Counter Guide

How to Beat Olaf

Matchup Guide · Evergreen · 3 Counter Picks

Olaf spends about eight minutes being the strongest champion in the game and the rest of it being a large man with an axe.

He's the most honest champion on the board. There's no trick, no burst window and nothing hidden: he walks at you, he can't be stopped, and he hits harder the closer he gets to dying. That combination makes the early game genuinely unpleasant and makes the crowd control everybody normally relies on into a button that does nothing. What redeems the matchup is that the entire package is front loaded. He doesn't scale, he can't start a fight from a distance, and he has no way of making you engage. Beating him is a matter of surviving the part where he's right, and being honest with yourself about how much health that's worth.

Matchup Snapshot Olaf, the Berserker

Where You Meet Him Top lane and the jungle

Damage Type Physical, all of it from attacks

Why He Is Frustrating Your crowd control does nothing

Mobility A slow on an axe, and nothing else

Biggest Threat Ragnarok [R]

Hardest Counter Kled

What a Counter Needs

Range, or a way to leave that isn't crowd control
A plan for the first ten minutes specifically
Grievous wounds, because he heals off the damage he does

Patch 26.18 Matchup Data

Who Beats Olaf on Patch 26.18

Best Picks Into Olaf

Kled459 games56.0%
Sion435 games54.7%
Illaoi709 games54.6%
Sett1,224 games54.5%
Trundle964 games53.8%

Picks Olaf Beats

Yasuo603 games44.6%
Teemo2,454 games45.9%
Urgot723 games46.9%
Jayce1,306 games46.9%

Win rates are for the champion listed, in the top lane against Olaf. They come from Nerfplz's own ranked solo queue games on Patch 26.18, Silver and above, 38,007 Olaf games in all. Only matchups that show up in at least 1% of those games are listed.

Olaf Overview

Strengths: What Makes Him Dangerous

Crowd control stops working. Ragnarok [R] means the stun, root or slow everybody was counting on is simply unavailable while he's on top of somebody, and most plans don't have a second idea.
He's stronger the worse it's going. A low health bar makes him faster and more dangerous, so the fight that looks nearly won is often the one that turns around.
The early game isn't close. He wins almost every duel in the first stretch of the game, and there isn't much that changes it other than not being there.
He heals off doing damage. In a long fight that adds up quickly, and it means chipping him down between trades rarely sticks.

Weaknesses: Where You Get In

He can't reach you. There's no dash and no leap. Undertow [Q] is a slow he has to throw and then walk after (a lot of warning).
He falls off completely. The later the game runs the less he does, and there's no item that fixes it. A team that survives him has solved the problem.
He has no answer to being kited. The one thing that beats him is also the thing marksmen and ranged top laners do by default.
Grievous wounds hurts him more than it looks. The healing is a large share of why his extended fights work, and cutting it turns a won duel into a trade.
He can't force anything. No engage tool at range, no way of starting a fight somebody refuses. A team that keeps its distance is a team he can't do anything about.

Countering Olaf

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

Don't buy crowd control expecting it to work. It works before his ultimate and during the cooldown, and not otherwise. Plans that hinge on a stun in the middle of a fight are plans that will fail at the worst moment.
Play the first ten minutes for farm. The trades in that window aren't winnable and the gold is. A lane conceded on purpose is the correct way to reach the part of the game he's bad at.
Bring range. The counter to a champion who has to walk to you is a champion who doesn't let him arrive, and it works from level one to the end.
Buy grievous wounds even though he isn't a healer. The lifesteal is quiet and it's doing a lot of the work in every long fight he wins.

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

Playing a Bad Olaf Matchup

Pick up his axes before he does, or make him walk for them. The axe is his resource and the walk back to it is the only moment in the lane where he isn't doing something, so it's the moment to take a wave or a plate.

Don't fight him under his own tower with his ultimate available. That's the one place where his lack of mobility doesn't matter and yours does.

Ward for the level three gank rather than the level six one. His pressure arrives before most junglers have anything, and it fades before most junglers have peaked.

Best Olaf Counters

Outlast him, refuse the duel, or fight from a range where the walk toward you is the whole fight.

Kayle Outlasts Him Completely

Granted, she concedes the early lane on purpose, but she gets everything back, and the version of the game he needs is one that ended before hers began.

Once she has range there's no interaction left. He has no way of closing the distance and no way of forcing her to close it for him.

Kennen Never Lets Him Arrive

A ranged top laner takes the entire matchup away, because everything he does requires him to have already walked over.

The wave control matters as well. Shoving him under a tower means he's farming from a spot where the axe he throws is the only damage he gets to do.

Jax Wins The Long Duel

His damage arrives as basic attacks, and a champion who can turn those off for a few seconds takes the best part of the fight away from him.

The scaling is the other half. Olaf is strongest at the start of a duel and Jax is strongest at the end of one (that decides most of the ones they have).

Itemizing Against Olaf

Two of these answer his damage and one answers the part nobody notices:

Executioner's Calling is the underrated buy here (the lifesteal is a quiet third of why his long fights work, and cutting it costs almost nothing). Plated Steelcaps is the right boot for anybody he's walking at (every point of damage he does arrives as a basic attack). Mercury's Treads is close to worthless in the moment that matters, because his ultimate has already removed the crowd control it would have shortened. Frozen Heart takes his attack speed away (the same thing as taking away both his damage and his healing at once). Randuin's Omen belongs on whoever is holding the front, and it's at its best in exactly the extended fight he was hoping to have.