Shen’s toplane matchups:

Difficulty Levels:

Very Hard

Hard

Challenging

Okay

Moderately Easy

Very Easy

Free

Introduction/Purpose:

This matchup guide is generally focusing on how to play the ​early laning phase​ in each
specific matchup. In most matchup you can get a lead one way or another, and then it’s just
about correctly driving your lead home and snowball your lane and then other lanes. There’s
A LOT of matchups that outscale you in the 1v1 later on if you haven't accumulated enough
of an early lead, and this matchup-guide won’t be focusing on how to deal with those
situations.
______________________________

Level 1 cheese bush:

For the champions with an ​ “ ​*​ “​ ​beside their name you want to do the ​lvl 1 cheese​ if you’re
not leashing. This consists of sitting in the bush waiting for the enemy to walk through there
after leashing their jungler if he starts topside. You wanna Q first at around 1:28, then Q
again at 1:36. That way you’ll likely get 1-2 Q auto’s off on the enemy while still getting the Q
cd back in time to Q through them, slow them, and get 3 additional Emp. Q autos off.

Aatrox Hard Try to bait out his Q’s by stutter stepping close to him and
backing out, and then do the extended trade* when they’ve
run out, and make sure to block his passive-Auto with your
W. Be very careful about him running you down in an
extended trade with R after lvl 6 though.

Akali* Challenging Utilize your passive shield to block some of her Q poke and
only go in for trades once she’s used up most of her energy
for poke/push. Her shroud is 2 seconds longer CD than your
lvl 1 E, so use that 2 sec window if she walks close when
your taunt gets up after an extended trade. It’s fine to get hit
 by some of her Q’s, but you can’t allow her to use her emp.
Auto’s, so either stay out of range or block them with your W
if it’s up. Try to look for extended trades pre 6, because after
6 she will just hunt you down unless you’re MUCH healthier
than her at the start of the trade.

Camille* Moderately Force a lot of quick small trades of 1-2 hits with Emp. Q’s
Easy when you got both passive+grasp up. Make use of your
slightly longer attack range when she’s last hitting. Whenever
she uses E to jump you, instantly press both Q and W to
deny her, and trade back for a second before backing out.
IMPORTANT: Always stay far enough away from the walls
so you can always react with the Q+W presses in time when
she E’s.

Cho'Gath* Moderately Contest the push lvl 1 with Q and try to hit lvl 2 before him. if
Easy you do, just taunt him and hard trade lvl 2, preferably with the
6-Emp auto trade if you can position the blade correctly
before you hit lvl 2. Avoid getting into long trades where he
gets to E-auto you 3 times (if you’re equal levels), and don’t
get hit by Q’s and you should win this lane every time early
on. Punish your lead hard, don’t let him free farm once you
got one.

Darius Challenging Try to go forward baiting for his Q and backing off without
getting hit whenever you can. If Q is on CD, then you can go
for short trades, blocking his W with your W and getting out
of there asap. Never do extended trades in this matchup
except if he’s already low and you KNOW you can kill him
before he kills you. If you’re in the middle of a trade that
looks good for you HP-wise, then once he starts Q’ing, E
inside the middle of it to deny most of the dmg and all of the
healing.

Dr.Mundo* Moderately If he walks up to creeps to last hit you should be able to force
Easy winning trades early on and push the advantage. If he
constantly stays back and farms with Q, then be an evil
mastermind and bodyblock the cannons and some melee
minions with your passive shield whenever it’s up until he
grows angry and walks up to last hit after all (and you force
trades again).

Fiora* Challenging Be wary of her vitals, but do small grasp trades whenever
you have passive up and she goes for a lasthit. You should
almost never use your taunt in this matchup except to
disengage or to go in on her if she wastes her W for some
reason. But you should be able to outtrade her lvl 2-5. It’s
fine to rush Bramble Vest in this matchup.

Gangplank* Very Hard This is my personal ban, it’s just a terrible matchup. Try to
stay out of his Q range for most of the time except when you
 have to walk up for a lasthit. Try to utilize your shield as
much as possible to stay healthy, and save your TP if
possible so you can R away later, because you’re likely
never gonna have the chance to push the wave out in this
matchup.

Garen* Moderately Position the blade up constantly, try to force short trades
Easy where you W (or passive shield) his Q dmg and auto him a
few times with your Emp. Q’s. Repeat until he gets low and
force him out of lane.

Gnar* Challenging Stand behind minions / juke his long range Q’s. Stay back
most of the time except the time you walk up to last hit. Deny
his poke with your shield and your W, never let him proc his
W and it should be survivable. If you’re getting pushed in,
then look for/threaten taunts while he’s under your tower. If
you’re gonna all-in any time that’s not under tower, do it
either when his bar is low or optimally right when he turns
from bit to small.

Hecarim* Very easy As long as you don’t get into very extended trades where he
gets to use his stacked up Q over and over you should win
all trades in this matchup. Do either very short or decently
short trades until he’s around half hp, then you can all in him
with an extended trade if you’re still healthy. Just be careful
early on if he’s running ignite/tp.

Heimerding Hard This one is rough, he’s constantly pushing you in and poking
er* you under tower, and taunting him is too risky in most
situations. The only saving grace is that your W blocks his
turret auto’s, which can be helpful to survive. If you survive
the lane without dying you will be impacting the game more
than heimer soon enough with your R’s.

Illaoi* Hard It’s possible to win trades if you bait out her E without getting
hit, but once you get even a bit low trading vs her becomes
risky since her hitting 1 E can mean you get pushed out of
lane. If you hide behinds your minions it’s also possible to do
short 1-grasp-auto trades when you got your shield up, since
your shield will eat up her W (but you have to dodge her
Q’s).

Irelia* Moderately The single most important thing vs irelia early on is to trade
easy before she gets to stack up her passive. With the passive
stacked up she can just chop you down and kill you, but
without it you’re free to take short but really efficient trades
whenever she goes for a lasthit (starting lvl 1). And with
every good early trade her opportunities to contest for the
lane gets less and less. If you play the first 2 levels correctly
it then shouldn’t matter if you fail to dodge one of her stuns,
since she won’t be able to all in you from it anyway
Jax Free You need to punish Jax super hard early on to keep him from
scaling. Similarly to the irelia.matchup a a key thing is to
force trades before he’s fully stacked up his passive. Just
drag the Q through him and start going at him, and the
moment ​he presses E you want to stand inside him and
taunt backwards ​so he doesn’t get the stun off on you. That
way he gets 0 value out of his E and you can just keep
trading. And without his E jax is basically useless early on
which is why this is such a free matchup.

Jayce Hard Jayce is one of the few champions you’ll never be able to
take good trades with early few levels (1-3) even if you get
onto them with several empowered Q’s, just because he’s
got too much abilities early on with his 2 forms. So your goal
here is to just survive early on and get as much farm as you
can while staying healthy using your passive shield. Most
Jayces push you in to towers, and a little later on around lvl 7
you’ll have kill potential on him if you manage to land a taunt
while he’s under tower if you’re still healthy. You’ll likely need
to use TP to lane in this matchup, but that’s fine if you stay
close in farm since he scales poorly. If the Jayce walks up to
poke you inside of your creep wave it’s possible to punish
him even at lvl4+ by taunting in.

Karma* Challenging Contest the push lvl 1 with Q, because you wanna avoid
being under tower in this matchup, especially if the karma
has klepto. It’s possible to taunt onto karma for some
empowered Autos, but she will trade back heavily onto you
when you run away. But it’s worth it to take even trades so
you’re both kinda low around the same HP, because then
your all-in will be able to take her down before she gets to
trade back onto you. If you’re losing early trades, then try to
just farm it out until later where you get titanic. Then you
should be able to trade well unless you’ve already died
earlier.

Kayle* Okay Contest the push with Q lvl 1 while trying to shield her poke.
Lvl 2-5 you should be looking for extended trades with 6
empowered auto’s whenever you can and push her out of
lane or kill her. Try to get the blade up the lane while farming
and when she walks up to get the Q on you drag the blade
through her to shield the damage and taunt onto her while
she’s slowed and walk with her to Q again.

Kennen* Very Hard If the kennen pressures you correctly this matchup is kind of
painful. Just stay far back and shield his dmg when you have
to walk up for CS and try to stay as healthy as possible. The
only time you’ll ever have kill pressure on him is if you get a
well-timed taunt on him under your tower. Then it can be
possible to chase him down. If you get jungle help, make
sure to start off with instantly taunt-flashing onto kennen to
 setup your jungler. If you don’t do that he’ll just be free to E /
Flash away and he’s hard to catch.

Kled Moderately Contest the push lvl 1. The whole early laning phase you
Easy wanna try to bait out his Q (mounted) and dodge it. If you
manage to dodge it, you have a window where you can
freely win trades with your empowered Q’s. If you get hit, you
just walk backwards to deny the second activation and it’s
not too bad. ​You’ll win short trades​ with your Q’s and W’s
while saving your Taunt for disengage if he dashes at you.
But NEVER go for an all-in​ vs him unless you’ve already
dismounted him twice or he’s low enough that you’re 100%
sure you can kill him before he remounts.

Lucian* Moderately Contest the push early on while soaking some of his dmg
Easy with your shield. Avoid getting close to him every time his
double-shot is available. He’ll only have really scary dmg if
he uses his E to chase after you, but that’s also when you
have your chance to go back at him. If he dashes forward
while you have both W and E up you can taunt him and use
W to deny him while pummeling him with emp. Q’s and you
should win the trades. And if he doesn’t E onto you, then just
farm. He’s the one that wants to punish you early on and if
he’s not able to do that you’ll have more impact later on.

Malphite* Free Malph’s trading patterns are very predictable, and he’s got
no way of stopping you from just taking short grasp-Q trades
when he’s farming. Try to block his Q’s with your shield, and
keep poking him down until he’s low enough for you to go for
an extended trade. Make sure you don’t go for the all-in too
early, because his atkspeed-reduction + his W dmg is strong
in those situations.

Maokai* Very Easy Position your blade, make 1-2 emp. Q auto’s and apply your
grasp whenever it’s up, and back out, and repeat. You’re
simply so much stronger all early levels than he is, abuse it
to the max with short trades. The only thing you should be
careful about is taking longer trades inside a minion wave,
since he can lock you down for a long time with W + Q, while
healing himself up with the passive. So keep short trading
him down for every CS he goes for until he’s low enough for
you to all in him.

Morde* Okay His Q windows are kind of telegraphed, so make sure not to
get hit by it too many times. Either shield it or juke it. Try to
force extended trades with 6 emp. Q auto’s. And if he misses
his E-grab at any point you can force trades even harder.
He’s also one of the easiest champs to gank, so if you call
your jungler up there he’s got no way out. The matchup can
get tricky if he ends up ahead of you, but until then you
should be winning trades if played correctly.
Nasus* Free Nasus is the single weakest top lane matchup early few
levels. Combined with how strong shen is early on you
shouldn’t let him take ANY cs for free. Position your blade up
the lane constantly while dragging it through him and trade
every time he goes for a last hit. He should be forced to last
hit only with his E if you play it correctly. Try to get a freeze
going if possible, but if you end up pushing (which it will often
do if you force trades) then it’s possible to use the
“Towercrash exploit” very effectively against nasus to poke
him down under tower while not taking much dmg back.

Neeko Very Hard I don’t really know how to deal with this matchup tbh. Her W
and E are really good to deny you from taunting in for trades,
and her poke is really strong. And she runs away from ganks
with W super quick and roots the jungler with E. I think the
best thing you can do it just to try your best to farm while
staying as healthy as you can (gl) and hope she makes a
mistake under tower and opens herself up for a taunt. If not,
then just accept the lost lane and try to help other lanes out
with R.

Olaf Challenging The first 2 levels is just about surviving and farming safely.
He’s strong in all-in’s and his axe throwing can easily chase
you down if you ever taunt him without killing him.Lvl 3-5 you
can manage short trades whenever you got everything up.
Deny his tradeback with W and just run back after the short
trade. Repeat this until he’s low enough that you can kill him
with 1 rotation, be wary of his lifesteal while low. Again,
important: ​Never taunt forward unless he’s basically
dead. ​He’s an easy gank pre-6.

Ornn* Okay Contest the push lvl 1. If you hit lvl 2 first all-in him.
Otherwise you can go for short trades soaking his burn dmg
with your passive. But it’s mainly lvl 3+ you’ll start winning
trades hard. Go up with your emp Q’s and start attacking
him, and when he applies his “thing” onto you with his burn
and prepares to do the special auto on you, just deny it last
second with W and keep trading for a little bit then back off.
Once you start getting a health lead you can start to taunt
onto him and force trades while still blocking his special auto
with your W.

Pantheon Moderately Since the new Pantheon is very reliant on auto attacks which
Easy Shen can block with W, and Panth doesn’t have a block
anymore, this is a much better matchup than it was
pre-rework for Shen. Just do short trades with him, and if he
then jumps you with W, just do an extended trade with him,
while trying to hit him from the side or behind if he uses E.
Try to force the 6 Emp. Q trade whenever possible. Try to
force trades especially when his passive is not stacked up.
Your R is also better and more reliable than his for roaming.
Poppy* Okay Shield or avoid her passive auto’s. Trade when her passive
shield is on CD. Bait out her Q’s by walking up and back
again so they don’t hit you. Don’t stand near walls. Do short
grasp trades and basically never use your E except if her W
is cd or you’re winning a trade and you’re already inside her
model so she doesn’t have time to react. If played cleanly
you should be winning trades in this matchup.

Pyke* Very Easy Position the blade and force trades with your shield + emp
Q’s when he walks up to cs. he’ll heal up a lot of it when he
backs off, but you’ll be winning trades so hard it won’t matter
much. Contest the push and make sure you hit lvl 2 and 3
before him and exploit that. Just be wary of jungle ganks
since pyke has great setup.

Qiyana* Moderately Qiyana is decently short range with her poke, so she’ll give
Easy you chances to go for taunt trades. Be careful lvl 1 and start
trading lvl 2 and 3. Just remember that if she gets off her
Invisibility at the same moment she’s taunted she’s locked
out of auto attacking and will stay stealthed.

Quinn Hard Try to survive and stay healthy best you can lvl 1-3, using
your shield to farm. Lvl 4+ you can look to all in her if she
uses her E wastefully to poke you, but this lane is mostly
about surviving and saving your TP so you can R away and
help others. She scales poorly unless she manages to
snowball herself. Remember to ping your midlaner if she’s lvl
6+ and goes missing. She’s fast af.

Renekton* Challenging Do a lot of short grasp trades, while trying to block his Q
poke with your passive shield. Position your blade up a lot. If
he ever dashes onto you lvl3+, then press W and keep
trading with Emp Q’s and be ready to instantly taunt out
when your W ends (through him if you can). Try to exploit
your slightly superior range with Emp’s q’s while he goes for
last hits.

Rengar* Okay Since he sits in the bush except when he lasthits a minion or
jumps on you, your only window to take good trades is when
you know he’s gonna jump for a lasthit. Walk up beforehand
and prepare yourself to make 1-2 Q (Emp if possible) auto’s
and then backing off out of his range if he tries to get back
into the bush. Be wary of him when he has full or close to full
ferocity stacks, and trade more when his bar is low or empty.
Lvl 3+ you wanna deny his Q’s with your W and taunt out
(through him if possible) if he tries to extend the trade. Once
he’s much lower than you you can start going for extended
trades instead.

Riven Moderately Contest the push lvl 1. Go for 1 auto Q trades lvl 1, and then
Easy back out. Position your blade up constantly throughout the
 lane. Never taunt in aggressively unless it’s super clear your
gonna win the trade, she’s good at chasing you down.Lvl 3+
is when you’re gonna start winning the trades while both your
W and E are up. Use W early on in the trade, and if she tries
to keep trading when it ends just taunt backwards (through
her if you can) and wait for them to be up again. You’ll win
trades this way, and if she tries to just not trade you, just
force her to by making an Emp Q auto every time she walks
up for a lasthit.

Rumble* Hard It’s hard to position the blade up in this matchup since he’ll
burn you for it, but try best you can if he gives you chances.
The only times you can trade are lvl2+ when he’s just used
his Q to farm or poke. If you’re not already lower than him at
that point you can taunt in and go for a 3 quick emp auto’s
and then backing out. He’s one of the best champions at
trading back while you’re running out though, so you need to
make sure you do enough damage to him initially for it to be
worth taking the dmg while disengaging. The best way to kill
him is honestly to ask for a gank, rumble has a really hard
time surviving them, since he perma pushes and has no
movement ability.

Ryze* Hard Try to contest the push early while staying as healthy as you
can. If he lets you push so you get lvl 2 first, then look for a
taunt while he’s still lvl 1, if he doesn’t let you, then just keep
farming while positioning your Q as far up as possible and
looking for chances to drag it through him and look for a
taunt lvl 3+. If you get a good start to trades you can win
early game vs ryze, and you need to do this because he will
outscale you. There’s a lot of difference between a good and
a bad ryze. This matchup can be one of the easiest if he
gives you openings to take extended trades, or hard if he
doesn’t.

Singed* Very Easy As long as you can keep him from Proxy-farming this is a
really good matchup, while it becomes terrible for shen if he
gets to do that. So focus hard on trading the first couple of
levels and punish him for his weak early game. If he tries to
walk into your wave to apply his Q, punish him with emp.
Q’s. Both short and extended trades work vs him, just make
sure to be aggressive. You have kill threat on him early.

Sion* Okay Contest the push lvl 1. Take short grasp trades, and if you’re
very close to him and he starts charging his Q past lvl 2, then
just instantly taunt him to interrupt it and take a good
trade.You should win extended trades using 6 emp. auto’s as
long as you don’t get hit by a long-charged Q. Only start
going for the extended trades after you hit lvl 3 though, short
trades before then. Be mindful to not die to his passive if you
kill him.
Swain* Very Easy He’s slow, immobile and squishy. As long as he doesn’t have
a big minion wave or you’re already poked down, you should
win extended trades pretty hard vs him, so contest the push
early on and try to get lvl 2 before him. If you do, just taunt in
instantly and trades with emp. Q’s. If not, you can still look
for taunts, but then you have to make sure to dodge his root
while disengaging after the trade. While pressuring him,
remember to position the blade up the lane for even better
trades when you can drag it through him. He’s also an easy
gank for your jungler.

Sylas* Very Easy Contest the push lvl 1, and if he uses his Q to push, then just
run at him and trade with empowered Q’s. If he doesn’t, then
taunt in (or zone if he backs off) at lvl 2 and keep trading
throughout the lane using extended trades. Position the
blade up a lot.
As a general rule Sylas does a lot of dmg in short bursts, but
once he’s used up all his abilities and passive auto’s, he’s
very very weak with long cd’s. Meanwhile Shen will quickly
get his Q back in the extended trade and wins it out in the
end.

Teemo* Challenging Just survive first 2 levels. After that you can win trades if he
uses his blind to poke you by just taunting onto him and
using 3 emp. Q’s. If you manage to not die or fall ​too ​much
behind in CS early on, you’ll have more impact on the game
than him just by R’s. Save TP if you can early on so you can
R freely and get back, since he will be pushing you in
constantly.

Tryndamer Free Here you wanna abuse him every time where he’s not
e stacked up his rage-bar yet, starting level 1. Take short
trades with empowered Q over and over while not letting him
all in you for any extended trade. He can and will chase you
down if he gets the chance, so don’t let him. You win short
trades lvl 1-2 if played correctly, but lvl 3+ it’s impossible to
lose the short trades utilizing your W. Just position the blade,
walk up and trade with Emp. Q’s and W and then walk back
when W ends. If he tries to extend the trade by E’ing into
you, then just deny him with a disengage taunt. He’ll lose
trades so hard he can’t even close to heal back up.

Urgot* Okay If he ever misses his Q while trying to poke you while you’re
level 2+, you can taunt in and win trades and then back out.
Your W is very effective in blocking his machine gun W, but if
you stay for too long he’ll eventually outtrade you, so do
medium sized trades and back out and repeat. Try to contest
the push early on if he lets you, since getting lvl 2 or lvl 3 first
gives you a strong window for trading. He’s clumsy and easy
to gank if your jungler comes.
Vayne* Challenging Try to stay healthy early 3 levels while denying her as many
klepto procs as you can while still walking up to CS. You
can’t stop her from pushing you in, so just let her push you to
tower and farm best you can the early couple of waves. If
she gives you a chance to taunt her under tower, great. If
not, then you can start winning trades lvl 4-5 anyway if she
ever tumbles in to poke you just instantly taunt her and
pummel her with Emp. Q’s. Try to never make it obvious
when you’re gonna taunt her, or she can just deny you with
her E.

Vladimir* Moderately Try to push with Q early on so it pushes slowly into him while
easy blocking his Q’s with your passive shield. If you managed to
push faster, then walk up to him right before you hit lvl 2 and
instantly taunt in when you hit 2 for a trade. If he picks E lvl 2
keep punishing him. Once he has his pool it’s all about
forcing him to use it by taunting in for a trade, and then using
the long pool CD of 28 seconds to taunt in again once your
taunt’s up again. Position the blade up the lane between the
taunts, so you can get the initial slow with Q.

Wukong* Very easy You should win trades every single level pretty hard up until
lvl 6. Abuse that to the max. Start doing short trades lvl 1
with Emp Q’s and your shield, and if you hit lvl 2 first then
taunt in for a trade. If you don’t hit it first, just keep short
trading with Q and save E until he commits. Lvl 3 you win
even harder if you use your W to block his Q. You have huge
kill threat in this lane if you play trades well.

Yasuo Moderately Be careful to not take extended trades lvl 1-2. Only do short
easy trades when you have a full minion wave he can’t fight
inside. Once you hit lvl 3 though, you can start winning
trades using your W and keeping your E for disengaging if he
ever tries to all-in you. Once he grows low and you wanna
finish him off but he’s dashing around everywhere, a tip to hit
your taunt is to look which minion is the obvious
“dash-target”, and once he starts that E just instantly taunt
the spot he’s gonna arrive at.

Yorick* Challenging The biggest risk in this matchup is to get 100 to 0’d (or close
to it) if you ever taunt in for a trade and then get boxed in
when you try to back out. So never use the taunt
aggressively unless he’s already in kill range OR you’re
getting a gank. If he ever uses his E to poke you and misses,
that’s when you can walk up to him and trade with short
grasp Q’s (and keeping taunt for disengage if needed). He’s
an easy gank if your jungler comes.

Zed* Free If some autofilled mid laner dare pick Zed into your Shen,
make sure he never does it again. Only let him farm with Q,
looking to punish him every time he steps up to auto one.
 You hardwin trades lvl 1-5 even if he hits everything, but he
probably won’t if you’re decent at sidestepping his Q’s or
staying behind your creeps.

PS: If you’re missing a top laner you think should be added to the Doc, just message me
through my Twitch account shending_help or type it in my twitch chat while I’m
streaming