Cthulhu Season 9: Death May Die

Tainted steel is important for Cthulhu in this meta. With every starting item having some form of sustain attached to it, Cthulhu requires his own. Shutting down medi cloak warriors and giving him all of the stats he loves.

Warriors(early) and hunters(late) are the bane of Cthulhu. Unless you are against Ao Kuang or a guardian solo, I'd go this every game.

Jade gives you the stats you need to clear vs warriors in lane. Its very hard for LuLu to get any lane objectives because he lacks damage until late game. Reducing power and gaining his own makes both his clear better and his opponents clear worse. Making laning much more bearable.

BoD is a no brainer. Cthulhu struggles with trading with warriors in the early to mid game. The massive amount of stats (85 phys prots at 5 stacks) make it nearly impossible to fight you without a gank. Keep in mind, unless you get both stack types, those prots stay all lane. Upgrade this either right away or after Gaia.

Stone of Gaia is to counter poke and just make him harder to deal with. The sustain and massive HP are exactly what Cthulhu needs to reinforce his tankiness.

Void stone makes Cthulhu do an unreasonable amount of damage for a tank. 15% pen keeps you relevant vs mid game warriors. You can pick this up earlier if their mid laner is fed or they have a magical jungler.

Hide allows you to engage for your team or flat out 1v1 (be careful lol) late game hunters. With this build you will get all 3 stacks. Your engage will be insane since for a good 2 to 3 seconds their hunter will try and fail to damage you.

PTP: Always take this. Rush it first back. Cthulhu can fall behind very quickly and this almost completely fixes that issue. Every 90s just back, spend your gold, and TP back.
Use this throughout the game to pressure the map. Good teleports can decide teamfights which decide games.

Sundering Siphon/Blast: Siphon is our main upgrade here. Tag the tank in a teamfight and ult. The sustain it gives on top of our healing from Tainted Steel keeps Cthulhu alive much longer. Take Blast when the enemy team has more than 2 tanks.
You can rush this instead of PTP when into a Nike. Otherwise, upgrade this before your 4th item.

Thorns: This imo, is not as good as the other choices but can be insane against a very lifesteal focused hunter/assassin. If you need to shut them down get up in their face and pop this before you ult.

Tankiness
High mobility for a tank
High area CC
Healing for your team that scales with your health
Best teamfight ult in the game if not the best ult in the game
Is helpful to his team even when behind due to his massive amounts of CC
In kit prot shred
One of the best late game tanks
Easy to pick up
Great wave clear

Huge target
Very volatile early game
Has to play very safe into most matchups
Hard to master
Is very vulnerable to cheeky lvl 2 ganks

Your main combo for most situations should be 2 + 3 + 1. Stack up insanity and trigger with 1. Your 2 and 3 can each get 2 stacks of your passive if you land all 4 hits of the combo. This is your main damaging combo both for in lane and teamfights.

Your wave clear combo is always 2 + 1. After 1 to 2 items you can full clear a wave. Hit the 1 from the side to fit the whole wave in. 3 through the enemy wave into your own wave to pressure the enemy since you will clear faster than them typically.

Always be weaving in auto attacks to deal damage and further stack insanity with the 3rd hit in your AA chain. Don't wait for cooldowns, always be stacking.

You can cancel your Rushing Terror(3) with right click to not commit to the full distance. This is very important to positioning and winning lane trades. You can do your full combo (2,3,1) very quickly by cancelling dash right as the second hit goes through. Most of the time they cannot react to this.

Focus on wave clear and lane pressure. When you have Crown you can fight over objectives but you'll need to give them until then.

Between clearing waves take advantage of PTP to back and spend your gold as much as possible.

Use your combo whenever its safe to do so but do not 3 into the enemy minion wave. Only 3 towards the sides of lanes and towards your tower.

Do not overextend if your 3 is on cooldown. But even if it is, your 3 is a slowish dash. It can be interrupted by Thanatos 3, Ymir 3 and other CC. Keep an eye on your map and push tower when the enemy jungler is in mid or duo.

Use your free vision ward to ward near Ku for most of lane. Pickup wards whenever you can post-lane to take advantage of your PTP.

During a teamfight:
Ward, back, TP to your ward. This lets you come back full health in 7-10 seconds.


Ward objectives for your team. You are tanky enough late game to get away if caught out.

When ahead:
Use your PTP to roam to defend mid, and duo if you're alright with walking back to lane. Try to make sure you get a kill when going to duo otherwise your solo has a lot of time to catch up in levels and gold.

When behind:
Keep roaming to a minimum. Only roam when your team is capping a fury. Otherwise farm and group for teamfights. Your ult is useful even when you are not. So support your team even if you lose lane.

Use your 2 and 3 as much as possible. Use your 1 if both are on CD. You can pop your ult just for the initial damage if it confirms a kill. But don't trade ult for ult in lane. Your ult is almost always the more valuable one.

Throw your 2 on top of your carry if the enemy tries to dive. Your 2 takes a while to actually trigger so throw it where you know they will be rather than where they are.

Your 3 is insane for healing your entire team. It scales with your max hp so late game you can make it impossible to pick your teammates.

Cancel your ult if you are outnumbered. As it's canceling be ready to immediately cast your 3 to escape if possible.

Group with your team constantly. Don't go off on your own and get picked off. Your job is to disrupt, protect, and cause genuine panic in teamfights. Pop Spear on tanks, CC assassins who try to dive your Carry. Set up your team and ult every teamfight. You are insanely tanky late game. Do not be afraid to dive tower while being hit by all 5 enemies. You can withstand it as long as your team is aware you are engaging.

In the right hands, Cthulhu is incredibly powerful. However, he can be countered very easily. You have to keep everything in this guide in mind to find consistent success with him in the solo lane.

I'll be adding more to this if I deem it necessary. But this should cover most basic to advanced things for Cthulhu.