In-Depth Tryndamere Top Guide + Matchup Sheet (26.22)

Hi everyone, my name is Kostas and I love playing tryndamere and have been studying him and people that play him for quite some time. I am by no means a great player but I think I could give information that could help some of you.

(eune account progress so far, but also master in euw)

If you want to contact me for any reason whatsoever feel free to do so on my discord (@Konstantinoz)

Bans

First things first let's start with champion select.

When playing on Blue side you should always ban Malphite this is non-negotionable it is by far Tryndamere's worst matchup and requires very little execution skill from the enemy Malphite. I also highly recommend asking for bans alongside your malphite ban, I personally ask for a Nasus or a Jax ban but you can pick a champion that you dislike playing against yourself.

When playing on Red side things get much simpler, you should always ask for last pick and ban whichever champ you please to do so I recommend banning Jax since a lot of people still blind pick him.

Skill Order

Tryndamere is rare case of champions where you don't actually want to put points in specific abilities at certain levels, for example Tryndamere should for 99% of cases should skip putting a point in his W at level 3 and instead put 2 points in Q and level up W at level 4.

Another case is not putting a point in R at level 11 and instead putting it in your E .

At level 16 things change on whether you're running Hail of Blades with Ultimate Hunter if you are you can again skip putting a point in your R and investing it in your W and leveling up your ultimate at levels 17 and 18, however if you are running the normal Lethal Tempo setup without Ultimate Hunter I recommend putting a point in your R at level 12 after you finished maxing out your E first since Tryndamere is one of the most ultimate reliant champions in the game.

Summoner Spells

+ this is tryndamere's strongest summoner spell combo when paired up with Lethal Tempo and Approach velocity since it makes you extremely strong in a 1v1 giving you insane all-inning potential and it helps you chase/run down people, exhaust is really strong currently but it's sometimes tricky to use and needs some games of getting used to utilize it to it's full potential. (additional tip, if you want to run someone down with exhaust whilst you have approach velocity you should first use your W and once it ends you should then use exhaust to get maximum value out of your approach velocity. You can of course still run exhaust with Hail of Blades in specific scenarios)

+ this is the default summoner spell combo setup when paired up with Hail of Blades since it gives you insane burst damage and it's really simple to use.

+ I know a lot of you miss ghost tryndamere (so do I) but it's simply too nerfed and weak currently to be taken over exhaust or ignite.

Runes

Tryndamere this season actually has a lot of rune page diversity which is pretty cool!

This is the standard Tryndamere rune page when paired up with Exhaust.

Approach Velocity gives you really nice chase with your W and when paired up with your exhaust it's even stronger.

Cash Back is great rune since Tryndamere's build path is expensive and it always gives you an extra component when finishing an item.

Same page but with just Cash Back swapped out with Triple Tonic, take this if you want stronger laning power. (don't forget to use red pot! :D)

Standard rune page for when it's not feasible to play for long trades and you want to play to chunk them out gradually.

This rune setup and be paired up with both Ignite and Exhaust although Ignite is recommended since it gives you really nice burst.

You can swap out Attack Speed shard for Adaptive Force it's pure preference.

This rune page if for matchups where you'd like the extra sustain and you can't realistically hit/stick to the enemy champion for that long.

I take this into matchups such as kennen or quinn or any ranged top i'm not confident against.

Be wary that your early game will be much weaker since you won't have a dueling rune.

This is tryndamere's strongest late game rune page but also his weakest early game rune page.

I don't recommend playing this rune page unless you have played it before and it's a good matchup for it, it can be very punishing and often games are decided before they reach mid-late game. (You can swap out celerity for transcendence if you'd like)

You can take this rune setup into kayle.

*Additional info, tenacity shard is really good in specific games where enemy team has a lot of CC and Slows and where you wouldn't mind giving up 65 hp in the early game such as in a non-volatile matchup.

Itemization

Tryndamere has extremely fun high attack speed / dps builds this season which is really fun.

Doran's Bow → Doran's Shield → Doran's Blade

Doran's bow is by far Tryndamere's strongest starter item, you should almost never take doran's blade over doran's bow. If you use the extra health potion you get from doran's bow efficiently and correctly the 80hp you get from doran's blade isn't that necessary and you'd much rather have 15% attack speed on an auto attack only champion.

Doran's shield can be taken in matchups where you're not confident enough to run dbow although I wouldn't recommend doing this too often since dshield is inherently weak and goes against the champions identity (getting early leads and kills)

If you don't feel confident enough to run Doran's bow because enemy laner is running ignite and you feel like you need that additional hp then you can run Doran's blade with the HoB setup.

Berserker's Greaves → Boots of Swiftness → Mercury's Treads → Plated Steelcaps

Berserks greaves is your go to option for 90% of games, you can build them every game and still be fine.

Swifties are good for when you really need that extra movement speed or slow resist and since yuntal and pd give so much attack speed you are fine skipping berserkers greaves without feeling slow.

Mercs shouldn't be built too often since they are too expensive and don't give good stats except for tenacity, only build them if enemy is really heavy ap and you will get a lot of value from tenacity, otherwise just buy another tenacity item like endless hunger or mercurial scimatar.

Tabbies are good into team comps that are AD/Auto Attack heavy and can make you delay your ult by a substantial amount.

Ravenous Hydra → Phantom Dancer → Infinity Edge → Lord Dominik's Regards

You can basically run this build every single game and be fine. Ravenous is a really broken item on Tryndamere since it lets you cheat the game by having insane sustain and wave clear allowing you to overstay and make a lot of plays that simply wouldn't be possible without Ravenous.

Phantom Dancer is another excelent item on Tryndamere since it gives you a lot of great stats for really cheap (65% attack speed 25% crit and 10% movement speed all for 2600g) it gives you all the attack speed you'll need and makes you be 426 movement speed at all times which allows you to be really efficient with your map movement, dodging skillshots and catching up to fast enemies, the only downside is that you do lose dps but it's a fine tradeoff considering everything else it gives you for such a price.

Yun Tal Wildarrows → Lord Dominik's Regards → Endless Hunger → Infinity Edge

This is Tryndamere's standard build when running Lethal Tempo and Exhaust, it's really strong when ahead since it lets you duel anyone in a 1v1 giving you unreal DPS.

Yuntal got buffed recently (-100g and extra attack speed) which makes it a really strong first item on Tryndamere since it gives you all the stats you want (AD, Crit and a lot of Attack Speed), although it's important to be said that it's build path is by far it's biggest downside, basing without 1300g for BF sword feels pretty bad, but if you can get over that hurdle it's really strong.

You can swap out LDR 2nd for IE if enemy team comp lacks armor or is really squishy but that is a rare case since you'll be playing against tabbies and armor stack a lot as tryndamere.

Endless Hunger is an excellent 3rd item that gives you great stats and (a lot of AD, a lot of Ability Haste, Omnivamp which is really nice since you're building Ravenous for sustain and most importantly tenacity which is a premium tryndamere stat since CC counters you very hard)

I don't recommend running this build every game without a second thought since in some games you will need to go Ravenous for the sustain and waveclear.

Ravenous Hydra → Yun Tal Wildarrows → Infinity Edge → Lord Dominik's Regards

This build is for scenarios where you want to go Ravenous first but you'd also like a damage item second, if of course you're able to catchup to enemies without the need of Phantom Dancer.

This build is really good in certain scenarios but the downside is that it's really expensive and you're slow.

Situational Items

Mercurial Scimitar is a great item in cases where you're really hard countered by one or two CC spells (teemo Q, Ahri E, Malzahar Ult, etc.)

Death's Dance is a great item in cases where the enemy team comp is heavy in AD, it gives you a lot of tankiness and you can delay your ultimate by a few seconds if timed right.

Navori Flickerblade can be a good item in cases where you absolutely need maximum E uptime, such as a full squishy kiting comps.

Stridebreaker can be a game winning item in games where the enemy team is squishy and actively kites you. The Stridebreaker active is insane and leaves little counterplay for the enemy champions to run away from you.

Abilities

Passive - Battle Fury
 Tryndamere gains Fury from autoattacking and killing units, gaining Critical Strike Chance. Managing your Fury is essential for optimizing your damage and sustaining health through Bloodlust. As your only damage source is autoattacks managing your fury is really important in order to match the damage of other champions. Being full fury in the early gives you a significiant advantage since you crit on every other autoTryndamere gains 0−50% critical strike chance depending on his Fury.

Q - Bloodlust
Passive: Tryndamere gains bonus AD plus an additional amount based on his missing health.
Active:  Tryndamere consumes all of his Fury to heal himself, increased for each point of Fury consumed. This ability is really good for sustaining through the early game since tryndamere's trading is not strong.

W - Mocking Shout
Active: :Tryndamere reduces the Attack damage of nearby enemy champions for 4 seconds.
 Tryndamere also applies a curse to all nearby enemy champions for 3.25 seconds. While accursed, they become  slowed while facing away from Tryndamere. The enemy does not have to be visible it order for it be castable which is really nice for checking if enemy is in nearby bushes, you will know if they are because the icon will go from Gray (Uncastable) to Red (Castable) when the enemy is in range. This spell should be used in trades to reduce the enemies AD and make the trade more favourable.

E - Spinning Slash
Active: Tryndamere dashes to the target location, dealing physical damage to enemies hit and generating 2 Fury per Enemy hit. This ability is the only mobility tryndamere has, so using it well is absolutely essential to keep up with enemies.

R - Undying Rage
Active: Tryndamere becomes enraged, gaining Fury and making him immortal for 5 seconds. You want to cast this your ultimate as late as possible in order to have more time to DPS someone in a fight, every extra auto matters. However make sure to actually cast your ultimate :D, as casting it a bit early is still much better than not casting at all.  Tryndamere is the most ult reliant champion in the game so having this ability up before a big fight is mandatory. You can cast your ultimate even in CC.

Strength & Weaknesses

Gameplay

When playing Tryndamere you should always play to get a lead at every stage of the game (especially in the laning phase) since you do not have the privilege of being a default scaler.

Since you are a melee adc you need items in order to do damage which makes your builds very expensive so getting leads / plates and farming well are essential in order to consistently do well on this champ. When playing tryndamere you should at the very least be average 8 cs per minute.

Laning Phase

In the laning phase you should play to get early leads by either killing your opponent or at the very least farming well and last hitting minions, in an ideal world you should be doing both.

Keeping up high fury and managing the waves correctly (freezing the wave on your side of the lane) is essential on tryndamere since you want to be looking for all-ins.

Leauge of legends is a game with infinite variables so theres no one piece of advice that will apply to all scenarios. So that's why playing a lot and reviewing your gameplay is the best way to get better at laning and the game in general.

Splitpushing & Teamfighting

When playing Tryndamere most of the times you'd like to be splitpushing and applying pressure on the side lanes. Tryndamere is very strong when it comes dueling enemies in a 1v1 so spliting is ideal. Splitpushing is also extremely effective in soloQ since it puts a lot of pressure on the enemy team to make the correct plays and decisions. Forcing the enemy team to send multiple of their players to your side lane takes a lot of pressure of the map for your team to make plays with a numbers advantage and for them to farm safely.

Although this does not mean that if you can split you should split. League of legends is a team game and teamfighting is a part of the game, so don't be that guy that ragesplits and never groups for important objectives.

Conclusion

Thanks for reading my guide all the way through I really appreciate it.

I will continue to update this guide through every patch if anything major changes.

I took a lot of inspiration for this guide from watching RANGERZX and learning from his streams and guides, if you want to get really good at tryndamere you should definetely tune in to his streams and learn from the best.

Again if you have any questions to ask me for whatever reason feel free to DM me on discord (@konstantinoz)

Have fun playing tryndamere!