Counter Guide

How to Beat Tryndamere

Matchup Guide · Evergreen · 3 Counter Picks

You won the fight. Tryndamere just refused to die for five more seconds.

Every top laner has a bad matchup, but Tryndamere is the one that feels like a rules violation. You trade well, you land your cooldowns, he drops to a sliver, and then he spends five seconds hitting you while nothing you do matters. It isn't in your head: that window is built into him, and it comes back every time his ultimate does. How strong he is this patch is a question for the solo queue tier list. The five seconds are the same every patch.

He's also a very honest champion once you stop fighting the part you can't win. Everything he does runs through basic attacks and one dash. That's a short list of things to take away, and I'd rather lane into that than into a champion with five ways to hurt me.

Matchup Snapshot Tryndamere, the Barbarian King

Where You Meet HimTop Lane

Damage TypePhysical, crit-based

Why He Is FrustratingYour won fight has a five-second tail

MobilityOne dash, refunded by crits

Biggest ThreatUndying Rage [R]

Hardest CounterMalphite

What a Counter Needs

A way to make his basic attacks worthless for a few seconds
Enough staying power to still be standing when his ultimate runs out
Patience: the damage you deal during his ultimate is damage you wasted

Patch 26.18 Matchup Data

Who Beats Tryndamere on Patch 26.18

Best Picks Into Tryndamere

Malphite3,341 games56.3%
Nasus2,948 games55.6%
Singed710 games54.1%
Teemo2,202 games53.9%
Tahm Kench725 games52.3%

Picks Tryndamere Beats

K'Sante822 games42.9%
Yasuo1,293 games42.9%
Ambessa817 games44.8%
Irelia1,034 games45.8%

Win rates are for the champion listed, in the top lane against Tryndamere. They come from Nerfplz's own ranked solo queue games on Patch 26.18, Silver and above, 57,927 Tryndamere games in all. Only matchups that show up in at least 1% of those games are listed.

Tryndamere Overview

Strengths: What Makes Him Dangerous

Undying Rage [R] turns a lost fight into a won one. For five seconds his health can't drop below a floor, and casting it hands him a big burst of Fury, so the crits start straight away.
He gets stronger as you hurt him. His attack damage climbs with his missing health, so the Tryndamere at a quarter health is hitting harder than the one who walked into lane.
The heal at the end. Once the rage runs out he spends that Fury on Bloodlust [Q], and a full bar is a big chunk of his health back.
He's never really out of range. His dash comes back faster every time he crits a champion, so the gap you opened by running is rarely as big as it looks.
He splits and he doesn't come back. A fed Tryndamere in a side lane takes turrets faster than most teams can agree to answer him.

Weaknesses: Where You Get In

He's melee with almost no poke. To farm he has to walk up to the wave, and every minion he takes at range from you costs him health.
His damage is basic attacks. Anything that stops, blinds or slows attacks shuts off most of his kit at once.
No hard crowd control. Mocking Shout [W] lowers your damage and slows you only while your back is turned, so it punishes running and does nothing if you stand and fight.
The ultimate has a long cooldown. Two minutes at rank one, which is a long time to walk around without the thing that makes him scary. A Tryndamere without it is pretty much a normal bruiser, and a fairly squishy one.
He's weak in teamfights. He needs to reach the backline through everyone else, and one well-timed stun or slow on the way in wastes his whole ultimate.

Countering Tryndamere

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

Turn off his attacks. A blind, an attack speed slow or a wall of armor does more against him than raw damage does, because attacks are his whole game.
Punish the walk-up. Range wins this lane. If he has to eat damage every time he goes for a minion, he arrives at every fight already low (which feeds his passive, so take the damage lead and then stop trading).
Stop hitting him when he ults. Walk away, kite, drop a slow, whatever buys you five seconds. Anything you throw into Undying Rage [R] just holds him at the floor, and it's the ability you don't have for the fight after it.
Cut the heal. I think this is the part most people forget. Grievous Wounds on him right as the rage ends is the difference between a kill and a Tryndamere who walks off with half his health.

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

Playing a Bad Tryndamere Matchup

Track his ultimate. It's the only question in the lane, and a Tryndamere who used it in the last two minutes is someone you can fight. When it's up, he decides when the all-in happens.

Don't turn your back on him at close range. Running is exactly what the shout's slow is for, and a lot of Tryndamere kills are players who could have stood still and traded instead.

Keep the wave near your own turret. His strongest plays need space, and a lane that's frozen on your side makes every trade a long walk for him with your jungler somewhere nearby.

Best Tryndamere Counters

Three ways into him: take his attacks away, beat him at his own brawl, or slow the attacks until the rage runs dry.

Teemo Blinds The Crits

Blinding Dart [Q] makes basic attacks miss, and basic attacks are all Tryndamere has. Save it for his ultimate (it's on a short cooldown, but not short enough to throw at the first auto). A blinded Tryndamere spends part of his five seconds swinging at nothing while you keep your distance.

The lane itself is misery for him. Teemo's range is roughly three times Tryndamere's, every last hit costs him poison damage, and the mushrooms punish the dash he'd use to close the gap. The one thing to avoid is a blind that goes out early: with it on cooldown, you're a very short champion standing next to a very angry one.

Darius Wins The Brawl

Tryndamere has to come into melee range to do anything, and melee range is where Darius lives (he'd happily stand there all game). His bleed stacks up while Tryndamere is still building Fury, he heals every time his axe lands the outer edge on a champion, and his slow and pull take away the step back Tryndamere needs to reset a trade.

The mistake is Noxian Guillotine [R] into Undying Rage [R]. It can't kill him while the rage is up, so you've spent your ultimate for nothing. Hold it until the five seconds are over, then finish him.

Nasus Withers The Rage

Wither [W] slows both movement and attack speed, and it gets stronger the longer it lasts. Put it on Tryndamere as he casts his ultimate and most of those five seconds turn into slow, harmless swings.

He's the patient pick. Nasus doesn't want to win the lane, he wants to farm it, and a Tryndamere who can't kill him early has to face a champion who gets tankier and hits harder every minute the game goes on (the one fight Tryndamere really can't take).

Itemizing Against Tryndamere

Everything he does comes from crits and attack speed, so buy for exactly that:

Plated Steelcaps cut the damage of every basic attack, which is nearly all of his damage. Bramble Vest (and later Thornmail) applies Grievous Wounds whenever he hits you, so the heal after his ultimate comes back badly cut. Randuin's Omen takes 30% off critical strikes, and Frozen Heart cuts the attack speed of nearby champions. I was a little surprised how neatly those four line up: each one removes a separate piece of him, and none of it is wasted against the rest of a typical team.