Counter Guide

How to Beat Rengar

Matchup Guide · Evergreen · 3 Counter Picks

Rengar doesn't win fights. He removes one person before the fight starts and lets his team play four against five, which is a much easier thing to do and a much harder thing to stop.

He's the purest version of a problem the game keeps handing you: a champion whose counterplay is almost entirely a decision you made thirty seconds earlier. Once he's landed there's very little to do about it, which is why most advice about him is useless in the moment and excellent in advance. His requirements are strict, though. He needs a bush or an ultimate, he needs a target standing on their own, and he needs the whole thing to happen before anyone else arrives. Take any one of those away and he's an ordinary melee champion.

Matchup Snapshot Rengar, the Pridestalker

Where You Meet Him Jungle, mostly

Damage Type Physical, and almost all of it in one second

Why He Is Frustrating The fight is over before you can react to it

Mobility High, but only out of a bush

Biggest Threat Unseen Predator [Passive]

Hardest Counter Master Yi

What a Counter Needs

Vision, and specifically vision of the ground he has to jump from
A way to survive the first second, since that is where the whole fight lives
Something that punishes him for landing rather than for approaching

Patch 26.18 Matchup Data

Who Beats Rengar on Patch 26.18

Best Picks Into Rengar

Master Yi1,977 games59.6%
Rammus604 games58.6%
Warwick1,144 games58.1%
Briar1,171 games58.0%
Shyvana1,339 games57.3%

Picks Rengar Beats

Qiyana842 games45.5%
Talon1,019 games47.9%
Lillia643 games48.4%
Nidalee461 games49.2%

Win rates are for the champion listed, in the jungle against Rengar. They come from Nerfplz's own ranked solo queue games on Patch 26.18, Silver and above, 38,157 Rengar games in all. Only matchups that show up in at least 1% of those games are listed.

Rengar Overview

Strengths: What Makes Him Dangerous

He arrives out of a bush. Unseen Predator [Passive] means the distance you were keeping was measured against a champion who walks, and he doesn't have to.
His burst is one uninterruptible second. There is no window to react in. Either the answer was already prepared or it wasn't.
He picks the one person standing alone. He's looking for a target, and every team gives him several a game without noticing.
His ultimate makes the map his bush. Thrill of the Hunt [R] lets him do the same thing in the open, which removes the one piece of terrain based counterplay people rely on.
He is strong from the first clear. He duels well early and doesn't need items to threaten a lane, so the pressure starts long before the burst does.

Weaknesses: Where You Get In

A control ward turns him off. The specific bush he needs is knowable, and denying it costs less than a single component.
His ultimate announces itself. It comes with a sound and a warning to anyone nearby, and the team that reacts to the warning rather than the landing has already won the fight.
He does very little in a real teamfight. If he can't open on somebody isolated, he's a melee champion with no crowd control standing in front of five people.
He falls off against health and armor. The burst is tuned for a squishy target. Against a team that built for him it is a large amount of damage that doesn't finish anybody.
He can't leave once he's jumped. There is no second escape. He committed to being where you are, and everything your team saved is worth spending immediately.

Countering Rengar

Based on the strengths and weaknesses above, beating Rengar comes down to champions who can accomplish at least one of the following:

Buy control wards and put them in the bush instead of the river. The river ward tells you he's coming. The bush ward tells you he can't come at all, and one of those is worth far more.
Never be the only person in a side lane when his ultimate is up. This is the entire counter, and it's a habit rather than a skill. He needs somebody alone and you get to decide whether that's available.
Hold your crowd control for the landing. He's untouchable for the second he's in the air and completely exposed for the several after it, and for some reason almost everyone presses the button during the first.
Build the defensive item at three rather than at five. His damage is front loaded, so the health that makes you survive one second is worth more than the damage that would have won a longer fight.

If you're already locked into the matchup without any of those tools, these strategies still work:

Playing a Bad Rengar Matchup

Move as a pair. Two people make it a different problem entirely for him, because his plan has no answer to somebody watching.

Take the objective while his ultimate is down. It's a long cooldown and the map is a completely different place for those minutes.

Give up the deep camps. A jungle you can't hold safely is a jungle where he gets to pick the fight, and the farm is worth less than the pick he doesn't get.

Best Rengar Counters

Three ways to beat someone who wins before the fight: take away the ground he needs, beat him in the duel he starts, or make the kill fail to stick. One counter each.

Maokai Takes The Ground Away

His saplings sit in exactly the places this matchup is decided, which turns the bush from an ambush point into a lit corridor.

He also survives being the target and answers the landing with crowd control that doesn't require him to have seen it coming.

Trundle Wins The Duel

He beats him in the early jungle and takes his resistances while doing it, which is a direct answer to a champion whose whole plan is winning a short fight.

His pillar is also the one tool that separates a diver from the target after the jump, which is the moment nothing else in the game can help.

Zilean Makes The Kill Not Stick

The plan against him is to make the removal fail, and that's precisely what his ultimate does. A pick that ends with the target standing back up has cost the enemy team their whole opening.

The speed boost matters just as much in practice, because it is handed to the person who is about to be alone in a side lane.

Itemizing Against Rengar

The first two are the matchup and the last two are ordinary insurance:

Control Ward is the cheapest item on this page and by a wide margin the most effective one, because it removes the requirement his whole kit is built around. Zhonya's Hourglass is the answer for whoever he's coming for, since the burst has a duration and the item outlasts it. Plated Steelcaps blunts the part of the combo that's basic attacks (which turns out to be more of it than people expect). Guardian Angel is the blunt version of the same plan, and it is aimed at the fight where he got exactly the opening he wanted and it still didn't end anybody.