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Kassadin Build Guide by

Challenger Kassadin gold funneling guide (9.24)

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Kassadin Build Guide By Updated on

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Choose Champion Build:

Kassadin

Runes:

Domination

Electrocute

Sudden Impact

Eyeball Collection

Ravenous Hunter

Precision

Presence of Mind

Legend: Tenacity

Bonus:

+9 Adaptive (5.4 AD or 9 AP)
+9 Adaptive (5.4 AD or 9 AP)
+6 Armor

Spells:

Flash

Smite

Items

Early game

Starting items

First recall

Early items

Mid game

Core items

Situational items

Full build example

Ability Order

Kassadin Passive Ability

Threats & Synergies

Threats

Synergies

Extreme Major Even Minor Tiny

Show All

None Low Ok Strong Ideal

Extreme Threats

Ideal Synergies

Qiyana

Extreme

Qiyana can easily push mid and has very strong all in potential. If she ambushes you in the later stages, there is very little you can do. We ban her every game.

Shen

Ideal

Shen is a safe laner who can save teammates from tower dives.

Synergies

Ideal Strong Ok Low None

Shen

Ideal

Shen is a safe laner who can save teammates from tower dives.

Champion Build Guide

Introduction

Hello!

My name is Peacetoletov and I have recently reached challenger playing almost exclusively gold funneled Kassadin. About a year ago, I wrote a guide about Kassadin funneling but a lot has changed since then, mainly my rank (from gold to challenger). I tried other supports, changed my jungle pathing and also updated runes.

I have over 300 ranked games with funneled Kassadin this season and currently sit at 72% win rate.

Choosing a support

Support in gold funneling strategies has two functions:
- Help clear jungle and mid.
- Provide utility (crowd control, protection, engage).

is my current support of choice despite his weak early game. With Kassadin's , he can stun enemies from miles away. Taric also provides great teamfight utility through his ultimate, and healing is always nice.

Despite him being my favorite support, I highly suggest against playing with Taric if you don't have much experience with Kassadin funneling, as he is by far the most difficult support to play as / play with.

is beginner friendly and he is my support of choice when Taric is banned. His jungle clear is very solid, he can bring a lot of damage into early game skirmishes and he can follow Kassadin over walls. can catch and lock down an enemy before Kassadin comes and kills them.

is a solid support who brings strong jungle clear and sustain. His mid lane fight potential is weak before level 6 but very strong when he unlocks his .

was my first support I experimented with. His jungle clear and sustain is very good but he lacks in utility. I would generally advise against playing him.

General funneling strategy

There are two ways to funnel:
- Support stays mid and carefully farms while the carry takes jungle camps and occasionally comes collect minions on mid. This is common for and funnel or and funnel.
- Support and carry stay together all the time and rotate between mid and jungle. Mid lane is often empty. This type of funneling is necessary for Kassadin because he cannot farm jungle alone.

Make sure to properly micromanage tanking jungle monster damage. It's primarily a job for the support, but Kassadin should always step up and take a hit whenever he is full hp to utilize his passive health regen.

Needless to say, Kassadin is taking all gold from jungle monsters and minions, with the occasional exception of sharing minion gold through .

There are many things you can do as the duo - farm jungle, farm mid, counterjungle, try to kill the mid laner, gank lanes, contest dragons... It's impossible to generalize what to do and you will need a lot of experience before you start making the correct calls. Golden rule - don't die. Whatever you're doing, as long as you stay alive, you're doing fine. Don't take unnecessary risks, don't die one for one.

Keep in mind that funneling is hard. Funneling with Kassadin is VERY HARD. If played well, you can achieve win rates of over 80%. If played badly, however... you won't win a single game.

Jungle Routes, early game tips

1. Blue -> Gromp (support smites) -> Wolves -> Red (Kassadin smites) -> Raptors -> Mid
OR
1. Blue -> Gromp (support smites) -> Wolves -> Raptors -> Red (Kassadin smites -> Mid

The order here depends on how many minions are dying on mid - you want to catch as much xp from the other side of the wall as possible.

Afterwards:
2. Scuttle crab closer to Krugs -> gank the lane you're close to (optional) -> Krugs -> Mid
OR
2. Scuttle crab closer to Krugs -> walk through mid, maybe kill 2 minions, don't waste time clearing the whole wave -> other Scuttle crab -> Gromp -> Wolves -> Mid

This route is what I follow in the vast majority of my games. Exceptions occur during invades or if you start fighting for the Scuttle crab with the enemy jungler.
Note: when you're taking Raptors, position yourself as close to the wall as possible, that way you're collecting experience from minions dying under your tower.

After this point, everything depends on the state of the game and you have to decide where to go first. Make sure to gather enough gold to purchase the full jungle item before you recall for the first time so you get rid of the Monster Hunter* debuff as soon as possible.
*Monster Hunter reduces your minion gold income if you own an unupgraded jungle item and your gold from minions is higher than half your gold from monsters.

It's often useful to know if you're ahead of behind. I use a very easy method in the early game by looking at the time when I bought the full jungle item. If it's before blue buff spawns again, we're ahead. If I kill the blue buff and that gives me the last bit of gold for the item, we're doing alright. If not even gold from blue buff is enough for the item, we're behind.

Summoner spells

Kassadin: is self explanatory. is superior to any other summoner spell. Use flash aggressively, don't be afraid to trade flash for flash if that forces your enemy to leave lane and recall.
General Kassadin trick: you can start casting and flash while the animation is playing out, resulting in undodgable burst of damage.

Support: is necessary for the extra jungle clear and sustain, in addition to securing drakes. Depending on the enemy team, I recommend or as the secondary spell. Take exhaust against bruisers and certain assassins (such as or ). Take heal against mages, marksmen and certain assassins (). has too long of a cooldown and doesn't usually help Kassadin in any way so I don't recommend taking it. Whenever you're in doubt, take , it's the better summoner 90% of the time.

Comments to items

Kassadin: Buy only if you have at least 6 stacks on already.
Your core build consists of 5 items. The 6th item is usually either or . Even if you have 25 stacks on , I recommend selling it for if you don't need to counter specific champions.
Sometimes you need to get a defensive item in your 6th slot. is good against some assassins (Zed). When playing against Malphite (especially full AP), buy even before buying .

Support: Kassadin's mobility is too high for you to be consistantly around him. That's why you should get , as you can use it to help him even from far away.
Kassadin doesn't synergise well with traditional offensive support items such as or . The only non-situational item that benefits Kassadin is so that's why we build it second.
I don't recommend buying boots in the early game. Slightly magical boots already give you extra movement speed so you can invest your gold in more impactful items.

Kassadin & Taric: Always buy 2 pink wards if possible! Vision is especially important when you're funneling, because you can expect to get counter jungled.

Ideal team composition

You might be wondering what other champs go well with Kassadin funnel.

Short answer - whatever is good in the early game.

Long answer - Kassadin has extremely strong late game. You shouldn't try to make the late game even stronger by picking late game champions. Why win more, when you can win just a bit (but still win). It's much wiser to take early game champions that make sure you actually get to the late game in the first place.
Do not take additional AP based champions (excluding support). Most of your team's damage will be coming from Kassadin so if the enemies want to stand a chance, they have to build magic resist anyway.
Tanky top laners are ideal because it's good to have some front line. It's not required but it helps a lot.
Bot lane consists of a standard adc and a support - I like playing with enchanters (, , ). They don't require an aggressive playstyle unlike or and they have strong disengage abilities to survive ganks.