[GUIDE] Play Rek'Sai the Right Way

• T.o.C
  • Introduction
  • Pros and Cons
  • Runes and Masteries
  • Build Pathing
  • Early Game
  • Mid/Late Game
  • Hyper-Late Game
  • Endnote

Introduction Below are my Rek'Sai credentials. Anyway, through all of my normals, customs, and few ranked games as Rek'Sai, I feel I have found a more than viable way to play Rek'Sai. Unfortunately, it doesn't work well 40% of the time due to a huge team dependency to do well during laning phase with few jungler ganks. Therefore, it will not be very sufficient in lower elos, but will be exceptionally strong in higher elos. However, I have devised (but not tested) another way to play her, and here I will share both playstyles.

Pros and Cons

• Pros

  • Exceptionally strong mid-game.
  • Heavy sustain.
  • Strong objective control.
  • Scales well throughout the game.
  • Very strong blink.
  • AoE CC and Damage

• Cons

  • Very poor vision underground (susceptible to counterjungle camping)
  • Fairly squishy
  • Falls off hyper-late game (55+ minutes)
  • Heavily farm reliant.
  • Non-combat ultimate.
  • Ultimate rarely usable.

Runes and Masteries

Runes My runes as Rek'Sai are very standard. Rek'Sai is stuck in her jungle for most of the game, so she won't need to run any magic resist glyphs. Instead, I take health glyphs, flat AD marks, flat armor seals, 2 flat AD quintessences, and 1 health quintessence. You'll be running a lot of damage in the early game to clear your jungle faster, and if their AD champions aren't too fed, you'll usually want to get after your core damage, but only if their AP is fed or you think you can survive team fights with only rune and mastery armor, plus your health/sustain. http://i.imgur.com/o6EsSbK.jpg

Masteries Rek'Sai is a really squishy champion early game, as previously stated, so you'll want to spec out of offense and put most of it in defense. 9/21/0 masteries or 0/21/9 masteries work very well on Rek'Sai. To add to defensive ability as well, I take both defensive jungle masteries, and 3 points in Hardiness. Below you'll see I take CDR masteries instead of attack speed. This is because the 5% CDR actually significantly helps with the tunnel route you'll be setting up, as well as giving you more damage than taking attack speed masteries (tested and approved by me). Obviously you'll spec into Second Wind, as it significantly increases your W's healing. http://i.imgur.com/hRLF0n7.jpg

Build Pathing So for the first build, the farm build, you'll obviously want to start and 2 . On first buy, you'll buy , but upon recalling again, you'll sell that and buy . You want to recall after you clear Route #1, which I've posted later in the guide. Upon that recall, purchase and 3, or 2 and a . Then, you will not recall or gank until you have 1600g. Once you get 1600g, recall and buy your as well as 2 more . To save time on typing, you want to buy 2 per recall, and if your is dead 2 and a new . You should have this by 13 or 15 minutes if you're playing properly. You'll then build in the following order: > or > > or (the vice versa) > > . Final Build:

The second build is if your team is doing absolutely horrible by the time you recall for . If this occurs, do not buy . Get instead, and start building as much tankyness as possible. Your damage output will not matter anymore. Just tank. As well, you will start ganking instead of farming for stacks. Final Build:

Remember, buy x2 and !!!

Early Game Note: This is before you've bought Devourers http://i.imgur.com/SmyTlde.jpg What you want to do is very simple. You'll start by killing krugs, going around to red, then kill the mini-raptors (do not kill the big raptor, you will die). Kill wolves, blue, then Gromp, and recall for your first item. You will obviously regen with W between each camp.

http://i.imgur.com/aTQHiZF.jpg The purple lines indicate where you will place tunnels. You will place one going from Krugs to red buff bush. The second will be from red to raptors. The third will be from raptors to midlane (between the wall and the bush). The fourth will go across the lane. The fourth will be from the entrance of jungle to wolves. The sixth will go from wolves to the side wall of blue buff. The seventh will go from the side wall of blue buff to Gromp. Save your eighth for dragon steals or dragon escapes. (Use the eighth wisely though. Once you use it, you can place no more tunnels without destroying your route, and your route takes at least two trips to build.

Go back and forth from Krugs > Raptors > Wolves > Gromp, utilizing the tunnel system the entire time. It should take about 4 to 7 seconds to cross the entire map like this (I haven't timed it but I think it's 1 second to get through the tunnel, or .5 seconds). You should have 50-70 stacks by 25 or 30 minutes.

Mid/Late Game Now is where you deal the most damage. You will no longer be using your tunnel system, so now you can place more aggressive tunnels. Stream them wherever you feel necessary, I haven't found any good specific locations yet unfortunately. In teamfights, you're safe to dive the entire team to get to the squishy, and you'll melt them to 20% health with only your 3 Q hits. You can then finish them off with smite and botrk if it is necessary for your survival. You can then escape death by quickly going back into your burrow and using your E to escape. If you see an opportunity to get a good 3-5 man knockup, go ahead. You'll win the fight with your massive AoE damage and cc. :)

Hyper Late Game Pretty much a 4v5. You're just another tank with very low damage output. Good luck. I advise you end the game before it reaches this point.

**Endnote**
Tell me if the guide was useful or not :) Please keep the criticism constructive and not harassive. There's no need to downvote for sharing my opinions on Rek'Sai. I'd rather have a cool, calm, and collected debate about the playstyle and share your opinions of Rek'Sai playstyle than you harass me for my playstyle. Just trying to share a playstyle I found very good. Thanks :) This took an hour and a half to write >~<

EDIT #1: Rek'Sai's team mates can teleport to her tunnels. However, the cooldown is not reduced as if it were a turret. Thanks to summoner "Reddhero12" for the information.