Hello guys, my name is the thijskelol and I am currently Plat 4 in EUW.

I have played Olaf a lot, he was one of my first champs and now I still like playing his style, so therefore this guide, I hope you like it.

I am kinda new to the coding, so feel free to give tips, and if there is a lot of demand, I will make it a bit more nice looking :)

So, Olaf, tell me about yourself.

cons o without his ult, he is normal. o hard to get back in the game if you lose lane o is weak late game

Pros o great dueler o fun to play o not so hard to play o he had got cool skins Keepo o enemy jungler gank is most of the time an Olaf double kill

Try to start Doran's Blade and a Health Potion if you think you are able to win the lane. Pick Doran's Shield and a potion if u wanna play safe and are vs a champ who uses lots of basic attacks. Corrupting Potion looks decent, have no idea if it's better or worse than crystaline flask, you could try it to be safe vs a ekko or something
This is an example build. Try to go Black Cleaver first, and dead man's plate is in your top 3 first item't to. I forgot Sterak's Gage in those builds, you can always buy it if you are teamfighting early.

VS AP heavy teams.

VS AD heavy teams, Olaf is kinda good with every armor item so mix it a bit. Thornmail and frozen heart are great, but you'll lack a bit of HP if you buy both.

Undertow: upgrade this one almost always first. It is good to clear monsters in the jungle, it is decent to gank thanks to the constant slow it can provide. It is decent to poke against squishy opponents. it is good to take minions without taking damage against ranged opponents. It will deal the most damage at level 1.

Reckless Swing: This is some nice damage, it is true dmg so it will ignore all armor, and deal the amount it says. It is also good to pick a minion which you normally wouldn't be able to kill. It costs health to use, but it will refund the health if you kill the target.

Tough It Out: An abilty that makes Olaf as the champ he is. It provides some nice att speed and lifesteal. So if you use this ability at low health, your att speed will be already very high thanks to your passive and your att speed will go even higher. Also it provides a nice combination with your ulti, activate them at the same time at +- 25% health and you will be able to 1v1 almost anyone.

Ragnarok: This is, without joking, one of the strongest abilities in the game right now. It will make you able to escape any situation, all disables will be removed for the next 6 seconds. Even a J4 cage can't hold you (if the bugs are with you). It also gives you A lot of movement speed and attack damage. You can use it for engaging on the enemy carry, to escape a situation nobody could escape,... it is a great ulti and everyone likes it, except the enemy leona probably..

Well the masteries that I have shown above are good, good if you want do duel a lot with your opponent. These masteries below show a bit more sustainable lane, with these masteries you can stay longer in lane. they will give you a bit less kill potential, but it will be harder to get stomped in lane. If you start to play olaf, I recommend these masteries below, you will be able to play saver.
With these, more safe masteries, I recommend to take TP over ignite. because you will have less kill pressure, you can quickly back to buy.
Olaf is considered a bruiser. So I recommend u use 12-0-18 masteries. Now let me explain every choice I made here.

ferocity:

Only 12 points in this tree, because you don't really have much value from any of the 18th mastery choices. So, Fury over Sorcery? why? Well no need to explain me here, 2% extra damage on your abilities isn't that much so you better pick the attack speed.
Feast and Double Edged Sword is kinda meh, hard to choose, Olaf is melee, so you will deal the 3% extra dmg, and because you are a tank the 1,5% is not that bad. But I think Feast will give you an advantage in lane, you may have got a lot of sustain from your Passive, but still 20 health restore could win you the 1v1... but Double Edged Sword could to so... you decide.
Vamparism is better than Natural Talent on Olaf. Olaf has 0 AP scaling so the lifesteal is way better then than the 10 AD at level 18.
Oppressor is a great mastery on Olaf, his Undertow slows the enemy, and because you can pick the axe up, and throw it again, u can slow your enemy for a long time, the 2,5% free damage is kinda nice.

Resolve:

18 points in this one for the extra tankyness.
Unyielding over Recovery, if you play Olaf, you will buy a lot of armor/MR, so this mastery will improve this number by quite a bit. Recovery is only 2health per 5 seconds, early game this one will be better, but after level 6, Unyielding will be more valuable than Recovery.
Explorer is kinda meh. if you are playing him in the jungle this might have some value, and if you are playing him toplane, he is good if you roam a lot to the midlane,Explorer is kinda good I guess.. but Though Skin isn't that much better either, oke 2 damage from all basic attacks is decent, certainly in the early stages of the game, but late game it isn't much. If you want more late game, pick the Explorer. But it doesn't matter that much really.
Perseverance makes Olaf even stronger when he is low health, with this mastery he is way harder to bring down in combination with his extra healing from his Passive, Insight isn't bad at all, 15% reduced cd on your summoners spells is very very nice, but IMO Olaf benifits more from the healing than from Insight.
Swiftness and Legendary Guardian are kinda equal on Olaf. Olaf's ultie Ragnarok already gives him 100% tenacity and slow resistance, but only for 6 seconds. I Like the Swiftness, in combination with merc treads it gives a potential 35% tenacity. But I feel that the Legendary Guardian is good for the extra tankyness, so you choose the combination yourself.

Now, the most important choice of them all, the last one, lets discuss them one for one.
Bond of Stone is a nice concept of a mastery that seems OP on some champions like tanky supports. But in the toplane you will not benifit at all from this mastery. Late game this thingy will be very good but in lane it will do not much. 4% dmg reduction isn't the most value you can get from the keymasteries.
Strenght of the Ages is meh, it has some potential on like champs who benefit a lot from HP, Olaf does scale well with HP, but it is to slow IMO, to be good in the toplane.
Now the last one, Grasp of the Undying 3% of your max health
every 4 seconds.
That is incredible, 4% in the early game is still smthng like 30HP regen, late game, it is almost a Maokai passive, 4% of 3500 is 140 health! 140 health you regen every 4 seconds in fight is huge!

So eeuhm, pick that one.

The new season runes are just the same, so I am gonna use the same runes as before.
You can play a bit with the ratio you want to use, but keep the 9xAD Marks and the 2xAD quintessence.
The reason why is because Olaf scales really well with AD, his passive gives him a huge amount of att sp. and his Undertow, Reckless Strike and actually his Passive do more damage the more AD you have. So keep them.

You also could go flat MR as Glyph's if you are against an AP top laner like Ekko or Lulu...

The health/level Seal's are good on Olaf because he is already very good early game. And to give him a little boost later on in the game, pick the health/levels.

In these runes, I don't have a lot of defence. If you want to be more tanky, you could go 9xAD Marks, 5xArmor Seals, 9xMR/level Glyphs, 1xAD Quint and 2xHealth or Armor Quints.

Health quints are decent on Olaf thanks to the passive of his olaf Ragnarok which gives him a flat amount of armor/mr.

Ghost Teleport or Ignite Teleport or in the jungle Smite Ghost
So obviously, smite for if you play olaf in the jungle, and tp/ignite for top lane.
with the patch 2.22, tp is kinda weaker, because they removed the reduced cooldown if you use it on turrets.
So ignite or tp is kinda your decision, ignite gives you early game kill pressure, tp gives you mid/late game pressure.

"But OMG, they always say you must use flash, why don't u use it you noob?"

Well, there are 2 reasons why people pick ghost on olaf
1. In combination with Olaf's ulti Ragnarok, you will become an unstoppable train, nobody will be able to follow you, nor cc you, and you will be able to travel a waayyy further distance than flash would do.

2. In teamfights the main role of Olaf will be to kill the carries (if you are ahead, if not you should defend or peel your carry). And those carries will try to kite you, flash away from you, they will do many things trying to get way from you. So in those cases, ghost will provide more chance to stick to the carry in comparison with flash.

So: you still could pick flash, it will allow you to get out quickly, or you can flash, Reckless Swing, or smthng. But in my experience, Ghost is the thing on Olaf.

I am not gonna tell you all the possible matchups, and how to play them. you can look that up on Champion.gg and look at the winrates.

But the hardest counters on Olaf are: Riven, Tryndamere and Garen
I am telling you short how to play against them:
o riven is very mobile, can easily dodge your axe, try to play safe and wait until level 6 to engage with your jungler if possible.
o Tryndamere: I personnaly hate this matchup, like really hard. Pre level 6 you own him very hard, but his spinning thingy makes it possible to escape every time.
Dont fight him if he has his ulti, he will outsustain you. you could try to fight, wait for his ulti, and then move a bit away with ghost until his ulti is gone, and then engage back. But you need to be ahead to win this.
o Garen is a bummer. he will heal everything back, even if you try to poke, his health bar regens way faster than your mana bar. but still try to keep his passive Perseverance on cooldown, you do this by damaging him. so try to trow an axe if it comes back up. he can delete you at the point you are strongest, at low health. so try to call help from your jungler, if you lose the first fight your lane is ****ed.

That was that.