Tahm Kench Counters: How To Counter Pick Tahm Kench

Tahm Kench is a support champion in League of Legends. He is very tanky, has a passive shield, a slow, he can heal allies, and swallow enemies. In this article, we discuss how to effectively counter Tahm Kench.

Best Tahm Kench Counters

• Janna
• Vayne
• Singed
• Gnar
• Teemo
• Kayle

Master Chef Tahm Kench

Tahm Kench Counter Picks

Now that you know who counters Tahm Kench, you can finally counter pick Tahm Kench in any matchup. Let’s take you through some tips on how to use a few of these champions who are counters to Tahm Kench. After, there is a general section explaining how to use any LoL champion as counters for Tahm Kench. After all, if you know how to play against Tahm Kench, you can play safely and effectively to defeat Tahm Kench in a lane.

Janna

Janna has a strong disengage making it difficult for Tahm Kench to hit three times in a row, use her Howling Gale and Zephyr to isolate and prevent him from eating you/ADC ensuring a favorable exchange.

Vayne

Maxing Vayne’s W (Silver Bolts) first counters his scale path, namely HP. However, be wary of his shield as it does protect him for a sizeable amount.

Tahm relies on his Tongue lash to trade and poke, use this knowledge to save Tumble for when you expect it and time each interval with that cooldown.

Teemo

• When Tahm Kench attempts to auto you to engage, simply throw down a Q to blind him and walk away.
• Teemo can also auto attack to poke him and ween him down with poison.

Urf Kench

Tips For Playing Against Tahm Kench

• Champions with HP% damage or knockback ability are effective against him. Try to pick Vayne, Gnar or Alistar against him. Blade of the ruined king is also a good item to counter him.
• Percentage health shred or items such as Blade of the Ruined King and Liandry’s Torment are very effective against Tahm Kench. His ultimate’s passive grants him bonus damage on attacks based on his bonus health, so he won’t stack resistances.
• If he eats an ally with low health and you have a champion with a global ult (Ezreal, Draven etc) wait few seconds and then ult in front of him.
• Whenever you know that his W is on cooldown (e.g. used it on minion..) try to engage on his ADC since he can’t protect him/her.
• The Grey Health mechanic on Thick Skin means that, unlike other tank supports, Tahm Kench is very resilient to poke. However, due to the fact that he lacks a means of healing his teammates, other than the passive on Relic Shield and its upgrades, it is recommended that during the lane phase, you harass his ADC instead of Tahm Kench himself.
  • Grey Health is NOT a shield. It only applies a shield when Tahm Kench activates it. You can take advantage of this by using hard CC on Tahm Kench so that he will not able to activate this ability and survive for a longer time. This and his damage potential makes Tahm Kench more vulnerable to hard CC when compared to other tanks.
• Tahm Kench excels at countering hard engages and dives, thanks to Devour. Avoid wasting your most valuable single-target abilities such as Death Mark or Assault and Battery before baiting Tahm Kench into using this skill. On the other hand, it is a single-target skill that can only really be used to save one ally, so for example, if Tahm Kench is protecting the ADC, just focus their mid laner.
  • This can also be countered by using champions with lots of AoE abilities, such as Xerath, Karthus, and AP Kog’Maw.
  • Keep in mind that Devour cannot avoid delayed damage. Thus, if Zed has already dealt enough damage to kill an enemy, Tahm Kench cannot save them even with Devour. This also means that other delayed damage skills like Hemoplague can still deal damage to Tahm’s devoured allies.
• Because Devour has a short range, players can also try to isolate Tahm from high-value targets before engaging them with single target abilities. Hard CC with long durations or skills that displace enemies, such as Skarner‘s Impale or Gragas‘ Explosive Cask.
• Tahm Kench lacks an engage of his own. This can be taken advantage by constantly harassing his team with poke. Tahm Kench, as explained above, is difficult to outlast with poke, but it is still a viable way to wear him down as the Grey Health will not regenerate his entire health.
• Affecting Tahm with Ignite or an ability that inflicts Grievous Wounds (for example, Varus‘ Hail of Arrows) can severely hinder his ability to regenerate with Grey Health, by either delaying his regen or reducing the amount he receives in compensation. This, however, will NOT hinder his ability to shield, so players should attempt to apply hard CC or provide ample room to chase should they try to use a delaying tactic.
• Between the bonus damage from Abyssal Voyage, the high shield power of Thick Skin, and Tahm’s respectable single target lockdown with Tongue Lash and Devour, Tahm bears the distinction of being quite possibly the best tank duelist in the game. Trying to 1v1 Tahm late game is an exercise in futility, as even if he doesn’t have kill potential on you, he can delay the fight for potentially minutes on end, allowing his team to turn the tides. Do your best to fight Tahm with a numbers advantage, as he lacks any real AoE damage or crowd control and, while durable, can only take so much punishment.
• Tahm Kench is not just a support. He is also a top laner, and a good counter to many of other common top laners. He is really difficult to outduel as a melee champion, but he is actually quite vulnerable during the early game, especially because he is mana hungry. A lane bully such as Darius or Renekton can hold their own against Tahm Kench, especially since they have sustain. But keep in mind that they will not be able to combat Tahm for a long time, and he will eventually out-scale them in utility.

Chef Tahm Kench In Game

By using the champions who counter Tahm Kench and the LoL Tahm Kench counter tips above, you can now develop a strategy to help you, as a summoner, become an effective counter to Tahm Kench players.