Explaining AD Kennen

Fnatic’s Trick Pick

Fnatic surprised everyone in the second week of Worlds by pulling out one of the shock picks of the tournament. After picking Kennen alongside Gnar in the second rotation against Invictus Gaming, many assumed it would be support Kennen, a role we’ve seen him fill often, especially when paired with Kalista. Then Fnatic picked Shen and Viktor and confusion reigned. Would it be ADC Gnar? Perhaps Rekkles’s client crashed, and the game would require a remake of the draft phase? The seconds ticked by as the Kennen stayed locked in in the AD Carry role. It turned out it really would be ADC Kennen.

The Tournament Format

First off, it’s key to note that Fnatic did not pick Kennen in week one where the games were split across multiple days. Week two had a completely different dynamic in that all the games for each group were on one day. That meant there was less time for teams to react and create counter picks to the AD Kennen. This gave Fnatic the advantage, and they used the AD Kennen in their games against Cloud 9 and Invictus Gaming, and forced ahq to take away the Kennen and put Ziv on a champion he didn't look comfortable on.



After groups, Fnatic had probably shown more cards than they would have wanted to. With unorthodox picks like this, after some time has passed some of the novelty wears off. Teams figure it out, and are more prepared for it. Some would have wrote off Fnatic’s pick as a cheese pick for the group stage, and would doubt them picking it again in the bracket stage. The true test for AD Kennen’s viability was whether they’d pick it a week later against EDG. They pulled it out again in the first game of the series, proving that at least for Fnatic, AD Kennen wasn’t a novelty.

The Unseen Damage is the Deadliest

Looking at Kennen’s abilities, people will be quick to note the lack of AD ratios on many of his abilities. In fact, the only ability that has an AD ratio is his W passive, which deals bonus magic damage equal to 40% of his AD at level one. Maxed out it deals 80% of Kennen’s AD. In the laning phase, this damage is extremely influential in early trades as it means that other ADCs simply can’t deal with the additional damage.

At level 6, and without any items besides Doran’s Blade, that is an additional 52 damage every 5 auto attacks. With a Vampiric Scepter (a fairly common item if a team were to lane swap and fast push a tower), that jumps up to 58 damage, and with Bilgewater Cutlass it ends up being 67 damage. That’s more than a B.F. Sword worth of damage, and if you time your engages well, you could possible get two or more strikes of the W passive off.



Another part of Kennen’s kit that is instrumental to his success as an AD carry is his E, Lightning Rush. Besides granting increased movement speed, an oft-forgotten part of Kennen’s E is the additional armor and magic resist it grants. At rank one it grants an additional 10 armor and magic resist for four seconds. To put that into perspective, that’s a free fully stacked Graves passive at level two. Rekkles also ranks it up second after his W. That means that at level 13, he will have an additional 50 armor and magic resist from his E, making Kennen a deceptively tanky AD carry, and allowing Rekkles to flash ult into teams without being immediately blown up. It does have the disadvantage of leaving you unable to auto attack for two seconds, however, since it’s mostly used to position for the ultimate, it doesn’t affect AD Kennen’s viability too much.



Along with the surprising damage and tankiness from his abilities, he also has a higher base AD than most AD Carries, and has high base attack speed. He’s also very rare in that he’s an energy based champion so he can’t go OOM either. Finally, his passive allows him to stun enemy champions often and reliably. Something almost no other AD Carry can offer. Add all this together and it makes Kennen a decent lane bully.

Kennen also benefits from a somewhat unique build path of Blade Of The Ruined King into Runaan’s Hurricane, which is more forgiving than the standard Infinity Edge build path of other AD Carries. That means that not only does Kennen have a strong laning phase, he also spikes earlier than other AD carries, and is able to have a smooth power curve into the late game. With a Blade of the Ruined King and Runaan’s Hurricane, the W passive becomes incredibly easy to proc and Kennen starts to deal an enormous amount of damage.

Control the Zones

So you’re probably still thinking, “Even with all of this damage I still don’t see why you’d pick him over Kalista, another lane bully ADC that also builds Blade into Runaan’s.” And you’re right, Kalista is better than Kennen in most situations, but for Fnatic especially, Kennen works wonders.

Potential damage zones are often the most overlooked part of a team fight. Often times it’s not how much damage you can output in a fight, but the potential of damage output. This potential damage output creates zones where the enemy can no longer reliably engage on you without getting bursted down. A popular recent example is Veigar, who’s E, Event Horizon, creates a massive zone around towers to ensure that a team can easily, and safely push a tower.



Another example of this, is the compositions KT ran with Arrow’s Kog’maw. They forgoed the standard protect the Kog’maw compositions and instead created a composition centred around creating zones where the enemy couldn’t engage on their hyper carry ADC, using Ekko jungle and Azir to basically form invisible peel for their ADC. It was a very strong composition, and helped KT climb the LCK ladder in the middle of the season until tank Ekko jungle received several nerfs, and teams began banning away Nagne’s Azir.

Fnatic’s Kennen pick works in a similar, but more aggressive manner. If we take a look at the compositions Fnatic ran with the Kennen ADC, there’s a specific strategy behind them. In the three games it was played, it was paired with Viktor every time, and once paired with a top lane Jarvan IV.



Both Jarvan and Viktor can create zones where the enemy can not engage, allowing them to not only create picks easily, but also have the capability of having a formidable counter engage. Jarvan IV can lock down an enemy ADC within his ultimate, leaving Rekkles able to have his ult dealing damage into the zone of Jarvan’s ultimate while he stands safely outside of Jarvan’s ultimate walls. Viktor can also create zones with his W and follow up on the AOE damage of a Kennen ult with his own ultimate.

Another factor to consider is the build that Febiven has been going for in all of the games. Instead of going for a heavy burst damage build with something like Luden’s Echo, he’s gone towards buying Lichbane, increasing his DPS to make up for the lower DPS of Kennen in the late game compared to other ADCs.

Will They Pick it Again?

No longer a surprise pick, Fnatic run the risk of running into a counter strategy to their ADC Kennen the longer they hold onto it. Despite this, the fact that Kennen is also a flex pick which makes it safe enough for Fnatic to pick him early in the draft, without locking in on the ADC Kennen. With Sivir’s utility nerfed, and Ashe requiring much more protection than Fnatic will usually offer for Rekkles, AD Kennen is the next best option.



It would be surprising if Fnatic doesn’t play AD Kennen at least once in their semi-final. KOO is fortunate in that both their top laner and their support have shown a high level of proficiency on Kennen, meaning they can pick it away if they so choose. However, this also means that Fnatic will be able to get another high priority pick.

Ultimately, AD Kennen fits Fnatic’s playstyle perfectly. With two high damage, carry solo laners, and Rekkles on a utility champion with excellent self peel, he makes Fnatic’s compositions far more well rounded. Make no mistake, AD Kennen won’t be as meta changing as something like KOO’s Ashe/Malphite compositions, but for Fnatic it’s an incredibly potent pick.