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Recommended Items
Spells:
Ignite
Flash
Items
Ability Order
Runic Blade (PASSIVE)
Riven Passive Ability
Introduction
Hello, I'm Tyler "ecco" Spesick and I am the former mid player for the former LCS teams "Team MRN" and "Team Velocity eSports!"
After seeing Faker originally play Riven mid and then see it be played during the Korea WCG qualifier it really struck my interest so I started practicing it myself! It is a ton of fun and has a lot of great match-ups so it has become one of my favorite things to play right now! She is so versatile with soooo much burst potential. This guide should be used to refine your Riven mid play!
Riven works best in team compositions that focus on split-pushing. This is because her team-fight is very inconsistent and is very vulnerable to getting cc'ed, bursted and kited while in them. She is also a god-tier duelist which is why our focus is on having her on her own for the majority of the game.
An example comp would be





Ignite and flash are my summoners of choice on Riven because it gives her the strongest dueling power possible. Ignite also gives a lot of kill potential early which is great because of how hard Riven snowballs! I have experimented a little bit with


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The emphasis with these runes is strength in laning. Stacking 11 flat ad for optimum trading as well as last hitting, 4% life-steal for a little extra chunk of sustain, and then taking a lot of defense with flat armor and magic resist. This page only ever changes if I am laning against an ad champion (such as


The masteries are fairly standard for AD assassins in mid. You are taking the 21 points in offense for optimal damage and then you put the remaining 9 points into defense for optimal laning (since you'll be taking a lot of auto-attack harass or forcing a lot of trades) as well as giving you a nice bit of scaling health.
The skill sequence that I use on Riven never changes. Ever since the nerfs done to




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Runic Blade (Passive)![]() |
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Broken Wings![]() ![]() This ability is mainly used as your gap-closer, filler, and to wave-clear. It is a phenomenal ability that gets to a fairly low cool-down later in the game. Something to note about the cool-down is that it does start counting down immediately when you use it the first time. So if you waited until the very last moment before using your 2nd and 3rd dashes it will be almost off of cool-down already! The small interrupt and displacement on the 3rd jump can be used to stop champion's jumps and abilities (Such as Lee Sin's ![]() ![]() |
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Ki Burst![]() |
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Valor![]() |
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Blade of the Exile![]() ![]() It also becomes very low cool-down at max rank so don't be afraid to use it to kill towers/inhibitors faster while split-pushing if you know that no one will be trying to stop you anytime soon (such as them forcing a 5 man push down mid while your team is defending as 4). |
I actually get a little bit of flak for my starting items because I always start for the more defensive and consistent route of taking


On my first back I will pick up a








After I complete my Brutalizer, I build towards a




After completing Bloodthirster, I'll then upgrade my Brutalizer into


First thing I do after completing Black Cleaver is finish my boots. Typically I will get



The next item that I get depends on how the game is going. Are team-fights happening where I'm getting focused and/or do I need more defense stats? Do I need more damage and armor penetration? If I answered yes to the first question I build a


Lastly, if I built a Hexdrinker early on I will upgrade it to




As previously stated, Riven has a lot of good match-ups in the current meta of mid. She is extremely strong against this squishy, AP assassins because of her durability with
Hexdrinker as well as
Valor and her ability to burst just as hard as they do.
There are some match-ups that are pretty annoying though and I'll discuss them below.
Orianna: It seems that she is always in this section now. Her auto-attacks hurt badly, she has good wave-clear and insanely strong kiting with
Command: Dissonance which makes it hard to stick on her or even get to her in the first place. Then she has a decent disengage with her ult
Command: Shockwave so it can be difficult to burst her. If you are able to stick on her though she isn't /super/ tanky so there is a chance you can kill her. Coupled with an aggressive jungler like Lee Sin or Jarvan would be the best way to deal with her.
Ziggs: Ohhhhhhhhhh, Ziggs. He is such an obnoxious laner because of how incredibly strong he is early with his passive and his spammable bombs. You will lose this match-up in cs by a lot until you're able to catch him out of position and burst him. Do your best to dodge his bombs with
Broken Wings and
Valor while also using Valor to tank auto-attack and unavoidable spells while csing as well as you can. Call for help if they can provide it!
Syndra: Pretty much the same reason as Ziggs for being annoying. Super strong early-game with pushing and it has hard to get on her because of her
Scatter the Weak. If you're able to be a god and flash Scatter The Weak then you can one-shot her but otherwise this match-up is a pain.


There are some match-ups that are pretty annoying though and I'll discuss them below.








Riven's laning is incredibly strong where only a few match-ups (like the ones listed in the above section) can be a little bit difficult. Any match-up is recoverable with Riven because of her high movement and burst given the right situation. Mostly early-game you are going to be feeling out the match-up last hitting, shielding yourself with Valor, and looking for opportunities to use


If you have a lot of control over your lane and have the comfort of roaming, look for over-extended targets and those who are weak under tower. Riven is phenomenal at diving low-healthed targets because of her high-movement, strong shield, and AoE execute. Opportunities like these should be taken and help you snowball greatly!
Once laning phase starts to come to a close, you're going to want to pop yourself in a side-lane and start splitting. Make sure to have a couple of wards with you to place to protect yourself from getting ganked and dying while splitting. It also greatly helps to have the knowledge of if you are getting roamed on because you can tell your other lanes to play more aggressively because they are sending multiple champions after only you! Mostly you are going to be pushing out waves and seeing who is going to be the person who is splitting against you. If you are going up against something squishy like an adc, you have a ton of kill potential on them if you can burst them.
You can be sneaky and hide in bushes to try and catch them unexpectedly. Make sure to pop



If you do get swarmed by multiple champions, do your best to trade kills if possible or at least stall your death for as long as you can. The longer you stay alive, the longer that your team will have an advantage elsewhere on the map. You can also use your splitting power to help set your team up for a baron instead of only other towers!
If you are splitting and able to roam towards mid-lane you can easily force a dive on the champions that are protecting that tower. Denying vision with pinks to make this unexpected will increase the chances of it working and going as smoothly as it can possibly go.
Late-game is pretty much the as mid-game. Split-pushing, looking for dives in other lanes, and just creating plays for the rest of your team through your incredible dueling strength.
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