Rek'Sai, the Void Burrower, revealed[]
The shifting Shuriman sands harbor countless tales, and while most speak of its long-forgotten civilization, others reveal something else: terror within the dunes. The nomads and traders that cross through Runeterra's golden lands know the stories well enough, the bloody remains of their kin a testament to the void beast below. And while others enter Shurima unaware of the monster's fearsome reputation, or so proud they believe themselves strong enough to survive her slaughter, few last long once they enter [2]
lands.
- Fury of the Xer'Sai
- - Queen's Wrath
Rek'Sai lashes out, dealing damage to all enemies around her with her next three basic attacks.
- - Prey Seeker
- - Burrow
Rek'Sai burrows underground, gaining Tremor Sense (a unique mechanic that shows Rek'Sai all enemy movement in a wide area around her) and increased movement speed at the expense of vision range and access to her basic attacks. She ignores unit collision as she moves around.
- - Unburrow
- - Furious Bite
Rek'Sai bites her target, dealing increasing damage based on her fury, or true damage if she has a full fury bar.
- - Tunnel
- Gameplay
Rek'Sai is a powerful and mobile monster well suited to the jungle of Summoner's Rift. Clever use of her
gives Rek'Sai unparalleled mobility through her jungle and into the enemy's domain. Once there, she works best counter-jungling her opponent into obscurity before ganking enemy laners from the unconventional angles her provide.
- Jungling
Rek'Sai is a mobile menace at all stages of the game, creating
throughout her own jungle to help her dart from camp to camp. But she doesn't just quickly; she kills at speed, too. brings mass carnage to each camp's monsters, dealing solid area of effect damage to every enemy around her, while deals powerful single target damage. Monsters will fight back, but Rek'Sai - once she's generated enough - can sustain through the slaughter by , which restores her health and speeds her toward the next camp. And once her jungle's empty, it's time for Rek'Sai to turn toward the enemy jungle.is central to Rek'Sai's counter-jungling runs, which focus on killing enemy camps while her counterpart's away rather than dueling directly. By checking for movement in her intended direction, Rek'Sai can at least understand where her opposing jungler isn't, then use that knowledge to in and steal camps, effectively starving her opponent out of their jungle and forcing them into premature ganks, or worse yet, into Rek'Sai's lair. Pity those who dare stray too deep into the burrower's home: her offer incredible mobility, and with good vision control, Rek'Sai can easily coordinate her allies as she hunts down wandering targets.
Then there are her ganks. Rek'Sai's relative lack of burst damage means she thrives best when she ganks for her high-damage allies, using her considerable utility to slow and stop her target's escape. Most crucially, Rek'Sai's
give her unique angles of attack into enemy lanes, from which she can damage her mark with before beneath them. The provides a strong enough window for most assassins to secure their kill, but even if her enemy's still alive, Rek'Sai can turn to her own abilities - and in particular - to add extra damage into the mix.- Teamfights
Come mid-game, Rek'Sai operates best when she takes advantage of her unique
and , using her knowledge of the enemy's movements to split push or pick lone targets. In split-push situations, she makes short work of minion waves with , shoving her own minions into towers and forcing the enemy team to react. ensures she's always aware of her enemy's whereabouts, too, allowing her to dive through the myriad she's already created and skirt around those who come to stop the shove. But her mobility doesn't end there. gives Rek'Sai the ability to burrow to any of her tunnels, potentially crossing over the entirety of Summoner's Rift in seconds.But when to
? If she's attracted enemy attention with her split pushes, Rek'Sai can quickly relocate to join her waiting allies in another lane, using their newfound numbers advantage to force down towers or claim other objectives. Alternatively, a sneaky in the enemy base sets up a perfect late game backdoor attempt, while near her own base give Rek'Sai the opportunity to dash back and help defend when the enemy forces come knocking. During the early and mid game, gives Rek'Sai instant access back into her jungle whenever she , meaning she can carry on clearing camps and gaining experience and gold while her counterpart heads back to their jungle.In large-scale teamfights, Rek'Sai works best when she can follow up on a solid initiation, following in and locking up priority targets with the knock up from
. Once she's engaged, Rek'Sai has to work fast, generating as quickly as she can before crippling her enemy with . The ability scales in damage depending on how much she's filled her , and deals true damage when full. Once she's laid down her punishment, Rek'Sai needs to focus on survival. gives her both the movement speed and health regen she needs to dodge and recover from the enemy's retaliation, and gives her opportunity to peel for her damage dealers by beneath their would-be killers.- Synergy
Works well with: | Struggles against: |
---|---|
Lux - the Lady of Luminosity
All of Lux's abilities synergize well with Rek'Sai's at every stage of the game. Early help Rek'Sai move into place for her , while in teamfights, and grant long-range vision of their targets. And while Rek'Sai is not the most delicate of flowers, helps her soak up extra damage as she moves in to engage. |
Kalista - the Spear of Vengeance
While Rek'Sai punishes those she can stick to, she struggles against champions who can kite effectively, particularly Kalista. enables the Spear of Vengeance to continuously dart around the Void Burrower while she lays down punishing damage with her basic attacks and . |
Malphite - Shard of the Monolith
Crowd control's the word when Rek'Sai and Malphite buddy up for teamfights. is the perfect area of effect initiation tool for Rek'Sai, who can in and send her enemies skywards once again with before working on her targets with and . |
Lee Sin - the Blind Monk
One of League's eminent counter-junglers, Lee Sin's got the damage, , and mobility with and to hunt down and kill Rek'Sai whenever she tries to her way into the Blind Monk's jungle. |
Kassadin - the Void Walker
Come mid game, Kassadin and Rek'Sai can pair up to form a small and mobile death squad. Both have enough to jet around the map, and once Rek'Sai locks their target up with , Kass has plenty of damage to earn his team a kill. |
Ziggs - the Hexplosives Expert
and make Ziggs a difficult target for Rek'Sai's ganks during laning, but the problems don't end there. Even if Rek'Sai is able to split push a sizeable minion wave into the enemy's turret, the range and power of can quickly wipe out the wave and rebalance the map. |
- Champion Insights
- , game design by Beat Punchbeef
When we started working on Rek'Sai it was with two concepts in mind:
and Land Shark. As we started running with the idea it became clear very quickly that first we needed to identify what was unique and fun about being in the ground. Initial prototyping helped us determine being invisible wasn't quite right. stealth is something does well already but more importantly, the most terrifying thing about a shark is seeing that iconic and ominous fin circling around you and knowing deep down that there's nothing you can do to stop it.Once we knew the basics of being burrowed it was time to figure out what you'd actually do in that state. The first idea that came to us was the concept of feeling vibrations from movement in the ground and using that to track prey. This gave us the ability to gain information about your targets in similar ways to stealth without needing to worry about a lot of the frustrations experienced by players on the other side of it. It also creates emotional highs for players on all sides. Rek'Sai gets to feel like a stealthy hunter while her enemies get to feel the tension and dread of knowing there's something out there watching them.
Now that we have a burrowing character who can track prey at great distance without their knowledge, what's left? To be a true hunter, it's not enough to simply know where your prey is. It's about finding the right moment to strike. To do this, Rek'Sai needed to be flexible in how she moved around the map, to dance around the target she was stalking while remaining undetected. This is where
comes into play. Underground, Rek'Sai is the master of her domain and she doesn't care for paltry restrictions like walls. Tunnels give her the freedom to be anywhere on the map at any time and really think about how and where she wants to strike at her unsuspecting prey.
Get Rek’t: Putting the Shark Back into Land Shark[]
By Mattias 'Gentleman Gustaf' Lehman & John 'Sotere' Frank[3]
Let's talk about League of Legends’ resident land shark: Rek’Sai. The Void Burrower hit Summoner’s Rift pretty strong a few years ago, and soon showed herself to be a dominant pick in professional play. Since then we’ve had to trim power here and there from her kit, and by the time she’d stopped warping pro play, we hadn’t left her much in the way of an identity to express. We wanted to take some time to drill deep into what we wanted her identity to be and rebuild her kit around that. So we’re giving Rek’Sai an update which focuses her into a dangerous predator.
- Ferocious Predator or Helpful Wingwoman?
Rek’Sai is a ferocious predator who should strikes fear into the hearts of her prey as she hunts them. The way Rek’Sai currently ends up getting played—a vanguard who sets up plays for her team—just doesn’t sync up with that promised fantasy.
Being a safe, consistent tank with high uptime around the map has allowed Rek’Sai to dominate pro play whenever she’s at all good in regular games. In the early game, her tunnels let her put a ton of pressure on the map, and once she hits level 6, her presence levels up from commanding to global. As the game progresses to skirmishes and teamfights, the heavy CC on her kit makes her a solid initiator.
We see a lot of potential for Rek’Sai, and have been viewing this update as an opportunity to really double down on Rek’Sai’s predatory instincts. To capture the feel of a ferocious hunter, it’s critical that she be feared for her individual threat, not the followup of her team. This means a Rek’Sai who does more damage when she’s ahead, but is less consistent when behind.
- A New Ultimate
A major way to trim that consistency is by toning down her map pressure. She currently threatens the whole map with her ultimate, and so the degree of that threat has to be kept somewhat lower. We’re giving The Void Burrower a new ultimate that sacrifices her global pressure for higher impact in teamfights.
Rek’Sai marks champions she damages as prey for 5 seconds. She can target a Prey-marked enemy, burrowing before emerging from underground and leaping at her target. Rek’Sai is unstoppable during both the cast and the leap, dealing more damage the lower her target’s health is.
Her new ultimate should help her feel more like a diver by giving her backline access that isn’t merely a product of her tankiness. Now, when Rek’Sai ults, she leaps at her target—only a target she’s damaged recently—doing damage if she hits them.
- Master of Tunnels
Outside of her ultimate, Rek’Sai has a lot of general strength and a simple combat pattern: tunnel in, knockup, attack until tunnel/knockup is available again. We wanted to give her a more dynamic combat pattern by making her strengths more specific. In particular, we’re hitting the amount of ambient crowd control Rek’Sai can put out. Instead of knocking up every target she unburrows under, Rek’Sai will now only knock up the closest enemy. If she wants to hit a specific target, basic attacks will prioritize the knockup on the attacked target.
With higher damage and less crowd control, we expect Rek’Sai to begin building more damage than she previously was, but we don’t want to leave her unable to safely teamfight. To help her out, we’re strengthening two of her iconic attributes—her tunnel dashing and her regeneration.
New Rek’Sai can re-enter her tunnels more quickly, allowing her to dance in and out of teamfights much more consistently. To make sure she has the health to go back in, her passive generates Fury far more quickly, giving her more regeneration and letting her get combat ready quickly.
Overall, we’re expecting a more threatening Rek’Sai, but one who doesn’t have the same consistency when she falls behind. We hope the end product is a ferocious shark who can go on a hunting frenzy when she smells blood, but isn’t always Queen of the Sea. Er...land.
Trivia[]
- During development she was simply called Burrower.[4]
- Rek'Sai's placeholder model during production was a pink while her placeholder model was a rotated and resized copy of .[5]
- She could swap between her and forms instantaneously.
- was called 'Tunnel Time' and the tunnel entrances were black .
- Instead of ghosted her and continuously dealt damage to all enemies in front her. , her Q was a channeled ability called 'Void Cleave' that
- Instead of skillshot with the same particles as pre-rework that was likely a prototype for . , her E was a linear
- Instead of , her Q was originally a passthrough dash that was nearly identical to .
- She had a separate ultimate with separate cooldowns for her stunned enemies instead of knocking them up. The one had unknown effects. and forms. The one seemed to be , though it
Media[]
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- Main article: Card Back (Legends of Runeterra)