RIP

RIP Dominion. You shall be forever remembered. For Hide and Seek.
Still can't believe they're removing it Dx

This desperately needs updated masteries and updated Poppy abilities.

Can a hider destroy a seekers Heimerdinger turrets?

Thanks for the response, it was just a little bit confusing seeing how Bard can use the tunnel into the base which could be considered backing and then if the seeker sees that going in the tunnel will get the bard -1 they could take advantage of that.

Bard's Magical Journey abides by the same rules as Singed's Fling or Alistar's Headbutt, killing a seeker in any way results in the loss of a life. Updated the guide with that info.

You can place those traps outside bushes, just don't cluster them together to kill a seeker. The point of a box/trap/sapling should be to CC the seeker to ensure your escape, not to actively deal damage.

Yes, there can be 1 inside the bush and 1 more in its general vicinity.

Can hiders place boxes/traps/saplings outside of bushes?

What is the ruling when bard uses his Magical Journey across the terrain in front of the fountain and a seeker goes in a dies.

Masteries are suboptimal. When going 4/5/21, you should take the following points in utility tree:
3x Fleet of Foot
3x Meditation
1x Strength of Spirit
3x Greed
1x Runic Affinity
2x Vampirism
1x Wealth
3x Intelligence
1x Wanderer

Runic Affinity increases the duration of Speed Shrines and slows their decay on crystal scar, which makes it mandatory when going 4/5/21. Vampirism isn't ideal, but will provide a little bit of healing with your CC abilities, so it's better than Expanded Mind . Mana is only an issue on a very few select hiders, anyway.

This next bit is my opinion, but it's a strong one. 4/5/21 is vastly superior to 4/23/3. Taking 5 points in defense is sufficient to hit most of the percentage bonuses you want- the only thing you're missing is Juggernaut . The flat bonuses from Hardiness and Resistance are not very impactful for a lot of reasons. The largest reason is that in the crystal scar, you hit level 4 before the seekers even leave fountain. 5 flat resistance just isn't relevant at higher levels, which you hit almost instantly there. Swiftness and Tenacious are both nice, but scale multiplicatively with other slow resists and tenacity. Since we're all buying Boots of Swiftness and Zephyr (you are buying them, right?), those masteries are not as strong as they could be.

Many of the points you take in the defensive tree are really not very strong. 7.5% slow resistance, 10% tenacity, 13 armor, 9 magic resist, 36 flat health are all very meh. Not useless, but only impactful in about the first 10 minutes of the game. The only really powerful points are 3% bonus health, 10% reduced crit damage, and 4% reduced AoE damage, and two of those are only strong situationally.
Compare this to a 20% stronger speed shrine, 10% lower CDs on Ghost and Flash, 5% more CDR, 10% active item CDR (which you can get no where else!) and even 5% movespeed when out of combat.

Honestly, I take 9/0/21 on seekers as well, taking most of the same points. Movespeed and CDR are just so insanely impactful in HNS, you can't pass those points up.

Your runes are also less than ideal in my opinion.

Seekers should take Greater Seal of Gold. You rarely take significant physical damage as a seeker unless the hiders are trolling- in which case there's really no point in trying to continue to play. The mana regen aura of Crystal Scar takes care of most mana issues- again, only a handful of seekers have any trouble at all. Hiders can also afford to take those sometimes, but it does make you significantly more vulnerable to physical damage.

In the case you didn't take Greater Seal of Gold on hiders, you should take either Greater Seal of Scaling Health or Greater Seal of Scaling Armor. They both give more stats by level 7. Again, remember, you start the game at level 4. It's just not long at all until they give more stats, so it's always worth it to take the per level seals.

It's worth it to take 9x Greater Glyph of Cooldown Reduction + 1x Greater Quintessence of Cooldown Reduction on both hiders are seekers. This plus the masteries I recommend will start you off with 20% CDR out of the gate. That is so insanely powerful.

Alternatively, seekers can take 9x Greater Glyph of Scaling Magic Resist. AP glyphs aren't worth it, either per level or flat. You either want MR glyphs to deal with high base damage spells like Dark Binding or CDR glyphs to increase your CC, mobility, and DPS. Hiders should never take anything but CDR on glyphs.

You did hit the nail on the head when it comes to marks. GJ there.


Moving on to your suggested bans. Udyr, Quinn, Kass, and Ashe are all very poor bans as a hider. Don't get me wrong, all of those champs have strengths as a seeker, but 1. they are all still easily beatable and 2. there are stronger seekers around.

You don't even mention Blitzcrank, who is probably the most underrated seeker there is. If he maxes W>E>Q, he's faster than anybody else on the map, doesn't need to land a Q, and just knocks you up and autos you down. He can build boots 5x zephyr like a Hecarim and be one of the most terrifying things in existance.

Another ridiculously underrated seeker goes unmentioned, Zilean. You think he's worth banning as a seeker? Lol no. Just pick him. If they're silly enough to first pick Zilean, you can counter with Kha'Zix and LeBlanc- the two strongest hiders that should be available, and they just so happen to both be nutso strong as seekers, as well. If not, you grab the Zilean. Permanent 99% slow? Potential to stun? Can't killean? Just max E>W>Q, with a second point put in Q at level 10 to more easily Q-W-Q stun, and you're unstoppable. Pair with Hecarim or Kha'Zix for greatest effect.

Nothing about Rammus either?? Yes, Quicksilver Sash helps vs him, but his Powerball lets him check for stealth without Oracle's, it lets him catch almost anything, his taunt is still insanely strong, and his damage as either AD or AP is super high. Granted, he was nerfed significantly with the removal of SOTD and blackfire, but he's still something to consider.

Nidalee isn't mentioned either. It is possible to dodge her spears to make her weaker and never go into a bush to avoid her traps, but even so, that's a LOT of power. The time you spend dodging spears and avoiding bushes she spends Pounceing on you, Swipeing, and Takedown. Even without a spear, that does a lot of damage. Alternatively, she can just heal herself for a lich bane proc and auto you in ranged form over and over while you try to dodge a spear that's never coming. Nidalee's damage is incredibly cheesy and quite tough to deal with.

As for the ones I said you shouldn't ban:

Kassadin is remarkably stronger after this most recent buff, and I would definitely consider him a viable seeker again. But he's not an OP one. Yes, riftwalk is low cooldown, yes Force Pulse is fairly strong. But even so, any of the strong hiders- by which I mean Twitch, Evelynn, Shaco, LeBlanc, and Kha'Zix- should win vs him every time. Even Rek'Sai can dominate him if played well.

Udyr is average as a seeker. He is SO easy to kite. A leblanc hard, hard, hard counters him- E-R-E. yawn. W if needed, which it shouldn't be at 40% cdr. Morgana, Janna, Zilean, Rek'Sai, Alistar, and Lulu all also beat him.

Ashe is one of the most overrated seekers. Hawkshot isn't bad. Frost Shot is only strong if you pick something it counters, like Udyr. Again, any of the 'big 5'- twitch, kha'zix, eve, leblanc, and shaco- will beat her every time. Also, any and all 2-man cc combos- Morgana/Janna, Alistar/Poppy, ect, will win. Honestly, her passive is stronger than her Frost Shot. Enchanted Crystal Arrow shouldn't hit you. If it does, you misplayed. But even if it does hit you- Quicksilver Sash and gone.

Quinn is definitely a good seeker, but not ban worthy. She just doesn't have any time in the game when she's amazing. She's okay pre 6, decent 6-10, and doesnt get better than just strong post 11. She's just too ult reliant, with too long of a cd on the ult. And the ult doesn't even guarentee a kill- it's quite possible to get away on a number of champs.

Finally, the others you mention:

Rengar is the strongest seeker, period. If he's not perma and you don't ban him, you're out of you mind. You should probably say something to make that a lot more clear.

I give you credit, at least you included Twisted Fate. But you vastly underestimate his potential. Remember that 20% cdr setup? This is where it pays off. Your Pick A Card stun is on a 4.8 second cd to start the game. Destiny is 144 seconds. Once you're 16 and have Twin Shadows and a Fiendish Codex, gold card 2 second stun is on 3.6 second cooldown, and destiny is 72 seconds. As long as you Gate DIRECTLY on top of where they are, they can't avoid your gold card. A dash isn't enough- the only dashes with long enough range are Zac and Lissandra, and both are too delayed. A dash+flash isn't enough- you respond with a flash of your own. Even if they don't get hit by the gold card, your ally can immediately cut them off, and then you'll get your chance again. Pair TF with anyone with speed- Kha'zix, Yi, Hecarim, and Rammus come to mind, but there are others, and he'll churn out 25 minute wins like clockwork.

Kha'Zix seeker is scary. A Muramana Youmuu's Ghostblade kha'zix will delete anything he finds, and he's deceptively sticky with Void Assault, Leap, Void Spike, and Unseen Threat. If there are no permas though, I don't think you can afford to ban him.

Master Yi is definitely a good seeker as well. I can see including him on this list, but he just doesn't make the cut to my bans, ESPECIALLY if there are no permas.

Honestly, with no permas, hiders should ban Rengar, Twisted Fate, and Blitzcrank every single game, and seekers should ban Twitch, Evelynn, and Shaco. All of those are no-brainer, banned every single game champs.

From there, the progression is pretty easy. For seekers, the next highest priorities are Kha'zix, Leblanc, and Udyr/Janna/Morgana, which kha'zix and lb as pretty much interchangable bans, but clearly stronger than the other 3. For hiders, it's Zilean, Nidalee, Rammus, Yi, with some flexibility in that order.

As far as summoner spells, Ghost, Flash, and Cleanse are the only viable options. Exhaust lasts 2.5 seconds and is only 30%. Ghost, in comparison, lasts 10 seconds and grants 27+% (depending on boot enchant), not to mention its cd is effected by distortion. Flash is flash, and even on champs that wouldn't normally take it, it's required in HNS as both hider and seeker. The only time you take cleanse is when the seekers are HEAVILY reliant on a single, long cooldown, hard CC to kill you, and they have ABSOLUTELY NO way of killing you without it. An example would be Veigar. Seekers cannot afford to take cleanse.

Anyway, those are my thoughts on a lot of things you could improve upon, and you can take these suggestions as you will. I will say that most people are not good enough at HNS/ do not take it seriously enough for these changes to matter- if you're good, you can probably win either way, because they're probably bad. Try not to take this harshly, I went pretty much straight down to business because I had so much to say, and this has already taken me a good while to type up.

Well written :) I think it'd be better to move the champion descriptions nearer the end of the guide so the suggested bans are read earlier.

What if a Hider kill a Seeker, can the Hider recall/go to base?