Hi, it's me, Sera! It's my very first time making a guide so if I come off as clueless, don't worry, that's just me. I'm not a high elo at all so take everything I say with a grain of salt, though, if you're questioning my credibility with this guide, I'm an Anivia mastery 7 one-trick with over 200k mastery on her. If you're anything higher than Silver, don't expect anything useful from my guides, as I'm a Bronze (aha). I'm mainly making this guide for fun and to record all my thoughts to see just how much I know about this ice birb, and if you find something helpful in the guide, well, I'm glad I'm doing my job. With all that out of the way, let's move on to the actual stuff!

Guide Status:
The guide is fully complete! However, I'm still planning on adding more to it in the near future.

So I never expected myself to be running through something like this. Heck, I didn't include it until days after the publish of the guide, as I thought it was pointless. But when I thought more of the different play styles of people, I realized Anivia might not suit everyone, regardless of how versatile she can be. As such, I'll be running through all pros and cons of the ice birb, so you can gauge whether she's for you or not:

PROS:

-Good wave clear

Anivia happens to have an ult that's perfect for getting rid of minions with relative ease, mana issues aside. Adding onto her ult, she has another AoE - her Q, making Anivia a champion with very healthy wave clear.

-Team-fight orientated

With 2 AoE abilities and one damage point-and-click ability, plus a utility ability to add onto that. If Anivia manages to stay alive long enough in a team fight, she can not only CC and slow opponents from advancing forward but can also wall the opposing team to separate their team. Did I mention that she has the potential to deal massive damage to practically everyone on the opposing team?

-Unique kit

A unique kit is what makes Anivia fun to play, especially when you won't be able to learn how to use her abilities right away. This might be a deal-breaker for some people, but this could provide even more incentive for others.

CONS:

-Little mobility and one of the lowest starting speeds in-game

Anivia is VERY slow with a starting speed of 325 - which is the speed most ADCs start with. Unlike most ADCs however, Anivia doesn't have a reliable ability to get her out of sticky situations.

-Extremely mana hungry

Regardless of what stage of the game you're at, Anivia consumes a lot of mana. At the start of the game, a single Q is almost 1/5 of Anivia's base mana and in late game, a team fight will most likely drain at least half of your mana as Anivia. To add to that, wave clearing takes up a decent amount.

-Extremely vulnerable to CC + very squishy

If a backline assassin manages to find their way to you, you're practically dead. If you get CCed, your ult gets interrupted. If you become the main focus of your opponents, you're a dead cryophoenix.

Rebirth is Anivia's passive and is quite interesting and useful. Because of this ability, I can stay in lane longer and not worry about dying as much. It's also fun to make plays with this passive, such as enemies turret diving you, only to reveal that you have an egg, or teleporting out of danger while you're in your egg.

Flash Frost is Anivia's CC ability and is partially what makes her difficult to learn. Anivia relies on landing her Q and if you miss it, your opponent might see the opportunity and go in on you. Anivia's Q also applies the chill effect on whoever is in the explosion radius.

I already made a whole section on Anivia's wall ability later on so I won't bother with putting everything into here as well. Anivia's wall is both very fun and unique. Not only can you wall off your flamers in game to their death, you can wall ganks (especially Nunu & Willump's ganks; it's quite funny actually), keep people on your ult longer and prevent enemies from entering dragon or baron pit.

This is Anivia's main source of damage. With this ability, you can get double damage by using it while your opponent has the chill effect on them.

For an ult, it doesn't seem impressive, as it does little damage on its own. Combined with other things in Anivia's kit though, and it proves to be very important. This ability is the main reason Anivia is just made for team fights. Not only does she do damage to everyone standing on it, she slows them and can manipulate easier with her wall. Especially in lower elos like mine, people tend to underestimate the damage and stay on it, trying to kill Anivia. This ends poorly for them for 2 reasons: They walk up to you slowly and you're able to Q to stop them and E for some more damage, and you have your egg, which most of the time they aren't able to proc anyway. The ability also applies the chill effect to your opponents who stand in it while it's fully formed.

Let me further explain the runes, as if you already didn't get enough from the notes. The 4 rune choices I put there are often what I see Anivia mains (which are quite a rare breed) play and what I play myself.

Sorcery is your best bet when playing Anivia and is always a good choice. This is an obvious no-brainer since Anivia is a mage. Not only are there a lot of runes that increase your damage output, but there are also runes that help with speed, which is a big problem Anivia encounters.

Arcane Comet:

This is your standard rune on Anivia that is almost always the best or amongst the best choice to take in any given matchup. It does decent damage and poke early game and is practically a free Arcane Comet land a majority of the time, as Anivia's kit slows her opponents in the affected area of her ability.

Summon Aery:

To explain, Summon Aery, in my opinion, would really only ever be used on Anivia if poking with AAs is your main goal. It doesn't become as viable as using it support once you move to mid. In mid, you don't rely on poke nearly as much as you do in bot lane so Summon Aery loses a majority of its usefulness. However, it doesn't mean that it doesn't work entirely and is still a tolerable pick up mid.

Phase Rush:

Phase Rush is similar on Anivia as Summon Aery is to her: a keystone mainly useful in early game. Phase Rush lets Anivia go in for a Q + E + AA harass on the opposing mid laner while giving her MS once proced to dodge and avoid their retaliations. Phase Rush is a little more useful than Summon Aery late game, letting Anivia reposition herself around her ult in team fights with more ease.

Comparison of different options:

Section 1:

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Nullifying Orb: If you're up against a mage in lane or the opposing team is mainly AP, Nullifying Orb is a solid pick to take. Otherwise, you're better off with a different rune that will provide more utility to Anivia.

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Manaflow Band: Extra mana, especially early game, is never a bad option for Anivia. I take Manaflow Band as my default rune in this section if the others don't apply to the scenario I'm in.

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Nimbus Cloak: Nimbus Cloak is a decent pick on Anivia, as the MS from casting a Summoner's spell can come in clutch at times, such as flashing away from an opponent and gaining more MS to continue running away.

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Conclusion:
In general, Manaflow Band is your best bet, unless you're laning against a mage or are against a mainly AP comp. Take Nimbus Cloak only when you either know how to utilize it well or if your playstyle at times revolves/relies on it.

Section 2:

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Transcendence: My preferred rune of the three in this section. It gives you CDR once you reach level 10, plus bonus adaptive with every extra CDR you have that exceeds the limit.

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Celerity: Of all the MS boosts in the Sorcery tree, I'd say Celerity is the most useful. Not only do you gain extra MS from the get-go, but all MS boosts are also 7% more effective on you. If your team has a support that provides MS, Celerity is a great option for Anivia.

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Absolute Focus: A solid pick for Anivia, a backline mage. If you are able to stay above 70% health to gain maximum utility from it, this rune will be your preferred choice. I happen to lack that ability and always find myself in sticky situations, making Transcendence more favourable for me.

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Conclusion:
If you plan on building items with enough CDR to use Transcendence to its full potential, then it's the best for you. Celerity is good for bonus MS, though you'd get the most use out of it with a support being able to provide extra MS. When none of those apply to you, Absolute Focus is the rune you'd want to take of this section.

Section 3:

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Scorch: When you want to be able to poke your opponents down early game, Scorch is perfect for it. However, don't count on its damage later in the game.

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Waterwalking: You'd be surprised at the potential for roaming this rune gives Anivia. Anivia doesn't do roams early game, as she falls behind in lane almost all the time. With this rune, if you're not falling behind by a lot, it enables you to go in for a gank at either top or bot with the extra MS in river. If you find yourself in a skirmish while travelling, you have bonus AP from walking in the river.

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Gathering Storm: Provides extra AP once you reach late game by LARGE margins. Since Anivia is a late-gamer, Gathering Storm proves to boost her late game even further.

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Conclusion:
Scorch is your go-to rune if you want poke early game. If you know you won't fall that far behind early game against your laner, Waterwalking enables you to roam as Anivia. When you are in neither scenario, Gathering Storm is your best choice.

Domination is always a good rune to take on Anivia as both primary or secondary and can help with Anivia's burst damage, damage output and sustain in team fights. Using it with Sorcery means that Anivia has more reliable ways of MS, more damage output and helps further improve Anivia's utility in skirmishes and team fights.

Electrocute:

Electrocute scales better than Arcane Comet in terms of damage, but also has a far longer cooldown later in-game. That difference in cooldown isn't felt very much early game however, making Electrocute a keystone comparable to Arcane Comet. Electrocute works well with Anivia, as a Q + E + AA combo procs it.

Dark Harvest:

I've recently started to use Dark Harvest on Anivia practically all the time and I can now safely say that it is a great pick for Anivia, even better than any other choice if you can get dark harvest stacks. To make sure I have as much Dark Harvest as I can, I often pick up Waterwalking to roam to other lanes if I can't poke my laner down enough to dark harvest range.

Comparison of different options:

Section 1:

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Cheap Shot: Really the only viable rune from this section. Cheap Shot was practically made for Anivia, since it synthesizes well with Anivia's Q + E poke.

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Section 2:

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Eyeball Collection: With each takedown, you gain extra AP. Pretty nifty if you ask me.

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Section 3:

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Ravenous Hunter: Some healing is always better than no healing. The other runes in this section don't really apply to Anivia so Ravenous Hunter is your best choice.

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Relentless Hunter: This is a bit of a random rune to take on Anivia, but sometimes, I just want MS to get around to where I need to. At times, I even skip out on boots once I fully stack this and just get another item.

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Conclusion:
This one is more personal preference. I've used both and they work perfectly fine with Anivia, it just depends on what you'd want at that moment.

Inspiration is a good rune for Anivia that provides income, utility and items. When you're under niche situations, this can be the preferred pick on Anivia.

Glacial Augment:

This obviously seems pointless on Anivia, as she already has a lot of slows, but it's not a bad pick for her. To me, the slows of Glacial Augment and Anivia's slows have different uses. Anivia's can be used to prevent opponents from running away and to peel. On the other hand, Glacial Augment is used to engage, especially if you build Everfrost. The item also helps you to land your Qs easily. Something to note is that this item isn't as useful up mid as it as for Anivia Support.

Unsealed Spellbook:

While this keystone does take some learning on how to use, it can prove extremely useful. You can pick up a Teleport back to your lane on your first back, Exhaust for 1v1s or forcing your opponent to stay on your ult, Smite to steal dragons and baron and a lot more.

Comparison of different options:

Section 1:

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Hextech Flashtrap: This obviously seems like a random pick - and it is, but it can be useful. When a team fight is happening and you're not there, you can get there faster by using this over walls. When you're running away, this can be useful to make your way over walls to where it'll take far more time to reach you.

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Magical Footwear: This rune mainly is to help you rush your boots, with the added bonus of getting it earlier if you're able to get takedowns.

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Perfect Timing: This is mainly for a headstart on building Zhonya's Hourglass.

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Conclusion:
If you know how to use Hextech Flashtrap, it's a solid pick. Otherwise, Magical Footwear is the preferred option when you're not building Zhonya's.

Section 2:

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Biscuit Delivery: If you always manage to find yourself running low on mana in lane or you can't manage your mana very well, this is for you.

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Section 3:

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Cosmic Insight: Extra CDR is always nice.

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Precision is a rune that can work on Anivia well, mainly as a secondary. It can provide mana, extra damage, sustain and resistance.

Conqueror:

This is such an obscure choice for Anivia that I've gotten it pinged countless times. Personally, I believe it can be busted, as long as you know what you're doing. Unlike Electrocute or Arcane Comet, it doesn't have a cooldown, meaning you can place your ult and toss a few Es in to reap the benefits, all while being in the backline. As long as you don't die, this will make you far more useful in team fights, along with clutch 1v1s.

Comparison of different options:

Section 1:

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Triumph: Health in team fights is usually not a problem if you have Conqueror, but if you're taking Precision as a secondary, Triumph isn't a bad choice.

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Presence of Mind: This gives you extra mana for each takedown. As a mana hungry avian, this proves useful.

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Conclusion:
You'd usually want to take PoM, unless you have a strong preference or are already taking Conqueror.

Section 2:

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Legend: Tenacity: Tenacity is never a bad pick for Anivia, considering she's susceptible to CC.

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Section 3:

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Coup de Grace: A good rune to take when you want to deal extra damage to champions with lower health than you or to execute someone with a Q + E combo.

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Cut Down: This works almost perfectly for Anivia if you build squishy, since practically every champ has more health than her at any given point of the game.

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Conclusion:
If you're going against a team of mainly tanks, Cut Down is the better choice. If not, Coup de Grace.

STANDARD:

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FLASH: You're going to need this on Anivia, as she as no mobility in terms of both speed and ability-wise. This is a spell that, in my opinion, is non-negotiable on her.

IGNITE: This is mainly for securing kills as Anivia early game. It's also essential when going against champions that can heal themselves like Vladimir as it also applies Grievous Wounds.

TELEPORT: Sprinkled throughout the guide, I talk a little bit about this egg trick Anivia can do. You can teleport your egg by channelling a bit before your passive takes place and you'll be teleported to safety, preferably choose to teleport by a turret. Anivia's Rebirth takes 6 seconds, while Teleport takes 4, making this trick possible in the first place.

HEAL: Actually not the worst choice for Anivia. It obviously doesn't provide as much use to you as the others, but has a healing benefit for you and an ally, which is useful in skirmishes. It also has a speed bonus, meaning you can chase after opponents at low health as well as run away from them.

EXTRAS:

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When playing Anivia Mid, you have a decent amount of leeway in terms of the spells you can take. As such, I'll address other spells that could work but I didn't exactly get to them. The reason behind that is mainly because while they are useful, they aren't as preferable as some others.

EXHAUST: Helps you in 1v1s and skirmishes, but that's about as far as it goes for this spell.

GHOST: It's useful for repositioning yourself in a team fight.

CLEANSE: Anivia is very susceptible to CC. With CC like Ashe's or Morgana's, it means almost instant death, making Cleanse useful for going against them.

BARRIER: It blocks you from more damage compared to Heal, but doesn't affect another ally and doesn't provide a speed boost, making Heal the better option.

Intro:

I haven't bothered putting an individual section for items in my guide for a while now for two main reasons. One being that I've already explained practically everything about the item I needed to cover in the Build descriptions and the other being that I wanted to wait till Preseason 11 so as to not render my work useless.

With all that said, I can finally explain a bit more on my choices in items.

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Liandry's Anguish:

After the removal of Rod of Ages in Preseason 11, Liandry's is now one of the most important items for Anivia (especially after its changes).

STATS:

20 Ability Haste
80 Ability Power
600 Mana

UNIQUE Passive: Ability damage causes enemies to burn for 60 (+6% of ability power) (+4% target's maximum health) magic damage over 4 seconds and grants the user 5% magic penetration per second for 4 seconds against burning targets, stacks up to 5 times for a maximum of 15%.

Mythic Passive: Empowers your other Legendary items with 5 ability haste.

The mains thing you wanna pluck out from all this alphabet soup is the AP, ability haste, mana, and unique passive.

In a nutshell, the passive causes opponents attacked by the holder to be set on fire and burn for 4 seconds. Over said 4 seconds, you can stack Magic PEN on those opponents 5 times for a total of 15% Magic PEN.

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Archangel's Staff (+Seraph's Embrace)

This shouldn't come as too much of a surprise since Anivia uses a ton of mana and it just so happens that Archangel's gives her plenty of it.

STATS (Archangel's):

60 Ability Power
500 Mana

UNIQUE Passive: Grants bonus ability power equal to 3% maximum mana.

UNIQUE Passive: Grants a charge every 8 seconds, up to 4 charges. Affecting an enemy or ally with an ability consumes a charge and grants 3 bonus mana, increased to 6 if it's a champion, up to maximum of 450 bonus mana.

Transforms into Seraph's Embrace at 450 mana.

Lots of AP and lots of mana, plus even more AP from its unique passive. Assuming you only have 500 mana in your stats from the item, that's 15 extra AP. Of course, as Anivia, Archangel's isn't going to be your only source of mana so that figure will be far more.

The item also charges every 8 seconds. If you attack an enemy, you use up a charge and are given mana. 450 of that extra mana and you get Seraph's Embrace.

STATS (Seraph's):

60 Ability Power
860 Mana

UNIQUE Passive: Gain ability power equal to 5% maximum mana.

UNIQUE Passive: Increase your maximum mana by 5% (+2.5% per 100 ability power).

So now with Seraph's Embrace, not only do you have more mana and AP given than before, the passives are even more than before. Extra AP equal to 5% of your maximum mana and extra mana by 5% of your maximum mana (plus another 2.5% for every 100 AP you have).

In short, extra AP from the amount of mana you have, extra mana from the amount of AP you have. All comes full circle.

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W.I.P: Work In Progress! (More items to be added...)

Knowing what runes, spells and items to take on a champion isn't automatically going to make you good at them - the same goes for Anivia. In terms of her overall game, Anivia falls behind during early game if you aren't able to bully your laner hard enough. In the likely scenario that this is the case, stay back and cs; you'll be more useful to your team later in the game. As for her late game, you can count on her to one-shot opponents with a single Q + E combo if she's fed.

EARLY GAME/LANING:

Invading: Before minions even get to your lane, there are a few things you can do, not all of them being productive, of course. However, invading is a good idea as Anivia. Since she usually learns her CC ability first, it makes her a decent invader. As soon as minions get to your lane, you should be there asap. As Anivia, any minion xp that you miss out on will cost you a lot in early game. Save yourself the trouble and make sure to be there as soon as you can.

CSing: I obviously had to make a section on this. It can't be just me who finds it hard to cs on Anivia without wasting all your mana. At the same time though, you don't want to fall behind even more or lose your lead. As painful as it is, learn to AA at the exact right moment and use your Frostbite when it's a cannon minion. Only use your Glacial Storm to clear minions early game when you're pushing the wave. As soon as you gain enough AP, you can exterminate the caster minion line with a Flash Frost.

Poking: When poking, don't lose focus of your lane's minions. Only step up to poke when none of the minions in the minion farm is low health. To poke, use a Q + E combo and step back. Always make sure to keep an eye on your mana so that you have enough for at least a Q. Be mindful of the fact Anivia is vulnerable with her Q and R on cooldown - if your opponents take this opportunity, don't initiate the poke fest until their spells go on cooldown before yours. If they never walk up to poke, it's a free farm lane.

Roaming: Anivia is a very weak roaming champ for a few reasons. The primary ones are that she's very slow and falls behind early game. Anivia can't follow opposing roams that easily and she can only roam when her lane is pushed up to the opposing team's turret, which is almost never the case. When roaming, Anivia is really only good at the ganking-of-the-lane portion. If your laner roams a bunch early game, it'll obviously suck to the rest of your team, but just make sure to spam ping whenever your laner goes missing to get your teammates to back off; try to make your opponent's roam as pointless as possible.

Warding: When it comes to warding during laning phase, you'll mainly want to ward in the pin-like bushes sitting at river and drag pit if one is coming up:

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By placing your wards in those bushes, you'll not only see a gank sooner than if it's placed in the usual bushes by mid, but you can see if the opponent jungler is invading your jungle, if they're at dragon, and if your lane is roaming.

MID GAME:

Farming: Once laning phase ends, which is around when the first turret falls, mid-game starts. At this point, most low elo players declare aram time and have a party up mid. You, as Anivia, should continue to solo farm for a bit longer so that you can finally catch up to your opponents laner after early game and get Rod of Ages and Archangel's Staff to begin stacking them. If you can, take blue buff and continue to cs until your buff runs out and it's later in mid-game.

Team fights: Around mid-game is probably when you'll encounter your first full team fight. As Anivia, it's so important that you're actually at the fights occurring. She can easily turn a fight around and provide tons of CC. Once you finish farming to catch up, don't stray too far from the rest of your team. If you find yourself in a sticky situation, you don't have many means of escape, and if a fight breaks out, you need to be there as soon as possible.

Objectives: By the time mid-game rolls around, you'll want to get rid of your opponent's mid turret if possible. Push up the wave constantly and focus the objective if you're safe from danger. If you're farming in bot instead, get the first bot turret if it isn't already gone.

Warding: Your goal now in terms of warding is to keep vision on river at all times. Buy the occasional control ward for clearing opponent wards around dragon or baron.

LATE GAME:

Objectives: Anivia can't exactly split push or push by herself well so pushing with a few other allies works well for Anivia. In the case of pushing by herself, rift herald is usually needed, unless the turret is low.

Farming: If you find there aren't many team fights occurring even into late game, farming to stay ahead or get a lead is always a good choice, especially as a mage. Try to solo farm as much as you can or clear a few camps. If your jungle is not a premade, ping that you're taking a buff - just a quick tip.

Defending: You'll find yourself at times defending an objective such as a turret, dragon or baron. Anivia is good for defending a turret for one main reason: her ult. She can place her ult in front of the turret to deter opponents from standing there. If they ever do get risky and step on it, Anivia can toss a Q to CC them. Chances are, all minions are dead from the ult and now they're taking turret shots. When denying your opponents access to baron or dragon, Anivia has her wall to zone them off while your team finishes.

USING YOUR Q:

Landing your Qs: In low elos, most of the time I'm able to chuck a Flash Frost right at them, but I'm going to assume everyone reading is higher than Iron II and give an actual section on how to land your Flash Frost .

You have 2 ways of making it easier for you to land your Flash Frost . Either place your Glacial Storm down which slows your opponent, or use Crystallize as soon as you toss out your Flash Frost when they're trying to escape. Those inevitably lead to the following combos:

Glacial Storm + Flash Frost + Crystallize + Frostbite
Glacial Storm + Crystallize + Flash Frost + Frostbite
Flash Frost + Crystallize + Glacial Storm + Frostbite

Detonating your Qs: I was surprised, to say the least when I found that most people I introduced to Anivia didn't know they could detonate their Q to control where the area of effect lands. Once you use your Q, rather than going on cooldown right away, the ability border flashes around to show that it's in use. To detonate it at any given point on the direction it travels in, reactivate the ability once it hovers over where you want to stun.

Double Damage:

I think this is already common knowledge, but to reiterate for those who don't know, to maximize your damage output, use Frostbite only when your opponent has the chill effect on them. What that is, is that the chill effect makes your E do 2x the amount of damage. Your Flash Frost and Glacial Storm put this chill effect on your opponent. Of course, you can Frostbite without putting a chill effect on them first, but keep in mind, it'll do far less damage.

Using Your Wall:

I'd say the hardest thing to master on Anivia is her use of walls, but once mastered, it is a very useful part of her kit. With Anivia's wall, you can manipulate your opponent's movement, wall off enemies from killing your allies, deny objectives, prevent ganks and so much more. If your opponent is low health and is backing, wall them so their recall is stopped. Wall to land your Flash Frost easily and wall when being chased in the jungle so your opponent is forced to either burn Flash or to stop chasing you. You can use your walls so that your opponent has to stay on your Glacial Storm for longer. This is useful as people tend to underestimate how much it can do and stay on it to try and kill you. Anivia's wall at max level can block an entire lane, which is VERY useful to prevent opponents from claiming turrets or killing your entire team.

Running Away From Opponents:

Where Anivia has little mobility, her kit makes up for most of it. To run away from your enemies, try to use Crystallize to wall them. If they run around it or you mess up, put your Glacial Storm down in front of you; it'll become fully formed once you pass it and it'll slow your pursuers. If that doesn't work, use your Flash Frost behind you to stun them. It's especially easy to land one when you're being chased, as they're so focused on hunting you down, they walk in a straight line.

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So that's the end of my guide! I think I'll add more along the road, but for now, I'll publish it. I'll maybe edit the conclusion bit if I have anything else to say after publishing and I'll start working on Anivia Support right away. I genuinely hope you learned something and if you didn't, then I hope it was somewhat worth your time? As always, it's me, Sera, closing off till next time :)