vs Rek'Sai
FavoredDifficulty
Press the Attack
Extended trades, 1v1 dominance
Summoner Spells
Vaultable Skills
Starting Items
Standard Build
Situational Items
4-2 (unburrowed), 10 (burrowed)
4 (unburrowed), 0 (burrowed)
6 (unburrowed), 18-14 (burrowed)
120-80
The burrow knockup internal cooldown is 10-6 seconds (based on W level)
What To Do
- -Rarer matchup now in S16, but on occasion you will encounter a few of the remaining Rek'Sai top OTPs out there or a filled Rek'Sai jg main. The main concepts to understand about the Rek'Sai matchup is how her passive works and when you are allowed to use E. These tips should also be helpful when playing against a Rek'Sai jg. Sad to admit that it took me all this time to learn how this champ fully worked when making this guide, since seeing a Rek top was so rare, but I'm glad I did.
- -Passive - Getting hit by any of Rek'Sai's abilities grants her 25 fury stacks, which will get consumed when she burrows to heal back a significant portion of her Max HP (9-21% of max HP, scaling by level).
- -Her W allows her to toggle her burrowing state, which she can cast either manually or via an auto-attack command. She can also unburrow after exiting her burrow E (tunnel ability). Unburrowing causes any targets in a small area around Rek'Sai to be knocked up.
- -Importantly, Rek'Sai can cast her unburrow ability in the small window where our E is in range of Rek'Sai's champion model to knock us up and leave our E on CD. She can do this either by manually pressing W when burrowed or buffering her auto-attack in a specific way.
- -Another important interaction you need to know is that your E CAN completely cancel Rek'Sai's tunnel ability, but only if she is in her burrowed state (e.g., creating a fresh tunnel or reusing a tunnel while burrowed) AND you are E'ing her in the middle of the tunnel and not when she resurfaces. If she is burrowed, you can E her 100% of the time, and she will be forced out of it still in her burrowed state. Just be mindful when you cancel her tunnel like this that she can still potentially flash unburrow knockup and full-combo kill you if you are low.
- -The more tricky interaction is if Rek'Sai is REUSING a tunnel and starts from her unburrowed form. When you E her when she tunnels when starting from unburrowed form, you will force her to exit the tunnel and unburrow, which will function identically to her burrowed W. As such, you should NEVER try to E her in the scenario when she is reusing a tunnel starting unburrowed.
- -So with all that in mind, you have three main missions during lane. 1. Dodge her burrow Q (the skillshot) at all costs if possible to deny her 25 fury stacks and healing. You can do this either by dodging into the minion wave or sidestepping it like any other skillshot. If she misses this ability, you can immediately trade back with Q and auto-attacks. 2. Save your E for only when she engages onto you with a fresh tunnel to cancel her dash. This will always cancel without knocking you up, and she will then have no way to engage onto you except with flash. Her tunnel cooldown is just a couple seconds longer than our E, so you can play aggro the entire time your E is on cd. 3. Erase any tunnels that Rek'Sai creates by standing over one of the entrances for a few seconds. That way, you can reliably E every fresh tunnel RekSai creates without worrying about getting knocked up. Follow these 3 tips and you will be able to beat Rek'Sai at all phases of the game.
- -Another side tip is to always E reksai tunnels when chasing - you might get knocked up in the process, but you will prevent her from getting the full dash distance and make her vulnerable to a kill.
- -The only way she kills you is by poking you down with burrow Q or canceling your E with an unburrow and taking a good trade. Once she gets you low enough, she will then flash unburrow combo you. After 6, the same patten will occur, except she can also use her Ultimate to gap close and finish you off.
Level-by-Level
Rek'Sai always starts w, so you hard win at lvl 1 with your range. Just be careful and try to E from fog of war, since Rek'Sai's W can knock you up if buffered. She might try to manually unburrow, but she will not have enough damage to fully kill you at lvl 1, even with Hail of Blades (Most Reksais will run Grasp or Conquerer anyway).
Play aggressively and harass with Q and AAs when possible. Otherwise, follow the 3 matchup tips: dodge burrow Q to deny fury stacks for her healing, save E for when she creates tunnels, and destroy any tunnels she creates. Otherwise, if she is walking up to you in burrowed form and u need to create distance, wait to get knocked up and then E her when she is unburrowed to be totally safe. You can get away with E'ing her while burrowed, but again it is risky, so do so if you cannot survive the knockup and follow-up combo.
Don't stick around when low, Reksai can cast her ult after damaging you (typically with burrow Q). She will be unburrowed afterwards for at least 1 second, so you can E her then to create distance or save it for when she tries to burrow and tunnel to get onto you.
