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A Message From Coach Curtis:

"Hey everyone, I've been a professional coach in the OPL for the past 3 years. Dire Wolves represented the OPL at the 2017 and 2018 World Championships. Before being a coach I was also a pro player and have been a challenger player for the past 5 seasons. I am now starting a YouTube channel with the aim of helping players from all divisions climb the solo queue ladder."

YouTube - Twitch - Patreon - Discord - Instagram - Twitter - OP.GG

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A Warm Welcome From Pentakai

Hello all, my name is Pentakai. I am a YouTube content creator with a love for all things gaming. I've played League of Legends for a few years now and have found a deep respect for Coach Curtis's coaching and advice. The following information in this guide will be crucial to improving your skills and champion knowledge in League of Legends. Be sure to follow Coach Curtis on the listed platforms above to learn more about your favorite champions in midlane.

Good luck on the rift summoners, and as always, enjoy the fiesta!

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Important Preface

Annie is an incredibly unique champ and can be played MULTIPLE ways.

• Step 1: You MUST try all of the styles, runes, and builds to see what clicks.

• Step 2: Experiment with differing types of game pace to see what you are comfortable with.

• Step 3: Once you've decided on a style, create strategies on how to approach matchups.
                (How you use Tibbers, how you control the wave, how heavy you trade etc.)
 

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Dark Harvest

Originally, I asked myself, "How could Dark Harvest reliably work on Annie?" What I've come to realize is that since Dark Harvest resets on takedowns, even after getting the initial burst kill, Tibbers continues to run rampant, proccing it on all the next targets. Combined with Rylai's and Liandry's, it makes it so Annie excels at teamfights. It's also quite easy to stack in laning phase post-level 6. Even if you can't kill the enemy at level 6, you can still use Tibbers to full-combo the enemy, allowing you to get the stack and take lane control.

Ideally, you should take Dark Harvest if you want to be playing for teamfights. It isn't the most optimal rune setup IF you want to play for kills at level 6 or heavy trade in lane. Though it truly shines in teamfights and scales very nicely, the downside is your early game will be very weak.

Cheap Shot

The reason this works so well is not only because of your stun, but also because it procs reliably with Rylai's AND it can be procced multiple times in a teamfight due to its low cooldown.

Eyeball Collection

Take this for obvious reasons, but also because the other options don't work very well since Annie doesn't have much lane priority to fully utilize them.

Ravenous Hunter

While this is more of a preference, I felt Relentless Hunter was unnecessary due to Protobelt's active and the bonus movement speed from Magical Footwear. While also considering your E gives you a speed boost, it's a bit overkill. The great thing about Ravenous Hunter is that sometimes you won't even need to buy Refillable Pots and you can even get away with not buying any pots in midgame. Additionally, in teamfights you will be receiving a lot of healing between Tibbers and your sustained damage.

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Magical Footwear & Cosmic Insight

The great thing about Magical Footwear is that since you're saving 300 gold from boots, it allows you to get to Protobelt as fast as possible. Delaying your Protobelt spike by having to buy tier 1 boots feels very underwhelming. This may feel more prominent in higher elo than lower elo, but getting to that Protobelt spike greatly improves your kill threat and waveclear. Cosmic Insight synergizes with your flash and Protobelt active, so it's a very solid rune overall.

Transcendence & Gathering Storm

This is the go-to for most people. It performs well and makes a lot of sense with Dark Harvest. Overall it is a solid rune choice. The CDR is great since Rylai's and Liandry's don't provide it. Annie is a CDR-reliant champion since you want Tibbers up as much as possible. Gathering Storm works well since Annie is a scaling champion. Your goal won't be to snowball and end the game at 25 minutes. These runes might work better in lower elo.

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Rune Shards

It's very important you take the +10% CDR rune shard since this build doesn't incorporate very much CDR. As stated earlier, Annie is a CDR-reliant champion.

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Arcane Comet

This is probably the most commonly recommended rune setup, the reason being that Arcane Comet is great both in laning phase and teamfights. Since its cooldown gets reduced through AoE and other forms of damage, it can proc in teamfights multiple times. In combination with Rylai's slow, it can also hit pretty reliably. In lane you should go for a trade when your stun is up, allowing it to easily hit its target. Overall, its a very dependable rune. This is the rune setup I would recommend to any beginner Annie player, all the way to gold elo. If you don't like having a weak early game, this rune setup might work better for you as well.

Manaflow Band

Though I don't believe Annie is a very mana-intensive champion, it's still nice to have the extra mana and bonus passive.

Transcendence

The CDR is great since Rylai's and Liandry's don't provide it. Again, Annie is a CDR-reliant champion since you want Tibbers up as much as possible.

Gathering Storm

This works well since Annie is a scaling champion. Your goal won't be to snowball and end the game at 25 minutes.

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Cheap Shot & Ravenous Hunter

For reasons previously stated, these runes work very well on Annie. Though if you are more of a roam-centric player, you may want to take Relentless Hunter instead. If you're playing for lane and teamfighting, you'd rather want Ravenous Hunter.

Magical Footwear & Cosmic Insight

You can go these runes if you feel you need even more strength during the early game. The downside is you'll lose a lot of sustain from Ravenous Hunter, meaning you'll really need to buy Refillable Pots for midgame. This decision really depends on how much you value getting to Protobelt as fast as possible.

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Rune Shards

It's very important you take the +10% CDR rune shard since this build doesn't incorporate very much CDR. As stated earlier, Annie is a CDR-reliant champion.

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Electrocute

This is probably the best rune setup if you're playing with Jungle duo. It's really good for early game burst and gank setups. If you plan to play Annie fast-paced and less of a scaling champion then this is the rune setup you'd want. Generally, you'd see this page with Relentless Hunter since it's more of a fast-paced, roam-centric, skirmish-heavy setup, but you can still opt to take Ravenous Hunter.

Personally, I don't like taking this rune page anymore since if I'd rather focus on laning I'd take Arcane Comet, which scales much better in teamfights. Electrocute doesn't scale well in teamfights at all; it's just for the one-shot. This might be the only setup where you'd rather go the full-AP build instead of Rylai's and Liandry's. Also, you might want to take Time Warp Tonic with Corrupting Pot since you'll be trading much more aggressively. I'd recommend Ignite as well.

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The Lovechild of Vlad & Veigar

That sounds pretty gross, but it's also completely true. Both Vlad and Veigar are extremely low ranged, have very little gap closers, are very Flash reliant, are very ultimate-focused, need a lot of gold, need a lot of time to scale into midgame, they play for teamfights, and they don't want to sit in the sidelanes. These are all traits of Annie. The reason I bring up Veigar is because he has good gank setup even from level 3, same as Annie. When thinking of Annie's identity, try thinking of a combination of Vladimir and Veigar.

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My Take On Annie's Identity

• Annie has one of the weakest early laning phases in the entire game.
--- This is why focusing on scaling is so important.

• Must take the game very slow and steady, play off spikes, and farm incredibly well.

• Fights must be played on HER terms (spikes/levels/CD's).

• Hates early game river skirmishes since she runs out of mana quickly and has low mobility.

• Cannot roam well due to lack of waveclear and mobility.
--- You can take runes/items to increase mobility but the main issue is Annie's poor waveclear.

• Extremely ultimate-reliant.

• Can play fights both fast (burst) and slow (Tibbers DoT).

• Prefers teamfights front to back, meaning your frontline should be in front.

• LOVES blue buff (especially for CDR).

• Extremely centered around Flash cooldown.

• HATES the sidelane.

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Get em' Tibbers!

• Tibbers optimization is the difference between a good and great Annie player. Let's go over some basics...

1. Tibbers heals while out of combat for 5 seconds.

2. Tibbers "enrages" (increased MS & AS) after both initial summon AND off stuns on enemy champions.

3. If Annie dies while Tibbers is active, he heals for 50% missing health and becomes "enraged" for 10 seconds.

4. Annie E also works on Tibbers (crucial for DH procs).

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Tibbers Micro

• Now for the specifics... Keep in mind, Tibbers is an extension of you!

1. When trying to pull Tibbers close to you, send him running in the opposite
    direction so he pops back to you (useful after fights & surprising enemies).

2. Use Tibbers to tank camps, great for raptors and krugs (only with blue buff).

3. Send Tibbers to one side to act as a ward while getting the wave out.

4. Use Tibbers to tank a few tower shots before pulling him out to heal.

5. Use Tibbers to block skill shots when chasing people down.

6. Pull waves with Tibbers off resets (quite tricky because of AoE).

7. Get Tibbers to tank tower in order to get in position for the burst.
    (Keep in mind it swaps aggro after you attack or if you use 'E').

8. In late game, make Tibbers run at the ADC with 'E' active (procs DH).

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Important Annie Tips

1. You can turn the Q into a stun mid-air (useful for catching people off guard).

2. Get in the habit of using E' in lull states (cheapest way to stack passive.

3. Annie free AA's without getting minion aggro due to INSANE attack range.

4. E usage is crucial in any skill shot oriented matchup.

5. Stand in middle of wave with 'E to wave clear faster.

6. MUST be very comfortable with Tibbers tether range.

7. Use Tibbers to get lane control (CRUCIAL).

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Biggest Mistakes/Misconceptions

1. Annie does NOT have mana problems (people spam W in lane rather than using Q/AA to last hit).

2. Annie does NOT need to 1-shot someone in a fight (people hold onto R for way too long).

3. Annie has an insanely high skill cap (easy to learn, hard to master).

4. Annie shouldn't be building overly defensive, without threat she doesn't have an identity.

5. Annie is completely fine vs. heavy frontline.

6. Annie is not a squishy champion. With Kindlegem and E, she is one of the harder to burst mid mages.

7. Not calling off plays WAY in advance.

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Here's a video version including 2 bonus VOD reviews:

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