Counter Guide

How to Beat Syndra

Matchup Guide · Evergreen · 3 Counter Picks

Syndra's ultimate doesn't miss and the balls don't stop flying.

Most burst mages at least give you something to dodge. Syndra gives you a point-and-click button that lands at 675 units and takes your whole health bar. She's one of the mid laners people learn to respect the hard way, and you'll find her on our solo queue tier list. Telling you to dodge better isn't advice. Knowing that she has no dash, no blink and no escape of any kind, on the other hand, is.

Matchup Snapshot Syndra, the Dark Sovereign

Where You Meet HerMid Lane

Damage TypeMagic

Why She Is FrustratingThe ultimate can't be dodged

MobilityNone

Biggest ThreatUnleashed Power [R]

Hardest CounterFizz

What a Counter Needs

A way to block projectiles, or the magic resist to survive the combo without one
Mobility that closes 675 units faster than she can set up Scatter the Weak [E]
The discipline to fight when her ultimate is on cooldown rather than when it isn't

Patch 26.18 Matchup Data

Who Beats Syndra on Patch 26.18

Best Picks Into Syndra

Fizz3,322 games57.8%
Nasus1,085 games55.7%
Katarina2,635 games55.4%
Irelia1,270 games54.2%
Xerath3,040 games54.1%

Picks Syndra Beats

Mel1,748 games43.1%
Orianna2,129 games43.9%
Ryze1,600 games44.9%
Anivia993 games45.9%

Win rates are for the champion listed, in the mid lane against Syndra. They come from Nerfplz's own ranked solo queue games on Patch 26.18, Silver and above, 88,045 Syndra games in all. Only matchups that show up in at least 1% of those games are listed.

Syndra Overview

Strengths: What Makes Her Dangerous

Unleashed Power [R] is point and click at 675 units, throws every sphere around her at once, and executes low health targets once it's upgraded.
She covers the whole lane. Her spheres hold charges, so there's rarely a patch of ground that's safe to stand on.
Scatter the Weak [E] stuns anything a sphere is knocked into, which turns one missed dodge into her entire combo landing.
She has a follow-up with no setup at all, because she can pick up a sphere or a minion and throw it for damage and a slow.
She gets stronger on a schedule you can't interact with. Her abilities permanently upgrade as the game goes on, and the upgrades are real rather than cosmetic.

Weaknesses: Where You Get In

She has no mobility whatsoever. No dash, no blink, no movement ability. Reaching her is the entire game plan, and nothing in her kit moves her out of the way.
Everything except the ultimate is a projectile or a delayed zone. That includes the stun her whole combo needs.
Scatter the Weak [E] is 15 seconds at every rank. It never gets cheaper, and without it her burst has no setup.
Mana. Dark Sphere [Q] and Force of Will [W] spam early is expensive and she pays for it in the levels where she's supposed to be safe.
Her burst lives on a 120 second cooldown at rank 1. Between ultimates she's a control mage with a slow and a stun (a good one, granted, but one you can walk up to).

Countering Syndra

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

Block the projectiles. Dark Sphere [Q], Force of Will [W] and Scatter the Weak [E] are all projectiles. Any projectile blocking tool is a near-complete answer to her setup.
Cross 675 units in one motion. She can't move, so anything that arrives in a single dash or blink arrives before she can reposition the spheres.
Count Scatter the Weak [E]. It's a flat 15 seconds. The window after it's used is the window where her ultimate lands for a fraction of the damage.
Buy magic resist. Her damage is entirely magic and there's no physical component in her kit to punish a lopsided build.

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

Playing a Bad Syndra Matchup

Stand away from her spheres. The spheres are the stun, and the stun is what makes her lethal rather than uncomfortable.

Farm from the back of the wave. Dark Sphere [Q] is a placed zone rather than a homing missile, and the extra 100 units of spacing costs you nothing.

Track her ultimate rather than her health bar. A Syndra who's used Unleashed Power [R] isn't a threat for the next two minutes and your team should be taking something during them.

Buy a Null-Magic Mantle on the first back if you're behind (it builds into Mercury's Treads anyway, so nothing's wasted). Her whole plan is that the combo adds up to exactly your health bar, and 25 magic resist is often enough to make it not.

Best Syndra Counters

Fizz and Katarina beat her more often than anyone in our games. The three below win the lane too, and each one does it a different way: block what she throws, ignore what she throws, or kill her before she throws it.

Yasuo Walls Off the Spheres

Wind Wall [W] blocks all enemy projectiles for its full duration, and Dark Sphere [Q], Force of Will [W] and Scatter the Weak [E] are all projectiles. That deletes the whole setup half of her kit for four seconds, against a champion who has no way to walk around it.

Sweeping Blade [E] then closes the distance through minions on a fraction of a second cooldown, which is exactly the gap Syndra can't afford to have closed. Way of the Wanderer [Passive]'s shield covers the poke on the way in, and once he's on her, a champion with no dash has no plan at all.

Kassadin Shrugs Off Magic Damage

Void Stone [Passive] reduces the magic damage Kassadin takes, and every point of damage in Syndra's kit is magic. Null Sphere [Q] adds a magic shield on top of that and interrupts channels, so the poke war she's built for is one she loses by default.

Riftwalk [R] drops to a 2 second cooldown at rank 3 and it's a blink rather than a dash, so there's no travel time for her to react to. By level 16 the lane's basically over. Kassadin just picks when to appear next to a mage who can't move.

Zed Kills Her First

Living Shadow [W] gives Zed two positions to work with, so the sphere placement Syndra needs for Scatter the Weak [E] is aimed at a target that keeps not being where the sphere is. He also throws Razor Shuriken [Q] from both bodies, which wins the poke exchange outright at level 3.

Death Mark [R] makes him untargetable during the dash, which is the one thing that answers a point-and-click ultimate if he times it into hers. After that it's an immobile mage in melee range of an assassin, and Shadow Slash [E]'s slow means walking out was never an option.

Itemizing Against Syndra

Syndra's damage is entirely magic and it arrives in one combo rather than over a fight:

Banshee's Veil is the best item in the matchup because the ability it eats is usually Scatter the Weak [E], and without the stun the rest of the combo is survivable. Mercury's Treads shortens that stun when it does land, Maw of Malmortius gives a carry a lifeline that triggers during the burst rather than after it, and Kaenic Rookern lets a frontliner walk through her zone control entirely.