Briar Counters: Who Beats Briar

Updated for patch 26.21. Ability details come from Riot’s official game data for this patch.

Briar counters are junglers who stop her charge, survive the frenzy, or cut the healing that keeps her alive. She’s a 125-range fighter who leaps in, locks onto the nearest enemy and heals off a stacking bleed, but she can’t choose her target while frenzied and has no natural Health regeneration.

The five below come from comparing their patch 26.21 kits with hers. Win rates were left out on purpose.

How does Briar’s kit work?

• Crimson Curse (passive): her attacks and abilities apply a stacking bleed that heals her; healing rises with her missing Health, but she has no innate Health regeneration.
• Head Rush (Q): leaps to a unit, stuns and breaks Armor. Cooldown 13/12/11/10/9.
• Blood Frenzy / Snack Attack (W): she leaps forward and chases the nearest enemy (champions first) with extra Attack Speed, Move Speed and area attacks; the recast bites for damage based on missing Health and heals her. Cooldown 14/13/12/11/10.
• Chilling Scream (E): ends the frenzy and charges a scream that damages and slows; while charging she takes less damage and heals, and a full charge knocks back and stuns against walls. Cooldown 16.
• Certain Death (R): marks the first champion hit, beelines to them, fears enemies around the target, and chases until death with extra resistances, Life Steal and Move Speed. Cooldown 120/100/80.

Briar commits. Blood Frenzy sends her after the nearest enemy, prioritizing champions, and Certain Death runs her in a straight line to her marked prey and keeps her there until somebody dies. That’s frightening when it works (ask any ADC who’s been marked). It’s also predictable. A frenzied Briar can’t decide to walk away or switch to a better target, so anyone who knows where she’s going can stand there with crowd control ready, and her healing all comes from damage she deals rather than regeneration. Counters exploit one of those: they stop the dash, they punish the predictable chase, or they starve the heal.

Who are the best Briar counters in the jungle?

Poppy

Head Rush and Certain Death are both dashes, and that’s the one thing Poppy can shut off. With W active, Steadfast Presence halts every enemy dash near her and leaves the dasher slowed and grounded, so Briar’s leap ends early and her follow-up dash can’t fire. The same ability passively adds Armor and Magic Resist, rising when Poppy is low. Heroic Charge (E) shoves a target and stuns it on a wall, Hammer Shock (Q) leaves a slowing zone that explodes, and Keeper’s Verdict (R) sends enemies flying far away, which ends a Certain Death chase by distance alone. Iron Ambassador (passive) bounces a buckler she can pick up for a shield.

Fiddlesticks

Look, fear against a champion who has to chase is cruel. Terrify (Q) makes a target flee for a duration, triggered by damaging enemies while unseen or by casting it directly, and a fleeing Briar isn’t attacking anyone. Reap (E) slows everything it hits and silences in the center of the slash; a silenced Briar can’t recast Snack Attack or start Chilling Scream. His W, Bountiful Harvest, keeps draining whoever stays close and finishes with an execute hit. Crowstorm (R) surrounds Fiddlesticks with crows that damage everything nearby each second. A Harmless Scarecrow (passive) swaps the usual trinket for scarecrow effigies, a small detail but one that changes how he wards the jungle around her camps. Is Fiddlesticks squishy if she reaches him? Yes, which is why the fear has to land first.

Amumu

Briar runs straight at people. Amumu stands where she’s going. Curse of the Sad Mummy (R) entangles and stuns every enemy around him, and a frenzied Briar is always around someone. Bandage Toss (Q) stuns its target and pulls Amumu in, a good way to interrupt Chilling Scream mid-charge. Tantrum (E) permanently reduces the physical damage he takes, and Briar deals physical damage, so her area attacks during Blood Frenzy do less to him than to his team. Despair (W) burns a percentage of max Health each second from nearby enemies, and Cursed Touch (passive) adds true damage on top of magic damage. Honestly, he’s built for exactly this kind of fight.

Sejuani

The bola from her ultimate freezes the first champion it meets in place, and the storm around it slows the rest. Thrown at a Briar running down a Certain Death line, it’s hard to miss, since the route is a straight line. Arctic Assault (Q) charges forward and knocks enemies up, stopping on the first champion. Winter’s Wrath (W) swings twice for damage, slows and Frost stacks, and Permafrost (E) freezes and stuns a champion at maximum Frost. Fury of the North (passive) gives Frost Armor out of combat, with Armor, Magic Resist and slow immunity. A stunned enemy also takes big magic damage when Sejuani hits it, which hurts Briar while her resists are only physical-focused items.

Zac

Zac outlasts the frenzy. Cell Division (passive) drops chunks he reabsorbs for Health each time his abilities hit, and on fatal damage he splits into four bloblets that can revive him, which means Briar’s execute-style bite on missing Health may not finish the job. Stretching Strikes (Q) grabs an enemy and slams two targets into each other, Unstable Matter (W) deals a percentage of max Health as magic damage around him, and Elastic Slingshot (E) launches him from long range. Let’s Bounce! (R) bounces four times, knocking enemies up and slowing them. In practice, the knock-ups break her chase every time. To be fair, the revive has a 5 minute cooldown, so it’s once per fight at most.

How should Briar counters play the jungle?

• Stand behind a tank when she’s frenzied. Blood Frenzy chases the nearest enemy, so the closest champion is the one she attacks.
• Save crowd control for the Certain Death beeline. She runs straight to her marked prey, so the path is predictable.
• Don’t fight next to walls. A fully charged Chilling Scream stuns enemies who collide with terrain.
• Punish her after Chilling Scream. It ends Blood Frenzy, and both have long cooldowns at rank 1.
• Chip her down between fights. Crimson Curse heals off damage, but she has no innate Health regeneration.

What items help Briar counters?

Anti-heal first. Crimson Curse, Snack Attack and Certain Death all heal her, so Thornmail or an early Bramble Vest applies 40% Wounds to her whenever she attacks you, and attackers can use Mortal Reminder or Executioner’s Calling. Her damage is physical, so Randuin’s Omen (with Humility’s slow) and Plated Steelcaps both help. Blood Frenzy runs on Attack Speed, and Frozen Heart’s aura takes a chunk of it away from her. Full stat lines sit in our item database for League.

When is Briar weakest?

When she’s low with no one to bite. Her healing comes entirely from dealing damage, and without regeneration she has to fight her way back to Health, so a Briar who backs off at a quarter Health stays at a quarter Health. Want to punish that? Invade her jungle when she’s just finished a fight.

And when her chase is predictable. Certain Death is a straight line, Blood Frenzy picks the nearest target, and both mean the enemy team knows exactly where she’ll be in a second (for what it’s worth, that’s the whole trade-off of her design). Fiddlesticks’s fear and Amumu’s ult both cash in on it.

New to jungling? Our guide to LoL positions explains the role. Other champions we’ve broken down are in the guides directory, and her skins have their own Briar skins page. Put simply, Briar counters stop the charge and starve the heal.

FAQ

Who counters Briar the most?

Junglers with dash-stopping or area crowd control: Poppy, Fiddlesticks, Amumu, Sejuani and Zac.

Can Briar control who she attacks in Blood Frenzy?

No. Blood Frenzy makes her pursue the nearest enemy, prioritizing champions, until she ends it.

Does Grievous Wounds work against Briar?

Yes. Her passive, Snack Attack and Certain Death all heal her, and Wounds reduce that healing.

What is the cooldown of Certain Death?

Certain Death has a cooldown of 120/100/80 seconds.

How were these Briar counters chosen?

Each pick had to stop her dashes, punish her predictable chase, or survive the frenzy, judged from patch 26.21 ability text. Win rates were not used.