One of the hardest ADCs to counter in League of Legends is Draven. He has a huge potential to snowball, only one skillshot, and way too much damage in the early game. All in all, he is absolutely terrifying to play against. But every champion has weaknesses, and Draven is no exception. Today we’ll go over them to show you how to counter him.
Start in champion select
We already have a basic guide to this, but there are more specific details to counter-picking. You can, of course, look up the most optimal champion that can play against Draven and pick them, but that won’t result in a good outcome 100% of the time. Especially since the official statistics site says that Syndra should be your choice… An AP mid laner who normally doesn’t even roam to bot lane.
The 2nd and 3rd best are way better options in this case: Twitch and Vayne. They both have abilities that can exploit the predictability of Draven’s movement, which is crucial. The downside is that you need to be skilled with these champions to begin with, because both of them are quite difficult to play. Without a lot of prior experience with them, you will fail.
So, what can you do in champion select?
I advise talking to your support. They don’t have to focus on farming and positioning as much as you do, plus they are the ones with crowd control abilities. Tell them that you need a support you can rely on, someone who can stun Draven, to counter them and stop them from dominating the entire match. Yes, that is literally it. Morgana and Lux are great, because they can keep him in one place for a good while, but Blitzcrank is even better. Draven has a tendency to push the lane, which will result in him getting hooked under the turret.
Pay attention to his marks
Those flashy things on the ground are important, and not only for your skillshots, but for your own positioning as well. You know for a fact that within the next 2 seconds, Draven has to reach that spot, otherwise he will slow down and become a little less scary – something Draven mains fear, and cannot afford to do.
This can mean a lot of things for you, the most important being that you need to get out of his range at this point, because if he decides to throw an axe at your head as his next move, you will suffer. So look at the mark and pull your champion as far as you can without losing farm over it. Once you have this technique right, you should be in a position to trade more fairly during the laning phase.
If you like to play League of Legends more aggressively, you can do that too. While Draven is rushing to his mark, you can auto attack him without any problems, as he will be too focused on it to care about you. Just make sure that you don’t stay long enough for him to be able to get back at you, otherwise the trade won’t be worth it. What you can do, is take up the regular farming stance – with both of your being alongside the caster minions – so that you can get an auto attack on him easily if you wanted. Once one of his marks makes him go forward, get a hit on him (or two if you’re feeling brave), and run sideways.
The best case scenario though, is if you can stop him from getting to these marks.
Play with his ego
If you have read our guide to Draven, you already know that he is one of the hardest to counter in League of Legends, which is why some people spam him. What we didn’t tell you, is how fragile these people actually are. Just look at Tyler1. He identifies with his main, is aggressive as all hell, and when his ego gets disturbed he blows up. That story goes pretty much the same way for all other Draven mains.
As a support I have played alongside many ADCs, but I stuck alongside Draven players the most and thus, I have learned how to absolutely break them. Their weak spot is always their ego.
You can target this by using the two steps I mentioned above, and pairing it with some light toxicity, without going all out. Your end goal with this is very simple: tilt them as much as possible. Comment each time they die, and tell their teammates that you sympathize with them because you know how awful it is to have a weak ally.
They might not rage quit, but your psychological warfare would affect their performance for sure. Mental warfare in games is real – don’t be afraid to use it to your own advantage.
