What's up guys ! This is my first guide on mobafire, but I figured I'd share what I've learned about kayn from the past few years that I've been playing him. I'm the rank 33 kayn NA, which doesn't sound that great, but the first 32 are all karasmai's accounts. And I've reached Grandmaster this season. First, I'll explain my thoughts on kayn in broad strokes then we can get down to specific tip's and trick's.
If you find this guide helpful, you'll gain even more from my twitch shown at the top.
First, lets break up this guide into the different stages and situations that you'll be put in as a kayn player: First 4 minutes and 20 seconds of the game, from your first reset until form, once you have your blue or red form.

11.17-
Champs like evelynn, ekko, nami and teemo were really weak into kayn. When they are played more- kayn is better, and viego could be hard matchup .
But, the kayn nerfs hit hard. 10 % of ur dmg late game was essentially taken away. Previously, I thought that tear was completely unnecessary and costly but I think its time we implement it into the build.
Tear- I still don't recommend you build it first back. You simply need the extra longsword to help clear and early skirmish, but you can build it after you go ironspike whip.
Gore vs Prowlers- I like gore a bit better, i don't think the nerfs change anything about this debate. Except people might start doing prowlers to make up for lost dmg.
Goredrinker build variation- Ive been experimenting with a new build of kayn where you go whip-> tear -> either serpents, edge of night, youmuus -> Finish manamune if you have 360 stacks -> or just finish gore.

Bruh I've otp this champ for 3 years and I still don't know exactly. If you go red when they have 3+ melee and blue whne they go 3+ ranged you'll be fine. Blue is completely useless if you can't one shot some of them. So, certain champs like senna or lulu are bait to go blue. You can, and go serpents fang, but their heals and shields and the fact that they like to stick together in a ball can make it tricky. Some champs can also zone you.
If you really know what youre doing you can consider going blue to focus on sidelane plays. If your champs win sidelane and not teamfight its usually better to go blue.

Kayn needs items and gold to be useful. If he's ahead or even he's op. If he's behind then hes useless until he can get back in the game. This means that your time is more valuable than some other jungles like sejuani or volibear. In practice, this means only gank when the gank is absolutely free. Ganking to burn a flash is only good if that character not having flash directly leads to a kill or more pressure for you to scale in the future.
For example, its not worth to gank for a flash if :
You don't plan on playing around that lane
You don't plan on reganking that lane
Your laner can't solo kill the enemy laner
Your pathing to that lane wastes 15+ seconds
Your pathing is not on track with taking your other camps.

Another common mistake players (even high elo) make is taking dragon when they shouldn't.
Dragons have good gold value but they take up take and take you off the map for an extended amount of time.
As kayn, its not worth to trade your topside camps for a dragon, for example.

Don't take objectives if :
Your laners have a lot of gold and want to reset
Enemy can beat you
You have gold that you want to spend
Your camps on topside are up.

First, consider the following things in loading screen
1) Do i want red or blue smite (talked about earlier)
2) Can they invade/late invade? Can we invade? Late invade?
3) Where do I want to play around?
This question will decide if you are starting on your botside or topside. If you want to play for your topside then start bot and full clear up. If you want to play for your botside, start top and full clear up. If you want to play for mid, then still decide if bot or top has prio.

To decide which side you want to play for consider the following questions:
Will that lane have push? Is my laner stronger than the other? Its good to path towards lane with prio so that they allow you to scale. For example, their push will help you get scuttle, and you can safely 2v2.
Will the laners be trading a lot? If so then, theyll probably be low by the time you get there.
Does my laner have CC/ Good setup?
Do i get the right form from that lane? (don't let this be the only decider)


As far as full clearing goes, optimize your clear to be around 3:15 without a leash.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhRN9ZE1ILQ&t=11s for blue-buff start.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_G008zamKsw for red-buff start.

Before you get to level 3 look around the map to make a plan. Try to determine the lane state for each lane. Lets say that both junglers are pathing top. And your toplaner doesn't have push, then after finishing your full clear run to the bot scuttle. Skipping camps can be risky but you might be able to go straight for top gank after you get level three, depending on if the enemy jungle can do the same.
Use your laner's push to take camps and secure your own.
If you start taking scuttle right at 3:15, youll have a 15 second window to gank or hover around a lane before your camps start respawning. Look to see if you can make a play, or just recall and buy pickaxe or double longsword.

As early as first blood, try to identify which one of your lanes is winning. It probably won't be the same one you identified at the start of the game. This will be the lane you want to play around. To do this, you'll need to make sure that you are covering your laner when his wave is bad or frozen and make plays when enemy laner's wave is bad. If you can do this correctly, you can accelerate your laner's lead and your own by taking the enemy jungler's camps on that side of the map.

THis is more of a jungling tip than a kayn tip but, you should also clear your camps with respect to that winning lane. So, if my toplaner is coming back from base and i want to be there Ill clear as many camps as I can before I am needed. Typically, you want the lane you end up at after your clear, to be your winning lane. But once again, you can skip camps to help out.

During this phase of the game make sure that you are scanning the map as often as possible while clearing. Even though you should be farming for most of the game, its important that you have some awareness of lanes so that you can collect free kills when enemy is walking up too much.

For those of you who haven't played a lot of kayn, your form works like this: you get orbs by attacking enemy champs. If the enemy champ is ranged you get blue orbs and red if they are melee. There is a minimum number of orbs you need before you can transform. But if you reach that point having more of one type of orb than the other (which is always the case), then youll only have that type of form to transform into. If you wanted the other form, youll have to wait 4 minutes, which can really stunt you.
You can manipulate this by choosing when to overcap on your form. After around 10 minutes, the rate at which you gain orbs is way higher than before 10. So, if you need a lot of blue orbs, you can specifically target ranged champs to overcap.
Never choose not to take a free kill because of form tho. I've thought about it haha.
After you deal damage to an enemy champ the orbs don't immediately return to you. Its only after your out of combat can you see the progress you've made on your little icon by your hud. So, lets say you need 100 total orbs to get form (these are made up numbers) and you have 60 red orbs and 30 blue orbs and you want blue form. If you are in combat for long enough that you get 40 blue orbs, even though you only needed 10 more orbs and 60>40, the 40 +30 blue orbs will outweigh the 40 red orbs.

I'll leave you to read the abilities list but Red kayn is much more of a bruiser than blue kayn. This means that you can tank a lot more in fights and peel for your team if you need to. Use your w to disrupt enemy assasins or divers. But depending on your comp, you can dive backline too. It's worht noting that paired with champs like ezreal/xayah you want to peel for your backline, where as with kaisa jhin you want to dive backline.
Learn your limits, you want to tank as much damage for your team before you press r.

Blue form is a lot riskier and harder to have the same presence as red. But can have lot of damage to carry your team with. Its the ultimate mid game carry, but less so late and early. There isn't much to say, except the basic combo is prowlers, w q r. You can do a lot of fun things wiht prowers and q. Like you can prowlers in the middle of q. Or you can w then prowlers then q in the opposite direction. Looks cool.
When you get form race to run over map. The first few minutes that you have form are your strongest points because nobody is careful of you. You eviscerate squishies who are still stuck in lane.
In fights just e through walls throwing out w. You can reach a little bit if you w then q backwards really fast so you don't get hit by anything.

-you'll have a couple of seconds to stay inside a person during r. If your abilities or goredrinker is on cd, then you might want to wait inside them for those to come back up. Also, you can wait while a shield expires so that the damage from r isn't wasted.
-Press goredrinker and q at the same time and the animation is canceled
-You can flash in e, into a wall, gain hp. Can be useful for close call situations.
-When you're diving under turret, usually you want to be the first one to tank. When you have taken enough damage then you can transfer the aggro over to your teammates via your ultimate.
-Refresh your passive on blue with your ult.

If your laner is dead or can't catch a wave, you should do so. Just weigh the pros and cons of showing yourself on the map and losing some time. After lane phase ends the same rule applies, take sidelane waves if your team isn't taking them, on blue this is very easy, just oneshot the wave and sprint back to doing whatever.
Be selfish as kayn- gold on you is probably better than anyone else on your team. But don't int your laners by doing this. Not worth it to put them behind.
Learn when to reset. Early game, gold/health/mana/camp downtime are the main considerations but you should also be aware of your laners to know when to back. If you want to play around your toplaner and hes backing, then you should too. THis creates what is known as tempo. Tempo is when you achieve something on the map, which can be as simple as crashing a wave. Then resetting with that gold, after having that advantage to make another play. On the other hand, if you don't do this then you can trap yourself on the map. If you are staying to long on the map you may be forced stay even longer, which causes you to lose. Lets say that you dive botlane and have 1.5k. THen decide to do gromp and wolves. You really want to back with your team and make another play but if you do then youll surely lose something on the map while your in base. Or your team will want ot make a play but your too busy buying items.

Kayn is in my opinion the most enjoyable champion to onetrick. His kit is entirely unique from other champs with his forms and running through walls. THis is something thats valauble in maining a champion because you don't want to get bored. With kayn, youre playing hte same champion but between games there are drastic differences in how you will approach the game, from a mechanical standpoint. Whether its the speed of blue kayn racing at 1000 miles an hour through walls to kill the helpless nami or the butt-clenching 1v5 capabilities of red kayn, kayn is a really exciting champion to play. And a perk to all of this is that kayn will always be in the meta. Hes a champion that thrives in a solo q environment if you know what your doing. He punishes uncoordinated teams that have no idea how to stop him from scaling. And if you get a good hold of his kit then youll see that he can 1v9 most games, except at my Elo, its too hard. Thank you for reading til the end and I wish you the best on your endevours!