How to win lane as Graves against Locke · 49.36% win rate over 2,255 Emerald+ games · Updated 2026-07-27
| Stage | Favoured | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Level 1 | Graves | Level 1 is Graves — Buckshot burst plus your auto damage out-trades his chip openers. |
| Level 2 | Graves | Level 2 stays yours: Smoke Screen's blind switches off the auto pattern his passive chip depends on. |
| Level 3 | Graves | Level 3 is Graves — Quickdraw's armor stacks win the straight duel. |
| Levels 4-5 | Graves | Levels 4-5 stay yours on raw early trading power — keep forcing the exchanges. |
| Level 6 | Even / skill | Level 6 evens things out — his ult threat now hangs over trades you used to win for free, and your raw-damage lead thins. |
| First item | Locke | First item is Locke's window — Purgatory plus his burst spike executes a squishy Graves caught below threshold; this is the danger stretch. |
| Two+ items | Even / skill | 2+ items returns to skill: your item damage trades evenly against his reliable execute — whoever finds the pick wins. |
Levels 1-5 you are simply the bigger bully: double-shell autos and Buckshot out-trade his chip, Smoke Screen blinds his answer mid-pattern, and Quickdraw armor wins the level-3 duel outright. Force a trade every wave and convert into plates — this lead is the whole matchup, because his level 6 rewrites the rules on you.
The full Graves vs Locke 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? Locke vs Graves guide →
All Graves top lane matchups →