Locke vs Smolder Counter Pick

A 425-unit range gap usually settles a mid matchup on its own. Smolder attacks from 550, Locke from 125, and for the first levels it plays exactly that way: he absorbs damage walking up, and Dragon Practice collects a stack from every ability that touches him.

The gap closes because Ashen Pursuit is not a dash that has to cross the intervening space. It teleports to a location, then dashes into the next target and damages whatever it passes through, which turns careful spacing into a single point of failure. Once Locke is adjacent, Silver Stake adds on-hit magic damage that grows with missing health and Purgatory executes what remains. The 55.0% he posts across 211 games on patch 16.13.1 rests on that one sequence.

Defensively the numbers are lopsided in his favor. Smolder holds 575 health and 24 armor at level one against 655 and 32, and by level 18 the health totals read 2,275 to 2,508. Smolder’s damage is physical while Locke carries 32 magic resist, the higher of the two values. Achooo! and Flap, Flap, Flap still provide a detonating projectile and a terrain-ignoring reposition, so spending the ultimate before he has a reason to burn them is the common error. Smolder pays Mana for the stacking sequence as well, so pressure that pushes him off a wave slows Dragon Practice as directly as it slows his gold, and at 330 against 340 he cannot contest it.