Aatrox Even TL;DR - SKILL MATCHUP. CONQUEROR. IF UR GOING RESOLVE, TAKE SECOND WIND. IF UR GOING SORCERY, BE GOOD AT DODGING. DSHIELD. HIT YOUR QS. TRY TO DODGE HIS QS. DONT LET HIM LAND HIS LAST Q EVER. OR ELSE HE WINS THE FIGHT. STICK ON TO HIM. DON’T LET HIM POKE YOU DOWN. DON’T FIGHT WHEN UR BOTH LOW HP. HE OUTRANGES YOU.|| This is a very skill based lane. You should only be able to be hit by the first Aatrox Q, as the other 2 are completely outplayable. You want to pop ghost and just run around him when you do pull him in so that he has a very difficult time landing his Qs onto you. If he can land his Qs, he stands a chance. If you dodge them or he misses them, he is free food. Executioners is vital if he gets a kill in lane OR he farms evenly with you, because his healing in his ult will be unbeliavably high without it. If he ever Es into you, he leaves himself vulnerable as he no longer has his escape move. Dshield along with Second wind are great but Nimbus gives you a very powerful dodging ability that is great for this lane. Conqueror is the go to. TRY NOT TO GET HIT BY HIS W. If you do get hit by it, try to walk out of it as soon as possible as the repositioning can let Aatrox get ALL of his Qs off which basically means you just lose. Just flash out if necessary. As a last thing of note, try to make sure you hit your Qs on him. Aatrox’ healing means that he will have extra health for you to punch through. If he becomes a problem and you just died to him twice or so, you can get Ninja Tabi’s and Bramble vest.

Akali Even TL;DR - SKILL MATCHUP IN HER FAVOR. DON’T TAKE BAD TRADES. DON’T MISS YOUR OWN QS. DON’T EAT FREE EMPOWERED AUTOS. TRY TO CANCEL HER DASHES WITH YOUR E. DON’T FIGHT IN SMOKE UNLESS YOU KNOW YOU WILL KILL HER. CONQUEROR OR AFTERSHOCK ARE BOTH GOOD INTO HER. START DSHIELD. SWEEPER IF SHE IS OUTPLAYING YOU IN HER SMOKE TOO OFTEN. Akali is a problematic matchup for quite a few Darius players but if you understand the champion, it becomes easier. The key to winning an Akali matchup is not taking bad trades and not eating her empowered autoattacks for free. Don’t take trades level 1 that go beyond just a simple Q, as she can chunk you out to the point where you can’t even fight back anymore. Level 2 is where the tides turn, as you get access to one of your CC abilities that let you hold her in place. Akali only beats you in an all in if she is able to kite you so stick to her and kill her. Don’t miss your own Qs. If you have an idea of the Akali Q range, you can time it as she goes in so that you both get hit. And since your Q is stronger, you will win the trade. Unless you are aiming to all in and kill her, and KNOW that you can do so, don’t fight in or around her smoke. Make sure she has to walk out quite a bit if she wants to damage you further. This way you can trade back. Another plus of playing Darius is that your bleed ticks, show you where the Akali is when she is invisible. If you are on low ping and are good at predicting, you can effectively cancel all of Akali’s dashes with your E. You can even cancel her ultimate’s damage if you pull her before she reaches you. The easiest dash to cancel will be her shuriken jump. Doing that will immediately destroy her. Her level 6 powerspike is STAGGERING. She can straight up kill you from full HP with her ultimate. Try not to fuck around with her too much when you're low hp at this point. DO NOT lose lane to her, as a fed Akali is going to be a nightmare to face. She will be able to kill you with ease, even if you are under turret. If you do lose lane, try to pick up CS under turret without being poked down too much from her. Conqueror is my go to but Aftershock is an excellent choice for a more secure lane, as it neutralizes her burst. Do not underestimate her when you have a few kills on her, as her damage is crazy high either way. If you are getting unbelievably stomped, then you should invest in some early MR options like Cowl.

Camille Minor TL;DR - EASY LANE. KEEP YOUR EYES OUT FOR THE JUNGLER. DON’T UNDERESTIMATE HOW GOOD A CAMILLE CAN BE IN GANKS. TRY TO USE YOUR E TO CANCEL HER HOOKSHOT. TRY NOT TO EAT TOO MUCH POKE LEVEL 1. Camille can be anything from a skill matchup in your favor, to a free lane for you to get fed off of, depending on whether or not you can use your E to grab her out of her hookshot. There is NOTHING that a Camille can do to beat you in an all in. Even if you miss ALL of your abilities and just AA her, you will probably beat her. She is easy to land Qs against as well. She is VERY weak in all ins. If you ever catch her when her E is on cooldown, she is just dead on the spot. The problem for inexperienced Darius players, comes from when they use their E to pull her in and combo her, which ends in the Camille taking a good trade and using her hookshot to get away. If you learn how to cancel her E, then this lane is just COMPLETELY FREE. That and also not letting Camille poke you for free. Her heal thing outranges your Q a little bit so try to Q in return or stay out of its range. In order to cancel her E, what you want to do is to time your E to hit her AFTER her hook hits a wall. If you are able to do this regularly, this is a free lane. Just be a bit careful, as a Camille is crazy good at setting up ganks. And try not to lose lane against her. A fed Camille is a rare sight but a fed Camille can actually just 1v9. She is a bit of a threat at 2-3 items but as long as you are not inting and have ghost, you can kite her to her death. You just need to E->Q instantly because she can dodge Q with her R.

Cassiopeia Extreme TL;DR - ONE OF THE HARDEST MATCHUPS PERSONALLY. DON’T EAT TOO MUCH POKE. SHE STRAIGHT UP BEATS YOU PRE-3. TRIPLE BEAD IS MANDATORY IF YOU TAKE TOO MUCH SHIT. DSHIELD IS FOR IF YOU ARE A BETTER PLAYER. PHASE RUSH WORKS INTO HER BUT SO DOES CONQUEROR RESOLVE + SECOND WIND + UNFLINCHING. IF TAKING PHASE RUSH, TAKE NIMBUS CLOAK. BAIT HER TO WALK TOWARDS YOU. TRY TO PULL HER WHEN SHE IS ATTEMPTING TO Q YOU. RUN AWAY IF SHE LANDS Q. TRY TO FORCE FIGHT IF SHE MISSES Q. TRY NOT TO FACE HER ULTIMATE. DON’T STAND IN HER MIASMA. SPECTRE’S COWL. MERC BOOTS. PHAGE. ADAPTIVE HELM. ALL GOOD ITEMS VS HER. Cassiopeia is a nightmare to deal with. She has movespeed, she has annoying poke, she has a difficult to counterplay ultimate AND, thanks to new Conqueror, heals up a LOT in all ins AND has early AP. Not to mention how she can ground you which stops you from using your ultimate. I’d recommend taking Conqueror with Second Wind and Unflinching if you wanna be safe. Resolve seconary with Nimbus can potentially work but it is SO risky. She will try to use her Q to poison you and then run you down with her Es. If you get hit by her poison, back off IMMEDIATELY. You will NOT win the fight. If she MISSES her poison, you have an opening to all in her. Try to walk back and then run towards her as she walks towards you to hit her abilities. It helps to be near minions so that you can Q kill a minion and then run towards her with Phage Movement Speed. If she takes Phase Rush, she will be more difficult to stick to but on the other hand, you will actually be able to kill her in an all in. If she takes Conqueror, her missing her Q is your only hope. She is weaker pre-6 so try to get on. Let her push the wave and then run her down with ghost. Having a Jungler helps a lot. Lastly, Adaptive Helmet helps a lot into Cassio so if you are getting your ass beat, get an early Spectre’s Cowl and then build it into an Adaptive helm after Merc boots/Phage. If she is bad and allows you to kill him then just build normally and snowball on her. Be sure to give up minions and play the ranged matchup properly. You are gonna need almost ALL of your HP to beat her.

Cho'Gath Minor TL;DR - EASY LANE. DODGE KNOCK UPS. FREE AFTER LEVEL 3. CONQUEROR SORCERY. PHASE RUSH IF YOU CAN'T DODGE KNOCK UP. BE CAREFUL LOW HP. Cho’Gath is a somewhat annoying champion to deal with. The only thing you have to know in this lane is how to dodge his knock up. His knock up ruins your all ins as it slows you after and it allows him to combo you and walk away since you will be silenced. His level 1 cheese might be surprising at times with his e if he has ignite as well. You also have to make sure to HARD win trades because he will be able to sustain back with CS. This is another lane where you have to use great wave control. Cho'Gath can oneshot you with 1 combo if you are low HP and it is post 6 so be careful when trading with im. ALWAYS LAND YOUR Qs. If you aren’t careful, you might keep trading with him and then he would just heal it all back up because of his passive, leaving you in a position where he can take you out before you can react. If he builds AP, his cheesing ability will be stronger as he just completely chunks you out at range when you let him knock you up. But this also means that you kill him with 1 combo so if you just dodge the knock up of an AP Cho'Gath, hes a free kill. If he is building tank, it is just a free lane. But he miiight get to a point where he is too tanky to kill quickly. Just don’t die in stupid ways, don’t let him knock you up and most importantly, don’t let him farm. Taking ghost makes this lane so much easier as it lets you very easily dodge the knock up. Not to mention how Cho’Gath is very immobile so if he steps out of line, you can just Ghost and run him down. Just be careful when diving him as Cho’gath is great at defending dives. His gank set up is completely dependent on whether he lands his knock up or not. To be honest that is just his entire laning phase. If he can land those, he can go even with you. If he misses them, he is free food. It might be a good idea to ward up some of the brushes or at the very least stop him from going in them because if you have no vision of him, you cannot see him do the Rupture animation which makes dodging very difficult. After level 3 or so, he should never be able to beat you. He does scale up to be a monster giga lategame in a sense that trying to kill him, is a massive waste of time as it takes too long. Just stack 5 off of him and then murder the enemy team.

Dr. Mundo Tiny TL;DR - EASY LANE. DON’T GET HIT BY FREE CLEAVERS. FREEZE LANE AND RUN HIM DOWN. CONQUEROR RECOMMENDED. EXECUTIONER’S CALLING IF HEALING BECOMES A PROBLEM. Mundo can be somewhat annoying to deal with but he is an immobile tank. He actually has no way to outtrade you unless you get hit by every single one of his cleavers. And that is essentially the only trick you need to know in order to beat Mundo. Either dodge his cleavers or stand behind your minions. All he can do is throw his cleavers and farm from a distance. But doing this will actually lead to you being able to freeze better as he will be actively damaging the wave. Since he essentially has no escape from you, you can simply run him down if he walks up too far and tries to aa the wave. Ghost is more than enough movement speed but if you struggle to chase him through his cleaver slows, you can take Phase Rush. Conqueror is nevertheless, preferred though, as you need to punch through his health. Mundo will be stacking up his health quite a bit, which is why you need the extra damage. Another thing to remember is that his ultimate costs a decent chunk of health, which might leave him low enough for you to oneshot with your fully stacked ultimate. If a Mundo gets fed, your team will hate you a lot, as a fed Mundo is actually impossible to kill. If his ultimate healing becomes a problem for you, which it shouldn’t, then a quick executioners calling will do the trick.

Ekko Minor TL;DR - EASY LANE/EVEN LANE HEAVILY IN YOUR FAVOUR DEPENDING ON HOW GOOD HE IS. DON’T LET HIM TOUCH MINIONS. DON’T GET STUNNED BY HIS W. READ WHAT IT DOES. DON’T STAND IN THE GHOST OF HIS ULTIMATE. CONQ AND PHASE RUSH BOTH WORK. PUNISH HIM FOR TOUCHING THE MINION WAVE. Ekko is another skill based champion. The matchup can be easy gold to a boring farm lane depending on how good the Ekko is. Before he gets enough AP to oneshot the wave with one ability, the lane is essentially yours. You should be looking to completely zone him off of the wave. Ekko has terrible early and despite the fact that he is quite slippery, him being melee gives him a clear weakness that you are able to exploit. Do not let yourself be stunned by him and do not stand in his Ultimate ghost as that does a surprising amount of damage. Try to keep an eye out on his passive as Ekko is going to be looking to proc it and run away. Once he gets AP, there is absolutely no lane interaction as all he does is spam the wave with his Q. If he every trades with you, just avoid his stun and destroy him as he does not have the burst to take you down early on. Merc boots are not too good in my opinion against him but are an adequate option if his team has other AP damage dealers along with some CC. Phase Rush is an okay pick as he tends to be quite slippery thanks to his slows but honestly, Conqueror works just fine. If an Ekko gets ahead, you are in for a bad game. Try not to feed him too much and ping like crazy when he is missing. He is a great ganker.

Fiora Even TL;DR - SKILL MATCHUP. DON’T FIGHT LEVELS 1 AND 2 IF FIORA IS GOOD. FREEZE -> RUN HER DOWN WITH GHOST AS USUAL. STAND AGAINST A WALL WHEN SHE ULTS. DON’T MISS YOUR QS SIDESTEP HER RIPOSTE. ULT HER DURING YOUR E AS SHE CANNOT STOP IT. BRAMBLE VEST IF STRUGGLING. CONQUEROR IS RECOMMENDED. This matchup heavily depends on how good the Fiora is. A great Fiora is somewhat difficult to face but all you have to know is that level 1, she is MUCH stronger than you. Do NOT trade her beyond a Q or two level 1. Any Fiora worth their salt will use the opportunity to hit all of your vitals and poke you low enough to the point where you can no longer all in her later on. Level 3 is where the lane becomes easier though. The only point where she beats you is if she Ripostes your E. At that point you are simply done as her stun is long enough for her to get a bunch of vitals off. If you are struggling, pick up a Bramble Vest but it is not always necessary. When she uses her ultimate on you, try to make sure to stand against a wall so that she cannot proc her last vital. She has very terrible waveclear so freezes work very well against her. She outscales you eventually so try to close out the game quick. Conqueror is a must in this lane.

Gangplank Major TL;DR - DIFFICULT MATCHUP. TREAT HIM LIKE A RANGED LANER. DON’T EAT TOO MANY OF HIS QS. AUTO+W TO KILL BARRELS. GET PHAGE ASAP AND THEN KILL MINIONS WITH Q TO CATCH UP TO HIM WHILE HE QS YOU. DON’T EAT BARRELS FOR FREE. TAKE ATTACK SPEED SO YOU CAN AUTO THE BARRELS FASTER THAN HIM. HE IS VERY WEAK VS GANKS SO TRY TO WORK WITH YOUR JUNGLER. PHASE RUSH IS GOOD BUT CONQUEROR HELPS IN ALL INS IF YOU AREN’T HIGH HP. FLEET IS A WEIRD CHOICE BUT IT WORKS. TRY TO PING YOUR TEAM WHEN GP HAS HIS ULTIMATE UP. A good Gangplank with Grasp is going to be impossible to beat as you can’t do much vs his constant Q spam. Not to mention how he gets the movespeed to kite you with his passive+barrels. Graps also makes him quite tanky which makes him difficult to kill in an all in when you don’t have full health which is how you are going to be in most poke matchups. Doran’s Shield + Second Wind is a MUST. You want Phage ASAP as without it, you will never catch him unless he mispositions hard. Treat him as you would any other ranged matchup. Let him push up and then run him down with Ghost. It helps to have Phase Rush sometimes as it lets you to keep chasing him through his barrels but sometimes, Conqueror allows you to have the damage to actually beat him. Vs Gangplank, having high attack speed is mandatory as without it, you will not be able to reliable hit his barrels before he does. And doing this is very important as Barrels are his main source of damage once he gets his items. You can try to auto+W to kill a barrel instantly. If he is close enough to use his Q on you, you might be able to catch up to him with the movespeed from Phage if you kill a minion at the same time as his animation. Catching him this way is easier if you kill a minion with your own Q but this way, you are starting the fight 1 Q down so you have to make sure not to take damage from his barrels. You can bait him into exploding a barrel for free by juking in and out of it sometimes. This is probably the only lane in the game where I would be okay taking Fleet Footwork into as it allows you to have a Pseudo Phage early into the game. It also gives a bit of sustain which is nice. But a good Gangplank won’t be allowing you to touch the wave anyway so it is difficult to make it work. Ping your team like crazy when you hit level 6 as GP can use his ult anywhere on the map. You can try to fight him to make sure he uses it in lane or just keep pressuring. But this way, you will be leaving yourself open to a gank so make sure you have at the very least a general idea of where the enemy Jungler is. On the bright side, if you kill Gangplank once, you snowball super hard on him and can kill him over and over again as long as you don’t play like an idiot. The worst part about playing vs Gangplank is that he can CS from a very long distance with his barrels which makes it difficult to freeze a lane against him.

Garen Tiny TL;DR - EASY LANE. DON’T GO EVEN IN TRADES. ALWAYS EXTEND THE FIGHT. DON’T EAT FOR E COMBO. CARE FOR HIS IGNITE+R. CONQUEROR RECOMMENDED Garen is a very easy matchup for you. The only time he even has a chance of killing you is through some ignite+R cheese he can do level 6. His ultimate is stronger than yours as an execute on a single target but that should not matter as your kit hard counters his. If he steps up to CS, make sure to chunk him out hard. The only point in the game where trading is a bad idea is level 1 IF he goes for the Grasp -> Q max build. If he goes the normal, E max damage Garen, then it will actually be so free as he will be very easy to wear down. A great way to screw him over is to save your W or E for when he silences you. This way, you will CC him long enough for the silence to wear off, allowing you to dumpster him. Ideally, you should try to kite out his E while you try to Q him as it stacks up Conqueror really quickly but even if he hits you with every last bit of his damage, he still loses.

Gnar Even TL;DR - SKILL MATCHUP. DON’T TAKE FREE POKE. CONQUEROR IS RECOMMENDED ALONG WITH SECOND WIND. NINJA TABI RUSH IS GOOD. TRY TO CANCEL HIS JUMP WITH YOUR E. A Gnar lane is somewhat difficult to play, as a good Gnar will always be out of your range. It is a skill matchup between you two. It is an even lane so the better player will always win. Gnar is slightly more useful than you in teamfights if his team is ahead but he is also prime target to stack 5 off of. You should try to avoid his boomerang poke but you can take D shield along with second wind just to be sure. Phase Rush SOUNDS like a good choice into him but Conqueror is actually the recommended choice. Try to freeze the wave in your side of the lane and then run him down. If you time it correctly, you can use your pull to cancel his jump which is essentially a death sentence for him. Be careful when fighting him at low hp, as with Mega Gnar, he has enough cc to keep you stunned long enough to kill you. Not to mention how his CC allows him to set up ganks very well so keep an eye out for it. A Ninja Tabi rush is great into Gnar.

Hecarim Tiny TL;DR - EASY LANE. JUST DESTROY HIM. DOESN’T MATTER WHAT YOU TAKE. DON’T DIE UNTIL LEVEL 3 AND YOU SHOULD BE GOOD TO GO. Hecarim is another easy matchup to beat for Darius. He can’t do anything vs your Q poke. His only hope is cheesing you early on with his Q spam and ignite. He is good at working with his junglers but you can destroy him even if he is ahead. Try to itemise against his team instead of him, as you beat him anyway. Just don’t die in the first few levels. He shouldn’t be bullying you Level 1-2 but just in case he is better than you, wait until level 3 as at that point you beat him anyway. Don’t let him touch the minions at all.

Heimerdinger Major TL;DR - DIFFICULT MATCHUP. DON’T TAKE TOO MUCH POKE. START TRIPLE REJUV BEADS+SECOND WIND INTO MERC BOOTS IF YOU HAVE BEEN SUCCESSFUL IN FIGHTING BACK. IF YOU HAVE BEEN GETTING OBLITERATED, GO FOR SPECTRE’S COWL AND FARM UP. YOU OUT SCALE HIM IN 1V1. IF HE GETS COCKY AND STEPS TOO FAR UP, PULL HIM IN AND CHASE HIM DOWN WITH GHOST. ASK FOR JUNGLE HELP IF POSSIBLE. CONQUEROR WORKS. AFTERSHOCK IS GOOD TO HAVE IN CERTAIN SITUATIONS. PHASE RUSH MIGHT WORK. FORCE FIGHTS WHEN HE DOESN’T HAVE TURRETS SET UP/IS NOT NEAR HIS TURRETS. A Heimer lane is poke city. Take EVERY anti poke thing at your disposal. His rockets do so much damage if he lands all of them that you might need to start triple Rejuv Bead in order to have enough health to actually survive in this lane. On the bright side, he will almost ALWAYS be pushed up so he is very gankable. Not to mention how if he is overconfident and steps too far up, you can run him down. He is low hp so you can kill him very quickly. The trick is not dying after, as his even if he isn’t there to attack you, his turrets will be. Unflinching in addition to Second Wind is great. Conqueror is good but Aftershock is great as it allows you to survive his rockets. Phase Rush CAN work though. I’d recommend packing tenacity and Rushing Merc boots if you think you have kill pressure on him. If he completely destroys you, just give up and build SpectrE’s cowl. On the bright side, you outscale him in the 1v1 as you tend to be very tanky so as long as you dont die and get whatever farm you can get, you will get to a point where he is free food for you. Feel free to kill his turrets using your Q or W. But later on, they become so tanky that the damage you take while doing so is not even worth killing the turret, especially since Heimer will just put another one down.

Illaoi Even TL;DR - SKILL MATCHUP. GENERATE A LEAD PRE-6. TRY TO NOT GET HIT BY HER E. BRAMBLE VEST WORKS WELL INTO HER. NINJA TABIS WORKS AS WELL. AFTERSHOCK IS A GREAT CHOICE. CONQUEROR WORKS TOO. LAND YOUR QS. CAREFUL WHEN FIGHTING HER WITH YOUR JUNGLER. Illaoi is quite a one dimensional matchup. If she lands her E, she is in a position to kill you. If she misses her E, you are in a position to kill her instead. Against Illaoi, you need to be on your feet as there is going to be a lot of dodging involved. You have to dodge her tentacles if possible and you MUST dodge her E. Especially Post-6, as it will lead to her killing you. Keep in mind that without her ultimate, Illaoi cannot kill you at all. Pre-6, she has no kill potential on you whatsoever. Use this to your advantage to generate as big of a lead as possible. Do not miss your Qs. Bramble vest is a good pick up into Illaoi as it allows you to burst her down without her being able to heal back up using her tentacles. I’d recommend a Dblade start if you can force fights early or a Dshield start if you know that she is going to play passive. Conqueror works wonderfully in this lane but if you need extra help into her, Aftershock is another great option. If she landed her E AND used her ultimate, then just RUN. Take as little damage as possible and RUN unless you are 100% positive you will be able to burst her down before she can start DPSing you. Do not underestimate her ability to destroy you at this stage.

Irelia Minor TL;DR - SKILL MATCHUP IN YOUR FAVOUR. DODGE HER STUN. DON’T FIGHT HER WHEN HER PASSIVE IS STACKED. DON’T FIGHT HER NEAR TOO MANY FRIENDLY MINIONS. TRY TO LAND YOUR Q. CONQUEROR IS A MUST. AFTERSHOCK IS OKAY IF YOU ARE SURE YOU CAN LAND YOUR HOOKS. Irelia is not too difficult of a matchup. She cannot quite stand up to you in lane in all ins and, unless she takes ignite, the lane should be yours to take over. This is a very snowbally lane so try not to die to her. And if you do, try not to die any more, because Irelia can be a teamfighting monster who can obliterate your backline. When fighting her, there are 2 things you should try to be mindful of. The biggest thing is Irelia’s passive. Try to make sure not to fight her when she has it stacked up fully OR when she has the means to stack it up VERY quickly (basically, a bunch of low health minions for her to Q between). The second thing that is even more important is dodging her stun. If Irelia has her passive AND she lands her stun on you, there is nothing you can do to prevent death. If only ONE of those things is true (basically she lands her stun but starts from no passive stacks OR she has her stacks but missed her stun) then the winner of the fight will be the better player. It is worth it to flash her stun at times but ghost will allow you to dodge it easily. Try to understand what an Irelia is going to go for. If you have a low hp minion near you, and Irelia walks in range, you can prime your E to cancel her Q. This is INCREDIBLY difficult and you need to actually play Irelia as well as Darius in order to do this consistently but If you manage to cancel her Q, you basically insta win the fight. Conqueror is a MUST against Irelia, as you need to out fight her. Don’t just stand next to her and let her auto you, as she has more DPS than you thanks to her passive. Kite her, going in to AA and use your abilities. Try to make sure you land your Qs on her, as it will be very tricky when she has her Q up. One trick to do this is E and then immediately go for the Q. You should have enough time to land your Q on her before she can get in a position to avoid it.

Jax Even TL;DR - SKILL MATCHUP. KEEP AN EYE ON HIS PASSIVE STACKS. HE CAN DODGE YOUR Q EASILY WITH HIS Q. IF HE JUMPS IN AND USES COUNTER STRIKE, USE E AND THEN Q WHILE WALKING AWAY. DON’T TAKE TOO MANY BAD TRADES. FREEZE WAVE INTO HIM. HE SUCKS VS FREEZES. CONQUEROR IS GOOD. AFTERSHOCK IS DECENT. PTA WORKS. GRASP ALSO WORKS BUT I WOULD RECOMMEND YOU TAKE CONQUEROR. Jax is a very strong champion and can be tricky to beat for a newer Darius. Aftershock works well into him but with the nerfs, I’d recommended Conqueror. Both Grasp and PTA are somewhat cheesy but okay choices into him. You really do not want to die to Jax in this lane. If he gets fed he will be too strong to match on a splitpush and will easily be able to 1v2. The removal of Spear was nice as you can actually play around his E now as opposed to him permeanently having it up before. But Sanguine blade is a very strong buy on him as it makes him quite difficult to beat in a splitpush 1v1 setting. If he takes E level 1 which is what most Jaxes take, try to land as many Qs onto him as possible. You want him to use up his corrupt pot stacks as much as possible as him surviving your bleed stacks thanks to it is the most tilting thing on the planet. A good Jax will most likely jump into you with Q if you try to Q him so try to be wary of that. If he jumps onto you with his counter strike up, you want to pull him in and then Q him as you walk out. This will give you both free damage and stop him from properly utilising his stun. You want to keep an eye out on his passive, as if he attacks you with it stacked up, he will beat you down very quickly. You treat Jax like you would most other DPS heavy toplaners. By kiting him. Having a higher AA range along with ghost and your W slow makes this very doable. Try not to use your W when he uses counter strike. There is a trick you can pull off where you activate your W and then hit him with it JUST as the stun goes off. This way, even if you are stunned, the animation for the W will continue playing and it will actually hit him. But doing this requires you to have knowledge of how long Jax’ counter strike is. He is VERY easy to kill if you have the wave pushed into your side of the lane and you spike harder than him at level 6 (provided you are both at high hp). Ninja Tabis are a great buy into him.

Jayce Even TL;DR - SKILL MATCHUP IN HIS FAVOR. DODGE HIS POKE. RUSH TABIS. PHASE RUSH IF YOU ARE GOOD/ARE SMURFING. CONQUEROR IS BETTER FOR CLOSER FIGHTS/IF THE JAYCE IS GOOD. AFTERSHOCK IF NOT CONFIDENT. DONT FIGHT BEFORE LEVEL 3. TRY TO FIGHT AT LEVEL 6. Jayce is not too strong in the meta at the moment but a great Jayce player can make him work anyway. Read the Ranged Matchup Playstyle I have written below for a good idea on how to play against all ranged champions. With Jayce, it is recommended to go for an early Ninja Tabis rush as that will completely gut him. Most Jayce players opt to go for Lethality early on in order to snowball too which would be negated by Tabis. Against Jayce, I’d recommend Phase Rush but if he miss steps out of positions, Conqueror can work as well. Try to dodge his skillshot poke early on and get used to it. It does a LOT of damage, even if the Jayce is inting. Being poked down like that can lead to him just killing you in a single combo which is sometimes just sad as you watch yourself try to crawl to him and he knocks you back and puts you down with autos. His form change has a cooldown so you can try to play around him not having access to his melee form if possible. The most important thing when fighting a Jayce is positioning. He is a VERY good trader and E->AA->W->Q Combo is just not going to cut it as he will just dash to you, knock you away, go ranged form, auto you 3 times and then fire his blast at you. And at a closer range like that you will not be able to dodge it which will just lead to you getting pushed out of lane. What you have to do is to just all in him every chance you get. Just drag the fight out. What you have to do is E and then just walk behind him. It is no problem if he knocks you back before you can. Just try to make sure that you E or W him. Darius’ abilites are unstoppable so even if Jayce knocks you back, the slow/pull will still lock him in place which gives you time to catch up to him with ghost. If the E WORKS however, don’t use AA or anything. Just walk behind him and THEN do you combo. He will either A, Flash+knock you back for a disengage or B, knock you back behind him and start kiting you. At this point, Phase Rush helps a lot as, Ghost+Phase Rush is a LOT of movement speed. You will probably be able to catch up to him regardless and kill him anyway. A Tabis rush helps in a situation like this as it prevents him from killing you before you catch him. A Jayce matchup is somewhat oppressive early on but he really should stand no chance after level 6.

Karma Even TL;DR - EVEN MATCHUP SLIGHTLY IN HER FAVOUR. DON’T GET TILTED! KEEP COOL. DSHIELD+SECOND WIND+PHASE RUSH. UNFLINCHING IS GOOD BUT NOT NECESSARY. CONQUEROR WORKS BUT PHASE RUSH BETTER. GO FOR PHAGE. TRY TO ITEMISE VS HER TEAM. IF SHE GOES ICEBORN, BUILD CLEAVER AND TRY TO OUT DO HER IM TEAMFIGHTS. IF SHE GOES AP, YOU OUTSCALE HER IN 1V1S. PULL HER IN+AUTO+W TO PROC PHASE RUSH. RUN BEHIND HER SO THAT SHE HAS NOWHERE TO RUN. WITH GHOST YOU CAN CHASE HER DOWN EVEN AFTER HER ROOT. Karma is a very infuriating matchup for a lot of Darius players. In fact, the only way a Karma beats you is by constantly annoying you with her slows, unavoidable CC, shield and movement speed that allows her to kite you while pestering you for days. A lot of Karma top players tend to go for Iceborn Gauntlet which makes laning against her even more of a nightmare. Last but not least, with the removal of Klepto, Karma players who go top will be picking better keystones. God forbid a Karma picks up a Phase Rush as at that point, you will be tilted out of your mind. But remember that you being pissed off is what the Karma wants. She wants you to get angry and impatient so that you make a mistake that she can turn into a kill through jungle pressure or through extensive kiting. The good news is that Karma has nowhere near the damage to kill you. A Dshield along with Second Wind allows you to tank through most of her pathetic damage. Phase Rush is also great into her. Patience is the key word here. The best Darius player is one that is perceptive enough to spot mistakes, and patient enough to wait for said mistakes. YOU are a brick wall that THEY are trying to overcome. So just be patient and you will find a crack in their gameplay that you can turn into a kill or a lost summoner spell. Against Karma, you should try not to eat too much poke as per usual. Since she doesn’t do too much damage, the health from Phage should be good enough. Once you pull her in, auto+w her in order to proc Phase Rush and then just run ahead of her while she tries to stun you. If you can go far enough ahead as she is slowed, you might be able to land a Q as well. You should have Ghost activated at this point which should accelerate over the duration of her stun. After that, just run her down and make her regret picking such a terrible pick. Even if you lose lane, don’t worry. Karma top players build Iceborn which makes her annoying to fight FOR YOU. She cannot snowball which means if you bide your time and play safe, you will be able to outdo her in teamfights. The biggest thing, again, is to keep a cool head and not get impatient.

Kayle Major TL;DR - EVEN LANE IN YOUR FAVOR EARLY. DUMPSTER HER PRE-6. PHASE RUSH RECOMMENDED. CONQUEROR WORKS TOO. DON’T LET HER FARM. SHE IS A LATEGAME NIGHTMARE. Kayle is not 5 due to her early laning. Though her slow and her poke are somewhat annoying, you should be able to stomp her easily pre 6. Wait for the wave to be on your side of the lane and then run her down with ghost once you get a pull or once she missteps. Make sure you kill her over and over again and try to prevent her from farming as Kayle can win lategame by herself. Phase Rush is recommended for this lane as it lets you run her down even without your Ghost as her slow won’t be able to stop you. A trick to keep in mind is that she cannot cast her ultimate when she is stunned. So if you/your jungler/whoever’s working with you possess the burst to kill her quickly, you can do so by pulling her and chain ccing her. But that requires too much coordination for soloq. Just something to keep in mind if you have a duo or something. After she gets her ultimate, it shouldn’t be too difficult to run her down still. You have two options. 1) Burst her down quickly BEFORE she can ult. 2) Apply stacks on her and get her low enough so that you can kill her with your ultimate AFTER she ults. If you are looking to burst her down before she ults, it might be a good idea to do your combo on her (AA+W+Q)and then pull her in. If she hasn’t ulted, you can opt to quickly R her as this will probably leave her low enough where you can kill her with 1 more auto after her invulnerability is over.

Kennen Major TL;DR - BORING/SKILL MATCHUP. DON’T EAT POKE FOR TOO LONG. TAKE SECOND WIND AND DSHIELD/TRIPLE REJUV BEADS AS A STARTING ITEM. MERC BOOTS RUSH IF YOU THINK YOU CAN KILL HIM. SPECTRE’S COWL IF YOU CAN’T DEAL WITH HIS POKE. CONQUEROR WORKS BUT PHASE RUSH IS BETTER. IF KENNEN DOESN’T TAKE PHASE RUSH, JUST STOMP HIM WHEN HE PUSHES UP. TRY TO LAND YOUR W ON HIM WHEN HE USES LIGHTNING RUSH. FARM UP AND DON’T DIE TO HIM IN LANE. TELEPORT IS NOT BAD INTO HIM IF YOU KNOW YOU CAN’T KILL HIM. FREEZE THE LANE AND THEN RUN HIM DOWN IF POSSIBLE. TRY TO SPLIT PUSH VS HIS TEAM. Kennen is notoriously known as being one of Darius’ hardest matchups and it is somewhat true. The bad thing about s10 is that Kennens will be taking Phase Rush instead of Klepto now. This means that even if you pull him, he can stun you and be 50 lightyears away from you with the movespeed he gets from both E and Phase Rush. His poke is pretty laughable compared to other ranged matchups and his all ins are very terrible. Try to get as much HP regen as possible. By this I mean Triple Rejuv beads and Second Wind. Try to farm up while sustaining. I’d recommend a Merc boots rush along with tenacity from runes but Spectre’s Cowl is a better purchase as it gives you a ton of sustain vs his poke. Conqueror is an okay choice and you can take it if you want to but is overkill into this lane IMO. Phase Rush works the best into him, as it actually gives you a CHANCE to catch up with him. I’d recommend going Phase Rush, Unflinching(along with second wind) AND buying Merc boots which might be enough to chase him down if he pushes up too much. But it will be tricky nonetheless. If he plays properly, this is going to be a very boring lane as none of you have too much kill potential on the other. Try to farm up and itemise properly. One thing to keep note of is that Kennen is a monster in teamfights thanks to Zhonya’s Hourglass. It lets him face tank your entire team and stun everyone while being invulnerable which honestly has little counterplay other than having a champion with good and fast disengage (Gragas, Lee, Janna). I’d recommend trying to splitpush into his team and force him to match you. It might be a good idea to take Teleport into Kennen, as it allows you to Splitpush without your team having a TP disadvantage lategame. You scale much better as a duelist than him so keep that in mind. If the Kennen goes AD, the lane is going to be even more difficult as he is going to have a 5 second CD on his E which makes him impossible to catch. But on the bright side, he will be much worse in teamfights. Overall, just be patient and keep an eye out for positioning mistakes.

Kled Minor TL;DR - SKILL MATCHUP HEAVILY IN YOUR FAVOUR. DODGE HIS QS. DONT EAT HIS W AUTO ATTACKS. BE CAREFUL WHEN LOW HP. CANCEL HIS SECOND E WITH YOUR PULL. LAND YOUR OWN QS. CONQUEROR RECOMMENDED. This is not that difficult of a matchup. Even with ignite and PTA, Kled cannot beat a good Darius in lane. Kled is essentially a much weaker Renekton. Try to dodge his Qs. If he lands them onto you, then try to either walk out of its range or make sure you land a Q before it pulls you in as the anti heal on his Q is really stupid. You have to make sure to kite him around with ghost so that he does not get every single one of his W autos off on you. In all honesty, even if you miss half your abilities, you should still be able to beat him in an all him. Just don’t take stupid short trades, as Kled has much more health to work with than you. Don’t get into an AA match with a dismounted Kled, as if he gets his remount off you are most likely dead. Tabis are good against him but the lane is easy so you can just go damage. If Kled DOES get ahead of you though, it will be a nightmare because a Kled can solo win a game thanks to his ultimate. Just ping your team like crazy when he goes missing. You do outscale Kled eventually so don’t worry if you lose early. Just sit tight and look for opportunities. Conqueror is a MUST into this lane as you need the extra damage to cleave through all of his HP.

Lillia Minor TL;DR - SKILL MATCHUP IN YOUR FAVOR. DON'T BE AFRAID OF HER. IF SHE STEPS INTO YOUR RANGE, SMACK HER WITH YOUR COMBO. TRY NOT TO TRADE WHEN SHE HAS HER PASSIVE STACKED HIGH. IF SHE HAS HIGH MOVEMENT SPEED, SHE CAN OUTRUN YOU VERY EASILY. YOU CAN'T CATCH HER EVEN WITH GHOST. CONQUEROR SORCERY IS GREAT. GHOST IS A MUST. WITHOUT GHOST YOU CAN'T DO SHIT. PHASE RUSH IS OKAY BUT UNNECESSARY IMO. GO SPECTRE'S COWL IF LOSING. BUT YOU CAN JUST SIT ON NULL MANTLE MOSTLY. MERC BOOTS IS GOOD TOO BUT YOU SHOULD BE WINNING THIS MATCHUP SO GO PHAGE. I honestly thought this matchup would be far worse than it actually is. But I guess things are different in practice than they are in theory. If you are mechanically good on Darius, you should have very little trouble against Lillia because she kinda has to walk closer to you to do her thing. Her poke and her damage is a bit annoying but the the annoying part of her kit is her passive movement speed. You want to treat it like Irelia passive where if she has it stacked up, you probably aren't gonna beat her. Even if you catch her she can just Phase Rush out of your range and continue to poke you down with a constant 600 movement speed. At least with Lillia, you just take poke instead of getting oneshot like vs Irelia because she lacks the power to do much damage earlier on. In lane, she is just annoying. Build Dshield and go for Conqueror Sorcery. If you get ahead in lane, you can start oneshotting her once you have phage sheen with ur normal combo but even then, she can be hard to catch if she has her passive stacked up. Also be aware of her infinite range Es as they tend to come out of nowhere but be very dangerous when combined with her ult as it keeps you slept for enough for her jungler/team to capitalize.

Lucian Major TL;DR - DIFFICULT MATCHUP. CONQUEROR OR AFTERSHOCK. SECOND WIND + DORAN’S SHIELD IS A MUST. RUSH NINJA TABI. RESPECT HIS DAMAGE. DON’T GO FOR STUPID CS THAT LETS HIM GET A FULL COMBO ON YOU. ESPECIALLY IMPORTANT IF HE IS RUNNING PTA+IGNITE. VERY SNOWBALLY LANE.Lucian is a difficult matchup for the impatient Darius but if you properly play around your powerspikes and have basic knowledge on the champion, you can absolutely demolish him. Much like all Darius matchups, you have to keep your eyes open for any mistake the Lucian does whether that is wasting his dash, dashing towards you or him misstepping. You will have to give up some CS in order to conserve your HP. Cannon minions are nice and all but you do not want to eat a full combo + PTA from Lucian and lose 60% of your HP. He also builds Cutlass which makes it even more difficult to beat him in an all in. But the thing with Lucian is that if you catch him, he is pretty much dead. You have to play aggressive and look for hooks that you can turn into all ins at level 3, 6 and when you buy Ninja Tabi. And you HAVE to rush Ninja Tabi against him. Phage is great too but only after Tabis. In terms of runes, I’ve found that Conqueror works best because against Lucian, you will just have many close fights which is where Conqueror shines. Aftershock is another great choice but if you have Aftershock but MISS your E, you are likely to lose the fight unless you are super ahead already. Either way, you need to be taking Second Wind and picking up a Doran’s Shield ingame. Rejuvenation Beads are okay but they don’t work too well in early fights as they don’t actually give you any stats. If you ever land your pull on him, he is pretty much dead as with the W slow on him, you will catch up even if he dashes away. If you have ghost, a pull on the Lucian is pretty much a free kill. The good thing about this matchup is that once if you win it and get ahead, the Lucian is pretty much screwed. You will snowball on him super hard and he won’t be able to do much for the rest of the game unless you and your team give him a lot of kills in a teamfight. The bad part is if he gets ahead, he will be a very massive threat to your team.

Malphite Tiny TL;DR - EASY LANE. DON’T EAT POKE FOR FREE. GENERATE LEAD BEFORE LEVEL 6. BLACK CLEAVER IF BEHIND. PHASE RUSH AND CONQUEROR BOTH WORK. Malphite is not a challenge at all. The only hope he has against you is going AP, Comet and spamming you with es until you are low enough to all in and kill with R. And if you predict his R, you can activate your E just as it hits you in order to stun him so that he cannod do is his combo on you. He is only unstoppable DURING his ultimate, not after. Be careful of his level 6 powerspike as at that point, he can do a surprising amount of damage and is incredible at setting up ganks. You should have a kill and/or a cs lead before level 6. If somehow you got killed by him, you can go Black Cleaver which should help you easily take him down.

Maokai Tiny TL;DR - EASY LANE. DON’T TAKE BAD TRADES. DONT GET CHEESED BY SAPLINGS. TRY TO WIN TRADES HARD BECAUSE OF HIS SUSTAIN. CLEAVER IF BEHIND(somehow). CONQUEROR/PHASE RUSH BOTH WORK. Even if you miss ALL of your abilities and just auto attack him, you will probably kill him. He is very shit at extended fights. A Maokai will be looking to safely farm with his abilities and keep trades with you short, damaging you a little and then disengaging, with him healing off of his passive later. Just don’t leave yourself in a position where he can easily knock you back without you retaliating. Q spam poke him off of minions. If he roots you in order to dodge the Q, just W/E him in order to stop him from escaping. If possible, time your E/W (whichever one is left) same time as his knock back so the slow lets you catch up. Maokai is VERY GOOD at setting up ganks.

Mordekaiser Minor TL;DR - EVEN LANE IN YOUR FAVOR. DON’T EAT FREE QS. DON’T STAND IN HIS PASSIVE. KITE KITE KITE. IF HE ULTS YOU, KITE AROUND HIM. HE NEEDS ULT TO BE ABLE TO 1V1 YOU. CONQUEROR RECOMMENDED. Mordekaiser is a somewhat tricky champion to deal with. His kill pressure goes up a lot if he takes Ignite but most Mordekaisers take teleport instead. The trick to beating Morde is to not stand in his passive and eat his Qs for free. You have to be quick on your feet as in an all out fight where everyone lands everything, Mordekaiser wins. But as Darius, you are a bit more mobile than him due to being able to move while using Q. If he pulls you in to trade, just run him down and kill him. The general idea should be to do your combo, walk in front of him(towards his tower) while kiting him, and then going back in once your Q is back up. Outmanoeuvring him should be a breeze with ghost. Try to make sure you have a lane lead before level 6. If he uses his ultimate on you, try not to fight him. You will not beat him inside of his ultimate. Even if you are ahead by a kill. The idea should be to apply your stacks and kite away from him. Once his ultimate is over, you are free to go back in and just put him down. He is somewhat like Nasus in that he needs his ultimate to be able to beat you. Mordekaiser DOES outscale you eventually though. But the point he does should be the point where he is going to be looking to ult someone in your backline. And worst case scenario, if you are the only carry, a QSS can go a long way. I recommend Conqueror as you really need to punch through his healing and his shield.

Nasus Minor TL;DR - EASY LANE. DON’T LET HIM STACK/DON’T EAT TOO MUCH POKE. PHASE RUSH IS RECOMMENDED. CONQUEROR WITH TENACITY STACKING WORKS AS WELL. DON’T FALL BEHIND NO MATTER WHAT. The Nasus matchup is somewhat difficult as if you ever fall behind, you will never be able to catch back up to him. He can win fights with an entire item behind sometimes because of his Ultimate which is depressing. The key is to stomp him early on in order to make sure you have a big lead by level 6. You are able to do this if he goes the normal Q max Nasus. The E max Nasus is a different story. He won’t be scaling as hard but he will be poking you down hard. The thing is, Doran’s shield or even second wind on its own is enough to negate it as long as you don’t eat every single E. He also has sustain with his passive. You should be freezing him off of the wave if he doesn’t have his ultimate/if its pre-6. The biggest problem when fighting Nasus is that ultimate makes him ridiculously tanky and cranks up his DPS to an unreal state. His wither stops you from kiting him properly. The clear way to counteract this is to bait out his ultimate and then disengage. Some Darius players go full tenacity (Merc boots, Legend:Tenacity, Unflinching). But the simpler way is to just take Phase Rush. It helps in early fights as he can’t disengage with Wither and it is great as you can just E+Auto+W him when he activates his ultimate. If you lose this lane, it is over. Build Cleaver into full tank and peel for your team. Be careful of ganks as he is great at setting them up.

Neeko Even TL;DR - EVEN MATCHUP IN HER FAVOUR IF SHE BUILDS AP. DIFFICULT MATCHUP IF SHE BUILDS AD. PHASE RUSH IF CONFIDENT. CONQUEROR IF YOU KNOW ULL NEED THE EXTRA DAMAGE. DSHIELD WITH SECOND WIND AND UNFLINCHING ARE MANDATORY. IF YOU ARE TAKING CONQUEROR, TAKE TENACITY. IF SHE IS BUILDING AP, BUILD MERCS. IF SHE IS BUILDING AD, BUILD TABIS. PLAY PATIENTLY. WAIT FOR HER TO MISPOSITION. THEN PULL HER IN AND RUN HER DOWN. DON’T STAND CLOSE TO HER. GIVE UP CS IF NEEDED. DON’T STAND TOO CLOSE TO YOUR OWN MINIONS. DON’T GET HIT BY HER STUN. DON’T LET HER HIT YOU WITH HER EMPOWERED AUTO. The Neeko matchup is very difficult to deal with for an inexperienced Darius. Her abilities are difficult to dodge as her stun gets faster when it passes through minions. The hitbox on it is very tricky to dodge, as it will not look like it hit you even though it did sometimes. Up against Neeko, you really need to play carefully. Once you kill her once, you will snowball really hard to the point where she really can’t do anything to you but up until that point, you simply need to be patient. Neeko’s early damage is INSANE. Don’t even try to trade with her level 1. Level 2 might work once you have your E but I’d still recommend being patient until level 3, as at that point you will have enough CC and slows to run her down. The good part is that if you hit her with an ability before she makes a clone of herself, your bleed stacks will be visible on the actual Neeko. Not to mention how your Q heals you when you hit Neeko’s clone with it. Start Dshield along with Second Wind and Unflinching. I’d recommend Phase Rush, as a lot of Neeko’s will be taking Glacial Augment which makes getting to her tricky at times but Conqueror works very well in this lane, as you sometimes need the damage to punch through her shield. Not to mention how by taking Precision into Resolve, you should be able to run max Tenacity which helps against Neeko. In this vain, an early Merc boots help against her a lot if she is going AP. AP Neeko does a LOT more poke damage which makes getting caught by her stun much more punishing. AD Neeko on the other hand is a different matter. AD Neeko with PTA is going to be able to take half of your HP bar away in SECONDS early on. DO NOT let her get her empowered auto attacks off on you. AD Neeko’s abilities and ultimate are quite terrible but her damage can be very surprising. If the Neeko builds AD, you’d better have packed tenacity in runes because you are going to NEED Ninja Tabi. Be patient. AD Neeko is still beatable. Just try to remain healthy throughout the lane and wait for the perfect opportunity. An AD Neeko, once behind, is going to do much less in teamfights than an AP Neeko who is behind.

Nocturne Minor TL;DR - CHEESE LANE. DON’T DIE UNTIL LEVEL 3. DON’T DIE TO HIM EARLY. KITE HIM WITH GHOST. PING LIKE CRAZY WHEN HE IS MISSING. CONQUEROR IS GOOD. PTA WORKS. DON’T LET HIM FEAR YOU. USE Q TO CANCEL HIS SPELLSHIELD. Nocturne is a VERY cheese pick into Toplane. His only hope is killing you in levels 1/2. Be careful though, as his damage at these levels is surprising with Lethal Tempo. Your goal is to make sure you can effectively land you slows on him and kite him, as if you let him just stand there and AA you, he will melt your health bar. If he is allowed to win lane, he will be free to roam and wreak havoc on the entire map, oneshotting your carries. After level 3, he is VERY easy to beat with Ghost. Ping like crazy when he is missing as he will roam 100% of the time. He is also very good at working with his jungler, as he can essentially be in any fight that is on the top side of the map. It is also a good idea to play around lethal tempo if he took it.

Olaf Minor TL;DR - SKILL MATCHUP. DON’T FIGHT HIM BEFORE LEVEL 3. KITE HIM TO HAVE HOPE OF BEATING HIM EARLY. DON’T LET HIM HIT YOU WITH HIS AXES. BE CAREFUL WHEN FIGHTING HIM LEVEL 6. NINJA TABI’S ARE HELPFUL. You do NOT want to fight Olaf early on. Once he hits one of his axes, you are legit fucked as the slow allow him to catch up and land another one. Try to play safe until you get both of your CC abilities. Basically, wait till level 3. At that point, you have the CC to stop him from moving and getting his axes which allows you to kite him properly. And if you can properly kite out an Olaf, there is essentially nothing he can do. Try not to die to Olaf. Remember that Olaf falls off super hard so if he LOSES lane, his team essentially has no toplaner. Try to dodge his axes. In all honesty, if you are patient you will win this lane. Try to be careful as he spikes extra hard in level 6. You no longer will be able to kite him out. If you are going to fight him level 6, the key is to A) NOT GET HIT BY HIS AXE and B)USE YOUR E BEFORE HE USES HIS ULTIMATE SO YOU GET SOME USE OUT OF IT. Try to kill him when he is low as Olaf is great at healing in crucial moments. His DPS is also highest when he is low. In terms of runes, I’d recommend Bone Plating and Conqueror. Phase rush is somewhat helpful for when you want to disengage but Conqueror helps you just out fight him.

Ornn Minor TL;DR - EASY LANE. DON’T EAT FREE BRITTLE AUTOS. KEEP TRADES SHORT LEVEL 1-2(A SINGLE Q) AND LEVEL 3, TAKE CONTROL OF THE LANE. CLEAVER IF YOU FIND IT DIFFICULT TO PUNCH THROUGH HIS ARMOUR/IF YOU ARE BEHIND. CONQUEROR RECOMMENDED. Ornn is a somewhat difficult matchup because of how much damage he does in trades. He appears to be the average, easy to beat tank but in actuality, he is a lot more dangerous if you aren’t paying attention. Try to dodge the second part of his fire breath as that is the part that applies his brittle stacks on to you. It should not be too difficult as all you have to do is to move sideways which is not something he can do. This is easier to do with ghost activated. If he does get the second part off on you, then you should not let him activate it by auto attacking you. The combo can take away a third of your health bar and he can run away before you can trade back into him. This is even worse considering how he can buy items that let him sustain in lane. Losing to Ornn is very bad as he snowballs hard and becomes ridiculously tanky because of his passive. Don’t worry though. Aside from his brittle stack autos, nothing else in Ornn’s kit is dangerous in a 1v1. He is just free food if you have your ghost activated, provided you don’t let him land every single bit of CC on you. You can stop him from reactivating his ultimate and knocking you up with an E but you’d probably use your E much earlier in a fight. If he engages with R, chances are he is setting up for a gank which he is very good at doing so try to make sure the lane is frozen on your side of the map. You can also cancel his dash with your E, stopping him from getting away. The general idea is to not take stupid trades Level 1-2 and then try to pressure him into an all in at Level 3, as from that point onward you should easily beat him in all ins, especially with ghost. Conqueror is definitely recommended in this matchup.

Pantheon Even TL;DR - SKILL MATCHUP IN HIS FAVOUR. DON’T FIGHT HIM EARLY. DON’T TAKE TOO MUCH FREE POKE. NINJA TABIS ARE GOOD. CONQUEROR AND AFTERSHOCK ARE GOOD. CANCEL HIS STUN WITH YOUR E. WALK AROUND HIS SHIELD BLOCK WITH GHOST. PING WHEN HE IS MISSING. Pantheon can potentially be a difficult matchup if he is the better player. You want to not too many free Qs from him, as that is how he wins the lane, by poking you down and then all inning you. A smart Pantheon will almost never use his Ranged Q. He will just tap it as that gives the same damage but is better in every single way. It might be a good idea to play safe early on, at least until level 3 because you can start properly retaliating against him. D shield along with Second wind are a MUST. You beat him in all ins but properly counterplaying his E and landing your Qs are crucial to doing so. Try to make sure you stay healthy in lane and not take too much damage. In terms of rune choice, Conqeuror and Aftershock both work depending on your playstyle. In terms of items, Tabi’s are a good pick up and are mandatory at times. Bramble might be an okay pick up if he is running Conqueror. Try to make sure you stack up some health though. Ping like crazy when he is out of lane as he is very good at ganking others due to his ultimate. This will be bad for you too because once he gets fed off of your teammates, he might be able to beat you. A good trick to know is to use your E when he tries to stun you. If you time it right, you will cancel the stun and even if you screw it up, he will be stunned to. If he uses his shield to block damage, just walk around him and start hitting him. This should be easy to do with ghost. If he keeps it, try not to ult when he is using block damage.

Poppy Tiny TL;DR - EASY LANE. DON’T STAND BETWEEN HER AND A WALL. DON’T EAT HER POKE. CONQUEROR RECOMMENDED. Poppy is not too difficult of a champion to fight. You don’t need too much special knowledge. Just don’t stand between her and a wall, try to stop her from taking her shield but keep in mind that she might use it to bait you into a wall stun, try to be aware of how she can flash and wall stun you and lastly, be wary of her ultimate. If possible, try to save your e in order to cancel her r as it is one of the best disengage tools in the game. It has been a while since I’ve seen a Poppy utilise an ultimate correctly but the potential for her stopping your rampage in a teamfight is there.

Pyke Even TL;DR - BORING MATCHUP IN YOUR FAVOUR. HE CAN’T BEAT YOU. DON’T LET HIM ROAM. FREEZE HIM OFF OF CS IF HE STAYS IN LANE. IF PYKE WANTS TO ROAM MID, SHOVE THE LANE IN PROVIDED THE JUNGLER ISN’T TOPSIDE. DSHIELD+SECOND WIND ARE GOOD. CONQ IS RECOMMENDED. YOUR GOAL IS TO KILL HIM IN ONE ALL IN AS FAST AS POSSIBLE. DON’T TRADE WITH HIM UNLESS YOU WILL WIN THAT TRADE HEAVILY OR YOU KNOW YOU CAN TURN IT INTO AN ALL IN. YOUR E CANCELS BOTH HIS HOOK AND HIS E DASH IF YOU PREDICT IT. Pyke is a very annoying matchup to face as, much like Singed, he does not play the game as would a conventional laner. Pyke players will often completely give up on farm and permanently roam to grab kills with his ultimate. Not to mention how his passive allows for him to take trades that makes no sense, as he will just heal most of the damage back up anyway. Fortunately, Pyke is not really that strong on his own. He is simply slippery. Know that you will not be able to poke him down as you would usual laners. You have to kill him in one try. This is why you have to try your best not to push the wave. Your E cancels his hook and if you can predict him, you can pull him out of his E which essentially leads to his death. Let him push up and freeze him off of farm, with you shoving before a fight elsewhere can happen so that he is stuck farming or he gives up minions if he decides to roam. Pyke is also not too strong in a 2v1, which means that if you are able to keep yourself high enough HP by hitting both him and the jungler with your Q or flashing his ultimate, you will be able to easily 2v1. Pyke cannot build hp so this makes him especially weak vs your ultimate. Another wonderful thing is that if your bleed is to kill an enemy, if will give you vision of them. Although this won’t always work, it will sometimes stop his passive from healing him which will lead to him dying to the bleed anyway. At the end of the day, it does not matter if you kill him and snowball. In this lane, your priority is to keep him from roaming and keep him in your lane where he can’t kill you. Also, don’t actively trade with him. Try to simply Q him unless you know you can keep up with him and kill him. A Dshield along with Second Wind are very helpful in outlasting him. Conqueror is great as you need the AD to oneshot him with your ultimate.

Qiyana Minor TL;DR - EASY MATCHUP. CONQUEROR WORKS WELL. PHASE RUSH IS OKAY. AFTERSHOCK IS OVERKILL BUT IT WORKS VERY WELL. RUSH EARLY ARMOR. TABIS/CHAIN VEST. DSHIELD IF YOU WILL GET POKED OFTEN/IF SHE HAS IGNITE. DBLADE IF YOU ARE CONFIDENT YOU CAN AVOID POKE. DON’T STAND HER WALLS. SHE CAN’T 1V1 YOU. PING HER ROAMS. Qiyana is very slippery and does very well in short trades which makes her somewhat difficult to deal with if you don’t know what she does. But it is not too difficult to take care of her. Conqueror works wonders into her but Phase Rush works just as fine. I’d recommend Aftershock too but its just over kill. Against Qiyana, it is key to not die to her. You outscale her in the 1v1 so if you are losing trades, just hand back and sustain. I’d recommend Dshield for the poke she has but if you are confident you can avoid it, go for Dblade. Treat her in lane like a worse, AD Akali. Your bleed reveals her in her invis so she can’t easily get away either. Rush armor early on whether it is in the form of Ninja Tabis or a simple Chain Vest if her team doesn’t allow it. You will be far too tanky for her to kill which lets you run her down if she ever dares stepping up. If you are trying not to get poked down, hide behind your minions but don’t stand close to them, as her poke goes through them. Lastly, don’t stand near walls as her ultimate is quite ridiculous. If she lands it, you will still win the fight but it allows for her to win teamfights and set up ganks for her jungler.

Quinn Major TL;DR - DIFFICULT MATCHUP. DON’T GET POKED DOWN. PHASE RUSH IS GOOD. FLEET WORKS. CONQ WORKS. AFTERSHOCK IS RISKY. DON’T MISS YOUR ES. TABI RUSH IS MANDATORY. USE YOUR E TO CANCEL HER HEADBUTT. IF YOU PULL HER, WALK BEHIND HER BEFORE AA+W. PING YOUR TEAM IF SHE IS MISSING POST 6. BEAT HER BEFORE SHE GETS SANGUINE BLADE. Quinn is one of the most difficult matchups for Darius in the game. You need to take Phase Rush into her. Fleet is not a bad option. Conqueror would be decent. Take anti-poke in the form of Second Wind and Dshield/Rejuv Beads. You need to pick up an early Ninja Tabis. Quinn has a low AA range so it is not too much of a nightmare to catch her with a pull after the Phage Movespeed. If you time your e correctly, you can cancel her Headbutt with it. Doing this will guarantee you the kill every time. The trick is to predict it, as it is too quick to cancel based purely on reactions. Try not to fight her too much early on if you can’t get your hands on her. This also means giving up CS. She loses the all in at level 6 so you have that to look forward to. If she is not in lane after 6, ping like crazy. Ping where you think she is gonna go, as she can roam very quickly with her ultimate. If you manage to E her, try to walk behind her and THEN auto+W. This would mean that she if she headbutts you, she will knock herself to your side of the lane which would allow you to kill her. The slow should make landing your Q on her manageable, even through the blind.

Rengar Minor TL;DR - EASY LANE. DON’T TAKE STUPID FIGHTS AT LEVEL 1/2 WHEN HE HAS FEROCITY STACKS. DON’T LET HIM WALK AWAY FROM TRADES. FREE AFTER LEVEL 3. TABI IF LOSING. A Rengar matchup depends on how good the Rengar is. Joe Schmoe who builds lethality every game is going to be free food compared to a Dekar but generally speaking, Darius is one of Rengar top’s biggest counters. All you have to do is to make sure he does not cheese you level 1. Just stand outside of his jump range from bushes. If you don’t know the range, just hop into practice tool on Rengar. Level 1, it is best to give up unless you catch him outside a brush. And even then, Rengar wins hard, especially if he has ignite. Respect his 4 stacks. Once you hit level 3, the lane should be over. If the Rengar keeps playing aggressively and does not adjust his playstyle, he is free food. The second he goes in for a minion, Q-AA-W, pop ghost and then just mess him up. Try to dodge his E root and be mindful of where the Rengar can jump in order to stop him from outplaying you. If he does a W+Empowered W, just E him back. There is no hope for a Rengar to win this lane. What most GOOD Rengars will do is go for W max and essentially beat you out by attrition because a W+W leads to them taking zero damage and you taking more damage than him. Rengar’s tactic would be to utilize his W to cancel your slows and heal back up the damage you deal to him as a way of poking you down. Just don’t let him walk away for free. Land your Es. Phase Rush works but I prefer Conqueror to help me punch through his healing. One last thing is to keep in mind that he is deceptively tanky. If you ult him and it DOES NOT kill him, he will just heal back ALL of the damage if he has his w up.

Renekton Even TL;DR - SKILL MATCHUP IN HIS FAVOR. DON’T TAKE BAD TRADES. PULL HIM IN TO CANCEL HIS SECOND DASH. ALL IN HIM BUT BE SURE TO KITE WELL. BE CAREFUL OF HIS POWERSPIKES. PLAY AROUND HIS FURY. BRAMBLE IS AN OKAY PICK UP INTO HIM. TABIS IS A MUST. BONE PLATING IS GOOD. CONQUEROR IS GOOD. AFTERSHOCK WORKS TO. GRASP AND PTA CAN WORK BUT ONLY IN SPECIFIC CIRCUMSTANCES. This is purely a skill matchup slightly in Renekton’s favour. It has become MUCH easier with the removal of Spear though. You essentially don’t want to let him go in on you, get a successful trade and then get out with his E. He is very good at short trades and his Q healing minimises the damage he takes from the trade. Not to mention how his stun just stops you from being able to react. Ideally, you want to use your E to cancel his second dash but that is not always the case. You simply need to take smart trades. Don’t eat his Qs in lane for no reason. His general approach, much like all other champions, is to get you low enough for him to all in and kill you. You want to give up lane pressure when he has stacked up fury, as he is just going to destroy you in trades. Consequently, if he has no fury stacked up, you want to try to get a good trade off. The trick is to simply try to get him to push into you, and then just run him down with ghost. Do NOT let Renekton to be up in your face the whole time. You MUST kite him. Especially when he has his ultimate activated. It is slightly easier to land Qs on him a he will grow in size but the amount of fury he gets is ridiculous. Be VERY careful of his level 6 powerspike and respect his burst, especially when he has PTA. With Conqueror stacking better on literally every other bruiser than Darius, you might want to invest in a Bramble Vest against him on top of Tabis as this will give you enough tankiness during all ins. If all else fails, try not to die to him too much. Without Spear of Shojin, Renekton cannot beat you later on in the game as you simply outscale him. I’d recommend Conqueror but Aftershock works well too. Grasp and PTA are somewhat awkward but not terrible into him as laning power is what you need here.

Riven Even TL;DR - SKILL MATCHUP. FIGHT HER LEVEL 1 WITH W. CAREFUL OF HER BURST/ALL IN. RESPECT HER LEVEL 6 DAMAGE. TRY TO CANCEL HER Q WITH YOUR E. NINJA TABIS ARE A GOOD BUY. AFTERSHOCK IS RECOMMENDED. CONQUEROR IS GOOD. The Riven matchup is, obviously, HEAVILY dependent on how good the Riven is. But in general, your biggest priorities should be not underestimating her damage and not wasting your abilities because a good Riven will be able to take advantage. She is much harder to deal with when she has ignite so just try to be careful. You are stronger than her level 1 if you level your W so try to make use of this and heavily outtrade her. Try to trade against her when she wastes her abilities. If possible, use your E in order to cancel her third Q as this can leave her in a very vulnurable position. If you do not have your E, you can buffer your W to slow her down just as she knocks you up. This might not matter much in the end though, as she has a ton of mobility. Level 6 is tricky as you have to respect her ultimate. If she catches you off, she can kill you from full health quite easily. It is going to be quite tricky to land your Qs on her but doing so is the key to beating her. This is an extremely snowbally lane so try not to die. And if you do, try not to die any more to her as that would potentially render the game unwinnable. Ninja Tabis are an amazing purchase against her. Thanks to the new Conqueror giving more healing AND some Rivens opting for Death’s Dance, Bramble Vest is another good pick up against her, especially if the rest of her team requires you to get Merc boots to survive in teamfights. Conqueror is good into her and Grasp/PTA are usable. However, the rune that allows you to dumpster her in lane is Aftershock.

Rumble Even TL;DR - SKILL MATCHUP IN YOUR FAVOR. DON’T EAT FREE POKE. LAND QS. EASIER AFTER LEVEL 3. RUSH SPECTRE’S COWL IF HE IS WINNING. PHASE RUSH/CONQUEROR BOTH GOOD. Low Elo Rumble players are horrendously bad. So it should be an easy lane. You want to make sure that you don’t just stand in front of him and eat his full flamethrower combo. Don’t stand in his ultimate but try to land all of your Qs. Rumble will try to poke you down and then all in you to kill you when you are low enough. Keep yourself healthy with Doran’s shield, second wind and properly timed Qs. He is pretty immobile so if you are able to pull him, he is essentially dead unless he is under turret after you pop your ghost. Both Conqueror and Phase Rush work well into this lane. A Rumble lane should be easy after Level 3 but if you are struggling, a Spectre’s Cowl will help you win the lane. Don’t even go for Merc Boots unless his team has good AP+CC.

Ryze Major TL;DR - BAD MATCHUP. PLAY BACK AND DON’T TAKE FREE POKE. DON’T STAND NEXT TO FRIENDLY MINIONS. FIGHT AROUND HIS E(ENGAGE IF HE USES IT ON THE WAVE). LET HIM PUSH AND THEN RUN HIM DOWN. PHASE RUSH IS A MUST. EARLY MERC BOOTS RUSH IS A MUST. A good Ryze is a nightmare to deal with. You essentially want him to push into you, which he does naturally, and then chase him down to his turret. He gets move speed and Phase Rush movement speed so you need as much distance as possible. Post-6 he can use his ultimate to escape and the only thing you can do to stop his Ult is your E but you need your E to start the fight anyway so good luck. An early Merc boots rush is a must, as you need to cut his root short so that you can catch him before he can escape. Don’t stand near minions as his E can spread from them, onto you, leading to him being able to get a nice chunk of damage off on you with his Q. Try to play passively during the lane so as to not take too much damage. Phase Rush is a must in this lane if you are ever going to be able to kill him. If the Ryze is good, this is possibly one of the most difficult lanes in the game in my opinion.

Sett Even TL;DR - SKILL MATCHUP IN YOUR FAVOR. TAKE CONQUEROR. GRASP WORKS. SHORT TRADES EARLY LEVELS. DON’T LET HIM HIT YOU WITH W TRUE DAMAGE. DON’T STAND IN A WAY WHERE HE IS BETWEEN YOU AND YOUR FRIENDLY MINION. YOU BEAT HIM PRE-6 IF HE FUCKS UP W AND POST-6 STRAIGHT UP. IF YOU ARE LOSING EARLY WAIT TILL 6. DODGE W OR AT THE VERY LEAST GO TO THE SIDE OF IT SO YOU DON’T GET HIT BY THE TRUE DAMAGE. YOU CAN WAIT FOR HIS SHIELD TO DECAY. TRY TO KITE HIM. DON’T TAKE FULL AA DPS. LEVEL 6, DON’T STAND BETWEEN HIM AND HIS TURRET. HE CAN R YOU INTO TURRET AND INSTA KILL YOU. CORRUPT POT WORKS. DBLADE IF CONFIDENT. DSHIELD IF NOT SO CONFIDENT. NINJA TABI -> PHAGE. Sett is a matchup that you can sometimes snowball off of but it is nevertheless a tricky one to play properly for Darius mainly because of his W shield. You’d play into him as you would into a Jax or a Tryndamere where you wouldn’t just stand in front of them an AA them. The trick is to use your ghost and your AA range to kite them. With Sett it gets a little trickier to do but he is still beatable in all ins in early levels if you are able to outplay his W. His shield decays rapidly (for 3 seconds) so it might be a good idea to kite around him until the shield goes off and then go back in. If he is between you and one of your(allied) minions, then he will stun you which will allow for Sett to use his W’s on you, leaving you no option but to take the true damage. This insta loses you the fight as he just deals crazy amounts of damage. His HP regen is also something to look out for as it comes into play later on into the lane. He essentially has built in rejuv beads which means that he will be able to survive through some of your poke later on. This means you have to switch between 2 playstyles during this lane to play around his strengths. You want to be playing the early levels carefully, poking him with Qs and backing off. His HP regen is a bit weaker early on so exploit it and take quick but good trades. The reason you want to do this is due to his W. This is his most powerful tool and disengaging before he can use the shield is the way to go. Sett is a lane where a Corrupt pot start would actually be a good option as your approach shouldn’t be to all in fight him. But people make mistakes so a Dblade or a Dshield start will allow for you to better punish Sett and force his flash/kill him if he missplays/mispositions/misses his abilities. Remember in fights to KITE him. If you don’t, the fight will be a lot closer as he can sometimes just bash your face in. And a fed Sett is a NIGHTMARE to deal with.You should try to poke him before he can use his W shield enough so that you get him low enough to all in him. You CANNOT cancel his abilities with your E. If you pull him during his W, he just moves with it. Use your superior movement speed if you have ghost to sidestep his W. If you feel like he is going to use his W, get really close to him and just run around him as the W is easier to dodge the closer you are to him. Once he uses his W and you have some HP left to work with, he is free food. You have to NOT take his full AA DPS though. KITE. If you find yourself getting demolished in trades, try to sustain up and wait for level 6 because you will be able to kill him in an all in at that point. Your ultimate is much better than his and this is the point where you want to be switching gears. His W damage scales to be quite high at this point and his HP regen comes into play so you want to be looking to just full all in him and kill him if you aren’t behind already. Building against Sett is similar to how you would build against a Darius actually. You are going to want to rush Ninja Tabi and then get a lot of health. Health is the only way to counterplay flat true damage. Runewise you will be looking to go for Conqueror most of the time. A niche rune that works well into him is Grasp of the Undying, as this allows for you to have MUCH better quick trades which is how you beat Sett.

Shen Minor TL;DR - EASY LANE, HARD GAME. TAKE EARLY DSHIELD TO COUNTER ACT HIS LEVEL 1 PASSIVE AA DAMAGE. DON’T STAND BETWEEN HIM AND HIS SWORD. DON’T EAT HIS PASSIVE AUTOS FOR FREE. DON’T WASTE YOUR W ON HIM, WHEN HE IS BLOCKING AUTOS. FREEZE MOST OF THE TIME. SHOVE WHEN HE IS ABOUT TO TP. DO NOT LET HIM TP TO HIS TEAM. E HIM. DON’T FIGHT HIM UNDER HIS TURRET. CONQUEROR IS VERY GOOD. PHASE RUSH IS A POSSIBILITY IF YOU SURVIVE EARLY. PHASE RUSH IS A MUST IF YOU TAKE TELEPORT. Shen is not too difficult to fight per se. The difficulty in dealing with Shen comes in trying to outdo him, as his ultimate gives him a crazy amount of presence everywhere. You can take Teleport if you want to be able to match his ganks. Try not to fight Shen in a massive enemy wave as if you get taunted then, you are most likely dead. If you get taunted under enemy turret then you are also dead. Shen is great at setting up ganks, and escaping them. His zone of blocking around his sword does not block your Q or your Ultimate. Try not to stand between him and his sword, as that way, he will have the attack speed to outtrade you with his empowered auto attacks. You can take an early D shield in order to counter act the damage of his auto attacks. Wave control and map awareness are the key to figuring out this lane. You mostly want to keep the wave frozen in your side of the lane most of the time, so that if he walks up, he is putting himself at risk of you killing him. This way, you should easily build a solid gold lead off of minions. IF you know that the enemy jungler is about to gank a different lane, OR a decisive fight is about to happen Botlane or Midlane, then you should be looking to shove him in so that he cannot teleport freely. If he is backing off, know that he might be trying to use his ultimate so be ready to E him and then back off/fight him depending on whether you can kill him. Be mindful of where the jungler is by the way. If the Shen is teleporting to a fight that the jungler isn’t involved in/isn't GOING to be involved in, try not to do much more than just cancelling his teleport as you could die to a 2v1.

Singed Minor TL;DR - EASY LANE BUT YOU CANNOT AUTO PILOT. PHASE RUSH + GHOST MANDATORY TO CATCH UP TO HIM. DON’T WALK IN A WAY WHERE HE CAN FLIP YOU AND ESCAPE. YOU CAN USE W OR E DURING HIS FLIP. DON’T LET HIM PROXY THE WAVE, WALK WITH OR SOMETIMES AHEAD OF YOUR WAVE. Singed is not a normal champion, which makes him very annoying to deal with. He can almost NEVER beat you out in a straight fight which is why Phase Rush is what I recommend against him. You don’t really need the Conqueror damage. The problem with Singed is trying to catch up with him and then slow him so that you can apply the rest of your damage. With Phase Rush and Ghost, you should be able to outrun and kill him. Singed always shoves his lane which leaves him weak against freezes. If you are able to pull off a proper permafreeze, the Singed has essentially lost the lane. The biggest thing to keep in mind when facing Singed is to make sure that you don’t let him proxy your wave. Proxying is basically when the singed walks behind your turret and then kills the minions before they get to lane. If you have a jungler, he is a free kill every time he does this. But since it is soloq, that is not always an option so try to make sure he does not do it in the first place. You can sneak a kill on the Singed a lot of times when he is proxying but try to fight him in a moment when you won’t miss too many minions. Try to make sure he cannot just flip you over and escape. Walk behind him, opposite to the direction he WANTS to go, so that you keep up with him to apply your damage but if he flips you, he places you in front of him. A good trick to keep in mind is that if you start your W or your E during his flip, the ability will CC him, slowing him down to the point where you can come out of the flip and stick on to him. His aoe circle ability does not let you use your ultimate when you are inside of it so try to walk out first. On the bright side, Singed is almost ALWAYS a free kill, even if you are behind. If you are ahead, he will just int you.

Sion Tiny TL;DR - EASIEST LANE. DON’T LET HIM FARM. Sion is among the easiest lanes in the game. There is nothing he can do. Just be careful level 1 as he might be cheesing your redbuff or charging up his Q in a bush. In all honesty, there is no way Sion can actually solo beat you. Your E cancels his Q as well. You can very easily dive him. Your ultimate resets off of his passive form which is good to remember. You also get your passive if you stack it on his passive form. He can escape with R in level 6 but you should have a massive lead before then.

Swain Minor TL;DR - SKILL MATCHUP IN YOUR FAVOR. CONQUEROR/PHASE RUSH BOTH WORK WELL. MERC BOOTS IF BEHIND. JUST RUN HIM DOWN, HE HAS NO ESCAPE. SIDESTEP HIS PULL. EXECUTIONER’S CALLING IS A NICE PICK UP. Swain is probably the easiest ranged toplaner to beat. Phase Rush allows you to snowball on him and kill him but to me, Ghost is enough so Conqueror works better. Up to you. Taking Dshield is recommended but you can play without Second Wind. It is also up to you whether you take it or not. Swain has lower range than other mages and has no easy cc ability he can use against you. His root is very easy to side step and even if he does land it on you, him pulling you in towards him allows you to pull HIM in. Swain is a late game carry so try to abuse him as much as possible. He is a little difficult to deal with due to his healing but honestly, your dps is better than his healing even without Conqueror. You can pick an executioner’s calling just in case though. If he becomes a problem, just get Merc boots.

Sylas Tiny TL;DR - EASY LANE. DON’T EAT TOO MUCH POKE. KEYSTONE DOESN’T MATTER. DSHIELD IS A GOOD START BUT DBLADE WORKS IF YOU ARE CONFIDENT ABOUT BEING ABLE TO DODGE HIS POKE. Sylas is not a difficult matchup for Darius at all. He might have an easier time in midlane but not up here in top. Sylas is somewhat difficult to land your first Q on due to his shield dash and him being able to pull himself to you. But other than that he is very free to fight against. Just grab a Dshield as it should be enough on its own to negate his poke. And poking you is all he can do as if he ever gets in the range of your W or E, he is just dead. Freeze him off of farm and kill him if he ever steps up. If he ever becomes and issue, get executioner’s calling as it helps a lot against his healing. Unless the Sylas is smurfing vs you, you should be able to beat his face in.

Teemo Major TL;DR - DIFFICULT MATCHUP. DON’T EAT TOO MUCH POKE. PACK A LOT OF ANTI-POKE(SECOND WIND, DSHIELD/REJUV BEADS) SPECTRE’S COWL IS AMAZING INTO HIM IF YOU ARE HAVING TROUBLE. GET SWEEPER. MANDATORY AT LEVEL 6 FIGHTS. CONQUEROR LETS YOU BUILD ITEMISE VS HIS DAMAGE WHILE ALSO HAVING THE DAMAGE TO KILL HIM YOURSELF. LET HIM PUSH UP AND THEN RUN HIM DOWN. TENACITY HELPS REDUCE HIS BLIND BUT ITS NOT NECESSARY. Teemo is widely known as a bad matchup for Darius. He is a nightmare to deal with if he knows what he is doing. Conqueror is a MUST in order to beat his face him, as if he manages to hit you with a mushroom during the all in you die anyway. If he takes Ignite, play very carefully and try not to take too much poke. Rejuv Beads/Dshield along with Second wind are mandatory to not get poked down and killed by him. Getting Merc boots in order to shorten the blind isn’t bad either. You want him to push into you so that you can run him down with ghost. Sweeper is mandatory after level 6, as this allows you to walk around his shrooms. If you don’t have Sweeper, a good trick is to make sure NOT to take the EXACT path that Teemo takes when chasing him. If he blinds you, try to Q the minions for movespeed(with Phage) and ghost to run him down and kill him, as the blind will be over by the time you reach him. MAKE SURE to land your Qs. Try to Q him when blind. Spectre’s Cowl is a good buy into Teemo but it is not really necessary often. His AA range is very short so if he is the type of person to AA you often, you can very easily walk up and pull him in. P.S. : Bad Teemo players suck vs Darius. This matchup helps you deal with the good ones.

Tahm Kench Even TL;DR - CHEESE MATCHUP. JUST DON’T GET CHEESED AND YOU SHOULD BE GOOD TO GO. DODGE HIS Q. POKE HIM DOWN WITH Q FROM BEHIND YOUR MINIONS SO HE CAN’T FIGHT BACK. CONQUEROR IS VERY GOOD INTO HIM. GRASP IS ALSO GOOD. CLEAVER IF YOU ARE STRUGGLING. KITE KITE KITE! DON’T EVER FIGHT HIM STRAIGHT UP AND TRADE AAS WITH HIM. HE CAN KEEP YOU STUNLOCKED UNTIL HE END OF TIME. Tahm Kench top is a rare pick nowadays but when he was meta, he used to be a crazy strong pick. He is annoying because you have to destroy his health bar twice. But on the bright side, if he loses lane to you you can just dumpster him over and over again. The trick is to be careful when he just walks at you. Don’t get his by his Tongue, as the slow can sometimes be a death sentence. Poke him down with your Q as much as possible while staying behind minions so he can’t retaliate. Don’t sit next to him and get into an AA match with him as he WILL win. If he gets too tanky to kill, Cleaver will be a good buy into him, ESPECIALLY with the removed true damage of Conqueror. On the bright side though, the Conqueror healing allows you to stay in fight longer vs him…until he buys Bramble Vest. You beat him Level 6 with your ultimate if you dodge his abilities. AND he is bad vs ganks.

Trundle Even TL;DR - SKILL MATCHUP. CONQUEROR IS RECOMMENDED HEAVILY. GRASP IS OKAY BUT NOT OPTIMAL. DON’T FIGHT HIM EARLY. NINJA TABI->BRAMBLE IF YOU ARE GETTING DESTROYED. BE CAREFUL OF HIS PILLAR. DON’T UNDERESTIMATE HIS ULTIMATE. He is similar to Olaf in that you should be keeping trades short early on. Try to just Q him and back off, because a PTA Trundle can beat you up very quickly. His DPS when you allow him to constantly auto and use his abilities on you is staggering so you really should be kiting well against him. Try to fight him after he uses his Pillar, as then he will have no way to slow you down/escape. As I mentioned before, you should be looking for Qs, as he doesn’t really have any way of avoiding them if he is going for minions. His ultimate can be surprisingly powerful at times as he just steals ur stats so it might not be the worst idea to simply try to disengage and then fight him again. Trundle also falls off super hard so there’s THAT to look forward to. He is very good at setting up ganks due to his Pillar so try not to walk around walls to much so that he can’t just completely block you off. Ninja Tabis are a great buy into him and Bramble vest is another great purchase if he is ahead of you. If you are ahead, you can freely buy damage. Conqueror is recommended, as both the extra damage and the healing are nigh mandatory.

Tryndamere Minor TL;DR - SKILL MATCHUP IN YOUR FAVOUR. DON’T FIGHT HIM WHEN HIS FURY IS STACKED UP. DON’T LET HIM STACK IT UP. KITE HIM WHEN FIGHTING HIM. PHASE RUSH + GHOST RECOMMENDED. IGNITE INSTA WINS YOU THE LANE INTO HIM BUT GHOST DOES THE SAME THING IN A DIFFERENT WAY. TABI’S RUSH IF HE IS GIVING YOU A HARD TIME. Tryndamere is a champion that is very oppressive when ahead so try to make sure that you win this lane. Luckily, Darius is able to give Tryndamere a hard time in lane. Don’t fight him too much level 1, as he can kill you really quickly with Ignite and a few lucky crits. Try your hardest to kite him. Do not EVER just stay up in his face and trade auto attacks. You WILL lose. Go in, apply your damage and then walk around him. This will be especially crucial when he gets his ultimate, as you will have to kite him for 5 seconds and then apply a single bit of damage to kill him. To help with the kiting, I recommend taking Phase Rush. Conqueror is nice but it is not going to help too much against Tryndamere. Tryndamere is one of the easiest champions to stack Grasp on but Grasp is not optimal. If you want to give him a hard time, you can opt to buy an early Ninja Tabis or even a Bramble vest but I’d recommend stopping at the Tabis and going for your Triforce. As a good rule of thumb, try to make sure he does not touch the wave too much. His fury bar, once fully stacked, makes him very difficult to trade with. And going even in trades is what Tryndamere WANTS. Think about it. If you are both low HP, only one of you has the ability to make you unkillable. Try to fight him when he has no fury and don’t let him stack it up. Try to kite him if he has lethal tempo up.

Urgot Minor TL;DR - EASY MATCHUP. BEAT HIM PRE-6. CONQUEROR/AFTERSHOCK WORK WELL. TRY TO CANCEL HIS DASH WITH YOUR E. DON’T GET HIT BY R IF POSSIBLE. CAREFUL OF HIS JUNGLER. Urgot’s only hope should be getting help from his jungler. Pre-6, he has zero kill potential on you so you should be looking to generate a lead at this point. Dshield and Dblade are both okay options, depending on whether you think you will take too much poke or not. But him poking you down should be no concern, as his AA range is quite low, allowing you to Q him easily. I’d recommend taking Conqueror into him but Aftershock will insta win you the lane. Urgot’s only way to beat you is to land all of his abilities on you, R you and then walk around you. If you flash his R, then he is essentially a free kill. If you time it correctly, you can use your E to cancel his dash. Be careful of the jungler as Urgot is quite good at setting up ganks. His ultimate also has a ridiculous slow which can make it difficult to fight him when it is up.

Vayne Extreme TL;DR - DIFFICULT MATCHUP. DON’T GET POKED DOWN TOO MUCH. TRY TO FIGHT LEVEL 3. DON’T MISS YOUR HOOK AT ALL. CONQUEROR IS OKAY. PHASE RUSH IS VERY GOOD. FLEET WORKS. AFTERSHOCK IS RISKY. GET REJUV BEADS/DSHIELD + SECOND WIND. TABIS IS A MUST HAVE. THEN PHAGE. MAKE SURE TO HAVE RIGHTEOUS GLORY IF YOU WANT TO BEAT HER LATER. Vayne is a very tough matchup for Darius. However, there is doable counter play against her. You might even be able to snowball against her if you make use of powerspikes correctly. Vayne is a kiting GOD with self peel which makes her a pain in lane, as if you miss any of your abilities, you can bet your ass that the Vayne will run up and AA you until you are left at half HP. Missing your E is a death sentence so try to land it every time. Phase Rush is okay but personally, I go Conqueror as the point at which you will be able to reach her is the point where you will be poked down quite a bit, which is where the extra damage and the healing from Conqueror come in. Conqueror also helps you have the damage to beat her, considering how you will exclusively be building defensively into Vayne until you are able to kill her. Fleet Footwork works as well but it is up to you. Aftershock is a bit awkward to use into her, as it makes missing your E even more punishing. While running up to her, time your E so that it lands on her as she is condemning you away. Try not to get Condemned into a wall, as that is usually certain death. Rush Tabis, Phage and then try to go for Righteous Glory. You will NEVER beat her 1v1 later on into the game without this item, even WITH ghost. Pre-6 she is easier to kill so try to pull her once you have level 3. All in her once you have Ninja Tabis if the lane is even, as the Tabi powerspike is huge in this lane. You could try to cheese her with Omnistone once you get Predator on it but that is wayy to RNG dependant. Plus, if you get something like PTA into Vayne, good luck ever using it.

Viktor Major TL;DR - DIFFICULT MATCHUP. GO FOR TENACITY. CONQUEROR IS REQUIRED. GO EARLY ANTI-POKE (DSHIELD/REJUV BEADS). BOOTS OF SWIFTNESS + UNFLINCHING WILL LET YOU GO THROUGH HIS SLOWS. PHASE RUSH MIGHT WORK AS WELL. Thank god Viktor is no longer meta. If he is picked, you might have a bad time as him being such a niche pick usually means the person playing him is good at the champion. You need the movespeed from Phase Rush if you ever want to catch him through his slows and you also need the damage to punch through his constant shields. Since only his slows are a problem, you can go Conqueror, take Dshield for the poke and go full slow resist. Going Tenacity helps a lot but slow resist is great as it lets you actually catch the guy. Although it is somewhat unorthodox, Boots fo Swiftness along with Unflinching are great in terms of letting you catch the guy. This is probably the only circumstance I’d recommend Swifties over Merc boots. He is pretty immobile so once you catch up to him and avoid staying in his zone, you should be able to kill him easily.

Vladimir Even TL;DR - BORING MATCHUP WHERE NOBODY WINS. DON’T TAKE FREE POKE. IF YOU ARE GONNA TRADE, MAKE SURE TO DUMPSTER HIM IN IT. PHASE RUSH IS RECOMMENDED BUT CONQUEROR IS OKAY. GHOST IS GREAT. Vladimir isn’t a difficult matchup similar to a strong lane bully per se. It is just that it is very difficult to generate a lead against a competent Vladimir. He has a frightening lategame and the sustain in lane to get there. You have to get early sustain with Second Wind and etc in order to match his healing. Try not to take stupid trades. He is free food when he does not have pool but don’t overextend and take free damage after he uses it to get away. The health cost of pool is high enough to be punishing enough on its own. Just make sure you stomp him in trades, as his sustain is quite annoying. Executioner’s isn’t a must buy into this lane, as if he ever gets in a bad enough position where you can punish him, he is most likely dead. I’d go for Phage early in order to catch up to him and kill him. Vladimir does not have enough damage to beat you in an all in. Even with his ultimate. Conqueror is not bad but Phase Rush is a good choice as it lets you stick to him through his annoying pool slow. If all else fails, just try to make sure you keep up in cs and dont feed him. He can 1v9 once he gets his items.

Volibear Even TL;DR - SKILL MATCHUP IN YOUR FAVOR. CONQUEROR RECOMMENDED. FREEZE HIM OFF OF THE WAVE EARLY. DO NOT STAY UNDER TURRET WITH LOW HP VS HIM. YOU DON'T BEAT HIM WITHOUT GHOST. KITE KITE KITE. LAND ALL Qs! The main playstyle into him has not changed. You simply have to play it as you would any other tank matchup, except with you being more careful in all ins. He is sooo tanky and is able to output solid damage. You beat him quite easily with W level 1 but unless you have ghost, you would HAVE to avoid his lightning thing and kite him to not deal with the shield because otherwise, you would just be dead. You can wear him out over time using good trades but that needs mana and Darius now has mana problems. If he is giving you any trouble just rush Cleaver as the powerspike should help you confidently beat him through his tank items. In all honesty, its a free lane if you know what you are doing but if he SOMEHOW manages to get fed, he will seriously 1v9 the game. I'm not even kidding. He can get RIDICULOUSLY tanky and somehow outdamage entire teams. 200 Years at it again. Another great job Riot! P.S. If you lost a trade post level 6 and you arent multiple kills ahead, just go back. Give him the plates, give him the CS. It is better to lose less than to lose a lot more because he might be able to burst you down.

Warwick Tiny TL;DR - EASY LANE. DON’T DIE UNTIL LEVEL 3 AND YOU SHOULD BE GOOD TO GO. HE CAN ONLY CHEESE YOU EARLY ON IF HE TAKES IGNITE. CONQUEROR WORKS WELL BUT IT IS BETTER TO ITEMISE VS HIS TEAM INSTEAD OF HIM. Warwick is easy to defeat for you as Darius. WW is incredibly easy to kite and land Qs on and if he DARES to jump towards you with his bite, grab him and make him regret existing. WW works VERY well with junglers and his bite has the damage to cheese you in the first few levels so be careful first three levels and you should be good to go. I’d recommend Conqueror into him but honestly, do whatever you want. You auto win after level 3. Just don’t let him disengage with his fear too easily. To prevent this, time your W or your E JUST as he fears you so that he doesn’t have the Movespeed to walk away.

Wukong Extreme TL;DR - DIFFICULT LANE. WUKONG BEATS YOU EARLY. HE BEATS YOU AT 6 IF YOU ARE NOT CAREFUL. DON'T TRY TO Q HIM IF HE HAS IGNITE. BUILD NINJA TABIS. TAKE CONQUEROR. AFTERSHOCK SHOULD WORK. TRY TO FARM AS WELL AS POSSIBLE WITHOUT TAKING ANY DAMAGE. KITE KITE KITE. DON'T EVER STAND IN FRONT OF HIS FACE. Wukong went from an easy lane to one that is essentially a counterpick. If you don’t die to him then you should be good to go but the problem is that he is MUCH better at EVERYTHING than he used to be. I don't know what the fuck Riot was thinking but they essentially took out NOTHING and added 50 things to his kit, with half of them being specifically made to fight Bruisers. If you die to his cheese, then just play safe. He snowballs EXTREMELY hard. He can also ult twice so there is that to look forward to. If he takes ignite, you have to be very careful when fighting him. You must not lose any trade. VS any intelligent Wukong, don't try to Q him. He will just dash on you and start autoattacking with his massive AS steroid. You can take Sweeper if you want to catch him reliably after his invis but your Bleed stacks reveal him so this is not always necessary. He is good at working with a jungler post-6 so keep that in mind. Conqueror works best but take Aftershock if you want to play safer. Just try to survive laning phase to be honest. This character is COMPLETELY broken.

Yasuo Tiny TL;DR - EASY LANE. DON’T ALL IN LEVEL 1/2. FREE AFTER LEVEL 3. TABI RECOMMENDED WHEN BEHIND OR AHEAD. DON’T TAKE AFTERSHOCK INTO HIM. Yasuo is a very free matchup in all honesty. Just don’t get outtraded by him levels 1 and 2 as at that point, he is stronger than you. He can sneak in a cheese kill if he is packing ignite so be mindful. After level 3 it is just very easy to run him down. If he has his Tornado, try to save your E in order to pull him in AS he throws it out. This way, even though you will be knocked up, he will be stunned by your E which means he cannot ult you. At that point it is a simple matter of popping Ghost and running him down. Yasuo WILL be able to beat you if you missplay hard though. If you need to pull him in for an all in, try to just E->Insta Q or a W->Q if you are fast enough/are on low ping as Yasuos will try to dodge your Q by dashing into you. Just land your spells and you should be good to go. Even if Yasuo cheeses a few kills early, Level 6 should be free as your ultimate is better than his. Phage if you are ahead. If he is putting up a good fight every trade, consider a Tabi rush which will shut him down for good. Yasuo will only be able to beat you hyper lategame but as a Darius, you should be trying your best to make sure the game doesn’t get to Lategame unless you are vs a low DPS comp.

Yone Even TLDR - SKILL MATCHUP. TRY TO KITE KITE KITE. MANIPULATE WAVE SO HE DOES NOT EASILY TRADE INTO YOU WITH E. USE PULL TO COUNTERPLAY Q/KEEP HIM IN THE ALL IN. TRY NOT TO GET HIT BY ULTIMATE. CONQUEROR SORCERY IS GREAT INTO HIM. RUSH NINJA TABI. Yone, despite having a kit similar to Yasuo, is not at all like him in that the Yone lane is FAR more difficult. You have to make sure to not take too much poke and when you all in him, you must try your best to kite him because his DPS is STAGGERING. Not to mention how his Ultimate is very difficult to avoid as he will be using it while ulting. The general idea is to all in him when he is on your side of the lane. After level 3, a Yone will try to get a great trade using his E and then back off. In order to make sure you can turn this short trade into an all in, you have to stay out of his range and try not to get him through his E Q gap closers. His E cannot be cancelled by your E so you are better off using it to counterplay his third Q. When he goes in his E, try to kite him because he will redeal all the damage he has dealt in it. But also try to stand close to where his original return spot is in order to be able to continue the all in. If you get him in this situation, he is pretty much just dead. Post 6 he can escape you quite easily with his ultimate but honestly, getting him to waste ult is worth it since wihout it, he cannot really do too much into you. Conqueror + Sorcery is great as you need the MS in this matchup. Rush Ninja Tabi and Phage.