How to win lane as Graves against Gwen · 43.48% win rate over 23 Emerald+ games · Updated 2026-07-27
| Stage | Favoured | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Level 1 | Gwen | Snip Snip true-damages your last-hits from outside your point-blank shell range, and with no E charges yet you can't close — you concede Level 1. |
| Level 2 | Graves | You hit your shell-burst spike before her E/W combo — W-blind her empowered autos and dump a full magazine while she's still just Q chip. |
| Level 3 | Graves | Full kit online: dash in, Smoke Screen the empowered auto, and burst her down point-blank in the window before her scaling kicks in. |
| Levels 4-5 | Even / skill | You win the raw all-in, but if she pre-drops Hallowed Mist your autos and R fizzle on an untargetable target — baiting the Mist first is the skill check. |
| Level 6 | Graves | Collateral Damage catches her the instant she leaves Mist (it can't touch her inside the cloud) — your hardest nuke and cleanest kill of the game. |
| First item | Gwen | Once her first AP item lands she's pulling ahead of your Eclipse/Youmuu's tempo — Riftmaker stacking and Q true damage start flipping the duel her way. |
| Two+ items | Gwen | Riftmaker + Snip Snip true damage ignore your True Grit armor and E stacking entirely, and she hides in Mist on every engage — she hard-outscales you. |
"Level 1 is Gwen's: Snip Snip true-damages your last-hits from outside your point-blank shell range, and you have no E charges yet to close the gap, so don't walk up and trade autos. But Levels 2-3 are YOUR window — the moment you have your shells and W online, throw Smoke Screen on her so the blind eats her empowered autos, dash in, and dump a full magazine of close-range spread while she's still squishy and can only chip you with Q's true-damage center. This short stretch is the only time you cleanly out-DPS her, so trade hard and look for a kill."
The full Graves vs Gwen report continues with the mid-game plan, the late-game and teamfight plan, every power spike to play around, and the win conditions for both sides — plus cooldown tracking and the live enemy-jungle tracker inside the app.
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Playing the other side? Gwen vs Graves guide →
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