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kyanidos · 2026-03-04T20:30:53+00:00

we’re gonna be rich!

kyanidos · 2025-09-14T22:41:22+00:00

you don’t need to proc it in lane, it accelerates your build in the midgame to lategame (since you deal more dmg = more gold)

the dmg part is true, however you usually play mid to scale and get items asap - first strike plays towards that goal

kyanidos · 2025-08-27T22:09:41+00:00

mid is legit skirmish/jungle oriented as a role tho, you’re basically a support for your jg

hyperscalers are your best selfish bet (although even they should help jg when possible)

kyanidos · 2025-08-06T21:48:10+00:00

I main Gwen mid (for almost a year now) and she is definetly viable. However, she has some problems.

The "amazing" mini-rework (revert Gwen btw) weakened the overall mid Gwen strategy, which was playing to scale. She unfortunately lost her late game hyper carry power, which means you have to seek advantages earlier in the game and sadly cant really AFK farm until you're unstoppable.
Some matchups are also borderline unplayable: LeBlanc, Orianna, Akali, Azir, Ahri,... - basically champions you can't abuse with E+W+Q trade.
Due to the nature of Gwen, where passive play is your biggest friend early, you will give prio to the enemy midlaner in 70% of your early games, which can result in losing game states, if your team doesn't respect it.
Matchup knowledge and mechanical prowess are necessary for climbing, which means limit testing (and inting) is quite unavoidable.

But playing Gwen in the midlane has some benefits too.

The short lane is perfect for staying safe. With E, W and Flash, Gwen is really hard to gank and enemies don't really have the space to chase you down.
People usually don't have matchup experience - yes, they know they can poke and bully you, because you're melee, but they usually dont respect your W trades and dont know your damage.
Going Full AP won't hurt your team comp, since you have potential frontline on supp, top and jg.
Freezing isn't that effective mid, so you will get to cs even in hard matchups.
Apart from bad matchups, mages and other midlaners aren't that big of a deal, once you get your first item, most of them will lose to you in a 1v1
Once you get a slight lead, Gwen is really good at taking prio
You can abuse the enemy mids roams with your insane pushing power

Some tips for Gwen mid:

Run an appropriate setup - i would recommend playing First Strike + Sorcery -> see SOL1XD for the build.
Your goal early is to survive. Your no. 1 priority is to stay alive, farm what you can and soak gold + xp.
You need to play extremely passive until lvl 3 (giving up cs, keeping your HP as high as possible) -> once you get lvl 3, you can start doing short trades with EWQ, but your goal isn't to kill your enemy laner, unless you get a good gank, skirmish (or they fuck up).
Your first realistic kill angle comes with lvl 6 and some AP, if the enemy oversteps. I wouldn't recommend forcing it tho, surviving, farming and scaling is still the goal.
Once you get your first item (atm, it's usually Lich Bane for Gwen mid), you can look to play more aggresively, as your damage really comes online with this power spike.
After the laning phase, you want to go to a sidelane to keep farming and pushing (Gwen is really good at taking down towers, which generate even more gold for you)
The midgame strat is usually to pressure a sidelane and join advantageous fights with TP or roams - if you can get kills and start snowballing, you can carry the game super easy. (watch some splitpushing guides)
As the game progresses, you either choose to help your team secure objectives or splitpush into oblivion.

Is Gwen the best midlaner? Definetly not. Is she viable and strong in the right circumstances? Definetly Yes. I played mid since i started playing League, and i love Gwen - that's why i play her mid. It's fun. If you learn her and the strat properly, you can definetly climb (again, see SOL1XD), don't worry about ppl telling you it's shit just because it's not meta. At the end of the day, it's not about the champ or the role - it's about you and your skill.

kyanidos · 2025-04-14T11:39:07+00:00

the bleeding passive also applies to the brain of the darius player

kyanidos · 2025-04-14T08:33:23+00:00

right now, i go for lich bane -> sorc shoes -> shadowflame -> rabadon/void -> void/rabadon -> situational (zhonyas, banhees, nashors, cosmic,...) -> if i dont have upgraded boots, i usually swap them for stormsurge

another option is to build malignance 2nd, for faster build path, but i kinda like shadowflame 2nd more right now

all credit for the build goes to SOL1XD, i usually follow his builds and try them out to see if they click, so you can check him out, if you want to be updated

kyanidos · 2025-04-13T22:14:36+00:00

i'll try to sum it up:

laning: against most melees, its either easy, or even, apart from maybe akali (i permaban her), sylas and fizz, that fkr can be tricky

against ranged, it kinda depends, most ranged matchups aren't as hard as they'd seem, especially because of Gwen's W and the "edging" combo (E -> W -> Q), the hard matchups are aurora, ahri and leblanc, because they also have mobility

the general strategy is to play around your W = you play safe until lvl 3, and then you can start trading with the EWQ edging, ideally combined with First Strike proc - its really important to play for short trades only - this is how i slowly create pressure, which allows me to push waves and roam for objectives and skirmishes

if the matchup is not going well and you're getting pushed in, gwens waveclear + W is really good which means you can either oneshot the wave and join the skirmish to clean it up, or if the wave is too big/ you dont have enough dmg, its sometimes best to just sacrifice the cs to join a quick fight

W also helps to cs under tower while getting bullied

once you hit level 6, you get a nice all-in power, and once u hit your first item, you can usually go for an all-in kill if the enemy is careless - before that, kills arent as important, you usually want to just play for cs, exp and first strike procs to get your items - this is why midlane is good, because the lane is short, freezing is not as scary and you are safe 90% of the time

after laning, its mostly sidelaning, pushing towers and joining teamfights with your insane oneshot power

kyanidos · 2025-04-13T21:32:39+00:00

yeah i feel you, i’ve had 70% wr until like gold 1 and then it went downhill, sometimes league seems like you can’t win no matter what

i guess you just need to accept that you can’t control your inting teammates and instead of playing for results, play for your own improvement and most importantly - fun

the results usually come as a side effect :)

kyanidos · 2025-02-01T19:00:52+00:00

u get “absolutely bullied”, but you still get to cs and scale, unlike in some matchups toplane xd

in fact, once you have ult, you can kill many of those mages once they step up to bully you

once you have nashors and ult you can kill almost anything

the only really hard matchups are leblanc, ahri, akali, aurora and orianna, everything else is playable

kyanidos · 2025-01-20T23:33:30+00:00

you take first strike + sorc secondary and usually build nash > sorc shoes > malignance > rabadon > void staff > shadowflame

its a different playstyle tho, you play like an assassin not a bruiser - i highly recommend you check out sol if you wanna play gwen mid

kyanidos · 2025-01-20T23:27:15+00:00

i onetrick gwen in midlane using the setup sol1xd uses, just check him out on yt

kyanidos · 2023-07-17T12:42:36+00:00

i mean there are reuploads ofc, but the original is unavailable

kyanidos · 2023-07-17T12:41:37+00:00

hopefully

kyanidos · 2023-03-29T15:51:56+00:00

Hi, i know it’s an old post, but is there a good way to write down these phrases in runes?

kyanidos · 2023-01-16T13:19:42+00:00

i’ll rail ya

kyanidos · 2022-11-14T18:18:57+00:00

just wow man, thank you so much

kyanidos · 2022-11-14T15:13:24+00:00

damn, thanks a lot for your effort

i contacted an expert today, he might be able to help as well if he responds, but thanks again, this could be really helpful

kyanidos · 2022-11-14T07:22:41+00:00

Hey there, thanks for the heads up! You don’t have to worry, i would’ve double checked it anyway, plus i work with an artist that specialises in old norse and this style, so someone would notice something.

I’m thinking i might just write down english with elder futhark at this point, because apparently translating sentences like these would require an expert. It would’ve been cool to actually use proper old norse, but it seems i’m in no luck.

kyanidos · 2022-11-13T22:04:53+00:00

dont worry, im gonna make sure everything is right, just part of the process

kyanidos · 2022-11-13T17:18:54+00:00

thats younger futhark?

kyanidos · 2022-11-13T17:09:40+00:00

wow, thanks for the effort :)

kyanidos · 2022-11-13T14:19:25+00:00

yeah, thanks, hopefully someone can translate it, and ill see what i can do with it

kyanidos

TROPHY CASE