Why Azir Support?

I honestly played it for the first time because of a challenge a friend put on me, but in that match, I had so much fun that I kept playing it for a while, started trying out different runes, items, spells, etc. And here I am, I played 60 games with it, mastered Azir only playing him on this position, and I still have a lot of fun with it. So let's start with that, first, let's have fun, and then we can start carrying games with your ADC.

Pros and Cons

PROS + Really fun to use + You can carry your lane if your ADC isn't good + You prevent the enemy ADC from farming by poking him a lot + People usually underestimate your damage + You are really useful at teamfights even if you're not fed. + No skillshots

CONS - You're squishy - You can't really help your ADC if you don't have your R - It's really hard to learn how to play Azir properly - Very item dependant - Soldier dependant (If your abilities are on cooldown you're useless) - You suffer a lot with mana in the early game

Standard Runes

Lethal Tempo: The best rune choice, nothing else to say.

Presence of Mind: You have a lot of Mana problems in the early game with Azir support, you'll probably run out of it when you only have 500-700 gold. To prevent this we'll take this rune and try to play aggressive, either getting a kill or assistance. If your opponents are playing too passive you can try to roam mid or invade the enemy jungler.

Legend: Alacrity: Since we mainly build AP items, having a lot of attack speed in our runes is really good. It's also good to play aggressively with this rune since you'll get stacks earlier.

Cut Down: Can be replaced by Coup de Grace if the enemies have a squishy composition.

Manaflow Band: As I said you suffer a lot with Mana in the early game, so Manaflow Band will help you a lot.

Gathering Storm: Some people prefer to take Transcendence instead of this rune but I honestly just love Gathering Storm, it gives you so much power in the late game.

Standard runes (More Poking)

If you wanna sacrifice some late-game damage for more early poking you can take Arcane Comet instead of Lethal Tempo and Scorch instead of Gathering Storm

Aggressive runes

Electrocute: This rune works really well in Azir since you can proc it with a simple W+Q combo, which is really powerful against squishy bot lanes.

Taste of Blood: Since usually squishy supports are poke-based, Taste of Blood allows you to heal up some of the damage received while you poke them.

Ghost Poro: This rune is really easy to stack playing as a support thanks to Frostfang and Shard of True Ice, and it also extends the length of your wards allowing you to control vision more efficiently.

Ravenous Hunter: Since your damage is dealt 100% by your abilities, this is a great rune, however, you can replace it by Ultimate Hunter or even Relentless Hunter if you want.

Gathering Storm: Replace this one by Scorch if you believe the game is gonna be decided early on.

Manaflow Band: Helps you with mana early on allowing you to spam your abilities.

Utility runes

Unsealed Spellbook: This rune will give you some more utility, allowing you to use Teleport to get to team fights or Smite to secure objectives. If you trust that your team can carry the game taking this could be an option.

Magical Footwear: Can be replaced for Perfect Timing if you know you'll build Zhonya's Hourglass later on.

Biscuit Delivery: Is really helpful in almost all games: If you're playing aggressively, you won't run out of mana, if you're playing defensively constantly getting poked, you'll regain some health.

Cosmic Insight: Not only CDR is really good in Azir, but also this rune synergizes really well with Unsealed Spellbook (Adding that none of the other options are good on Azir).

Transcendence: Having your R more often will make you more useful in team fights, and also synergizes pretty well with Unsealed Spellbook (Keep in mind that you already reach 45% CDR without this rune if you buy Zhonya's Hourglass or Banshee's Veil). You can replace it though if you want, you can choose Absolute Focus if you want more damage, Nimbus Cloak since it synergizes pretty well with Unsealed Spellbook or even Nullifying Orb if you're facing something like Veigar APC + Brand Supp. There's no need to take Presence of Mind or Manaflow Band since you have Biscuit Delivery and, if you still run out of mana, you can use Unsealed Spellbook to get Clarity.

Gathering Storm: As I said above, I really like this rune, it gives you a lot of AP if the game lasts +30m.

You use Flash since it allows you to put yourself behind your enemies when you can't reach them with Shifting Sands + Conquering Sands or you can use it to escape when Shifting Sands is on cooldown.

The classic Flash + Ignite is the best option in most cases

In specific match-ups where the enemy ADC has a lot of all-in capacity like Vayne, Yasuo, Tristana or Kalista, or if there are 2+ assasins in the enemy team, taking Exhaust can be a better choice than Ignite.

Starting Items

As any other AP support we'll start with this item

We'll take 2 of these to have more sustain in lane.

You shouldn't change your trinket to Oracle Lens at the beginning of the game since you're a really squishy champion so face-checking isn't an option for you, you should change it after you've obtained Frostfang.

First Recall

Preferably your first reset will be when you have 1300g or more since Lost Chapter will give you a lot of sustain in your lane.

If you have some extra gold after buying Lost Chapter you should buy some boots since they'll help you to position yourself better in order to use your R and also because you'll be able to roam more efficiently.

If you get killed or forced to recall before reaching 1300g, buy 1 or 2 of these and a Faerie Charm.

This is a great item to buy early on if you can't recall with 1300g, try to buy 1 or even 2 of these and an Amplifying Tome. After selling them you only lose 74g if you bought 2 or 37g if you bought 1 (Basically nothing).

Core Items

After you build this item you'll hit your first power spike since it gives you a lot of AP, a ton of Mana and some CDR that is good in Azir.

This item is your second power spike since it improves your 2 most important stats as Azir (Ability Power and Attack Speed) by a lot.

Boot Options

Standard boots, they increase your damage significantly since you can shred the default MR the enemies have, in my opinion, they're much better than Berserker's Greaves. However, you can buy these last ones if the enemy team has no mobility, that's the only situation where I'd buy them over Sorcerer's Shoes

If your team has no frontline and the enemies have some CC, these are a must-buy, having Mercury's Treads in these matches can be a win or lose thing. If you have a frontline but they have a lot of CC they're still a viable option.

Fifth Item Options

Take this against assassins like Zed or Talon, also if you're constantly getting focused on during team fights or against full AD teams.

Buy this against heavy AP, or against many stuns/hooks.

You can buy Morellomicon if the enemy team is building some MR but not too much, or especially if you're facing something like Soraka, Vladimir or Darius where you need the Grievous Wounds. I build this when I'm not carrying the game so I try to help as much as I can by preventing the enemies from healing.

If the enemy team is really tanky and you know that no one in your team will be able to kill them quickly you can build a Liandry's Anguish since its passive is really good in these situations.

And as a final option we have Rylai's Crystal Scepter. I personally don't like building this item normally, it can help you in really specific matchups when the enemies aren't too tanky and don't have great mobility, but in general, it's better to build any of the items mentioned above.

Final Item Options

Rabadon's Deathcap is definitely the best option as a final item for Azir, since its passive will increase all the AP of your previous items and Gathering Storm which will make you really powerful.

Only buy this item If the enemy team is building a lot of Magic Resistance, if they aren't, then buy Rabadon's Deathcap. If the enemy team has a ton of MR and you don't need the MR or Armor you can build this item 5th and then buy Rabadon's Deathcap or, if you're carrying the game, you can sell Shard of True Ice and buy it as well.

Extras

Always buy this item after you've obtained Frostfang.

Always buy one of this once you're full build. You can also buy one mid-build if you think the next team fight is gonna decide the match and you want immediate AP.

If you're actually hardcarrying a game 1v5 or even 1v9, you can sell your boots and buy this item.

Combos/Correct ability usage/etc

I didn't want to explain the combos you can do with Azir or how you can use your abilities to do certain stuff because there are already really good guides out there made by people with much more experience with Azir, I think that I would spread some miss information if I started talking about that stuff, so I preferred to focus on how to play this champion as a Support regarding to how to itemize it, which runes to use, etc.

BBCode

I am terrible using this code, it's the first time I've ever tried to use it properly so I focused on simple codes to try to make the guide a bit nicer. However, the layout is really bad compared to other guides so excuse me for that, will try to improve it for next time.

Grammar

As you may have noticed I'm not an English native-speaker, I'm Argentinian and my English is pretty awful so you probably see hundreds of grammatical mistakes that I don't because I'm a rookie in this. If you want to help me leave a comment pointing out the errors you find, thanks in advance.

And finally thanks for reading, I put a lot of effort doing this guide so I hope you like it and find it useful. Good luck out there!

Changelog

5/7/2020: Reworked defensive runes and added utility runes. Removed Barrier and Teleport as viable options and added Zhonya's Hourglass and Banshee's Veil as options for 5th item.
5/8/2020: Corrected some grammatical mistakes.
5/18/2020: Expanded the Exhaust description.
5/28/2020: Removed the possibility of swapping Lethal Tempo by Press the Attack in the runes section.
6/3/2020: Reworked the whole guide, added and deleted items, runes, synergies, counters, etc.
6/4/2020: Corrected some grammatical mistakes and added clarifications for certain runes.
6/10/2020: Improved layout a bit.