Rakan is not a new champion, nor is he a champion that is unfamiliar with the spotlight. Heralded as an incredibly engage support, Rakan has often seen play due to his flashy engages and extremely quick combos. However, with some AP ratio buffs to his Q and W in Patch 8.6 has seen some Rakan play shift into the mid lane. Rakan mid has been seeing experimentation by the pros to see if the bird is really worth picking up and adding to their champion pools. Both Bjergsen and Perkz have been trying out the pick in solo queue with various degrees of success. In this guide, we’re going to look at the strengths and weaknesses of Rakan mid and we will decide.

Strengths

Strong engage

It should be no surprise to anyone who has ever touched Rakan that the term “strong engage” is used as the first strength. This champion was built for engaging, and he is used no differently in the mid lane. With the ability to combo his R ability, The Quickness, and his W ability, Grand Entrance, Rakan can quickly and from a great distance CC an opponent/team for enough time for his team to quickly eviscerate the enemies. It’s important to combo R and W together so that while Rakan’s W animation is occurring, they will be CC’d by the R ability, ensuring they are CC’d for the maximum duration. The flashy and rapid plays this champion can make makes him a favorite among many support players.

High Burst Potential

This point is more specific to Rakan mid, and his 8.6 AP ratio buffs. Because of his intended role supporting, all of Rakan’s ability have extremely high AP ratios. This means that when Rakan builds AP, he gets a larger benefit than most champions would. So, with him being played in the mid lane, the larger amount of gold that Rakan receives allows him to build selfishly and buy many high-quality AP items like Rabadon’s Deathcap and Luden’s Echo. In the support position, Rakan is not going to be able to do a substantial amount of damage. However, in mid lane, this is a different story. Rakan’s mid generally take Electrocute, an uncommon rune in the support role. Additionally, the large amount of AP means that Rakan’s damaging abilities pack that much more of a punch. You won’t be able to kill people immediately, but if Rakan can get an item ahead, it isn’t impossible to one-shot squishy enemy champions. This kind of assassination potential is what makes Rakan mid considerable and powerful in the right hands.

Weaknesses

Horrible Wave Control

This is a major point and is a very bad thing to have in the mid lane right now. Rakan is simply unable to shove waves ever, which brings along a lot of problems. This means that the enemy can almost always push Rakan in, forcing him to farm and play under his tower the entire game. This means that Rakan can’t utilize one of his best features of strong gank assist, because he will be forced to farm reactively. Additionally, this allows the enemy mid laners to be able to roam much more effectively and gain vision control by placing deep wards while the Rakan player farms. Finally, this allows the enemy mid to get very good back timings, because they can base while you farm under tower and return without missing very much at all, while the Rakan player will usually miss an entire wave on their backs. The item Protobelt helps Rakan with this problem, but the early game proves to be a major setback for Rakan because of this. Needing to build an entire item just to be able to clear the minion waves should show how terrible Rakan is at clearing the minion wave.

Awful If You Fall Behind

Falling behind in top lane or support is bad, but usually recoverable. You can build tank, use your utility, and supply vision. Unfortunately for ADC and mid lane especially, falling behind is so much more punishing. Rakan wants to build straight damage, with the hopes of eventually one-shotting the enemy mid or ADC. However, if Rakan falls too far behind, the only benefit he offers in the mid lane, which is his highly increased damage, quickly evaporates. Although Rakan can still provide his great engage, his damage becomes negligible, and the entire team composition will usually fall apart because the ADC will not be able to output enough damage to make up for the lack of damage in the mid lane. Falling behind on Rakan usually means losing the game and is a very large problem of the pick.

Judgment: Busted or Bad?

Bad

Unfortunately, Rakan mid does not look to be a very good pick at the moment. The main reason is because Rakan’s weaknesses are too easy to exploit, while his strengths are too difficult to abuse. If Rakan is ahead, it can feel like one of the most broken picks in the game. A champion that darts seemingly halfway across the map to instantly delete you with Electrocute, W, R, and Protobelt. While his engage will always be good, the lack of mid lane damage if behind is usually game losing.

Getting Rakan this ahead, where he can one-shot carries, is usually impossible on top of this as well. Rakan’s awful minion control means that the enemy mid usually gets free reign on Rakan as they push him under tower consistently. This makes it hard for the Jungler to ever gank and get the Rakan ahead. If laning phase involves sitting under the tower for 15 minutes, how is Rakan supposed to get ahead?

Even if you make it out of laning phase even, the effect a mid lane Taliyah or Orianna will have on a team fight will generally be higher than the Rakan, especially so after Rakan’s initial combo has concluded. Although I appreciate the theorycrafting and testing behind this pick in the mid lane, Rakan mid will probably not be seeing any serious play anytime soon.

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