Briar vs Nasus Counter Pick

Nasus punishes exactly the kind of extended jungle clash Briar’s kit wants to force, and the result over 1,192 games on patch 16.13.1 reflects it — Briar wins only 44.5% of the time. Siphoning Strike permanently increases in power every time it kills a unit, so long games spent contesting camps or trading in skirmishes only make Nasus’s late fights harder for Briar to close out, regardless of how the early jungle clash went.

The stat line backs up why early aggression matters more than usual here. Nasus reaches 2,418 health and 113.9 armor at level 18 against Briar’s 2,240 health and 106.5 armor, and his base 350 move speed is faster than Briar’s 340 — enough to catch her even after Wither has already slowed her down. Wither itself decelerates both move speed and attack speed over time, directly undercutting the sustained-damage plan Crimson Curse’s bleed depends on.

Briar’s realistic path is to end the clash before Nasus scales: Head Rush’s armor break paired with Certain Death’s beeline execution threat works if Nasus is caught away from Fury of the Sands, the ultimate that grants him bonus health, range, and healing while active. Once that ultimate is up, the matchup shifts hard in Nasus’s favor.