Welcome to the League of Legends Champion Spotlight, featuring Tahm Kench, the River King.
(Tahm) "Call me king..." "Call me demon..." "Water forgets the names of the drowned."
Tahm Kench is a silver-tongued demon who toys with the helpless and desperate,
feeding his ego before devouring his hapless enemies entirely.
In-game, Tahm Kench is a tanky monstrosity with enough raw stats and
utility to slip into either a solo lane or supporting role.
Once he’s chosen a role, he uses his imposing size to
swallow his enemies and ferry his allies around the map.
Tahm Kench’s passive is An Acquired Taste.
He applies stacks of his passive to enemy champions he strikes with basic attacks or damaging abilities.
Once he applies three stacks, well, he can do things to them.
We’ll get to that in a minute.
Tahm Kench can apply passive stacks to multiple targets at the same time, which fall off after a few seconds.
We’ll start with Tahm Kench’s W - Devour - because it interacts with a couple of his other abilities.
Tahm Kench swallows a nearby target, then spits them out a few seconds later.
Aside from that general rule, the ability behaves differently depending on whom - or what - he noms.
First up: enemy minions and monsters.
After devouring one, Tahm Kench can spit ‘em back out, dealing a chunk of instant magic damage
to whatever he devoured along with area of effect damage to whomever they hit.
Note that while Tahm Kench can eat a bunch of monsters, he can’t eat them all -
apparently baron, dragon, and red and blue buff are too large to fit in his stomach.
(Tahm) "This buffet exceeds repugnance!"
Tahm Kench can devour allied champions, too!
Whenever he does, he turns them untargetable while they reside in his belly.
While Tahm Kench has a friend in him, he gains extra movement speed, but only when he moves towards enemy champions.
After a couple of seconds, either Tahm Kench or his ally can choose when they
leave the big guy’s mouth, and when they hop or get spat out, they’re launched a little way.
Finally, Tahm Kench can also devour enemy champions.
There’s just one caveat - he can only do so after he’s acquired a taste for them through his passive.
Once he’s done chewing, Tahm Kench can regurgitate his
mouthful out, causing it to suffer percent max health damage.
Once they’re fully slathered up, Devouring them drastically reduces their vision and makes them untargetable
for a few seconds, while Tahm Kench gets so weighed down that his movement speed is reduced to a super slow crawl.
Use Devour to get your traditional frontline allies quickly into a fight.
You’ll get there fast thanks to your speed boost, and once you spit them back
out, they’ll be well positioned to get into the enemy team’s face and wreak havoc.
Tahm Kench’s Q is Tongue Lash.
He fires out a medium range skillshot - his tongue, actually - that damages and slows the first target struck.
However, if he’s able to max out his passive stacks on
an enemy champion, Tongue Lash will instead stun his tasty target.
Tongue Lash can also extend Devour’s range on minions and monsters.
By hitting Devour right before connecting with Tongue Lash, Tahm Kench flicks them into his mouth.
Yum.
Tongue Lash has a short cooldown and long range, so use it
frequently to slow down fleeing targets and build up stacks of your passive.
(Tahm) "Mercy has no flavor!"
Next up is Tahm Kench’s E, which has a passive and an active.
Passively, Thick Skin turns all of Tahm Kench’s damage taken into grey health - which he
partially converts into REAL HEALTH a few seconds after leaving combat.
When Tahm Kench activates Thick Skin, he converts all the grey health into a shield that quickly drops off.
Note that Tahm Kench cannot build up grey health while the ability is on cooldown.
Use Thick Skin to temporarily increase your tankiness when
you’re tower diving, or taking heavy sustained damage!
Finally, Tahm Kench’s ultimate is Abyssal Voyage, which also has a passive and an active!
Passively, his basic attacks and damaging abilities
deal a portion of the big guy’s bonus health as magic damage.
When he activates the ability, Tahm Kench targets a location -
potentially hella far away - before opening his mouth to begin channelling.
At this point, reactivating Abyssal Voyage sends him down underwater as he dives to his target location.
But swimming’s more fun with a friend, and Tahm Kench can take one with him!
An ally can jump in for the ride by right-clicking on his mouth as he channels, which immediately sends Tahm Kench off on his journey.
A few notes for the enemy team: first off, the big guy can’t ult with an enemy champion in his belly, and if you’re close
enough, you can attack Tahm Kench as he channels to interrupt Abyssal Voyage, putting the ability on a short cooldown.
(Tahm) "Was that an attack, or an hors d'ouvre?"
Finally, Tahm Kench isn't exactly the most streamlined swimmer, and makes so much noise when he
ults that the enemy team’ll hear him even a screen or so away from his destination.
Use Abyssal Voyage to set up ganks!
Just wander out of lane like you’re off warding or something -
maybe send an innocent all chat message - then ult back in with an ally on-board.
Devour’s great at reactively saving teammates who get themselves in sticky situations.
Normally this Dark Binding would force Ashe out of lane, but
Tahm Kench negates Lucian’s burst with a fantASHEtatic Devour.
No matter which lane he’s in, Tahm Kench has awesome scuttle crab control thanks to Devour!
Whenever you’ve got a moment, head out to the river
and chomp down on the little guy for some extra gold and vision.
Tahm Kench has plenty of tools to help him thrive in the middle of fights.
By devouring Sejuani, Tahm Kench keeps her safe while giving her a chance to get her cooldowns back.
He then focuses Gragas with basic attacks, making sure to wait until Tongue Lash will stun, rather than slow.
Activating Thick Skin for the extra shield, Tahm Kench stays alive in the depths of
combat before he devours Draven to save him from otherwise lethal damage.
Here’s Tahm Kench getting aggressive with his abilities.
By constantly attacking Sion while blocking his escape, Tahm Kench is able to
rack up his passive stacks while preventing the big zombie man from ulting to safety.
While Sion tries to channel his stun from the brush, Devour completely shuts that down and grants Tahm Kench the first kill.
With Sion dead, or as dead as he gets, he turns to Zed, flashing
before dealing Tongues of Damage for the second kill.
Now, most would probably back off here, but Tahm Kench is a daring gentleman
and has ways to survive during otherwise suicidal tower dives.
Wild Growth along with Thick Skin keeps him alive for long enough to
use Devour again, which really hurts tanky champions like Braum.
Finally, Abyssal Voyage is absolutely incredible at breaking sieges.
He brings Sejuani directly into the middle of the enemy team,
which pretty much just destroys them thanks to the comboed ultimates.
Keep in mind that it’s super important for his allies to actually think about who’s going on the whirlpool express.
If Ezreal or Draven had jumped in, they would immediately die and blame their team for the lack of peel.
Thanks for tuning in to the Tahm Kench Champion Spotlight.
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(Tahm) "An appetite for chaos? Let me feed that mayhem."