Jax is an attack speed based top lane bruiser, he excels long trades and when he gets to dictate the minion wave. Jax is similar to champions like Tryndamare and Irelia. Jax is a champion with a lot of chase potential and single target damage. Therefore he can be annoying if he got ahead in the lane.
So much of Jax power is put into his auto-attacks, meaning he has to actually get close up in melee range to deal damage. This linear play-style makes up Jax strengths and weaknesses. If Jax does not get control over the lane he will never be able to take a fair trade. Due to him having to trade into a huge minion wave, Jax pushing tools is very limited and therefor getting priority in lane is crucial versus Jax.
Abilities
- P: Jax stacks up attack speed upon hitting enemies with an auto-attack, stacks up to 8 times, stacks slowly decay when now refreshed. Prevent Jax from stacking up his passive. The majority of his power is put into this ability, without it he cannot trade efficiently.
- Q: Jax Jumps to an enemy or a friendly target, deals physical damage. Be aware that Jax does have this gap-closer if his passive is stacked up. This is one of the main reasons for why priority is so important for Jax.
- W: Jax next auto-attack deals extra magic damage. This ability is the only of Jax abilities which makes him be able to even contest a short trade. By staying just outside his auto-attack range he can´t AA-W you for a short trade.
- E: Jax dodges all auto-attacks for 1.5 seconds and after the duration, he stuns surrounding enemies. Never take an all-in versus Jax on equal terms if this ability is up. Try to bait Jax to waste this ability by stutter-stepping and threatening a trade, once Jax uses it, back off. The ability has a long cooldown and Jax is easily abusable once it is on cooldown
- R: Every third auto attack deals bonus magic damage, activating the ability gives Jax temporarily armor and magic resist. This spell is mostly linked to Jax passive, it inhibits the same play-pattern. If Jax gets control of the wave he can easy auto-attack the wave twice and then jump and burst trade you on the third auto-attack.
Learn more about Jax abilities here.
Our Top Tips to Counter Jax
- Jax biggest weakness is his kit, it is so centered around having the ability to consistently auto-attack a minion wave. This outlines a perfect opportunity to counter Jax by playing champions that has better push power than Jax. By either pressuring Jax under turret or zoning him off a minion wave by freezing it. Jax has no way to stack up his passive and his E.
- Jax has a lot of defensive capabilities versus auto-attack based champions due to his E but lacks in defense versus spell casters. Playing champions that is not reliant on auto-attacks will make Jax unable to abuse the first part of his E, thus making him weak. The nature of most of these champions have shoving abilities that expose Jax first weakness also.
- Jax somewhat linear play-style makes him really weak in team-fights if crowd-control is available in your team-composition. Make sure that you have champions that can easily shut him down, like a popular support Braum.
Champions That Counter Jax
Rumble
As outlined in the previous sections, Rumble’s kit abuses Jax first to major weaknesses. Rumbles Q can poke Jax from range meanwhile shoving the minion wave. It prevents Jax from contesting the minion wave without getting chunked down. Rumbles E can poke Jax from long range, and help to disengage together with the Rumble E. Rumbles R is really good in team fights versus champions with linear play-styles.
Neeko/Kennen
Her kit has the ability to poke Jax, slow him down, get priority in lane. Even disengaging with Neeko´s stealth plus root makes is impossible for Jax to win the lane without any jungle assistance. Shove Jax into the turret, consistently poke him and get ahead by getting turret plates. If you manage to annoy Jax enough he will die from your R combo while overextended and chunked.
Ryze
A good played Ryze makes it impossible for Jax to be played. Ryze can consistently harass Jax with EQ and auto-attacks. As soon as Jax starts going aggressive Ryze can just root Jax and run away with phase rush. Ryze does out-scale Jax in both split-push and team-fight scenarios and makes Jax life miserable.
Laning vs Jax
- Make sure that you have priority in lane, zone Jax away from consistently hitting the minions. If Jax is able to get control of the minion wave, let it bounce into you and either freeze or let the wave crash into your turret.
- Items which give you movement speed/slow is really good into Jax.
- Bring Ignite if you are not confident with using your teleport to impact other lanes.
- Respect Jax once he gets priority, be aware of the enemy jungler. Make sure that your jungler is ready to shut down Jax. A Jax which falls behind in the item curve is a useless Jax. You want to punish Jax as much as you can early.
Mid & Late game vs Jax
As long as you have punished Jax enough early game you will be able to transition into taking turrets against him.
Deny him farm in the mid-game, do not let him free farm. In team-fights you should never let a Jax freely auto attack you.
- Be aware that he is powerful if let alone
- Keep a good eye on Jax and lock him down with crowd-control once he oversteps
- Bring supportive champions like Braum and Gragas that has disengage and lock-down available in their kits
- Spell-oriented Ad-carries like Ezreal/Lethality Varus are excellent into Jax. If you have shoved in the lane versus Jax it does free up time for you to roam
Focus on impacting the map, get your team ahead. Try to initiate picks, when transitioning from side lane towards mid lane.
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