Counter Guide

How to Beat Renekton

Matchup Guide · Evergreen · 3 Counter Picks

Renekton is a clock, and if you're still standing when it runs out, you've already won.

He arrives at level two with more damage, more sustain and more reason to fight than almost anyone he can be put against, and he spends the next fifteen minutes trying to convert that into a tower. What he doesn't have is a second act. The version of him that wins games is the one that got so far ahead in lane that the falling off never got a chance to matter, so the counterplay comes down to denying him the lead, on purpose, at a cost you agree to pay up front.

Matchup Snapshot Renekton, the Butcher of the Sands

Where You Meet Him Top lane

Damage Type Physical, packed into a few seconds

Why He Is Frustrating He is ahead before you own an item

Mobility One dash, spent twice

Biggest Threat Slice and Dice [E]

Hardest Counter Illaoi

What a Counter Needs

Something that lives through the early levels without handing over the wave
A way to make him regret the dash once it's been spent
Scaling that turns the lane into a footnote by the second item

Patch 26.18 Matchup Data

Who Beats Renekton on Patch 26.18

Best Picks Into Renekton

Illaoi1,785 games57.7%
Singed753 games56.6%
Teemo2,372 games56.1%
Dr. Mundo1,498 games54.5%
Gwen831 games54.4%

Picks Renekton Beats

Yasuo2,325 games43.4%
Riven1,123 games44.7%
Irelia1,541 games45.9%
K'Sante1,292 games46.1%

Win rates are for the champion listed, in the top lane against Renekton. They come from Nerfplz's own ranked solo queue games on Patch 26.18, Silver and above, 71,977 Renekton games in all. Only matchups that show up in at least 1% of those games are listed.

Renekton Overview

Strengths: What Makes Him Dangerous

He starts the game already winning. There's no ramp. The first all in he's allowed to take is usually the best trade either player will get all lane.
He doesn't pay mana for any of it. Trading with him costs you a resource and costs him nothing, so a lane of small pokes bleeds one way only.
The dash goes both directions. Slice and Dice [E] is his engage and his exit in the same button, and it's the reason a gank that looked certain ends with nobody dead.
He heals off minions. Any damage you put into him between fights can be walked off in the wave, so chip damage is close to worthless.
His ultimate works as a health bar. Dominus [R] hands him a size he didn't build for, and it turns a fight he was losing into one he wins by simply not dying.

Weaknesses: Where You Get In

The lead has an expiry date. A Renekton who's even at twenty minutes is a melee champion with one dash and no way to reach anybody who doesn't want to be reached.
Everything depends on that one dash. Once it's gone he can't start a fight or leave one, and the gap between spending it and getting it back is the whole matchup in miniature.
He has no crowd control worth the name. He has one short stun, on a resource he may not have. Nothing that stops a champion who has decided to walk away.
Range beats him for free. He can't make a ranged top laner fight him, and there's nothing in the kit that changes that at any point in the game.
His ultimate is on a long timer. Between casts he's a large crocodile with ordinary numbers, and teams that fight him on that cooldown rather than off it stop losing to him.

Countering Renekton

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

Trade after the dash, never before. The two or three seconds where he can't close the gap or leave are the only window in the lane that belongs to you, and it exists several times a minute.
Let the wave go rather than the lane. Missing minions under tower is survivable. Dying at level three because you wanted three of them is what pays for his next twenty minutes.
Get Grievous Wounds early if you have to fight him. The healing off the wave is what lets him win the same lane twice, and the cheap component (Bramble Vest) is enough to change that.
Play the clock out loud. Tell your jungler you're holding the lane. A gank into a full health Renekton with his dash up is a donation.

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

Playing a Bad Renekton Matchup

Push the first wave hard and then never again. A short lane in front of your own tower removes the space his dash needs and turns his best trade into a coin flip he has to take under your turret.

Buy the defensive component before you buy anything that makes you stronger. This lane gets survived, and the item that keeps you alive to minute fifteen is worth more than the one that lets you fight him at minute six.

Take the fights he doesn't want on the map instead of the one he wants in lane. He's slow to arrive anywhere, and a top laner who leaves for a dragon usually gets there first and comes back with something to show for it.

Best Renekton Counters

Three ways to beat a champion who's strongest first: stop the dash, live past it, or make the damage bounce. One counter each.

Poppy Stops The Dash

Her grounding field turns his engage and his escape off at the same time, and it doesn't need to be aimed. Pressing it at the right moment simply removes the button his whole lane is built around.

That leaves him standing in front of a champion who is built to survive exactly this kind of opponent, with no way to leave and no reason to have come.

Dr. Mundo Leaves Nothing To Burst

The burst that beats most top laners doesn't beat a health bar that refills itself, and Mundo is happy to lose the first three trades because none of them add up to anything.

The lane is boring, and boring suits Mundo. A Renekton who can't generate a kill or a tower out of his best fifteen minutes has already lost the thing he was playing for.

Kayle Outlasts The Window

She's the clean version of the plan (concede the early lane completely and be a different champion afterward). Nothing he does to her before that point is permanent.

It's a miserable twenty minutes and it demands that the rest of the map understands what's happening. The payoff is a matchup that inverts rather than merely evens out.

Itemizing Against Renekton

The first two are the matchup and the last two are ordinary insurance:

Bramble Vest is the lane purchase and it's worth taking before anything that improves your own damage, because the healing off the wave is what turns his good trade into a lost lane. Plated Steelcaps blunts a kit that's almost entirely basic attacks and short range swings. Frozen Heart is the item that makes his best fight stop working (the attack speed he needs is exactly what it takes away). Randuin's Omen covers the moment his ultimate lands and he becomes briefly enormous (the one point in a team fight where he's genuinely difficult to handle).