Rakan

[BASE EXPLANATION OF THREATS]
Rule of thumb is that every support with tools to interrumpt your engage or your dashes will be dangerous in laning phase.

Every mage support -or double mage bot lane- will try to poke out of existence, so pay attention to your positioning and buy boots first if you find it hard to dodge skillshots.

Tank supports and high mobility adcs will often try to engage your adc when you engage theirs. You can hold your E to get back to your adc and peel them, but try to focus the same enemy as them, or you won't get enough CC / damage to win the trade.

Rakan has both a very flexible playstyle and very flexible build paths, so try to realize what's hard for you to play against, and then adjust your build or playstyle to compensate that.

Did you know that Rakan is the only champion that has 3 points at 3 skills by the client classification? You can do it!

Taric

Insufferably high peel and also a tank. Very hard to get your adc ahead unless you get an early kill.

He'll try to E you whenever you step into his adc and can ruin every all-in you make if he gets ahead.

Try to roam to get an advantage somewhere else or play around his cooldowns.

Expect his ult when getting into a big fight and be ready to disengage.

Lulu

For 25.10, Lulu has been nerfed a bit. Nothing too crazy, so she's still a threat.

She will hold her W to polymorph you when you engage, or will speed her ADC up to dodge you.

Kinda tricky to play against with her slow and constant peel for the adc.

Get swifties and look for plays whenever she wastes her W.

Poppy

Even though she doesn't have a super high pick rate, I currently permaban Poppy.

Her AoE ground (W) interrupts any dashes, which makes your W and E completely useless. You can't get in nor out.

You can wait until she wastes it, but since it provides her movespeed, she will usually use it to engage and stun your adc, and you won't be able to help for the duration of the spell (2sec). It's quite a long duration in which she will permastun your adc.

If you are the main engage and she is focused you won't be able to do much in teamfights either.

It's not impossible, but you should play safe, peel with Q and try to get an early advantage.

Brand

If he knows how to play, he will hold his spells and mana for whenever you try to engage and he'll blow you up.

Very hard to play against unless he makes a few mistakes and you can get a lead on him and get your adc ahead.

Otherwise, like any other mage, try to play around his cooldowns.

Morgana

This matchup really depends on the player. If she wastes her spells, you can absolutely put a lot of pressure and engage often. But if she holds them to wait out your engage, you might be reduced to a Q-poking-bird. I recommend putting 1 or 2 points in Q before W if that's the case.

Morgana's stun (Q) is a very slow spell, so it can be really easy to dodge with your E or W, but if she hits you, she will destroy you. You have to practice baiting it out and only then engaging. Her Q is also blocked by minions so you can bait forward, and then E backwards to your adc.

Her W (the magic circle that burns you) reduces its own cooldown the more it keeps damaging enemies or minions. It might come more often than you expect, so step out of it.

Her anti-CC shield (E) negates your W knock-up and your R charm, and lasts for 5 seconds at every level, so that's a pain in the ***. You have to make sure you wait it out before engaging. It has a very long cooldown (26s-16s), so take advantage of that.

A note: Morgana's shield can be broken with any ability that deals enough MAGIC damage, but more often than not, Rakan won't have enough. If your adc has magic damage, you might be able to break it, but it's not too common.

Maokai

Both his root (W) and knockback (Q) will cancel your engage. He will wait for your W to root you and push you back into his adc, so try to play around his cooldowns.

His R will also cancel your engage, you can outrun it with your mobility, but you're probably better off blocking the ult for your adc. (Yes, Maokai's ult can be blocked, but make sure your adc knows that too).

He is tankier than you and his E

Neeko

Janna

Her tornado (Q) interrupts your W & E, and her movespeed makes it difficult to catch her off guard. If she misses the Q, she can R to ruin your engage and your ult.

Play for bush prio, so she has less time to react, and get lens early to avoid getting warded.

Alistar

His headbutt (W) is a point and click dash that pushes you away, so he can deny your engage pretty easily. He out-tanks you, so if he plays aggressively your adc could be in big trouble.

Play safe until you get an advantage, peel with Q, don't get headbutted.

Soraka

Her E (the big circle) silences you and has almost no cast time. It's also HUGE, and If you stay there you also get stunned. That's the biggest threat, so bait it out, focus the adc and buy early grievous wounds (bramble vest, no need to fully build thornmail just yet).

After that, she peels a lot more than you. Soraka's W heals an ally but takes HP away from her. The trick being that if she hits a lifesteal (Q) just before, she can get 90% of that HP cost refunded.

If she hits her abilities you're down to just peel with Q and bait out spells. It's a hard lane so try to roam and get an early advantage.

Thresh

Thresh is always a dangerous champ to go against, especially if he has some experience. He is way tankier than you and has more playmaking potential pre-6.

He will almost always try to catch your adc, since if he tries to hook you, you can just E away to dodge him. You can also use your first E to take the hook from your adc and the second one to escape.

If he misses his hook (Q), try to take the advantage and punish his adc by engaging on them, but keep in mind that if he times his push (E) correctly, he can cancel your W.

His passive gives him armor and AP by collecting souls dropped from minions, so he scales pretty well into the midgame.

Going even in laning phase would be the safest bet, since you are a lot squishier than him. After 6 you can look to make riskier plays.

Tahm Kench

You usually have the advantage here, since dodging his engage (W) is pretty easy for you. If he engages on your adc, try to render him useless by using your W and letting your adc fall back to safety.

He has insane survivability with his health and shield, so try to NEVER focus him unless he is the last one standing.

You win by putting his adc at a disadvantage while avoiding his tongue poke (Q). You should have an easier time than him peeling for your adc.

Elise

Mel

Her root (E) can completely negate your engage, and she has it on a similar long cool down. Can be tricky to play around.

Her W can reflect your Q, which will result in her healing her adc, but that's not a big issue since it's your weakest ability.

Her W also makes her invulnerable to damage but NOT TO CC! So if she has used her E, you can engage without worrying too much.

Caitlyn

[Caitlyn as ADC]
If Caitlyn holds her net (E) until you W into her, she will dodge your ability, hit you with the net, hit you with an empowered auto, place a trap under your feet, hit you with another auto, and you'll be 2HP before you can E away. Your W is too telegraphed and slow and it gives her enough time to combo you.

But that's about it. She is super mana hungry at early game, so you can capitalize off that if you realize she is spamming abilities.

Depending on whether the support provides enough CC or not, you will have to play safe, or bait her E, or time your engage extremely well when she is locked down in her Q animation.

Ultimately you'll have to knowledge check her, and see if she is ready to counter you. Then play according to the support.

Lucian

He can dash (E) to dodge your W and force you to be aggressive. If he coordinates well with the adc, that might get you in trouble.

Try to take advantage if he dashes forward, since his dash has a long cooldown (although it can be reduced with his auto-attacks, so don't try this after middle game bc he will have more attack speed).

Nautilus

This champion has hook (Q), a stun (passive on autoattacks), a slow (E), and a point and click knock-up (R). It's a CC machine, but has 0 mobility. You can dodge his hook easily, but the rest is point and click. It's generally considered more favorable towards Rakan, but you need to focus

He can wait your engage to point and click you to stun you with his passive, so try to force him to make a mistake without getting too risky.

This is a skill match-up where it really comes down to mistakes and how the adcs play. Might be a stalemate if no one wants to commit.

If you're unsure, peel with Q until he makes a mistake.

Senna

Leona

Pantheon

Lux

Swain

Yuumi

Milio

Pyke

Braum

Shaco

Shaco support players usually play 1 of 3 strategies and you should try to recognize it and play accordingly.

General tips first: don't W if you suspect there might be a trap, since it will cancel your engage. Keep in mind that traps also block projectiles, so your Q might also get blocked. Lastly, try to always leave him for last, since he can easily dash out and become invisible (Q) when he sees you engage. Shaco's are always unpredictable so he might dash forward to engage on your adc, so be ready to react.

Regarding the strategies:

Strat 1 is just full AP, burn and AH. His fear boxes (W) scale with AP, so they will deal most of the damage. He will also get a bunch of AH to have his boxes a lot faster, so rush Oracle Lens and be very cautious of not engaging on top of a trap or you'll be absolutely cooked.

Strat 2 is AD Shaco, probably lethality, sometimes critical strike. His boxes don't do much damage but his autos, his point and click dagger (E) and backstabs (passive) will destroy you and your carry. He will probably try to dash and become invisible (Q) and ult on top of your adc when he reappears, in order to attack with both his and his clone autos. Just W them both and get back safely under tower with E.

Strat 3 is double jungle. Although since 25.09, no other roles than jungle can take Smite, he could take Unsealed Spellbook, which is getting buffed (25.10). In this less common strat, Shaco will not participate in laning phase, and will try to **** up your jungler first camps and levels. And with double smite (if he has Spellbook) he will get his jungler ahead. There's two ways to go around this, first is just try to stomp the lane 2v1 and then roam as much as possible (keep in mind that enemy adc will have more XP, since they won't be sharing it with Shaco). Second is trying to get a cheeky kill on Shaco early on with your jungle, but since that requires some more communication, more XP loss and to be close to your jungle, I wouldn't suggest to try unless in duo with them.

Sona

Bard

Rell

Karma

Fiddlesticks

Seraphine

Hwei

Annie

LeBlanc

Heimerdinger

Twitch

Shen

Sylas

Xerath

Blitzcrank

Zilean

Zyra

Renata Glasc

Zoe

Galio

Malphite

Anivia