Rell is one of the most underrated champions in League of Legends. Her strong crowd control abilities make her a potential game changer in close call situations. Here’s everything you need to know to get you started playing the Iron Maiden.

Rell is a Tank/Support champion that has tons of crowd control and shield breaking capabilities. Since Support Enchanters with their shields are ruling in the current meta, Rell is actually a good champion to counter their effectiveness. She has all-in potential as early as level 3 thanks to her kit allowing her Bot Lane duo to snowball and capitalize on a potential lead. Once she has enough items and levels, Rell can be very difficult to deal with, especially with all the CC she has at her disposal.

Abilities

Rell’s abilities are all about crowd control and peeling for her team.

Passive – Break the Mold

Rell attacks very slowly, but steals 10% of her target’s Armor and Magic Resist for 4 seconds and deals bonus damage based on the amount stolen. Additionally, Rell can siphon resistances from multiple different foes to grow extremely tanky. Always steals a minimum of resistances, reduced against minions.

Break the Mold is what makes Rell a very tanky champion. She can steal a percentage of her target’s armor and magic resist. It also helps her Bot Lane duo to deal more damage to whichever target they focus on.

Q – Shattering Strike

Rell stabs forward with her lance, breaking any shields and damaging all enemies hit (damage decreases after the first target). If Rell has an ally bound with Attract and Repel, she and that ally recover health for each champion hit by this ability.

Shattering Strike is Rell’s bread and butter. It helps her deal damage and break shields while also giving sustain to an ally bound with her E ability. 

W – Ferromancy: Crash Down

Passive: Rell gains bonus movement speed, reduced when taking damage.

Active: Rell leaps off her mount, knocking up enemies for 1 second and dealing magic damage. Rell then enters her armored form, gaining a shield, reducing her movement speed, and allowing her to use Ferromancy: Mount Up. Rell can cast Attract and Repel and Magnet Storm during the transformation.

Ferromancy: Crash Down is a really cool ability. It has two uses and both of them are crowd control. When she has mer mount on, she knocks up enemies and the mount transforms into her armor. When she mounts up, she flips the nearest enemy behind her.

E – Attract and Repel

Passive: The allied champion bound with Rell’s armor piece gains 10% Armor and Magic Resist.

Active: Rell magnetically binds a piece of her armor to a target allied champion.

Rell can recast this spell to break the bind and deal damage and stun all enemies around and between her and her bound ally for 0.5 seconds.

Attract and Repel adds more to Rell’s tankiness while also giving her crowd control and incentivizing teaming up with an ally. It adds another layer of utility to Rell’s kit making her even better as a Support.

R – Magnet Storm

Rell erupts in magnetic fury, yanking nearby enemies toward her. She then creates a gravitational field around her, dealing damage every 0.25 seconds and pulling nearby enemies in for 2 seconds. The field doesn’t interrupt her enemies’ other actions.

Magnet Storm is a very powerful ultimate that has a lot of uses in the right situations. It can help set up kills and prevent enemies from escaping your team’s initiation.

Runes and Item Builds

When it comes to items, your focus on Rell should be increasing her durability as well as her utility in team fights.

Starting Items

For your starting items, you go with the standard Tank/Support start of Relic Shield and a Health Potion. This will improve your sustain and make you durable enough to force a kill early on. Once you’ve completed the quest, the item will turn into Targon’s Buckler which can hold charges for Wards that you can plant around the map.

Mythic Items

For your Mythic item, the only real option you have that would be perfect for Rell is Locket of the Iron Solari. This gives you all the stats you need plus some support capabilities in the form of its active called Devotion, which gives all nearby allies a shield. If you wish to be tankier or feel like your team doesn’t need the shield, you can go ahead and swap it out for Sunfire Aegis.

Full Build

Your first item to rush should always be tier 2 boots as it will drastically increase your durability in the early laning phase. The standard is Plated Steelcaps but you can switch it for Mercury’s Treads if you need to. Next, go for your desired Mythic. After, you’ll need Thornmail for the return damage so that you can begin aggressively hunting for kills or duels. At this point in the game you’ll need Zeke’s Convergence and Knights Vow, two items tailor made for tanky Support champions. Top off your build with Redemption for the healing and stats it gives.

Runes

For your runes, go with the Inspiration tree and take Glacial Augment as your keystone. This will drastically improve your engage using crowd control and will help you stick to your targets better. Next, take Hextech Flashtraption for the utility, Minion Dematerializer to help you get those minions, and Cosmic Insight for the cooldown reductions. For your secondaries, take Bone Plating and Unflinching from the Resolve tree. Bone Plating increases your durability and Unflinching gives you more tenacity to resist crowd control. For rune shards, take Ability Haste and double Armor.

Useful Tips

1. Attract and Repel can actually be used super aggressively when you pair it with a frontliner from your team. Watch them go in first and pop the stun for easy engages.
2. Rell is countered by Xerath, Lux, Senna, Bard, and Pyke. If you’re matched up against these champions, try to play it safe instead of being aggressive.
3. For your summoner spells, take Flash and Exhaust. If you’re lane partner wants to play aggressive, switch Exhaust to Ignite.

So there you have it! That’s all you need to know about playing Rell in League of Legends. Be sure to check back with us again for more awesome guides on your favorite games. Have fun and we’ll see you on the Rift!