9/18/2014: Guide Creation. Introduction, Builds, Runes, Masteries, and Pro/Con section created.
9/19/2014: Basics of Early Game added.
10/29/2014: Mid Game Strategies updated (Sorry, College OP)
3/12/2015: Adding more Mid Game Strategies, Late Game Strategies and updating for Season 5
6/11/2015: Added personal champion mastery, mastery page and season 5 rank to the introduction (Summer School is a killer!)
6/19/2015: Changed Intro, I'm Platinum now boys!
10/10/2015: Updated Items, added Threat Level Chart, along with other misc minor changes
06/07/2016: Updated Items for patch 6.11, along with ability chart and other changes! Basically revamped for the new season.

A Brief Introduction

Hello everyone! My name is Seals (Currently "Kaouri") and I play League of Legends on the North American Servers. I am a 21 year old Asian college student that made the climb from Bronze 4 to Gold 5 in just a year. Not the most impressive climb, but I feel I've come a very long way. I've been playing League of Legends since Varus came out and I was Silver 1 in Season 3 and I ended Season 4 in Gold 2. Season 5, I ended the game at Platinum 5 with over 100 Vayne games in ranked. It is now Season 6 and I am sitting at Platinum 5 with just as many Vayne games. I've mained adc for as long as I can remember, first picking up on Ezreal and then moving on to Vayne as soon as I discovered how amazing at dueling she was. This is my first guide, and as a really big Vayne player, I will be keeping it updated every patch as need be!

Why read this guide?

I will be providing in depth analysis on what you should do on Vayne, what do against every match up in the bottom lane, and the thought process behind any mid-late game decisions.

Pros

• Vayne unlocks amazing outplay potential at level 6 because of her stealth from Final Hour and Tumble
• The strongest duelist in the game
• She snowballs extremely well
• One of the best scaling ad carries
• With practice, you can 1 v 2 the enemy bot lane, and even 1 v 3 if they come at you one by one
• She's an easy champion to carry in lower elo, provided you have good knowledge on how to play her
• Amazing chase with her Night Hunter passive
• Her Condemn stun allows her to stun whoever she's dueling, letting her get free damage on them

Cons

• She has a very weak laning phase.. very weak
• She is very short ranged
• She gets shut down hard by Exhaust
• She has no wave clear
• Supports with lots of CC will make you cry with the force of a flowing river
• Vayne relies on the other lanes to not be behind or feeding. If Vayne is the only one ahead on her team and everyone else is behind, it will not end well.
• She needs to be babysat hard in the early game
• If you fail as Vayne, you will get a lot of flame, i.e "Wow Doublelift is that u lololol xD"

Early Game

Early game is not your moment to shine, but fret not, because your time is coming soon! Just stay safe, farm up, and if you can get a Condemn stun, go for it. It usually leads to an early kill. Your main priority however is to just farm, farm, farm. If you're reading this guide, you're here because you don't know how to play Vayne very well yet, and you haven't picked up her mechanics yet. You don't need to be trying to fight in the early game if you're not strong with Vayne. Good amount of farm to be reaching for in lower elo is 60 cs by 9-10 mins, 150 cs by 20 mins, and 250 cs by 30 mins. You might not hit these numbers immediately, or every game, but they're good goals for creep score. Vayne is one of the best ad carries at punishing small mistakes, so as you get better and better at laning with her, you should punish more and more mistakes (such as auto -> Q -> auto'ing an enemy who's too far away from their partner for any follow up or counterplay)

Mid Game

Mid game can go one of a few ways depending on how well your team is doing.

Your team is ahead with good wave clear and you are doing well

If your team is doing well and you're doing well, you can stay at bot and split push/farm up. Most likely, it will be a 4v4 since they will send someone down to bot to deal with you, usually the other adc. This is where Vayne can shine because depending on who the other adc is, you can almost definitely kill them if they're alone and you have Blade of the Ruined King and at least The Brutalizer component of Youmuu's Ghostblade. Make sure to ward the jungle and river so that you stay safe. If they send their adc to deal with you, kill them or force them to back, and continue to split push. If they send multiple people after you, leave immediately. If they don't decide to send anyone, take the towers. It is important to note that if in the middle of you taking a tower, they decide to come after you, leave. It's better to leave a tower at 300 HP, and have the enemy team roam to bot for almost nothing than it is to get killed by the enemy team when the tower was a single auto attack away from dying, on top of giving them kill gold. If the enemy team does not roam to kill you and they let you take towers freely, make sure your team can clear waves well. However, if your team cannot clear waves well, they will need your help and you need to be at mid to potentially team fight or siege with them instead. Make sure to join your team for any dragon calls.

You are not doing well, but your team is doing well

If you are not doing well, but the rest of your team is, you should continue to farm bot while your team pressures mid. As soon as you hit your second item, Youmuu's Ghostblade, you should be better off to join your team and team fight. However, if your team is doing fine in a 3v4/4v5, then keep farming bot and go for your third item, which will depend on what the enemy team is building, usually Infinity Edge. As usual, group for mid game dragons and play safely until you hit your third item.

You and your team are not doing well

Even in the face of a loss, it's important to do everything that you can. If you have a mid that can wave clear well, let your team wave clear at mid, but make sure you communicate this with them. Once you hit Youmuu's Ghostblade, you should attempt to group with your team. However, if you do not have a long range source of wave clear such as Xerath or Ziggs, you should group with your team and try to stay back in team fights, picking up whatever farm and kills that you can.

Late Game

In the late game, you should have 3-4 items if you aren't getting absolutely dumpstered. Here is your shining moment, you have finally hit late game and you, in theory, are the most important character on your team. Your job now is to kite kite kite in team fights and melt tanks, moving from one target to another until you reach their backline and finish them off. Avoid hitting champions who have built Thornmail and melt everything else in your way. However, above all, your number one priority is to stay alive so that you can output reliable damage. Do not attempt to 1v1 the enemy ad carry in a team fight if they are not out of position. If at the beginning of the team fight, you are close enough to hit their ad carry and they are not out of position, then you are out of position and you will melt fast. Your target priority should be: Out of position carries > Assassins diving you > Bruisers diving you > Tanks with lots of health diving you > Tanks with lots of health soaking damage from your entire team > Bruisers hitting your tanks > Tanks with Thornmail > The highest damage threat that is close to you. The most important thing to remember is to keep your distance.

tl;dr Farm in the early game, Focus on getting 2/3 items in the mid game, Kite in the late game