"I am the first of many."


Why should you even play Viktor in the first place? Viktor is a lategame control mage with strong AOE damage and terrifying burst. He is considered a hyper-scalling champion that struggles in the early stages of the game. A unique part of Viktor's kit is his Prototype Hex Core Item that also upgrades his existing abilities, and increases his strong scalling. This item is his biggest strenght and his biggest weakness, because eventhough it helps him scale pretty well and it's a great value-for-money item, it forces him to build it early for him to reach his true potential and the build path for the item is quite inefficient because every part of the item costs ~1000 gold(+/-) and so Viktor's weak early game has a handicap, you need to build this expensive item first and quickly even though you struggle in lane early.

So, the identity of the champion himself is what has kept him in a non-meta position in the last season since games are defined in the early stages of the game by early game champions and so many strong high-mobility turret divers in mid and jng positions are meta because of it. So Viktor is a toin coss mid laner, if you go well early you will scale pretty well and become a strong asset to your team, if something goes bad it means that you can't build your Hex Core item easily and you are left behind struggling (and getting flamed sadly xD). Most teams wouldn't like to take such a risk especially when you consider that even when he has scaled Viktor is always an immobile glass cannon that cen be blown up by an assasin while there are late game hyper-carries in the mid lane like Cassiopia, Veigar, Kassadin, Azir and Ryze that are much safer.

This handicap of the champion is what gave me the idea to adjust the runes and take Viktor to a position that he is not such a a burden for his team early because of the poke and CC he offers while he can still scale properly and become a menace mid to late game and that's Support Viktor with Manaflow Band, Scorch, Future's Market and Magical Footwear.

This newborn Viktor doesn't use his strong damage abilities to waveclear (so that he can buy his Hex Core) but he uses them to poke the enemy bot and get coins through his Spellthief's Edge support item, charges his mana pool with Manaflow Band and still buys his Hex Core and becomes a massive threat while he also provides the neccesary scalling to his ADC.

"Submit to my designs."

As mentioned above, the Runes play a big role in this strategy. The backbone of the strategy is that:

1. Vikor needs to have some good presence early so that he and his ADC don't get snowballed in lane
2. He needs to have some good Mana sustain
3. As a support, he needs decent CDR to poke and spam his abilities
4. Most importantly he needs to save coins and find ways to reach his Hex Core upgrades easily and efficiently.

Having said all that these are the Runes:


A poke Rune, it has great Synergy with Viktor. It doesn't scale as well as comet does BUT it is far more reliable for poke without cc since commet is dodgeable from a champion with boots if he is not cc'ed.


This Rune provides Viktor a sustainable mana pool, which is increased with poke, which is great because this is what Viktor is best at early game and this is what he will try to do most of the time.


This rune provides Viktor with 10% CDR that he needs. Viktor doesn't generally prefer cdr builds and so, that 10% cdr is pretty valuable. If in one build he exceeds the 40% CDR limit, this rune will also turn the extra CDR to AP which is welcome.


This rune increases Viktor's early game pressure which is very important because Viktor is at his weakest early game and if the enemy bot has a lot of pressure on your bot you may get snowballed out of lane.


This Rune is probably the most important one in the entire path. The whole point of the rune is to lend coins from the base so that Viktor can buy his Hex Core faster so that he can have far more flexible backs and spike much earlier. If you need to invest then it's better to invest in a late game hyper-scalling champion. In my opinion this is the most useful Rune for Viktor and it should be used in all positions.


In a similar philosophy to Future's Market, this Rune spares Viktor with free boots and saves him another precious 300 gold, which means that he needs to only spend 600 gold for his Ionian Boots of Lucidity.

"Relinquish the flesh, metal is perfection!"

So, as I already mentioned above, Viktor has one main goal early game, to upgrate his Prototype Hex Core and reach Lvl 6 while he also provides safety to his ADC and helps him scale. The ADC is the biggest carry of the team after all and there is no point in playing a support that doesn't provide his team their biggest strength, a fed ADC.

So, the Hex Core is upgraded into 3 modified items:

- Hex Core MK-1 which costs 1150g
- Hex Core MK-2 which costs 1000g
- Perfect Hex Core which costs 850g

Every Modification allows him to upgrade one of his main Abilities.

The first upgrade SHOULD ALWAYS be his E, Death Ray. After the Upgrade the E allows Viktor to do immense poke to the Enemies and makes their positioning a hard job, which also makes their laning pretty hard and the teamfights even harder.

The second upgrade should better be his W, Gravity Field, because it allows all of Viktor's abilies excluding his Ultimate to slow the enemy (20% for 1 sec), which is basically a Rylai's Crystal Scepter, which is why that Item is not that viable anymore on Viktor.

The third upgrate should be his Q, Siphon Power, which now increases his shield by a lot and it also gives Viktor 30% bonus movement speed.


Having said all that how do you approach the laning phase?

Well, you start with E lvl 1 for the hard poke. Death Ray is one of the highest damaging non-ultimate abilities in the game but it's a strange skillshot that costs A LOT of mana. This means that poking successfully with it early is essential, since it keeps the enemy low and pressures them (especially combined with Ignite), it charges Manaflow Band, it evolves Spellthief's Edge and it gives you the extra gold, so you realise how important hitting it consistently is.

Another important thing to consider early is how to use your W, Gravity Field. That ability has the power to diminish enemy engages since they run the risk of getting hard cc'd. This means that this ability is your key to protect you and your adc and turn fights early. Viktor doesn't want to all-in early game since he is not strong but he can easily exploit enemy mistakes with his W which is a high risk high reward CC ability. Finally it can also zone junglers when they try to gang your lane (like a Veigar Cage). Your Q will be mostly used for poke early in some situations that you approach the enemy, to all-in when the enemy does a mistake and gets caught or to Shield Viktor when the enemy commits in a fight.

Remember!, you also have Future's Market, which means that you don't need to rach 1050 gold to back, bit you can return to base at ~950 gold. If you happned to return to base earlier either because you died or because you need to reset, DON'T BUY OTHER ITEMS, just potions and control ward. You are a support and that early setback can be easily sustained. You need to buy your Hex Core MK-1 and upgrade your E, this is your bigpowerspike in lane other than Your lvl-6 and it's the transition that makes Viktor a very offensive support.

After lvl 6 and E upgrate you usually have pretty strong all-in potential and so you need to use them. Viktor is great at roams and you need to exploit that strenght, especially as a support.

After that Viktor is essentially playing as a midlane Viktor. You don't farm now (though you can steal some jng camps and some waves when the situation is right) so you need to transition that lack of resources into income from teamfights, roaming and team sieging, you are a support after all.

That's my guide guys, try it and have fun. Don't take it into ranked games before you have some practise with it in normals, Viktor is NOT an easy champion and he needs good mechanics and good game knowledge to function well.