If you are still new to Nasus, I recommend giving my previous guide a read over before reading his matchups.

So, you’ve decided to lock in Nasus first pick. A bold decision! The enemy team locks in their top laner and you’ve been counter picked, but how bad is it really? Let's discuss some common top lane picks and popular Nasus counters to see what we can do to keep you healthy and win that lane. In this first section, we will be taking a look at Riven, Jayce, Quinn, Illaoi and Rumble

Riven

I see this pick used as a counter to Nasus a lot. The first thing to keep in mind is that Riven is complicated champion, which means if the person behind the champion doesn’t know what they are doing, this lane is going to be a piece of cake for you. Even if the Riven player is quite good, this lane can still be won easily. The key to winning this lane is playing safe and respecting her damage in the first few levels. If you can’t get minions safely, don’t go for them. During level 1, try to only last hit. Often Riven will go aggressive and use her Q – Broken Wings to get in some early damage. Look for this and try to read when their champion moves to you. If you get Riven to hit your minions with her Q AOE damage, the wave will start pushing to you. Once you get the wave pushing to just outside your tower, you can farm safely without the fear of a Riven all-in. An effective freeze here will get you the levels and farm you need in order to outscale her. Even with a low number of stacks, you can start winning trades by hitting her with your Q – Siphoning Strike and backing up. As long as your tower isn’t too far away and you keep your health up by lifestealing, you won't have a problem.

Recommended Items and Keystone

- Start Cloth Armor and 4 potions to regain some health after her early damage.

- Glacial Shroud on your first back, look to purchase Ninja Tabis if you are struggling.

- Next up buy Kindlegem and Sheen. At this point if you have been keeping up or only slight behind in CS you can beat her in a fight.

- Running Grasp of the Undying will allow us to trade with our Q to get some health back and also gives us Swiftness, adding much needed tenacity for her crowd control.

Jayce/Quinn

I’ve put these two champions together as we will play very similarly against them and they play very similarly to each other. Their main harass will be their ranged auto attacks. While annoying, this will push the minion wave to our tower. Early game, the best way to trade with them is to let your minions do the heavy lifting. When they use their AA on you, make sure you are near your minions so that they take aggro. After the first auto, make sure you retreat as it only takes one attack to aggro your minions. Early game minion damage can add up fast and enemies can sometimes take more damage than they dealt to you. If the enemy is smart, they will duck into a nearby bush to drop aggro. Once the wave is pushed closer to your tower, you can ward the closest bush in lane so that they can’t use it anymore to drop vision. Both Quinn and Jayce build damage items, so with enough time and stacks you will start doing big damage in return to them and eventually they won’t be able to hurt you.

Wither also shuts them both down very well, so setting up a gank for your jungler is easy. As a side note, Quinn is an excellent roamer with her ultimate, so make sure your teammates are on the lookout for her if she leaves lane. Shove the minion wave to her tower if you see her trying to roam. Also, Quinn's slow is an interrupt and can cancel your Q strike. When moving to engage on her, click next to her to get into range, don't click to attack her from far away. If you run in with her selected, she will cancel your Q. If you click next to her and she does her leap, your Q will still be active and usable.

Recommended Items and Keystone

- Start Cloth Armor and 4 potions. For Jayce, this is especially strong as the 4 potions can sustain you through his entire mana bar early game, and his auto attacks are not much of a threat.

- Glacial Shroud on your first back. Ninja Tabis are extremely effective against these two so purchase them first if you are taking too much harass.

- These two are some of the only matchups where rushing Frozen Heart is effective. The passive will work well against them and the extra armor will help to negate the armor penetration that both champions tend to rush.

- Warlord’s Bloodlust will keep you sustained in lane. The extra lifesteal will really make a difference against their constant ranged attacks.

Illaoi

Illaoi can sometimes be annoying, but this champion should have zero kill pressure on you. With no crowd control and avoidable poke, you shouldn’t be dying in this lane. As with all skillshot champions, avoiding her E – Test of Spirit can be done by simply hiding behind minions. It has a long cast time and is easy to spot if you are looking for it. If you are low, you can stack her tentacles she spawns around the lane and you’ll also be gaining a small amount of health from lifestealing off of them. Her main tentacle attack has a large AOE, so odds are good the lane will push to your tower. Remember to hide behind minions, as her only serious threat to you is her E. Do not underestimate Illaoi even if you are doing well. An attempt to gank her by your jungler may bait you into a very poor scenario. Her ultimate, Leap of Faith, does incredible damage and will most likely kill one of you before (if) she dies. It is better to tell your jungler to help other lanes while you just farm up and play safe. Eventually she won’t be able to stop you.

Recommended Items and Keystone

- Start Cloth Armor and 4 potions. Seeing a pattern? It is a strong defensive start to mitigate physical damage and the 4 potions combined with the lifesteal passive can keep you in lane until you have enough gold to make your first purchases.

- Glacial Shroud into Kindlegem and Sheen. Ninja Tabis won’t help as much in this matchup as not much of her damage comes from auto attacks.

- If you are far ahead and feeling confident in yourself, buying executioners to keep her from healing will help immensely when dueling.

- Stormraider’s Surge will work well in this lane. Illaoi has no reliable crowd control, so using SS in a fight will allow you to dodge her tentacles. Warlord's Bloodlust is the best option into Illaoi if you are struggling, as we don't want to be in range of her to use Grasp of the Undying. Take whatever keystone you see best to use against her and her team, as there is no essential keystone needed for lane.

Rumble

This is a very unique matchup. I don’t see it used as a counter pick very often anymore, but it is still a tricky one that should be looked at. Rumble is a manaless, low cooldown AoE magic damage spammer. What this means for us is constant harass. However, this also means that, like many other counters, the lane will push to our tower. The only benefit of this is we are a little safer from ganks. While Rumble’s damage isn’t huge early game, it is nearly constant. Avoid being in his range until you go for a last hit. Similarly to Illaoi, he doesn’t have a reliable way to secure a kill on you unless you misplay. Play carefully if you get low health. If you die and fall behind in this matchup it can become incredibly difficult. After purchasing magic resistance, your passive lifesteal can keep you going in the lane until he can’t harass you down anymore. Eventually you will be able to wither and kill him without him being able to do much. If you gain a lead, Rumble running away from you means he can’t effectively use his main damage as it points in the direction he is facing. Abuse this during trades and when chasing him.

Recommended Items and Keystone

- Starting items are debatable on this one, but I’ve had success going Ruby Crystal and 2 potions. While not the strongest start, it lets you recall very early for a Spectre’s Cowl, which works wonders against Rumble.

- I recommend finishing a Spirit Visage and Mercury’s Treads for boots right away. Many Rumble players will rush Liandry’s Torment and Rylai’s Crystal Scepter so you will need a lot of magic resist.

- Warlord’s Bloodlust will synergize very well with you when rushing Spirit Visage and can help if you struggle in this matchup, otherwise taking Stormraider’s Surge is efficient for ignoring Rumble’s many sources of slows after he finishes Rylai’s Crystal Scepter.

Next up, we’ll be discussing some of the hardest matchups for Nasus. These matchups are all still winnable of course, but they become less about how good of a Nasus player you are, and more about how great your opponent is. Hold on to your squeaky toys, because it’s going to get ruff (pun intended).

Olaf

Laning against Olaf can be a nightmare. It’s a skill matchup that favors him. His early trading with true damage doesn’t push the wave and he can spam it on you every time you go to last hit. His true damage, E - Reckless Swing, does cost him HP to cast, so he will take some damage even without retaliation. Unlike Nasus, his lifesteal has to be activated. Often times if an Olaf player is looking to get some health back, they will activate Vicious Strikes and will auto for the entire duration of the ability, maxing out their lifesteal potential. This combined with some stray axe throws are the only ways they may push the lane. While punishing to play against, the saving grace is he is a melee champion. His axe will slow you, but doesn’t do much damage-wise.

Go for minions when he is far enough away that he can’t punish you and build health items early. Most Olafs will also take Ghost instead of Flash as a summoner spell. Wither is effective at negating most of Ghost, so a jungler with any crowd control can punish him early. I don’t like to rely on a jungler as a solution, but it is something to consider. At level 6, his ultimate will give him passive armor and magic resist. If he activates his ultimate, he loses his bonus tank stats and instead gets additional attack damage. This makes him much squishier than you are used to so keep it in mind if he is looking to tower dive. You may be able to burst him. Play safe early levels and focus on getting experience and stacking when you can. Eventually your lifesteal will outdo his trading with E and you’ll be strong enough to discourage him from continuous assault.

Recommended Items and Keystone

- Doran’s Shield. Since a majority of the damage that you will take in the early game will be true damage, building health is the best option. The sustain and damage mitigation from single target attacks will work well to keep you alive and well.

- First back look to get Kindlegem. As before, building HP early will help more than armor. Eventually you will need both. Kindlegem combined with Ninja Tabis will prevent a lot of his damage. After, look to build into the core of Sheen and Glacial Shroud.

- Most frequently, Olaf will run Warlords Bloodlust and it wouldn’t be bad for us to do it either. If their team has high crowd control, Grasp of the Undying will do well too (so we can run a defensive tree with tenacity). When Olaf comes in to trade with his E, try to have a Grasp proc ready and Q him. The trade should be about even.

Darius

In my opinion, this is the hardest matchup. If Darius is experienced enough, there is very little that can be done to win this lane alone. The best strategy you have is to max your E – Spirit Fire first. This will allow you to safely get minions from range while also putting damage out onto Darius. Farming a lot of Q stacks is not possible during laning phase, so keeping up with gold and experience is your objective. If your jungler is looking to gank for you, be very cautious. If played well, Darius can heal more if he attacks multiple people. Since Nasus has low damage early, Darius may outheal the damage you and your jungler can put out and he also may be able to kill one of you. Look to get CS and poke Darius simultaneously with your E. Most of the time, Darius will get Black Cleaver first item. During this time, he will still be relatively squishy and since we are playing from range with E, he won't be able to sustain himself with the heal from his Q. Once we have level 5 rank E, even a small number of stacks will hurt Darius due to the armor reduction of Spirit Fire. Much of Darius’s strength is in the laning phase, and since we are playing safe he is wasting that strength. Don’t feel useless just because you may have low stacks. During teamfights, he suffers much of the same weaknesses as Nasus, such as lack of mobility. Withering him leaves him a sitting duck for your carries and until he gets a decent amount of armor, Spirit Fire will neutralize him.

At level 1, be very cautious. Darius has potential to kill you immediately. When the first waves of minions meet, play back and find Darius. A common strategy for him is to sit in the lane brush closest to your tower and wait for you to pass him. Once you pass, he can come behind you and start attacking you with auto attacks and his W – Crippling Strike. His W will slow you and give him plenty of time to stack his passive. If you think you are in too deep, flash early! Often times people will flash too late and his passive bleed will be enough to finish off a kill. If you see Darius in the minion wave, look to see if you can see what ability he has taken first. If you can bait out a Q from him, the AOE will push the wave and eventually you can CS under tower.

Recommended Items and Keystone

- I recommend starting Doran’s Shield for the safest possible early game. This may save you from his level 1 attack.

- Look to back early for two Doran’s Rings. The additional HP is nice and the mana sustain will keep you able to spam E for CS and for poke. After, pick up Sheen or Glacial Shroud. The mana and CDR from both of these items will continue to help with farming with our E. Then build traditionally, getting Kindlegem next. The HP will be useful as Darius’s ultimate does true damage so armor won't help us.

- For a keystone we’re going to run Stormraider’s Surge. The reasoning for this is we don’t need the sustain from Warlord’s Bloodlust as ideally we are taking no damage since we playing from range and we aren’t using Grasp of the Undying because that requires us to be too close. As an additional note, the Cunning mastery tree allows us to have early CDR for more E spam and Meditation for additional mana regeneration.

Teemo

Teemo is a very popular pick used to counter Nasus. If the Teemo is good at avoid taking minion damage with bushes, this can be a hard early game. Constant autos with damage over time are very punishing. His speed from W – Move Quick can negate a lot of the effect of Wither and his Q – Blinding Dart negates our Siphoning Strike. On paper, it seems like Nasus can’t do anything. However, if we play similarly to how we play against Darius, this lane can become quite easy. Maxing E will be even more effective in this lane. Teemo is much squishier than Darius and also tends to build much less resistances. While we will have low stacks again, even more so due to Blinding Dart canceling out our stacking, the burst from our E can chunk out a Teemo quickly. Eventually the threat of our E will be able to zone Teemo enough to the point where we can stack safely.

Recommended Items and Keystone

- Start Cloth Armor and four potions. Much of the early game harass from Teemo will be his auto attacks. While he does do a lot of magic damage, the cloth armor will help against all of the physical damage from his auto attacks

- As with Darius, back when you can purchase two Doran’s Rings to keep your mana up for CSing and poking with E. Build Spectre’s Cowl/Spirit Visage first then look to get your core 30% CDR items.

- For a keystone, Stormraider’s Surge is easy to proc on Teemo and can be useful to keep up with him. Taking Warlord’s Bloodlust is also useful to lifesteal after taking a lot of poke. Both are good options but overall I would recommend Stormraider’s Surge just to use the extra 5% CDR from Intelligence for your Spirit Fire.

Pantheon

The early game dominator! If you have the IP for it, I’d recommend taking armor reds and armor quints in your runes. As long as you don’t die early game, this matchup is fine, however that is easier said than done. Pantheon has huge kill potential on Nasus early, so respect his damage and give up CS when you need to. The most important thing is to get experience. A Pantheon master can block every Q you try to land on them, so be careful when trading and always try to make sure his shield passive is down. Cs under tower as best you can until you can back to buy armor. Wither does not stop much of his damage as the majority comes from his spells; so don’t waste too much mana on it. Once you hit level 6 as long as he isn’t too far ahead in items you can survive his burst and start playing a little more aggressive. Except for his Q – Spear Shot, Pantheons cooldowns are quite long, about 10 seconds. After he engages, if you are healthy enough to survive you should use this time to punish him and return damage. Once his damage starts to fall off due to your armor, he is easy to punish and can nearly be ignored in lane. Always warn your teammates if Pantheon leaves lane as he can easily roam with his ultimate and snowball other lanes.

Recommended Items and Keystone

- Cloth Armor and four potions to start. Combined with your potions, if you can safely lifesteal you can sometimes use up Pantheons mana from his spears. This is another reason why armor runes are beneficial.

- First back look to stock up on more armor. You can buy one or two more Cloth Armors, which can build into plenty of items, or upgrade to a Chain Vest. If struggling, stack armor items (while not the best use of the passive, Frozen Heart is very effective). Next look to get a Glacial Shroud, then Sheen/Kindlegem. If he is still a threat after Glacial Shroud, get Kindlegem before Sheen to help survive burst.

- For a keystone, I am pretty torn between my options. While Grasp of the Undying isn’t useful as his passive can block your proc of it, gaining tenacity from Swiftness is of course very useful. Warlord’s Bloodlust can help sustain you back up after a full combo or keep you topped off after eating a buffet of spears. Stormraider’s Surge is of course great eventually because of the squishy build that Pantheon has. I think if you are new and learning, the lifesteal from Warlord’s Bloodlust is the safest route.

Gnar

Gnar has all the tools to make laning against him hell. Falling behind in this matchup can mean you never come back; so early game positioning is key. Luckily for us, with enough practice this lane can become quite easy. It will be a while before you can win a duel, but stacking isn’t too bad here. The majority of his harass will be his auto attacks and his boomerang. Both do physical damage, so early armor will help with this. The trick is to avoid his three hit passive, which is applied by his auto attacks and his boomerang. The red rings around your feet indicate this passive similar to Vayne’s Silver Bolts. If he lands the third hit, he will deal magic damage and a percent of your health, also as magic damage. Since we won't be itemizing against magic damage early, it is crucial to avoid this if you can help it. Landing all three hits also grants Gnar a burst of movement speed. Combined with the slow from his boomerang and his small dash on E – Hop, catching Gnar can be quite the challenge. Most Gnar’s also rush Frozen Mallet, so be ready for constant kiting and slows.

Around level 6-8 is when you can look to start actively trading. While Mini Gnar is very squishy, you can find the most success dueling Mega Gnar. While he brings a lot more crowd control to the table, he is much less equipped to fight Nasus in an extended duel. He loses his percent health damage and his movement speed boosts, so a Wither can keep him nearby while you whittle him down with your ultimate. While in Mini Gnar he is much harder to catch so look to play safe while he is small and try to trade with him during Mega Gnar. He will have to get into melee range to last hit unless he uses his abilities so he is much easier to his with a Siphoning Strike.

Recommended Items and Keystone

- While Gnar’s abilities may be hurting us later, early game the majority of his damage will still be his auto attacks. You know what that means by now. Cloth Armor and four potions!

- Next up you have several item choices. Judge how aggressive Gnar is playing and buy accordingly. Ninja Tabis are good for early survival, but after he reaches Frozen Mallet having Swiftness Boots would really help against his slows. Buying tier 1 Boots early is incredibly useful for dodging his boomerang and escaping a bad trade. Look to purchase the core CDR items Glacial Shroud, Kindlegem and Sheen. Always keep in mind if you are struggling you can buy the basic parts such as Cloth Armor and Ruby Crystal before finishing the core. Don’t sit on a Sapphire Crystal if you are being bullied, as it provides no defensive stats.

- Grasp of the Undying will work very well over the extended duels with Mega Gnar and the tenacity and slow resist gained from Swiftness is invaluable.

Fiora

The difficulty of this lane relies entirely on how experienced the Fiora is. Overall this lane can be relatively easy, but unlike many other enemy laners, Fiora will scale well with us and will continue to be a threat. Early game is simple enough. Fiora will try to attack you with her Q – Lunge and most likely aim for the Vital mark. Her passive, Duelist’s Dance, creates these Vital marks on you and if she manages to hit that mark she is rewarded with movespeed, a heal, and most important true damage. This true damage will keep her a constant threat to you no matter how tanky you build. During laning, her obvious move will be to go for her Vital mark on you. Position yourself to make hitting this mark as hard as possible and look to stack and farm when the mark is on cooldown. At level 6, be very cautious of an all-in. Fiora’s ultimate Grand Challenge will put four marks of her passive on you, left right top and bottom. Hitting all of these marks grants a large AOE heal. By having access to four marks simultaneously, Fiora is capable of putting out a large amount of true damage onto you very quickly. Fiora remains very squishy throughout the game, so after some time Siphoning Strike will start to do great damage to her.

In a 1vs1, Fiora can block any ability using her W – Riposte. It is very important to lane Wither on her to win the duel. Luckily for us, Wither has a very short animation that is hard to see coming. Most times Fiora will block a Q and you can bait out her block by holding Wither slightly longer than you normally would. When she uses her ultimate, be very cautious. You can hug nearby terrain to block her access to one of your Vitals. If she can’t attack you from a direction, she can’t get the true damage bonus. By blocking one of the Vital marks you will also deny her healing. This will leave you semi stationary in some cases, but is worth the risk. Look to land as many attacks on her as you safely can when her ultimate is on cooldown to discourage her all-in on you when she has ultimate again.

Recommended Items and Keystone

- Start Cloth Armor and four potions. If we can sustain through the early game poke, we can get a lot of early stacks in this matchup and start snowballing ourselves.

- An early sheen can be bought here. When Fiora goes to poke you can land your Q in return to dissuade further attack. If struggling, Chain Vest and Ninja Tabi’s will keep you safer, but be very careful of her ultimate, as the armor will provide nothing for you.

- While Iceborn Gauntlet will help when trading with its armor, Trinity Force will work better later when dealing with her true damage. Being able to kill her faster while kiting in between Q strikes works very well. The bonus movespeed Fiora gains from her Q will mostly negate the slow of Iceborn Gauntlet anyways. Grab a Kindlegem for additional health and the last 10% CDR we will need before completing Trinity Force. If you purchased an early Chain Vest, turn that into a Zz’Rot. The additional speed next to towers is handy for many reasons but will also help out-maneuver Fiora when she is lunging around.

- For a keystone I follow the same path that I took with my items, speed. Stormraider’s surge will help us keep up with Fiora and kite her when we need it most. Fiora builds very squishy for the majority of the game so activating this keystone right away will be very easy.

I hope some of this can help you get a few more stacks out on the Rift and see that victory screen a few more times. If you have any questions about other matchups or if you have found success against these champions in your own way, let me know in the comments! Thanks for reading everyone!

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