Hail of Blades Rengar is a jungle hyper carry. This guide is intended for low-mid elo players in hope I'll be able to shine some of my experience with Rengar on you! This guide is the full damage, no nonsense, one shot, one opportunity, completely not defensive, super aggressive style I like to play Rengar.

IN MY OPINION - First off; Why Hail of Blades and not Electrocute?

After multiple nerfs to Electrocute and buffs to Hail of Blades, it seems to me the obvious choice. The attack speed synergy combined with Rengar's Savagery is awesome and allows you to trade earlier on with champs you would not normally be able to effectively e.g. Xin Zhao, Rammus.

Here's the rundown on why Rengar is a great pick in 9.5;

Pros;
- Extremely fun and hard to get bored playing
- Monster of an assassin that can delete even most tanks, late game
- Great 1v1's
- Can deny CC
- Tilts the enemy ADC

Cons;
- Hard to master
- Expensive build
- Can be considered squishy
- Teamfights are difficult

Before we get started, we need a few key rules;

1. You don't ever upgrade Hunter's Machete on Rengar. The gold used to uprgade it is wasted and better spent elsewhere.

2. Tiamat is essential for your first item. It helps with clearing the jungle and is a big part of your combo. Don't buy Serrated Dirk before Tiamat.

3. Rengar's success is based on decision making. With experience you will take better jungle routes, know who you can fight early and how to use your ultimate. Rome was not built in a day, so be patient.

4. This guide is my style of Rengar and I have high success with it. No crit items. Full lethality armour penetrating pure damage.

Follow closely and reap the rewards.

Typically the first few moments of the game, decide the momentum for the full early game. When it comes to your first jungle clear, analysing the enemy team against your own is critical.

For example; say you start red buff and you don't know whether to go krugs into scuttle crab or birds. Ask yourself these questions;

1. Can I confidently 1v1 the enemy jungler?
2. Are my lanes pushed so that my laners can assist me if a fight for scuttle breaks out?
3. If my laners do come, do we have a stronger 2v2/3v3 than their laners and jungler?

If it's a yes to all of the above, and/or you have vision on the enemy jungler being elsewhere on the map, then it's safe to go for the scuttle route for lvl 3.

The sad reality is that season 9 is extremely dependant on the scuttle crab early on. It grants too much gold, xp, vision and utility to miss out on. So deciding your first clear and having a solid plan in your mind is the first step to being a great jungler, and not just on Rengar.

Aggressive route with Q then E


With this route, after taking scuttle. Decide whether to invade the enemy blue (if you know where the enemy jungler is), gank mid lane or instead continue to birds and full clear.

Safer route with Q then W



If you do decide to start Blue Buff for whatever reason, go Blue > Gromp > Wolves > Red > Krugs then either scuttle or back.

Aggressive route with Q then E


With this route, after taking scuttle. Decide whether to invade the enemy blue (if you know where the enemy jungler is), gank mid lane or instead continue to birds and full clear.

Safer route with Q then W



If you do decide to start Blue Buff for whatever reason, go Blue > Gromp > Wolves > Red > Krugs then either scuttle or back.

Starting red buff is the strongest start, it enables you to clear a little faster due to the burn, and obviously helps with any skirmishes early on.

Rengar is extremely dependant on his fury stacks. Be sure to maximise his combo in able to maintain a healthy clear. The best combo for most camps is; Jump from bush at 0 stacks, Q, E, W to heal for some dmg, then empowered Q. So that's; Jump, Q Savagery, E Bola Strike, W Battle Roar, Q Empowered Savagery.

Jumping from stealth whilst at 0 stacks, always grants 1 fury stack. Use this to Q > Jump the blast cone outside red buff at 1:23. This gives you 2 stacks of fury before the red buff spawns and allows you to use your empowered Q Empowered Savagery on the Red Buff or the Krugs.

After Red buff, if your laner paths past Krugs instead of walking through Tri-bush, you can jump Krugs from the Red Buff bush. This shaves a couple seconds off of your clear and allows you to take an early scuttle and level 3.

When it comes to scuttle you want to use the same combo you typically use to get max fury stacks. But instead you will want to use Empowered Bola Strike to root the scuttle crab, which lowers its armour and subsequently makes it much easier to kill.

Rengar has a relatively expensive build, stealing camps from the enemy jungler and gaining a sufficient gold/item lead is crucial. Keeping track of the enemy jungler with wards and pings from allies, will help you steal camps and get put the enemy jungler behind. With Tiamat you can clear every can quickly, abuse this and take all the gold you can get! Those Serrated Dirk's aren't gonna buy themselves.

Hail of Blades allows you to trade much more effectively with champions early on that you typically can't burst down in one combo.

With HoB you want to; Jump from bush,throw E,auto auto, Q, W, Tiamat, Empowered Q. It's important you don't preload Q before jumping, as the HoB rune grants you a tasty 110% attack speed (for up to 3 attacks. On your 3rd attack activate Q and then receive the attack speed buff that Q grants you also. In simple terms you're getting in 4/5 autos in the time you would have got 2. This is only for the early game, later on you can just preload Q before jumping, E, W empowered Q and they and dead.

Nothing is scarier than a Rengar leaping out of a bush at you when you least expect it. Jumping from stealth often makes the enemy panic and relentlessly mash buttons without much thought. As long as you nail down your 1-shot combo [Q E W Tiamat Q], they are either gonna be dead or extremely low for you to just follow up and kill. Remember to buy the lens and vision wards to guarantee a surprise attack on someone.

I'M AHEAD EARLY BUT NOW WHAT DO I DO?!

Gaining a lead early on Rengar is wasted if you're not going to abuse it. If you've gold and items advantage on the enemy jungler, you should be taking as much from them as possible. Try to get timers on their buffs, steal them and kill the jungler. Make them fear their own jungle. This will force them to gank lanes whilst behind and share xp with their laners, only putting their laners behind also.

Claim bounties on the enemies with a nice price tag on their heads, whilst also stacking your Bonetooth Necklace.

TL;DR - DO NOT WASTE AN EARLY LEAD ON THIS CHAMPION. STEAL CAMPS, CLAIM BOUNTIES AND STACK YOUR BONETOOTH NECKLACE.

Everyone knows the feeling of iminent death at the hands of a Rengar charging towards you at mach 10 whilst invisible with Thrill of the Hunt. However a smarter player can be tricky to kill if they know you are ulting in towards them. Here's a few tips to maximise the opportunity when you're ready to ult in.

1. Don't ult in earlier than needed. The closest enemy will see the proc of your ultimate and start running back to their own tower. It's best to activate R when you're about to show on the minimap/ leave fog of war.

2. When your whole team is pushing for a Tier-3 tower or Inhib, using your ult can make the enemy stay further back and not contest the objective, rather than risk being murderlized by you. TL;DR - You can use your ultimate to zone enemies and capture objectives.

3. When in ultimate, be patient. Playing against champions such as Veigar and Fiora, you'll want to spook them into using their stun/riposite before you jump in. Fear factor is a huge advantage.

Your job is to completely murderlize the enemy carries before they even have time to blink. You should have enough damage by the time laning phase is over to obliterate the enemy adc, assassin mid etc..

If they enemy grow wise to your strength, they're gonna start grouping up, making your job difficult.

Typically you either want to catch someone out of position and completely 1 shot them, OR, wait for your team to engage and allow the enemy to disperse, enabling you to delete the enemy carry with R.

Don't be a hero! Sure it's great having 600+AD, but that doesn't make you unkillable. Be sure not to go godmode and try to 1v5, this only gets you killed and leaves massive objectives on the map available to the enemy team (Baron, dragon).

PSA: ALWAYS TAB TO CHECK ENEMY BUILDS! Stopwatch and Zhonya's Hourglass will completely devastate your plans if you are tunnel visioned on an enemy. Stay aware and play around what items/ spells the enemy have.

Patience is key on this champion. Both teams grouped up like an aram? Farm! Don't fall behind by sharing xp and pointlessly grouping to no avail.

Maximize the gap between you and your enemy by flashing into a bush, then jumping to them. This doubles your range and the enemy won't expect it. Obviously only do this when needed. Here's an example.

Play Video

You can bait out enemy CC such as Ahri's charm, Jax's counterstrike etc.. if you have your empowered W available. This leaves them vulnerable after you release yourself from the CC.

You can flash mid jump! This is a great trick for ganking bot/top. If the enemy is out of range and knows you're there, try jumping to a minion from the bush and then flashing onto them with empowered E. STYLE POINTS! Watch the video to see it in action.

Play Video

Jump resetting; The time taken between Rengar's jumps in the brush are decreased by attack speed. As Rengar's Savagery is an auto attack reset, you can abuse this to gain an extremely quick jump reset. Watch the quick following video to see it in action.

Play Video

So by using Thrill of the Hunt to get the first jump off. He activated Savagery the second he landed the jump to reset his auto attack and insta-jump again. This takes practice to perfect but it's a neat trick to have in your arsenal.

If you wanna get even better at Rengar, take the time to study Scrubnoob's videos on YouTube. He's informative and you'll understand the mindset you need to have to play Rengar successfully.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChchKMJe-ROGuFvKwvu9Fvw

Rengar is an extremely fun, versatile and difficult champion to master. If you're just picking this champion up and struggling, don't worry. Practice practice practice! This dude has a whole index of different combos, builds and play styles. Don't tilt from behind! You'll be surprised when you're 0/3 and still oneshotting the enemy ADC with just Duskblade, Tiamat. Rengar is my favourite champion in the game right now and I learn more about how to play him with each game I play. Good luck and have fun climbing!

If any questions or feedback just leave a comment and I'll try reply asap :)