Rengar-
When considering whether or not to pick rengar there are essentially two different versions of rengar you will be playing. One is a early game skirmisher who wants to perma invade perma fight over every scuttle and look for early dragons.
This is a very volatile playstyle as rengar has few matchups that he can stomp early and unless you are willing to invest some serious hours into this champion to learn every matchup then this is usually for more experienced rengar.
You pick this rengar when you are r5 or on b4 b5 and see enemy jungle and team comp.
This is a hard pick because it relies on multiple factors ie. your pick order and the enemy picking optimal champs for you.
However this is also the safest time to pick rengar as the enemy team will have no picks that can punish you early and let you play fast and aggressive the first 15 minutes and let you scale into mid late game with some items.
The other rengar playstyle is where they may not have an optimal comp for rengar or you were forced to early pick and they countered you.
This is what makes rengar such a hard blind pick because there are champions in all 5 roles that can counter you and make it near impossible to play.
When faced with an early rengar pick or counter pick comp then you still have 2 options.
A. you can look to gank early and cheese a few kills to snowball so even though rengar isn't that good into there cc or lockdown then you will be so far ahead that it won't matter.
This involves ganking pre 6 and last hitting kills and cs while "shoving" lane.
This is a extremely selfish playstyle and very very risky as it may tilt your laners and unless you play perfectly there champs could still end up countering you even if you have level advantage and gold advantage.
Option B. is where you full clear and try and hit late game on rengar as soon as possible.
Rengar is blessed and cursed in the sense that he probably outscales anyone in the game if he gets the first jump on them.
However his early and mid game can be pretty weak if you dont know the majority of matchups and are not comfortable with invading.
With the new item reworks in s11 he now has more options to counter whatever losing matchups he has so that late game he will one shot tanks with the overstatted ldr, still one shot carries late game even if they have immortal shieldbow, and mages with armor stacking.
The later the game goes with rengar the better it is for you.
You have to be careful not to have NO impact in early to mid game because if all your lanes are losing then the game may be over before your build is online.
Rengars "late game" power spike is usually around 3-4 items.
He is also blessed that if the game goes really late he can sell his early game items for more effective crit items if he had to opt into anti healing or armor pen.
Build-
Rengar has 3 "meta" builds right now.
What build you go depends on how you want to play and what the enemy teams comp is.
The most meta build is Duskblade, Ionian boots of lucidity, Essence Reaver, LDR, The Collector, Infinity Edge.
This is your most standard assassin rengar build where you are trying to rush to your duskblade so you can start skirmishing early around drakes and ganking with your burst/slow of Duskblade.
Ionian boots are best paired with duskblade as both items offer ability haste which will allow you to pump out more abilities in skirmishes.
There is a slight change to this build where you swap out Duskblade with Eclipse as it does % health which can be better when dealing with a tankier enemy comp, however you lose out on the invis passive and slow that you gain with Duskblade.
For the 2nd item you want to go Essense Reaver because of the synergy it adds even more ability haste to your kit which you can never have enough of.
Essense Reaver was also updated this season to have a sheen proc on a extremely low cooldown at 1.5 seconds after an ability usage.
This is an extremely underrated item that is a BIG power spike for rengar. You want to itemize into ldr 4th as most enemy champions will opt into plated steelcap boots.
On top of that for every 1k health the enemy champion has on rengar *who is one of the squishies champions in the game* you will gain an extra 15% ad capped out at 2k health difference allowing you to SHRED tank champions like they were nothing.
Build 3 is where you go goredrinker into ravenous hydra and play as a bruiser.
You spike much earlier with the ironwhip chainspike essentially acting as an old pre rework tiamat aa cancel while also adding to your early game burst.
This item while being continuially nerfed so as to not heal as much will still give you some AD and health that helps you survive in fights.
However this is at the cost of additional burst from duskblade or eclipse and while you may have more health rengar is still pretty squishy and you will have to play around your W and E to be a disruption rather then a kill threat.
This is a playstyle you will have to opt into if you know that all 5 of the enemy champions you will not be able to punish or kill but still want to play rengar.
You will be playing HEAVILY for e and w and is essentially a totally different playstyle then assassin rengar with the other two builds.
Pathing-
Rengar has 2 basic pathing options that again rely on the enemy teams comp.
One is a basic 2 buff + gromp into a gank that you know will be gankable or on a champion you KNOW you can invade and SPRINT to his red buff on blue side or sprint to his blue if on red side.
The 2nd pathing option is to just full clear scuttle at 3:15 and look to hit 6 as soon as possible before you gank if the enemy team has champions that can counter your pre 6 ganks or if your lanes just aren't gankable.
Invading is going to be super important on any jungler but especially rengar so if you want to visit a special article on invading specifically then visit our other article here.
