Chernobog is one of the standout gods from the Smite Summer Finals LAN. He was the newest god available to that tournament and had quite the showing. At first glance, his tournament stats don’t seem that impressive, but he really shined when played by the best of the best. Chernobog is a flexible god that can influence a fight from anywhere. In this article, we will analyze Chernobog’s kit and tournament performance to see how much of a nightmare the Lord of Darkness really is.

Chernobog is a Hunter built around high damage abilities and basic attacks. His abilities have high scalings and his kit benefits from attack speed. Chernobog is able to make the most out of any Hunter build due to how much of his kit scales from every stat.

 Chernobog’s passive is called Heart of Cold. Every basic attack on an enemy generates a stack on the target. At 3 stacks, the Heart of Cold explodes, dealing a portion of Chernobog’s basic attack damage. At level 20, the AoE deals 35% of a basic attack to all nearby enemies. Over time, this can add up to several attacks worth of damage.

Heart of Cold scales off of power and attack speed. The more damage each basic attack does, the more the passive will explode for. In addition, the faster you can stack Heart of Cold, the more often it triggers. Chernobog’s passive may feel boring because it just deals additional damage, but it has meaningful impact while laning and fighting.

 Chernobog’s first ability is Crystallized Curses. Chernobog throws a Crystal on the targeted area dealing some damage and after three seconds, the Crystal explodes, dealing damage again and rooting all targets caught. Each part of the ability has 80% scaling, so the ability has a total of 160% scaling, which is a lot for a single ability. Three seconds is a long enough time for someone to move out of the area of the blast, but the root and second instance of damage can be triggered early by hitting the Crystal with Vicious Barrage.

Crystallized Curses is the ability to take at level one because the high damage it can deal to the minion wave. Combined with Heart of Cold, Chernobog has strong minion clear and pressure in the early laning phase.

 Vicious Barrage is Chernobog’s next ability. He shoots out a line projectile that penetrates targets and does damage as basic attack to each target, proccing effects such as Qin’s Sais and crit. The projectile adds a stack of Heart of Cold to all targets hit and will detonate Crystallized Curses if it passes through the Crystal.

Still, the most important part of Vicious Barrage is the attack speed steroid it grants Chernobog. At max rank, it provides 60% attack speed for 5 seconds. The attack speed increases the potency of his passive, as he is able to stack up and proc Heart of Cold much faster. Vicious Barrage can be used at the start of a fight for 5 seconds of great DPS or held to root a target with a Crystallized Curses combo.

 Into Darkness is Chernobog’s mobility skill. When used out in the open, Into Darkness is a short dash that deals damage and slows. When Into Darkness collides with a wall, Chernobog becomes untargetable and invulnerable. He can hide in the wall for up to three seconds. When the ability is reactivated or times out, Chernobog dashes out of the wall, slowing and dealing damage again.

While invulnerable, Chernobog is even immune to effects that had locked onto him, such as an Ares ultimate. Once invulnerable, you can control the direction you dash as you exit the wall. Chernobog can double dash for extended distance if he hits a wall and immediately pops out. Into Darkness is a versatile move that can be used to make up ground, retreat, or dodge spells in the middle of a fight.

 Chernobog’s ultimate is called Living Nightmare. Chernobog summons shadows that follow each enemy for 8 seconds and applies a slow to each of them that ramps up to 20%. Chernobog also flies into the air, becoming untargetable and gaining global vision of enemies. Chernobog can then fly to one of his shadows. Once he lands, the cooldowns on his other abilities are reset and he gains 30% movement speed, up to 40% mitigation, and every basic attack procs an explosion of Heart of Cold for 6 seconds.

Because Chernobog flies to one of his shadows and not directly to the enemy god, mobility skills can create distance between a god and the shadow following them, making it harder for Chernobog to catch up. However, the map-wide slow makes it hard for them to lose the shadows.

Living Nightmare has many uses. Chernobog can split push and then join a team fight when needed or to bait and strand enemies away from the fight. Chernobog can also fly in to kill someone split pushing. Another common use of Living Nightmare is to fly in mid team fight after backing or respawning. Chernobog does not have to fly to his shadows. He can fly up, see that all enemies are grouped up and just land right down or ult mid fight for the invulnerability and land right back down to disengage. Living Nightmare can be used in a variety of creative ways.

Chernobog has a very powerful and intricate kit.

In addition to having a versatile kit, Chernobog can utilize a variety of builds. The attack speed and pen build with Qin’s Sais provides a lot of DPS against tanks and squishy targets. Chernobog can also be run with crit builds. He has a built-in steroid so he gets free attack speed for more crits. Building into critical strike chance means a chance of obliterating a squishy with just a couple basic attacks. Vicious Barrage functions as an AoE basic attack, proccing Executioner and Qin’s Sais on all targets hit and potentially critting a group of enemies.

During the Summer Finals, Chernobog was also built with a Transcendence rush. Chernobog can use a lot of mana early with his combos and his abilities scale every well with raw power, so Transcendence can be very useful. Trading the early sustain of Devourer’s Gauntlets for mana and power can be very strong. In some cases, Bloodforge was built later in the build for sustain and even more power. Chernobog can just get away with mostly whatever build you want because he interacts favorably with all Hunter stats.

Chernobog can be built in many ways.

Chernobog was the newest god allowed at the Smite Summer Finals LAN. He was one of 4 gods to see 100% presence, meaning he was picked or banned in every game of the tournament. Out of 32 games of the Summer Finals, Chernobog saw 20 picks and 12 bans. Across these 20 games, he won in 11 of them, for a 55% win rate. This seems pretty average, considering Artemis saw a greater than 80% win rate, but the majority of Chernobog’s loses were when he was played by the Smite Global Series teams.

Once the tournament filtered down to the NA and EU representatives, Chernobog’s true power level was revealed. He received 9 bans in these games, 75% of his total bans within the tournament. He was picked in the other 7 games and won 5 of them. Chernobog’s only loses when played by a North American or European player were verses NRG Esports, the eventual winner of the tournament.

In addition to having a flexible kit and build path, Chernobog was flexed within team compositions. Chernobog was played in the duo and mid lanes. As a mid lane Hunter, Chernobog can bully Mages and enable 2 main types of compositions: double Hunter and a Mage in the duo lane. Both of these compositions have unique strategies and priorities that a mid lane Chernobog can excel in.

Chernobog had a strong showing at the recent LAN.

Chernobog is one of the newer gods in Smite. He is a flexible Hunter that has a strong kit with lots of synergies. Any Hunter build is good on him and can emphasize different parts of his kit. At the Summer Finals LAN, Chernobog saw 100% pick and ban presence and a decent win rate, but he looked much better when the top players were playing him. Chernobog has wormed his way into the Smite meta and will continue to see tons of play in the Smite Pro League.

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