Counter Guide

How to Beat Xin Zhao

Matchup Guide · Evergreen · 3 Counter Picks

Xin Zhao doesn't chase you down. He arrives, draws a circle, and then it stops mattering what the rest of your team wanted to do.

He's about as honest as junglers get (a compliment and a warning in the same breath). There are no tricks, no setup and nothing hidden. He walks in, commits everything, and either the fight was winnable on those terms or it wasn't. That makes him easy to read and very hard to escape once the read comes too late, because the moment he lands he takes away the option of anybody else joining in. The counterplay lives entirely in the seconds before that, and in the fights you refuse to have on flat ground.

Matchup Snapshot Xin Zhao, the Seneschal of Demacia

Where You Meet Him Jungle

Damage Type Physical, delivered by basic attacks

Why He Is Frustrating He picks the fight and then removes your help

Mobility One long dash, forward only

Biggest Threat Crescent Guard [R]

Hardest Counter Bel'Veth

What a Counter Needs

A way to punish a champion who has committed everything in one direction
Enough armor early that the third attack stops being a threshold
Range, or crowd control that lands before he's already on top of you

Patch 26.18 Matchup Data

Who Beats Xin Zhao on Patch 26.18

Best Picks Into Xin Zhao

Bel'Veth425 games56.0%
Rammus491 games55.8%
Sejuani455 games54.3%
Kayn1,583 games53.2%
Shyvana1,159 games53.0%

Picks Xin Zhao Beats

Zed456 games46.1%
Rengar506 games46.8%
Diana541 games46.8%
Jarvan IV1,192 games46.9%

Win rates are for the champion listed, in the jungle against Xin Zhao. They come from Nerfplz's own ranked solo queue games on Patch 26.18, Silver and above, 38,163 Xin Zhao games in all. Only matchups that show up in at least 1% of those games are listed.

Xin Zhao Overview

Strengths: What Makes Him Dangerous

He's stronger than you at level three and he knows it. Very few junglers can take an even fight with him in the first clear, and he'll keep asking until somebody says yes.
His third attack does the work. Determination [Passive] means every short trade ends with a knock up and a chunk of health back, so the exchange you thought was even wasn't.
The dash weirdly covers more ground than it looks like it should. He doesn't need to be near you when he decides. He needs a target and a straight line (the wave usually provides both).
His ultimate works as a wall. Crescent Guard [R] pushes everybody who wasn't already in the fight back out of it, so a four on one becomes a duel he chose.
He dives towers better than almost anyone. The knock up chains, the health comes back on its own, and the turret has to pick somebody. It usually picks wrong.

Weaknesses: Where You Get In

He commits in one direction and can't take it back. There's no second dash and no exit. Every fight he starts is one he has to finish standing in the same place he landed.
Kiting undoes him completely. He does everything with basic attacks at melee range. A slow, a dash away or a wall between you and him removes his entire contribution.
Armor is a hard counter to the way he deals damage. There's no magic damage anywhere in the kit, so a single early armor item changes the arithmetic of every trade he wants.
He falls behind as the game gets longer. The lead he builds in the first ten minutes is the lead he has. Nothing about him gets scarier at four items the way a carry does.
His ultimate can be walked into. The knock back only hits people he hasn't recently damaged, so a team that steps into the circle rather than backing off it turns his best tool into a small slow.

Countering Xin Zhao

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

Fight him on your own terrain, never on neutral ground. Around a wall, in your own jungle, next to your tower. The dash needs a lane to travel down and the circle needs space around him.
Buy armor before you buy damage if you meet him early. The first clear is where the game is decided against him, and an early armor component changes who wins it.
Don't back off his ultimate. Stepping away is what it's built to make you do. Walking through it costs you almost nothing and keeps four people in the fight instead of one.
Take the objective he can't contest without committing. He has to be inside the pit to matter. Force the choice while your team is the one holding the entrance.

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

Playing a Bad Xin Zhao Matchup

Track his first clear and stop pathing towards him. He wins the coin flip skirmish and he's looking for it, so an invade that isn't four people is a gift.

Play for the map instead of the fight. He has no way to threaten a lane he isn't standing in, and a jungler who takes the far side objective while he's diving the near one comes out ahead on the trade.

Ask your team to hold crowd control until after the dash rather than before it. Everything he does happens in one straight line, and the moment after he lands is the only time that line is predictable.

Best Xin Zhao Counters

Three ways to beat somebody who commits everything at once: make the commitment hurt, beat him to it, or never be where he lands. One counter each.

Rammus The Damage Bounces

He's the specific answer rather than a general one. A champion whose entire output is basic attacks against a champion who punishes basic attacks isn't a matchup so much as a warning label.

It also works at every stage of the game (unusual, but neither of them changes very much once the items are bought).

Sejuani Wins The Same Fight

She wants the identical early skirmish and brings more crowd control to it. Fury of the North [Passive] gives her bonus armor and slow immunity as a fight opens, so the slows on Audacious Charge [E] and Wind Becomes Lightning [W] don't stick.

Permafrost [E] stuns anyone carrying four Frost stacks, and Glacial Prison [R] stuns whoever it hits. Xin Zhao is at his best when he picks the target and stays on it, and two stuns in a row take that choice away.

Nidalee Never Stands Still

She doesn't have to accept a single one of the fights he's offering, and she can take chunks out of him from a distance he has no reply to.

The clears are faster too (that matters more than it sounds). A jungler who's a camp ahead is never where the dive was aimed.

Itemizing Against Xin Zhao

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

Plated Steelcaps is the single most efficient purchase against him (every point of damage he does arrives as a basic attack). Executioner's Calling handles the health he takes back on every third swing (that's what lets him win a trade he started behind). Randuin's Omen is the late version of the boots, aimed at the moment he lands on the carry with everything up. Zhonya's Hourglass is the answer to a champion who has already committed and can't leave, because two seconds of nothing is enough for the rest of your team to walk back into a fight he tried to exclude them from.