Ryze vs Darius Counter Pick
Matchup Summary
What the Data Means
Two very different profiles meet in the Top lane: Ryze the mage, Darius the fighter/tank hybrid. Over 262 ranked games on patch 16.13.1, Ryze closes out 53.4% of them. That is 3.4 points above even, so Darius is one of the matchups Ryze can lean on.
Range decides much of the early game: Ryze attacks from 550 units, Darius from 175. Darius wins only by collapsing the distance, which usually means a cooldown or a gank.
Because Ryze is magic-based and Darius physical-based, the counter-item is obvious but different for each. Ryze opens on 620 health and 22 armour, Darius on 652 and 37. The 15-armour edge belongs to Darius. At full build levels the gap widens to 2728 HP versus 2590, favouring Ryze. Base attack damage is 55 against 64, so Darius wins the raw auto-attack exchange.
A missed Realm Warp from Ryze hands Darius the window to land Crippling Strike. Whoever spends Realm Warp or Noxian Guillotine first hands the other a window.
Ryze is the more demanding of the two to pilot (7/10 versus 2/10), which quietly shapes the win rate. Read 53.4% as a trend: 262 games is useful, not final. The page tracks Ryze against Darius continuously rather than freezing on one patch.
FAQ
Yes — Ryze holds the statistical advantage in this matchup. Ryze wins 53.4% of the recorded games.
53.4% from Ryze's perspective, measured on patch 16.13.1.
262 ranked games at Emerald rank and above, across all regions.
The current Ryze build — items, runes and skill order from the same data set — is on the Ryze build page.