Sylas vs Naafiri Counter Pick
Matchup Summary
What the Data Means
Two very different profiles meet in the Mid lane: Sylas the mage/assassin hybrid, Naafiri the assassin/fighter hybrid. 1,235 tracked games on 16.13.1 put Sylas at a 46.1% win rate into Naafiri. A deficit of 3.9 points is what earns Naafiri its counter flag in this matchup.
Both champions are melee (Sylas at 175, Naafiri at 125), so the lane is decided by cooldowns rather than reach.
Because Sylas is magic-based and Naafiri physical-based, the counter-item is obvious but different for each. Before items it is 600 HP, 29 armour, 32 MR for Sylas; 610, 28, 32 for Naafiri. By level 18 that becomes 2674 health and 117 armour for Sylas against 2395 and 99 for Naafiri. Base attack damage is 61 against 55, so Sylas wins the raw auto-attack exchange.
A missed Hijack from Sylas hands Naafiri the window to land The Call of the Pack. Then it becomes Hijack against Hounds’ Pursuit, and the one still holding it sets the terms.
Sylas is the more demanding of the two to pilot (5/10 versus 2/10), which quietly shapes the win rate. The page tracks Sylas against Naafiri continuously rather than freezing on one patch.
FAQ
No — current data marks this as a counter matchup: Naafiri has the statistical edge. Sylas wins 46.1% of the recorded games.
46.1% from Sylas's perspective, measured on patch 16.13.1.
1,235 ranked games at Emerald rank and above, across all regions.
The current Sylas build — items, runes and skill order from the same data set — is on the Sylas build page.