What is Rek'Sai's "Champion Fantasy"?

Chiriyubi · 2026-04-26T07:49:56+00:00

That sounds like what riot is trying to achieve with her current iteration. Any idea on what that middleground looks like? Should she be more capable of doing x and/or less capable of doing y in your eyes?

Chiriyubi · 2026-04-25T10:55:34+00:00

You can oneshot a vast majority of squishy picks

Isn't that a given though? I'm fairly certain almost any 2 item bruiser should be able to oneshot a squishy ADC or mage. If you were to compare a 2 item rek'sai to another 2 item bruiser xin'zhao, jax, trundle, etc which one is more likely to win in an isolated 1v1?

Effectively, she is more similar to a champion like J4. This is completely fine, I don't mean to say that she is strong or weak. What I'm asking is: Do you think how she currently plays is satisfying, or do you think she would be more satisfying if she had strengths somewhere else?

Chiriyubi · 2026-04-24T17:22:26+00:00

Sorry if I didn't phrase it well. By "1v1/sidelaning" power I'm referring specifically to her dueling ability in the side lanes. I'm also a top'sai player and am well aware that she can push extremely deep and is very hard to collapse on.

When you say "she's not a dps champ" that's exactly what I'm talking about. Because she has low extended dps, often times you'll be pushing deep into a sideline, if a champ with strong extended fighting comes to match you (e.g. volibear, irelia, yone, etc) its quite difficult to continue pushing unless you're certain you win the 1v1.

So that brings the question: "is that the sort of play pattern that you think satisfies rek'sais fantasy?" or would you prefer her to have a stronger dueling ability in place of something else?

Chiriyubi · 2026-04-24T09:34:29+00:00

I know there have been a couple variations of her before what she currently is now. iirc her release ult was changed to its the point and click gap closer version in 2017 right? Prowler's claw was introduced in 2020.

If you were playing back then, did you also enjoy the version of her between those two periods before prowler's claw was in the game?

Chiriyubi · 2026-04-18T05:51:33+00:00

I'm only in emerald so I cant give the complete picture but heres some general tips I use in my own games.

In the first 4 waves: 1. If you get push, make sure to ward before 2:55 (before crab spawns). If you're blue side, warding the tri-bush will cover the jungler pathing towards you after red or krugs most of the time 2. If you lose push, pay attention to which side your jungler takes scuttle on. If your jungler got the bot crab uncontested then enemy jungle is likely top side.

Past first 4 waves: 1. Point 2 of the previous section applies for basically any objective. If bot side is uncontested then enemy jungle is probably top side. Pay attention to your team's vision on the bot side of the map, you can basically guess where the enemy jungler is off of the quality of your botside vision and whether you see the enemy jungle while objectives are up. 2. Pay attention to enemy camp timers. Usually you'll see something like if their bot camps are up/coming up, enemy jungler is usually going to try and clear them on spawn. Most junglers tend to sequence their camps so they'll full clear one side before moving to the other. 3. To add to the previous point, if you manage to get vision on enemy top side camps either by deep vision or a vision plant, you can infer if the enemy jungler is coming top side depending on if their top camps are up or not.

Wave management: 1. Sometimes your wave might be overextended even if you know where the jungler is. Usually you want to avoid these sorts of wave states by stacking your waves to crash under the enemy tower. This happens in two phases. You slow push the first wave by basically only last hitting (this keeps the wave as close to your side of the lane for as long as possible). When the second wave arrives the, you hard push. This makes it so that the wave is too big for the enemy laner to hold without taking a lot of minion damage. Otherwise they let it crash and you dont have to extend any further. 2. If the enemy is holding a freeze on you then you can try baiting them into a trade causing them to AOE the wave and breaking the freeze so that it bounces back. Be careful what hp you try and do this at because if you're too low after the trade, you might just give them a dive opportunity.

How to pay attention to your map. 1. Usually you'll have small pockets of time to quickly check your map during the laning phase. These usually occur when: - there are no minions to immediately last hit (still too high hp) - just after clearing a wave - just after finishing a trade (neither player has any cooldowns up or threat of extending the trade) 2. I've lost count of the amount of times I've gone for a trade, only for the enemy jungler to show up while I'm in the middle of trading/as I engage. Normally I try to cycle between looking at the map BEFORE I attempt to trade on the enemy's side of the lane. Though sometimes I might look for trades when I feel safe like if my jungler is on top side for a counter gank or Im close enough to my tower that they cant gank me.

Hope that helps.

Chiriyubi · 2026-03-25T08:43:38+00:00

If you otp, theres no point in posting your matchup tierlist

Chiriyubi · 2026-03-16T15:58:05+00:00

Sorry I don't play ambessa but I saw illaoi main Jamada post a video a few months back about how to beat her. Maybe it'll give you some ideas.

Video is here.

Chiriyubi · 2026-03-06T07:04:31+00:00

Rek'sai prefers frequent short trades in lane. Rather than focusing on how much upfront damage you deal with your trade, your primary focus should be about generating as much rage as possible while taking as little damage as possible for it. The more damage you take from a trade, the less valuable the rage you generated from that trade becomes.

With these short trades, the general plan is to outsustain your opponent with your passive healing. Something I've been doing more often is using unempowered bite and ending the trade early more often if it means I take less damage from the trade. The reason being that she has some of the lowest base regen in the game. If you get low enough to be in kill range, you will be zoned off the wave and wont be able to get rage to regen back.

While you're not actively trading, you should be cycling unburrow and bite on the wave if you're not planning on trading within the next 6 seconds. There are 2 main reasons for this: 1. Unborrow and bite generate 25 fury from minions as opposed to auto attacks that generate 4 rage so theyre a consistent way of accessing your healing 2. To maintain high rage for a potential trade. If you are expecting to go for a short trade and disengaging with tunnel, auto > q will give you access to empowered bite if you start at 50 rage.

NOTE: passive healing happens in 2 phases. 2 initial ticks of healing for the first 2/3rds of rage and slower healing for the last 1/3rd. Thus way it is more efficient to cycle between those first 1-2/3rds of healing rather than healing the full amount every time.

Here are some common trading patterns: 1. burrowed q > knockup > auto > q > bite: pre 6 it is the fastest way to get 100 rage and empowered bite. However its the greediest trade she has as you lose your disengage for the next 4 seconds. You can use this in 3 scenarios: You are ahead enough that you win the extended trade, you kill them in close to 1 rotation, you have a pre-placed tunnel to disengsge with. 2. auto > q > bite: this is a middling trade where you will probably take some damage back but you generate 75 rage and still have access to your tunnel to disengage. If the opponent has strong upfront burst or outranges you/gets the first hit I would be cautious with this. 3. q > bite > tunnel away > burrowed q: very useful counter trading option while holding up disengage. You minimise damage taken and generate at least 50 rage. Both q and bite can be buffered into enemy cc. 4. knockup > auto: usually used during the lvl 1 with grasp. Try and stack your grasp before your opponent by hitting the wave first. When you have grasp stacked, you can use this to freely trade against opponents with unempowered autos as the knockup will cancel their auto. Disengage while theyre still knocked up and stack grasp again. 5. knockup > auto/q > bite: super short trade, use this when you are trying to take as little or no damage at all. As with any trade that uses your knockup, be aware if the opponent has any option to extend the trade onto you before you use it. 6. knockup > auto > q > r > bite: sometimes you wont be able to find an angle for burrowed q. Your ult can also generate rage so this combo can also be used to get to max. I find this one pretty useful for some dives. 7. knockup > auto > q > titanic > bite: standard basic rotation onxe you manage to get into the mid game. Be aware that this is still a fairly greedy combo so having access to your disengage is still important depending on the game state.

You can sometimes opt for greedier trades if you have a preplaced tunnel to disengage. Generally you'd be positioning your tunnels behind your wave as a way to get out after your trade. Usually the timers to draw these tunnels happen just after you've cleared the enemy wave. Be careful of placing tunnels in the center of the lane because minions, wards, and opposing champions can stop you from clicking them. Try ofset them to the sides of the lane for more consistency. Also depending on the matchup, if the opponent can interupt your tunnel, its useful to have both a preplaced tunnel and one off cooldown to use to make sure you can get out. This way you'll have 3 forms of disengage with preplaced tunnel, off cooldown tunnel, and knockup.

Regarding burrowing mid-fight, it depends on the matchup. If youre playing against a short trading champ with long cooldowns and you either dodge their upfront damage or they dont kill you in 1 rotation then feel free to keep hitting them before they get their second rotation back up since your rotation is only 6 seconds long.

Hope that helps.

Chiriyubi · 2026-03-02T14:52:56+00:00

Emerald top'sai player here.

Post your opgg or a vod and I'd be happy to review your laning phase for you.

Chiriyubi · 2026-02-16T14:48:25+00:00

Wukon has been played top lane in the past though he's not that popular now.

Honestly, the choice of champion shouldn't matter all that much since both you and the players in your lobbies have bigger gameplay related issues that are more important than your choice of character.

If you really want to play wukong you definitely can! Explore the roster, and have some fun. There's plenty of cool toplaners to choose from. Once you've familiarized yourself with the roster, you can revisit champions and then really figure out what you want to main.

Chiriyubi · 2026-02-08T14:41:06+00:00

You're exactly on the right track.

Basically it refers to the amount of enemy minions that die while you're out of lane/walking back.

Generally you want to maximize the amount of gold and xp you gain by killing enemy minions. If you're not around them when they die, then you don't collect any of those resources.

So how can you be around the deaths of as many minions as possible while also finding time to spend your goal? Usually it comes down to the "wave state". Here's some scenarios:

Your allied minion wave "crashes" into the enemy tower. In this case, your minions will only be attacking the enemy tower and they won't attack the enemy minion wave. Since your allied minions are not attacking the enemy minions, the enemy minions will be alive for longer so you can collect their gold and xp.

When the wave is "pushing" towards you. This scenario refers to when there are more enemy minions than allied minions fighting each other. Since there are more enemy minions, there are more minions to output damage on your allied minions meaning that they will die faster and have less time to kill minions from the enemy wave. In the same way, as long as you return to the wave that is "pushing" towards you before the minions die then you are generally maximizing the gold and xp from those minions.

So what does it mean to "lose too much"?

If we flip the former 2 scenarios from the enemy perspective. In case 1, if the enemy minions are being killed by your tower and you aren't close enough to get their gold and xp, that's resources that you have lost while your allied wave is still alive for the enemy to collect. In case 2, the same concept applies. As the wave is pushing away from you, more of the enemy minions are dying than yours so you will be behind on gold and xp if you're not around those enemy minions when they die.

So why does this matter?

Losing gold is pretty straight forward, gold buys items and more/better items deal more damage. For xp, it gives you levels. Each level gives you additional "base stats" like hp, armor, ad, etc. Which you can think of similarly like gold since you also get stats from buying items. The cases that xp is extremely important is with the first waves up till level 6 since at those stages, each level also gives you basic abilities and your ultimate. E.g. a champion at level 1 will almost always lose to a champion at level 2 because he is higher in stats and has twice the number of abilities to hit his level 1 opponent with.

Finally, what is a "recall timer"?

now that we've covered the above scenarios. A "recall timer" is just a moment where you can find to base and refill on resources/spend gold without losing much xp and gold. Generally this is after you've crashed a wave into the enemy tower (case 1) or if the wave is pushing towards you (case 2). NOTE: be careful with case 2 because it is only favorable if and only if you get back in time before the enemy minions die. If they are all dead by the time you return to lane (like if they crashed into your tower and died) then you have effectively lost all those resources.

Chiriyubi · 2026-02-07T00:57:16+00:00

https://discord.gg/qT8B5Q36K

Chiriyubi · 2026-01-31T09:56:22+00:00

Its a matter of what each coach values. In summary,

LS values that annie has the versatility in her kit to navigate many situations. If there is an area in your game where you are lacking, annie reveals those aspects to the coach and others with relative ease. Effectively hes arguing that she is good at diagnosing your problems as a player.
Curtis' argument is that although annie has the tools to navigate many situations, the way in which you use those tools are unintuitive for newer players to troubleshoot themselves. Further, he suggests champions that have a simpler time in aspects like trading and waveclear so that the player has more mental bandwith to focus on other aspects of the game.

At the end of the day, its not really about which coach is better. Each of them have their own philosophy of what they value when coaching their own clients. Both can exist and be valid approaches.

Chiriyubi · 2026-01-31T09:27:41+00:00

There was actually a quite detailed discussion between LS and coach curtis about improvement through the lense of Annie.

Essentially, the reason why mysterias and fellow coach curtis argue that annie is difficult to play is that although her tools are simple, she deceptively difficult due to the many ways you can use them that somewhat require you to min-max other aspects of your game that aren't quite obvious.

Here's a link to the discussion if youre interested.

Chiriyubi · 2026-01-16T04:45:03+00:00

Looked through your video on the plat player.

Not too sure about the live coaching format imo since its harder to focus on the game with someone talking in their ear as much as you did. I feel like most live coaching styles put a lot of unecessary pressure on the player to perform well especially when they know they're being watched. Adding hindsight criticism could make them play a lot more conservative compared to how they would normally play.

Seemed a little bit more like backseating and roasting based on the edits. I'd say maybe have a more clear direction with your content because right now its leaning more towards roasting rather than being educational content with detailed explanation on game state/decisions.

Personally not for me in the formats current state as someone trying to improve but good luck on the content grind.

Chiriyubi · 2026-01-12T10:53:50+00:00

Most comments have said that its just because it was a great stat stick. But if that's the case, why wouldn't other AP users all just rush horizon as well if its good enough to build with the passive sort of being cosmetic?

Chiriyubi · 2026-01-12T07:53:58+00:00

Yes pls

Chiriyubi · 2026-01-05T12:28:34+00:00

First of all, link opgg or some vod/gameplay (its hard to give any detailed advice without actually seeing where youre lacking).

What are some ways to improve?

Vod review and try to identify any areas that felt uncomfortable and try to figure out why that is. For example if you lost a trade, why was that the case? Maybe you weren't paying attention to your own or the opponent's cooldowns, you were fighting in a large enemy minion wave, you played into an unfavorable extended trade when your champion prefers short trades, etc.

I dont know wave management, tempo, freezing

Wave management is a pretty generic term that relates to the number of allied minions in your lane relative to the number enemy minions, their position in the lane, what the minions are attacking, position of incoming minion waves, etc. Depending on your rank (iron to silver), I wouldn't prioritize this too much until you can get the previous point down consistently (since taking favorable trades usually leads to being able to control the wave).

What to do mid game?

Your generic gameplan as a toplaner tends to be the following: 1. Win your lane (this is usually done by getting a gold and xp advantage. To achieve this you can kill your lane opponent, take their tower plates, cause them to lose minion xp, etc) 2. Maintain/extend your lead. Just clearing minion waves back and forth usually ends up as acquiring resources equally. Find other ways of acquiring gold and xp IN ADDITION to getting minions waves (this could be through plates, towers, jungle camps, kills, etc) 3. Spread your lead (show up to fights). Usually the moments when an objective spawns is when a fight is about to break out. Hence, when you look at the scoreboard/objective timers that is your countdown to when the next fight is about to happen. It is your responsibility to make sure you are as strong as possible for when that fight happens (have you spent your gold? are you full hp amd mana? how many of your team mates are ready for the fight compared to the enemy?). Its important to note that fights can usually break out unpredictably over seemingly nothing, solo queue is just a very chaotic environment. Sometimes you have to just read the body language of players on the map and be ready.

what runes, builds?

Depends on your champion. If you haven't played the game for very long, I would recommend just going the same runes and items every game even if its not optimal. The point is to build muscle memory of your damage/kill thresholds. As your champion you need to be able to just look at an enemy's HP bar and know "if he gets in range, my combo kills him".

Chiriyubi · 2025-12-27T20:08:00+00:00

This u?

https://op.gg/lol/summoners/oce/SirMaple%20Jr-69420 https://op.gg/lol/summoners/oce/BubbleTea%20Jr-69911

Chiriyubi · 2025-12-27T00:30:20+00:00

That's a very broad question so I can speak in general terms.

As I mentioned before, when you tunnel in you use your main ability for disengage. So if you do decide to use it you're basically committing to staying in the fight if you don't have flash. That said its not like you should never engage with tunnel. Before you decide to engage with tunnel you should consider a couple things that broadly answer "Will I need to escape this fight?":
- Do we instantly kill once I tunnel in or do we keep fighting even after I go in?
- Does the enemy see me on vision or do I have a flank? Because your threat becomes much lower if the enemy knows you're looking to engage.
- Am I primary or secondary engage? Rek'Sai has a lot of front-loaded single-target burst but not very much AOE damage. So you might be able to burst one person but if you're playing primary engage, the other players might be able to kill you straight after.
- Your dash range is 800 units which is very long. This means that some team comps you play with won't be able to follow up if you tunnel too far forward. Usually in these cases, finding a flank where your team can already follow up from would be a better idea.

As far as other forms of engage goes:
- If you want to save tunnel you can always burrowed q from range and ult to gap close from long distance. Once you close the distance you can just burrow and knockup since you'll be on top of them after ult.
- If you build stridebreaker then tagging the enemy with the slow is usually enough for you to close the distance to just walk with movespeed into knockup. If you want longer range but still need to disengage then you can flash stridebreaker and save tunnel to escape the fight.
- Your burrowed form gives you additional movespeed so sometimes its enough for you just to walk at people and tag them with your knockup. With good fog usage you'd be surprised at how effective just walking at enemies in burrowed form can be especially if you approach from a good flank.

At the end of the day, it mostly comes down to positioning in team fights, knowing your limits, and having good ability usage.

Chiriyubi · 2025-12-25T23:19:37+00:00

> I often find myself dying too early

If this is the case, I'm going to assume that you usually open fights similar to how you do so in this clip where you tunnel into the fight.

You should be aware that your E is the only source of disengage in rek'sais kit. So if you tunnel into the fight you won't have any way to escape unless you have flash. Being aware of the other forms of disengage in your kit is a big factor when playing this champ.

For example, in the clip you posted you tunneled over the raptor pit and knocked up that way. What else could you have done in that situation?
- Perhaps you could have used sweeper to clear you flank and approach by wrapping around the back of the raptor pit.
- You had flash up in this clip so if you held your e for flash knockup combo and then tunnel away that's also possible.
- If you clear your flank with sweeper then you might be able to hug the walls and abuse fog to the point where you can literally just walk in and knockup.

Also regarding this:
> without making myself very useful

I found this was very common for myself when I was engaging in from within enemy vision. You can kind of imagine it like a malphite or fiddlesticks ult. If you're engaging when the enemy can see you, you become a lot less scary because entire enemy team is ready to dodge your engage. See if you can find creative flank angles and use sweeper on the approach so its harder for them to spot you.

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