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 Rek'sai 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 Rek'sai top, 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 :)

As you can see through looking at the build options, there are lots of different items and builds to choose from that work well with Rek'sai top lane, each offering their own strengths and weaknesses. Here I'll quickly list the pros and cons of each build.

Main damage build
Pros:
-you'll do lots of damage
-Kraken procs well with un-burrowed Q/ Prowler's active helps with chase

Cons:
-offer little extra HP and no armor
-you will be squishy compared to most top-laners

Bruiser build

Pros:
-offers balanced amounts of damage, hp, and armor
-can build Deadman's plate instead of boots
-Goredrinker healing

Cons:
-compared to most top laners you will still not be as tanky, since Rek'sai is an assassin and not a tank
-not as much damage as the main/lethality builds
-lack of boots makes you a bit slower (but not by a lot)

Tank build

Pros:
-offers lots of extra HP, armor, and MR
-has great split-pushing potential with hullbreaker
-offers lots of healing with Rek'sai's healing passive with Spirit visage and Warmog's

Cons:
-offers very little damage
-in team-fights you'll mostly be there to knock up enemies and tank damage

Lethality build

Pros:
-offers lots of damage
-works really well on Rek'sai since these are the items intended to be build on her
-you'll be great at executing low health enemies with your R

Cons:
-you will be pretty squishy still
-offers little extra HP/armor

-generally has strong early game
-is versitile and has a large variety of options in terms of item builds and runes, which can be adjusted as needed based on the matchup
-has amazing roaming and ganking potential with her tunnels
-her tunnels make her harder to catch/corner and offer escape in situations that would mean death to any other top-laner
-has good split-push potential with un-burrowed Q + Hullbreaker
-is great at executing low health champions and bursting down squishies

-no matter what you build on her, she will never be as tanky as other top-laners (without sacrificing damage)
-can be squishy and easy to kill depending on build
-can't really fight champions that are super tanky
-in bad matchups you will get bullied hard in lane and won't be able to do much of anything

-create a path of tunnels along top lane so that getting back to lane is faster
-set up tunnel systems in top lane/river for easy traveling
-use un-burrowed E with full fury to last hit cannons so you don't miss them
-in good matchups you can easily bully the enemy top laner
-if you're winning lane you can burrow into the enemy's jungle and steal their camps, putting the enemy jungler behind
-you can tower dive low health enemies with R, ignite them (if you have ignite), and then flash out to avoid dying