Karthus vs Riven
How to Beat Riven as Karthus
based on 1,624 Karthus vs Riven matchupsHow We Analyze LoL Champion Counters
Karthus vs Riven Matchup Summary
Best Karthus vs Riven Counter Build
Items
Starter Items
Early Items
Core Karthus Items
Optional Items
Summoner Spells
Skill Order
Runes
Guide to Countering Riven as Karthus
Tips for Playing as Karthus against Riven
Lay Waste is very strong at farming minions and harassing enemy champions.
Ask your allies to help point out when you should use Requiem to get kills in different lanes.
Advice to Win Against Riven
All of Riven's damage is physical, prioritize high Armor if an opposing Riven gets out of control.
Riven has a great deal of mobility but she cannot move very far with any one skill. Rooting or silencing her during her combo will greatly reduce her effectiveness.
Riven excels at dueling multiple melee attackers at once, as she will be on an almost equal footing damage-wise. If pairing up against Riven, don't go in as double melee until she has expended her full combo.
Karthus vs Riven Counter Stats
How to Counter Riven with Karthus in LoL
The stat comparisons shown here feature several important Karthus versus Riven counter stats that can help us distinguish the differences between the two. Karthus’s KDA ratio ([kills + assists] / deaths) of NaN is better than Riven’s ratio of NaN, indicating that Karthus may be more central to his team's team fighting effectiveness than Riven. This observation is largely caused by the differences in assists.
Karthus typically has a similar longest kill spree as his foe does. Commonly, he takes a similar amount of damage to Riven. This commonly reflects different amounts of tankyness; however, it can also hint that the champ with higher HP has less agility and thus is not able to escape additional harm when poked or engaged.
Differences between Karthus and Riven
Damage Types Compared
Champion Playstyles Compared
Who is Better, Karthus or Riven?
Both LoL champions are great. Both have their pros and cons. In League's current meta, Karthus usually loses when taking on Riven, with a 45.4% win rate. Therefore, Karthus makes a poor counter to Riven.
While Karthus does have a much lower winrate than Riven, when on opposite teams, Karthus also has a lower difficulty level that makes him a less complex champion to learn. You may get destroyed when picking Karthus into Rivenas his relative depth means that you may not be able to reach his full potential without a significant amount of practice beforehand.
Furthermore, Karthus has some amount of CC and other utility, a similar amount to Riven. This makes her just as valuable during team fights, especially when fighting champions with a lot of burst damage.
While there is not a single best champion overall in League of Legends, in Karthus vs Riven matchups, Riven is the better champion with a much lower win rate, less champion complexity, and a similar amount of utility to help out your team members during late stage team fights.
Karthus is a terribly counter for Riven. Focus your strategy on keeping up your gold income and taking out objectives. If you are able to do that, you should be able to stand on your own as Karthus against Riven.
Other Champion Matchups Against Karthus
Additional Information for Karthus Players
How We Calculated Our Karthus vs Riven Build and Stats
Other Useful Resources
Further Insights to Win this Matchup
If you would like to learn all of the intricacies of Karthus to counter Riven during both the laning and mid / late game phases of League of Legends, you should keep reading to pick up a few extra tips and tricks for this matchup. If you pay attention to the build and stats presented here, you will grow your win rate by a lot and be that much closer to League of Legends pro players.
Karthus usually racks up less CS compared to Riven. Champions who typically don't take much CS often don't have to have much CS to be valuable teammates, such as sup champs. They are capable of scaling properly off of their abilities and first items alone. Yet, champs with large amounts of CS, such as hyper-carries, typically have to have several high cost items to be effective. In either case, try to surpass the values displayed on this page to do well.
The ideal items to prioritize in your Karthus versus Riven build consist of Rabadon's Deathcap, Malignance, and Stormsurge. When Karthus bought at least these three items in his build, he performed significantly better when facing Riven than with many other common builds. In fact, Karthus boasted an average win rate of 45.4% battling Riven with these items in his kit.
To have the greatest probability of annihilating Riven as Karthus, you should use the Dark Harvest, Cheap Shot, Eyeball Collection, Ultimate Hunter, Presence of Mind, and Last Stand runes from the Domination and Precision rune sets. Of all the rune sets players chose for Karthus vs Riven fights, this sequence of runes resulted in the greatest win rate. In fact, these runes gave a 45.4% win rate overall.
By default, tips, stats, and builds on how to beat Riven as Karthus are displayed for all ranked divisions combined. If you would like to narrow the statistics and builds to a distinct division, you may use the selection menu earlier in the counter matchup guide.