Draven is one of the strongest ADCs in League of Legends. He is the epitome of an aggressive Marksman, capable of exploiting opponents’ weaknesses from early on and snowballing quickly. Skilled Draven players are often regarded as the most talented in the bot lane due to their aggressive playstyle and the “win lane – win game” mentality.
To effectively counter Draven – the Marksman who is showing signs of competing with the current top-tier meta champions, you need to not only possess a certain skill level but also enhance your awareness and understanding of the game.
1. Understand Draven’s Win Conditions
Before you learn how to counter Draven, you need to know what his win conditions are. He is quite similar to most other ADCs in that he becomes stronger as the game progresses, but he is one of the strongest ADCs in the early game.
This leads him to play aggressively, seeking kills and snowballing. When he gains an early advantage in the match, he will do everything in his power to attack and harass you with his basic attacks.
Draven needs early kills to fully utilize his skill set. If you didn’t know, whenever he takes down an enemy champion, he gains extra gold from his passive – the more Adoration stacks he has, the more gold he earns from a kill.
Any champion in League of Legends that secures a kill will benefit from the gold gained, but for Draven, this benefit is multiplied. Preventing him from achieving this win condition is the first step to successfully countering him.
2. Understand Your Own Win Conditions (or Your Champion’s Playstyle)
Not every champion in League of Legends is as strong at level 1 (or early game) as Draven. These champions include those like Ezreal, Kog’Maw, Veigar, and so on. When playing a weak early game champion, you need to minimize trading abilities with Draven, or else you will always be at a disadvantage against his Q.
If your champion needs time to reach power spikes, play more safely and focus on farming rather than fighting. Avoid losing the lane at levels 1, 2, and 3 due to unfavorable trades. If you trade and get beaten by Draven (which he will definitely do), you will have to play much more defensively and let him dominate the lane. This means sacrificing farm for health and experience, abandoning lane priority while falling behind in gold and items.
If you are also playing a strong early game champion that needs kills to snowball, you will need to play around Draven’s position and utilize the following tips to counter him. Regardless of your champion’s objectives in the early game, always remember that Draven is very strong and can trade better or at least equal to you.
3. Keep the Minion Wave Closer to Your Side of the Map
By keeping the minion wave closer to your side of the map, you will reduce Draven’s ability to trade or push the lane. One of Draven’s greatest strengths is his ability to extend trades, so by keeping the wave near your turret, you will limit the space for him to fight – thereby reducing the chances of extended trades.
Keeping the wave here also allows your jungler to gank easier – as long as you have enough health, and it allows you to chase him down after a good combat situation. However, do not get too confident with this strategy, as in many cases, Draven may try to push the wave and dive you with the help of his jungler.
4. Be Aware of Draven’s Support Position
One way to counter Draven is to always be aware of his Support player’s position – especially when they are near you. Draven has great follow-up potential, and when he pairs with aggressive Support champions like Nautilus, Leona, or Alistar, he can all-in enemies as soon as the Support player engages. This is why you should keep an eye on the enemy Support’s position, especially when you feel they have intentions to approach you.
This also depends on what champion the enemy Support is using, but if it’s a champion that tends to engage, and if you are within their combo range, you should back off a bit. It’s crucial to continuously adjust your position to make it hard for the enemy to target you.
5. Avoid Engaging in Extended Fights
The reason for this is that Draven’s Q gives him tons of kill pressure very early on. Most ADCs in the early game cannot match the damage he can deal, resulting in losing health, summoner spells, or even dying.
After the first recall, unless you can take him down and buy a BF Sword first, he will still out-damage you in trades. So what can you do if you don’t intend to engage in extended fights with Draven?
Short and light trades are the best way to counter Draven in the long run (before he completes his first item) as long as you can trade hits when he drops his axes or activate auto-attack range (the distance you move to outside the enemy champion’s attack range but still within your attack range).
6. Use Champions with High CC
If you are a Support and the enemy picks Draven, do not use champions like Janna or Lulu to face him. With low base health and limited self-protection, you will do more harm than good by choosing them.
Instead, opt for tank champions that can engage extremely well, such as Thresh, Leona, or Alistar. They are tanky enough to withstand the damage Draven deals while providing plenty of crowd control – Draven’s biggest nightmare.
If he gets hit by crowd control effects or gets interrupted, he will drop his axes and lose a lot of damage. He also struggles against crowd control because he lacks escape skills or distance-scaling abilities like Lucian or Ezreal. If you notice, champions without escape skills have a tough time dealing with strong tanks and engage champions, typically like Kalista, Ashe, and Jhin.