Gragas is one of the most versatile champions in League of Legends. He is actively played in three different lanes of the game. There are very few other champions in the game that can boast of this. The first thing that comes to mind is why he is played in so many different lanes.
It is possible for this champion to be played in so many lanes because of the versatility his kit provides. He is played against bruisers and fighters of the top lane as a neutralizer with a lot of success. In the mid lane, he is played as a carry. He can be played as a jungler since he has excellent jungle camp clearing.
He can play safe as well as aggressive in the lane. This is because he has the ability to farm from range as well as high enough damage to have kill threat. Furthermore, Gragas has a lot of crowd control which makes for easy and successful ganks. He can also go over walls to find creative gank pathing.
Fundamentally, Gragas is an ability power champion. All three of his basic abilities as well as his ultimate scale from ability power. The more AP you have the more damage you will do. However, since he is played in so many different playstyles and roles, he has many different builds as well.
Runes for Top Lane
The most commonly seen keystone for Gragas in the top lane is the “Phase Rush”. This is paired up with “Manaflow Band”, “Transcendence” and “Gathering Storm”. There are some situations where “Scorch” is preferred over Gathering Storm. This is only the case when you have kill threat in the lane.
“Arcane Comet” is taken instead of Phase Rush in some cases. Usually, the Comet is used in tandem with Scorch to give you extra damage. In the secondary rune page, you will take the “Biscuits Delivery” with “Cosmic Insight”. The ability haste combined with the health and mana sustain is quite good for Gragas.
The other option is to go with the “First Strike” keystone with Inspiration as the primary page. First Strike is used for giving additional burst damage as well as gold upon hitting enemy champions. This rune gets stronger as the game goes on.
After the keystone, your rune page is pretty much sorted out. You will go for the “Magical Footwear”, Biscuits Delivery, and Cosmic Insight to round it off. The secondary rune page is Sorcery with Manaflow Band and Transcendence.
Build for Top Lane
“Doran’s Ring” is the most common starting item. For the early game items, you will most likely end up buying “Tear of the Goddess” and move on to making your mythic item. You will go for the “Lucidity Boots” in nearly all situations to increase your ability haste.
The mythic item for top lane Gragas is “Everfrost”. There is no other choice that is quite as good as this item. Everfrost helps you deal with bruisers more effectively than any other mythic in the AP category. When playing top lane, you will be facing a bruiser in nearly every game.
The Tear of the Goddess that is often bought in the early game is upgraded to “Seraph’s Embrace”. This item is exceptionally good for Gragas because of the boost in ability haste it gives. The third item in the build is either a “Zhonya’s Hourglass” or “Cosmic Drive”.
Zhonya gives survivability via the active-passive. Cosmic Drives gives a ton of ability haste and in-combat movement speed. You can make both of these items but that means giving up on another item since you will have only one item slot left. Ideally, your last two items should be “Rabadon’s Deathcap” and “Void Staff”. If you have one slot left then the game situation will dictate what item to buy.
Runes for Mid Lane
Gragas has a lot of variety in rune pages when you are playing it in the mid lane. You start off with the “Electrocute” keystone from the Domination page. The next two runes are “Sudden Impact” and “Eyeball Collection”. For the last rune, you have a choice. You can go “Treasure Hunter” or “Ultimate Hunter”.
The secondary rune page is either Sorcery or Inspiration. Manaflow Band and Transcendence are the runes for the Sorcery page. You can also go Gathering Storm with Transcendence but Manaflow Band is generally more useful. In the Inspiration page, you will take the Biscuits Delivery and Cosmic Insight.
You can go for First Strike keystone followed by Magical Footwear, Biscuits Delivery, and round it off with Cosmic Insight. The secondary page is most likely going to be the Sorcery page. Again, Manaflow Band and Transcendence are your go-to runes for the secondary page.
The third option is the Phase Rush rune page. After the keystone, you take Manaflow Band, Transcendence, and Gathering Storm. The secondary rune page in this case is the Inspiration page with Biscuits Delivery and Cosmic Insight.
Build for Mid Lane
The most common mythic item on mid lane Gragas is the “Luden’s Tempest”. Other mythic items such as Everfrost and “Night Harvester” are also made from time to time. Luden’s is, however, the most consistent performer as far as mythics are concerned.
Shadowflame is by far the most popular second item choice. The third item is where you get your first major choice in build paths. You can for the Rabadon’s Deathcap or the Zhonya’s Hourglass. Deathcap enhances your damage exponentially. Hourglass gives survivability and ability haste.
In any case, you will be getting both of these items. The last item will be Void staff in nearly all situations. You can change the order in which you buy these items but these three will be in your build much more often than not.
Runes for Jungle
The runes for jungle Gragas start off with the Electrocute keystone. Sudden Impact and Eyeball Collection are the next couple of runes. To round off the page you can go for the “Relentless Hunter”, Treasure Hunter, or Ultimate Hunter. Relentless is generally the better rune for Jungle though.
The secondary rune page with this setup is Sorcery with Transcendence and “Waterwalking”. You can also go for Gathering Storm instead of Waterwalking. There are still two more rune page options for Jungle Gragas. The “Predator” or the “Dark Harvest” rune path.
In the Predator rune page you for the Sudden Impact rune. In the third row however you can go for either the standard Eyeball Collection or the Zombie Ward. Ingenious Hunter is also frequently taken with Predator. “Perfect Timing” with Cosmic Insight is one of the more popular secondary pages.
You can go for Dark Harvest with “Cheap Shot” or Sudden Impact. You follow it up with either the Eyeball Collection or the Zombie Ward. Treasure Hunter is usually the last rune of the page that you take. The secondary page can be Magical Footwear with Cosmic Insight from Inspiration or you can go for the Sorcery page as secondary with Transcendence or “Celerity” with Waterwalking or Gathering Storm.
Build for Jungle
Night Harvester is almost the only mythic item made on jungle Gragas. “Dark Seal” is often bought early for bonus combat stats without actually spending a whole lot. The second item, however, has some options that you need to choose from depending on what you need in the game.
Zhonya’s Hourglass and Shadowflame are some of the major options. “Lich Bane” is also one of the choices as a second item. Still, the Hourglass and Shadowflame will be your second and third items in most cases. You can change up the order of which time to make before the other.
The last couple of items can pretty much just be the standard combo of Deathcap and Void Staff. If the enemy team has no tanky champions and they are not making magic resistance, you can also go for Lich Bane. With Lich Bane, you can one-shot champions that do not have a lot of health or resistance.
The Dark Seal is essentially only for giving a quick and efficient early-game boost. There are very rare games in which you will actually upgrade it to the full item i.e “Mejais Soulstealer”. The only situation where you will upgrade it is when you are getting a lot of takedowns and can maintain a low number of deaths. As we know, Gragas does not have a lot of escape tools once he goes into a fight.
Final Thoughts
The fact that Gragas is such a popular and versatile champion that he is played in different roles gives him an advantage over other champions. The advantage is basically that this champion can be blind-picked. The enemy team can not say for certain in which lane the champion will go.
This is why flex picks such as Gragas, Seraphine, etc are so useful to have. Whether it is solo queue or professional games, if you can blind pick a champion that is played in different roles successfully, the enemy team has a difficult time picking their own champions.
Furthermore, Gragas is not only played in Mid, Top, and Jungle. He is also often played as Support. This is because Gragas has great engage as well as peel for the ADC with Body Slam as well as Explosive Cask. Moreover, if you have a Yasuo ADC by any chance, Gragas is one of the best Supports to pair it up with.
This is because you can give Yasuo airbornes either with the Body Slam or your ultimate. Not to mention they are area of effect abilities so you can potentially get both lane opponents knocked up, which is just a sure-win situation.
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