Also, one more thing.

Glass cannon Karthus I believe is outdated, and when you analyze Karthus's scalings, I believe that AP runes are actually not very good on him. Karthus at his core is a champion that has extremely high sustained base damages, and relatively minor AP scaling. The only reason why Glass Cannon Karthus is considered a viable build is because Karthus's passive guarantees that he gets free damage.

However, Karthus's passive requires him to actually position very well in order to die in a location that is inconvenient for the other team. What Karthus might actually prefer right now are defensively oriented setups, which enable him superior freedom of positioning to wade into enemy teams and melt them with prolonged usage of Defile.

Because Karthus actually has relatively poor AP scaling, but very strong base damages, I actually run Armor Seals, MR per level Glyphs, and Spellvamp Quints. If you want damage, Mpen runes are stronger than AP on Karthus.

At any rate though, I believe that tanky Karthus is more viable right now. You actually sacrifice relatively little damage if any given Karthus has huge bases, and you become much more annoying for the other team to actually shut down, which in a way helps your team more.

Then let me rephrase then: Karthus does not counter anyone, and it is tough to find a winnable lane situation for Karthus if you don't know everyone else's picks. I cannot count how many times I've picked Karthus in about the third or fourth pick and someone on the other team picks up Katerina or Akali. An immense amount of the League population knows how to play either of the two, or at least have a base knowledge of their playstyles, and most of the times, that's enough to harass a half-decent Karth player like myself out of lane. Call it ranting or QQing, it's true no matter how you look at it. For Ryze, Xerath, and Swain, they can combo on you hard, and every now and then you're bound to get caught at least once. With Karthus having a sub-par escape mechanism, this can either force you out of lane or kill you completely at times. I'm not saying they're not winnable lanes, they're just difficult if you're put in the wrong situation.

But lane matchups aside, I also feel like team comp plays a significant role. This may just be my "Karth play style" as you say, but if I'm put on a team with no clear initiator on my side, it will be significantly hard to play Karthus as little more than a Q poke damage dealer until I get a Zhonya's.

But I'm willing to try the Spellvamp Quints. Sounds interesting...

I really feel like you probably just need to rethink how you play Karthus if you're that upset about things that "counter" him.

Honestly, like at least half the champions you mentioned don't actually counter him. It's really not hard to have a good laning phase with Karthus most of the time when all you have to do is farm at maximum range and shove lane while warding carefully. You actually have rather favorable matchups vs champions like Ryze, Xerath, and Swain for this reason, examples of matchups that are crippled by good lane shoving.

The other thing you probably should try are Spellvamp Quints. Karthus has some of the highest and most mana efficient single target damage output in the game. There's plenty of matchups that have trouble really initiating on Karthus for an all-in instakill.

You forgot to mention that Shaco is able to dodge your ult with his ult.

Nice guide, but you forgot Elise as a champion that can dodge his ult.

My fucking god is this a 9gag guide? Why so many crappy ragecomic memes?

love this guide

Great, detailed guide! I really enjoyed it.

"Doran's Ring is definitely not a bad item to start out with"... If i ever see a karthus that starts dorans ring, i will take my free 400 gold and wonder why he's in the same game with me.

I honestly don't feel hindered much by the recent nerf, as I'm not the type to spam out his multi anyways. But then again, I'm pretty much an "elixir-holic". Elixir of Brilliance combined with an occasional blue buff from your jungler gives me enough CDR to last up until Late Game, where I may consider buying other CDR items such as Morello's if needed, but I'll probably just buy more elixirs...

Yeah, AUG is pretty situational. I would only use this if the enemy mid lane suddenly gets fed over you for some reason, which shouldn't be the case since you're Karthus. By itself, it's not much MR to go off of, but I'd combine this with Abyssal Scepter if I could. And AUG gives CDR as well, so it's an interesting buy at best, not a core item.