Vayne is a very popular and very strong pick as of now. Her ability to kite is unparalleled with Tumble and Condemn. She has 0 absolute counters- only tougher matchups after the nerf of Draven. Her outplay potential is immense and can win any lane if played correctly. (win as in break even in CS and not getting destroyed)

PROS Huge outplay potential Silver Bolts lets you melt tanks and squishes alike Very easy to kite with Infinite chase potential

CONS Weak 1-5 High skill ceiling (not necessarily skill floor) Really easy to screw up Tumble into the enemy team Poor wave clear

ALWAYS TAKE

AS THIS SPELL IS BROKEN AND ALLOWS FOR RIDICULOUS OUTPLAY POTENTIAL.

For your second spell, take Barrier, Cleanse, Heal, or Exhaust

Barrier should be your first choice for standard 2vs2 lanes- not having the extra health will often lead to lost trades and fights.

Cleanse should be taken in some 1vs2 situations (where you don't necessarily need the health advantage and instead use number advantage) and also against teams with insane amounts of lockdown where a Quicksilver Sash won't be enough. (think like a comp of Ashe, Zyra, Nasus, Twisted Fate, and Shen)

Heal is OK since most lanes don't take Ignite anymore. Generally Barrier will be better, but it can be a life saver if you need to heal both your support and yourself.

Exhaust is only taken if your support does not take Exhaust or you don't have like a Karthus. For example, take Exhaust against a Zed or Riven who will obviously be diving for you.

-Points in Final Hour should ALWAYS be taken when available for obvious reasons.

-We max Tumble 1st because of the increased damage and lowered CD. In most matchups, you will be unable to proc Silver Bolts consistently because you will either A. get zoned by the support and lose a trade or B. take way too much creep damage or C. the enemy AD can back off and easily bait you into proccing your third bolt. It is significantly easier to trade and harass with a autoattack into Q rather than 3 consecutive shots to proc Silver Bolts.

-We max Silver Bolts 2nd because it will offer the most damage in the mid-game against both squishies and tanks. Usually, tanks in the mid-game will have more HP than resists- the reason being that most junglers build Spirit of the Ancient Golem and Locket of the Iron Solari and will usually not rush something like Frozen Heart or Thornmail

-Finally, we max Condemn last because it is essentially a 1 point wonder- no matter how many times you level it, the stun duration and range remains the same.

-Life steal quints are broken right now- the punishment for not having them against an enemy that does is very noticable and can easily lead to a difference of 10-20 cs.

-Flat AD marks and armor pen marks are interchangable- I personally prefer flat AD to help last hitting under tower though.

-Flat armor seals are essential. No exceptions. You will take too much creep damage and harass if you don't have armor seals.

-Flat MR glyphs are my personal preferance to mitigate some damage done by the support. (mainly against people like Sona or Lulu.

-Best start for any ADC- if you don't start this and the enemy does, you will often find yourself unable to last hit under tower and to trade effectively.

-These 3 items are basically what you NEED to get pre-30 minutes unless the enemy team has a ridiculously strong early game comp. These 3 items alone will allow you to duel against any other ADC if they have the same amount of items. Once you get your Blade of the Ruined King, you can duel essentially anybody 1vs1 botlane (unless you are really far behind)

- Blade of the Ruined King is when Vayne really starts ramping up.
- Phantom Dancer or Zephyr allows you to proc Silver Bolts faster and offers much needed MS to kite
- Last Whisper is basically core on every ADC to do damage to heavy armor tanks. Even with Silver Bolts, you're typically going to want this.

-With 6 items, you are one of the strongest late game champions. Few people will be able to survive hits from you unless they have itemized solely towards you, or are naturally extreme tanks.

-I shouldn't have to explain the Infinity Edge

DEFENSIVE OPTIONS:

Banshee's Veil- Very viable option against super engage or power spells. This item is essential against massive engage teams to block spells like Agony's Embrace and Unstoppable Force.

Guardian Angel- Standard defensive option. Functions best against high burst teams where after the initial damage, there is a noticable lack of sustained damage.

Randuin's Omen- Best against bruisers that rely on auto attacks and are very sticky. Take against people like Irelia or Jax.

Frozen Mallet- Actually a good snowball item. Let me explain this- this item is exceptionally strong when you are SPLITPUSHING and are ahead of the rest of the team. My reason being is that, even with Flash, you will be able to keep up with nearly anybody with Final Hour and Night Hunter with the exception of like Kassadin. If anybody wants to stop your splitpush, you go HAM against them and dumpster them.

Quicksilver Sash/ Mercurial Scimitar- Good item for when you need a defensive option fast and can't wait for Guardian Angel as well as when you need a Cleanse. Essential against surpress champions and against comps where if you are locked down, you are dead.

Warmog's Armor- Only good when none of the prerequisites above are fulfilled. The enemy cannot have divers like Irelia or Nocturne, have huge engage spells like Unstoppable Force, surpressers like Skarner, huge burst damgage but a lack of sustained damage like Annie, and no room for split pushing. This item is only bought when a huge HP pool is needed. (rarely)


- Zephyr is good for games where you really want a midgame power spike. The crit on Phantom Dancer is essentially wasted and Zephyr gives AD, CDR, MS, and tenacity.

- Phantom Dancer is good for games where you can either get Infinity Edge earlier, or the game will likely drag onto to where you can get full build.

- Statikk Shiv is good for games where you need to be able to push waves fast, moreso than you would need to gear for late gear, or for midgame.

-Matchup is ridiculously easy. She has 0 damage steroids, has poor disengage bar her ultimate, and is painfully easy to outplay by either flashing Enchanted Crystal Arrow or hiding behind minions to tank Volley for you. There are 2 things you need to be aware of- her level 1 crit+ Volley combo and the amount of jungle pressure. One of Ashe's main pros is her ability to force ganks. You must take into consideration who the support and jungler are. You might even consider taking Cleanse if the support is someone like Zyra and the jungler is very good at following up on strong initiations. (like Lee Sin or Jarvan IV.

-Now here's why Caitlyn isn't as tough as she's made out to be- if you have a favorable matchup in terms of your support and he isn't ******ed, Caitlyn can potentially be an easy lane to beat. By simply playing passive and only farming, the wave should push towards you and Caitlyn will have to stay in the front to get any harass on you. By harassing you(like most Caitlyn's will) your creeps will attack her. (which will eventually lead to the wave shoving) This leads to easy jungle ganks and allows you to fully utilize creep damage for you. However, it can be just as hard if the wave pushes away from you- this results in Caitlyn having an easy time zoning you out because you cannot use your turret to your advantage.

However, even if you are equally skilled, this lane will most likely be determined by your support. In theory, you should be able to maniuplate the creep waves and utilize the timer to your advantage. However, in a 2vs2 lane, the support will usually be the one to force engagements and to harass. Even if you are freezing, the support can easily go to you to force a fight or take free harass. (especially if they are someone who excels in poking or forcing all-ins like Blitzcrank or Sona) If your support is much better than the enemy and your jungler pays some attention to you, you will typically break even in CS and win the lane once you reach level 6.

-Pretty tough matchup- his early burst at level 1 with Phosphorus Bomb is pretty icky but he runs oom extremely quickly. The minute you each hit 6, go all in because he still has no missles. However, mid-game and early game wise, it'll be on you to out trade and harass and stack an advantage since this is where he shines. Late game though, he's pretty garbage and is super easy to dumpster.

- Vayne's hardest matchup by far. Draven is usually picked with an aggressive support in mind, so be prepared to be down 20+ CS if he knows what he's doing. Even after 6 and having Blade of the Ruined King, you should be EXTREMELY careful when dueling him and should only commit to an all-in if you have a summoner spell on him. (e.g Barrier) His auto attack damage is atrocious and should not be taken lightly.

The main kicker about Draven is that his lane is not heavily determined by his support. However, the converse of the situation is not true. Draven's damage is strong enough to zone you and your support out if his support merely shows presence. If your support goes in to harass or ward, he can easily take 1/3 of his health as harass if Draven plays aggressively. This lane will most likely be determined by jungler pressure and how over committed [[draven] is willing to be.

-Determined by how good you are. If you can dodge Mystic Shot in the first 2 levels, you should be able to win lane. Since most Ezreals go with blue build, he will be substantially weaker than you throughout the entire game until late game where it determined by team comps and engage potential. The first 2 levels should solely be spent on farming and dodging Mystic Shot- eat too many of these and the lane will be lost. His all-in is much weaker than yours at level 6 and can easily be chased down if you have Bilgewater Cutlass.

A main thing to watch out for is right as a creep dies in front of you, he fires a Mystic Shot. Steer clear of low minion health bars.

-Oh the outplay potential. One of the main problems with laning against Graves is that if you decide to all-in him, and you eat a faceup Collateral Damage+ Buckshot combo, you will lose the fight. You probably won't win a duel against him until you get your Blade of the Ruined King, but he's not so strong to the point where he will always have kill potential.

A key to winning this lane is to manipulate creep waves to stick to your side since Graves will typically push. If your lane is frozen, it is hard for Graves to get hard harass down because of his 525 range and risk of jungler ganks. Also, flashing his Collateral Damage pretty much ensures that you win a flat out 1vs1 against him if you have similar items.

-He's pretty much in the same boat as you in that he is focused on getting to that late game. As soon as his Bio-Arcane Barrage goes on cooldown, you must take advantage of his low range and abuse his lack of burst damage.

Once late game hits, he will have a little less damage than you, but will have far greater utility and range.

-Strictly depends on the support matchups. MF with a good support who can lock you down will be a torturous lane. Her base damage is relatively high, but is not at the level of an extreme to the point where she can slaughter you over and over. She will most likely be used as an ult-bot. Just be sure to not fight when Impure Shots is up, but this is a pretty even lane if its a straight up 1vs1.

In support matchups, I generally mean who your support is and who the enemy support is. If the enemy support is Soraka or even Janna, they will have basically 0 kill potential on you and you can dumpster the Miss Fortune once you hit 6 by simply using Condemn on her to stop Bullet Time. If the support is someone like Blitzcrank or Leona you must be more careful because they have strong engage and lockdown ability for you to eat free shots of Bullet Time and Double Up.

-Has low range and has an easy to dodge skillshot nuke. Very easy to outplay. However, if you are the aggressor at early levels and want to fight, you have to be sure to dodge her Boomerang Blade. Her low range and pushing capabilities will leave her open to jungle ganks as well as creep wave manipulation. She isn't played often for good reason. She is very high risk and only has a medium reward. Picking her would require a very precise team comp to fully utilize her ultimate and spell shield.

-Simply play slightly passive in levels 1-4 because she will automatically push with Explosive Shot and has pretty strong level 2 burst. Also, her mid-game is garbage and you can take advantage of that. Once you both hit 6 and you aren't down too much CS, it's basically GG for her for the next 10-15 minues because without Infinity Edge, she can never hope to fight you in a straight out 1vs1.

Once you reach late game, be very careful to stay out of range though. 1 or 2 hits from Tristana can lead to you loing half your health and losing a large teamfight. Her lategame safety and siege potential is far greater than your own and her damage is extremely high at 5-6 items.

-Actually a tough matchup. His late game is on-par with yours, his mid-game is slightly weaker (but not by much) than yours, and his early game burst with 6 stack expunge is ridiculous. If you ever hit 4+ stacks, leave immediately until the stacks run out or you will be extremely easy to dive with his burst and Spray and Pray.

This lane will be determined by your support, because you both have some pretty crazy outplay potential with poison stacking, stealth, extreme range, and strong engages. Generally though, once you both hit 6 and have Blade of the Ruined King, you have the ability to outplay him since Spray and Pray is more suited to straight out team fights instead of small skirmishes.

-He has high burst, poke, and range. You have to survive until 6 where you get a huge powerspike. Flashing out of Chain of Corruption will usually lead to a win in a duel because you can dodge Piercing Arrow and Hail of Arrows. Just be sure to dodge Piercing Arrow when the opportunity arrises because those Blighted Quiver stacks hurt a lot. Spamming Hail of Arrows to proc Blighted Quiver will render him oom. However, if the minion wave doesn't work in your favor, this lane easily turns into a 9/10 because frankly, he will outdamage you no matter what until level 6.

-Also be extremely aware of his passive. If you decide to fight when you are behind, but he has no minions at low health to proc his passive, it is a wise time to trade or engage then because he can't utilize his AS% steroid.

It is hard to determine exact synergy due to the dynamic natures of lane matchups, but generally you want the poke/peel supports like Sona, Janna, Nami, and Lulu for any lane matchup.

Supports can have different synergies based off your matchup. For example, sometimes Blitzcrank won't be that great of a support pick against Draven+ Leona but will be a very strong support against Soraka+ Ashe. The strength of a support is determined by the matchup, not simply by the champion that you pick.

Standard CC bot lane. Alistar and Vayne was a pretty traditional lane back in S2 and still has a ridiculous amount of peel and CC for the lane. However, you'll quickly find that you get poked down way too fast becauase of the nature of your kits. This lane is good if your jungler applies pressure bottom as well as against weaker lanes that can be abused through all ins.

Do NOT pick against heavy poke lanes like Lulu+ Ezreal.


Again, like Alistar, a pretty high CC lane. It has high kill potential only against really squishy supports like Sona or weak opponents like Ashe. Ideally, you'd stick to the side closer to the river so that when Blitzcrank lands a Rocket Grab, you can Condemn them against the wall. However, the nature of Vayne is sometimes counter productive because Blitzcrank is better with early game oriented ADCs.

Pick only when you want to have heavy kill potential. Do NOT pick against lanes when you will not win a 2vs2 like Leona+ Draven. You will die everytime.


Not much to be said about this lane other than it's average. While they doo not synergize completely, they don't hold polar opposites to each other's kits as Elise possesses good disengage and poke. An all-around good support.

Neutral- can pick anytime, but not necessarily the optimal one


Again, another average lane. Fiddlesticks doesn't really syngerize with Vayne, but at the same time isn't counterproductive. I actually really don't like Fiddlesticks support. Granted, at level 6, the combo between Crowstorm and a Final Hour all in has high potential, the levels 1-5 will be rough because Fiddlesticks offers like 0 poke without shoving the wave.

Terrible most of the time- only good against abusable lanes because you will get dumpstered if you engage with Fiddlesticks.


-Only good for kill lanes. This is a terrible support against rough lanes because she is easily forced into all ins that you cannot win because you are naturally weaker than other ADCs at levels 1-5. She is very strong post-6 for locking down targets.

Good for snowball, terrible for safety.


-Very good late game combo. Probably the best for late game. However, his laning phase leaves much to be desired since he's basically a slow bot and a buff bot. There are better picks most of the time unless you are gearing for late game carrying.

DO NOT PICK AGINST HIGH POKE LANES. YOU WILL GET CRUSHED.


-Average synergy. Her peel and poke is good. She is in the same boat as Elise in that she doesn't really have any crushing drawbacks or amazing synergies. She offers amazing peel and lockdown capabilities.


-For passive lanes only. Soraka will do next to nothing if you want to play remotely aggressive. It's actually pretty ridiculous how little prescene she gives your lane.

If you pick her, don't expect any diving or HAM decisions. Just play passive and farm.


-Pretty good lane partner. His stun sets up some plays and you can play pretty aggressive when playing with him. All around, he is a good lane partner aside from the fact that he's pretty kitable and has slow MS.

DO NOT PICK AGAINST HEAVY POKE COMP


-Incredibly good support for both peeling and even playing aggressive. Her Eye of the Storm is very good for trading as well as her passive gives you bonus MS to kite. All around, she is an excellent laning partner and is someone that you should ask for to lane with.

Be warned, if it's a bad Janna don't expect anything out of her. A bad Janna is next to useless.


-Another amazing support. Lulu has enough burst damage of her own to zone out the enemy and also offers amazing peel and engage potential. This is a very good pick against all in lanes like Leona or Graves because her polymorph allows her to completely negate their all in.


-My own favorite support. She basically has everything in her kit aside from tankiness. She has a lot of poke damage, sustain, MS steroids, and a huge team fight ultimate with Crescendo that can be used to peel for you or to engage. Be careful with picking her against Blitzcrank but even so, she is a very strong pick and is probably the ideal pick in a lot of situations for reliability.

will add later once league replays starts working

Basis- control creep waves to your advantage to force an incredibly strong turret push or to deny enemy CS with jungle pressure.

will add pictures and an indepth analysis once LoLreplay is finished or my laptop comes back from repair.

The best way to get good at Vayne is to simply play her often as well as other ADCs and supports- for it is essential to understand the patterns and limits of your champions and opponenets. By playing champions like Varus or Draven, you will understand their damage potential as well as your own champion's potential to win a trade against them.

At the same time, it is equally important to understand your support's limit. It doesn't matter if you know what Ashe's damage potential is and go in on her if your support is Soraka and theirs is a Thresh- you simply will not win that trade unless they both make mistakes. You must know what the strengths and limits of your lane partner and opponents. Knowing that even though Graves has stronger burst early on in a straight 1vs1, but that your support Sona does significant more damage than their Soraka is very important knowledge.



also, thank you jhoi for your beautiful line dividers