Counter Guide

How to Beat Seraphine

Matchup Guide · Evergreen · 3 Counter Picks

Seraphine doesn't win the fight. She undoes yours, one shield and one heal at a time, and then charms your whole team from off-screen.

Playing into Seraphine is an exercise in watching your own work get erased. You win the trade, she shields it. You poke the shield, she heals it. Then a charm arrives from somewhere you couldn't see and the fight is over. She's strong in both bot lane roles on our solo queue tier list and the frustration is completely earned. Even with no dash, no blink and no movement ability of any kind she's still strangely hard to kill.

Matchup Snapshot Seraphine, the Starry-Eyed Songstress

Where You Meet HerBot Lane

Damage TypeMagic

Why She Is FrustratingNothing you do to her team sticks

MobilityNone

Biggest ThreatEncore [R]

Hardest CounterZilean

What a Counter Needs

Grievous wounds, because the healing is what makes the poke war work
A way to reach her, since nothing in her kit gets her out of anything
Enough burst to beat a shield rather than chip at it

Patch 26.18 Matchup Data

Who Beats Seraphine on Patch 26.18

Best Picks Into Seraphine

Zilean1,755 games51.3%
Nami5,540 games51.1%
Rell1,931 games51.0%
Milio4,270 games50.9%
Zyra3,353 games50.8%

Picks Seraphine Beats

Mel2,371 games43.5%
Nautilus7,527 games46.8%
Bard2,144 games46.9%
Swain3,341 games47.3%

Win rates are for the champion listed, playing support against Seraphine. They come from Nerfplz's own ranked solo queue games on Patch 26.18, Silver and above, 141,394 Seraphine games in all. Only matchups that show up in at least 1% of those games are listed.

Seraphine Overview

Strengths: What Makes Her Dangerous

Encore [R] extends its own range for every champion it passes through, so what starts as a bot lane ultimate finishes as a team fight ultimate.
Everything in her kit is on discount. Every third spell she casts goes off twice, for free, for the whole game.
Surround Sound [W] shields and hastes everyone near her, and heals them too if she shielded herself first.
Beat Drop [E] roots anything that was already slowed, from 1300 units, and she is never short of ways to slow you first.
Her poke gets stronger the more of it has already landed, because the damage scales off the health you're missing.

Weaknesses: Where You Get In

She has no mobility at all. There's no dash, no blink and no movement ability of any kind (every gap closer in the game works on her).
Everything is a skillshot with a wind-up. There isn't a single point-and-click ability anywhere in the kit.
Mana. Her whole pattern is casting constantly, and she pays a real price for it in the early levels.
Grievous wounds hurts her twice. It cuts the sustain that wins her the poke war and the healing that saves her carry afterward.
Levels 1 to 3 are bad for her. Before the shields are large enough to matter she's a squishy mage standing in the open.

Countering Seraphine

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

Buy healing reduction early and cheaply. Executioner's Calling and Oblivion Orb components both cost less than the value they take away from her.
Fight at level 2 instead of level 6. Her weakest window and her strongest window are far enough apart to plan around.
All-in rather than poke. Chip damage feeds the pattern she wants. Burst that beats the shield in one go doesn't.
Punish the immobility. Anything with a hook, a dash, or a point-and-click stun beats a champion with no answer to any of them.

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

Playing a Bad Seraphine Matchup

Stand outside the Beat Drop [E] line rather than trying to out-range her. She has more range than you do in most bot lane matchups, and the way to win is to make her land things rather than to trade poke.

Take the fight when Surround Sound [W] is on cooldown. It's 22 seconds at every rank and it's the ability that makes the whole lane feel unwinnable.

Ping your jungler for a level 3 or 4 gank instead of a later one. There's no champion in the game easier to gank and no window where it's worth more.

Buy a Control Ward for the bush she wants to poke from. Encore [R]'s range grows with every champion it hits, so denying her a safe angle is worth more than dodging the cast.

Best Seraphine Counters

The three answers are the three shapes of pressure a champion with no mobility can't solve: a hook, an all-in, and more range than she has.

Blitzcrank Punishes Zero Mobility

There's nothing in Seraphine's kit that responds to Rocket Grab [Q]. No dash, no blink, no spell shield, no way to reposition after the projectile is in the air. If she's standing in a straight line at 1079 units, the lane is a coin flip on whether Blitzcrank aims well.

Power Fist [E] follows with a knockup that stops the shield cast she was about to make, and Static Field [R] strips shields directly on top of that. Her one real answer (Surround Sound [W] absorbing the burst) is the exact thing his ultimate is designed to remove.

Pantheon Kills Her at Level 2

Shield Vault [W] is a point-and-click dash and stun, and Seraphine has no tool at all for dodging it. Pantheon arrives at level 2 with Comet Spear [Q] and a stun and she has a shield that isn't large enough yet to matter.

Aegis Assault [E] covers the part of the lane where she's supposed to be safe, since it makes him invulnerable to damage from the front while he strikes repeatedly, and High Note [Q] and Beat Drop [E] are both aimed from the front. Grand Starfall [R] then means the lane he won stays won across the map.

Senna Wins the Range War

Absolution [Passive] grows Senna's attack range permanently as she collects Mist, so the range advantage Seraphine starts with quietly reverses over the course of the game. Piercing Darkness [Q] heals an ally and damages Seraphine in the same cast, which undoes the poke war she's trying to win.

Last Embrace [W] roots at 1250 units and it roots everything near the target as well, which is a serious problem for a champion who can't leave the spot she's rooted in. Curse of the Black Mist [E] then hides the approach entirely, so the angle she was watching stops being the one you arrive from.

Itemizing Against Seraphine

Seraphine deals magic damage, but the item that actually decides this matchup is healing reduction rather than resistance:

Executioner's Calling and Morellonomicon are the real answers, one for AD and one for AP, and either one bought early changes the shape of the lane more than an extra damage component would. Mercury's Treads cuts the Encore [R] charm duration, and Banshee's Veil blocks Beat Drop [E] before the root can set up anything else.