How to win lane as Gwen against Graves · 50.26% win rate over 1,337 Emerald+ games · Updated 2026-07-27
| Stage | Favoured | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Level 1 | Gwen | At Level 1 his Quickdraw dash isn't up, so your Snip Snip! cone with its true-damage center snip can contest the first wave before he can kite — take the early poke trade. |
| Level 2 | Graves | He gets Quickdraw and his two-shell burst auto first — he dashes out of Q range and bursts you while you have no Hallowed Mist to hide behind. |
| Level 3 | Graves | With Quickdraw plus Smoke Screen he owns the trade: he slows you, denies your vision, and dashes off, and you still have no untargetability to punish his commitment. |
| Levels 4-5 | Even / skill | Even window — your Q+E poke-and-reset trades back when his shells are reloading, but his slow-and-kite still answers it, so it's down to who reads the windows. |
| Level 6 | Graves | Needlework plus Hallowed Mist flips it — you mist his Quickdraw engage, slow him with R, and his short-range pellets have to fight inside fog where he can't target you. |
| First item | Gwen | Your Riftmaker/Nashor's spike beats his item timing — Skip 'n Slash's cooldown refund keeps your %-HP Q and on-hit autos grinding through his tanky-ADC build in any extended fight. |
| Two+ items | Gwen | You out-scale his pellets the more he builds HP — your Thousand Cuts passive shreds his max-HP and heals you off it, so pin him in mist and the extended duel is yours. |
Graves out-stats you levels 1-3 the moment he has Quickdraw — his two-shell burst auto and Smoke Screen slow chip you and zone you off the wave before you ever close to Snip Snip! range, and you have no Hallowed Mist to hide in yet. At Level 1 you can actually contest with your Q cone since his dash isn't up, but once he has Quickdraw to reposition, stop walking into pellet range to throw a Q he can just dash away from. Last-hit at the tip of your Q, eat the minimum poke, and respect that his burst is real before you have any untargetability.
The full Gwen vs Graves 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? Graves vs Gwen guide →
All Gwen top lane matchups →