Swain

Is an AP mage that can serve as a top or mid laner. He has good catch potential with Decrepify and Nevermove and he can tank and deal a lot of damage between Torment and Ravenous Flock. He does take a while to ramp up in lane, but once he is online he has the potential to take over a game.

FalseoGod has a really good guide to get you started with Swain so go take a look at that for an in-depth overview of the Master Tactician.

Quas is a god on Swain so look up some videos of his Swain play if you want to see it done right.

You can tailor your runes and masteries depending on your match-ups. I've found 21-9-0 to work well in most match-ups, however in certain match-ups you want more movement speed so 21-0-9 works better.

I've been running mostly Top lane Swain so I've been using a Hyd Pen Marks, Scaling Armor Seals, Scaling MR Glyphs, and AP Quints base on a build I saw Vizicsacsi use on Swain Top. If you are really concerned about the early game with a particular match-up you can switch out the scaling Armor or scaling MR for the flat variety.

Tips

In early laning you really need to focus on last hitting as Carrion Renewal is huge as far as being able to maintain your presence in lane.

Decrepify does an instant amount of damage on cast, so if you have two creeps dying at once you can auto one of them and use Decrepify on the other. However, note that while the first part of the damage is instant, it will only kill the creep if the damage is more than the current health of the creep.

If you know you are about to get CC'd turn Ravenous Flock on. You can also turn Ravenous Flock on and then use the active of Zhonya's Hourglass and your ultimate will continue to do damage.

Once you get Rod of Ages you can use Nevermove on the ranged minions and then walk between the ranged minions and the melee minions and kill the ranged minions with one to two pulses of Ravenous Flock. If there is a cannon minion in the mix, I will usually target it with Torment and possibly Decrepify as well while auto attacking any of the melee minions that are engaged with your minions to try and pick them up before your minions pick them off.

If you can get the minions to clump up you can actually hit an entire wave with Nevermove.

If you toggle Nevermove once that will do roughly a single auto attack worth of damage to ranged minions. You can then let the tower hit them once and then finish them off with an auto attack.

If your target lacks mobility you can try to Flash and snare them with Nevermove. Alternatively you can Flash to hit them with Decrepify and then follow up with Nevermove while they are slowed.

The more AP you have the more you heal, so consider that when itemizing. Spirit Visage seems like it would synergize pretty well with Swain and it does to some extent, but it does not give you more AP.

My items of choice so far are:

Sorcerer's Shoes or Mercury's Treads
Rod of Ages
Zhonya's Hourglass
Abyssal Mask
Liandry's Torment
Rabadon's Deathcap

Match-ups

Nocturne- Has a couple of AD steroids via Umbra Blades and Duskbringer so he hurts a lot early game. Start Cloth Armor and 5 Health Potions. Play cautiously until level 6 and don't fight him if you you get hit by Duskbringer. Once your get Seeker's Armguard and a Catalyst of Aeons you can start to be more aggressive. Finish your Rod of Ages and follow up with Zhonya's Hourglass. He can shield one of your spells with Shroud of Darkness so you have to play around that.

Burn his shroud with Torment, then hit him with Decrepify to slow him, and then snare him with Nevermove, then turn on Ravenous Flock and start auto attacking him while he is snared. If you are going for a prolonged engage then hit him with Torment as soon as it comes off cooldown.

He can outpush you before you get Ravenous Flock so he may just shove you into turret and then roam, which can be super deadly once he hits sixth and gets Paranoia, so be sure to ping that he is missing.

Ryze - is freaking annoying. Dodge Overload and stay away from Rune Prison range. Listen to his sound cues and just stay away from him when his passive, Arcane Mastery is up as it gives him a shield and cooldown reduction. Get Mercury's Treads early though Rod of Ages is still a priority. If they also have an AP midlaner and or jungler than buy an Abyssal Mask next. Follow that up with Zhonya's Hourglass. You can still use spells while snared so the main thing is to be beefy enough to survive his initial burst.

Riven - you have to respect how far she can travel between Broken Wings, Valor, and Flash . Hint: It is almost always further than you think. And it really is further than you think if she has Flash. The key is to turn on Ravenous Flock before she stuns you. If you do this you will keep your health high enough that you can retaliate.

She easily breaks the tether on Decrepify and can hop or dash away from Nevermove however, if she is doing that it usually means she is burning her mobility to get away from you which is a good thing.

A good Riven will be hard as they will be looking at ways to use their mobility to get to you, such as waiting in a bush to jump out on you and stun you with Ki Burst. No damage and healing from Ravenous Flock = Swain carrion. If she gets a lead this lane is going to be miserable or she will get bored with only getting single kills and go menace other lanes allowing you to farm up in a semblance of peace.

You shouldn't have problems with a bad to mid level Riven.

Garen - more annoying than expected as I died once to him in lane (which = wrecked according to our 7/15/9 Lee Sin). If you are less than half health he can probably kill you with Demacian Justice even if you are under your turret at the time. I need to play this lane again as I think I was using my Mid lane swain masteries of 21-0-9 for the extra mobility. His early damage is all AD so I would probably start Cloth Armor and 5 Health Potions. He can cleanse the slow from Decrepify by activating Decisive Strike, which will then silence you if he autos you. If that happens then he is going to spin on you with Judgment. He can also decrease the duration of Nevermove with Courage.

Another problem is his passive, Perseverance, which helps him recover his health after skirmishing. You want to and can certainly poke him, however that burns a lot of mana unless you can do it with auto attacks and if he uses the bushes well (common Garen tactic) then your opportunities for that are likely to be somewhat low. Might actually be worth buying an extra ward for his bush of choice.

This matchup is definitely doable, but it is harder than your typical melee matchup for Swain.

Teemo - F Teemo. Your autottack range is the same as his at 500. You cannot autoattack trade with Teemo and win. Just don't do it. Start with Decrepify because it has a range of 625 and Blinding Dart only has a range of 580. When you want to CS, use a max range Decrepify on Teemo. Balance punishing him with Decrepify while getting last hits for the gold and to keep your mana up via Carrion Renewal. Once your mana pool gets larger you can start harassing Teemo with Decrepify and Torment, but do yourself a favor and stay out of his auto attack range. I know those Torment empowered auto attacks sound juicy, but they just aren't worth it. Save the autos for minions.

If he runs at you with Move Quick tag him with Decrepify and walk away. If you nail him with Nevermove then you can burn him down with Ravenous Flock while standing outside his auto attack range. Abyssal Mask is probably a worthy early pickup vs Satan.

Gnar- Depends on the Gnar, but if you can dodge Boomerang Throw you should win this matchup. 21-0-9 helps with dodging Boomerangs. Early Boots also help. Another point about Boomerang throw is that it stops after it hits a target, lazily hangs in the air for a second, and then accelerates a little bit but still slowly back on a reverse line. The upshot of this is that if you can keep two minions between yourself and Gnar he shouldn't be able to tag you with Boomerang throw. Since Gnar really wants to catch the Boomerang to shorten the cooldown you can also use this knowledge to anticipate Gnar's position, which can allow you to setup up Nevermove. Even if you don't snare him with Nevermove, if you can make him miss catching the Boomerang, consider it a win as it is on a rather long cooldown so he can't harass you with it for the duration.

Lux - rare mid appearance. Blind pick. Ran 21-0-9 to dodge her skill shots that worked reasonably well, though I think a better Lux could have punished me more. I took Ignite since I was going Mid lane, but I should probably have take Barrier or Teleport. I wouldn't recommend Swain is this match-up. You will probably survive, but CSing is a pain and she can push faster than you until you get Ravenous Flock and even the she can make it hard for you to do your combo to clear the wave. Try to get the minion wave to stall just outside your turret range. She can still poke you with Lucent Singularity but you'll be reasonably safe from ganks, which is a weakness of low mobility champions in Mid. ;tldr you'll probably be underfarmed. Consider getting out of laning phase without dying to a Lux combo or a gank in conjunction with a Lux combo a win. Start Crystalline Flask and 3 Health Potions to survive the poke and stay somewhat sustained as you are going to need to use your abilities to farm. May be worth picking up 2 Doran's Rings when you back for the stats and mana recovery. Build into Rod of Ages and possibly Mercury's Treads if they are CC heavy on top of Lux.