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Karthus team

Forum Index > LoL General
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TSCrEaToR-
Profile Joined November 2011
United States13 Posts
May 15 2012 04:39 GMT
#1
Hey TL, so my friends and I have already made a premade, and our best player mains Karthus. And when I mean main, I mean main. IMO, he can get to at least 1800 ELO with the skill level he is at. What I'm trying to figure out is a good team comp for karthus. I figured a solo top bruiser would work really well, since if you can get somebody low enough, karthus is insta-kill.

However, my friends figured that if you have a karthus mid, you need either shen or soraka. We were against a team who counterpicked us shen AND soraka because he accidently auto-locked in karthus. Shen isn't a bruiser though, and that might give our mid a bad start. So should we ban shen and pick soraka? Because soraka can heal through karthus ults until he starts getting ~300 AP.

Also, who synergizes extremely well with Karthus as a jungler? I was thinking of amumu (Maybe because I'm a beast with him, or maybe because I absolutely love his ganks) or maybe even somebody like Lee Sin. If you guys can try and give me a standard team comp, that would be pretty nice. So far, we're running -

Ban shen, rammus, cass

Pick AD nidalee solo top bruiser (I think shes undefeatable solo top bruiser)
Karthus mid
Amumu, lee sin, or udyr jungle
Ashe AD carry (We were thinking somebody like graves or kog, but we only have 1 CC and that is if amumu or udyr jungle)
Sona, Janna, or Alistar Support

However, we need to take out kassadin somehow. I really don't want to give up the rammus ban, since his ganks are just to deadly. So is there in any aspect that karthus beats kassadin?

Any answer will be appreciated
Thanks TL
Flash Jaedong Bisu .::|::. NesTea MMA HerO .::|::. Stephano ThorZaIN MaNa
Praetorial
Profile Blog Joined May 2011
United States4241 Posts
May 15 2012 04:48 GMT
#2
No. Kass beats Karth's head in.

He can E you based purely on last hitting, and just outdamages him.
FOR GREAT JUSTICE! Bans for the ban gods!
NonFactor
Profile Blog Joined January 2009
Sweden698 Posts
May 15 2012 04:57 GMT
#3
Your team comp seems to be fine imho. What Karthus wants mid-late game is to get into the middle of all, live or die and deal as much damage as possible. Amumu, Ashe, Alistar all are good for this since they have AoE slows / stuns which allows Karthus to catch up and not be kited.

Kassadin after level 6 and blue buff is very strong against most mids, but especially so against Karthus. You basically rely on landing your Q's to do damage but that's extremely difficult since he can just whenever jump in, silence and slow you, and move away and even R again if he needs to. But it's not impossible by any means. Karthus will just have to be using a lot of potions.

In a way Karthus can also be good at Kassadin due to his pushing potential, since he can keep pushing the lane and making sure Kassadin can't roam. This is of course only if he doesn't die himself to Kassadin / jungle.

Like in most cases, dealing with Kassadin is best done through shutting him down early(pre-6 before he has his ulti) through jungle ganks. So picking a safe bot / top would allow jungler to focus on ganking mid.

Any special reason why you are banning Cass? Shes strong all around for sure but if your picking and banning for Karthus, I think you can reduce that match up into a massive farm fest if you want to. (Which is what Karthus should want.)
iGrok
Profile Blog Joined October 2010
United States5142 Posts
May 15 2012 04:57 GMT
#4
ban kass over rammus and ward in anti-rammus places if he gets picked (farther out)
MOTM | Stim.tv | TL Mafia | Fantasy Fighting! | SNSD
Slusher
Profile Blog Joined December 2010
United States19143 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-05-15 05:12:41
May 15 2012 05:05 GMT
#5
If Karthus is the centerpeice I don't think NIdalee complements him at all. I think you would be a lot better off running something with some cc top, or double wota. Nid is good in lane but she does nothing to complement your ap carry, which is what your asking.

I would consider going Riven/Shen/Vlad/Rumble/Kennen

don't need Olaf because you don't really peel for Karth. Jungle mumu is strong as long as you can pass blue 2nd time, again if you are building your team around your mid, hogging blue is a bad choice, if you don't feel comfortable I'd stick to lee or possibly Riven for the (minor) cc.

for support ban or pick Raka, and Janna is always good because of the passive but her Ult synergizes terribly with Karth in team fights.

again a lot of what I say is based on the question at hand, that Karthus is your best player and you want to build to exaggerate that.

also about Kass, in most cases picking your ap last is an effective 4th ban against Kass, although I agree with the above poster that the Cass ban is a waste, it's not a terrible matchup and he is your best player, may as well ban globals/other lanes.
Carrilord has arrived.
ViZe
Profile Joined January 2011
United States1513 Posts
May 15 2012 05:19 GMT
#6
I think Karthus is pretty strong in most comps. The characters that really help him though are those that can capitalize on the basically forced engage that his wall creates - Alistar, Malphite, Amumu, Wukong, Shen, Ashe all greatly benefit from the slow that karthus creates. If this guy creates an obvious place to engage and one of these characters above takes it is extremely benefitial. I think a bigger concern however would be the fact that Karthus tends to be sort of binary - if he farms well he is incredibly strong and can basically deal enough damage to kill the entire other team, while there a few characters that just can stop him from farming, and he becomes useless and squishy for the rest of the game. Ahri, Kassadin, Leblanc, Fizz, Talon, Pantheon, Annie can all basically force him to stop farming because Karthus's main method of trading comes in the way of landing a wall and a few q's while taking minimal damage himself. All of these characters have mechanics that stop this from happening. They are also all incredibly strong traders early in the game, when Karthus's damage from defile is essentially negligible.

I've played a lot of Karthus myself, and I find that he is a very strong champ when he gets farmed. He is pretty easily countered in lane, however, and it's important that your team gains some more balanced heroes mid in terms of power curve. Karthus's playstyle isn't all that unique so there are a few characters that you can basically pick up immediately as a Karthus player - Mordekaiser and Galio are pretty good examples I suppose.

Just some advice, you don't actually need to listen to me . There are people on this subforum that are in every way more qualified to give an opinion on this haha.

Neos
Profile Joined June 2009
United States400 Posts
May 15 2012 05:24 GMT
#7
Phantomlord?
eagle
Profile Joined April 2009
United States693 Posts
May 15 2012 05:44 GMT
#8
caitlyn really good with karthus i think
Rainmaker5
Profile Blog Joined April 2009
United States1027 Posts
May 15 2012 05:50 GMT
#9
Big fan of Graves when I'm karth. Slow and aoe very relevent. Ashe is the same way, but a bit more late game.
(-_(-_(-_(^_(-_(-_(-_-)_-)_-)_-)_-)_-)_-) CJ Fighting! "Beer -> soju -> whisky is a terrible build"~~ Scrarecrow.
eagle
Profile Joined April 2009
United States693 Posts
May 15 2012 06:49 GMT
#10
somehing like galio ammu karthus sona graves super aoe
Deleted User 101379
Profile Blog Joined August 2010
4849 Posts
May 15 2012 08:33 GMT
#11
Since Karthus has to get up close to do the best damage with his E which makes him very vulnerable. Champions that can AoE taunt, stun or slow to keep opponents in range should compliment him best. His R is a useful gimmick but not the reason why he is quite strong. Yes, his passive allows him to stay in battle even when he dies... but he can't chase the opponent then and the opponent might not be low enough for the R to be useful.

I'm thinking Shen top, Leona, Nunu or Galio Support, some AoE AD carry like Graves bot and jungler Ammumu or Nocturne. The initial laning phase won't be that strong but team fights should always go in your favour and with Shen (and maybe Nocturne) you have great split pushing potential. Basically teamfights should consist of karthus following shen into the middle of the opponents and then all others chain stun, snare, slow or taunt the opponents while Karthus just has his E active, spams his Q and laughs as he does insane damage.
Shiv.
Profile Joined January 2011
3534 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-05-16 12:27:26
May 16 2012 12:17 GMT
#12
If I would center all and everything around Karthus, I'd do the following:

Bans: Shen, Kass, Talon (obvious)
Picks:
- Soraka (obvious)
- Vlad (double WotA and your ults synergize really well)
- Mundo/Naut (you need something tanky and something to peel for you)
- Ashe or Graves, both for their utility and they both work well with Soraka.

I'd prefer Ashe and Naut. Decent amounts of CC, HUGE teamfighting capabilites.

Another idea would be to ban Soraka too instead of Talon and then pick Sona or Alistar. A good Talon will rape Karthus six ways from sunday, though, and by banning Soraka you risk a Karthus ban.

Also, but that's just a side note, Nidalee is far far far from being unbeatable.
currently rooting for myself.
RouaF
Profile Joined October 2010
France4120 Posts
May 16 2012 13:31 GMT
#13
Karthus doesn't really need a specific setup to work. He mostly needs not to be countered which you seem to have understood already.

What counters him is mostly annoying mid picks : leblanc, kassadin (xerath and lux can be hard too due to high range) and to a lesser extent heals and shields, the less heals and shields there are in the ennemy team the better for you.

The most nasty thing I can think of in terms of synergy is the karthus + yorrick combo, yorrick ult on karthus is extremely strong.

The thing that surprises me tho is how much you think about top when bot should be your main focus, botlane has less levels, less hp and usually less resists, there are 2 people there which will both be affected by your ult. Running an agressive botlane (ex : taric tristana) can be very rewarding with karthus.
MyTHicaL
Profile Joined November 2005
France1070 Posts
May 16 2012 19:00 GMT
#14
Why has noone mentioned gragas or fizz? Both are fricking godlike against karthus ;o. The aAa mid player (I can't remember his name and I'm too lazy to check... moma?) plays almost exclusively karthus, and if the enemy team gets karthus he just goes fizz ;o. Kassa needs to be autobanned .
What other champions does this top player of your team use? He can't only play one champion. . .

I think that both amu and varus have ultimates that can synergize well with karth, but karth can fit into almost any team. As already stated above your main problem is a hard counter mid pick and/or a babysitting jungler.
Morzas
Profile Joined August 2005
United States387 Posts
May 16 2012 20:32 GMT
#15
Jarvan is a sick combo with Karthus since he can trap people inside of his Defile.
What has four wheels and flies? Stephen Hawking on LSD!
Slusher
Profile Blog Joined December 2010
United States19143 Posts
May 16 2012 20:53 GMT
#16
nobody mentioned Fizz because he is not popular enough for anything but target banning. The fact that he rapes Karth is not news, all Fizz players know this.
Carrilord has arrived.
MyTHicaL
Profile Joined November 2005
France1070 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-05-16 21:47:04
May 16 2012 21:39 GMT
#17
On May 17 2012 05:53 Slusher wrote:
nobody mentioned Fizz because he is not popular enough for anything but target banning. The fact that he rapes Karth is not news, all Fizz players know this.


I guess that this is server dependent, there are quite a few fizz players on EUW...
Sufficiency
Profile Blog Joined October 2010
Canada23833 Posts
May 16 2012 23:38 GMT
#18
Pick Karthus last?
https://twitter.com/SufficientStats
Shiv.
Profile Joined January 2011
3534 Posts
May 17 2012 00:07 GMT
#19
On May 17 2012 08:38 Sufficiency wrote:
Pick Karthus last?

Not the point at all?
currently rooting for myself.
0123456789
Profile Blog Joined November 2010
United States3216 Posts
May 17 2012 00:39 GMT
#20
For karthus you need Yorick. Free win lane, free 3 lives for karthus.
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