KyrixZenith's guide to Anivia, the cryophoenix

Playing Anivia is a difficult art. She is a fundamentally different champion to any others. If you can master her, you will be able to win games with perfect KDRs. It should be a rare occurrence that you end up with more deaths than kills and assists combined.

Passive: Egg
Q: Flash frost
W: Crystallize
E: Frostbite
R: Glacial storm

Due to recent nerfs, Anivia has become more mana-hungry in the early to mid game phase. The increased cost of her R means that the R-E combo is no longer a viable option. With this in mind, you should try to accelerate buying a mana regen item: Tear of the Goddess.

The opening items for Anivia should be:
Blue crystal
2 health pot

A note on potions.
Never buy mana pots. If you play wisely you should never run out of mana while you are out there in the first 5 minutes. Use the health pots selectively: when you are on your first life (egg has not yet been used) use the first pot when your hp falls below half or one third. Fight a war of attrition (we are talking about solo mid). There will come a stage when both you and your enemy are equally low. In this case, do not use a health pot; rather, use the advantage of your second life. At low ELO games, players probably won�t know you have an egg, so you can use this as a lure�they will tower dive you. Stand slightly behind the tower. Many a times I have picked up a kill because the enemy has been greedy and tower dived me, only to realise that I turned into an egg.

The opening phase (first 10 mins) is most important for Anivia. Here are some scenarios for the outcome:
-your score is 1/0/0 by the time you are level 5, and you damage the opponent tower = success
-you and your opponent is even, say 1/1/0 = not so good�Anivia should be unbeatable at mid by most characters
-you are nil-all, 0/0/0 = this is fine, so long as you are equally as fed and levelling up. At higher ELO games, it will be rare that you get easy kills in the early game. Against some characters, this would be called success. Vlad and Kassadin are prime examples. I will discuss the strong counters to Anivia in solo mid later.
-your score is 0/2+/0 = you are feeder

How do we prevent the latter outcome? Ask yourself some basic questions.
Q: Are you getting ganked by their jungler?
A: Buy at least 1 sight ward, and put it in the side bushes on mid. Also, don�t necessarily blame your teammates for not calling MIA. Don�t cross the river if you cannot spot all 5 enemies on the minimap.

Q: Are you being too aggressive?
A: If you are playing against characters such as Vlad or Kassadin, it may be wiser to adopt a passive strategy. Be there to farm, and don�t charge forward so eagerly.

Q: Did you tower dive?
A: Don�t think Anivia is immortal, just because you have the egg. I have made the mistake of tower diving a weak enemy, only to turn into egg under the enemy tower, which then would kill me. You cannot outlive the tower barrage during the 6 seconds you are an egg. At the same time, know your range. If you think you can pop the Q or R to drain the enemy�s last bar, by all means do it.

A common theme emerges from the above interrogation. Anivia can only be turned bad by overextending. As long as you play tight, stay cool, and not yield to greed, you will be unkillable in the early game. The ideal for you, then, is to have ZERO deaths coming out of the early phase, and hopefully with a few catches.

�Oh no! I just died! QQQQQQ ragequit� Did you just give up your maiden life? Don�t panic, everyone makes mistakes. One death is not that bad. Relax. Reflect on what went wrong, recognise your mistakes, and move on. Go back out onto mid. If you just fed your opponent, expect to play defensively. As long as the situation doesn�t snowball into more feeds, you should be fine.