Counter Guide

How to Beat Sivir

Matchup Guide · Evergreen · 3 Counter Picks

Sivir has one button that makes your best spell disappear, and most of the lane is spent deciding when she gets to use it.

She's built around two ideas that don't usually live in the same champion. The first is a wave she can delete faster than almost anybody, so she can sit on top of your tower whenever she feels like it. The second is a shield that eats one spell, and it turns every engage tool on the enemy team into a guess. Underneath them is a marksman with short range for her class and no dash at all, so once the shield is gone she's standing in the open with nothing but her feet. Beating her is a matter of making her spend it, and then arriving in the two or three seconds afterward.

Matchup Snapshot Sivir, the Battle Mistress

Where You Meet Her Bot lane

Damage Type Physical, most of it from basic attacks

Why She Is Frustrating Your best spell just does not happen

Mobility None until level six, and then only a speed boost

Biggest Threat Spell Shield [E]

Hardest Counter Ashe

What a Counter Needs

A second engage tool, or a spell cheap enough to waste
Range, because hers is short for a marksman
Damage that does not care about the shield at all

Patch 26.18 Matchup Data

Who Beats Sivir on Patch 26.18

Best Picks Into Sivir

Ashe2,818 games52.9%
Twitch1,246 games52.7%
Ziggs690 games52.2%
Zeri1,015 games52.0%
Jinx5,126 games52.0%

Picks Sivir Beats

Ezreal4,174 games43.4%
Smolder1,125 games47.3%
Caitlyn6,751 games47.9%
Samira1,279 games47.9%

Win rates are for the champion listed, in the bot lane against Sivir. They come from Nerfplz's own ranked solo queue games on Patch 26.18, Silver and above, 55,597 Sivir games in all. Only matchups that show up in at least 1% of those games are listed.

Sivir Overview

Strengths: What Makes Her Dangerous

The wave is gone whenever she wants it gone. She can clear from a distance and be somewhere else, so a bot lane that tries to win by shoving is playing her game rather than its own.
One spell shield undoes one plan. Most bot lane engages are a single hook, a single dash or a single ultimate, and she gets to delete the one that mattered.
She turns a won fight into three towers. On The Hunt [R] is a team wide speed boost (her only mobility, and it doesn't arrive until level six), so a fight she wins turns into a push that ends games.
Her damage is unusually easy to deliver. It bounces, so a group standing a bit too close together takes a lot more than the health bars suggest anybody should.

Weaknesses: Where You Get In

The shield has a cooldown and everyone can see it. Once it's been used, she's a marksman standing still, and there's a long window before it comes back.
She has no escape. No dash, no blink, no untargetable window. If somebody reaches her, the only answer is that her team was already there.
Her range is short for the role. She has to walk closer than most marksmen to do anything at all (a decision that has to be made in front of whoever is guarding the lane).
She's weak while she's clearing. The mana and the attention both go into the wave, and the moment she pushes without vision she's somewhere she can't see anybody coming.
Nothing in her kit fixes a bad start. She has no sustain and no way to disengage, so a lane that goes wrong early tends to stay wrong.

Countering Sivir

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

Bring two threats. The shield answers exactly one spell. The team that engages with a cheap one first and the real one second is the team she can't plan against.
Punish her while she's pushing. The wave clear is a habit, and a habit is a schedule. Somebody arriving from the river while she's halfway through it doesn't need to outplay anybody.
Fight her from further away than she can answer. Her class is built on range and she has less of it than her opponents (an advantage that exists in lane whether or not anybody uses it).
Aim for the moment after the shield. A few seconds of patience turns her strongest button into a button she's out of.

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

Playing a Bad Sivir Matchup

Let the wave come to you rather than fighting for it. She wins the shoving contest and she'll keep winning it, so the lane that starts under your own tower is the lane where her range disadvantage actually matters.

Ward the river earlier than usual. Almost every good thing that happens to her involves an enemy support walking into a lane she had already pushed, and almost every bad thing involves a jungler she didn't see.

Treat her ultimate as a retreat button. When she uses it to leave, chasing is how a won fight turns into a lost one on the other side of the map.

Best Sivir Counters

Out range her, keep her slow, or arrive somewhere the shield was never going to help.

Kog'Maw Out Ranges Her

Sivir's basic attacks reach 500 units. Bio-Arcane Barrage [W] adds 130 to 210 range to Kog'Maw's for eight seconds and makes every hit deal bonus magic damage off her maximum health, and there's no ability in any of that for Spell Shield [E] to block.

The wave doesn't help her either. Ricochet [W] clears it fast, but once his range is out, walking up to farm means walking into his damage first (and she has no dash to get back out).

Ashe Keeps Her Slow

Frost Shot [Passive] slows with every basic attack, and a basic attack is the one thing Spell Shield [E] can't touch. Sivir's lane leans on speed, from Fleet of Foot [Passive] after every hit to On the Hunt [R] for the whole team, and Ashe takes it away one arrow at a time from 100 units further out.

Enchanted Crystal Arrow [R] is the thing Sivir can shield, so save it for the moment the shield's already gone. The stun gets longer the further the arrow flew.

Rengar Arrives Past The Shield

He opens by already being on top of her instead of with a spell she can delete, and the shield isn't a defensive statistic once the distance is closed.

This is also the cleanest punishment for the pushing habit. A lane that keeps arriving at the enemy tower without vision is a lane that has been offering him a free camp all game.

Itemizing Against Sivir

She's physical damage delivered by basic attacks, so the items that work are the boring ones:

Plated Steelcaps is the correct first buy for anybody she's likely to attack (almost all of her output is basic attacks). Frozen Heart does two jobs at once, and the second one matters more: it slows the attack speed of everything standing near it, and her damage is measured in attacks rather than in casts. Randuin's Omen belongs on whoever is standing in front, and it takes the edge off the part of a fight where she has finished setting up and is simply hitting things. Zhonya's Hourglass is the answer for anybody she's aiming at, since her damage comes in a steady stream and two seconds of it going nowhere often decides the trade.