Hello everyone, my name is Bìshop a midlane player in OCE and a student at MLA. I have been playing Sett mid for the longest time, but have had my trials and tribulations with it. Finally I have developed a system which helped me fix my 40% wr over 80 games on Sett to a 53% over 120 games. While this looks yikes, you have to think of how good my winrate had to be in those 40 games to boost the wr by that much. This massive improvement helped me jump from hardstuck plat 1 to Masters in a space of two months! Sett has been my most played in this time, and the champ I have found the most consistent success on. I haven't found many guides talking about him in the midlane, and thought it was time for the world to see how good he really is. Currently I am the only mid Sett player rated in OCE's top 10, making me the rank 1 Sett mid in OCE, but rank 6 overall in OCE on Sett. https://www.leagueofgraphs.com/summoner/oce/B%C3%ACshop < My league of graphs if anyone is interested. Hope you enjoy the guide, I truly would appreciate any feedback at all or criticisms, hope to hear from you all.

Alright this is probably where you will need the most patience, playing Sett into mages is really annoying but also rewarding. You can absorb a lot of pressure in these match ups and make good progress for your team. A core idea to have is the trading principle. By this I mean trading your health for the wave. It is inevitable you will poked beyond belief in your games, but don't let it go to waste. Always look to do something with the health you're trading. Especially once you have w, if they poke you to where you have a stacked a ton of grit, walk to the wave and w it, then e and kill the last few and run away to get hp back. Obviously take this with a grain of salt, because not in every situation can you just shove because there is pressure from enemy support or their jungle. In these cases avoid as much poke as possible, its okay to give some minions, Sett scales really well, don't feel too bad for missing minions, you will be able to make up for it in skirmishes and sidelaning.

Fundamentals: Trading level 1 by starting e is really good. Use fleet to give yourself movement speed to close the gap and trade like 2-4 autos, then run. If you get q level two you can try this again but with the added bonus of your qs ms bonus and damage. After 3 you need to start adopting the trading concept. Constantly look for what your team and jungle in specific is doing. If they'r an aggressive jg champ, maybe set up invades or skirmishes, you are better than 80% of midlaners in skirmishes, especially early on.

Niche: Really practise your spacing and dodging. I recommend playing loldodgegame a lot, it helps with your movement, which is vital in your harder match ups. Know how to abuse opponent positioning with your e. If they are disrespecting you go for a trade, your sustain is so strong you will heal up quick after. You can pace back and forth to time their movement to land your e as well. Know that doing your e with normal cast is also viable, you can look to land it diagonally (it makes your e hitbox longer).

There is really two schools of thought for me in this department.
1.Shove them in
2.Freeze the wave on your side.

Only do 1 if you know that your team NEEDS the pressure/prio from you. If they don't its really useless to keep it pushed, because they just farm for free. The other reason to go for 1 is if you are stacking waves for dives with your jungle.

2 is most often the better option because it makes your enemies need to coinflip plays or else die/lose resources as a result of dueling you. Just make sure to track them. Simple theory of freezing is to make sure you have a slight-moderate lack of minions compared to enemy minions, aim to do this with caster minions.If the wave looks too big cut it down a bit, I like doing this by going for a trade, but you could just use passive to cut minions down.

You have 3 major tools for team fighting, just like most other midlaners (even mages like Viktor/Syndra) you have key abilities that you cant just waste. First one is your ult. Your ult, much like the suggestion of its name, can completely change a fight. There is a few ways of using it A.Ult for damage B.Ult for peel C.Ult for space. B and C might seem similar, but in this case I mean space for you, almost like an escape, this is more niche but I thought to include it. We only resort to A. if we are the main carry and/or have to get damage done for our team to clean up, this is pretty good if you have assassins or a moderately strong adc, or a samira. B. is my more preferred method as it works better in more organised play, you want to ult carries away from your own, that's the general principle. I didn't include ulting as an engage because this can be a secondary factor in the other 3. If you are the only engage then A. is the way to go.

Your second most important ability is E. You CANNOT and I mean CANNOT wif this in a fight, its vital. I argue its better than your ult. It can stun their whole team theoretically if positioned well. Don't ever just throw this willy-nilly, make sure to plan it out, kind of like a Viktor W or syndra E, dont waste it, use it effectively.

Your last one is W, and as the game gets longer it becomes your most important. You can literally carry games with this ability. Dont hold it to finish off people, in most cases its better to just use it so your team can clean up. Comboing it with your e or your teams cc is really good too.

There is a lot of different build paths on Sett, I have provided some TL;DRs for the different choices, however I would like to cover the one size fits all build in detail.

This is a common build seen by high-elo Sett players, namely Chovy. The reason this build is so strong is that it extends your best areas of play, which are your duelling and your sustain. Gore and DD make for a fantastic pairing which allow you to decimate the enemy team while being able to stay alive and create space for your backline, alternatively, you can also just duel anyone who tries to dive your backline (if the enemy comp isn't front to back).

Keep in mind that the items are a rough guide, you won't always need a chemtech chainsword, which could be a black clever, steraks or even a silvermere dawn in the case of high CC. The resistance items could also be replaced i.e. Deadman's plate instead of force of nature or plated steel caps instead of merc treads. Anathemas could also just be a warmogs if you really don't need to tenacity and damage reduction, perhaps into a comp where you need to skirmish multiple times and need the sustainance (like a poke comp or something). Also alternative to both, you could go something like a randuins or spirit visage if you really need extra resistance.

All the rune options work with this build, conqueror compliments it the best in terms of overall game play from start to finish. Lethal tempo will give you a really big level 1-11 in terms of duelling and laning, but later it won't really proc that often. Fleet is soooo nice into those range poke match ups, but it doesn't fit this built too brilliantly, its more of a quality-of-life rune that should be taken on more tanky Sett setups, this would be like chemtant/frostfire/sunfire Sett with less AD, so need to auto or duel, but rather just use movement speed and sustainance to get in range to mess with enemy backline or just tank a lot of frontline damage.

Please do not replicate what Jojo did at worlds on Sett, I will upload an analysis of why his performance wasn't what it should be in terms of Sett setup and mechanics, meanwhile, we will just talk about some fundamental concepts of playing Sett mid.

These come in no particular order, but some are more important in different contexts.
1. Space: By space I mean creating space. This is more something I learnt in overwatch, but also something I feel like needs to be talked about more in league. Creating space is vital. Super vital, if your adc or other damage dealers get in position to do their thing then you wont be winning fights the way you are meant to. Fundamentally your win con will be your ranged carries, but sometimes obviously there is a fed fiora or something on your team that will carry. Regardless you need to create space. This is particular in team fights. Sett has one main tool we will discuss in a bit that helps him create a lot of space, which is his ult. But the main tool he has is just his positioning. I want you to picture midlane, literally the middle of midlane where the minions first meet. Imagine your carries are sitting near the tower and the enemy is pushing in with their Sett at the front and carries behind him. There is a huge lack of incentive to approach that Sett to try and get to that backline (front to back), because he is pretty much a goalkeeper. But imagine it without the Sett, like if they had a ranged comp with no front line, then what they are doing is borderline griefing because you can walk up and contest the ranged carries without your backline worrying about hitting the big dude at the front instead. Where you stand is really important. Sometimes you will literally stand on your carries, most times though in competitive (where you don't really verse much assassins) you will stand a bit ahead of your team between the enemy on your carries. We will talk about ult targets later but for now I want you to think about your effective range with your teammates. Usually we use that term to describe your threat on the enemy, but in this case I want you to picture your backline as being a soccer goal, there is a set space you can cover, and like a goalkeeper the bigger you make yourself the less there is to aim at. Although team fights aren't like penalties, they are like free kicks, and you are the wall. However you have the advantage of moving freely in the wall and even towards the ball, but what happens if you run at the ball (the threat too early)? Well they just pass the ball, in this analogy the pass would be a secondary threat. Lets say we are versing an Aphelios adc on the other team and a diana jungle, threat 1 and 2 respectively. If you run at the Aphelios your Diana will just delete your backline. But if you stand between your backline and the diana she cant delete your backline, although now the Aphelios can walk up now. So what's the trade off? Well here we have to visualise the team fight, what do our champions want to do and what do theirs want to do? If your adc wants to go in hard then letting the diana go through on goal might be fine, since the goal will be meaningless, more of a consolation, but if your backline doesn't want to go ham and just wants to left click constantly, then you need to block the run being made at the back post for a header. I hope this analogy kinda helped XD.

2. Prio: A big advantage you have on Sett in most match ups is that you can get priority in lane by shoving the lane very quickly. This is partially due to two reasons, the first is that in a ranged match up no matter how much they poke you, you can always trade your health to W the wave and e it to clear it almost instantly, and then just move to ward or help your jungle. The second is in melee match ups there really isn't anyone who can contest your push past level 3, so if they try to you just stat-check them and box them out of lane. A downfall of Sett is his lack of escapes mid, so while yes you can get prio just be careful of your timing, a big learning curve I had on Sett is learning that I didn't have to die six times a game to be useful. Often I would die three times just in lane due to early ganks which I could avoid with simple jungle tracking or watching the enemies' posturing. For example, if the enemy Orianna is level 3 and is just sprinting at your throwing everything including autos, even walking into the wave, while the trade looks winning for you if you commit, you gotta keep in mind why this griefer would do that, most times there is a reksai coming through the wall for you.

3. Ult selection: This will legit win you games, you MUST know who you are ulting before a fight, hell, before the game even starts. You need to be visualising all the team fight angles, where do you want to be, where do they want to be. I love using the diana example because it fits so perfectly with Sett, but its not always that simple. Keep in mind this concept coincides a lot with creating space in concept 1. Lets say the enemy has a Vi, Alistar and a Gnar. Now before the game I want you to imagine what those champs want to do. Vi has a lockdown and a knockup, she can get onto your backline for free without being interrupted in the channel. Alistar can be both peel or engage, he wants to waste the enemy team's time by CCing them and keeping them busy or setting up kills for his team, his ult makes him almost unkillable and he can just create havoc for your backline. Gnar has a few more nuances, he doesn't have to go hard every fight, he can play around with his range and then look for an opportunity to ult your team. Now think about which of those threats are the scariest. Obviously, there will be other champs you want to factor in, however I want to keep this simple. If your adc isn't fed and you + your toplaner/Jungler are the main threat, then don't waste your time peeling. This is a bit harsh but true. Although it somewhat depends on the champs, if you have a mf who is behind her ult can still make a difference, but a 0/8 kaisa at 18 minutes, no chance. So lets think about those three champs I mentioned before, you have some options, stand near your carries so that you can ult vi off of them once she finishes her channel, and then block her path with your body (creating space for your adc). You can cancel alistar dash with your e, its not that hard to do, you can also cancel it with ult if you were looking for a counter engage. Gnar is probably the weirdest to deal with because of his transition from ranged to melee, but I would argue he is the scariest threat because of his AOE damage. I personally would use my ult to counter his engage, ideally taking up the attention of 3 enemy champions after ulting him back into his team. This creates space and lets your team deal with anyone going for that back post header that you couldn't defend.

4. Limitbreaker: You need to learn what you can do with how much health and CDs you have. There is two schools of grief for Sett beginner players, and I always fit into the second one before I harnessed my craft. The first school is the players that underestimate his survivability and damage, the second school is the players that overestimate his survivability and damage. The nuance to figuring Sett out is simply in the games you play. You need to be getting used to how different the champ feels with different runes and builds. Sometimes you will be so tanky that your autos do 0 damage but your W can one shot a team and keep you alive. Other times you will be punching the cr*p out of the enemy team and then trying to line up a W that does only 400 damage. You need to visualise all of this, understand the differences and exploit the advantages while making up for the short comings. This takes a lot of games to master, that's why its important to try out all playstyles and be flexible.