Hello, SensualDog here! I just want to start off by saying thank you for checking out my guide, I put a lot of time and effort into my guides so it means a lot when people take time out of their day to check them out. Please feel free to leave a comment/vote to let me know your thoughts on my guide, it really helps out a lot!

Disclaimer: I don't think there is any one 'correct' way to play a champion, all of this is based off my personal experience playing Kog and what I found to work best for me. There are so many possibilities considering runes, item choice, and play style, so what works for me might not work for others, and that's okay! My goal is simply to share what I've found to work for me when playing Kog in mid lane, and hopefully this guide will find its' way to someone else who likes it! Criticism and feedback is also always welcome, as I am open to trying new things in terms of runes and builds. Anyway, I hope you enjoy this guide and find it useful in some way :)

You may be looking at this guide and wondering to yourself: "Why build AP on Kog'maw, doesn't he usually build AD? And why take him mid lane when building AP, why not just stay bot lane?", both of which are very valid questions.

To answer the first question of why you'd want to build AP on Kog, the reasoning behind it is simply because all of his abilities scale with AP. Realizing that all of Kog's abilities scale with AP and not AD made me wonder why the meta for him is a strictly AD build, which actually leads me to the answer for the second question of why not stay bot lane with full AP Kog'maw. The answer may not be apparent at first, but it's because the full AP build does not match that of the typical ADC. His AP build offers little to no extra attack speed and auto dammage, which is the exact opposite of an ADC build. Other ADCs would simply burst down full AP Kog before he'd have a chance to fight back. While his abilies do lots of magic damage, the lack of attack speed is why he is not built full AP in bot lane, and why it works much better mid lane instead. While he still may have the squishiness of an ADC, his AP playstyle is more like that of a mid-lane mage: Bursty yet reliant on abilities rather than auto attacks for damage.

-enemies will not expect you to do well and won't take you seriously, and will let their gaurd down as a result
-the amount of damage AP Kog does is unexpected, so the enemy mid laner may go in thinking they can win when they can't
-you out-range most mid laners and will be able to poke them to death
-your E and R are great for farming minions, making it easy to get ahead of your laner

-you're still an ADC, you will be very squishy and once they get up close you are dead
-goes through mana crazy fast
-Kog is not very mobile, if you get ganked when pushed up you are probably dead
-if your laner roams you will struggle to get there in time to help because Kog is so slow
-AP Kog doesn't have good attack speed like AD Kog does

Poke
-your most effective method of poke is through Kog's E, and his R after level 6
-the added burn/damage from Liandry's/Luden's only adds to his poking ability

Farming
-much like with poking, his E and R are his best methob for farming minions. Use E to get them low, then use autos to get individual minions while throwing out your R at a group of low minions to avoid missing cs

Mana usage
-in order to save mana, try to line up your E and R to hit both minions and the enemy mid-laner at the same time, that way you can farm and poke with the same shot
-avoid spamming R, though it's on a 3 second cooldown the mana it uses increases with each use when used in fast succession