How to win every game as rek'sai

Blu3 Blood··0 votes·3,467 views

I've played about 20-30 games with Rek'Sai and want to give some advice to everyone failing with the champ.

First of all take her top not jungle. Her build is very expensive and she is very squishy early. Half the time when you go in to gank with rek'sai you will just be slaughtered by the enemy laners, especially assasins.

Instead, take Rek'sai top with teleport and ingnite and start with dorans blade and pots. I run magic resist, armor pen, armor, and attack speed runes and 21/9/0 masteries. Flash isn't terribly useful and your kit is already loaded with gap closers while teleport combined with ult will allow you unbelievable map presence. Take Q first and be in lane at 1:55. Immediately start shredding the wave and rushing level 2. Get a couple of hits off on the enemy laner and dont worry too much if you take a bit of damage from creeps. at level 2 get W and burrow to regen your hp. When the laner goes in to farm, burst from the ground by reactivating W underneath them. As they fly skyward activate your Q and start shredding them. WHen they land reburrow and retreat to regen hp. Once you get E it should be an easy kill. If you are up against a hard lane opponent such as vlad you will want to auto creeps while taking as little damage as possible and constantly burrowing to regen hp. Hit your opponent with burrowed Q everytime you are regening for a little bit of poke (the damage isnt much but the range is incredible and it starts to add up). Look to tp bot or mid to cleanup kills after level 6, remembering to that you can always ult back to your tunnels top. Speaking of tunnels, you should have at least 7-8 of them in your lane and lane bushes. They should allow you to push your lane opponent mercilessly and then slide away when the jungler comes to gank. You can also get out if you mess up a fight and are getting beat.

Builds:

Against AP heavy team and or lane opponent: Rush Spirit Visage, Merc Treads, Banshees, Blood Thirster, and Hydra. You can optionally add in wits end, last whisper, randuins, sunfire or trinity force depending on how tanky you need to go

Against AD heavy team and or lane opponent: Rush Sunfire, ninja tabi, Randuins, Thornmail, bloodthirster/ruined King and banshees veil. You can add in frozen mallet ,zephyr, hydra, trinity, etc. depending on your needs.

Teamfighting: Stay burrowed and wait for your team to engage or to be engaged upon. You should be within a burrowed tunnel range of your team leader but not close enough to get locked down. When the fight starts burrow underneath the largest cluser of enemies and knock them up with W. Immediately activate your Q and start shredding, if you are getting focused or really hurt burrow out for a few seconds. Once your knockup is off cooldown, use it to tunnel in and knockup enemies/peel for your team again. Late game you should do a ton of damage and be quite tanky. If you aren't absolutely shredding you are either really behind or doing it wrong. her builds can be very versatile so think strategic but make sure you have quite a few defensive items. You already get tons of free attack speeds and damage so worry more about living and the utility your knockup can provide.

What not to do: Don't burrow and then right click a champion to knock them up. The better way to play is to burrow, manually move under them and then reactive W. This will allow you to position yourself most optimally and allow you to get more autos off while they are in the air/recovering.
Also don't build too squishy, don't jungle, and especially don't ult blindly to a tunnel in the enemy jungle. Your strengths are solo duels or controlled team fights. You are large and susceptible to cc so you want to be the second one into the fight so you can knock people up and engage on your terms.

Good luck and enjoy shredding with Rek'Sai

10 Comments

Cale0173 votes

don't jungle

With a champion who is defined as a jungler and has a kit that is literally designed for the jungle. The rest of your post was pretty interesting at least, even if you make it sound like she can burrow and unburrow immediately even with a 4 second cooldown at all ranks, and I can see why this would work. But putting her in the top lane, while a matchup that's incredibly unfavorable for an opponent, is wasting her early game ability to put pressure on enemy lanes with her solid ganking potential, and wasting her amazing counterjungling and mobility options entirely until you've won lane and can start roaming.

What is it with everyone in the community trying to take junglers out of the jungle and put them in top lane, which just results in otherwise acceptable mechanics being labeled as "overpowered" or "uncounterable", causing nerfs for those champions until they're unviable in the top lane, putting them back in the jungle, where they're now weak to most other junglers because of the nerfs they got slammed with by people trying to "break the meta" and take them top, or play them as AP champions.

There's a very fine line between experimentation and stupidity or gimmicks.

redniwediS1 votes

I think his point is more of a if you can't figure out how to play this champion try her top lane first. Top lane is the mixing pot lane that almost anyone can find a favorable matchup, if he just left it at "try her top" his post would have been perfectly fine.

Cale0171 votes

No, he flat out says twice over to just plain not jungle with her at all.

redniwediS1 votes

He said those words yes, but to me it sounds like a new player help post, and taking her to lane instead of jungle is a good piece of advice for new players.

Blu3 Blood1 votes

Jungle's tend to have unintentionally abuseable kits because riot tends to add crowd control, gap close/escape, and regen or heal mechanics to their kits. As a result people inevitably take them top until they are nerfed. As I explained, Rek'Sai's kit theoretically makes for great ganks but the problem is that she needs a very expensive build to reach her mid and late game potential and early she is simply too squishy. Its just as easily to be killed in a gank as rek'sai as it is to kill someone unless your lane opponent has either tons of damage or good cc. Its much easier to sit top, farm endlessly, and reach your full build earlier. By doing this I kill the enemy rek'sai constantly and frequently 1v2 when they try to gank me top. Yours points arent totally without merit but she is simply a better top, plain and simple.

Cale0171 votes

You can have a Devourer and a Tiamat by minute 20. After that you're shredding squishies, and your knockup and AoE let you turn most fights in your team's favor early on. Sure she's a bit squishy for the first maybe 20 minutes of a match or so, but it's not like there aren't plenty of other junglers who suffer from the same issues.

She's only a "better" top by abusing mechanics that were designed to be used elsewhere. And continuing to abuse these mechanics in this way will only result in nerfing her, which is going to make playing her in the jungle even harder.

You people don't realize how much damage you're doing when you try to do crap like this.

HOE Bloo2 votes

LoL you should try Kalista support then. item 3069 item 3143 item 3022 item 3085 item 3046 item 3117 her ult makes it the easiest way to get ur adc out of a stupid scenario that he/she might put themselves in...OR the best way to get him/her back into a fight to chase your enemies and run them into the ground. your opponents will not know what is happening.

Abyss Gear Syxx2 votes

This champion is nigh impossible to kill as a top laner. Built tank they will not only hold tower but become a great tank for their team. It's stupid of them to even suggest she is a jungler when she becomes so much more as a top laner. Even if built damage top lane it's just gross how she has so much to choose from. Also her rage can be generated on any creeps.

Waga Waga1 votes

Try saying that now. So many nerfs to damage and health its not funny

AMYS GRAVE1 votes

if you want to take her to lane instead of jungle i would suggest mid, you are more able to roam and make use of her ganking potential.

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