Who are you?

Hey guys my name is Vondill. I've been playing League of Legends since Season 1. Tryndamere was the second champion I bought and mained. And I have been spamming him ever since. I have played thousands upon thousands of Tryndamere games throughout the years. I enjoy testing new builds and finding new ways to make the champion work.

OP.GG: http://na.op.gg/multi/query=vondill%2Ccruellavondill

Past Season Ranks?

• Season 1 - Casual; no ranked.
  
• Season 2 - 3v3 and Dominion all year. Ranked 5's a month before the season ended and got Gold.
  
• Season 3 - Diamond 1
  
• Season 4 - Diamond 1
  
• Season 5 - Retired
  
• Season 6 - Retired
  
• Season 7 - Diamond 3; started very late into the season after two seasons off.
  
• Season 8 - Diamond 1
  
• Season 9 - Grand Masters (Retired the last split and decayed.)
  
• Season 10 - Fresh off a 6 month break from League and bouncing around in Diamond. I'll be back in fighting shape in no time. Already hit Diamond 1 and shooting for Grand Masters/Challenger.

Do You Stream?

Yes I do! You can find me at: https://www.twitch.tv/VondillTV

Other Socials?

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/Vondill

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Vondill_

Discord: https://discord.gg/nhUSHD

Field Testing For Patch 10.12! Updating Constantly!

Patch 10.12
-Updated Ghost and Flash combination under the Summoners Spells chapter due to Ghost changes.
-Demoted Guinsoo's Rageblade from Core to Situational under the Items chapter.
-Added Unflinching to the Secondary Runes section in the Runes chapter.
-Added Legend: Alacrity to the Secondary Runes section in the Runes chapter.
-Added Legend: Tenacity to the Secondary Runes section in the Runes chapter.
-Added Legend: Bloodline to the Secondary Runes section in the Runes chapter.

EVERYTHING BELOW IS IN PROCESS OF BEING ADDED TO GUIDE CURRENLTY. CHECK BACK FOR THESE FOLLOWING ADDITIONS FOR THIS PATCH CYCLE

-Added Warding and Vision Control chapter which contains a section for each of the three Warding Trinkets.
-Added more detailed descriptions of Red Buff, Blue Buff, and Rift Scuttler under the Objectives chapter.
-Added new section Shop Efficiently under the Tips and Tricks chapter.
-Added Beginner Build chapter with a detailed build for new players trying to learn Tryndamere, but is also a safe build that is useful to Tryndameres of all skill levels.

EVERYTHING ABOVE IS IN PROCESS OF BEING ADDING TO GUIDE CURRENLTY. CHECK BACK FOR THESE ABOVE ADDITIONS FOR THIS PATCH CYCLE

Patch 10.10
-Updated the whole guide! Give it all another look there are a lot of changes!
-Added Personal Builds chapter. This section includes updated builds I currently use in the existing meta. However, this section only covers items and not other aspects of my builds such as keystones and runes.


Patch 9.9
-A lot of updates coming soon! Stay tuned!


Patch 9.8
-Big changes started happening in the last few days of 9.8; pushing updates to 9.9!


Patch 9.7
-Updated Wit's End in the Items chapter under the Situational section.
-Updated the Rune Builds section at the top. Cut all the pages with Domination secondary runes Keep in mind these are examples and deciding which runes to use will always depend on your lane opponent. These rune combinations are all useful in their own ways. Lethal Tempo and Conqueror are interchangeable depending on the matchup.
-After Testing: Updated the Buy These Every Game, Mid Game Build Examples, and Full Build Examples sections under the item builds at the top. Included Wit's End and On-Hit Anti-Tank builds. Clarified some build names.
-Updated Ghost Poro in the Runes chapter under the Secondary Runes section.
-Updated Ghost and Flash combination under the Summoners Spells chapter to clarify possible matchups.
-Coming soon! A new Current Personal Builds Chapter. In this chapter I will go over specifics about the builds I currently use along with their strengths and weaknesses.
-Updated Elixir of Sorcery in the Items chapter under the Elixirs section. I was mistaken, you do not get the true damage on towers when no minions are around. Towers gain a buff that make them immune to true damage when there are no enemy minions nearby.


Patch 9.6
-No changes.


Patch 9.5-A well deserved change I had been suggesting since the crit items revert of Patch 9.3
-Updated Buy These Every Game and Full Build Examples section under the item builds at the top.
-Updated Conqueror in the Runes chapter.
-Added Press the Attack under the Runes chapter.
-Updated Berserker's Greaves in the Items chapter under the Boots section.
-Updated Ionian Boots of Lucidity in the Items chapter under the Boots section.
-Updated Phantom Dancer in the Items chapter under the Core section.
-Updated Statikk Shiv in the Items chapter under the Core section.
-Updated Essence Reaver in the Items chapter and demoted it from Core to Situational.
-Removed Stormrazor in the Items chapter under Situational.
-Updated Black Cleaver in the Items chapter and promoted it from Situational to Core.
-Updated Trinity Force in the Items chapter and demoted it from Core to Situational.
-Updated Infinity Edge in the Items chapter under the Core section.
-Updated Mortal Reminder in the Items chapter under the Situational section.
-Updated Lord Dominik's Regards in the Items chapter under the Situational section.
-Added Lethal Tempo in the Runes chapter under the Keystones section.
-Updated Glacial Augment in the Runes chapter under the Keystones section.
-Updated Grasp of the Undying in the Runes chapter under the Keystones section.
-Updated Fleet Footwork in the Runes chapter under the Keystones section.
-Updated the Rune Builds section at the top. Keep in mind these are examples and deciding which runes to use will always depend on your lane opponent. These rune combinations are all useful in their own ways.
-After Testing: Updated the Buy These Every Game, Mid Game Build Examples, and Full Build Examples sections under the item builds at the top.
-After Testing: Updated Essence Reaver again in the Items chapter and also promoted it back to Core from Situational. Added more clarity on when to purchase. After testing the changes you're still going to want to buy Essence Reaver every game.
-After Testing: Updated Black Cleaver again in the Items chapter under the Core section to give more clarity on when to purchase.
-After Testing: Updated Infinity Edge again in the Items chapter under the Core section to give more clarity on when to purchase.


Patch 9.4
-Updated Buy These Every Game section under the item builds at the top.
-Updated Ionian Boots of Lucidity in the Items section.
-Updated a few example builds under the item builds at the top.
-Updated Conqueror in the Runes section.

Pros High Sustain High Damage High Mobility Hyper Carry Abilities don't cost resources Creates a lot of map pressure One of the strongest duelists in the game

Cons Early game can be RNG dependent Can be bullied early game Vulnerable to CC locks Easily bursted down Cannot typically initiate fights with teams Has considerable counters Requires a lot of macro play

What Are Tryndamere's Abilities And What Do They Do?

Battle Fury (Passive)

Tryndamere gains 5 fury each time he lands a basic attack, and 10 fury on critical strikes and each time he kills an enemy. After not dealing or receiving damage for 8 seconds, Tryndamere loses 5 fury per second. Tryndamere gains 0% − 35% (based on fury) critical chance.

Bloodlust (Q)

Passive: Tryndamere thirsts for blood, gaining 5/10/15/20/25 Attack Damage plus 0.15/0.2/0.25/0.3/0.35 per 1% Health missing.
Active: Tryndamere consumes his Fury, restoring 30/40/50/60/70 (+30% Ability Power) Health, plus 0.5/0.95/1.4/1.85/2.3 (+0) Health per Fury consumed.

Mocking Shout (W)

Range: 850
Cooldown: 14

Decreases surrounding champions' Attack Damage by 20/35/50/65/80 for 4 seconds, and enemies with their backs turned also have their Movement Speed reduced by 30/37.5/45/52.5/60% for 4 seconds.

Spinning Slash (E)

Range: 660
Radius: 225
Cooldown: 12 / 11 / 10 / 9 / 8

Tryndamere spins through his enemies, dealing 80/110/140/170/200 (+130% bonus Attack Damage) (+100% Ability Power) physical damage to enemies in his path and generating (2) Fury per minion and monster and (5) Fury per champion. Spinning Slash's cooldown is reduced by 1 second whenever Tryndamere critically strikes. This reduction is increased to 2 seconds against champions. (The 5 Fury gain per champion struck is actually not listed on the wiki or riot's official site.)

Undying Rage (R)

Cooldown: 110 / 100 / 90

Tryndamere instantly gains (50 / 75 / 100) fury and becomes immune to death for 5 seconds, during which his health cannot fall below a certain amount (30 / 50 / 70).

Undying Rage can be used even when affected by any form of crowd control.




Ability Order



Always start Spinning Slash level 1. The only exception to that rule is Pantheon in which case you can start Bloodlust so you can spam it as soon as he begins bombarding you with Spear Shot.

Spinning Slash level one enables you go to in for aggressive trades as soon as you start generating enough rage.

After that you want to prioritize Bloodlust. Bloodlust is your bread and butter; it's what keeps you alive and keeps you doing damage. Tryndamere is all about damage, so it should be your first priority when leveling up.

Mocking Shout is typically learned at level 4. But there can be times where you can take it lvl 3 or even level 2 if your jungler is coming for an immediate gank and you need to slow down your opponent in the assist.

Always take your Undying Rage at level 6.

After level 6, you want to finish points into Bloodlust to keep the passive damage coming. But once it comes time to level your Undying Rage again, choose to level Spinning Slash instead. You do not gain much from leveling your Undying Rage more, you only get 10 seconds off the cooldown and an additional 25 rage with each rank. You also get an additional 20hp boost to the minimum amount of health you are left with afterwards but that's inconsequential.

Overall you will be using your Spinning Slash much more often than your Undying Rage, giving Spinning Slash additional damage and cooldown reduction will give you more opportunities for finishing your opponent than an extra 10 seconds off your Undying Rage typically will. That being said there are times when leveling your Undying Rage first may be more helpful, but those cases are very niche and cannot go wrong by delaying leveling Undying Rage further until last.

Mocking Shout after that for the same reasons, you want to level up the abilities that directly help you catching and killing your opponent the most rather than shaving a little extra time off your Undying Rage cooldown.

Ignite is great for the all-in potential (especially early), anti-healing and diving carries in team fights. You want Flash to be able to get in quick and dodge powerful crowd control effects that can lock you down. Ghost used to be an alternative to Flash in earlier seasons, but it was nerfed and now it's more situational. Overall Flash is just more reliable.




If you're really uncomfortable with a very difficult poke lane matchup (ie Teemo) you can use this as a safety net until you get better as surviving the lane. I do not recommend teleport on Tryndamere for any games below diamond. It's a spell that's simply too team reliant and you're better off just killing your opponent and popping off.




You can replace Ignite with Ghost in any matchup but especially ranged matchups such as Teemo, Jayce, and Quinn. You'll be fine with either set of summoners into mostly everything. This is preference, some Tryndamere players run exclusively Flash and Ghost. I suggest trying both and choosing what fits your playstyle. With the recent changes to Ghost, they lowered the max speed by 5% but they removed the acceleration time and gave it a duration increase on kills/assists. This is a HUGE buff to ghost over all. And makes it even stronger and more viable than before. The reset on Ghost adds an extra 4-7 seconds (scales with level). The best part is, the extra seconds after a kill or assist stack additively on top of each other! So if you were to kill two people at the same time, instead of the bonus duration refreshing the initial 7 extra seconds, it adds together for a total of 14 seconds extra. In a big team fight, ghost can last up to 45 seconds!

What Do I Ban?

What do you ban? There are a lot of champions worth banning. But most importantly you need to ban the champion that you struggle with. Kennen giving you trouble? Ban him. Renekton giving you trouble? Ban him. Keep in mind some champs such as Teemo may be really hard for you, but are picked so rarely they may not be worth the ban. In the end, you should just ban a champion that commonly gives you trouble.

Asking For Trades

The game starts in champion select. As a Tryndamere you're not always going to want to give the enemy an opportunity to counter pick you with something like Teemo or Kennen. If given the chance you may want to ask your team if they would like to pick first as long as they already own Tryndamere. That way you may get a more favorable matchup and start the game with an edge.

What do the team compositions look like? Does your team have a lot of magic damage? Physical damage? Does your team have a reasonable way to initiate a team fight? Do you have some tanky front line champions? Does the enemy have enormous amounts of crowd control? These are all questions you need to know in order to evaluate how you will approach the game. For example playing with a team with no front line or initiation can be very difficult for Tryndamere. Understanding team compositions of your team and the enemy team can be a big factor in deciding whether to split push or to group with your team. See the chapter "Team Fighting And Split Pushing" for more more details.

Choosing Your Starting Items




This is going to be one of your most common starts. Doran's Blade is very important for asserting early lane control over your opponent. The stats you get for the gold are just too valuable. Yes you lose some gold verses a Long Sword start, but you get something more important: more control and all in potential.




Tryndamere has some of the highest base health regeneration (8.5 health per 5 seconds) in the game. Which is why this start is actually particularly useful in high poke lanes. Typically magic based poke lanes that have a limited mana pool, such as Viktor, Teemo, Lissandra. This build also has the convenience factor of already putting gold down towards your Tiamat. Which a Doran's Shield does not do. Think of this as a defensive start that scales quicker into your items. Keep in mind as your champion levels, up, so does your base health regeneration, and in turn, the effectiveness of the Rejuvenation Beads. They also sell back to the shop for 105 gold, meaning you only lose 45g per purchase, making them quite the value. In total you lose 90g for this start, versus losing 270g from a Doran's Shield purchase.




A great start against a very aggressive AD champion with a lot of all in potential for example Pantheon, or a lot of poke such as Jayce. This will give you the sustain to survive the first few levels and potentially outlast their resources and keep you healthy to prevent being dove under your tower before level 6. It's also a very economic choice if you're planning on building Ninja Tabi. If you end up not committing to Ninja Tabi you can always sell this later for 210g for only a 90g loss.




This is a more economic offensive start. This is good vs lanes you completely and utterly control, while also needing a shortcut into starting your build quicker. I typically get this versus Dr. Mundo since his cleavers do % health based damage anyways and the extra health from Doran's Blade doesn't make as much of a difference. You can also do this start if you're feeling confident vs some other tanks such as Maokai. That being said, this start is more greedy and puts more pressure on you to establish control over your lane early, as it does not have as much sustain as a Doran's Blade because of it's lifesteal. If you greed for this start, there's a good chance you may end up taking too much damage early without being able to sufficiently recover it, and may lose control of the lane or get zoned. Keep in mind it's not always your lane opponent that can cause this, but the enemy jungler as well.




This is a defensive start with Doran's Shield. While it is still an option, after the recent nerfs to Doran's Shield there are not many lanes where this is the better option than 3 Rejuvenation Beads + Health Potion. Though it may still have it's uses versus Darius because his passive resets Doran's Shield's passive.




Generally you want to stay away from Cull as a starting item. While the value can be very tempting, you will often regret buying this item after being punished early game for your lack of stats vs the other choices. That being said, it has one niche matchup: Singed with Teleport. When Singed runs teleport, he generally plays safe or tries to proxy farm behind your tower. The amount of gold you save from purchasing/selling other starting items plus the passive allow you to get a considerable head start into your build. Take advantage of the passive singed, and start the game in the most gold efficient way possible. If you buy Cull, it's important play passive and just try your best to farm every CS to put this item to good use.

Where Is The Jungler?

Knowing where the enemy jungler is pathing is a big factor in winning your lane. You can out perform the enemy laner over and over but if you consistently get caught out by their jungler none of that will matter. This is especially important early game where things can snowball out of control quite quickly.

There are early game hints that give you an idea of where the jungler will be. Was your laner late to lane? Do they have missing health? Resources? They may have leashed for their jungler. Did the enemy bot lane get to lane early or late? You almost always have the information of where the enemy jungle started at the beginning of the lane phase available to you if you check. Do you know the answer? Do yourself and your team a solid and let them know as well because they may not be as perceptive as you.

How is your lane opponent playing? Are you completely dominating them in lane, only for them to suddenly get aggressive seemingly out of nowhere? Careful, his jungler might be right behind him. Check for inconsistencies in your opponent's playstyle during the lane phase; it might give away their plan to gank you.

Before you go for aggressive trades make sure you are thinking about where the jungler might be. Even though sometimes the kills may look free; you could be walking right into a trap. Be especially careful around gank heavy junglers or junglers with hard cc such as Xin Zhao, Camille, or Sejuani.

What About My Jungler?

As well as the enemy jungler, you need to know where your own jungler is at all times. Are they in a position to help you during a gank? If not play more passively. Are they close by and ready to gank? Bait your opponent or go for more aggressive trades. Are they across the map when the enemy is preparing to dive you under turret? Even though it hurts, you may have to simply concede the tower or cs. Will your jungler need help contesting an objective? Buff? Scuttle? Try to be available to help them, or let them know that you won't and to back off. If the enemy has no summoners let your jungler know, this is useful information that can lead to a gank in your favor.

Coming Soon!

What Is The Early Game?

The early game is generally accepted as the laning phase, or typically the first 12-14 minutes of the game.

Early Laning Phase: Levels 1-5

In general you want to build rage off the first three melee minions. Once you get 100 or close to 100 rage. You'll want to go in for a trade and pray to the RNG Gods.

There are some very important timings with level 2 and level 3 that you can use to your advantage to get a favorable trade.

After you get the first 6 minions of the first wave, the FIRST minion of the SECOND wave will give you level 2.

After you kill the first 2 waves of minions. Killing the FIRST TWO melee minions of the THIRD wave will give you level 3.

Use those two level power spikes to spin in for a good trade. You can do the same for any level up throughout the game if you know you will level up first.

As always, do not get aggressive if you think the jungler is or may be pathing around your lane. If you blow your spin for a trade and their jungler shows up from the fog of war then it may not work out well for you.

It's important to be able to identify if the wave is either pushing towards you or away from you. If the enemy jungler is nearby you may want the wave pushing towards you. Alternatively, you can also hard shove the wave into the enemy tower so you can recall and buy safely before returning to lane. If you decide to shove, make sure the enemy cannot freeze the wave before it hits their tower so they cannot deny you gold and experience.

What Is The Mid Game?

The mid game generally starts when the first tower is taken down on the map and the lanes begin to roam more and look for more objectives/towers as a team. This usually happens around the 12-14 minute mark. The mid game typically lasts until around the 30 minute mark. This is where you put your macro to the test.

What Do I Do Mid Game?

During this time you should be looking to take your opponents tower if you haven't already. If your bot lane took the first tower and the dragon is down they may swap to your top lane to take your opponent's tower if you haven't already. If and when that happens it's important you let the lane that's ahead rotate to take more towers/objectives while you split on the opposite side of the map.

Alternatively, bot lane may go mid instead in which case your mid may end up going bot. You can use this time to take top towers, topside enemy jungle, roam mid, or the rift herald until baron nashor spawns.

Push down a side lane (usually bot) and try to get an inhibitor. Push waves and rotate to your team for objectives or an opportune pick or fight. Invade the enemy jungle and deny their jungler camps and buffs, place vision around their jungle so you can split safely. Fight for dragons. Fight for baron nashor. Fight for rift herald. Establish vision control as you move across the map. Just be aware of where the enemy is moving or you may end up getting caught and picked.

The choices you make and the options you have to move around that map will vary from game to game. There are a lot of choices to consider, but you will always have more options the bigger the lead you have.

What Is The Late Game?

The late game generally starts sometime after the 30 minute mark and lasts until the end of the game.

What Do I Do Late Game?

Good question. This is an answer you will be trying to get right for a long time. Because typically this is where your macro game is going to shine. Your decisions here can make or break games. But most importantly try to learn from your mistakes. Should you group? Split? Go for a pick? Take an objective with your team? Solo? Chase? Run away? Take towers? Take inhibitors? Backdoor? The answers to all of these will change depending on the game and sadly I can't really tell you what the correct answer is.

Towers And Plating

You're Tryndamere and one of if not your biggest job is to just smash towers. And it's a fun job! Tower Plating has become one of the best changes in the game lately. And you better believe as a Tryndamere player they should excite you. What's not to love? Extra gold! Each plating is worth 160g. Destroying all 5 is an extra 800g! First blood tower is an additional bonus 150g. If you take one tower by yourself and get first blood tower, that's an additional 1200g total! All of that sounds wonderful, and it is, but don't get greedy for it. Don't die because you wanted to greed for one more plating. Dying for the last of the plating and finishing a first blood tower though can sometimes be worth it.

Red, Blue, And Rift Scuttler

Red Buff, Blue Buff, and Rift Scuttler are all small objectives you should be keeping an eye on. In the current meta early game skirmishes over the Rift Scuttler in particular are very common. Be ready to help your jungler by hard pushing your lane or allowing it to slow push to you while you roam to assist in securing a Rift Scuttler or assist in an offensive or defensive invasion on corresponding Red Buff or Blue Buff. If you do not have control over your lane and you think you cannot help make sure you ping to let your team know beforehand. One bad skirmish early can tilt teammates and snowball a game for the enemy. If you're ahead in your lane always try to roam and secure these if you can do so safely. Always keep in mind your team's locations as well as the enemy team before you invade though.

Rift Herald

Rift Herald is an early-mid game objective you can solo or sneak when ahead. It will spawn at the 8 minute mark and again 6 minutes later from the time it is killed if before 13:45. The Rift Herald will despawn at 19:55 regardless of combat or damage dealt to make room for Baron Nashor so make sure if you have enough time to kill it before you commit. If you and your team has plenty of control and vision of the map you can usually just push out top lane and solo it or have your team help you. If you're ahead but your team is not, you might consider sneaking it. If you want to sneak it, buy a Vision Ward for the baron pit or use a vision plant to sweep the pit and make sure the enemy does not have vision. Make sure if you're sneaking it you pull it towards your side of the map. That way you can make a clean escape if the enemy discovers you. Dodge the Rift Herald's swipe attack and spin behind him to smack the eye and deal significant damage to it. The eye on its back will stop spawning when it reaches below 15% health. A good way to secure the objective is to stop damaging it right before it drops below 15% health and waiting for the eye to spawn. Once the eye spawns, auto one or two more times followed by a spin from behind and hit the eye. That will also diminish any chance the enemy jungler has to outsmite you for it. As long as you have your spin up to immediately get behind it and hit the eye, you should almost always be able to secure it. Remember to face it's back in the opposite direction you think the enemy might be approaching from so they don't get a free shot at the eye once it spawns. Once killed, you and your team will have 20 seconds to pick up the eye before it despawns. Or if the enemy killed it, prevent them from grabbing the eye until it expires. Once summoned, it walks down the closest lane and charges/attacks nearby towers. It will continue until it is killed. Everytime it charges a tower it loses 66% of its current health as true damage. Every 3 seconds, the eye on it's back will open up and if it, take damage equal to 40% of it's maximum health in true damage. It's important to try and protect its eye from enemies if you are trying to use it to push down a lane. Once it starts its charge animation the eye closes briefly and it becomes unstoppable during the charge unless killed. Using Rift Herald can be tricky. Once you pick up the Eye of the Herald, you will have 240 seconds (4 minutes) to use it. You will also gain an empowered recall for the duration and your recall will be reduced to 4 seconds from 8. The first Rift Herald is arguably more important than the second one because it usually means extra plating and first tower gold. If you are losing lane, or don't think you will be able to use the Rift Herald from your position effectively, it is okay to let another team mate (usually the jungler) take it somewhere else on the map where you currently don't plan to go. If you do take the Rift Herald for yourself here are a few things to consider: It takes 1 second to summon the eye, make sure you're not in a position to be interrupted during this time. The eye will make your screen flash purple when it is 15 seconds from expiring. Use it before you lose it! There will be an audio cue when summoned and the enemy can see it on the minimap. Don't use it on towers with health low enough for you to take without the Herald. You want to save its hp for the more difficult towers. Towers with a lot of plating and low enough to take first blood tower are most valuable for the first herald. Rift herald lowers tower defenses like minions do, so minions aren't required. Using the rift herald on a lane where the enemy cannot reinforce fast enough can yield more towers and map control for your team. Using herald as a distraction right before a dragon/baron can give your team control of the other objective. Try to get as many charges as possible, escort the rift herald to charge range if you can and back off if it's too dangerous. Mid lane towers are more valuable than side lanes because they give you a lot more control over the map. Inner towers are more valuable than outer towers. Inhibitor towers are more valuable than inner towers. Middle inhibitor tower is more valuable than top inhibitor tower. Bottom inhibitor tower is more valuable than middle inhibitor tower. (because it is furthest from Baron.) Rift herald will also charge inhibitors If you're using rift herald on nexus towers then you've probably already won the game. If rift herald survives until the enemy nexus explodes, it will dance!

Dragons

Infernal Drake grants + 4 / 8 / 12 / 16% attack damage and ability power per kill. The buff scales really well with Tryndamere and just amplifies your damage and scaling power. Infernal Dragon Soul gives your autos and abilities and small aoe explosion around the target on a 3 second cooldown. Extra damage is always nice. Mountain drake grants + 6 / 12 / 18 / 24% bonus armor and magic resistance. Extra defensive stats, but doesn't scale too well with Tryndamere due to lack of armor of magic resistance items in his builds. Still, better than nothing and can make the difference. Mountain Dragon Soul grants you an extra shield that can be pretty useful in a split push. Cloud Drake grants + 10 / 20 / 30 / 40% ultimate cooldown reduction. This stacks multiplicatively (ignoring the cdr cap) with your cooldown reduction from items and runes. Cloud Dragon Soul grants 10% bonus movement speed, increased to 50% bonus movement speed for 6 seconds after casting your ultimate (30 second cooldown.) Extra movement speed is invaluable to Tryndamere. This allows you to close the gap on your targets or roam and split the map quicker. Ocean drake restores 2.5 / 5 / 7.5 / 10% of missing health every 5 seconds. This is amazing in the lane phase and early game especially when you're up against a poke lane. Ocean Dragon Soul grants healing over 4 seconds when you damage enemies. This is very powerful in fights and can be the difference between winning and losing.

Inhibitors

Take them when you get the chance. This is your job after all. Get all three and double super minions spawn on each lane. Just taking down one can put immense pressure on the map and make your job splitting much easier. Avoid taking them pre-20 minutes. Once they go down the super minions will keep pushing and deny your own team a lane of CS while providing the enemy with free farm. So make sure you are going to be taking other objectives/towers while the super minions push. Also sometimes worth trading for major objectives if you can stall the game and prevent the enemy from winning by doing so.

Baron Nashor

Baron Nashor is a very important mid to late game objective that spawns at the 20 minute mark and grants Hand of Baron once defeated. Very important objective to take, you may join your team to secure it, or you can split the bottom lane to occupy the enemy from being able to contest your own team as they take it. One you have Hand of Baron try to split a different lane from your team so you can use as many baron charged minions on the map as possible. Try to pick a lane furthest from your team so the enemy cannot easily reinforce either lane. Or push close by if you intend to rotate to your team. Be patient though, wait for your team to push and try to push separate towers simultaneously. That may mean not shoving the lanes down immediately.

Elder Dragon

Elder Dragon grants Aspect of the Dragon for 2.5 minutes that causes all damage to deal additional true damage to enemies over 2.25 seconds. Additionally once you bring an enemy champion below 20% health, after .5 seconds it activates Elder Immolation, which executes the enemy by dealing 100% of the champions health as true damage. As Tryndamere the execute will not kill you during your Undying Rage. However you should make sure to use your ultimate a little easier to avoid getting executed. Elder Dragon is an extremely powerful objective and very important to secure. It's also important to keep out of enemy hands. At these stages into the late game these dragons typically die insanely fast and fights here usually decide the game. You want to make sure you're securing them with your team or just straight ending the game while the enemy is distracted.

Tryndamere Shakespeare once wrote: "To split or not to split? That is the question." It's a tough question and each game is different. But there are some factors that come into play that you should consider when deciding. I will give you a list of reasons to split and a list of reasons to group. Part of becoming a good Tryndamere is weighing the pros and cons of each and deciding what is best for your game to secure the win.

Split Push -You can 1v1, 1v2, 1v3, 1v4, 1v5 -You are consistently damaging towers -The enemy team doesn't have global ultimates -The enemy team cannot catch you -Your team is successfully pressuring other lanes -Your team can 4v4 -Your team is not getting caught -Your team is not instigating 4v5 fights -You are confident you can dive the enemy matching you under tower -You cannot win 5v5 -The enemy lacks engage. -Your team has considerable disengage.

Group with Team -You can't 1v1 -You aren't doing meaningful damage to towers -The enemy team has global ultimates -You keep getting caught -Your team cannot/will not pressure other lanes -Your team cannot 4v4 -Your team is getting caught -Your team is starting 4v5 fights and losing -You are not confident you can dive the enemy matching you under tower -You can win 5v5 -The enemy has considerable hard engage. -Your team lacks disengage.

Bind Your Rank Up Abilities So You Don't Have To Click Them

This is an important trick to being faster and catching your enemy off guard. Once you're about to hit a level up, you can spin to the enemy while spinning over the last minion(s) you need to level up. While mid spin, rank up your next ability before your spin finishes for a more powerful trade. Also comes in handy if you're in the middle of an intense all in while simultaneously hitting level 6.

Harass The Enemy Under Tower Without Taking Tower Shots

Once you shove an enemy under their tower, try harassing them under their turret. Wait for the tower to start targeting ranged minions. This is important because the tower shots take much more time to travel vs melee minions right at the base. The tower will not shoot again until the first shot has landed. If you time it right this gives you enough time to hit your opponent under tower and spin out before the tower fires its next shot. Simply wait for the tower to fire onto a ranged minion, auto-attack, use your Tiamat if you have it, and spin away immediately. If you're lucky you'll even crit them and not take tower damage.

Pressure The Enemy To Attack You Under Their Tower To Aggro Your Minions

Minions do a fair bit of damage during trades. And the more pile up, the more damage they do when they aggro you or the enemy. Use this to your advantage. When you push into the enemy tower with your minions (the more the better) goad the enemy into attacking you. You can do this a few ways, you can attack the enemy tower, attack the enemy directly, or you can "hug" them by constantly standing close to them until they attack. Once they do the minions will aggro them and you will be doing passive damage to the enemy under their tower without taking aggro directly. You can let them keep attacking you if you're not in danger of dying to let the minions do the work and commit to the dive when they're low enough or retreat and sustain back up and do it some more. This is a strong tactic for preparing a dive or just wearing down the enemy to force a back sooner. Be very cautious about attempting this against champions with heavy cc that can force you to take tower aggro such as Shen and his Shadow Dash.

Be Patient With Last Hitting

Improving your CS is one of the easiest and simplest ways to increase your level of play. It sounds boring but getting better is all about consistently performing even the little things. Even though Tryndamere has a lot of attack damage, it's very easy to miss CS due to crit rng or accidental cleave from Tiamat. How many times were you expecting to land two more auto-attacks on that cannon minion only for Tryndamere to crit it and lose it to allied minions? Be patient, give it a moment and remove the rng factor.

Save Your Mocking Shout and Spin

Knowing when to use your gap closers and when to save them can mean all the difference in securing a kill or succeeding in a tower dive. You do not always have to open with your Spinning Slash or Mocking Shout right away. If you can close the gap by simply walking up to your enemy, do that instead. It's important to save your gap closers to match the enemy's own escapes or dashes when you're closing in.

Your Mocking Shout Reveals Hidden Enemies

Your Mocking Shout ability icon will light up when there are enemy champions in range. If you're walking up to a bush, around corners, walls or into fog of war without vision, make sure you're checking to see if Mocking Shout lights up without having to get closer to face check. This is a valuable trick to stop enemys from backing or avoid ambushes. You can also use this as a tactic to trick your enemy if you pretend you don't have vision before you catch them off guard and attack.

Using Tiamat Efficiently

Tiamat is one of the best items you can buy and using it to it's full potential will keep you or get you ahead. Activate it's proc to harass enemy champions as safely and often as possible for free damage and favorable trades. The effect radius is decently large and the cooldown is pretty short so be liberal with its use. Use it to knock out your opponent's Bone Plating before a trade. Use its range to last hit minions you wouldn't otherwise be able to auto-attack. Auto-attack minions near the enemy champion for extra chip damage. Freezing a lane with Tiamat can be difficult, but instead of auto-attacking to last hit every minion during a freeze, try to single minions out with the outer edge of the active proc. Ready to all in the enemy? Hold the proc until you're ready to move in for extra burst. Always wait for your auto-attack to complete its damage on a champion before you activate your Tiamat. Auto-attack, Tiamat active and Spinning Slash makes for great short trades, especially if you crit.

Rage Management

How effectively you manage your rage will be a big indicator of how proficient you are with Tryndamere. I'll be honest, getting good at this will just come with experience with the champion. If you're not going for a trade anytime soon spend your rage for a heal. If you can replenish your rage immediately because there are a lot of low health minions, use your rage to heal. You can also simultaneously consume your rage in the middle of a critical strike animation on the last auto-attack of a trade to be more efficient. Are you going to finish all those low health minions with Tiamat? Consider trying to get out as many last hits from auto-attacks as possible to generate additional rage instead. Is a tower going to 1 shot a minion that's too high health for you to CS? Hit it anyways to generate extra rage as long as doing so will not compromise your ability to secure other CS. That rage adds up and can help you sustain or fight.

Sometimes... It's Good To Be Low On Health

Don't forget Bloodlust gives you additional attack damage the lower health you are. If you're already in a safe position, delay consuming that rage for healing in order to deal more damage to towers or shove waves faster.

Here's A Trick For Not Getting Struck By Both Nexus Turrets At Once (Video)

Play Video

I will go over each rune individually under the impression that you already know what they all do. I will explain the benefits to each rune, if they're not listed here they're not worth your time. If you want complete sets look at the top or go down to more specific sets via lane matchups.

Keystones

You have more options than just Lethal Tempo though they are situational; I will explain their use.

Conqueror

Once a titan and the end-all-be-all of runes for Tryndamere, Conqueror is a husk of its old self. It takes too long to build up stacks reliably, even though Tiamat now activates it. The damage doesn't make a big enough difference vs tanks and it's not reasonable to stack against any squishy or high mobility champions. The healing is mediocre at best when you take into account you need full stacks just to activate the healing portion. Overall this rune doesn't do as much damage as Lethal Tempo and doesn't give you enough sustain such as Fleet Footwork. It's the worst of both worlds and is not worth taking currently. In the niche cases where it might find use it may perform marginally better at best, but chances are you'd still have been better off with other options.

Press the Attack

Currently not worth taking over Lethal Tempo for damage.

Lethal Tempo

Lethal Tempo can be a powerful offensive rune for longer trades in the lane and scales hard. This rune should do well into melee champions that aren't too mobile such as Sylas or even tanks like Poppy. You may have trouble using this rune versus some melee champions that aim to cc or disengage you such as Riven, Renekton, and Jax. If you're able to get Lethal Tempo rolling and swap to a squishy target during a team fight you can burst them quite quickly. Overall this keystone will be your highest damage potential.

Fleet Footwork

This rune is especially useful into high poke lanes such as Gangplank, Jayce or Pantheon where you typically outscale them anyways. It's also useful for lanes such as Kennen or Teemo where you simply want to stay alive. This gives you powerful healing and short-term trading power coupled with a ton of sustain due to its scaling with AD. Also very useful for keeping yourself topped off and healthy to trade more often.

Glacial Augment

Very underrated and very useful rune in the right situation. I find this rune particularly useful against lanes such as Teemo, Jayce and even Gnar. With Glacial Augment you have one of the most formidable and cheesy level 1-2 all ins in the game. Opponents will simply be caught off guard by the slow and when coupled with Ignite your early game all in potential is quite huge. Couple this rune with an item like Bilgewater Cutlass or Blade of the Ruined King and you'll have a field day. Always get Approach Velocity in the inspiration tree when you take this rune. Unfortunately this rune has been indirectly nerfed over time due to repeated nerfs to the secondary runes in the inspiration tree such as Magical Footwear and Biscuit Delivery. Even in niche cases where this rune is appropriate there are other more safer options such as Fleet Footwork.

Grasp of the Undying

A powerful rune for short trades where you may otherwise get bullied. This rune is useful into lanes such as Renekton, Wukong, Riven, Camille, Darius, Fiora, and even Jax.

Phase Rush

This rune has continued to see buffs over time and is now a real contender. This rune is especially useful into Cassiopeia and Vladimir. The extra speed and slow resist allows you to run through their slows and just run them down. Also useful into Nasus, take a nice trade early and disengage or run him down. This rune is the highest scaling utility option you have. It makes team fighting a much more lucrative option as you can weave in and out of fights and onto the enemy carrys. Rememeber you deal 0 damage if you're not in melee range and this rune makes sure that never happens. Great for split pushing as well as it gives you quite a nice disengage if you are out numbered. Phase Rush is also activatable through Ignite and items such as Tiamat and Blade of the Ruined King. Your Mocking Shout also counts towards activating it if you land the chicken portion (enemy facing away.)

Hail of Blades

The most aggressive keystone you can take for the early game. This rune is extremely powerful and makes early trades often very favorable to you. It does not scale as well as Lethal Tempo for longer trades late game. But if the game's over before then does it really matter? Makes spinning and nuking squishy champions in team fights much easier as well. The biggest downside is you're stuck with domination secondary runes, which aren't nearly as strong as options from other trees.

Secondary Runes

Secondary runes are very flexible. Many of them are viable and you have many options. In the end you should always choose the runs that best fits your own play style. I will go over secondary runes along with their advantages and disadvantages so you have enough information to decide for yourself.

Triumph

Amazing rune, will keep you in the fights much longer and save your life after many fights and all ins. Easily the best rune in it's tier. Also the extra gold is nothing to scoff at, in fact I'm not sure why riot even keeps the extra gold gain on it the rune would still be just as fine without it.

Overheal

There is potential in this rune. Especially if you rush life steal early. Bloodlust can also help top off if you don't currently need the rage. It's hard to measure it's usefulness because you won't have it in dire situations like you would Triumph, this is more of a rune to keep you from getting there. I will have to do some playing around and testing with this rune and I will update this once I get more fieldwork done.

Last Stand

Best rune in it's tier. This just synergizes too well with Tryndamere's kit.

Legend: Alacrity

A safe and consistant choice. This game is powerful early compared to the other runes of it's column if you're trying to put more pressure on your lane. 20% attack speed usually isn't going to make or break your build but every little bit helps.

Legend: Tenacity

A great option if the enemy laner or team has a lot of crown control. Getting locked down is Tryndamere's biggest counter and this helps tremendously in dealing with that. Remember, you do 0 damage when you're locked down. Usually best to go with Legend: Tenacity and Berserker's Greaves rather than Legend: Alacrity and Mercury's Treads as you're trading 17% attack speed for 25 magic resist with the latter.

Legend: Bloodline

This is a convenient rune, but it doesn't start to pay off until much later. It takes twice as long to stack compared to the other two runes in its column, but it allows you to have sustain without having to commit to a lifesteal item. This can be huge when your biggest concern is hitting item powerspikes for more damage without compromising the utlity of lifesteal. This is a rune that feels like it doesn't do anything for a long time, but then it starts working for you and it feels great. However, I don't recommend this rune to new players. Since it takes so much longer to stack, there is more pressure for you to make sure you cs efficiently throughout the game, which is something a lot of new players struggle with.

Taste of Blood

This rune is decent in short trades. The heal is actually pretty significant early and it can help you come out on top throughout the lane phase.

Ghost Poro

If you're taking Hail of Blades then you should be taking this. Ghost Poro gives you some free extra damage and vision. It's passive and easier to stack than Eyeball Collection and Zombie Ward. Once an enemy champion walks through Ghost Poro it alerts you, which can save you from an enemy gank.

Demolish

This rune is so fun to use. Tryndamere actually has really high base health so even though you don't typically buy health items you still get a lot of mileage out of Demolish. Turret plating has never been so free. If you're going into the resolve tree take this rune if you do not need the extra sustain from Revitalize.

Second Wind

You will almost always take this rune if you dive into the Resolve tree. It just heals you for so much during the lane phase that it's hard to pass up. This rune has always out performs Bone Plating in the early lane phase, which is usually why you take resolve.

Bone Plating

Scales quite nicely into champs that rely on combos or all ins. A solid choice vs Jax, Riven, or Renekton but not a requirement. Bone Plating is less sustain than Second Wind during lane phase because players will usually poke you first and play around it, but once team fights or more aggressive all-ins start happening later in the game it could make the difference. Overall Second Wind is safer for early game poke and trading while Bone Plating is better for all-ins and scales more for later in the game. But if you're picking resolve it usually means you're trying to play for more early rather than late.

Revitalize

I usually take this rune along with Second Wind in high poke matchups such as Kennen or Gangplank. The extra sustain from your Bloodlust helps keep you alive. In combination with Fleet Footwork the rune gets even better. Keep in mind this rune does not increase the healing from Second Wind.

Unflinching

This rune scales very well with Tryndamere's kit much like Last Stand does. Tryndamere routinely gets into situations where he's low hp, and during your Undying Rage is when you do the most damage. The common enemy strategy is to lock you down with crowd control for the duration of your Undying Rage. But with Unflinching you may be able to pull off the kill or escape you need. This rune is an amazing choice if you are up against a team with heavy crowd control. Combine this with Legend: Tenacity and you have a whopping 51% tenacity without having to buy any items. They stack multiplicatively though, so there are diminishing returns meaning you won't get the full value of each individual source of tenacity by stacking them. It's up to you if you think the trade off is worth it. Keep in mind crown control cannot be reduced below .5 seconds. Another aspect of this rune that I think is often overlooked is the slow resist. It may not be as noticeable at first, but can make a huge difference in a team fight.

Magical Boots

10 move speed doesn't sound like much, but this is close to 3% movement speed. On top of that, they're free! Save 300g and extra passive movement speed? Yes please! Definitely an economic and scaling choice. Downside is you have to wait up to 12 minutes for boots. 45 seconds is reduced from the timer each time you get a kill or assist, but it's still a long time to wait, especially since movement speed is so vital to Tryndamere.

Minion Dematerializer

Decent for giving you faster wave clear or securing minions that are in a dangerous position. Useful for hitting level ups early without the enemy expecting. Better option than Future's Market in my opinion and Biscuit Delivery has been nerfed so much it's not worth it either. You will only be getting this rune if Glacial Augment is your keystone.

Cosmic Insight

Great choice if you're going for a heavy CDR oriented build. Definitely a preference thing but I find Approach Velocity more useful most of the time.

Approach Velocity

Another extremely underrated rune and one of my personal favorites. If you land your Mocking Shout this rune will give you an extra 15% movement speed towards your target. Kill red buff to get Crest of Cinders and every time you auto-attack a champion you will gain 15% movement speed. If one of your teammates is slowed you will also gain 15% movement speed towards your slowed teammates (this can actually make a difference in a fights where slows are involved.) I prefer this rune over Nimbus Cloak for the same reason you level your Mocking Shout over your Undying Rage. You simply use your Mocking Shout much more often and you get a lot of frequent use out of Approach Velocity.

Nimbus Cloak

A great choice if you plan to dip into the sorcery tree. The value of having that extra burst of movement speed during your Ignite or Flash is tremendous, which is one of the most important times for a speed boost. This rune is great at all stages of the game and one of the most powerful secondary runes in the game.

Transcen-dence

10% CDR. Can't go wrong. Very suitable and common choice. The only downside is the rune does nothing for you until level 10.

Gathering Storm

Extra damage scaling. Not the worst option out there, but too slow these days for my taste. This rune just takes too long to take off and you will generally be better off with something else. You're better off getting Nimbus Cloak and Transcendence. If you're using Phase Rush as your keystone then this rune is your best option in this tier.

Celerity

It's hard to quantify just how impactful this rune truly is. You would take this rune as an option when Phase Rush is your keystone as it directly synergizes with Phase Rush and Nimbus Cloak along with your exisiting movement speed bonuses and passive movement speed. It's just hard to tell how much of a difference it really makes but more movement speed never hurts.

Stat Runes

Stat runes may be the smallest runes in the rune pages, but they are just as important as the others. Optimizing these into lane matchups will enable you to get the edge on matchups you are otherwise disadvantaged.

Attack Damage

You'll either take this or an extra armor or magic resistance rune if you're against a hard lane matchup.

Attack Speed

Always take this rune. The extra attack speed outscales an additional damage rune and the extra attack speed will help you cs.

Armor

Take this if you're against a physical damage lane. Take another if you're against a difficult physical damage matchup.

Magic Resistance

Take this if you're against a magic damage lane. Take another if you're against a difficult magic damage matchup.

Health

Only take this if you're not sure if your lane matchup is physical or magic and they are both not difficult. Always take the attack damage rune in the second slot if you're picking health. Generally you should not take this rune. Alternatively, you can take the armor rune into a magic lane and get by just fine. Armor still helps vs their auto-attacks and minion damage.

Cooldown Reduction

This rune is just awful. It's a little less than .6% cdr per level and takes too long to scale. There are easier ways to get cdr. This rune cannot compete with 10% attack speed.

In this portion of the Guide, I will go over each item individually. The goal of this guide isn't to just show you a build, but to teach you how to think more critically about which items you need in the moment, so you can apply your knowledge and adapt your builds each game. Items not listed here I would not recommend as there are better alternatives. The items in each category are not listen in any particular order.

Can I Have Your In-Game Shop Item Set?

Sure! Go to this link: https://pastebin.com/kUwT327j Copy that block of text, go to the items page under your collections tab in your client, select import item sets, and paste copied set! Enjoy the convenience of a shop built for Tryndamere

Berserker's Greaves

These bad boys do a lot of damage, it's really easy to forget just how much damage they add because they're only boots. But at 35% attack speed is quite a bit value. Get these most games unless you're being locked down by CC or getting one shot by physical damage.

Ninja Tabi

Buy these if you're up against an all physical damage team. You can also choose to buy them vs auto-attack champions such as Quinn, physical bullies like Jayce or teams with a very fed physical assassin such as Rengar.

Mercury's Treads

Crowd control is the bane of your existence. And Mercury's Treads can alleviate some of the pain. A solid purchase into lanes with high magical damage and annoying crowd control such as Lissandra or Kennen. Keep in mind if you only want tenacity from one source and the magic resistance isn't important to you, take Legend: Tenacity and purchase Berserker's Greaves. You will be trading the 25 magic resistance for an extra 17% attack speed vs taking Legend: Alacrity and purchasing Mercury's Treads.

Ionian Boots of Lucidity

Ionian Boots of Lucidity are a nice utility based option if you do not need the extra attack speed Berserker's Greaves offers. The 10% cooldown reduction is nice, but the additional 10% cooldown reduction on summoner spells can be extremely useful. There are only 2 things that reduce the cooldown timers on summoner spells, Ionian Boots of Lucidity and Cosmic Insight. Having your Flash and Ignite up more often can make all the difference in winning a duel or team fight. You can either replace your Berserker's Greaves with Ionian Boots of Lucidity at the end of the game for a little extra utility when your damage is already high enough or you can get them as your regular boots with a build that emphasizes utility. I do not recommend Ionian Boots of Lucidity as an offensive option at this time as you will usually need the attack speed from Berserker's Greaves.

Tiamat

This item is just great. You'll be buying this early in many of your games. The wave clear, the trading power, and the sustain make give it quite a bit of value for its gold cost. The biggest benefit of this item is the incredibly fast wave clear, which gives you more time for other things such as backing/buying, roaming, and taking jungle camps (also faster.) The downside for buying Tiamat is that freezing the lane will become very difficult to accomplish and pretty much impossible to maintain. You also don't have to upgrade to Ravenous Hydra. See Ravenous Hydra under Situanional items for more details.

Stinger

This item fits into every build, usually early. Stinger takes the place of the early attack speed slot Zeal items used to take, while rotating the crit portion into Essence Reaver and Infinity Edge. The great thing is it's so cheap, gives you tons of attack speed and 10 cdr. Eventually you will upgrade it into Trinity Force.

Trinity Force

The attack speed mobility item slot that used to belong to Phantom Dancer and Statikk Shiv, Trinity Force has become the king. You're going to want this item eventually in pretty much every build. Though when you prioritize it is completely up to you. Stinger by itself is so good you can delay finishing the Trinity Force for other items if mobility and cdr is not an issue. The Sheen passive allows you to bust through towers quite fast. Make sure to spin between auto attacks, use Bloodlust or even Mocking Shout (only if you know you will not need them) to activate the Sheen passive and shred towers or other objectives faster. The bonus movement speed passive and extra movement speed on damage from Phage also makes Tryndamere much harder to kite, and is particularly useful against mobile champions such as Jayce. As for which second component should you buy next if you choose to upgrade to Trinity Force? Sheen if you can buy it in one buy and you need the extra burst and cdr. Phage if you cannot buy the whole component in one buy (usually Long Sword before Ruby Crystal) and you want more survivability and movement speed on hit. Overall this item has everything you need, and you will always eventually upgrade your Stinger to Trinity Force.

Essence Reaver

The best item for Tryndamere. It's got damage, crit, and cdr. Laugh at your allies and enemies alike as they ping and ask about your Essence Reaver while calling you a fool because you don't use mana. Always buy this before infinity edge in most cases.

Infinity Edge

You want to include this in every build. Buy it after Essence Reaver as the extra cooldown reduction is usually more important than the extra damage.

Blade of the Ruined King

Great item for not only tank busting champions like Sion and Cho'Gath but also catching very slippery champions such as Jayce and Vayne. Additionally it's really powerful against bruiser champions such as Garen, Darius, and Renekton. This item can find a place in almost any build. Also combos well with Guinsoo's Rageblade for extra passive proc damage. Blade of the Ruined King can be rushed before finishing your Essence Reaver. Additionally, it can also find its way into almost any later slot in a build.

Mercurial Scimitar

If you're against a team composition with extremely heavy amounts and long forms of crowd control. Purchase a Quicksilver Sash and just sit on it. The stats on Mercurial Scimitar are weak so don't upgrade Quicksilver Sash until one of your last if not your last item. Quicksilver Sash is useful to break free from suppress such as Malzahar's Nether Grasp or Warwick's Infinite Duress. But you can even get it for annoying crowd control effects such as Veigar's Event Horizon stun or Zilean's Time Warp. If the enemy has forms of crowd control that are shutting you down and preventing you from doing your job, buy this item. Extra tip: you can use Quicksilver Sash and Mercurial Scimitar during a knock up. They won't reduce the knock up's duration, but they will allow you to Flash away before the knock up ends rather than waiting until after.

Executioner's Calling

Great anti-healing item and it's only 800g with an easy build path. It is worth delaying your build to buy this item into certain matchups. Consider this, healing you deny the enemy might as well count for true damage because it's health they would have otherwise gained for free, by preventing it you are bypassing all of their armor and magic resistance in a way. Even if you run Ignite, it is not up 100% of the time. Executioner's Calling is especially powerful against top lane champions like Fiora, Sylas, and Dr. Mundo. Even team compositions involving Soraka or Yuumi can give Executioner's Calling a lot of value.

Mortal Reminder

If the enemy team has a lot of healing, this is the armor shred item you will buy. This is a viable choice just for it's anti-healing alone. If that is the case, you'll want to sit on Executioner's Calling as long as possible and finish this item last.

Lord Dominik's Regards

If you find yourself in a game vs a high armor tank and the enemy does not have a lot of healing, this is your option.

Guinsoo's Rageblade

Guinsoo's Ragebladegives you incredible stats for the gold. This item is great for the insane amount of dps it deals to tanks, towers, and other objectives. Getting this thing rolling in a duel or team fight enables you to just shred your opponents. Guinsoo's Rageblade should find it's way into your build as a possible 5th or 6th item. Also synergizes very well with Blade of the Ruined King.

Ravenous Hydra

Tiamat is a great item, and core to most Tryndamere builds. Ravenous Hydra is not required. This item does give quite a bit of damage and lifesteal for the upgrade, which can certainly be worth it in some cases, especially early. However there may be other lifesteal items that will be much more useful to you such as Blade of the Ruined King, and you may be better off investing into those items that may help you more. You can buy this item if you want immediate damage value and lifesteal without committing to another lifesteal item. You can also buy it if you simply don't have enough for another complete item before the game will end. If you did buy Tiamat or upgrade it to Ravenous Hydra and it's still going into the late game, you may sell it for something with more utility. If you are running Phase Rush you should eventually upgrade your Tiamat and keep it for the rest of the game.

Sanguine Blade

This is a highly effective yet underrated item. Sanguine Blade's strength comes from splitting and power farming. Combine it with a Tiamat and the amount of farm and cs you can accumulate over the enemy can be staggering. Fast clearing lanes and taking enemy jungle camps can deny the enemy jungle farm while also giving you a larger and larger experience and gold difference between you and your laner. On top of that, it scales well and has hugely gold effecient stats so you can take turrets extremely fast. The downside is temporarily losing your gold effecient stats during skirmishes with multiple enemies. However, if you've obtained a large enough lead it will not matter as much. This item is a very powerful "win more" item and you probably shouldn't buy it when you're behind as it gives you less options in terms of macro. You don't want to fall behind, be unable to split, and then forced to group with this item as you would lose your stats in a team fight. Overall this item is very fun, makes you a splitting god but also has some downsides. Blade of the Ruined King is generally a safer buy. This item is probably most effective as a rush or purchased as a 5th or 6th item in a build.

Wit's End

It sounds like a troll item on Tryndamere but in reality it isn't that bad. This item is useful into magic damage oriented tanks stacking armor. I've also found it particularly useful in place of Tiamat and Stinger into a Mordekaiser that's stacking armor. When Wit's End is built alongside Blade of the Ruined King and Guinsoo's Rageblade, it makes for quite the powerful on hit tank-busting build. However, if you are against an all AP team feel free to build it at some point regardless of matchup. If you're going to buy Wit's End against a tank, I recommend you buy it after your Blade of the Ruined King and Guinsoo's Rageblade. Be mindful of hitting the attack speed cap if you are stacking too many attack speed items and don't buy Berserker's Greaves if you're going to go over the 2.5 attack speed cap.

Death's Dance

Death's Dance is one of my favorite items on Tryndamere and highly underrated for a very long time. The passive prevents large burst and allows you to time your Undying Rage much easier. This is especially useful towards burst champions such as Talon or Rengar that depend on forcing out your ult and kiting you away. If you survive their burst without having to ult, you can quickly sustain back up and run them down after they have used all their burst damage. The other passive heals you for 15% of all damage dealt, that includes magic damage from items and true damage which can add up to quite a bit of sustain. On top of that, the active and passive of Tiamat also gives you extra sustain, simulating the passive of a fully upgraded Ravenous Hydra. Using Death's Dance's passive is sort of like taking out a loan you don't have to pay back. When it's time to pay the damage back (death for most champions) Tryndamere can simply use Undying Rage and just take the extra damage reduction with no downside. Additionally, any damage dealt to you during your Undying Rage counts as 0, meaning the damage does not roll over after your ult ends. Death's Dance will never kill you for damage you took during your Undying Rage. Once you get Death's Dance you are very hard to kill. It's not a bad item as a 5th or 6th item if you're against a very assassin heavy burst team such as Rengar, Talon, Evelynn, or Kha'Zix

Black Cleaver

There are better armor penetration items out there such as Guinsoo's Rageblade, Lord Dominik's Regards and Mortal Reminder. And you shouldn't need the cdr as you should be building Essence Reaver and Trinity Force. I don't recommend this item currently until something changes.

Phantom Dancer

If you're looking for a defensive and mobile option for your crit item then Phantom Dancer is an option. The shield may not sound like much, but can really make the difference in being bursted down or diving. The movement speed is very helpful when chasing down slippery targets. The shield passive is more situational, but very powerful in saving or delaying your ult. If you get caught off guard and bursted down from the fog of war before you can damage the enemy, say a LeBlanc or Rengar, the passive sheild can save your life. This item is extremely niche and I would not recommend it at this time. You're almost always better off buying Essence Reaver and Infinity Edge as your crit items.

Statikk Shiv

A stronger damage option instead of Phantom Dancer. The mixed damage can help you get past an enemy stacking armor. The range on the chain can also help you get some extra poke or take small trades. I do not recommend this item over Essence Reaver or Infinity Edge as your crit items which both scale much better.

Elixir of Iron

This elixir may be the best of the three. Crowd control (especially late game) can be devastating for Tryndamere in a team fight. The extra health is also useful when damage is at its highest at the later stages in the game. There's also a little synergy with Triumph since your total health will be higher. Overall this elixir will always be a great choice especially if you don't have Legend: Tenacity or Mercury's Treads.

Elixir of Wrath

A solid choice. Extra damage and lifesteal when attacking champions. This is a great option if you still want a little more kick. Choose this if the enemy does not have a lot of crowd control or you want a little extra dueling power.

Here I will list some of the most common builds I currently use and explain the reasoning behind each. I will only get into the item themselves here and not the keystones/runes, as I believe most builds can be mixed and matched with any of the keystones and runes. Not all of these builds will be complete six items, anything after listed depends on the game. None of these builds are set in stone and I may deviate from them at any stage during a game.

Standard



The most standard build because it works into everything. While it may not always be the most optimal in every situation, no one is going to criticize you for this build. It opens up with everything Tryndamere needs: damage, attack speed, crit, cdr, waveclear. And once you build the core items you can deviate and build towards whatever suits your needs for the given situation. Stinger and Essence Reaver are interchangeable here in build order. I would recommend Essence Reaver first (especially if you're running Lethal Tempo or Hail of Blades) as it usually gives you a lot more trading and burst early which can catch your opponent off guard. You can't really go wrong with this build, and when in doubt, this is a solid build to fall back on.


No Tiamat Standard



Same thing as the standard build except no Tiamat and you buy the Essence Reaver before the Stinger. The downside to this is your waveclear suffers. However, this build also allows you to do one thing you can't really do with a build that involves tiamat: freeze the lane. This can be a useful tactic for denying the enemy gold and experience thus slingshotting you ahead of your laner. The other upside to this variation is that your all-in will be more powerful, as you will have more direct single target damage by rushing Essence Reaver sooner. Additionally, this is a more economic build as you are able to build Essence Reaver, Stinger, and Infinity Edge earlier in the game by saving gold not purchasing Tiamat.


Blade Of The Ruined King Rush



This is a useful build into tanks and bruisers such as Sion, Ornn, Kled, and Darius. You can choose to include Tiamat in this build, but I personally prefer getting the Blade of the Ruined King as fast as possible as including Tiamat will delay your Essence Reaver and Infinity Edge even longer. Your initial laning phase will tend to be weaker as you will have less attack damage than usual, but you will also be harder to push out of lane with Vampiric Scepter. This build only really starts to take off once you finish Blade of the Ruined King but it is a large power spike. You even skip Stinger initially as you get enough attack speed through Blade of the Ruined King. Additionally, you give up some cdr and delay your crit items longer but you get extra sustain, mobility through the passive, and bruiser/tank busting. This build is a good compromise if you want some tank busting while not fully committing to something like the shredder build so you can still team fight and roam effectively.


Tiamat Sanguine Blade Rush



Farm, farm, farm! That is the idea behind this rush. You go in, you farm minions, you can even proxy if it's safe, and then you roam into the enemy jungle and take more farm. The damage, sustain, and attack speed from Sanguine Blade combined with the waveclear of Tiamat makes you a farming god. You can effectively keep high pressure on your top laner by keeping them at their tower, while also pressuring the enemy jungle and denying them their camps. This build comes with the strategy to simply out farm your opponents until your lead is so large that even if you were to skirmish and lose the solo stats of your Sanguine Blade, the level and gold difference will make up for it. On top of that you can take towers incredibly fast because of the gold efficiency of Sanguine Blade. The downside to this build is if you fall behind, it can be devastating. You're basically committed to splitting if you're behind as you usually don't want to be forced into team fights with Sanguine Blade where it will lose its passive. I believe Stinger is optional here after the Sanguine Blade, but it's nice to have at least some back up attack speed if you end up fighting multiple enemies. It's a fun build though and worth giving a shot.


Ravenous Hydra Rush



This build allows you to bully and pressure a single lane hard and fast. The sustain from Ravenous Hydra makes it extremely difficult for the enemy to push you out of lane. Because of the sustain, you can choose to trade and harass your enemy more frequently. The downside to this build is it delays your other core items such as Essence Reaver and Infinity Edge. But if you value sustain and pressure early this may be the build for you.


Shredder



This build is very effective against tanks stacking armor. It's even more effective against tanks that do mostly magic damage as Wit's End gives you magic resistance. On top of that the magic resistance will also help you with the passive of Thornmail as it also does magic damage. The downside to this build is it takes forever to finish the core as it is very expensive. The build won't really start to take off until you finish Blade of the Ruined King, then again until you finish your Guinsoo's Rageblade and then again until you finish Wit's End where it really starts to shine. You should always build Blade of the Ruined King first, Wit's End and Guinsoo's Rageblade are interchangeable in build order, though if the tank does mostly magic damage I would take the Wit's End second. This build is slow, doesn't offer much mobility, and is not very effective in team fights. It's a very risky build that can be very effective, but you may lose the game before you even finish it. After finishing the core three items, you'll want to build your standard Infinity Edge and Essence Reaver. The order in which you build those is up to you, Infinity Edge for more damage and Essence Reaver for more mobility. Usually with this build mobility isn't really your concern so Infinity Edge is usually my first choice just so I can maximize my damage for the target this entire build was specifically built for, usually a tank.

Coming Soon! Mini-Guides For Each Individual Matchup Including Runes, Item Builds, Laning Strategy And More!