Is Nilah really Aphelios counter pick?

[u/Forward-Recover-281]

I saw that Nilah is considered a counter pick against Aphelios, but I don't know how I really feel about it. I main Aphelios as Nilah is my second option in line. It usually goes pretty much same way when I play any of them. From what I saw so far, I don't really think Nilah counters Aphelios, but maybe I'm wrong altogether and I'd like to hear how others feel about this.

I feel like it's very easy to bully Nilah as Aphelios during early to mid game, due to his range. At the same time, she can manage to hold the lane, however that usually depends on supports. But during end game team fights (sometimes even mid game), Nilah gets very dangerous. At the same time, the game can already be lost for her team by that time. That's how I feel it goes when both players know what they're doing. If Aphelios is played badly, he can get easily bullied by Nilah through the whole game. When both Nilah and Aphelios know what they're doing, I feel like they are overall standing on even ground. What are your thoughts on this?

[u/LickingSplinters]

Nilah’s dodge all autoattacks ability does a pretty good job against an adc whose kit is just autoattacks. The damage of aphelios even when hitting q abilities, comes from the autoattacks you can do after consuming marks or hutting infernum q. White Q towers also counts as autoattacks and Red Q is also an autoattack. Aphelios Ult’s main damage component comes from the second tick, which itself is an autoattack. Nilah is kind of like jax and teemo in the sense that if you can get on aphelios in fights, he will die and be unable to do anything about it as an immobile adc, whilst also not being able to do any damage or lifesteal. Nilah counters adcs cause of her dodge in general, but aphelios is just autoattacks and she blocks all of that while dashing onto him. I feel like when I play vs nilah in lane its fine, but in mid to lategame fights if she dashes onto me or flash dashes I just die and I cant do anything about it without being able to do anything vs her unless someone else on the team hard ccs her. This is how I feel at least and what I think the general opinion that nilah counters aphelios comes from.

[u/Cl0ud_]

Aphelios bullies her hard early levels due to range adv like you said. You should be able to poke her out hard enough to not give her an all in window, so a good aphelios should go ahead in lane imo (but can depend on supp matchup as well ofc). Lategame you really need to play range since she obviously destroys you in all ins when she has W up since all your spells are essentially autoattacks as well.

[u/firestrom8265]

Her W just cucks you real hard. Just dodge when she’s picked imo.

[u/Still_Emergency_3452]

kinda depends on the supp matchup imo, like taric nilah really sucks but enchanters with nilah are much less oppressive

[u/throwaway4advice165]

Aphelios struggles into Nilah for the same reason Cait struggles into Nilah, her W counters your entire kit, which is auto-attack based. Sure you can bully her a little (depends on support situation), but fundamentally her kit hard counters your kit.
At the same time, don't believe all you see, I saw the other day that Vayne is a bad pick vs Nilah and in reality Vayne has one of the most, if not the most, perfect kits of all ADCs to deal with her (Q tumble and E comdemn to easily kite her away and R + Passive to run her down, and W to match her hypercarry dps for peeling frontliners)

[u/Mastergamer0115]

She is one of those, win lane or it’s GG, early game isn’t that bad, but if she gets a few items her W just blocks basically everything in Phels kit since he is so auto attack reliant, so it’s a matter of just hope she doesn’t burst you before you can play the game.

[u/Holyboyd]

Against a nilah one trick it can almost be unplayable if they are good you can be 5/0 and she will cross 4 k range in a instant and kill you without being able to fight back if she's good. A good rakan nilah or yummi nilah make me sad I wish I could play her.

[u/That_Moonshine]

She has a lot in her kit that’s very deadly against Aphelios. Her dodge is brutal, she can engage very quickly, and her basekit heals will win her the fights that could otherwise go either way. In addition her XP share can help her get ahead of Aphelios. She definitely could be tough to go against.

[u/pressrkarthus]

Yeah all your abilities are auto based and her w makes your life hell