Free Agent - Southeast Asia
Hello everyone. Thought I'd make a matchup tierlist for Atlas, my favourite and easily most played champion (lvl 120). Whether you are a fellow Atlas enjoyer, wanting to know the best counters to him, or seeking advice on how to make an unfavourable matchup more tolerable - you have come to the right place. I have tried to keep it as close to a pure matchup as possible, from a real game perspective and not from a 1v1. While meta standing certainly plays a part, I have avoided placing a champion purely based on current strength (e.g. Moji is not the top of the meta but from a matchup perspective it is only slightly favourable imo). Please keep in mind that this list is my own opinion and some champions are harder to rank than others. Others are very team comp, talent (I have listed talents where I think it is relevant), and map dependent.
Enjoy!
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Hard counter:
Yagorath - Aside from just wrecking their mobility and stopping them from flanking your team there is a very fun combo you can do on yag due to their lack of movement in stationary form. When a yag pulls up and sits next to you, put your wall up right in front of them for a bunch of free damage (you are point blank so no excuse to not go for headshots) and then setback them when they try to escape. The best option for the yag (unless they have overwhelming team support) is just to run as soon as you put up shield and rush resil, but from my experience most yags play it out and get punished hard.
Raum - Similar to yag, movement ability heavily punished by setback (even with resil) and lack of movement when shooting punished by stasis field. You can do the same combo as for yag (to a slightly lesser degree - put stasis field a slight bit further back cos they can walk), and this will have the added bonus of preventing them from getting soul fragments. Additionally, if ur quick you can consistently block raum ult with stasis field so be ready if you see a raum looking for ult (or you can just second chance).
Kasumi - Did you know that you can rewind kasumi back by hitting setback on the body? This is completely fair and balanced and has led to many, many free kills (whether for yourself or hitting it from distance to support an ally). You can also just rush her since she lacks the pressure or movement to deal with you.
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Basically a hard counter but they can try to adapt:
Terminus - Ah, the classic rewind the ulting terminus. By the way, ONLY RESIL 3 can stop you from doing this, although resil 2 does make the timing tighter. Aside from this, being able to charge a shot while waiting for siphon to go down and being able to second chance away to put them out of position makes this a really good matchup even when their ult is down. However, terminus can provide some melee pressure and if second chance is on cooldown this can be a bit annoying. A good terminus will rush nimble/resil, not ult with Atlas around until resil 3 or they see setback get used,
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Very good matchups:
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Notably good matchups:
Saati - .... .... No Saati should be going coin/ult spam into Atlas EVER. I have seen it way too often and it makes the build near useless (stasis field go brrr)...
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Slightly favourable matchups:
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Even ONLY if they know what they are doing:
Khan - ... Khan's ult vs second chance, where they can still get environment kills (due to startup on second chance) and if not should just hold you up to their teammates (never let go early)...
Makoa -
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Even matchups:
THE DITTO:
Atlas - by definition has to be an even matchup, but if you know the ditto well it can end up VERY lopsided. The main advice I can give for this; don't get your second chance rewinded. While fun to rewind the rewind, the ditto does rain on your parade by preventing you from diving as hard (unless you want to get punished or have high resil).
If you are going to push make sure your rewind spot is behind cover, be careful of splash from Deja vu when doing this (you can avoid this if the cover you are using is a shield from another frontline although this can take a bit of communication - Makoa, Terminus, and Fernando are particularly good choices for this. You can also use your stasis field for this if you place it before or during your push but this can be risky). Speaking of, unless there is a VERY good reason to run temporal divide, you should absolutely be picking Deja vu for this matchup - more shield means more pressure and AOE setback makes them play safer.
Resil is also a very good option here, particularly when facing an Atlas of similar skill level as it will stop you from being punished and allow you to push harder. You can skip it if you are confident in your superior Atlas gaming or playing safe with no other cc worries but I would still recommend it as a 3rd or 4th item regardless. If there is no major Atlas or team diff, than resil gives a VERY decisive advantage.
Additional tips on the matchup to make it as humbling for the enemy Atlas as possible:
Move:
I may or may not make an Atlas guide some time but this is easily the best tip for Atlas (apart from maybe the obvious cycling of cooldowns, run phantom pain etc). Second chance is a movement ability, not just a heal.
Don't waste your setback:
Also a generic tip, while you can setback at point for non-mobile champions like atlas and inara to get a space advantage and capture percent... This comes with a cost in the Atlas matchup as they will likely push you in return without threat of setback...
Poke and push:
Pushing when they are more damaged than you, they will second chance first... easy win... in reverse play cover and poke if you are lower to punish their approach.
When to setback before they rewind:
A VERY effective strategy if its close or you think you will have to second chance first, or they are retreating etc. Gives you time to get healed and reposition, and delays their second chance to where it hopefully wont heal them fully... Careful that you can win it with this or only your second chance will be vulnerable...
Winning through superior shield placement:
Cutting through their shield and stopping yours from being cut off if you place first, positioning around shield to give you cover and them none...
Play with your team (more so than usual):
Forces them to second chance first...
CC Immunity from Ult:
Situational, time activating ult until cc immunity is quite long. Will only work at longer range setbacks... Feels great when you pull it off and definitely useful sometimes but often better to ult the Atlas or their dps and healer to isolate them or pick off the rest of the team...
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Slightly unfavourable matchups:
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Bad matchups:
Dredge - dredge ult on rewind, a good dredge will save it for you (or another susceptible champion), doesn't need LOS like viktor ult... Get nimble and continuously move...
Nyx - high cc (particularly if you are having to point tank), cripple talent is more dangerous than the root one due to range and frequency...
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The worst matchups:
Evie (snow globe) - Easily the strongest counter to Atlas. You will need resil and probably nimble too if you can (2nd pick resil after chronos 2 (or chronos 1 if you need it urgently), 3rd pick nimble (rejuv/haven can be a better 3rd pick sometimes)), and even with that the constant ults are a pain. You can sometimes dodge the ult if you are moving (always move) and rewind as you see them coming, but this is hard to do. A good healer will go a long way for this matchup and as with all flying enemies, evie is a good target for ults (if they don't have high resil - you can also be sneaky and save ulting them until 3/3 so they are too late to buy resil for the final point fight).
If it is not a snow globe evie then the matchup is only slightly unfavourable or perhaps even depending on map.
Inara (treacherous ground) - ...
If mothers grace probably just a bad matchup (can overcome) although the added strength of this talent is also worrying but not matchup specific...