're in.

He's two champions sharing a health bar, and the switch between them is less a button he presses than a meter that fills. That's what makes the lane so uncomfortable: the small one pokes you from a range you can't answer, and the large one arrives with a stun that throws you into a wall, and the transition between the two is happening whether or not either of you is ready for it. Reading that bar is most of the counterplay, and the solo queue tier list shows the company he keeps.

Matchup Snapshot Gnar, the Missing Link

Where You Meet Him Top lane, almost always

Damage Type Physical, from two very different ranges

Why He Is Frustrating He is a different champion every minute

Mobility Hops over terrain in his small form

Biggest Threat GNAR! [R]

Hardest Counter Ornn

What a Counter Needs

A way to punish the fragile form
Tenacity for the wall stun
Enough armor to survive the transformation

Patch 26.18 Matchup Data

Who Beats Gnar on Patch 26.18

Best Picks Into Gnar

Ornn551 games58.1%
Malphite1,970 games57.7%
Illaoi758 games56.9%
Yorick831 games56.2%
Teemo1,253 games55.1%

Picks Gnar Beats

K'Sante998 games44.0%
Fiora585 games47.5%
Zaahen544 games47.6%
Volibear553 games47.7%

Win rates are for the champion listed, in the top lane against Gnar. They come from Nerfplz's own ranked solo queue games on Patch 26.18, Silver and above, 37,716 Gnar games in all. Only matchups that show up in at least 1% of those games are listed.

Gnar Overview

Strengths: What Makes Him Dangerous

The small form fights from outside your reach. Boomerang Throw [Q] covers eleven hundred units and comes back through the same lane, so a whole lane phase can happen with him never being in range of anything you own.
The large form starts fights you cannot leave. GNAR! [R] throws everything near him in one direction, and anything that hits a wall on the way is stunned. Against terrain, that knockback becomes a kill.
He's very hard to trade with in either shape. The small one is too far away and the large one is too durable, and the moment the bar flips is the moment those two facts swap places.
He escapes on a low cooldown. Hop [E] bounces off units and over terrain, so most attempts to punish the fragile version end with him standing on the other side of a wall.

Weaknesses: Where You Get In

He doesn't choose when he transforms. The bar fills on its own and empties on its own, so his strongest window is visible to you and predictable (and so is the long stretch where he doesn't have it).
The small form is genuinely fragile. Catching him in it is close to a kill, and everything in this guide is a different way of arranging that.
The large form can't leave. The hop turns into a short lunge, so a Gnar who commits in his big shape is a melee champion standing in a fight with no exit.
He has no healing at all. Damage that goes on him stays on him, and a lane where he takes small amounts repeatedly is a lane he can't reset out of.
The ultimate needs a wall. In open ground it is a slow and a shove. The whole spell is a positioning question rather than a damage one.

Countering Gnar

Based on the strengths and weaknesses above, beating Gnar comes down to champions who can accomplish at least one of the following:

Watch the bar instead of the health. It tells you which champion you're fighting for the next thirty seconds, and it's the only piece of information in this matchup that matters.
All-in the small form. If you can reach him while the bar is low, the fight is already decided. That's the entire plan.
Fight away from terrain. His ultimate is worth a fraction as much in the open, and choosing the ground costs you nothing.
Buy tenacity before the fights get large. The stun on the wall is what turns his engage into a kill rather than an inconvenience.

If you're already locked into the matchup without any of those tools, these strategies still work:

Playing a Bad Gnar Matchup

Stand away from the wall on your own side of the lane. It feels a bit too careful, and it removes the best thing in his kit.

Don't chase the small form into fog. The hop covers more ground than it looks like it should, and following it is how a lane you were winning becomes a gank you walked into.

Take the trades when the bar is empty and give them up when it is full. This is a matchup you win by being patient twice a minute rather than by being better once.

Best Gnar Counters

Punish the fragile form, trap the committed one, or bring a health bar the all-in cannot finish.

Darius Only Needs One Moment

The small form has no way of surviving contact, and Darius only has to make contact once. His pull answers the range advantage directly, and everything after it happens too fast for the bar to save him.

The large form isn't much better for Gnar. Standing next to Darius in a committed fight with no escape is the exact situation Darius' kit was built to win.

Yorick Traps The Form With No Escape

Dark Procession [W] is a cage around a champion whose big shape gave up its mobility to be durable. Once it's up, the fight happens on Yorick's terms and Gnar can't decline it.

He also wins the part of the lane Gnar wants to farm. The poke is a slow grind and Yorick simply keeps his health topped up while taking the wave away.

Kled A Second Health Bar For The All-In

The transformed all-in is built to finish someone in one sequence, and Kled has a mechanic that says the sequence wasn't enough. Surviving it puts Gnar in a fight he didn't budget for.

The remount then hands the initiative back, and against a champion with no sustain (and a bar that's now empty) that's usually the end of the lane.

Itemizing Against Gnar

His damage is physical from both shapes and the crowd control is what converts it, so the buys cover both:

A Doran's Shield is the cheapest way to survive the poke phase, and against a champion whose small form deals repeated small amounts of damage it does more work than the alternative. Chain Vest is the item that decides whether the transformed all-in kills you, and buying it before the build order suggests is almost always correct here. Mercury's Treads is aimed at the specific thing that ends games in this matchup (being stunned against a wall rather than being hit hard). Randuin's Omen is the late version of the same idea, and it also blunts the part of his damage that comes from basic attacks while you are held in place.