Thanks for taking a look at my new Tryndamere Guide.

I've mained Tryndamere for quite a long time, well before the rework. I started off playing him in the jungle, and then moved into Top Lane. A few months afterwards he was reworked and he's been my most played champion in both Season 1 and Season 2 (Although I was not very good during most of my Season 1 Play). I Consider myself to main Melee AD Carries, Tryndamere and Yi are both my favorite champions as well as some of my most successful. The Melee AD Carry play style is easily my most enjoyable even though it's not always the most viable. However for better or worse I press on playing the champions I love.

You may be familiar with a previous guide I have written here on solomid for Master Yi located : http://solomid.net/guides.php?g=12072

I'll do my best to shed as much light on the best way to play Tryndamere in his Current State so just follow along below.



In order to give you some perspective about where this information is coming from, below is are two screenshots - one of my elo stats and another of my ranked Tryndamere stats, just so you have some idea about what knowledge I have with Tryndamere in terms of competitive play.





And my Tryndamere Stats.

9/14/2012 - Initial Guide content released, submitted for approval.
9/16/2012 - Approval denied initially, added content based on comments from the moderator, will resubmit when able.
9/30/2012 - Added content throughout the guide over the last couple weeks. Content should be crisp, accurate and cover just about everything necessary.
10/30/2012 - I've removed phage/frozen mallet from the build, an explanation of why will be below in the item section.
11/7/2012 - Updated the runes used and rune page alternates. I've done some experimenting lately and i've slightly geared my runes a little different to make the mid-game ghostblade presence a little bit stronger since thats when we want to snowball the most, and i've also added in an extra rune page geared towards difficult lanes. Also changed summoner spell to exhaust from ignite w/ explanation. Also updated the look of some parts of the guide as well as introducing a new chapter - 'why should I pick Tryndamere'
11/10/2012 - Added a quick bit on Doran's blades.
12/4/2012 - Updated in preperation for the season 3 patch, complete overhaul on runes and item choices.
12/8/2012 - Swapped attack speed runes for lifesteal quintessences. The build is still being optimized and I feel that the attack speed is strong but now that Ghostblade has been swapped in favor of other items the extra ATS isn't needed as much but it's still a solid option.
12/9/2012 - Changed runes again, sorry but more swaps needed to happen! Still been trying to find the most optimal rune set for Tryndamere for the new season but I think i've nailed it down finally. Check it out below!
12/10/2012 - Fixed mastery picture and added a new description for alternate mastery.
12/15/2012 - added rageblade to possible 6th item
12/24/2012 - updated elo / statistics pictures to reflect season 3.
12/29/2012 - One final update on runes based on my experiences at higher elo's as of late. As per feedback added explanations for the lifesteal items like BoTRk, enchantments and changed core build a little.
1/10/2013 - Updated Core items and added a list of Do-not-buy items to wary off of noob trap items on Tryndamere.
1/18/2013 - added another section detailing later game buys for how to flex your stuff after the core is ready to go.
1/23/2013 - updated tool tips as solomids were out of date
2/3/2013 - Updated runes to reflect Tryndamere's buffs
2/20/2013 - Reached diamond elo so updated the intro section and fixed a few errors in the guide that were small and went un-noticed in previous changes.
2/25/2013 - edited out some typos i've left in for too long.
3/20/2013 - Will be building a replay section, first replay goes up today.
4/26/2013 - People want to play Split Push Tryndamere lately, so i'm adding guide changes to accommodate the interest in split push Tryndamere. Beyond that, i also update runes to better reflect the upcoming patch which will nerf pot stacking. Also added some champs to the matchups.
5/14/2013 - added to matchups and moved some around, update runes
5/19/2013 - fixed typographical errors. Removed a section that just looked out of place. Added new build route.

First A Review of Tryndamere as a champion and his general pro's and con's



Pro's

• Potentially higher Damage Output then most ranged AD carries.
• Strong initial chasing ability.
• Unique Critical Chance steroid.
• Strong 1v1/Skirmish capability.
• Scales really well with items.
• Powerful Ultimate.

Con's

• Predictable.
• Melee.
• No Attack speed or Movement speed Steroids.
• Counterplay is easy at most stages of the game.
• Zero Magic-based damage.
• People hate you in Champion select (Specifically your team mates).

So why would I want to pick Tryndamere?

For starters, the whole reason I started playing Tryndamere and the reason I enjoy him so much - he is a true hyper-carry. He's one of the only hyper-carries that exists in league of legends. When Tryndamere gets out of control he's one of the strongest champions in the entire game. His peaks are enormous due to his ultimate and steroids, out shadowed perhaps only by Master Yi.

If you learn to play him right, how to properly judge encounters and learn the timing windows for the melee dps class, you can sky rocket in strength and efficiency and win games that may otherwise seem unwinnable. Beyond that, it feels really good to carry a team with one of the widely regarded weakest champions in the game and it gives you a true sense of accomplishment, something you can't get by bouncing between FoTM champions until they get nerfed, riding broken mechanics and character strength to victories.

There's also the fact that in champion select, Tryndamere is highly uncontested, one of the reasons I enjoy having him in my roster of best characters is because if I want to play him and I think it's a good pick - I always can. I can't remember the last time I wanted to play Tryndamere but couldn't because someone on either team chose him before I did, and i've had more people on my own team ban him so I couldn't play him then witness enemy teams ban him because they were afraid of him.

Tryndamere is really rewarding in the sense that the only way to win a game with him against decent players is to play well - and when you play really well you can carry your entire team to victory.

For the Masteries they are relatively self explanatory but i'll shed some quick light on some of them just for the sake of being thorough.




Summoner's Wrath : This mastery gives us improved speed on ghost, which helps our chasing - a key tool for melee carries. You need to be able to stick to targets in order to auto attack enough to kill them. It also provides extra attack damage and ability power when we use our ignite which helps us secure kills with additional damage during the time we use our ignite. That 5 AD can make all the difference at times - especially early on when we want to use our ignite/ghost combo to get fed.

Brute Force: Additional attack damage helps us kill things faster and last hit better.

Alacrity : More Attack speed means killing things faster.

Weapon Expertise : 10% Free Armor Penetration is pretty huge for a champion who only deals physical damage.

Deadliness : This helps us scale better into the late game as it grants more attack damage the higher level we are.

Lethality : The 10% bonus to our critical strike damage is pretty huge on one of the only two champion who has both a unique critical chance steroid as well as being 100% reliant on landing auto attacks to kill things. This mastery is probably more beneficial to Tryndamere then any other champion in the entire game.

Frenzy : This mastery may have been made for Tryndamere. There's so much synergy here between Tryndamere's kit and his naturally low attack speed that taking this mastery is absolutely necessary under ALL circumstances.

Sunder : Armor penetration helps us deal more damage to all targets.

Executioner : Dealing more damage to low health targets helps us fulfill our role of 'Melee AD Carry' better.





Hardiness : Additional armor makes us survive more physical based punishment at all stages of the game.

Resistance : Additional magic resists makes us survive more magic based punishment at all stages of the game.

Durability : The health makes us tankier overall and synergizes well with trying to delay Undying Rage for as long as possible.

Veteran's Scars : The health makes us tankier overall and synergizes well with trying to delay Undying Rage for as long as possible.



In terms of changing the masteries around you just put points into the Armor or the Magic Resist mastery based on what opponent you think you will be laning against.

You could go 9/21 if you absolutely think you need the additional survivability - although Tryndamere's base stats and item routes are pretty much always glass cannon so He doesn't really gain a TON from defense tree, especially since there's so many appealing options in the offense tree that it just doesn't make the most sense, but alas free tenacity, slow reduction, bonus HP% on one of the highest base HP champs in the game among other nice stats do mean it is a possibility to go 9/21 with some success, it just doesn't play to Tryndamere's strength as much as one would hope. Though it is worth noting that the season 3 defense tree is much more appealing for Tryndamere than the old defense tree was.

Attack Speed Marks (6):Tryndamere lacks an attack speed steroid and has a low base attack speed overall, especially for a champion who only deals damage through auto attacks. These combat that primary weakness and makes his lane much stronger since more attack speed means more attacks more often which means more fury faster and more chances to critically strike.

Critical Chance Marks (3): Tryndamere's early lane strength is in how often he crits, and having any crit chance without fury instead of zero makes a really massive difference that can only be felt through experience. 3 Crit chance marks gives the most efficient rune to stat bonus as none of the crit % given is wasted. 3 extra crit percentage early on opens

Armor Seals (9): Most top lane bruisers deal primarily physical damage, and most ranged poke via auto attacks are physical based as well. This helps our weak early levels as we take reduced damage.

Flat Magic Resist Glyphs(9): Tryndameres weak point is his early game. Anything that makes that stronger tends to help. These are a safe bet vs anyone who deals magic damage, even if there primary form of damage is physical. If they deal zero magic damage, swap these out for per level/MR.

Lifesteal Quintessences (3): Lifesteal quints are really strong for lane, pushing and even sustaining in team fights. Extra lifesteal makes your trades mitigate a little incoming damage which is a big deal. They just open up possibilities for aggression since you have a fallback. I advise buying the alacrity upgrades for boots when you can to make up for lack of movequints.



Alternate rune pages include full Attack Speed quintessences for more free damage early on which may allow you to snowball harder at the cost of survivability, Armor Penetration, or Attack Damage to provide consistent boosts to damage if you dont like RNG styles and move speed quints.

Ghost is our most important summoner spell. The movement speed and ignore the unit collision stat that it grants gives us the most superior chasing ability possible. Tryndamere primary weakness is being kited, so this is one of our few tools that we have to combat that, and possible one of our strongest tools to do so. Always take ghost.


Useful in team fights and can be just as effective as ignite for securing kills early on. It also bolsters your chasing ability and aids your damage on a target due to the mastery also making it's effect lower Armor. It also provides safety during lane against tower diving opponents if they are trying to exploit your ultimate being down AND it's a good defensive CC against enemy junglers trying to gank you early on. It has one really key use in team fights as well - shutting down the strongest enemy damage output for a few seconds which does two things, the first is if they are dealing less damage your team should be winning the fight easier AND it does one really huge thing for us as Tryndamere players. Being that the ranged AD attacks the closest target, and deals the highest amount of damage in most teams, if they aren't attacking you or arent dealing any damage to you due to being exhausted - you can delay your ultimate a few extra seconds making your team fight presence absolutely ENORMOUS. This also helps us stick to targets who would otherwise kite us.

Ignite still has a place against many enemy laners such as vlad, irelia and warwick for example, but exhaust is feeling really good against a lot of other enemy laners and infinitely better in team fights regardless of composition.





Cleanse is very powerful on Tryndamere and is highly recommend if you choose Tryndamere early and then get a strong enemy counter pick such as nunu and leona. Against certain team compositions even a 6 item Tryndamere can't do anything in team fights depending on the enemy make up. In these scenarios we grab cleanse. It's also useful for purging the damage from ignites from people who still like to rely on the 1-2-3-ignite counter to Tryndamere.


This summoner spell is very strong during the lane phase and especially during tower dives. It gives us a much needed damage boost early and provides strong power for diving enemy carries in team fights which is generally your primary goal on Tryndamere since you offer little to zero team utility. If nothing else, you should always take ignite against the following top lanes - and consider taking ignite if the enemy jungle is . You can run ignite every lane if you'd like, I just prefer exhaust against most other top lanes since it's almost as good kill-wise and is infinitely better in every team fight that doesn't have any of those champions, it just as good if one of those champions is around (both spells are used to shut down key parts of a champions kit during team fights, be it damage or sustain)


I pretty much never think its a good idea to take flash on Tryndamere but some people wanna take it still and it's certainly better then some other summoners.. like surge.. or promote..

Uses Fury, gaining 5 per hit, 10 per crit, and 10 extra per kill.Fury decays at 5 Fury per second after being out of combat for 10 seconds.Battle Fury grants up to 35% Critical Chance, depending on how full his Fury bar is




All of Tryndamere's lane strength come's from this ability. You can pretty much only be aggressive while you have near full fury, capitalizing on this passive at early levels when possible can lead to really easy wins in top lane.


Below is an image showing the fury and the corresponding buff to your Stats Window.




Passive: He gains 5-20/10-30/15-40/20-50/25-60 Attack Damage depending on how wounded Tryndamere is

Active: Consumes all Fury to heal Tryndamere for .65/1.15/1.65/2.15/2.65 per Fury consumed

Cooldown 12 seconds



This is Tryndamere's primary sustain mechanic. It comes in handy more when you are losing lane then when you are winning. When you're winning lane your better off keeping your fury for the sake of being aggressive when opportunity arises. If you're losing lane you use this everytime it's off cooldown to try and stay alive long enough to get gold and turn things around.

When you use your ultimate, generally using this ability at the very last moment during your ultimate will give you a quick heal to allow you to either escape fights or to finish fighting it out with a 300 chunk of health. Never use this to heal during the duration of your ultimate until the very last moment for any reason. Ever.

Below is an image showing the bloodlust heal amount + particles to give you an idea how it looks.




Decreases surrounding champions' physical damage by 20 / 35 / 50 / 65 / 80, and enemies with their backs turned also have their movement speed slowed by 30 / 37.5 / 45 / 52.5 / 60%. Lasts 4 seconds.

Cooldown 14 seconds
Cost none
Range 400



This is used during straight up fights especially in lane to help you win trades when possible, alternatively used to chase enemies if you can win a trade without needing it in order to punish a failed attempt by the enemy laner. During mid game it's mostly used for chasing people in order to secure kills and in team fights it can be used to chase or reduce the enemy team's damage for a few seconds.

Below is a picture showing the Chicken Symbol that appears above an enemy when the slow is taking effect. Inside the radius shown, anyone - back turned or not - is hit by the AD reduction.




Tryndamere spins through his enemies, dealing 100% of his Attack Damage +70/100/130/160/190 (+120% of ability power) physical damage to enemies in his path.

Passive: Slash's cooldown is reduced by 2 sec whenever Tryndamere critically strikes.

Cooldown 13/12/11/10/9 seconds

Cost none

Range 660




This is Tryndamere's primary chasing tool and it's useful for trades in lane as well. If you spin into your opponent before starting a trade - you've committed to the trade but you get some decent spike damage out of this. Although it's nearly always recommended for utility/mobility purposes then anything else, if you're going to use it to commit to a fight at least make sure you spin through the enemy enough to deal damage with it. When losing lane especially to strong poke/engagements when you go in to last hit save this as much as possible for getting out without taking any harass or at least as little as possible.


Below is an image showing a level 1 spinning slash, the animation and particles as well as the radius of the damage.





Tryndamere becomes completely immune to death for 5 seconds, refusing to be reduced below 1 health. His abilities have no cost during this time and he gains 50 / 75 / 100 Fury.

Cooldown 110 / 100 / 90 seconds



The description for the ability is outdated but it essentially does what it says. You don't die during the duration and you gain fury rather then bloodlust.


This is your primary ability to grant you some amount of viability in fights without any defensive items. The biggest mistake most Tryndamere players make when using this ability is simply to cheat death. That's only half the idea. The real use for this ability is to cheat death in order to deal completely unregulated raw physical damage for a full 5 seconds. It's especially important in team fights to use the full duration in order to DEAL DAMAGE. Do not pop this ability then attempt to run away 2-3 seconds into it. That's not what it's for. This is your one and only chance to fulfill your role in fights. When you use this you're committed to whatever fight you're in.

Kill or be Killed.



Below is an image showing the instant boost to your fury that Undying Rage grants (started with zero fury) and the particles + buff icon to show your immune to death state for its duration.

Generally your skill order goes like this >>>

However you start with spinning slash at rank 1 in order to have the early mobility to press an advantage (Tryndamere's level 1 is stronger then a fair amount of champions) and in order to have safety against early level 2 jungle ganks.


Pretty much the only differentiation from this is if you prefer a lower cooldown/higher damage from spinning slash, you could level that over Mocking Shout early on but I generally recommend against this. However it may be better against AP enemies where the Attack Damage reduction has little benefit. However the stronger slow on mocking shout is nothing to overlook. Use your best judgement when deciding which to go for.

Pretty much the best choice for a starting item right now against any AD-based champ. It's sell back is one of the highest in the game so you lose 90 gold to gain an incredibly safer lane. If I don't take this it's cause im against ranged or AP.

The single most important item on Tryndamere early on. Movement speed to stick to and evade targets, attack speed to bolster his passive and take advantage of his AD steroid. It just boosts all his options for the least gold investment, get these early.

Strong choice for a later game pair of boots. You can sell the 'zerkers and switch to these later on if your team fight's not going to well based on enemy CC. Ideally we used to pick Tryndamere against teams without a ton of cc but the CC creep that league has suffered makes these boots more and more appealing every patch.

Your sustain items. Make cloth armor early if needed, it's great and has good sell back, but don't build wriggles. It's a waste and slows your core items down. If you need a lot of armor early, works towards a chain vest and make an early ga.

In season 3 these don't grant lifesteal as well as the sell-back amount has gone down so we lose more gold now - so they're even less appealing then they were before. I likely wont be making these pretty much ever.

Phantom dancer is now one of our core items, the ignore unit collision is absolutely HUGE for a melee carry. Keep in mind however that you want a BF Sword BEFORE you finish the phantom dancer, otherwise you'll be attacking fast and critting a lot but not for very much damage.

Ghostblade may be making a comeback for a really niche build idea I have. Will be updating this items usefulness in the near future.

People like to play split-push Tryndamere for one reason or another, i've globally accepted this and added the shiv into a core build of its own. It's a solid split push item and occasionally it's viable outside of that, generally I think Move Collision is the best stat to have from Tryndameres main ATS item, but Shiv useful for countering people who stack armor really early. You can grab a shiv and deal magic damage which helps. Just be aware that the later the game goes on the more this item falls off, its an early/mid game item for sure which is fine, mid game determines the outcome of games quite a lot.

Huge armor penetration but nothing else - because of this we usually build this only in response to what the enemy team is building. You may need to build this before finishing your Infinity Edge depending on what the enemy team is making, if not, it's almost always a necessity after the IE.

This item grants the highest possible boost to a single attack's damage. However it offers no attack speed, utility, movementspeed or armor penetration and the gold cost is incredibly high. It is now more realistic to build this earlier but you still want to finish PD first after getting your BF Sword, and if the enemy's are stacking armor you'll want LW before finishing this. The IE is still a late game luxury buy in most cases, but we'll be working towards it sooner than before simply due to the changes to Ghostblade.

It's pretty good but the AoE seems to be a lot weaker than I had anticipated. Bloodthirster or BoTRK are probably stronger options right now.

Still the best item for straight single-target damage on squishy champions. Grab this if you're able to get in melee range of the enemy carries during team fights.

New favorite lifesteal item if you're struggling with being kited. This will be better than the bloodthirster in terms of burst damage (has a sweet active/passive) and helps you stick to targets better, but the BT will still provide the most straight DPS and Lifesteal so if you aren't being kited out of effectiveness in team fights then skip this for the BT.


The rageblade is a surprisingly strong item on Tryndamere after they changed it up some. it's biggest weakness is the build path offers very little until you complete the item, but once the item is completed it's enormously powerful. It provides huge attack speed bonuses that Tryndamere wants, and grants him a large chunk of lifesteal once he falls below 50% health, this extra lifesteal helps us delay the use of our ultimate even further which is a pretty big deal. Beyond that, all the free AP isn't actually a wasted stat at all, spin benefits 1 to 1 ratio so you get a large chunk of damage there, and making your heal considerably stronger means you have even more of a presence than you used to after your ultimate ends seeing how you get healed for more from bloodlust with the AP and the lifesteal benefit doesnt go away until you leave combat. Super strong late game choice for Tryndamere now.


A mediocre item in terms of survival, you pay a lot for very little defensive bonus. The only reason for this item really is the on-hit slow. Think of it like having red buff at all times. It helps a ton at kite prevention but I'm not sure this is really the ideal item for most games. A possible usefulness but outshined by other items quite often.

A lot less attractive after the attack speed has been taken off it, it could be a possible 6th item but I don't see why it's better then any of the other options. Leave it to the supports for the most case.

Tryndamere with two lives is pretty scary. You can make this late game if you think it's a good choice. Sometimes the frozen mallet is better (against burst/ap damage) and sometimes the GA is better (against strong enemy AD carries).

A great endgame item for Tryndamere if the enemy team is saving hard CC's or exhausts for you, and the active now grants movespeed so you can catch up to people easier after being CC'd. That and the item now grants damage which means you dont actually have to let your DPS build suffer from making this now!

An absolutely fantastic late game addition. It's similar to the old 'Cloak and Dagger' only it provides movespeed, AD and a much larger amount of attack speed. You'll want to build this in response to either A) The enemy team is applying lots of crowd control to you in fights and you need a way to stick better or B) The enemy team is building items like Randuins and Frozen Heart in which case you'll want this for the AD/ATS to offeset that weakness. You can make this before IE depending how the game is going but you may want to wait until after last whisper since you should have your phantom dancer already.

General preferred enchanment. Not really worth making till super late game but it's decent. The main argument is whether to get this or Furor and my argument is this. The furor provides a movespeed boost that is much stronger than this, but only if you're in melee range and abilty to get an auto-attack off. Now here's the dilema, if you're in melee range you didn't need the movespeed to begin with. Thus when you're out of melee range - the time you need that movespeed to catch up - you simply cannot because you dont have the bonus or any way of attaining it. Thus Alacrity is my choice since the boost is always there.

There's three types of lanes Tryndamere can go against up top in terms of how he should spend his gold. These types are - Tanky/Sustain Melee, Squishy/Sustainless Melee, and Ranged/AP. Each of these classes of champions have different guidelines for how you want to spend your early gold - assuming you are doing well in each of these lanes.


Tanky/Sustain Melee

This first set of champions includes characters like .

Most of these types of champions will either build early armor to try and counter you, using their sustain mechanics in armor to be as unkillable as possible. It's not uncommon to see an early ninja tabi or even a chain vest from some of these champions. Others don't need lots of items to counter you and just live through the strength of their kits, such as Warwick or Lee Sin.

To combat these champions your early buys generally want to follow this format ->->->

The reason for this is we want a little bit of an early boost to our crit, and the AD from the BF Sword to make our trades incredibly strong. These items together allow us have much stronger trades against enemy champions, and we dont need an early zeal against these types because the movementspeed/attack speed benefits us less then some of the other stats we can have much faster.

Squishy/Sustainless Melee

This set of characters includes champions like .

Some of these lanes are easier to win than others, but thats another topic to discuss. For this set of champions however we need to itemize a little differently. Many of these can bully us really hard and quite a few of them have lots of mobility as well. However the lack of of sustain or general beefyness means that we make a few changes to our opening build to be successful.

Our item buys against this set should usually go ->-> OR then continue the build as normal.

The reason for this set is as follows. You go for the vamp scepter for the same as every lane, sustain, but you can build an early BF sword before finishing zeal if you think the flat damage boost against some of the squishier melees will pay off. Alternatively the zeal gives you the mobility to retaliate against more mobile champions if you feel you can successfully. Examples of Champions in this category are Gangplank, Riven, Darius, and Jayce.

Ranged/AP Champions

And the last set of champions includes characters like .

Against these types of champions they are a lot less tanky then others, but being ranged require mobility to get close to. Most of these deal ap damage so wriggles is usually out of the picture.

The general build you want to use against these is ->->-> .

The reasoning for this set of items is you want the early zeal to combat the fact that they are ranged. It will allow you to trade with them using your spin/slow and higher movement speed. Also they are less tanky so more raw crit/ats will generally yield more damage. When choosing between the brutalizer or phage, you just have to decide if they can kite you effectively still going phage will put an end to that getting you quite a few kills. If they cant kite you, abuse this fact with the AD to punish their already low armor and naturally squishier nature then their melee counterparts.


So You Wanna Go Split Push?

In this section, you kind of ignore who you're laning against and just go for a static build (no pun intended). The general idea is replace your . This is mostly so you can attack extremely fast, push quickly and take down towers quite fast. With the Shiv proc and the BoTRK Active you actually have a quite substantial amount of burst, and the shiv grants more movespeed than the PD does which makes you pushing in and out slightly more effective. The main disadvantage here is you lose AD and Crit so your raw damage vs champions is drastically lower, this is why these two items are good for split pushing, where ATS is the most important stat and crit/AD is slightly less, since you can't crit towers and Armor Pen doesn't work vs towers so a decently high AD amount attack fast is better than a crit heavy build with high AD attacking slower.

You can also mix together for a build that's somewhere in the middle, the burst damage from shiv and the High AD from BT means your late game wont be that far behind a standard build and in some ways its just as good vs champions such as people with high armor and low MR, the shiv proc works nicely.





For standard build users :

Beyond these things as a general rule of thumb you almost ALWAYS want to make a B.F. Sword BEFORE finishing your zeal. So you're items should look like Finishing the bloodthirster next before the PD is ideal in most scenarios.

After that is done you just have to react to what they're making, if they're all squishy? Go IE. If they're building armor? Get that LW. If they are building items like randuins and frozen heart? Step on the gas and crank out a zephyr.

Late game you just have to decide between if you want Mercurial Scimitar or Zephyr for tenacity or if you think you'd be better off having Guardian Angel, these all come down to the exact game you're in so you'll just have to use your best judgement.

I've had a lot of inquires about what to build on Tryndamere generally speaking after your core items are done. Believe it or not there is actually quite a fair amount of depth here to look into.

We'll assume for all of the following practices, that you have these items already :


After you've finished your core as listed above, there are 4 key item routes you may want to head into next. These possible routes are . So how do you decide which of these routes to go? Well let me break it down for you.

I'm going to start with the more obvious items first and work the way to the less obvious items last.


Last Whisper Route : This is probably the most common route after you've finished your core. Most players have finished or are finishing their core items as well and around this time people start to finally throw in some defenses to their builds, the natural response is to counter their defensive investment with an item that lets us bypass a large majority of those defenses. You will make this as your fourth item in most of your games.

Zephyr Route : This is actually my favorite route to go for a 4th buy. Enemy CC got you down? Are they building Attack speed slow items? Do you just flat out want to stick to targets better with more movespeed and CDR for your utility abilities? This is just an amazing buy all around and is usually the one I go for as long as the enemy isn't stacking armor on important targets (enemy carries) and doesn't have lots of defensive auras (taric, bulwark, soraka heal, similar armor steroids).

Infinity Edge Route : This is less common than Last whisper and Zephyr combined, The extremely high price tag is mostly to blame for that one. When the stars align and nobody builds defenses and you're either doing well or getting flat out fed, then you pick up one of these and more or less end the game (spoiler alert : your team won). It's rare that you make this as anything but your very final item, but it does come as early as the 4th item in some cases.

Guardian Angel Route : This is the least common route simply because you usally want damage or attack speed or armor pen before a GA similar defense item but there are some games where you need an early defense buy and GA is more or less the only strong defensive buy on Tryndamere over all. Merc. Scimitar is kind of, but it just doesnt match the defensive power that GA gives. Just be aware that you will almost 100% want LW/IE as your final two items which means by building an early GA you give up the flexibility of having Zephyr/scimitar or other strong final items, and giving up flexibility in build path is not something I like to do which is usually why I shelve early GA unless our front line absolutely HAS to be as tanky as possible at this stage of the game in order to win (this scenario usually comes up against teams which run highly tanky champions in all roles, think urgot comps, cho'gath mid which tankymen top lane, or beefmode champions like shen/rammus or similar who can just stack defenses with no recourse).

//////////// Occasionally you see some of the enemy Ranged AD's in top lane. Due to Tryndamere's kit, especially his low cooldown gap closer and his W he can very easily out lane enemy ranged AD Carries. He deals more damage with less items earlier, has sustain, lowers enemy damage and his better mobility. If played right you can easily overcome most enemy Ranged AD's in top lane.

You can win this early, otherwise the match often turns into a stalemate until cho'gath has Frozen Heart which many often rush. When Cho gets his frozen heart he can become very aggressive with little you can do until your core is done, but until that point it's essentially a free lane for Tryndamere.

If you manage to bait her Parry ability this lane is quite easy. Your crits hit harder then anything she can dish out and your Ultimate lasts longer then hers and is easier for you to counterplay hers then it is for her to counterplay yours. You can flat out ignore her or press an advantage if you start early.

Early he's really difficult but if you make it to level 4 without doing anything silly you very quickly start winning this lane. Spin -> W forces him to orange or take lots of damage quite often so it's easy to force him to go OOM and very quickly and without mana Gangplank has no significance in lane to you.

You win this due to having sustain and him not as well as his abilities having health cost attached to them. If you can bait his W then back off you can get hyper-aggressive when it's on cooldown and often kill morde very quickly. Careful tower diving due to his ult dealing damage for quite a long time even after he dies, but otherwise it's basically a no-risk lane.

You can stop nasus from farming early, farm hard yourself and press a huge advatange. However the longer the game goes the harder this matchup becomes and honestly - even a zero item nasus can make you completely useless during your ultimate thus making even a 6 item Tryndamere lacking QSS or Cleanse zero threat to his team. Be aware of this in champion select before choosing Tryndamere to fight a nasus.

Easy to farm this lane without looking back and he's an easy kill before he gets catalyst. He's annoying mid/late game but it's possible to keep him from ever becoming a problem as Tryndamere.

Contrary to popular belief, you can get aggressive against vlad early and win this lane incredibly easier *if* you play it out properly. Force his pool as much as possible without over committing then go hard-in-the-paint when it's on cooldown. Never dive vlad if his pool is up unless 1 or 2 hits + ignite can do the job. Beginner to intermediate Tryndamere players may not have much success here but Veteran or Master Tryndamere players can have quite the field day with vlad provided you bring wards.






You win this matchup early, but after she's level 6 she can punish you really hard if you commit to a fight you can't win. Even an akali who is behind can come back quite easily if you get too aggressive. Bait her shroud as much as possible otherwise there's no point even walking into melee range here.

This one depends on the Garen but it can go either way. My primary advice is if you're silenced and taking damage from his Spin.. TURN AND AUTO ATTACK HIM! Always be dealing damage to him if he's dealing damage to you and you can't use your Spinning Slash to evade him. Also attempt to keep his passive down and you can take a slow-victory here if you keep his primary sustain mechanic from coming up.

You can win early but if Irelia goes early ninja tabi + chain vest it's pretty much over in terms of trades. You'll lose most trades once she has some armor built up and most irelias rush a phage and can punish you quite nicely if you're losing trades. Do your best to bait her true damage and evade her during the duration. Turn on her when it's down and use your mocking shout to fight her on your terms as much as possible. This can go either way - it's really less about what you do and more about how many mistakes irelia makes or her item choices.

This lane is in kennens favor but you can farm here without too much difficulty and in some cases even kill the kennen, but it isn't easy. It relies mostly on forcing his speedboost then getting aggressive when it's on cooldown. Same as most champions in this category, it's all about baiting their cooldowns then going in when they are down.

A good lee will never die to you. But you never have to die to lee either. This lane is a really intense stalemate, requiring proper pace from both players at all stages but it is easier for lee then you, but outside of that it's just 100% stalemate if both players make little to no mistakes.

He has better burst trades than you, but you can counter this by realizing his sustained trades are really weak early and Tryndamere's are much stronger. If he comes in to hit you with stuff, counter that by jumping on him for a few seconds and giving it all you got. Try to save spin to escape though, you want to ditch out before his true damage is up for a 2nd time which should ensure you come out ahead.

Renekton trades hard, and his 1-3 is better then yours. At level 4 if you can get your W up before his combos you (hard but not impossible) and then chase him down with your spin when he retreats from trades (assuming full or near full fury) you can abuse his long cooldowns and turn what was otherwise free damage for renekton into a very strong trade for you. Most renektons rush damage as well so you don't have to worry about early armor most cases here.

If you let riven do the aggression and evade her abilities as much as possible (her movement is predictable once she makes any sign of committing to a trade) you can punish her hard for 3-4 seconds when her abilities go on cooldown by retaliating with a quick W/E into a few crits. You have sustain, she doesn't. Her trades are better but you can win over time with proper play.

Can go either way depending on who builds what when and how fast, but it's safe to say the longer the match goes on Warwick becomes a real threat to you in team fights - if he so chooses. Also his natural item build includes Frozen Heart which is a direct counter.

Yorick wins early, you turn it around after getting some lifesteal. Frustrating lane but it isn't unwinnable by any stretch of the imagination. Just stay resilient.






This lane is not easy, his trades are huge and he has an attackspeed/movement speed debuff. But he has no mobility and your ultimate counters his. If you can bait his abilities often enough you can win this lane but it's in his favor and very very sensitive, especially early - he bullies hard early.

Elise is pretty annoying, she's got really powerful poke and can dodge your tower dives with her spider jump ability in most cases. You can farm against her but you pretty much have to play super passive here.

Similar to darius, his presence early. As the game goes on you win with a few items, but he can stop you from ever getting any items depending how he plays. One of the more difficult lanes - you're useless until 6 and even then you have little safety in this lane.

You can never get aggressive due to his huge damage knockback and he can ranged poke you all day. He killable levels 1-4 if you can get to him during his cooldown on hammer/cannon switch but as the lane goes on this just gets harder.

You can win early if you get hyper aggressive as quickly as possible with some fury but if you don't RnG a lane victory early expect to play really passive once kayle is level 4, oh and I'd recommend not diving kayle since she has an ultimate thats actually better than yours for stopping incoming damage.

Large ranged poke, sustain and huge kiting ability. It can be won and it's easier then some others on this list but if you play too careless level 1-4 you can easily be made useless in the first 5 minutes here.

There's pretty much zero reason for you to ever win this lane but occasionally you can farm, but that's still rare. This probably deserves to be under the below impossible section, but ive heard tales of Tryndamere's beating rumble - though I can't say its probably possible.

You can't kill him if he's any decent and he's strong against you in team fights. You can farm this lane but it's aggravating the entire way through - and not easy.





Counters all parts of your kit at all stages of the game.

Counters all parts of your kit at all stages of the game.

Too much damage and safety. You can't even get in range due to his slow/snare also being huge damage nukes and once he's level 6 - forget about it. You'll never kill this guy and rarely get much farm.

Blinds, ranged, and movespeed steroids + stealthed slow mines. Teemos got aids.

Tiger stance is incredibly strong and there's not much viable counter play against udyr as Tryndamere. He deals solid amounts of both damage type, runs faster, has better sustain and has hard CC. Not much to be said here other then, if you can farm consider yourself lucky.

Game Over.

Early on your largest priority is to farm the lane/creeps as much as possible. You need more gold then most characters to be useful but you scale much better then most characters too. I'll cover lane matchups in another section but just understand the general lane phase of Tryndamere goes like this..



Against most ranged Champions - they poke you from the start and its an uphill battle almost the entire way. Around level 9 things alleviate some, but the earliest levels are the hardest. Levels 1-4 are the most crucial here, you need to avoid losing the lane flat out at this stage or there's no going back most cases.


Against most melee champions it's about the reverse. If you can set yourself up for a strong level 1-4 you can often times kill most enemy melee champions just by abusing your passive as much as possible, if Neither Tryndamere nor the Enemy laner manage to secure an advantage between levels 1-4 the lane is often either a stalemate or the enemy laner quickly takes the lead. Rarely does it go in Tryndamere's favor if levels 1-4 go really even.

The lane mechanics for Tryndamere change multiple times depending on what level you and the opposing laner are, i'll explain that in another section below.



Your level 1 should generally look like this before you leave fountain. You may base at 1:30 to buy a 4th pot at 1:40 if your jungler doesn't need help to bolster your early game sustain.

During Tryndamere's lane phase he has a few basic lane mechanics to keep in mind.


Level's 1-5

Generally during the earliest levels most opponents can bully you. However if you're against a melee opponent, or a ranged opponent with a weak early game there's a small window for Tryndamere to win the lane from the start at levels 1-2.

This trick involves getting some quick fury and pushing the lane just a little bit to allow you to hit level 2 before your opponent. When you have at least half fury try to abuse the enemy laner by attacking them when they go in for a last hit, simply walking up to a melee enemy or spinning into a ranged opponent. Attack them then walk in the direction of their escape route, attack them and repeat. If you can land 2~ crits during this phase you can often win the lane right then and there due to them having to blow around 2 pots early on which leaves you with 2-3 still (depending on if you used 1 during your trade which is highly recommended by the way if the enemy laner retaliates at all.)

If the enemy laner is someone really strong early on like Jarvan, Garen etc I do not recommend trying this technique as they can punish you a lot harder if you don't crit and since we're working with RNG the risk is usually better left at home against some of the more difficult laners.

Outside of this, most enemy laners can usually abuse you pretty hard during this stage if they don't have a weak early so if they fall under this category do your best to last hit and let them push the creeps in your wave, it's always safer farming near your tower then theirs.

Levels 6-9

Around this time you should have picked up boots 2 + vamp scepter, maybe some extra pots and wards. Here you have a little more potential to be aggressive depending on what the enemy laner built. If they come back with double dorans and pots/wards you're good to be aggressive when you have fury built up and you can even tower dive during this stage with ghost + ignite if you play it right.

However, if the enemy laner comes back with Ninja Tabi on first base which is pretty common sadly, or comes back with a chain vest on first base you're better off farming more then anything. If you're on purple side don't be afraid to do double golems if your jungler isn't around to do them, its harass free gold/xp if you have a vamp scepter.

Around level 9 you reach your peak sustain - you can usually spam Q at this point and stay in lane for good periods of time even if you can't trade with your opponent. Keep in mind you still have to play smart but farming here is the easiest time of the lane phase.

Levels 10->xx

At this point the lane phase can end at any time depending on what team is taking what tower in what lane. Conversely and unfortunately this is our strongest part of the lane phase because by this time were usually working with which gives us good aggressive potential against most enemy laners if they don't have ninja tabi/chain vest combo too early.

At this stage all you want to do is finish your as fast as you can. Your mid-game presence with those items is incredibly scary. You hit hard, you hit fast. You run fast, you chase hard - and you don't fear turrets. You can snowball your team to victory really easily during this phase or at least build yourself a ton of gold in order to get the next parts of your build (refer to above section about item progression).

If you're still laning during this phase you can pretty much just tower dive anyone 1 on 1 if you have ghost/ignite up. The only exceptions to this is they have an early (champions like might have this) or (champions like might have this). Unforunately Frozen Heart and Randuins/Wardens Mail usually prevents you from flat out running over opponenets with these items until you build a little more damage. The wardens because it makes it easy to kite you due to its proc being as effective as you getting hit with a phage - only it slows your attack speed too. And frozen heart due to the always-up-ats slow and the raw enourmous armor boost. The CDR also helps the enemy defensive cooldowns which allows them to peel you more often.

When the lane phase ends, simply refer to the sections below about the different stages of the game.

If you haven't completed your core items during the early stages of the mid game you mostly want to push towers and farm as best as you can. Other tops can help their team secure objectives like dragon and make strong plays but without your core items you can't do a whole lot just roaming around.

Once you complete your core items feel free to pressure objectives, other lanes, dragon and even try to pick enemy champions off when you can. You are at your most deadly during the game during this phase if you managed to get your core items during a respectable amount of time (Talking like 25~ minutes and you got everything core.)

Wards as incredibly useful here because of your ability to chase here and due to your ult it's not uncommon to enter a 1v1 or 1v2 situation and escape with an easy kill. In some scenarios you can even 1v2 and get both or 1v3 and get at least one before dying.

The only thing I can really suggest for you to try and do here is when you core items are finished you have huge chasing diving and damage potential. Try to snowballs your lanes as much as possible, roam around and come from out of their jungle or behind their turrets (such as walking around purple side blue buff and circling down to bottom lane then diving their ad/support with the help of your bottom lane. They wont see it coming.) and do whatever you can to secure kills or take towers.

Tryndamere isn't particularly good at forcing dragons due to low CC and no ranged poke, but he's really strong at forcing people off towers for your team to take due to huge diving safety with his ultimate .

There primary thing to focus on as Tryndamere in late game is to play passively behind your teams movement or push lanes depending on how much vision you have at this stage. Ideally your team will have wards in key locations (river, wraiths, baron, buff lizards) and this should allow you to roam around the map farming up your final items.

Alternatively, if you feel you are able you can push lanes. Tryndamere is an excellent pusher and he makes for a great back-door champion as well. Push down creep waves if you feel you are able to pressure and take towers or set your team up for baron. Conversely, if your team has an inhibitor down Tryndamres raw damage output makes him great as defending lanes with super minions. You can use Tryndamere to gain map control at this stage as long as you have appropriate vision from wards and team mates around the map. Just be weary about face checking brushes and avoid going bottom lane for extended periods if baron is up.

Outside of this, remember to stay grouped with your team as much as possible but let the initiatiors be the ones in front. At any moment a fight could break out and you do not want to be the one to enter the fight first!

Unfortunately there isn't a ton to say about that late game itself due to Tryndamere's pretty two-dimensional design outside of the team fights which i will cover elsewhere.

Tryndamere's primary role in team fights are as follows

• Allow your team to do the primary initiating/play making.
• Enter the fight at an opportune time, however do not wait *too* long. Try to make it in after some important CC cooldowns have been blown which usually occurs at the start of most team fights. Enter the fight from a flank point to best throw off the enemy positioning as diving head first rarely works.
• Absorb a large chunk of damage from the enemy team due to your cheat-death mechanic.
• Dive/pressure the enemy carries as much as possible. They're the squishiest and most important targets and Tryndamere's kit is perfect for in-your-face attempts to ice them as quickly as is possible.
• Make sure to abuse the FULL FIVE SECONDS of your ultimate. The least successful Tryndamere's that I or anyone has ever seen are the Tryndamere's who fear death. If you die in a team fight as Tryndamere it's okay. You want to die - because that means you wrecked as much free havoc as possible during your golden moments. Tryndamere's play style is not passive, you make those 5 seconds count or you pick another champion if you can't handle that responsibility.
• After the duration of your ultimate if a clear opportunity presents itself you can attempt to escape the team fight, however you can often get 1 or 2 more auto attacks off with the 300 health you gain back from using bloodlust, and you often die to ignite after leaving a team fight anyway due to the common counterplay of igniting you halfway through your ultimate. If either of these factors seem to be holding true, it's often best to just stay and deal a few more hits. I've gotten quite a few kills AFTER my ultimate ends simply because you often deal so much damage that the 300 health buffer can be enough to give you the time for one or two more attacks, depending on who is left in the fight and your stats like lifesteal,etc you can even sustain yourself afterwards if their primary damage dealers are out of the fight.
• A final reiteration on the first point. Do not initiate any fights and never be the first one or two people into the fray. You'll often get hit with some sort of CC during your ultimate but having to blow your ultimate before the fight even gets going means you're often dead before having been able to do anything meaningful due to having been caught in the initial burst/initiation from the enemy team which rarely if ever isn't enough to lock you down to a state of powerlessness.

Replay 1
Matchup : Vs
Game Outcome : Victory
Link : http://www.twitch.tv/marinerevenge/b/380186040

Replay 2
Matchup : Vs
Game Outcome : Victory
Link : http://www.twitch.tv/marinerevenge/b/380214983

Thanks for viewing my Tryndamere Guide, I plan to expand and modify this guide as time goes on as I see fit. Over the last 1.5-2 years i've been maining Tryndamere i've changed my runes/masteries/items/play styles quite often as I find better options to combat the trends of the meta and to best suit what I feel provides the largest success.

Leave any feedback or questions and i'll do my best to address all of them.




Happy killing,
MarineRevenge