Counter Guide
How to Beat Kennen
Kennen is a ranged champion in a melee lane, and he spends the whole laning phase reminding you of it.
Most top laners have to walk up to you to trade. Kennen throws a shuriken from over 1,000 units away, and every third thing that hits you stuns you. You can't catch him when you finally get a window either, because he turns into lightning and doubles his speed. Then in teamfights he runs into the middle of your team with a storm around him and stuns everyone at once. His weak point is the gap between those moments. He runs on energy, his stun gets much shorter the second time it lands on you, and the champions that beat him are the ones who don't care about being poked. If you're weighing a ban this patch, check our solo queue tier list.
Nasus- Enough sustain or health to lose the poke war and not care
- A slow or engage that still works on a Kennen at double speed
Who Beats Kennen on Patch 26.18
Best Picks Into Kennen
- Nasus1,170 games58.4%
Dr. Mundo659 games56.8%
Malphite1,004 games55.0%
Yorick584 games53.9%
Mordekaiser699 games51.9%
Picks Kennen Beats
Aatrox729 games44.9%
Ambessa499 games45.1%
Yasuo495 games47.1%
Shen435 games47.6%
Win rates are for the champion listed, in the top lane against Kennen. They come from Nerfplz's own ranked solo queue games on Patch 26.18, Silver and above, 24,644 Kennen games in all. Only matchups that show up in at least 1% of those games are listed.
Kennen Overview
Strengths: What Makes Him Dangerous
- Thundering Shuriken [Q] reaches 1,050 units. It's his main poke, it's on a short cooldown, and melee champions can't answer it from where they stand.
- Three hits and you're stunned. Mark of the Storm [Passive] counts every ability that lands, and the third one stuns you for 1.25 seconds.
- Lightning Rush [E] is his escape and his engage. For two seconds he's ghosted and twice as fast, and he damages and marks anyone he runs through.
- Slicing Maelstrom [R] wins teamfights. It strikes every champion near him for three seconds, stacking marks on all of them (and he gets extra armor and magic resist while it lasts).
Weaknesses: Where You Get In
- The second stun is short. If Mark of the Storm [Passive] stuns you again within six seconds, it only lasts half a second.
- He runs on energy. After a full trade he has to wait for the bar to refill, and that's your window to walk up.
- He can't attack as lightning. Lightning Rush [E] stops his basic attacks for its duration, so running in costs him damage.
- He's small and squishy. A Kennen who gets caught without Lightning Rush [E] has nowhere to go.
Countering Kennen
You'll want at least one of these:
- Sustain through the poke. Kennen wins lane by chipping you down, and a champion who heals it back takes that away.
- A slow or a point-and-click engage. He escapes by running, so anything that slows a ghosted target catches him.
- Answer the ultimate. Slicing Maelstrom [R] only works if he reaches your team, so a stun or a knock-back that stops him short of your carries takes most of it away (the storm keeps going if you stun him inside it).
Locked in against him without any of that?
Playing Into Kennen Without a Counter
Count his marks. Two stacks on you means the next ability he lands stuns you (so does the charged attack Electrical Surge [W] builds up to), so that's the moment to back off rather than trade.
Stay behind your minions. Thundering Shuriken [Q] stops on the first enemy it hits, so a caster wave in the way blocks most of his poke.
Walk up after he's used Lightning Rush [E]. It's his only way out, and it's on a cooldown of 10 seconds at rank one.
Best Kennen Counters
Three different ways through him. We'd start with whichever you already play in top.
Nasus Slows Him to a Crawl
Nasus doesn't need to win lane. He needs last hits, and Soul Eater [Passive] life steal patches up a lot of what Kennen's poke takes off him. Every minion he finishes with Siphoning Strike [Q] makes the next one hit harder, permanently.
Wither [W] is the button that decides it. It's a 700-unit point-and-click slow that grows every second for five seconds (it cripples attack speed too), and by the end of it a Kennen at double speed isn't getting away. Once Nasus has Fury of the Sands [R] he's got 15 seconds of extra health and resistances, which blunts Kennen's storm.
Dr. Mundo Ignores the Stun
Kennen's whole plan ends in a stun, and Goes Where He Pleases [Passive] makes Dr. Mundo immune to the next one that would land. It comes back on a cooldown that shortens as he levels (and faster still if he picks up the canister it drops).
He can also trade from Kennen's range. Infected Bonesaw [Q] reaches 1,050 units, the same as Thundering Shuriken [Q], and takes a slice of current health on a four second cooldown. Its health cost comes back when it hits a champion. Maximum Dosage [R] regenerates a large share of his maximum health, so Kennen needs all of his damage at once and rarely has it.
Malphite Lands on the Storm
Granite Shield [Passive] soaks the opening poke of every trade, then comes back after a few seconds without damage. Seismic Shard [Q] is point-and-click, so a Kennen who ran in with Lightning Rush [E] gets slowed on the way out. In teamfights, Kennen has to stand in the middle of your team for Slicing Maelstrom [R] to work, and Unstoppable Force [R] lands there from 1,000 units and knocks him up for a second and a half. His stun can't stop the charge.
Itemizing Against Kennen
Almost everything he does is magic. Mercury's Treads shorten every stun he gets on you (30% tenacity). Kaenic Rookern puts up a magic shield after 15 seconds without magic damage, which eats the shuriken that opens each trade. Spirit Visage adds to whatever healing you've got, and Force of Nature piles on magic resist once you've taken a few of his hits.
Where Kennen Sits Right Now
Counter picks move with the patch, so check our current numbers before you trust a matchup:
- League of Legends Solo Queue Tier List, updated every patch
- Tier List Changelog, for what moved and why
- How to Beat Every Champion, for every other matchup guide
