Gragas Top Lane Guide For Season 14
Gragas has been dominating the Top and Mid-lane lately and has proven himself even in the hardest matchups. Currently, we rank him in the S-tier in both the Top and Mid lane. He is great in the current meta, so make sure you abuse him while you can.
Gragas has always been a Top laner, and can be a Mid laner too, but he was never that good compared to many other champions who were played there instead. To climb in League, you should pick strong champions, so there wasn’t any point in playing him. But now he is a meta pick!
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Why Gragas is Suddenly OP
Gragas received some buffs in patch 14.2 that improved his base stats and made him a better laner. His W can also be consumed against structures, which wasn’t a thing before. His Ultimate’s cooldown is also reduced, meaning he can go for picks and fights more often.
But what does this really mean for Gragas? Well, it has made him a stronger laner as he is tankier during the laning phase. This means that he has a better chance versus both AD and AP champions. His low cooldown ultimate lets him go for all-ins more frequently, and when paired with an AP build, his damage output can be quite high during all-ins.
Finally, he is good against many of the strong meta-picks in the Top Lane, who have been dominating for some time. He can either equal or beat their pressure in the lane.
Gragas Top Best Build
While we said he is played in both lanes, you will find him more often playing in the Top Lane, which is his current build. It may change slightly when you play him in the Mid Lane.
Laning Phase Tips
Gragas is a flexible champion, and your gameplay is quite similar whether you play in the Mid or Top lane. But his play style does depend on who you’re against. If you’re ahead, then you should really be playing AP and using his recommended build above. But if you’re behind or are getting stomped, then your best bet is to go tank instead.
During the laning phase, you need to be poking the enemy down with your Q, and look to trade with them with your empowered W. You should go for short trades around your abilities. Once you have your first item, you can start being more aggressive and look for longer trades.
Whenever you have your Ultimate up, you should also be looking to make plays in your lane, or roam around the map and blow up other enemies with it. You could also team up with your Jungler if you wanted to.
As Gragas needs to all-in and is melee, it is best to keep the minion wave either even or slightly closer to your side of the map early on as this will let you chase the enemy down the lane. After you’ve got your first item, you could keep the wave here still and then chase the enemy down.
After some time, you should look to keep the enemy pushed into their tower, and use your empowered W to make taking it a lot easier.
Gragas Matchups
Here are some good matchups for Gragas in the Top Lane. I will focus on Top Lane matchups here, but picking Gragas into these champions will result in an unfair advantage for you. For the record, these stats are from Patch 14.4, all servers and are Emerald+. The win rate next to each champion is Gragas’ win rate versus the champion.
These are some of the best matchups for Gragas:
Tryndamere (57.0% Win Rate on Patch 14.4)
Tryndamere is known to be a pain in the butt to play against, but when picking Gragas, there’s no need to worry! You out damage him early, can disengage if he wants to fight, counter his engage with your E, and use your Ultimate to either start the fight or save yourself.
Gnar (54.1% Win Rate on Patch 14.4)
While Gnar does have the range advantage, he isn’t that scary when playing Gragas. You have built in sustain to heal you back up after he auto attacks you, but you also have a lot of tools in your kit to handle the Gnar. You can poke him down, counter his engage and force him to fight you over and over again.
Wukong (57.5% Win Rate on Patch 14.4)
Wukong was not a strong champion last patch, but he is still not a great champion on Patch 14.5 either with his buffs. Gragas can keep bullying the Wukong down with his Q and W, counter his all-ins with his E, and if he is behind, use his Ultimate to move Wukong and get it him out of the fight.
However, these are some of the worst matchups for Gragas. I would avoid picking him if the enemy picks one of these champions:
Cassiopeia (46.6% Win Rate on Patch 14.4)
Cassiopeia is one of the strongest AP champions in the Top Lane. She can abuse him at level 2 and 3 with her Q>E spam, and she can also counter his all-ins with her W. Post 6, it is hard for him to engage, and she can counter his all-in by just pressing R.
Urgot (49.1% Win Rate on Patch 14.4)
Urgot has ways to counter his all-in, and has the range advantage too. He can effectively trade back with Gragas whenever he walks up and tries to fight him too. Urgot’s E is also a great tool to counter all-ins.
Yorick (47.4% Win Rate on Patch 14.4)
This champion is very strong in the current meta, even after his nerfs in patch 14.5. On Patch 14.4, Yorick was a great pick into Gragas, and remains to be a good counter to him in this patch too, despite the nerfs being on the live servers.
Gragas Tips and Tricks
Here are some basic Gragas tips and tricks to get you started. We may add more things in the future, but these are some basics.
- Your E can be used to interrupt dashes and movement tools. Use it to counter all-ins.
- Keep the wave closer to your side of the map early on so you can chase the enemy down the lane, and you can all-in too.
- Play around your Ultimate cooldown to increase your chances of getting kills.
- Adapt your build! Don’t fall off and be useless by continuing to build AP when you’re very behind. Be prepared to go tank.
- Throw your Ultimate just behind the enemy to ensure they get knocked forward. Placing it on top of them may knock them in the wrong direction.
- Staying off to the side while your team groups can allow you to flank the enemy and knock them into your teammates.
Final Thoughts
Half of the League of Legends playerbase physically represents Gragas, so why not role play as him in game (in-game btw). But we hope that you have found this article interesting and potentially provided you with some information to see why Gragas has shown up more frequently in your games.
For more articles like this, or for articles to help you on your climb, why not head over to the Mobalytics Blog for more!
