Hey there, I’m Chaeha. I’m a season 9 challenger, season 10 grandmaster and current grandmaster ADC main and Kai'Sa is one of my favorite champs as I particularly enjoyed the Kai'Sa/ Xayah meta. Compared to the other ADCs in the roster, Kai’Sa provides lots of carry potential and self peel for herself in the form of her evolved Supercharge and Killer Instinct which are great repositioning tools. I pick Kai’Sa when the team is full AD and needs a source of AP damage or needs a scaling win condition. Kai’sa also works really well with engage supports or enchanter supports and needs to switch her game plan depending on the support matchup. If you have any questions or simply want to talk, I'm most active on my discord, so come join the community https://discord.gg/Y6DsS65QbW You can also check me out on https://www.twitch.tv/chaeha_lol where I will try and stream informative ADC gameplay and hopefully grow my stream to something worthwhile.

Kai'Sa is a very versatile champion in the lane when you’re not against a lane that’s very volatile. An example of this is Kai'Sa and Janna vs Draven and Thresh. Although, this matchup is survivable depending on the level of the Janna, there’s no reason to try and force the Kai'Sa pick here.

We can see Kai'Sa’s versatility in lane into a strong scaling mid to late game because when you pick Kai'Sa with a tanky engage support like Nautilus, Leona, and Thresh, these bot lane combo’s level 2 and level 6 all in potential are incredibly strong, which you can snowball into other advantages. When you pick Kai'Sa with an enchanter support like Lulu, Janna, Nami, they sacrifice a bit of power early game during lane phase to survive the laning phase and scale harder in the mid to late game.

Although you need your support to survive the lane phase, Kai’Sa does have lots of tools late game to not rely as heavily on the support as other ADCs. Kai’Sa also works with a variety of team compositions where if you have a frontline, Kai’Sa can easily play front to back with her passive 5th shot damage and repositioning tools, but she also works in a dive comp as she can quickly reposition to the backline with her ultimate.

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Second Skin (Passive) Effect Radius: 2750

INNATE: Kai’Sa’s basic attacks deal 4 - 10 (based on level) (+ 1 - 5) (based on level) per Plasma stack) (+ 10% - 20% (based on Plasmas stacks) AP) bonus magic damage. INNATE - CAUSTIC WOUNDS: Kai’Sa’s basic attacks and void seeker, as well as her and nearby allies’ Immobilizing effects, mark enemies with Plasma for 4 seconds, stucking up to 4 times, with the duration refreshing on subsequent applications. Kai’Sa’s attacks or Void Seeker against enemies with 4 Plasma rupture them, consuming them to deal 15% (+ 2.5% per 100 AP) of the target’s missing health bonus magic damage, capped at 400 against monsters. INNATE - LIVING WEAPON: Upon gaining a set amount of permanent stats from items and stat growth, Kai’Sa can evolve the related basic ability after being in cast time for 2 seconds. The upgrade is lost if the stat requirement is no longer met.

Kai’Sa definitely has one of the more overloaded passives in the game as she has two parts to her passive Caustic Wounds and Living Weapon. Caustic Wounds does bonus magic damage per auto attack which increases, the more Plasma stacks the enemy has. Living Weapon provides bonuses for her basic abilities Icathian Rain, Void Seeker, and Supercharge when she reaches, respectively, 100 bonus Attack Damage, 100 bonus Ability Power, and 100% bonus attack speed from items and base stats.

Her passive Caustic Wounds really shines during the laning phase as allies with crowd control abilities apply a stack of Plasma amplifying the damage output from Kai'Sa. Tanky engage supports can apply multiple stacks of Plasma like Nautilus’ Staggering Blow, Dredge Line, and Depth Charge and Leona’s Shield of Daybreak, Zenith Blade, and Solar Flare each applying 3 stacks of Plasma. Her other passive Living Weapon shines as it offers her large power spikes and amplifies the power of her other basic abilities.

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Icathian Rain (Q) RANGE: 600 COST: 55 mana COOLDOWN: 8 / 7.5 / 7 / 6.5 / 6

ACTIVE: Kai’Sa releases a swarm of 6 missiles that evenly distributes among nearby visible enemies, each one hitting their target after 0.4 seconds and dealing physical damage. Minions below 35% health take double damage. Non-minions take 25% damage from missiles beyond their first LIVING WEAPON: Requires 100 - 66 (based on level) attack damage from items to upgraded - Icathan Rain instead fires 12 missiles

Icathian Rain is an auto targeted ability that can be used when monsters, minions, and champions are in range. It prioritizes its extra bullets to the enemies closest to Kai’Sa, so it’s important to micro manage where you’re positioning to get optimal damage.

It's a strong tool for quick trades you can do in lane with a fast auto attack from Hail of Blades with an instant Icathian Rain. While doing this, it also focuses the minions in the lane allowing you to quickly push in minion waves and establish lane priority against your opponents. If you’re looking for maximum damage, it’s important to get the single target Icathian Rain damage which does 225% of the damage to one target.

After evolving Icathian Rain, it fires 12 missiles which greatly increases your pushing potential and also your all in potential. If we do the math, if you get all 12 missiles onto a single target, it would do 375% damage to one target. This makes Kai'Sa extremely deadly in catching one person out as one isolated Icathian Rain can do up to 450 physical damage.

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Void Seeker (W) RANGE: 3000 COST: 55 / 60 / 65 / 70 / 75 mana COOLDOWN: 22 / 20 / 18 / 16 / 14

ACTIVE: Kai’Sa fires a void blast in the target direction, grandtin sight of its surroundings as it travels and stopping at the first enemy hit, dealing them magic damage, revealing them for 4 seconds and applying 2 Plasma. LIVING WEAPON: Requires 100 ability power from items to upgrade - Void Seeker applies 3 Plasma instead and refunds 70% of its cooldown if it hits an enemy champion

Void Seeker is a long range skill shot ability that has a 200 unit width. This ability provides 2 stacks of Plasma and also grants vision on enemies. It can hit monsters, minions, and enemy champions. Void Seeker has a minimum damage and a maximum damage with the minimum damage happening when the enemies have 0 stacks of Plasma with the maximum damage happening when enemies have 4 stacks of Plasma. The maximum damage combined with the percent health missing damage from your passive can chunk people for upwards of 200 damage in the level 2 all in.

After evolving Void Seeker, it now apples 3 stacks of plasma and also refunds 70% of the duration of the cooldown. This allows you to constantly poke the enemies with this long range ability as long as you keep hitting the enemy in the late game. It also sets up opportunities where you can look to Void Seeker an isolated target and look for the Killer Instinct and one shot them before a crucial fight.

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Supercharge (E) CAST TIME: 1.2 - 0.6 COST: 30 mana COOLDOWN: 16 / 15 / 14 / 13 / 12

ACTIVE: Kai’Sa charges for the duration of the cast time, during which she’s still allowed to move, is ghosted and gains bonus movement speed, increased by 0% - 100% (based on bonus attack speed). After charging up, Kai’Sa gains bonus attack speed and her basic windup percentage is reduce to 6.44% for 4 seconds. Supercharge’s cooldown is reduced by 0.5 on-attack. LIVING WEAPON: Requires 100% - 70% (based on level) attack speed from items to upgrade - Superchargegrants invisibility for 0.5 seconds

Supercharge is a movement ability that increases movement speed during the cast time where Kai'Sa is not allowed to auto attack or use any basic abilities, but she can still use her summoner spells. After the cast time is over, she gains attack speed and her wind up auto attack animation gets slightly faster. Supercharge is both a great engage and disengage tool as she can follow up on her support’s all in with movement speed followed by an attack speed steroid or disengage as she cannot get minion blocked during her Supercharge.

After evolving Supercharge, it now grants invisibility for 0.5 seconds which is great for repositioning in fights as there’s no way to counter invisibility besides Oracle Lens, which shows an afterimage of where you last were. Evolved Supercharge allows for many outplay situations as the enemy could believe that you ran away with the invisibility, but you could supercharge into their backline and kill their backline first.

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Killer Instinct (R) RANGE: 1500 / 2250 / 3000 COST: 100 mana COOLDOWN: 110 / 90 / 70

ACTIVE: Kai’Sa instantly shields herself for 2 seconds and swiftly dashes to a target location near a visible enemy champion recently affected by Plasma. The shield’s duration refreshes once the dash ends. Killer Instinct resets Kai’Sa’s basic attack timer.

Killer Instinct is a repositioning tool that can be used both aggressively or defensively. It’s important to note that you can Killer Instinct anywhere within the circle of Plasma indicator that’s given and it goes to where your cursor is. To get the most out of an aggressive Killer Instinct, I tend to Killer Instinct behind the enemies if I’m certain I can kill them. On the other we can defensively use Killer Instinct over various walls and also utilize a change in direction after using Supercharge.

Domination

Hails of Blades is a great aggressive tool for Kai'Sa to get in quick trades with her Icathian Rain and also quickly apply 3 stacks of Plasma making it the optimal selection for Kai'Sa. This sets her up for a maximum damage Void Seeker getting the percent missing health damage from Second Skin. Running Hail of Blades also makes Kaisa’s laning phase much better than it usually is turning a weak laning phase into one that has kill potential.

Taste of Blood gives Kai'Sa much needed sustain in the laning phase to stay healthy in lane and the ability to either play aggressively or play to scale. This also helps Kai'Sa in matchups where there is lots of undodgeable poke coming through when combined with Doran's Shield.

Eyeball Collection is purely for raw stats and the additional Attack Damage to increase our overall damage per second. Kai'Sa is able to stack Eyeball Collection incredibly quickly by following up with Killer Instinct and Void Seeker.

Ravenous Hunter gives Kai'Sa additional sustain more so geared towards the mid to late game keeping Kai'Sa healthy for team fights as there’s no life steal in our core build.

Precision

Presence of Mind ensures that we constantly have mana and don’t run out of mana to make sure we can weave our abilities when pushing waves and trading with the enemies

Legend: Alacrity provides bonus attack speed which is the most optimal rune here to maximize our damage per second because we already have the omnivamp from Ravenous Hunter which minimizes the need to run Legend: Bloodline, however it is personal preference which one you choose.

You will always go the offensive runes attack speed and adaptive force to maximize your damage per second but the defensive rune is quite fluid. Most times than not, you will go armor, but in terms of double Ability Power bot lane champions, then you can run magic resist.

SUMMONER SPELLS - FLASH: Flash is mandatory to take as the game has exclusively been balanced around Flash for the past 8 years. Flash can be used both offensively and defensively in the bot lane 2v2 and it’s important to track flash cooldowns to force plays onto players that don’t currently have flash up. Offensively though, Kaisa specifically has some cool void seeker flash mechanics that we’ll take a deeper look at later. HEAL: Heal is the most frequently taken secondary summoner spell as it heals both you and your support and it also provides a small movement speed buff which can aid you in evading ganks and saving your Flash for other plays. It’s important to remember to heal before the enemy support ignites you because the grievous wounds on Ignite reduces all incoming healing by 60%. CLEANSE: Cleanse is a situational summoner spell depending on the enemy team composition, is necessary to take, if they have lots of crowd control effects and if you don’t dodge a single crowd control ability where you would be dead. Some champions you’d take Cleanse against are Ashe and her Enchanted Crystal Arrow with a Leona support, or Caitlyn Yordle Snap Trap and Morgana Dark Binding EXHAUST: Exhaust is also a situational summoner spell when the enemy has very telegraphed damage and once they use their rotation are very vulnerable to dying. Some examples of ADCs in the bot lane are Tristana and her Explosive Charge combo and Samira and her Inferno Trigger. It’s also good against teams of assassins as exhaust reduces incoming damage from a single target by 40%.

The beginning to the each variation of Kai'Sa, AD and AP is the same however it should be noted that in most games you will want to go AD Kai'Sa as it does much better consistent DPS and the AP build should be used when you have a 3 AD topside which means you have primary AD damage in the top, jungle, and mid roles.

I believe it's pretty self explanatory that we take Doran's Blade Health Potion as our starting item as it gives good AD, omnivamp, and HP to start the game with and also help with reaching our Icathian Rain evolution as fast as possible.

First item with Kai'Sa is quite interesting however. Depending on your gold values will change what items you will buy on your first back. If you have 700 or less gold you always want to buy as many Long Sword as you can. If you have 900 gold or less, you want to buy Pickaxe. If you have 1100 gold or less, you want to buy Serrated Dirk. Then if you have 1300 gold or less, you want to buy Noonquiver and any remaining gold should go towards two Long Sword.

In your first set of items you want to complete the following components before completing your mythic item. You want to get Noonquiver, Serrated Dirk, and Pickaxe. This allows for the quickest way to get Icathian Rain evolve and you can now look to assassinate anyone by themselves. This also provides more DPS and DPM than rushing a mythic would on Kai'Sa.

After completing these components, we look to finish our Galeforce as this allows us to play much more like an assassin and look to burst the enemy ADC anytime the enemy support is roaming or the enemy ADC is alone in the lane. However keep in mind, if the enemy team comp has at least 2 tanks on their team, going Kraken Slayer is a viable strategy as the burst isn't as useful against beefy frontliners.

After this, we look to finish The Collector as it synergizes well with our kit and also the execution damage on our passive. We don't have to rush Berserker's Greaves on Kai'Sa because we're running Hail of Blades so we can sit on tier 1 Boots so we can complete tier 2 Berserker's Greaves after finishing our collector.

This is where the builds diverge however. First I will go over the AD build then the AP build.

For the AD build, we look to get Runaan's Hurricane as it maximizes our passive damage against multiple units and allows us to assassinate multiple units in their backline. And then after it's a pretty self explanatory Infinity Edge which increases our critical damage and with 80% crit after completing Infinity Edge it will increase our DPS by a large margin.

After this item for our last slot item, it depends on the team composition what you want to build. If the enemy team has tons of healing then you might have to go Mortal Reminder for the antiheal. If they have lots of one shot burst then going a defensive item like Zhonya's Hourglass or Guardian Angel may be optimal. If you need even more damage to shred through tanks then you could also go Lord Dominik's Regards. This last item slot is very flexible and you have to build around the enemy team composition.

For the AP build however.

Instead of Runaan's Hurricane, we go Nashor's Tooth as it provides a lot more magic damage on hit and also both your Void Seeker and Supercharge evolves. This build is great with teams that are basically all AD so the enemy team can't itemize against magic damage and can't afford to build any magic resist.

After Nashor's Tooth, most times then not it's fine to build Zhonya's Hourglass as it gives good enough AP while also having an extremely good active. However if you believe that you are safe enough and don't have to go this item, then you're free to build a much higher damage item like Rabadon's Deathcap which will increase your magic damage the most.

Like the AD build, the last item slot is pretty situational in my opinion and it depends on what the enemy team composition is like. If you get hit by one ability and die, then Banshee's Veil could be the best 6th item slot or Morellonomicon if you need the antiheal. There are also situations where you need more mobility and base movement speed so you could possibly go Cosmic Drive but if you are building zhonya's then to maximize damage you should go Rabadon's Deathcap.

It’s necessary to understand how the laning phase will pan out during the draft phase of the game to incorporate a game plan into our early levels. It’s important that we not only look at the ADC matchup but also the support matchup as the support matchup is what dictates the lane state.

Depending on the support pick, if Kai'Sa is paired with an aggressive tanky engage support she has much more kill potential than if she’s paired with an enchanter which offers a much safer laning phase into stronger mid to late game scaling when even.

However, this does not deter us from having the same game plan from level 1 to level 2. We should be looking for quick auto attacks with Hail of Blades and an instant Icathian Rain to get quick trades while also pushing the wave in for a faster level 2 than the enemy duo. It’s important to note that the first 9 minions: 3 melee, 3 casters, and 3 melee lets the duo reach level 2. Another way to get level 2 is 10 minions: 3 melee, 3 casters, 2 melee, and 2 casters. It’s worth to trade a Hail of Blades auto and Icathian Rain for the enemy ADC’s auto attack as we roughly do double their damage, and their auto attack gets negated by Taste of Blood.

With a tanky engage support, like Nautilus, after getting a level 2 advantage (getting level 2 before the enemy), it’s necessary to posture up against the duo and exert our kill pressure. If the enemy duo missteps and doesn’t respect the level 2 advantage, then Nautilus can instantly apply 2 stacks of plasma with Dredge Line and Staggering Blow, and Kai'Sa should auto attack 2 times with Hail of Blades with an Icathian Rain somewhere in there, and at 4 stacks of plasma, Kaisa should then send a Void Seeker to maximize the damage she can deal. It’s important to save Void Seeker for the all in to always get the maximum damage proc.

With an enchanter support, like Lulu, in the same situation after getting a level 2 advantage, we still posture up against the duo however we pressure them off the wave and get in some chip damage. Kai'Sa should try to look for optimal trades with her Hail of Blades Icathian Rain combo and whenever her Void Seeker is off cooldown, should look for poke damage until you're certain that you and your support can all in the enemies.

Besides this, we look to continue scaling in these lanes and then look for our level 6 powerspike with Killer Instinct. Nowadays, supports typically tend to roam mid lane off of a recall, so it’s usually 1v1 bot lane for ADC’s for around a minute after both duos reset. We should look to hit a Void Seeker on the lone enemy ADC and Supercharge before using Killer Instinct to reposition behind the ADC. Then to get optimal damage, it’s necessary to not have other minions within 600 range to get the solo damage on Icathian Rain.

TLDR: Look for quick trades with Hail of Blades auto attack and Icathian Rain and use Taste of Blood to come out on top of trades. Get level 2 advantage: first 9 minions, over the enemy duo and posture up and look to either get a kill or burn summoner spells. Look for solo kills against the enemy ADC with Void Seeker and Killer Instinct when both supports are roaming.

If Kai'Sa and her duo take down the first turret before the enemy duo, then the next priority should be dragon or the solo lane turret depending on which enemy solo laner has less waveclear (the ability to quickly clear a minion wave without putting oneself in danger) if the dragon is down.

If the enemy duo takes the first turret however, Kai'Sa should send the support player to roam and make plays around the map and look to set up a freeze in the bot lane under the tier 2 inner turret if there are no objectives that the team is looking to fight for on the map. To set up a freeze, always make sure that there are 4 - 5 more enemy minions than allied minions, and make sure to simply last hit the minions and don’t let it exceed or go below 4 - 5 more enemy minions.

You should look to keep farming until you hit your power spike which are evolved basic abilities Icathian Rain and Supercharge. After that, Kai'Sa and her support should lane mid and get the solo lanes to play the side lanes and look for picks on opponents that are alone and also make sure to keep watch on your minimap as you can Killer Instinct to units that have been affected by hard crowd control.

TLDR: After getting first turret, look to take dragon if up or if down take the outer turret in solo lanes against champions with low wave clear. If enemy duo bot takes first turret, look to contest objectives if up or freeze enemy minion waves under tier 2 turret. Farm until spikes: evolved q and e.

How do we play these fights late game and how do we close out these games?

Depending on the team composition for Kai'Sa, you either play the fights front to back, which means you attack the target closest to you trying to kill their frontline first and then their backline, if you have a tanky frontline with a mage mid lane or you play a diving team comp which focuses on deleting the backline first and Kai'Sa should follow up with her killer instinct if you have a team composition like Camille, Galio, Zac.

To impact the game and create a winning 5v4 situation however, we can buy a Control Ward and choose a certain bush to place this control ward in that the enemy is most likely going to facecheck. With your team or alone, we can burst this individual with Icathian Rain solo damage and the execute from Void Seeker and Second Skin. Then we would convert this lead into larger objectives like baron, dragon soul, and inhibitors.

After getting larger objectives like baron, dragons and inhibitors, we should try to look for picks with Void Seeker and Killer Instinct and look to one shot any squishies that are alone. However, if not, we should siege towers with the team and look for favorable fights and then siege towers and end the game after a successful resulted fight.

TLDR: Look for fights you are 90-100% certain you will win. This means look for 5v4 situations or look for picks. Picks are easiest when you have control wards and can catch the enemy or 5v4's are easiest when an enemy is catching a wave on the other side of the map. Then convert these leads to baron, dragon soul, inhibitors and rinse and repeat until nexus.