Off Meta Builds - Surprising New Korean AP Pyke Build

Usually, champion classes in League of Legends take a backseat to their roles. We all know what we can expect when we mention a support or a mid laner. Pyke is an exception, as he is the only assassin support in the game.

At his release, Pyke was played literally everywhere else, and especially mid, more than in his intended role, which caused a lot of nerfs to his various abilities, such as his E only dealing damage to champions and his ultimate no longer giving himself bonus gold on solo kills.

Mid-lane Pyke players are undeterred though, and from Korea, an unhinged build has emerged, which has Pyke building Statikk Shiv and Zhonya's in high-elo. So, what is happening and how does it work?

Off-Meta Build - AP Pyke Mid

The entire point of Pyke as a champion is creating early advantages for your team, and snowballing them towards victory as fast as possible. After all, he is definitely not a scaling champion, in any sense of the word.

When played mid, back before Riot need his ultimate, this was accomplished by using the good early stats all supports get to get an advantage in gold, by solo killing the opponent and "assisting" yourself, doubling your gold.

Nowadays, though, Pyke mid has gone out of style, and he struggles in the support role as well. The new Korean Ap build though has Pyke played a bit differently, with a similar goal.

• Get yourself a pair of Bose Headphones to better hear the satisfying sound of Pyke ults

How Does AP Pyke Mid Work?

The Pyke build in question is one that would never come naturally to most people. Instead of building lethality, and using the Hail of Blades, this build goes the route of crit and Ability Power of all things.

First things first, we have the runes. AP Pyke Mid uses the Sorcery Tree instead of Domination, by taking Arcane Comet and Scorch as an unchangeable foundation, with the others being interchangeable.

This allows Pyke to win early-game trades easily, by poking the enemy with his Q tap, dealing damage from his base stats, as well as Arcane Comet and Scorch damage, for easy early trades.

Note that hooking is not advised, because that would make your Arcane Comet miss, as the damage is dealt at the longest point of the hook, instead of where you've hooked the enemy to.

The build itself starts off by rushing Statikk Shiv and then transitioning into Zhonya's Hourglass. The reason for both is two-fold. Statikk Shiv allows Pyke, a champion with abysmally bad wave clear to push waves and roam, making advantages elsewhere.

On the other hand, Zhonya's Hourglass gives Pyke the AP scaling, which while not present in any of his abilities, is present in Statikk Shiv, allowing Pyke to one-shot the minion backline. It's also a good way to confuse the usual Pyke counters.

Furthermore, Zhonya's active is a well-known busted ability, while the armor Zhonya's gives won't go to waste on Pyke, who cannot build health in any case, ruling out other AP items.

Now, you may be asking yourselves, what does the rest of the build look like? Well, aside from Boots of Lucidity, and in rare cases a Duskblade, there usually isn't a rest of the build. This is a make-it-or-break-it Pyke build, that will either win before you get to your third item, or you'll lose due to getting outscaled.

We must warn you that this build requires you to make use of your side laning abilities Statikk Shiv gives you, thus requiring a different gameplay than what Pyke mid usually does.

If you want to try it out, it would be prudent to do so in a normal game, rather than taking it to ranked immediately.