“Fasting Senna” is a high-end League of Legends strategy that is prominent in professional play. The Fasting Senna strategy employs Senna as a bottom lane marksman, in addition to another champion alongside her in the support position.
The Fasting Senna strategy prioritizes the support player in the early stages of the laning phase, allowing them to farm minions while the Senna player collects gold of their own through the use of a support item. Since Senna scales infinitely through the use of her passive, Absolution, she doesn’t need as much gold to get rolling and on pace with the same power curve as other champions.
Why is it called “Fasting Senna?”
The name “Fasting Senna” comes from the idea of the Senna player not killing minions. As opposed to eating up all of the CS in the bottom lane, the Senna player “starves” themselves of CS, ultimately “fasting” until the late game.
Being in possession of a support item like the Spectral Sickle will impose a penalty on you for killing minions until the later stages of the game. So instead of gold being your main source of power in the early game, you’ll focus entirely on acquiring souls through Absolution (P). Those souls will increase your attack damage, attack range, and critical strike chance, keeping your overall throughput up to scale throughout the course of a game.
Any gold you do receive comes via the Spectral Sickle, which will upgrade into the Harrowing Crescent once it nets you 500 gold. The passive gold earned from your support item, in concordance with the bonus damage you receive from farming souls, will keep you on pace with the opposing team’s AD carry to a certain extent.
While you’re farming souls, your lane partner will be farming minions, keeping the gold flowing throughout the bottom lane. In total, Senna will have more souls and more attack damage in the early game, with more gold in the late game, while her lane partner will have gold to spare at all stages of the game. No matter what, Senna and her lane partner will scale efficiently through any game.
When to play Fasting Senna
While the Senna player will build the Spectral Sickle as part of the Fasting Senna strategy, her lane partner will start with a standard item, usually Doran’s Shield. In most cases, the Senna player will be partnered up with Tahm Kench in the bottom lane, although other champions including Seraphine and Lux work as well.
The Fasting Senna lane is at its strongest as a counter pick, usually in response to high-damage bottom lane combinations. In professional play, Fasting Senna is seen as a counter to bursty lanes like the popular Lucian/Nami combo. The Senna/Tahm Kench pairing is practically immortal thanks to their innate defensive tools and self-healing abilities, and works well in opposition to high-damage lanes, especially in the early game.
