As Worlds 2018 has ended, we have the power of Riot's power couple showcased by multiple teams so much so that we are seeing Rakan and Xayah being picked away just to deny the combo. However, teams do have another option - counters. Now, these counters aren’t auto wins. No counter ever is. But they do make the game slightly easier when it comes to netting advantages in the quest to destroy the Nexus. And so, in this piece, I hope to showcase a few counters to the Lovers Duo.

Morgana (Support)

Morgana has been known as one of the biggest counters to the playmaker of the Lovers Duo (Rakan) and was seen very prominently in LCS Summer Splits and even though the rest of the meta has forced Morgana away from the top-flight competitive scene the fact that she is still a counter is not something we should overlook. Her ability to Black Shield Rakan’s primary engages via his W, Grand Entrance, due to its telegraphed and slightly delayed CC deliverance means that Morgana can shut down the strengths of Rakan all while utilizing her single-target CC and pick potential to dominate the early and mid-game. I particularly enjoy it when a Rakan goes in on a Black Shielded Morgana and gets hit with a point-blank Dark Binding and then just dies. Here we have a clear example of how Xayah and Rakan can be countered by a simple spell rotation centered around counter-engage.

Leona (Support)

Leona, unlike Morgana, wasn’t really seen in the LCS this year, but once again she had a major presence in Worlds this year to follow on from her shock showing at Worlds 2017 as the biggest cheese pick of the year that worked. So, why does Leona counter the Lovers duo? Well, it is mainly due to the fact that the playstyle of the pairing plays right into Leona’s wheelhouse. Leona is just a silenced meat wall if she can’t get onto a squishy target via a gap closer. But Rakan is squishy and comes to Leona, meaning Leona now has a free target to pin down with her high levels of crowd control who will die pretty easily thanks to the fact he is squishy and is going to take the bonus damage from Leona’s passive, Sunlight. Also, the fact that Leona is one of the strongest early game tanks because of her W, Eclipse, makes her especially hard to deal with early game which means Xayah cannot utilize one of her biggest strengths of early game shoving as she can’t shove as hard while maintaining the adequate distance from Leona to avoid the hardest form of crowd control: death. So here we have a great example of a counter to the Lovers Duo due to the fact that they cannot out-skirmish a champion pick during their early game strength.

Caitlyn (Carry Bot)

Caitlyn, like Morgana, has not been a priority pick in competitive play recently and that is probably due to the power trough (well, the quote from Cyanide that comes to mind) that she goes through in the mid-game. However, the strength of Caitlyn’s laning phase and ultra-late game is not to be messed with. Yet, this not why she’s here. The reason she see’s her place in this collective of counters is because of her immense range. Now, most of you should know that Caitlyn has the longest base range of any champion in League of Legends at 650. Why is this important? Well, Rakan’s Grand Entrance has 600 range and Xayah’s range (and so her feather placement) is 525 meaning that Caitlyn should (in theory, barring no misplays) never be in range of the CC chain into damage combo that makes Xayah and Rakan so devastating. "But Robster, what about flash engages gap closers from Rakan?" Well Caitlyn can bring and use her own Flash, but she also has her 90-Caliber Net to hopefully outplay that. It is hard, but even then, you are still burning opponents’ summoners for the engage (which may or may not work). So, the point here? Well, it’s a counter that operates simply on the principle of having the longer stick. By abusing the range disparity, you can counter the dynamic duo of LoL.

Sivir (Carry Bot)

Sivir has been one of the most successful picks to come out of the Worlds adapting meta game and has had a lot of success on scaling compositions, especially since the latter half of Group Stage. So, once again, why is Sivir here? Well while scaling is one part of the core operation of Sivir, it is her other key focal point in immense waveclear that puts her here. One of Xayah’s key strengths is that naturally shoves in the lane due to her passive, but this natural shove gets completely overwhelmed by the kit of Sivir and so Xayah cannot use her early game strength and since Sivir out-scales you can completely outmatch your laner. And so, we have a clear example of a counter who operates on the fact that they do one or two clear things better and while the counteree may have other strengths, it is still a matchup that you most certainly can abuse.

Conclusion

I’m going to conclude this piece with the following statement. Counters are useful, they can help you win games via giving you an advantage in a certain point in the game. But what counters do not do is auto-win the game for you. You need to pilot the counter to success, just like you can't let auto-pilot land the plane. Learn the counter and guide it home. With that I once again I leave you with the thoughts of GL, HF, and GG.

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