You can't dodge the way Pantheon starts a fight. He picks a target and he's already on them, and everything after that is a question of what you brought.

Most early aggressors give you something to react to. He doesn't. The opener is point and click, and the punish for hitting him back is a shield he can point directly at your damage. Then he leaves, arrives in someone else's lane, and the game is two kills further away than it was. That's a miserable few minutes to play through, and the answer is making the all-in fail (a shopping decision and a positioning decision more than a mechanical one). The solo queue tier list shows the company he keeps.

Matchup Snapshot Pantheon, the Unbreakable Spear

Where You Meet Him Top lane, mid, and a fair amount of support

Damage Type Physical, front-loaded and early

Why He Is Frustrating The engage can't be dodged

Mobility Leaps most of the map on a long cooldown

Biggest Threat Shield Vault [W]

Hardest Counter Malphite

What a Counter Needs

• Armor, earlier than feels reasonable
• A way to survive levels two through six
• Something that punishes him for the roam

Pantheon Overview

Countering Pantheon

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

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

Best Pantheon Counters

Blank the damage type, beat him on his own timing, or shrug off the stun that starts every fight he picks.

Malphite Armor Makes The Plan Pointless

His whole opening is physical damage delivered in one burst, and Malphite is the champion built to make that specific thing fail. Stacking armor early removes the reason to attempt the all-in at all.

The passive shield handles the poke in between, so even the patient version of the matchup doesn't go anywhere for him.

Renekton Wins The Same Early Game

Pantheon's pitch is that he's the strongest champion on the map for the first few levels, and Renekton is one of the few opponents who can simply say no to that. He sustains through the poke and his own all-in isn't much slower.

He also punishes the commitment. Once the dash is spent, Pantheon is a melee champion in a fight he can't leave (exactly the situation Renekton's kit was designed to exploit).

Dr. Mundo Shrugs Off the Stun

Every Pantheon fight starts with Shield Vault [W], and Goes Where He Pleases [Passive] resists the first immobilizing effect that hits Mundo. The stun turns into a bit of lost health and a canister on the floor, and the combo that should've followed it has nothing to hold.

After that it's a long fight, the one Pantheon doesn't want. Mundo regenerates health far faster than a normal top laner, Infected Bonesaw [Q] takes a share of current health from range, and Maximum Dosage [R] heals back a big part of whatever the early trades took.

Itemizing Against Pantheon

His damage is physical and it arrives early, so the buys are unusually simple and unusually effective:

A Doran's Shield is the cheapest way to survive the levels where he's at his most frightening, and against a champion whose plan depends on the first few trades it does more than the damage item it replaces. Chain Vest is the one that decides the lane, and buying it earlier than the build order suggests is almost always right here. Plated Steelcaps is the natural home for that armor once the lane settles (a large share of what he does is basic attacks landing while you're held in place). Randuin's Omen is the late answer for whoever he keeps choosing to land on, and by the time it's finished the part of the game he was built for is over anyway.

More top lane counter guides

• Cassiopeia
• Gwen
• Kennen
• Renekton
• Teemo
• Warwick

Related

• CountersEvery counter guideAll 173 champions, by lane
• Tier listSolo Queue Tier ListWhere Pantheon sits this patch
• HistoryPantheon patch historyEvery buff and nerf