Playing McGinnis against Wraith

What should I do right now?

Matchup overview

• Their structural weakness: 730 max health with no innate durability outside Project Mind's T2 barrier Why this is shown: Wraith's weaknesses. Strong evidence
• Their structural weakness: Project Mind is her entry AND her exit but can only be one at a time before T3's 14s cooldown Why this is shown: Wraith's weaknesses. Strong evidence
• Their structural weakness: Both Project Mind's 0.8s channel and Telekinesis's 0.65s channel are interruptible, so CC-heavy teams shut her down Why this is shown: Wraith's weaknesses. Strong evidence
• You out-lane Wraith and they out-scale the lane phase, so the whole matchup lives in the first six minutes. The lead you build there has to be spent before Guardians fall and the map turns into grouped objectives — souls banked are not a lead against a hero who is better in the format that follows. Convert into their Guardian, into the Urn at 10:00, or into map control ahead of the first Rift around 11:00, and treat any minute where your advantage is sitting unspent as a minute given back. Why this is shown: Hero laning 3 versus an opponent with laning ≤2 but teamfight 2+; the transition happens around 6:00. Strategic

What they do against you

• Telekinesis lifts you helpless for about 2.25 seconds, slams you for 100-200, and then blocks your Stamina and every movement-based ability and item for 2.25-3.75 seconds — that post-slam lockout, not the damage, is what kills you Why this is shown: Authored from Wraith's kit. Strong evidence
• Project Mind teleports her 25-40m past every piece of cover and terrain, so distance and walls do not protect a backliner from her Why this is shown: Authored from Wraith's kit. Strong evidence
• Full Auto with T3 gives her unlimited ammo at +30% fire rate for 8 seconds, which is enough to delete a squishy that cannot break line of sight Why this is shown: Authored from Wraith's kit. Strong evidence
• Card Trick Spades add +60 burst on top of her gun, and Diamonds strip your bullet and spirit resist so everything she and her team do lands harder Why this is shown: Authored from Wraith's kit. Strong evidence
• The full chain — Project Mind in, Telekinesis your carry, Full Auto while they cannot use Stamina — is a scripted backline deletion Why this is shown: Authored from Wraith's kit. Strong evidence

How you counter them

• Interrupt her channels: Project Mind is 0.75-0.8s and Telekinesis is 0.65s, both interruptible. A Viscous Puddle Punch, Warden Binding Word, Venator Gutshot wall stun or Vyper Petrifying Bola landed on the channel wastes a 46s or 150s cooldown Why this is shown: Authored counterplay against Wraith. Strong evidence
• Stay beyond 10m of her and spread out — Telekinesis is single-target at 10m base range and cannot reach a dispersed formation Why this is shown: Authored counterplay against Wraith. Strong evidence
• Collapse from multiple angles after an aggressive Project Mind: before T3 that is a 46s cooldown, so she is stranded in your team with no exit Why this is shown: Authored counterplay against Wraith. Strong evidence
• Buy anti-heal; the 09-16-2026 nerf to Heart healing means Healbane or Venator's Consecrating Grenade now removes almost all of her self-sustain Why this is shown: Authored counterplay against Wraith. Strong evidence
• Break line of sight for the 5-8s of Full Auto rather than trading into it; the window expires and the cooldown is 25-45s Why this is shown: Authored counterplay against Wraith. Strong evidence
• Hold a cleanse specifically for the post-Telekinesis movement lockout, not for the lift itself Why this is shown: Authored counterplay against Wraith. Strong evidence
• Metal Skin is the right shape of answer to Wraith's gun — 5 seconds of complete bullet immunity on a 24-second cooldown — but know its two holes before you rely on it. It does not stop on-bullet build-ups, so their Toxic Bullets bleed, Silencer stacks and slow build-ups keep landing while you are immune, and it costs you −1.5 m/s and −20% dash distance for the duration, which is the wrong trade if you were planning to walk out during it. Use it to win a stand-and-fight window, not to escape one. Why this is shown: Metal Skin: 5s bullet immunity, 24s cooldown, does not stop on-bullet-hit build-ups, −1.5 m/s and −20% dash distance while active. Verified
• You cannot out-move Wraith's gun, so the answer is the item that changes what their bullets do rather than where you stand. Plated Armor deflects bullets outright and — the part most players miss — strips their on-hit build-ups, which is the only clean answer to Silencer, Toxic Bullets and Inhibitor stacks landing on you. If 6,400 is too far away, Battle Vest at +18% Bullet Resist is the efficient Tier II step and Bullet Resilience at +30% (with a further +15% below half health) the Tier III one. Why this is shown: Plated Armor deflects bullets and strips on-hit build-ups; Battle Vest +18% and Bullet Resilience +30% are the T2/T3 stat steps. Strong evidence

Trading

• The 0.75-0.8s Project Mind channel and the 0.65s Telekinesis channel: both are interruptible and both are long cooldowns wasted Why this is shown: Wraith's vulnerability windows. Strong evidence
• Any time Full Auto is active — she is stationary, committed, and has no defensive layer while shooting Why this is shown: Wraith's vulnerability windows. Strong evidence
• The 46s (pre-T3) window after Project Mind is spent, especially if she used it to enter rather than to leave Why this is shown: Wraith's vulnerability windows. Strong evidence
• After the 300 T2 Project Mind barrier expires (5s), she is a 730 HP hero with nothing Why this is shown: Wraith's vulnerability windows. Strong evidence
• Before she has banked Card Trick charges — a Wraith with no cards has lost her burst, her heal and her resist shred at once Why this is shown: Wraith's vulnerability windows. Strong evidence
• Your trades against Wraith changed on 09-16-2026: dashes and light melees no longer pause gun cycle time. Your damage output and your repositioning are no longer competing for the same seconds, which is the single biggest gain for a long-cycle weapon in this patch. Practically, that means you can now dodge the opening of their burst and keep your cycle running, so the correct trade against a burst hero is no longer stand-and-shoot — it is move-and-shoot, and it costs you nothing to do it. Why this is shown: 09-16-2026: dashes and light melees no longer pause gun cycle time. Verified

Laning

• What they want in lane: The Rake's 52-round magazine and high fire rate win extended weapon trades against burst laners Why this is shown: Wraith's laning strengths. Strong evidence
• What they want in lane: Card Trick converts lane chip damage into stored burst and Heart heals, making her trades net-positive Why this is shown: Wraith's laning strengths. Strong evidence
• What you can take from them in lane: 730 max health, tied for the lowest in this group, so she loses any trade she does not win with her gun Why this is shown: Wraith's laning weaknesses. Strong evidence
• What you can take from them in lane: Card Trick requires her to land weapon damage first, so a laner who denies shooting windows starves her entire kit Why this is shown: Wraith's laning weaknesses. Strong evidence
• Your lever: A 66-round magazine plus Mini Turret gives her the best raw lane-hold in the game; she out-attrits almost any duo lane. Why this is shown: McGinnis's laning strengths. Strong evidence
• You have real objective damage, which makes the Guardian your win condition in this lane rather than Wraith's health bar. Guardian resistance scales from +50% down to −50% across roughly the first twelve minutes since 05-22-2026 — it gets softer, not harder, so the pressure you can apply grows every minute from about 6:00. Guardians also have no ability-damage reduction, so spirit works on them at full value. Older guides claiming Guardians toughen over time are wrong. Why this is shown: 05-22-2026 changed Guardian scaling resist from +75%→−50% to +50%→−50%; Guardians have no ability-damage reduction. Verified
• You are a strong laner, so know where the income actually goes. Trooper souls are split among players within roughly 45m of the orb or 30m of the killer, and two players nearby take 54% each rather than 50% — a duo lane is slightly net-positive for the team and clearly negative for you individually. If you are winning the lane against Wraith, holding the wave alone at range from your partner is worth real souls per minute. Treat the exact distances as community-sourced. Why this is shown: Soul sharing radii of 45m/30m and the 54%/36% split are single-source; the directional effect is reliable. Uncertain

Mid game

• Their spike — Full Auto T1 (-20s cooldown): A 25s Full Auto means she has a damage window every skirmish instead of every other fight Why this is shown: Wraith's power spike timeline. Strong evidence
• Their spike — ult unlock: Telekinesis gives her a 2.25s single-target removal plus a movement lockout that guarantees her damage window lands Why this is shown: Wraith's power spike timeline. Strong evidence
• Their spike — Project Mind T2: The 300 barrier on arrival is what makes an aggressive backline teleport survivable on a 730 HP hero Why this is shown: Wraith's power spike timeline. Strong evidence
• Their spike — late 35min+: Project Mind T3 (14s cooldown) plus Full Auto T3 (unlimited ammo) lets her enter, delete, and leave repeatedly Why this is shown: Wraith's power spike timeline. Strong evidence
• Your spike — Spectral Wall unlock (level 1 priority): Her defining tool is online immediately; the highest-win-rate skill order opens Spectral Wall, Medicinal Specter, Mini Turret (61.5% WR per deadlocklabs.gg). Why this is shown: McGinnis's power spike timeline. Strong evidence
• Your spike — Spectral Wall T2 (mid game): -20s cooldown means she can wall every fight rather than every other fight, which changes how the whole map is contested. Why this is shown: McGinnis's power spike timeline. Strong evidence
• Your objective damage is the lever in this matchup and the Walker timing is where it pays. Walkers sit around 65% damage resistance early and decay toward −65% by minute 18, so the same rotation that accomplishes nothing at 12:00 kills one outright at 17:00. Each Walker your team destroys also unlocks an extra item slot for the whole team, so the take is a build spike for five other people, not just souls. Remember a Walker is invulnerable unless someone is within 22m. Why this is shown: Walker resist decays from ~65% to −65% by minute 18; each Walker grants a team-wide item slot; Walkers are invulnerable with no enemy inside 22m. Strong evidence
• There is a hard behavioural change at 20:00 in this matchup: respawn goes from 35 to 38 seconds as of 09-16-2026, and you are the hero Wraith can pick off without a fight starting. Three seconds does not sound like much until you price it against the Rift's 7-minute cadence and the Urn at 20 and 25 — a single death now reliably costs you presence at the next objective. Past 20:00, stop taking the solo camp that is one rotation from their side of the map. Why this is shown: 09-16-2026: respawn timer at 20:00 raised 35s → 38s; hero has escape 0-1 against enemy diveThreat 2+. Verified

Teamfights

• Stacking a second damage-reduction debuff onto Wraith is close to a wasted slot: since 05-22-2026 total damage-reduction debuffs stack diminishingly rather than additively. If someone on your team already brings one, your souls buy more as anti-heal or as resist shred, both of which sit on different multipliers. Coordinate this before the game rather than discovering it in the fight — two players independently buying Inhibitor against their carry is a common and invisible waste. Why this is shown: 05-22-2026: total damage-reduction debuffs changed to stack diminishingly rather than additively. Verified
• You have peel and Wraith is the dive threat, so your job in the fight is not damage — it is being in range of whoever they are jumping on. Position between their entry point and your squishiest teammate and hold your peel tool for the moment they commit, not for the moment they appear. Why this is shown: Hero has peel 2+ against a high dive threat. Strategic

Positioning

• Wraith decides where you stand, not you. The practical rule is to never hold a position whose failure case is being moved — stand so that being yanked or knocked puts you somewhere survivable rather than inside their whole team. Cover at your back is worth more than cover in front. Why this is shown: Displacement kits convert bad positioning into a kill; failure-case positioning mitigates it. Strong evidence
• When you go for their Walker against a team with Wraith peeling, the 22m rule is your positioning constraint: a Walker is invulnerable while no enemy is within 22m, so somebody has to be inside that ring for any of your damage to count. Being that body is a commitment, not a poke. Backdoor protection also gives the Walker 65% damage reduction and 65 HP/s regeneration until your trooper wave arrives, so going without the wave is not a faster take, it is no take at all. Why this is shown: Walkers are invulnerable with no enemy inside 22m; backdoor protection grants 65% damage reduction and 65 HP/s regen. Strong evidence

Build adjustments

• Wraith dives, and you do not have an exit in your kit. This is the clearest item priority in the matchup: buy a movement or escape active before you buy your next damage item. A damage item does not help you if the fight starts with you already dead. Why this is shown: Enemy diveThreat 3 against a hero with escape trait 0-1. Strong evidence
• Slowing Hex (spirit T2) — Wraith 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-backline-threat, enemy-dive. Verified
• Divine Barrier (vitality T4) — Wraith gives this team real backline assassination. Buy on supports to cleanse a focused ally's debuffs and shield them through a burst window from across the fight. Why this is shown: Answers: enemy-backline-threat, enemy-dive, enemy-slow, enemy-burst. Verified
• Vortex Web (spirit T4) — Wraith 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-backline-threat, enemy-dive. Verified

Common mistakes

• The losing pattern against Wraith is deciding to leave, walking to the zipline and finding you cannot attach. Any damage from an enemy hero or objective blocks zipline attachment for 3 seconds, and Wraith has the chip range to keep that 3-second timer rolling indefinitely. Break line of sight first, wait out the lockout, then attach — do not walk to the rope while still taking fire. Why this is shown: Zipline attachment is blocked for 3s after taking enemy hero or objective damage; enemy rangedPoke 2+. Verified

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.