With the 2017 preseason underway, the landscape and meta of Summoner's Rift has once again gone through a big overhaul. One of the highlights of these preseason changes include the updates to the assassin class, with eleven total assassins getting touches to their kits. With a combination of the assassins being one of the more frustrating classes to go up against, and an abundance of players wanting to try out the new changes, it is only logical that learning how to play against assassins is imperative to surviving the preseason. While individual champions require unique counters in close fights, there are global rules when it comes to fighting against specific types of champion classes and assassins are no different.

Before talking about what to do against assassins, it is important to learn what exact role assassins serve to their teams and which strengths and weaknesses they play with in order to fulfill that role. Key advantages that assassins take advantage of is their mobility, high burst and snowball potential. These advantages help assassins fulfill their role of catching out and assassinating high-priority targets caught out of position such as the enemy's marksman or mage, meaning that you cannot let your guard down against them and traditionally cannot thrive against them in a one versus one. By nature, assassins play much more aggressive than most others so it is imperative that you have a solid understanding of the macro game so that you can stay one step ahead of them, and deny them of pushing their natural advantages. If you are playing a tanky champion you do not have to worry as much, but if you are a squishy mage or marksman then the pressure is on you to stay alert.

As stated, assassins excel in mobility, meaning that they traditionally can get from one play to another faster than you whether it's the usage of gap closers, movement speed buffs or boots of mobility (Many AD assassin items now also come with bonus out-of-combat movement speed to aid in this). This especially gives them the edge in the jungle and early-game roams. In the early game it is crucial to keep an eye on your minimap for when they disappear from lane, especially if they have the minion wave shoved to your teammate's tower. If the assassin is a laner they may traditionally run down the river while junglers might take more advantage of their own entrances to their side of the jungle, so ward accordingly. If an assassin is missing and there is a threat of them being on your side of the map, it is more than in your best interest to back off and stay near your tower. The assassin playstyle is balanced around the player trying to catch people out of position, so if you are caught out of position then the tables are suddenly turned in their favour. This especially becomes true once you are in the jungle, as assassins suddenly have many more walls to play around to try to flank you with. Since the assassins excel at mobility, your answer is to play defensive to diminish their windows of opportunity- recognize how fast an assassin can get to you and what angle they would prefer to jump to you on. However this does not always mean tower hug- if an assassin is ganking you while you are pushed to your tower, the two versus one tower dive is still very possible. In situations like this is it better to back off and let them pressure your tower. While it is not easy to watch a tower go away, it is better to just give them the tower instead of both the tower and yourself. When it comes to the late game, it is just as simple as staying grouped with your team- there are few things an assassin dislikes more than trying to jump onto a target only to get exhausted or hit with chains of crowd control.

Below are maps that show the traditional assassin flanking routes in the early game for ganks (Assuming that there is no possibility of a marksman or support being an assassin, so we're ignoring bot lane twitch in this scenario). This map also ignores lane ganks, so be careful of those too. The standard pattern you should expect to see from assassins is that they like to get you from the side or behind instead of charging in alongside their team. The red squares represent wards you should put down if you are trying to counter red-side assassins and vice versa. Keep in mind that this is a lot of theorycrafting, and any gank from a jungler or laner can go in quite literally any direction they so choose, especially if they are intentionally bypassing any wards they are aware of you putting down. Control wards are perfect to put on the defensive side as anyone trying to clear them is putting themselves at risk of being collapsed on by yourself and/or your team. Save the offensive warding spots for your yellow and blue trinkets.

The oversimplified version is ward the river and the entrances to your jungle

We also mentioned how assassins excel at high burst. Acknowledging the traditional rock-paper-scissors of poke beating burst, burst beating sustain and sustain beating poke, a good solid sieging, poke or teamfight composition can really help keep an assassin pinned down. However on a more micro level, a safer pick with the likes of shields, poke or disengage are brutally effective when dealing with assassins. Poke especially is good in this case, as an assassin's play pattern is more emphasized on the all-in potential. If you are able to poke them or consistently beat them in trades, then the assassin is less likely to go for the kill as it becomes too risky for them. An assassin's kit is high on burst but Riot Games has been putting much more emphasis on creating outplay potential in their kits. This means that their burst is not typically all at once and as such leaves room for them to be attacked in return while they are still executing their combos. Do not forget that although assassins prey on squishy targets, in most situations they themselves are squishy as well. Do not try to play the all-in game against them unless that also happens to the nature of your champion- keep them off at a distance and do not let them pick the right fights. Keeping at a distance is especially effective because more damage-oriented kits excel really well when someone is ganking for them, as the damage makes up for their lack of reliable crowd control. Also play further into this advantage by building tanky- early Negatron Cloaks, Glacial Shrouds, Seeker's Armguards and the likes are all important when facing assassins. It is important to still be able to do damage, but against assassins your main objective is to just survive and starve them of opportunities to get their executions. If you succeed on doing that while still staying caught up or ahead in farm, especially in the early game, then it makes the game much easier for the rest of your team.

The last point of the three mentioned in our second paragraph is that assassins are very good at snowballing. Their snowball comes from a combination of their high burst and mobility. In a perfect scenario for an assassin, they are able to get their execution onto a target, cash in the gold for better items, and then do it again but even stronger. While this is the ideal way for anyone wanting to snowball their games, assassins do it better than anyone else. This again is partially due to the nature of their damage-oriented kits, where they want to pick favourable fights. So even if you get caught out and then later decide to play safe, you will notice that each kill you have given the assassin scales harder in their favour than other champions in the game would on the implication that they aren't completely sacrificing all of their farm to do it. As far as League of Legends is concerned, getting kills is one of the most "selfish" things that a player can do in a game. However, the point of assassins is to build a team composition around either taking the numbers advantage after they execute someone, or setting them up to do all the damage after trapping them with hard crowd control. They also can be quite the nuisance in teamfights when instead of having to kite out a tank or bruiser, backlines find themselves having to deal with a nimble fighter jumping around all over the place. Try to remember that although one of the primary counters to assassins is grouping up with teammates, assassins are equally able to take advantage of their own teammates as well so do not just assume that by grouping up against an assassin you have won the game. In a fight of Marksman and Support versus a Tank and an Assassin, the pattern is still being followed where the damage threats are more focused on dealing the damage while the other player simply helps out. Grouping up simply reduces the assassin's chances of taking an advantage, it does not mean that it completely blocks them out of it. If that were the case, then assassins would never be picked. At the same time, a properly played fight by an assassin can help them come back into a losing game harder than other classes.

If you like to play your marksman or other squishy characters, chances are you have played a game where an assassin has run rampant on you and deleted your healthbars whenever they had the chance. It is perfectly normal to be aggravated from this as no one likes seeing their healthbar drop so quickly, since it feels like you are put in a hopeless situation that you had no chance of winning anyways. However with the game continuously evolving, more strategies of counterplay get introduced to many win conditions of the game and assassins are no exception. With tankier build patches, grouping and defensive warding or positioning, you are in a very prime situation to counter the assassins that are thrown your way this preseason- you just have to execute afterwards.

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