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Recommended Items
Spells:
Flash
Ignite
Items
Ability Order
Ravenous Flock (PASSIVE)
Swain Passive Ability
Introduction to Swain
The Master Tactician

He can snowball and carry a game really hard. He's also a blast to play and easy to pickup but hard to master due to his reliance on active items, hourglass in particular.
There's also something deeply satisfying about being a giant bird monster and sending your little lesser ravens to eat your foes alive.
Masteries
- 21/9/0 - This Mastery setup allows you to fight their mid in straight confrontations more easily than any of the other setups. It also allows you to punish short range mages such as Diana far more easily than other setups. I would strongly recommend it until you get used to Swain's play style.
- 21/0/9 - Going 21/0/9 is good against long range skill shot based mids such as Lux or Orianna as it allows you to dodge the skill shots they throw out more easily and then gap close to punish them for missing. It also allows you to roam more easily.
- 9/21/0 - When you need a tank rather than damage due to having some form of hyper carry bot and a squishy top/jungler. A good example of that would be Janna as support, Vayne as AD carry, Fiddlesticks as jungler, and Riven top.
Starting Items
Faerie Charm + 5x
Health Potion +
Mana Potion + Sight Ward - This is the start you can go with against pretty much any lane as it counters jungle aggression and grants you with insane early sustain. One extra health potion as swain's passive,
Carrion Renewal, makes him not really need the extra mana.
Boots + 3x
Health Potion - The setup you want to start with against certain melee mids with a weak enemy jungler.
Early Game Items
Sorcerer's Shoes give you the magic penetration you need to burst squishy targets.
Tear of the Goddess is sometimes a good buy if the other laner lacks high enough burst to kill you. You would need to buy this fairly early on if you want to get it stacked up in time for team fights. The main problem with it is that it delays your
Rod of Ages from getting its stacks.
Rod of Ages gives you the three stats swain needs most and a huge boost to your sustain in lane.
Zhonya's Hourglass allows you to survive burst from other mages and to completely dominate any AD based champion in team fights. Also allows you to become your team's initiate.
Mid Game Items
Rabadon's Deathcap is an item that massively boosts your damage and sustain in team fights, a must buy for Swain's late game.
Void Staff grants you the magic penetration you need to deal with the Magic resist enemies tend to have late game. Allows you to easily destroy tanks as well as squishy targets.
Late Game Items
Abyssal Mask gives you magic penetration which is useful for killing squishy targets and Mr to deal with the other teams AP damage. Helps greats against melee AP opponents, not so much against poke comps.
Deathfire Grasp is still a really strong item and with its change to a max hp % and the way to interacts with Swain's e allows it to offer amazing damage for late game.
Archangel's Staff/
Seraph's Embrace is a strong item for late game. The only issue with it is that you consume some of the mana your ult needs to keep you alive for its barrier effect. A good choice if you ended up building
Tear of the Goddess early game with the
Faerie Charm.
Lich Bane An underrated item on swain, this allows him to kill pretty much anyone as the damage it does is augmented by swain's
Torment. A bit of math, with
Swain's total ap ratio over 4 seconds being 3.84, dfg increases his damage by 15% of their max hp, .768 ap ratio from the augment, and 250~ extra base damage. Lich bane grants a .9 ap ratio and 60 base damage, but its all instant. The value of instant damage late game is that its far easier to switch targets and to burst a single target. Just like when building
Deathfire Grasp,
Lich Bane leaves you fairly squishy late game.
Thornmail is a very underestimated item that can be used when you really need to kill that AD carry or AD assassin that seems to be carrying their whole team. It completely counters and destroys life steal builds.
Randuin's Omen Probably the strongest counter to AD carries in the game as it makes it very difficult to damage or kite you once you get it.
Guardian Angel is probably the best item in the game for team fights late game if a few members of your front line get them. Gets kinda silly if more than three of these are on one team. Usually not as good as
Randuin's Omen against most teams.
Liandry's Torment offers magic penetration and % based current hp damage, exactly what any AP carry needs to destroy tanky front lane targets.
Athene's Unholy Grail offers great mana regeneration in combat and in lane. Unfortantily, as grail only offers 60 AP and doesn't offer the same sort of tankiness Hourglass or Rod of Ages does, its not worth getting till late in the game typically.
Carrion Renewal
Swain's Passive,

Decrepify
Swain's Q,

Nevermove
Swain's W,

Torment
Swain's E,

Ravenous Flock
Swain's R,

Nevermove or
Torment Level 1
Never level the skill till you know for sure if you're fighting level one, just use ctrl+w if you see enemies level one to auto level the skill.
Take

If you are not going to be level one fighting and your jungler isn't something like Alistar or Pantheon thats liable to gank mid as soon as they clear their first buff, take

When to Level
Nevermove over
Decrepify
I say to usually level


If you're trying to burst someone and you need to shove the lane, level out w before q.




-
You want to have flash in like 99% of the time when you lane as swain, just due to its amazing power as both an offensive and defensive tool. Whether its flash dodging skill shots, flashing into their carries, or flashing to escape a jungle gank, its almost required to lane and team fight well as swain.

-
Ignite is the other summoner that you want in almost every game. Unlike flash though there are a few other options that fill similar roles depending on the other team's comp.

-
Exhaust is a situational pick, its sometimes useful against really hard match ups. The main pro to exhaust over ignite is that exhaust can be used during hard cc spells allowing you to stop their burst and sustain back up with ult. Usually better mid game than ignite, worse late and early unless you have a jungler who can capitalize on the extra cc for early ganks.

-
Teleport is a great summoner to take against weak duelists who like to roam/push such as Twisted Fate. Works amazingly well with homeguard enchanted boots for hysterical ganks.

Swain, just like every other champion excels in some areas while being lackluster in others.
Pros / Cons
Pros
+ Hard to kill
+ Amazing laning phase + Insane sustain + High Sustained dps + Very strong against AD champions + Strong dualist |
Cons
- Weak against high range champions
- Struggles with shields - Low burst late game - Countered by ![]() - Has mana issues - Fairly easy to kite |
Actually Using Swain
Now that you learned how to setup Swain's runes/masteries and what sort of matchups you should pick Swain for, its time to actually learn how to play him.
Lane
- Try to
Torment+auto attack the other laner as much as you can. Throw out a few
Nevermove's once you hit lvl 4 if you think its safe to play aggressively. If you land one, its usually good to
Torment+ignite+
Decrepify+auto to try to get the kill on their mid.
- Swain's early game damage is typically underestimated
- If you know their jungler won't show up, using
Flash on them aggressively so they can't break the
Decrepify tether with their own
Flash will almost ensure the kill.
How To Combo
- Throw your
Nevermove and follow up if it lands.
- Throw your
Torment+
Decrepify+
Ravenous Flock+auto attacks and wait for their
Flash and then
Nevermove them where they appear during the short half second they're still slowed from your
Decrepify.
Team Fights
- Always remember to use
Zhonya's Hourglass when you're somewhere between 1/3 and 1/2 life. Try to focus the AD carry in team fights, the other members aren't as important for you to kill as you can out sustain most of them.
- If you have a strong AD carry, remember that you can use your
Nevermove to peel for your own team mates rather than using it for damage.
- The most important thing you need to avoid is getting bursted in a fight before you can get off
Zhonya's Hourglass, you're no use to your team if you're dead, even if they did burn a ton of cool downs on it.
- Be a threat to their carries, focusing down their tank usually won't win you the fight.
Now that we've gone over both how
Swain functions as a champion and how to use him, its time to go over what to do at each piece of the game. For simplicities sake I've broken it down into three sections.
Early Game
Mid Game
Late Game




I hope you enjoyed reading my guide about how to play
Swain, The master Tactician. Thank you for your time reading my guide, feel free to leave a comment about how I could improve my guide.
My Twitch Stream is right here, I'm planning to start streaming more regularly in the future. Recently changed my summoner name from Fas Scriptor to TMP Fate so I had to create a new twitch account.

My Twitch Stream is right here, I'm planning to start streaming more regularly in the future. Recently changed my summoner name from Fas Scriptor to TMP Fate so I had to create a new twitch account.
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