Playing Ivy against Mina

What should I do right now?

Matchup overview

• Their structural weakness: Lowest-tier durability at 660 HP with no barrier, no damage reduction and no armour ability. Why this is shown: Mina's weaknesses. Strong evidence
• Their structural weakness: Very weak raw gun (7.3 per bullet, ~29 DPS); strip the spirit and there is almost nothing left, so spirit resist is brutally effective. Why this is shown: Mina's weaknesses. Strong evidence
• Their structural weakness: Measured performance does not match her reputation: deadlocklabs.gg records 45.3% win rate at 3.5% pick across 538,687 ranked matches, B tier. esportsinsider.com attributes the gap to a high skill floor and a flood of players picking her up expecting her to be overpowered — she improves at high rank but stays below average across all brackets. Why this is shown: Mina's weaknesses. Strong evidence
• Read this matchup as one where the early deficit sticks. Mina is a top-tier laner, and the 09-16-2026 patch removed the fixed bonus souls for being modestly behind in net worth on both hero kill bounties and Rift bounties, with the notes explicitly naming early-to-mid game as the most affected window. What is left is a redistribution inside your own team, not a handout. The practical consequence is that a lane you lose 0-6 minutes no longer self-corrects — you have to not lose it, or take the game somewhere else quickly. Why this is shown: 09-16-2026 removed the fixed bonus souls for modest net-worth deficits on kill and Rift bounties, hitting early-to-mid game hardest. Verified

What they do against you

• Love Bites turns her weak pistol into constant spirit chip that builds to a 45+ burst bite, and she can re-proc on your teammate while yours is on cooldown, so the pressure never stops. Why this is shown: Authored from Mina's kit. Strong evidence
• Rake scales with your missing health (6% and +7% more at T3), so the last third of your health bar disappears far faster than the first two thirds did. Why this is shown: Authored from Mina's kit. Strong evidence
• Sanguine Retreat makes her untargetable mid-flight with a recast, so your burst combo lands on empty air and your cooldowns are gone while hers are not. Why this is shown: Authored from Mina's kit. Strong evidence
• Nox Nostra silences everything it touches with a swarm that has been growing all game off Love Bites procs; your interrupt, your escape and your ultimate all stop working at once. Why this is shown: Authored from Mina's kit. Strong evidence
• With T1 Sanguine Retreat she gains +25% fire rate and 8 free bullets on cast, so the blink that dodged your ability is also the start of her damage window. Why this is shown: Authored from Mina's kit. Strong evidence
• Mina can silence, which means your escape is only real if it is already active. Pre-empt rather than react: if you are walking into a position where the silence lands, your defensive cooldown should be spent getting out of that position, not saved for after. Why this is shown: Silence prevents ability and item use, invalidating reactive defensive cooldowns. Strong evidence

How you counter them

• Buy spirit resist, not bullet resist. Her pistol is one of the weakest in the game; Love Bites and Rake are spirit, and cutting spirit removes most of her damage. Why this is shown: Authored counterplay against Mina. Strong evidence
• Bait Sanguine Retreat with a low-cost threat, then commit real burst in its 32s cooldown window. At 660 HP she dies to almost any full combo when it is down. Why this is shown: Authored counterplay against Mina. Strong evidence
• Use persistent ground zones rather than instant burst: McGinnis' Heavy Barrage, Pocket's Affliction, Paradox's Pulse Grenade and similar keep damaging after she reforms, and untargetability does not remove them. Why this is shown: Authored counterplay against Mina. Strong evidence
• Hold a Debuff Remover specifically for Nox Nostra's silence; without it the silence, not the damage, is what loses you the fight. Why this is shown: Authored counterplay against Mina. Strong evidence
• Deny her Love Bites procs in lane. Every proc she lands on a hero permanently grows her ultimate, so playing behind cover in the first 10 minutes is measurably shrinking her late game. Why this is shown: Authored counterplay against Mina. Strong evidence
• Stack immobilize and root effects over stuns where possible — she is dodging burst, not duration; an immobilize that outlasts her recast window strands her. Why this is shown: Authored counterplay against Mina. Strong evidence
• Against Mina the item that changes the matchup is Slowing Hex, and not for the slow. It silences movement abilities and movement items — that is their dash, their blink, their Warp Stone and their Phantom Strike all turned off at once — and raises their gravity to 120% on top. At Tier II Spirit for 1,600 it is the cheapest way to convert a mobility advantage into a stationary target, and you deal the spirit damage needed to apply the follow-up. Why this is shown: Slowing Hex (T2 Spirit, 1,600) slows, applies 120% gravity, and silences movement abilities and movement items. Strong evidence
• Mina leaves fights on stamina, not on a single button, which is why slows underperform here and Arctic Blast over-performs: it freezes stamina regeneration, so they cannot dash out of the sequence rather than merely dashing out slower. Layer it with the fact that wall jumping already costs them 25% stamina regeneration for 5 seconds — if you can force a wall-jump exit first, the freeze lands on someone already short of charges. Why this is shown: Arctic Blast freezes stamina regeneration; wall jumping reduces stamina regen by 25% for 5s (05-22-2026). Strong evidence

Trading

• The moment she reforms at the end of Sanguine Retreat — untargetability ends and she is a 660 HP target standing in a place you can pre-aim. Why this is shown: Mina's vulnerability windows. Strong evidence
• Sanguine Retreat on cooldown (32s base). This is the only stretch where she is a normal-durability hero, and it is when every kill on her happens. Why this is shown: Mina's vulnerability windows. Strong evidence
• Immediately after Rake is used — 16s base cooldown, and she has no other close-range finisher. Why this is shown: Mina's vulnerability windows. Strong evidence
• After a Love Bites proc lands on you specifically: the per-target cooldown means she cannot re-proc on you right away, so that is your trade-back window. Why this is shown: Mina's vulnerability windows. Strong evidence
• The 150s Nox Nostra cooldown after she uses it — her only contribution to a grouped fight is gone for over two minutes. Why this is shown: Mina's vulnerability windows. Strong evidence
• Mina builds almost no resist, which is the case where shred stops being a tank-buster and becomes raw amplification. Because shred is subtracted from total resist, a target sitting near zero goes negative — and negative resist is a damage multiplier, with −30% meaning they take 130%. Against a hero this fragile, one shred source in your build is doing the work of a damage item for the whole team's bullets, not just yours. Why this is shown: Shred subtracts from total resist and can push it negative; negative resist amplifies damage (−30% = 130% taken). Strong evidence

Laning

• What they want in lane: Love Bites lets her deal real spirit damage from an unpunishable distance on a very short effective cooldown, so she wins poke wars she should lose on raw gun stats. Why this is shown: Mina's laning strengths. Strong evidence
• What they want in lane: Sanguine Retreat means she can contest an orb or a soul she has no business contesting and blink out untargetable before the answer arrives. Why this is shown: Mina's laning strengths. Strong evidence
• What you can take from them in lane: 660 base health is among the lowest in the game; a single landed hard-CC plus follow-up removes her outright. Why this is shown: Mina's laning weaknesses. Strong evidence
• What you can take from them in lane: Her pistol's falloff starts at 20m and ends at 46m, the shortest effective window of her peer group — a long-range laner just out-ranges her. Why this is shown: Mina's laning weaknesses. Strong evidence
• Your lever: Entangling Thorns clears the wave and denies the orb area at the same time Why this is shown: Ivy's laning strengths. Strong evidence
• Your escape route is vertical and the 09-16-2026 patch aimed at exactly that: slows now affect air drag at 35% of their value, where previously they mostly did not bite in the air. Going airborne to break Mina's slow no longer restores your full movement — you carry a fraction of it into the air with you, at the moment you are also a stationary silhouette. The slow cut of ~20% partly offsets it, but the net is that air-escaping a slow is worse this patch than last. Why this is shown: 09-16-2026: slows now apply to air drag at 35% of their value, alongside the ~20% global slow reduction. Verified
• Mina is one of the strongest laners in the game and the standard build order will lose to them. Tier I is 800 and Tier II is 1,600, so your first meaningful decision comes fast: against this hero the 1,600 that answers their specific threat (Healbane if they out-sustain you, Debuff Reducer if they out-lock you, Battle Vest at +18% if they out-gun you) is worth more than the damage item that wins you a lane you are not going to win anyway. Why this is shown: Item tiers are 800/1,600/3,200/6,400; enemy laning trait 3 means the early damage race is already lost. Strategic

Mid game

• Their spike — Love Bites unlocked first (laning 0-10min): Her highest-win-rate opener is Love Bites then double Rake (61.8% WR per deadlocklabs.gg); the lane harassment starts immediately. Why this is shown: Mina's power spike timeline. Strong evidence
• Their spike — Love Bites T2 (mid game): +3 spirit per bullet and +45 bite damage roughly doubles her effective output at the point most heroes are still building. Why this is shown: Mina's power spike timeline. Strong evidence
• Their spike — Sanguine Retreat T3: The extra recast plus +4m range makes her practically uncatchable; this is where the 'unbeatable' perception comes from. Why this is shown: Mina's power spike timeline. Strong evidence
• Their spike — Late 35min+ with a large accumulated bat count: Nox Nostra's permanent stacking turns it from a minor silence into a fight-deciding mass shutdown. Why this is shown: Mina's power spike timeline. Strong evidence
• Your spike — ult unlock: Air Drop turns every fight into one her team can start from an angle the enemy cannot defend Why this is shown: Ivy's power spike timeline. Strong evidence
• Your spike — Kudzu Connection tier 3: The connection becomes always-on, so the buff no longer depends on holding line of sight Why this is shown: Ivy's power spike timeline. Strong evidence
• Mina will be their Urn runner and you are the one who can stop it. The Urn cannot be voluntarily dropped — it comes loose only on melee, a stun, or death — so chip damage and slows do not deny a delivery, your hard CC does. Hold it for the carry rather than spending it on the approach fight, and note the favoured team gets +50% Bullet and Spirit Resist in a 60m bubble while carrying and depositing, which is why trying to burst the runner down usually fails. Why this is shown: Urn cannot be voluntarily dropped, only knocked loose by melee, stun or death; +50% resist aura in 60m for the favoured team. Verified

Teamfights

• Your silence may be worth more in a chain than a teammate's stun. The 03-06-2026 diminishing-returns system reduces subsequent CC by 10% then 30% inside an 8-second window, and community reporting holds it applies to stuns only — not to silences, slows, hexes or disarms. If that is right, sequencing your silence after an ally's stun costs you nothing, while a second stun in the chain is already 10% shorter. Treat it as community-reported rather than confirmed, but order your chain accordingly against Mina. Why this is shown: CC diminishing returns of 10%/30% in an 8s window (03-06-2026); the stun-only scope is a single community source. Uncertain

Positioning

• Fight Mina under cover — indoors, under walkways, inside stairwells. Taking away the vertical axis removes most of their kit's value before you spend a single item slot on it. Why this is shown: Reasoned from air-mobility kits requiring open vertical space. Strategic

Build adjustments

• Mina fights from the air, which is exactly what Knockdown exists for: it applies +100% gravity to an airborne target (raised from +50% in March 2026) and its stun scales with altitude, up to about +1.5s at 30m. The higher they commit, the harder the punish — and Debuff Resist will not shorten that stun for them. Why this is shown: Knockdown airborne gravity and altitude-scaled stun, 6 March 2026 change. Verified
• Your escape is a big part of why you survive fights, and Mina can turn it off. Debuff Resist shortens the lockout, and a cleanse removes it outright — one of the two is worth a slot specifically because of this hero. Why this is shown: Hero with escape 2+ facing a silence; Debuff Resist shortens, cleanse removes. Strategic
• Slowing Hex (spirit T2) — Mina gives this team real gap closers and escapes. The community-standard answer to escape artists: buy it when an enemy repeatedly dashes, blinks or flies out of your kill window. Why this is shown: Answers: enemy-mobility, enemy-air-mobility, enemy-backline-threat, enemy-dive. Verified
• Vortex Web (spirit T4) — Mina gives this team real gap closers and escapes. Buy to set up team wipes against scattered, mobile enemies — it groups them and takes away their escapes at once. Why this is shown: Answers: enemy-mobility, enemy-air-mobility, enemy-backline-threat, enemy-dive. Verified
• Knockdown (spirit T3) — Mina gives this team real air mobility. The consensus answer to flying and airborne heroes and to channelled aerial ultimates — buy it whenever an enemy fights from the sky. Why this is shown: Answers: enemy-air-mobility, enemy-mobility, enemy-backline-threat, enemy-long-range-poke. Verified

Common mistakes

• The usual error against Mina is treating Nox Nostra as something to react to rather than something to pre-empt. By the time it is on you, the decision has already been made. Why this is shown: Fallback line — no specific rule matched this pairing for this section. Strategic

Analyse this against your whole enemy team

A single matchup only tells you part of the story — which enemy to actually focus, and what to buy, depends on the other five. Open the tool with this matchup pre-loaded and add the rest.