There is nothing more frustrating for a melee top laner in League of Legends than laning against an oppressive ranged champion. If you ever walk up to fight them, they will take half your health before you do any damage to them. If you use your mobility ability to get onto them, they can self-peel and harass you with a dozen autos as you walk back to safety. If you don't play aggressive, you will get poked out of the lane. So what do you do? In this article, I will give some tips to help make these melee versus ranged matchups easier. But, it's important to remember that with two equally skilled players, the ranged champion will usually come out on top during the laning phase unless you get a lot of jungle help or they misplay frequently. Keep in mind that these tips aren't to win lane, but to make them more even and manageable.

Runes and Starter Items

Making these matchups easier can start even before you load into the Rift. Once you recognize that you are going to be laning against a ranged champion, you often want to change a few minor runes or even the keystone. The most common ranged top laners are Teemo, Quinn, and Vayne. Teemo and Quinn are almost always played top. Vayne top can be recognized if they have another ADC who doesn't play any other lane (Ashe, MF, Ezreal, etc). There will always be curveballs especially in lower elos, so just watch out for that.

The Resolve rune tree helps a lot with sustaining through early game poke. Although Bone Plating is the most common choice in the Resolve tree, I don't recommend taking that because the enemy can easily proc it with a single auto, rendering it useless for the next 45 seconds. A better option, Second Wind, heals you based on your missing health after taking damage from a champion. Another common resolve rune is Demolish. In melee versus ranged top matchups, you will likely be under your own tower for much of the laning phase, which makes Demolish useless until later in the game when you are split pushing. Instead, if you want something scaling but with a little more lane presence, I recommend Overgrowth which gives you bonus HP after killing minions.

Here is an example rune page that still offers scaling through Conqueror but with more early sustain with Second Wind and Overgrowth.

If you think you are in for a really rough time, you can take a rune page similar to this that doesn't scale nearly as well but should keep you alive in the laning phase if you play safely.

Many top laners such as Camille, Fiora, and Wukong generally start with a Doran's Blade. While this is a great option into melee champions to get early kills with, it doesn't provide much sustain besides the 3% life steal. A better option is Corrupting Potion or Doran's Shield. With the Doran's Shield buffs this season, it is a great item in tandem with Second Wind which nullifies a lot of poke that ranged champions offer. Corruption Potion is great on champions like Jax that struggle with mana issues but have a good defensive ability like his Counterstrike. If you feel like you need more sustain, you can always buy a Doran's Blade on your first back as they are some of the most gold efficient items in the game.

Track Cooldowns

Most ranged top laners have at least one ability that makes them especially annoying to play against, besides their range. Quinn has her E, which knocks her away from the target enemy. Teemo has his Q which blinds the target, preventing them from auto-attacking for about 2 seconds. Vayne has her E which knocks the target back, stunning them if they are knocked into terrain. The one thing all these abilities have in common is that they have high level 1 cooldowns, and are the second or even third abilities maxed. When I am playing Jax for example, I will often jump onto Teemo with my Q just to bait out his blind. Then once, my Q cooldown is back up, I jump on him with my E, preventing him from autoing me and stunning him after. Since ranged champions are very squishy, one or two all-ins is usually enough to kill them. Similar methods can be used to play around Vayne's E, Condemn, which is on a 20 second CD and Quinn's E, Vault, which is on a 12 second CD. If you can catch them off-guard and get into melee range, you will usually win the fight.

Counter Picks

The saying, "fighting fire with fire," applies to ranged top laners as well. One of the best picks into Vayne and Teemo is Quinn. Quinn's Q, Blinding Assault, blinds the first enemy hit for 1.75 seconds, preventing them from auto-attacking you unless you are very close to them. Vayne and Teemo rely on auto-attacks to take down their enemies. You also can roam with your ultimate much quicker than other champions and come back to lane without missing too many minions. If you decide to pick up Quinn, it is important to play aggressive early as almost no top laner can match your early game damage with ignite.

Another easier, more straightforward counter-pick into Quinn and Vayne is Malphite. He has all the tools in his kit to obliterate these champions. He stacks armor, which is great into Quinn and Vayne. His Q steals movement speed which allows him to kite away. His E reduces the attack speed of nearby enemies which is what Quinn and Vayne rely on. Lastly, if he builds AP, his infamous ult can one-shot both of them if he is fed enough.

Jungle Assistance

Since ranged top laners have lane priority for much of the laning phase, they are often pushed into your tower so they can harass you while you try to farm. This creates great opportunities for your jungler to gank them. As soon as you realize you are playing against a ranged top laner in champion select, tell your jungler that top is going to be an easy lane to gank. During the game, ping your lane asking if they can gank and hope your jungler recognizes that opportunity. When your jungler comes to gank, there a few important things to remember. Since these ranged top laners (Quinn, Teemo, Vayne) can only peel off of one target, the opponent has to pick either you or your jungler. Also, due to their nature, they are very squishy and rarely build any tank/bruiser items. So if your jungler ganks, you are almost guaranteed to either get the kill or blow their Flash. If you get their Flash, tell your jungler to gank again sometime in the next five minutes. If you are able to kill them, you can help your jungler take Rift Herald so you can take the top tower quickly and end the laning phase.

Since the name of the game versus ranged top laners is out scaling and being more useful in team fights, any early advantage you can secure with your jungler accelerates that process.

Watch VODS of High Elo Gameplay

One of the best ways to learn matchups and macro, in general, is watching players better than you. Thankfully, almost every matchup in the top lane has been recorded and posted on websites such as Youtube. Since most of these matchups have been played in a very high elo match (GM, Challenger), the players you will be playing against will certainly be worse. If you watch these VODS and pick up on even just a few key details, it can make the difference between you winning or losing lane/the game. Just search the matchup, Darius vs Teemo for example, and click on any full VOD.

Conclusion

While these tips will help make your laning phase easier, it is still hard to win lane in these matchups due to the nature of the game. The more you play these matchups, the easier it gets to survive and take advantage of any mistake the opponent makes. If you do fall behind in kills, it is ok to give up your tower and CS because as long as you keep farming, you will usually be more useful as the game progresses.