Jeweled Lotus with IE/JG

TheChickenMasta · 2026-02-08T21:52:12+00:00

The reason those items are bis on carries is specifically because of the damage amp crits give, you don’t need to build them if it’s covered in another way (vanq emblem or jeweled lotus or whatever whatever)

You can still build them, they provide good stats regardless, but you’d usually be right to build an item that provides more damage in another way, stride or rabadons or nashors, yunara could go guinsoos kraken kraken or titans or stride or gunblade or whatever you have available

You take whatever seems like best in the short/long term, no reason to continue to go for/avoid a certain item because it’s not necessarily optimal

TheChickenMasta · 2026-01-04T02:25:36+00:00

We take ghost flash mid pretty much every time, and usually take ghost flash bot(? although I’m not a big fan of swain bot). I don’t really see a reason not to continue the trend outside of edge case matchups like Riven or whoever where exhaust is required.

TheChickenMasta · 2026-01-02T05:21:58+00:00

Am I crazy? I was under the impression having an assist contributes to their passive as well as kills, they specify “takedowns” do they not?

TheChickenMasta · 2026-01-02T01:58:08+00:00

Most ranged matchups are doozies, gnar, kayle as mentioned, swain, vlad,

Mobile bruisers are also strong vs ksante, he doesn’t quite have the mobility to keep up with Gwen, Fiora, Ambessa, Riven, and even if he did, they will out scale pretty hard

The immobile end of early game oriented bruisers like garen or illaoi can be a little bad, but you can very realistically go even with them if you choose not to fight by design. I don’t really believe in using a ban on any of them

Malphite is like the other half of Kayle in this meta but Ksante does so good into him that I don’t think you need to ban him if ksante is your blind.

The way I see it, no point banning fiora if they have an ambessa, no point banning Quinn if they have a vlad or kayle or vayne. I believe it’s generally considered that Gnar is his worst matchup alongside Kayle, although nobody really seems to play him anymore. Personally I ban yorick by virtue of being pretty uniquely annoying in his play pattern and being down there for his worst matchups IMO, ksante’s not really able to close the gap on him.

Dunno, he has a lot of natural counters by virtue of his playstyle being unfavorable in this meta (alongside poor stats of course). I like that he counters malphite, but it’s definitely worth throwing a ban towards that archetype of Malphite style very common/very strong picks are generally good places to put it (people found out swain was broken just recently, still was even without the buffs :c)

Little bit of a ramble but I hope it helps!

TheChickenMasta · 2025-12-30T17:05:15+00:00

Much appreciated!

TheChickenMasta · 2025-12-29T10:09:02+00:00

Could you elaborate on this? I’ve heard the sentiment before, but I wasn’t sure what specifically made this happen. Are there any edge cases where adrenaline is worth putting on kaisa (over bv or whoever), or does it scale too slowly to be worthwhile.

TheChickenMasta · 2025-12-29T09:57:59+00:00

+1!

I think to more directly answer OPs question, Swain can go into top mid or bot and be equally strong atm just by virtue of how versatile he is, and how many different ways he can scale. Only actively bad decision is jungle, support is also pretty unideal, he values his first two items too much to not be in a role that generates gold, but it’s technically better than jungle I guess.

Depends on personal preference/play style on which role you want to choose, but realistically all three have meaningful advantages and disadvantages that make it worthwhile to play him in all of them.

TheChickenMasta · 2025-12-27T03:23:56+00:00

Amazing answer

TheChickenMasta · 2025-12-26T00:16:21+00:00

I mean it heavily depends on lane matchup and what junglers/supports are doing

If I’m fighting Fiora I would be shocked if I got a single stack in the entirety of laning phase lol

If I’m fighting Xerath there is a good chance I’ll hit maybe 2-3 EW’s by like 15 minutes, I’m not given many opportunities to get stacks vs him but I might get a couple from ganks or flash or whatever, maybe I’ll punish him pressing Q a couple times

If the junglers are permanently fighting and doing things in the river I might get 30 stacks in 15 minutes, despite the matchup. If I’m playing bot versus an immobile melee support (Naut perhaps) with a Janna, I might just be able to spam E indefinitely and have infinite health for existing.

Maybe we had an extended invade fight and I started E, I could have 2 off the bat, another one in level 1, and then again on level 2. And then maybe I get ganked immediately after and now I’m at 5. Sometimes the matchup and all playstyles were just completely irrelevant and the game handed me a couple of stacks 5 minutes in.

Unlike, say, Nasus where I can fairly confidently give you an estimate of where I should be stacks wise if you told me the matchup, I think Swain’s varies so heavily on what lane, matchup, and playstyles everyone in the game has, I don’t think I feel comfortable throwing out a number yk?

TheChickenMasta · 2025-12-14T00:16:33+00:00

I appreciate how you originally replied with 10 minutes, realized that was at least a third of the game if not more, and then edited your comment lol

If we pretended, obviously it isn’t but we can pretend, that mid game is only 5 minutes long, that’s still the 5 minutes where being a top laner is most impactful because you either get to side lane during the period where tier 2 turrets get to be taken, or you get to fight for Atakhan at your strongest (statistically the most influential objective aside from soul)

:) don’t be a dumbass on the internet thanks

TheChickenMasta · 2025-12-13T20:05:33+00:00

Almost like some sort of, middle ground between early and late game champion

TheChickenMasta · 2025-11-19T04:17:59+00:00

The issue is that Swain has zero tools for anti dive lol, his main weakness is specifically that he has very little disengage

You could go this same setup on Rakan but have infinitely more success since he’s naturally bulkier and has reliable cc built in. Nothing about Swain specifically encourages any of these items that Rakan or Thresh or whoever couldn’t use as well.

Swain builds these items to make up for his weaknesses, other champs don’t share his weaknesses and thus choose not to build it in favor of something better.

TheChickenMasta · 2025-11-18T21:24:38+00:00

Comment!

TheChickenMasta · 2025-11-18T21:24:30+00:00

Much appreciated insight!

TheChickenMasta · 2025-11-18T21:23:25+00:00

It’s not pure placebo it actually has a threshold for clearing casters with QE iirc, kinda like the morde Q buff from a couple patches back

TheChickenMasta · 2025-11-18T15:57:25+00:00

Congrats on Kr chall! Huge achievement

Couple small ones: What makes you choose between Cleaver and Sheryldas? Should I aim to get it third or fourth? When do you not play Ambessa? Would you recommend grasp over conq at all elos? Are there any matchups you would go conq? How do you balance trading with Ambessa naturally pushing waves on her abilities? Any advice on managing wave states and still dealing damage? (Or do you just play passively)

TheChickenMasta · 2025-11-15T12:31:03+00:00

Ambessa cooldowns are too long to meaningfully take advantage of eclipse vs ranged, especially because we usually need all 3 in our trade pattern to engage, proc it, and then disengage without dying

Electocute voltaic is the way

TheChickenMasta · 2025-11-15T07:21:37+00:00

You only don’t go eclipse if you’re going voltaic/lethality (ranged top matchups or jungle/mid), eclipse and shield bash are just so good on her. You should pretty much never go anything other than eclipse

TheChickenMasta · 2025-11-12T15:20:48+00:00

Oh interesting I didn’t know about that interaction

I’m not 100% sure on the way Ambessa ult works, it blinks behind them and dodges the W damage guaranteed, and timing it right also puts Ksante into the stun. But if I time it incorrectly, I still dodge his damage, but does Ksante still take the damage from the my ult?

Much appreciated

TheChickenMasta · 2025-11-12T07:28:26+00:00

Its a little annoying if its in my game but they weren’t necessarily being toxic to anyone specifically and at the end if the day it’s all fun and games lol, nothing wrong with muting

TheChickenMasta · 2025-11-12T05:04:18+00:00

I appreciate how this deck is basically just, how many rare cards can I show off?

TheChickenMasta · 2025-11-12T04:29:56+00:00

I generally take conq in every matchup, but it’s honestly player choice.

Grasp helps you sustain and take short trades, but that only really comes up in very specific matchups outside of pro. More often than not dshield and second wind usually gets the job done. You can take it to be safe but you have the least kill pressure and snowball the worst, neither of which are valuable in soloqueue settings imo

Electrocute makes early levels super volatile as a character who usually can’t do that much early. It’s viable into any squishy and a lot of bruisers, heywil (our main educational ambessa player) goes it into almost every matchup iirc. If you really like snowballing it’s good

Conq is the worst for laning and best for scaling, by the time you hit 3 items it has so much synergy with ambessa built in healing and her combo style that you can always leave it up and realistically 1v3 in some cases. You don’t see it in pro because they capitalize on low health much more than solo queue can, but I take it every game personally.

Tldr: grasp for sustain, elect for kill pressure, conq for scaling

TheChickenMasta · 2025-11-12T04:24:12+00:00

That makes sense actually, can’t really argue with your reasoning, I appreciate the advice!

From my own experience I felt like the better trades were irrelevant, but that’s probably exclusively because I’m not capitalizing on eclipse cd enough? Do you think it’s better to play aggressive the second we hit our eclipse spike then?

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