Hey, guys! I am Tyler "ecco" Spesick and am the former mid player for the LCS teams "Team MRN" and "Team VES."

Corki is arguably one of the strongest ADC champions in the game currently. Even prior to the Triforce buff, after Riot lowered his mana costs he was still an amazingly strong champion. He is extremely versatile with his disengage of Valkyrie, his poke of his Missile Barrage, or his overall insane burst. Read further on in this guide to help learn to maximize your efficiency and LP gains with him!

Pros

1. Strong laning.
2. Amazing re-positioning move.
3. Has good poke.
4. Scales well into the late-game.
5. AoE armor shred.
6. Mixed damage makes it harder for the opposing team to itemize against you.
7. High burst.

Cons

1. Mediocre Range.
2. Fairly mana-hungry.

Corki being arguably the strongest adc in the current meta allows him to be picked in conjunction with almost any team comp. After all, he /is/ an adc so he is fairly universal but there are compositions that he fits in better than others.

Very aggressive compositions fit Corki the best due to his high-damage and burst in team-fights. His valkyrie allows him to be very aggressive and follow-up with engages very well. He has fairly strong AoE with all of his spells while spitting out tri-force procced auto-attacks every couple of seconds. He also allows him team to capitalize on objectives very well after winning a team-fight due to how quickly he melts turrets with his tri-froce procs as well as baron/dragon.

With that said, Corki also does work well in more balanced compositions that have him hitting the front-line more and kiting. His armor shred from his gatling guns gives him very strong damage against tanks as long as you pick up an early last whisper!

Flash and Barrier are overall the best summoner spells to go on Corki because they allow him to play the most aggressive. Corki is a very lane-dominant and snowballing champion who goes hard. Being able to valkyrie in at the proper time and flex your muscles is necessary and barrier/flash allow you to do this. Also, because you are a very spell-casting heavy adc exhaust doesn't hurt you as much as it would other adc champions such as Tristana; making barrier an even more optimal choice.


Your other option is to go Flash and Cleanse. This overall weakens your laning and ability to 1v1. You have to play safer and less aggressive with this setup as usually your laning counter-part will have taken barrier themselves, giving them more effective health than you. The only time where I go cleanse over barrier is if I am against an Ashe or a team with overall a lot of cc.

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Greater Mark of Attack Damage Greater Seal of Armor Greater Glyph of Magic Resist Greater Glyph of Mana Regeneration Greater Quintessence of Attack Damage Greater Quintessence of Life Steal

This rune setup is fairly flavor of the month and is built around strong laning. It is also to be used in conjunction with the 21/9/0 mastery setup that can be seen below.

The flat ad reds are as standard as it could possibly get. There are literally no other choices here.

Flat armor yellows are the same thing for flat ad reds. You /have/ to go this as an adc.

With the blues it gets a little interesting. You get 6.7 magic resist and 1.24 mana regen per 5. The mana regen isn't a lot but it's necessary because you aren't getting any mana regen from your masteries with this setup. You lose out on a little bit of magic resist but it's worth it.

Then with quints you go with 4% lifesteal as opposed to 6%. This way you deal an extra bit of damage that helps with last hitting as well as for harass.

This mastery page is a little bit interesting. It isn't as standard as the other things I typically run but it makes a lot of sense to me. Going down the offense tree I pick up all the important ad points (with the exception being frenzy but Corki will remain fairly low crit the entire game so it isn't needed) but I also pick up the few points on the side that work well in conjunction with Corki's ability to spam spells constantly post level 6. Just increases his damage the most I can think of.

The remaining 7 points go into defense because, to be frank, you have to. As an aggressive laner you need as much bulk as you can for free and this gives it to you.

There really isn't much wiggle room this skill sequence. You need to max Q first for the poke/burst damage potential and then E second for the extra damage and armor shred. The only thing you can really change is /sometimes/ getting E lvl 2 for more damage/kill potential (potentially comboed with a thresh hook on a squishy target like sona).

Hextech Shrapnel Shells (Passive) One of the best adc passives in the game. It gives you an extra 10% damage at all times and it is damage that can't be negated. Overall just a really strong passive that helps with last hitting and pretty much everything! A great passive for when you are able to get off some auto attacks on your opponent to dwindle them down before going all in.

Phosphorus Bomb Corki's main ability on laning phase. It is strong AoE damage that is just point and click. Pretty hard to miss and combos well with an auto-attack to harass your lane opponent. It also gives vision of brushes and targets hit by Phosphorous Bomb which is a nice little side effect. Finally, it is magic damage which is part of what helps Corki be such a mixed damage monster in the mid-game.

Valkyrie Corki's re-positioning ability and one of the strongest in the game. It starts casting immediately which is pretty uncommon for abilities such as this but it is what makes it so strong and unique. Very, very far re-positioning move that starts casting immediately. It does do decent AP damage that you can have whatever you're kiting from walk through but the damage is fairly negligible since you max valkyrie last and by that time your spell pen isn't scaling very well anymore. Something to note about valkyrie as well as other similar re-positioning moves is that when using it, remember that you don't always have to use the max distance. For example if a Jax with counter-strike on jumps on you, don't Valkyrie a mile away where you can't hit him anymore, Valkyrie just far enough back to be out of range from getting stunned and continue to melt his face off!

Gatling Gun Arguably Corki's strongest move and I feel his most unappreciated one as well. The damage it does is quite frankly a lot and it also shreds armor! What more could you want for a diving adc like Corki? The only bad thing about it is that if you are orb-walking then a lot of the gatling gun time will be wasted as you are not always facing your target. Even when this occurs it does a lot of damage but having teammates who can lock down the front-line so you can keep the gatling gun on them for the entire duration is quite nice!

Missile Barrage Corki's signature move that causes his synergy with triforce to be so insanely strong. It gives him a bunch of guaranteed procs as well as a lot of magic damage and poke! Make sure when hitting towers to spit out a rocket every couple of seconds to proc your triforce for that extra damage! Probably the hardest thing about Corki is balancing his auto-attacks and spell casts. While this is something that comes with a lot of practice, focus on using your E whenever you're going to be in close proximity of your target for a good duration, use your Q to cancel your auto-attack animation whenever it is off cooldown, save your valkyrie for the proper time to escape/engage, and primarily use your rockets only for tri-force procs or to chase down low enemies.

Not much to discuss here. You have to start Doran's Blade in lane as adc because of the extra health it gives you, the damage and the sustain. It helps you stay in lane a lot than other adc starts. There is nothing else to go.


This will be your core setup for Corki. With that said, that doesn't mean that this has to be how your items look with your core. There are times where you need to get an early Negatron Cloak (such as against a fed Fizz or Kassadin) or an early Vampiric Scepter (against a Sona and Caitlyn lane to help with sustain against their constant harass). This should just be your overall goal to be at in a standard game. Be able to change your build up a little bit as you go to morph to the opposing team's composition but just have this be your general goal.

The reason that this will be your core is because it gives you the most damage possible. Because Corki isn't very auto-attack heavy like most ad carries, you actually have a lot of wiggle room on what boots to go on him. If you were against a heavy AP/cc team you could go Mercury's Treads to help reduce their damage as well as the time you are crowd controlled. Typically, for me, I either get Sorcerer's Shoes in any case that I'm not getting mercury treads because of how much extra mid-game presence it gives me from the extra spell-pen for my burst/poke.

Trinity Force is the standard and most core item on Corki because every stat on it scales really well on him. He benefits from the AP with his magic spells, a little bit of extra mana for his mana pool, gets the extra health, damage, and kiting ability from the phage aspect, and also the small amount of critical chance, attack-speed, and passive movement speed from zeal. Then, most importantly, is the passive of tri-force which recently got a massive buff on it. It causes you to deal 200% on your next auto-attack after a spell cast (which is pretty much a free crit). With how you're able to spam your extremely low cool-down rockets during fights you're able to proc this pretty much as often as you're able to. The item seems like it was made for Corki and going anything else but this is blasphemy.

Following up tri-force is usually an Infinity Edge. It gives you a ton of up-front damage with the 75 ad as well as increasing your total critical chance to 35% which is barely above 1 of every 3 auto-attack on average. It also will increase your critical strike damage to 250% chance which helps your burst even more if you get lucky. It just compliments Corki's kit and style so well with the hit crit damage so it's the best choice for your second item.

Finally, you're going to complete your core with Last Whisper. Because your first two items are very expensive it will be getting to the mid to late game by the time you complete your last whisper which is when the enemy team's front-line will have a pretty heavy amount of armor stacked which leaves you with no choice but to get a ton of armor pen!


These are typically your last items on Corki. Stacking a ton of damage and lifesteal at the end for the most bang for your buck. QSS and therefore Mercurial Scimitar is a very strong choice on Corki in most situations because you are low range and run a higher risk to get cc'ed. This will be your get out of jail free card in those situation. If they really have no cc to qss then you can go something like another Bloodthirster if you aren't getting focused or Guardian Angel if you are really getting focused as a substitute for mercurial scimitar.

Corki is a very strong-laner that doesn't really have a lot of bad match-ups. The one champion I've found to be really strong against Corki in lane is Zyra. Due to your lower range and constant spamming of spells, you have a lot of down-time where you aren't moving a lot while being fairly close to your target. This makes you the perfect target for Zyra so be careful when picking him against her!

Outside of Zyra, there aren't really any supports that are soft-counters to Corki. Looking on the other side of the spectrum for what things work best with Corki is very aggressive supports. Sona is pretty much the premier support be aggressive with overall because of her high amount of consistent damage, high sustain, and finally because of her high-burst ultimate. Through their extremely high lane presence and synergy this is arguably the strongest lane combo with Corki.

My second favorite support to ride along Corki is Leona. She is heavy-dive as well as having an immense amount of cc and catch that she works pretty perfectly with him as they can typically one-shot a target in lane if spells are comboed correctly. This lane also works extremely well because Corki's Gatling Gun procs Leona's passive Sunlight practically immediately which optimizes their damage output.

Lastly, my third favorite support with the flying yordle is Nami. I know Nami isn't the most common support right now but they work together fantastically. The chase-down with Tidecaller's Blessing as well as the catch from her Aqua Prison is just fantastic. She also provides sustain (which is strong in any aggressive lane) but also sustain that does damage to the opposing team. Overall she compliments Corki very well so I suggest you try out this combo if you haven't before!

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Corki's laning is very strong when used aggressively so force trades when it is safe to and harass them with your auto-attack + Q combo when they go to last-hit. To summarize Corki's laning it is calculated aggression. You are extremely powerful and have very hard chase with your Valkyrie so force engages hard when you are ahead. Just gotta be careful of them baiting and the jungler being there after you've already used your escape to go in.

Once you hit 6 you can start poking with your missiles and forcing a lot of trades. You are mostly just using your Q and R for all of your damage in trades. Only activate your gatling gun in hard engages otherwise you will be using too much mana.


Since you should be building aggressive compositions around Corki, your team's goal should be to be forcing objectives and sieging towers. It should be very easy to get picks with most comps with Corki so make sure to capitalize as much as you can every time your team has an advantage in numbers. You do insane amounts of damage to turrets as well as strong poke with your missiles. Force objectives, deny vision in the jungle so they can't see your rotations, and keep all the lanes pushing.

Since Corki has so much burst damage and re-positioning power he is a very flexible adc. He doesn't always have to stay in the back line hitting their tanks. If you see an opportunity to get in there and get on top of their priority targets then by all means take it. Be /very/ aggressive with Corki as that is what he is best at. If you are able to get on top of someone like a Caitlyn or Orianna in the back-line alone you will melt them so badly that no one will be able to recognize their body.

Late-game Corki becomes a monster (not like he wasn't before). His big-rockets will deal 350-500 damage depending on who they hit, you will be critting for over 1000 damage as well as having your triforce procs. He is just an insaaaaaaaane champion to deal with late-game because of the damage he pumps out as well as having valkyrie always in his back pocket as a get out of jail free card. The same as mid-game you want to be forcing very aggressively as a team whether it is objectives or towers (both of which Corki kills extremely quickly). Be focusing the front-line down until the opportunity presents itself where you can dive onto the squishier, less mobile back-line. Just be careful of playing too forward when they have a lot of cc available because you are low-range and still a semi-squishy adc!

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Before a team fight you have great ability to poke the other team down. The amount of damage your missiles will do depends on what kind of resist items they are building so take note of that. Try to aim for the back line since they are normally the squishiest but if you can't then at least try to get some damage off to anyone before you start the fight. You don't have unlimited missiles, so keep some for when the fight starts and make sure you note when your big rockets are ready.