How to win lane as Kennen against Gnar · 51.59% win rate over 345 Emerald+ games · Updated 2026-07-27
| Stage | Favoured | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Level 1 | Even / skill | Both of you are fragile level 1 — your Q-shuriken poke and his boomerang roughly trade, so it reads even until someone's spells come online. |
| Level 2 | Gnar | Gnar's level 2-3 spike beats you: Hyper (W) on-hit autos out-poke your low-HP body before you can stack three marks for the stun. |
| Level 3 | Gnar | His boomerang (Q) catch plus Hyper out-ranges your trades and his second wind-up denies your mark chain — he owns this window. |
| Levels 4-5 | Even / skill | You regain footing — bank Q-poke and reset your marks around his boomerang cooldown, neither side can hard-commit cleanly yet. |
| Level 6 | Even / skill | Slicing Maelstrom unlocks your E-in, R stun-lock all-in on a mini-form Gnar, but his rage bar threatens GNAR!, so it's a knife-edge even window. |
| First item | Gnar | Your first-item burst wants to cash in, but the moment his rage bar fills GNAR!'s AoE stun interrupts your R channel and flips the fight to him. |
| Two+ items | Gnar | Two-item Mega Gnar survives your R and CCs you down once it's on cooldown — he out-scales your squishy caster pattern, so kite him to teamfights. |
Gnar's boomerang (Q) and Hyper (W) on-hit out-range your Q-shuriken trades while you're at your most fragile, so don't walk up to throw a single Q and eat two boomerang catches for it. Last-hit at the tip of Q and only commit a poke when his boomerang is mid-flight or on cooldown. The catch you must respect: at levels 2-3 he can stack Hyper bonus-magic autos faster than you can build Mark of the Storm to your third-stack stun, so trading straight up loses — chip and reset your marks instead.
The full Kennen vs Gnar 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? Gnar vs Kennen guide →
All Kennen top lane matchups →