FOTM Report: Mid Lane Nunu Holding Strong

Guide to Playing Nunu Mid

This one's a bit overdue, but Nunu mid continues to rise in popularity showing no signs of stopping this patch. With no nerfs in sight, I think it's a good time to check out what's giving this furball so much success and how to play him in the current meta.

Check out the details on runes and builds below!

Guide to Playing Nunu Mid

This one's a bit overdue, but Nunu mid continues to rise in popularity showing no signs of stopping this patch. With no nerfs in sight, I think it's a good time to check out what's giving this furball so much success and how to play him in the current meta.

Check out the details on runes and builds below!

How to Play

Abilities: W, Q, E then prioritize R > Q > E > W

Summoner Spells: Flash + Ignite

Starting Items: Doran Ring + Health Potions

Strategy: Clear mid as quickly as possible and trade freely with Consume, then gank side lanes post-3

Core Items: Hextech Protobelt-01, Sorcerer's Shoes, Deadman's Plate, Mejai's Soulstealer, Spirit Visage, Gargoyle Stoneplate

Rune Setup

Primary: Dark Harvest, Cheap Shot, Eyeball Collection, Relentless Hunter

Secondary: Celerity, Waterwalking

How It Works

Incredible Trading Power
Nunu is an insanely powerful early game champion and nearly impossible to trade with as any of the popular melee assassins. His consume is extremely potent and allows him to farm freely and trade freely. This gives him strong lane priority levels 1-3.

Powerful River Control

As a result of his lane priority and strong minion killing potential, Nunu can assist his jungler at scuttle crabs far easier than any other mid-lane champion. This allows his jungler to secure scuttle crabs with ease and Nunu can even solo the enemy jungler if necessary. Post level-three Nunu's snowball also allows him to dominate the river and continuously be a threat to both top and mid while losing relatively little farm.

Low Cooldown Waveclear
Few champions are capable of clearing their waves as quickly as a Nunu with a fully charged snowball and consume. This lets him continuously clear waves and stay out of sight almost the entire game, creating strong map presence and forcing enemy side lanes to play safely in order to survive.

Strong Engage

Late game Nunu builds primarily tank items, allowing him to engage at will from long distances and catch enemies off guard continuously even if they have decent ward presence on the map.

Potential Pitfalls

Low Poke
Nunu mid is forced to all-in champions. As a reuslt, if your team is far behind or cannot follow up, he ends up relatively powerless.

Reliant on Roaming

Some games may be against enemy teams like Kassadin and Ezreal/Sona. If they choose to freeze wave at their turret, ganking may be difficult outside of a coordinated dive with your jungle. This greatly reduces Nunu's potential if the enemy team chooses late-game scaling champions that play safe throughout the early to mid game.

Countering Nunu Mid

Pick defensive champions that can CS well under turret and scale well into late game.

Conclusions

Nunu mid is a very safe and very strong pick, but it doesn't scale particularly well into late game if you're mostly farming. As a result, I'd say it's very good for solo queue, but not to an overpowered state.

Suggested Tier: Tier 1