Rengar's been having a rough time for the entire season 5 and even now in preseason. The tank meta that is the top lane doesn't have much to offer Rengar, unkillable opponents in lane from who you can't snowball. Nonetheless I still got to diamond with him and there are still master and challenger tier Rengar mains, point is he's good just not as much as before.

Most of the time even if it's an annoying tank, it's more of a skill matchup, Rengar has pretty good outplay potential in lane, even in a 2v1 situation especially if you get exhaust. That's one of the good things about him, even if you're against a tank like Malphite who you can't kill just because of the amount of armour he has on, the jungler might gank you, and if it's a lee sin or xin zhao, you can outplay them pretty hard and get a double or at least just the jungler.

Although you have a better shot at roaming if it's a seemingly unwinnable lane or even if you have won your lane, as his ultimate is one of the best spells to gank with. I recommend going back at level 6 (preferably you've gotten first blood) get your items and go bot. The botlaners will not have their ults and the exhaust secures the kill on the adc most of the time.

I want to talk about exhaust for a little bit, it's a spell to dominate lane, it's simply my playstyle and because I have a lot of experience with the champion I am confident I can win or at least not lose my lane, that's the main reason I pick exhaust ( aside from the fact that I just like it more ) but if you're not that great of a Rengar player you might want to take teleport as it is a much more forgiving summoner spell.

Pros

+ Uses no resources + Oneshots squishies + Can carry in solo-q + Is just overall fun

He is incredibly strong in solo queue, he has some of the highest burst damage in the game since he can do it in a very small amount of time. He is great at catching people off guard if they're alone clearing the jungle, or if they isolate themselves during a teamfight when all of their bruisers and tanks go in, he is also a very good splitpusher thanks to his ultimate that makes escapes easy during the midgame when the enemy team still isn't buying pink wards.

Cons

- Forces tanky jungle pick - Needs to snowball - Weak to CC - Not very useful in teamfights

As for the snoballing part, unless Rengar snowballs he really ends up not doing much throughout the entire game. When it comes to crowd control Rengar needs only 1 stun and he's dead, that's why you need to be careful with going in. His teamfighting is pretty bad, his job is to basically take down a squishy instantly and then escape if he's lucky, other than that he doesn't do much, that's why it's difficult for a team to win if only the Rengar in the team is fed.

SPACESPACE SPACESPACE Getting your Savagery at level 1 is a must, on level 2 depending on wether or not you can kill your enemy you get either Bola Strike to jump in and finish off the enemy or Battle Roar to heal up and kill him later on. SPACESPACE SPACESPACE > > > SPACESPACE You always want to max out your Savagery as it does the most damage, after that you usually want to max Bola Strike since it increases the slow amount and the damage on it, which are both amazing bonuses, lastly you max your Battle Roar simply because it doesn't offer much in terms of damage and the tankiness it provides doesn't mean much when you're building as a glasscannon assassin. There are exceptions to this, you may max your Battle Roar first if you're having troubles surviving in lane, followed by your Savagery and finally your Bola Strike. Of course you get a point into Thrill of the Hunt whenever you can.

Crit Build

I always start with long sword, it gives you some good AD a build path into either Ravenous Hydra or Youmuu's Ghostblade and the 3 Health Potions are great for filling up right before going in for the kill.

SPACESPACE Serrated Dirk should be the very first item you buy when you go back to base for the first time, it gives you AD and armor pen which stacks amazingly with the armor penetration runes, giving you a total of 29 armor pen. SPACESPACE Another very important item to build quikcly, there's not much to say about this item, it is simply amazing, bonus CDR for Thrill of the Hunt and all your other abilities of course, plus reduced summoner spell cooldowns, which if you have Teleport instead of Exhaust is an even better bonus than it usually is as you can stack it with the Distortion enchantment. SPACESPACE This should be your first major item aside from the boots. It gives you an amazing 65 AD, 10% CDR, putting you at 25% in total, and an active that is absolutely beast combined with Thrill of the Hunt. SPACESPACE Midgame SPACESPACE You want to get this before anything else, as it is sort of like another spell for you. It's an auto reset and key to your burst when oneshotting someone. SPACESPACE This would be your second major item, the armor penetration it gives stacks very well with the armor penetration you get from everything else, the movement speed is useful and of course it just gives a lot of AD. The passive won't be too useful if you're already snowballin hard, but it's nice to have it as a backup plan if someone flashes away from you. SPACESPACE Before building anything else you'd want to finish off your Ravenous Hydra. SPACESPACE Just more damage and a bit of waveclear, and after you get your Infinity Edge it'll be even more useful. SPACESPACE Finishing up SPACESPACE Grabbing an Infinity Edge after Statikk Shiv will put you at 50% crit giving you even more oneshot potential. SPACESPACE If there's someone on their team who you need this item for, you can build it in the place of Statikk Shiv and later on sell your Ionian Boots of Lucidity to get Trinity Force, not Statikk Shiv as you can't afford to lose that 10% CDR. Champions who you would need this item against are Twisted Fate, Annie or even a Leona. It's a must against Twisted Fate and Annie as they are your kill targets and you'll need a quick escape from their stun to be able to finish them off. SPACESPACE Alternatively, if you don't need Mercurial Scimitar build your Statikk Shiv and replace your Ionian Boots of Lucidity with Trinity Force if the game is that long. SPACESPACE SPACESPACE AD build The better thing about this build is that you're capped on CDR. If they don't have any CC that you need to quickly get out of then you can switch Mercurial Scimitar with Lord Dominik's Regards if they are tanky or Guardian Angel if you really need it, but usually you'd get Mercurial Scimitar This build is better for when you can't oneshot people and need more sustain damage. Usually you'd build this way if they have some sort of tankier midlaners or marksmen, for example blue build Ezreal or rod of ages Twisted Fate. SPACESPACE SPACESPACE This build is for when your team really needs a tank, or when you've fallen behind and can't do anything in a teamfight before dying. It's a good build against strong bruises such as Irelia, Jax, Xin Zhao because when you're tankier you have some sort of chance against these champions in teamfights. Randuin's Omen you can substitute with Maw of Malmortius against AP heavy teams or Blade of the Ruined King if you're already tanky enough and need some more damage against their tanky bruisers.

• Greater Mark of Armor Penetration Very good against tanks in the top lane, and just as good against squishies during the midgame, together with your items, you'd have up to 50 armor pen during the midgame, that's enough to be doing true damage to the enemy ad carry.

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• I like to take health instead of armor because it is more effecient than armor until about level 5 and my playstyle is all about the level 1-3 skirmishes. You can replace this with Greater Seal of Armor for a safer option.

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• This is the go-to rune, you can't replace this with anything else as it is your most important rune. CDR is your primary stat and this is the optimal way to get it through runes.

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• Greater Quintessence of Armor Penetration Same thing as the marks, very good against tanks and squishies alike. Stacks great with your item's armor pen.

I just want to get Flash out of the way first. You get it on any champion, Rengar's no exception, it's great for cutting distances by flashing into a bush that will let you leap to your target.

SPACESPACE SPACESPACE This is my choice for the second summoner spell. My reasoning behind this decision is that it gives you a lot more lane pressure and dominance, it is a great summoner spell against Riven, always take it when against her. Another great thing about it, is that it doesn't become weaker lategame, even if you are an assassin that oneshots carries, sometimes a Lucian or a Vayne might make some distances from you, be it Lucian's E or Vayne's tumble or just a flash, exhaust is a great way to guarantee that you will not die before catching up to them and killing them. SPACESPACE SPACESPACE This is also a very good choice for Rengar. Since you'll be ganking bot lane whenever your ult is up Teleport is a very good way to not miss out on experience and farm top because of those ganks. You can also use Thrill of the Hunt and then before you stealth use Teleport to teleport with an active Thrill of the Hunt, it's not that effective, but if you're going to Teleport into a fight, then there's no reason to not use Thrill of the Hunt as well.

On level 1 if you're just auto attacking each other in the bushes before minions have spawned that's really good for you as you'll always come out on top in those trades. What you basically want to do is jump on them and as soon as you land use your Q, that way you get in an auto + Savagery as it is an auto attack reset. While trading you're gonna get minion agro so you don't want to stay and fight them for too long, jump in get as much damage on them as you can, then run back to the bush, even if you take even amounts of damage, you have the potion advantage over them, as most people start doran's, so just pop those and keep trading. Don't forget to lasthit whenever there's a minion low enough to die. Because you get minion agro and your minion wave gets free damage on the enemy's minions, you will get level 2 before them, unless the enemy champion pushes on your minions, in which case you'll outtrade them even harder. If you follow these basic rules you will have 4 or 5 stacks on your passive just about the time you get level 2 (level 2 is one full minion wave + one more from the next wave) and they will still be level 1, if they're low enough that you can kill them, get your Bola Strike and try to go for the kill, if not get Battle Roar and heal up.

Your main objective in teamfights is killing the enemy carry be it the midlaner or the marksman. The most important thing is to not engage, you are not a tank, you're an assassin, your job is to take down the squishies during the chaos that is a teamfight. If you successfully take down the ADC and can easily engage onto the enemy mage, you do it. You have to cause as much damage as you can before you die, which is expected in a lategame teamfight, since the tanks have enough damage to bring you down by themselves.

SPACESPACE TL;DR - Kill the squshies, try to get out alive.

I'd like to start this off by saying that Rengar's passive Unseen Predator stays for about half a second after he leaves brush. What that means is that you can pull of some cool things, like jumping to dragon and baron from the bushes that are on the opposite side of the wall on red buff. You don't need any more movement speed than Ionian Boots of Lucidity give, however you do need 6 stacks on your bonetooth necklace for the extended jump range. I show how to perform these jumps in the video below.

SPACESPACE As I mentioned above in the summoner spell section, you can use Thrill of the Hunt then Teleport before you stealth so that you teleport with an active ultimate. However another thing you can do is use Teleport while inside of a bush and when you teleport to your destination you click on the ground somewhere then quickly click on the enemy you want to leap on, I show this in the video as well. SPACESPACE Play Video

Hey, my name's ArmouredTeddy.
I've been playing since season 2 and I've been playing Rengar since day one of his release on the live servers. I was looking up guides and builds for him back then and desperately trying to get better at him, simply because I enjoyed the level 1 oneshot aspect of the champion. He's continued to be my main up to this day.

Season 3 is the first time I started playing ranked and I ended the season at gold 1 with 100 points, frustrated because I come home excited to play my promos and find out that the season has ended. The next season I got to platinum and left it at that. Season 5 I got to diamond in the very begining of the season and didn't play much until the last few months of the season, the highest I got was diamond 3 at 50 LP but then got a losing streak and called it quits for this season.

As I said before I've been playing Rengar from day 1, so I have approximately 2500-3000 games with Rengar be it ranked, normals, custom. So I have quite a fair amount of experience with him.