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Kai'Sa Build Guide by CookieLoL

ADC [13.3] 1000LP Challenger Kai'Sa Guide by CookieLoL

ADC [13.3] 1000LP Challenger Kai'Sa Guide by CookieLoL

Updated on February 14, 2023
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League of Legends Build Guide Author CookieLoL Build Guide By CookieLoL 230 24 337,089 Views 9 Comments
230 24 337,089 Views 9 Comments League of Legends Build Guide Author CookieLoL Kai'Sa Build Guide By CookieLoL Updated on February 14, 2023
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Choose Champion Build:

  • LoL Champion: Kai'Sa
    AD Kai'Sa
  • LoL Champion: Kai'Sa
    AP Kai'sa - Optimal

Runes: HoB Variant

1 2 3
Domination
Hail of Blades
Taste of Blood
Eyeball Collection
Ultimate Hunter

Inspiration
Magical Footwear
Biscuit Delivery
Bonus:

+10% Attack Speed
+9 Adaptive (5.4 AD or 9 AP)
+6 Armor

Spells:

1 2 3
Normal Setup
LoL Summoner Spell: Flash

Flash

LoL Summoner Spell: Heal

Heal

Items

Starter Items
Vs Dive Support (Rell, Alistar, Etc.)
VS 2x Ranged / Poke (Caitlyn & Karma, etc)
First Recall
First Item
Take kraken most of the time, Galeforce when you need the extra dash
Boots Options
It's never worth to buy any boots but Berserkers on most ADCs right now
Second Item
Against Squishies
Heavy HP Stackers
Third Item
If you didn't buy LDR 2nd
If you didn't buy PD 2nd and don't need LDR
If you have 60% Crit
Fourth Item
If you haven't bought it yet and can opt into more DMG
If you want to play hard dive and need a survivability
cheaper than GA and good option for defense if you don't need more damage









Hey there! I'm Cookie, the former ADC for the academy teams of Vitality and SK Gaming. I've played competitively for 2 years but now am committed to streaming and releasing educational content to help others reach their goals.

I have been Challenger on the EUW server since Season 6, playing with and against every European Pro, such as Rekkles, Perkz, Caps, Jankos and many others. I am accustomed to playing at the highest level.

I peaked rank 10 in S10 and maintain Challenger to this day. Currently, I focus on public coaching and educational content, such as these guides to help a broader audience.

I hope that you enjoy my Kai'Sa Guide.

Huge thanks to bowkuto#4866 and valdezae#6654 for formatting and designing the guide!

Kai'Sa is a well rounded Marksman that has the ability to burst, poke, deal sustained damage in a teamfight while also having the ability to reposition during fights. Kai'Sa can fill many roles in a team and when items allow it, she can be versatile in the type of damage she deals. When she was released her best build was a Magic damage on hit build with constant DPS that would scale really well in the later stages of the game, being able to shred tanks on the same level with Vayne, while in the later seasons her main role was of a Crit Burst ADC that would love skirmishes in the mid game.

From these examples we can see that as Kai'Sa evolves her ability, her playstyle has also evolved during the seasons, depending on the items and runes available. In season 12 I expect her to remain as a poke monster that relies on her W Void Seeker for damage. The buffs her W Void Seeker received in 11.24 combined with the new items that were released in the preseason makes this style of Kai'Sa viable and even a little overpowered.

Expect Kai'Sa to remain on the top of the ADC tier list as a flexible pick unless changes are made to her itemization. In this guide we will also talk about the mid and late game stages of the game and how you should approach them with this new build and champion identity that Kai'Sa has received in season 12.

Passive: Second Skin
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.

PLASMA: Kai'Sa's basic attacks on-hit and Void Seeker, as well as her and nearby allies' immobilizing effects and polymorphs against champions, apply Plasma stacks to enemies for 4 seconds, stacking up to 4 times, with the duration refreshing on subsequent applications.

CAUSTIC WOUNDS: Plasma stacks applied by Kai'Sa's basic attacks or Void Seeker deal 4 − 16 (based on level) (+ 1 − 8 (based on level) per Plasma stack before application) (+ 15% − 25% (based on Plasma stacks before application) AP) bonus magic damage, and against an enemy with 4 Plasma, they rupture them to deal an additional 15% (+ 2.5% per 100 AP) of the target's missing health bonus magic damage, capped at 400 against monsters.

Q: Icathian Rain
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(40/55/70/85/100) + (50% bonus AD)(25% AP). Minions below 35% health take double damage. Non-minions take 25% damage from missiles beyond the first.
  • This ability can be evolved after you get 100 bonus AD and it will fire 12 shots instead.

  • The bolts will spread between the targets in range. In case that the number of bolts is not divisible by the number of the targets, the extra bolts will be spread again between the closest targets. For example, with unevolved Q Icathian Rain and 4 targets in range, the remaining 2 shots will go one each to the closest target in range. The remaining bolts will prioritize champions.

  • Q Icathian Rain acquires its targets upon cast so you can use E Supercharge, R Killer Instinct or move outside of the range and all the shots will fire at the initial targets.

W: Void Seeker
Kai'Sa fires a void blast in the target direction, granting 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.
  • This ability can be evolved by getting 100 AP from items. After being upgraded, Void Seeker applies 3 Plasma instead and refunds 77% of its CD if it hits an enemy champion.

  • This ability will cast from wherever the caster is at the end of the cast time so using W Void Seeker + Flash is possible in order to Flash over an enemy to hit your intended target.

E: Supercharge
Kai'Sa charges up over the duration of the cast time, during which she is still allowed to move, becomes ghosted and gains bonus movement speed, increased by 0% − 100% (based on bonus attack speed). After completing the charge, Kai'Sa gains bonus attack speed and her basic attack windup percentage is reduced to 6.44% for 4 seconds.
  • Supercharge's cooldown is reduced by 0.5 seconds on-attack.

  • Requires 100% Attack speed to upgrade – Supercharge grants invisibility for 0.5 seconds.

  • Try to use E Supercharge to reposition in fights. When it is upgraded, Supercharge can be used to juke the enemy team and create space between you and them.

Ultimate: Killer Instinct
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.

  • Kai'Sa can cast any of her abilities during Killer Instinct. It can be used to cancel her W Void Seeker animation by using R Killer Instinct and W Void Seeker towards your target while you are dashing, thus having the W Void Seeker channel play out during her R-dash.

  • The enemy champion recently affected by Plasma must be in range of Kai'Sa for the targeted location to be valid, and not the targeted location itself.

  • Kai'Sa will issue a movement command to the targeted location regardless of whether the target location is valid. The dash is not buffered during this movement command. Kai'Sa will not dash if the targeted location becomes valid by walking in range or a nearby enemy champion becomes affected by Plasma.If the targeted location is not valid, the range indicator will glow.
This has been the bread and butter Keystone for Kai'Sa for some time as it allows her to reliably proc her passive Second Skin, both in the early game and in the late game. Other runes do not have the same impact as Hail of Blades has for Kai'Sa so I suggest you take this rune every game
Taste of Blood is the best rune in this slot as it gives you early game sustain at every trade due to its low cooldown of 20 sec.
This is the best rune that you can take as an ADC in this slow as the other two require you to clear vision or place deep wards which you will not do as often as your teammates.
Gives you additional sustain on your attacks and abilities, especially your W Void Seeker which is a single target spell so it gets the full bonus of the Omnivamp stat. Even though this has been the “go to” rune for Marksman that run the Domination tree, I do not consider Ravenous Hunter to be the best rune in this slot for Kai'Sa, but if you feel you need additional sustain in your games then you can pick it up.
If you go Ingenious Hunter + Cosmic Insight in the Inspiration Tree you can reduce the cooldown of your Crown of the Shattered Queen shield from 40 to 25 seconds which is insane for poke Kai'Sa
Inspiration is the secondary tree that you will most often go to when playing Kai'Sa as you will have additional sustain through Biscuit Delivery and reduced cooldowns or even a Stopwatch.
This rune is the one you will always take when you go Inspiration for the added sustain in the early game and the +150 mana you get.
Recommended second rune that reduces the cooldown of your summoner spells, giving you more flexibility during the game and also reduces the cooldown of your Crown of the Shattered Queen passive and Zhonya's Hourglass active.
This rune can be a good second choice if you don’t want to go Cosmic Insight and the enemy has a lot of potential burst that you will be afraid of in the early game (Ex. Talon, Diana). The Stopwatch will also be helpful in building Zhonya's Hourglass later on.
This rune is really common amongst pro ADCs as a second rune in the Inspiration tree but I feel it might be too weak after all the nerfs it has received as the bonus MS that you get on the boots is not that impactful on Kai'Sa. I do not recommend it as it pales in comparison to the runes previously discussed but it is also a choice that you can pick up.
Sorcery is the best rune page when going AP Kai'Sa. This tree is great when the enemies have a melee support, or you have a support that can keep you alive for the laning phase. With the lack of Biscuit Delivery, you trade off sustain for investment into your Manamune to help achieve a quicker Q Icathian Rain evolve.
Manaflow Band provides an additional 250 bonus mana, which synergizes well with Manamune to provide AD for Q Icathian Rain evolve. Look to poke the enemies with Q Icathian Rain or W Void Seeker with Manaflow Band, to reach max stacks by the time you finish building manamune.
Additional Ability Haste on a Champion that wants to spam its abilities is amazing. Coupled with a 20% refund of your basic cooldowns after killing an enemy which will be really handy in the late game.

Flash
The most common and iconic summoner spell in League of Legends, it offers great versatility as it allows you to dodge deadly abilities, chase down enemies, reposition and make some insane animation cancels and flashy plays. It is necessary to have Flash every single game.

Heal
The most consistent summoner spell for ADCs besides Flash because its really nice for 2v2's as it heals both you and your teammate while also giving you an MS buff which can be very useful to chase enemies or to run away from them. Keep in mind that Heal will target the allied champion that your cursor is on, if no champion is under your cursor it will heal the most wounded ally in range.

Cleanse
If the enemy team has one or multiple of these characters then take Cleanse: Fiddlesticks , Morgana, Ashe, Varus, Amumu, Lissandra, Lillia, Lux, Maokai, Seraphine, Sona, Twisted Fate, Zoe, Sejuani, Leona, Galio and Rammus. Keep in mind that Cleanse removes any summoner spell debuff, such as Ignite and Exhaust.

Exhaust
Exhaust is good if enemy has a lot of dive champions such as Talon, Samira, Tristana, Zed, etc. But if you have a lot of CC in your team then enemy ADC might take Cleanse which removes Exhaust so keep that in mind.
In this section, I will break down how you should approach the first 10 minutes of the game, and how to best play around the first 18 minion waves.
INVADE TIMER

I will denote the first 1:30 minutes of the game as the “Invade timer”. Here, one has 3 options:

1) Invading
2) 5 Pointing
3) Bush Stacking

Selection between these options is first contingent on which team has the better level 1.

Whichever team has the better engage/CC, will often have the upper hand. For example, hook abilities, such as Blitzcrank Q Rocket Grab or Nautilus Q Dredge Line, or Point and Click CC such as Twisted Fate W Pick A Card Gold Card are good forms of engage.

Another factor to consider is which abilities the players likely leveled up, as it can either help with engage or contribute to burst/consistent DPS. Level 1, most champions are limited to auto attacks for damage, as the high cooldowns of spells prevents them from being cast repeatedly.

Examples for burst abilities include Zed Passive Contempt for the Weak, Ekko Passive Z-Drive Resonance or Lee Sin Q Sonic Wave / Resonating Strike. Certain abilities, such as Jhin W Deadly Flourish, Xerath E Shocking Orb can create layers of CC upon the initial engage. Consistent DPS are usually low CD abilities (like Ezreal Q Mystic Shot, Yasuo/ Yone Q Steel Tempest/ Mortal Steel, Vayne Q Tumble, etc.) or Passive abilities ( Draven Q Spinning Axe, Jinx Passive Get Excited!, Ashe Passive Frost Shot, Vayne W Silver Bolts, Jinx Q Switcheroo! + Passive Get Excited!, etc.)

5 pointing is something that occurs in a large majority of games, as it is the ideal setup for every role. In this setup, all members occupy various locations on the map (illustrated below), with ADCs primarily occupying area A. Standing here will grant you vision of the river, and sight of incoming invades. You may stand further back if you suspect that an invade is highly likely. Make sure to walk back immediately and ward the nearest bush if you see enemies walking towards you. Don’t be afraid to flash their engage, it is critical that you stay alive. You need to not level an ability right away since different situations may require a different skill from most champions.



Bush stacking occurs when multiple members of the team stack within a bush to pick off unaware enemies. This strategy is heavily reliant on voice communication, so I wouldn’t worry about it for most games. If your team pings to stack, follow them.
LANE SETUP


Next, we will cover how to set up the lane if you are not leashing the jungler from both red, and blue sides.



On the red side, this is the most common “cheese” that you can do. Wait in the bot lane tribush with your support while the blue side leashes. If the enemies walk through this bush, you both can focus damage on a single target, often burning both their summoner spells, and possibly securing a kill. As this strategy is fairly common, the enemy bot lane may expect this, and so, it is necessary for the support to have an Oracle Lens or a Control Ward to clear any Stealth Wards within the tribush. This is contingent on you having a stronger level 1 during the 2v2. Thresh, Blitzcrank, Nautilus are good examples of supports perfect for this strategy; whereas, someone like Soraka or Yuumi may not be as well suited for this task.

Since they only really have 2 paths to take towards lane, and one of them involves going through you, it's a good idea to ward the bush in front of the krugs to get some intel on which path they took; if they take the safe route you can move to lane quicker to position a bit forwards and harass/zone them as soon as they get to lane.




The second method is occupying one of the lane bushes, outlined above, with the same goal as the previous strategy. In my opinion, this is the better option, as the enemies will likely not expect it. Approach this location through the bushes in lane, avoiding vision, and keep an eye out for Stealth Wards. This “cheese” strategy is conducted for one of two reasons: 1) You need to force a trade to survive a lane (melee vs support matchups) or 2) You can easily secure a kill or waste enemy summoners. The latter is common in kill lanes that have supports with damage/CC at level 1 (e.g. Leona or Nautilus). Enemies wasting their summoner spells grants you an easier time in securing a kill during the level 2-3 power spikes.

To increase the chances of this working wait for one of the enemy laners to face check the bush you're standing in or until they're hugging the wall (as showed with the dummies in the picture) since it will restrict their movement.



This is the final technique you should know. Here, you want to pull the wave so that the enemy minions all focus the same Melee Minion from your wave. In doing so, the enemy botlane will have lost 1 minion worth of gold, and ideally experience after they finish leashing.

This technique is usefull in hardlanes where you want the wave to slow push towards you, or you have an early game jungler who started top(this doesn’t apply if he started bot without leash like Ivern or Fiddlesticks). Your goal will be to manage the wave so that the lane is gankable by the time your jungler reaches the bot side of the map.

Additionally, this technique works well for supports that have a strong level 2 all-in potential, such as Thresh, Leona, Rakan, Alistar, Blitzcrank, Rell, Pyke and Galio. Since the enemy botlane missed 1 melee minion worth of experience, you are guaranteed to hit level 2 before them.

Kai'Sa prefers the first two methods of Lane Setups as it allows her to abuse the Hail of Blades early damage and her passive Second Skin. You should look to setup these positions if you have an engage support that can give you at least one of your passive stack so you have to do 3 Hail of Blades autos + one auto attack to proc your passive Second Skin. If you get an early health lead it will help you immensely in shutting down the enemy bot lane. The tribush method recommended when you have close up CC champions like Leona and Nautilus and the second one can work both with poke supports for a small chunk of the enemies health or an engage support. If your health lead is big enough you can do a cheater recall and freeze the wave upon your return. This further increases the pressure you exert in lane while also avoiding any level 3 ganks from their jungler.
FIRST FEW WAVES INTO FIRST RECALL

Cheater Recall
The very first technique you need to learn is cheater recalling, but first you need to know if you should do it. The main thing you have to consider before cheater recalling is where your jungler is pathing. Since this involves recalling after wave 3, the scuttle crab will spawn around the time you’re going to base; with the recent scuttle changes this is no longer as important of an objective, but rather YOU will be the jungler's new crab, meaning they can end up ganking before or after scuttle spawns, as they will no longer prioritize it.

Now, let’s say your jungler cares about that bot scuttle as much as he cares about your lane and paths top. Matchup knowledge now becomes important. If the enemy botlane has more waveclear than you, it is difficult to execute a cheater recall, as they can quickly clear the stacked wave to crash the fourth wave. This means you lose CS, defeating the purpose of the cheater recall.

With that out of the way, I will now explain how one conducts a cheater recall:

1.- Acquire a 1 minion advantage, meaning you want your wave to have 1 more minion than the enemy wave for the first 2 waves.
2.- KEEP the ONE minion advantage! If the enemy botlane autos the wave, you must auto the wave; if they don't touch the wave, then neither should you.
3.- If done perfectly, the second wave should die approximately at the same time as the third wave arrives. Once the cannon wave is on your screen, blow all of your damage-abilities to get it under the enemy turret as soon as possible. Don't worry about your wasting HP/Mana since you’re recalling anyways (THIS DOESN’T MEAN INT AND DIE 🙂).
4.- Recall as soon as the huge wave crashes into the enemy tower.

If executed correctly, you should have approximately 530 gold (if you didn’t miss a single creep). When you come back to the lane, you should have missed 0-2 minions. With this gold, buy a Cull + pot to accelerate your scaling, or an extra Long Sword if you're playing an early game champion like Draven, Caitlyn or Lucian. If you started Long Sword + 3 Health Potions against a poke lane, it’s a good idea to buy a Vampiric Scepter if you’re going to build Immortal Shieldbow. It is okay to sell 1-2 Health Potions in order to buy the Vampiric Scepter if you did not have perfect CS. Certain champs, such as Ezreal or lethality Varus, will do this to buy tear as soon as possible without having to start with it.
POSITIONING, AGENCY, GOLD AND WAVE MANAGEMENT

Now, if you’re not going to cheater recall there are a few things you must learn before I talk about wave management.

The first is lane pockets, which are specific areas that you occupy in the lane relative to the minion wave:



First we’re going to draw a line that crosses through the middle of the lane to divide it into North and South area.



Now we’re going to create vertical sections to make the Pockets (this is mainly for illustrative purposes, there’s not really a specific area for each pocket).

The middle line illustrates the path of minions, and the current lane pockets are going to be around it. The most important pocket to remember is going to be the Trading Pocket, in which the enemy ADC will position to last hit minions.

Generally you should stand in the North pockets when your jungler is on the bot side of the map, especially if he's in the river or invading. When the enemy has an engage support, stand in a pocket opposite to them. For any other scenarios, positioning on South pockets grants you access to the bush, which can be used to harass enemy laners with Auto Attacks and safety if ganked. You should know that for easy matchups and against poorly positioned opponents, you can abuse lane bushes to harass them by constantly dropping in and out of vision; it is necessary for you to have vision control over the bushes so make sure to have them Oracle Lens'd by your support or buy a Control Ward yourself to clear any wards that they place.

With lane pockets covered, we can now mix in the matchup variants. Against champions with skillshots, stand behind your minion wave, keeping such champ on the opposite pocket (stand North if they’re South and vice versa). Additionally, there is Ranged vs Ranged matchups (like enchanter vs enchanter) where it usually is a perma-push lane and you can punish last hits constantly.

You now need to think about what your first buy will be, and the necessary gold for that purchase. Depending on the component, you should have an approximate idea on how many waves are required to fulfill that gold requirement. Within the later sections, I will break down your recall timings and ideal wave management.

Next, take into consideration Jungle pathing for both junglers. It is critical for you to quickly read the map and gain information on if you are getting ganked, or if your jungler is providing a gank. The same concept applies to being vigilant for laner roams from TP or midlaner roaming.

If your jungler is pathing botside (started with his Topside buff) you will have 3 options: 1) Making the lane gankable, 2) Shoving to get lane priority, or 3) Setting up a dive. I would recommend you to focus on the first two options, as without proper communications (preferably vocal), teammates will misplay and mess up the dive.

Remember to think about the botlane matchup. If the enemies are the ones with Lane Agency or overall, more wave clear (like having a ranged support while you have a melee support) your best bet is to trim the wave and hold it in front of your tower. This opens the opportunity for your jungler to gank and can run them down with your support.


When you have lane agency, look to lock the wave in this exact spot, highlighted above. This is accomplished like how you would setup a cheater recall, except here you stay to last hit. Depending on your jungler you might have to “bounce” wave 3, 4 or 5. A wave “bounce” means you shove your wave to the enemy tower to the point it crashes (your wave autos the tower and the tower can hit all the minions back). This creates a scenario where the enemy wave slowly pushes towards your side of the lane. While this is happening, you are free to roam and get vision control of the river or set up deep wards in the enemy jungle.

What is Lane Agency you ask? Well, it is something largely present in solo lanes, but still applies to the botlane. Those who have it controls wave management, while the other laner(s) are forced to play around the enemy choices. Of course, even if the enemy has Lane Agency doesn’t mean that they will take advantage of this because due to a lack of knowledge. It is a good thing that you’re reading this guide and now can be an expert!

Lane Agency is dictated by the amount of waveclear a champ has. For example: In a Senna + Caitlyn vs Leona + Samira, who will have Lane Agency? If your answer was Leona + Samira then you should be sad and ashamed of yourself. Senna + Caitlyn simply have way too much range and AoE damage to constantly clear waves and do whatever they want with the wave (slow pushing, hard shoving, freezing, etc.). The Leona + Samira are forced to see what they do and find a way to play around it.

With Lane Agency, you can now setup waves so that you can move around the map with your jungler, allow your support to roam while you catch some solo XP or get a nice recall. Since the scuttle isn't as important anymore you need to be aware of what your jungler is trying to do, whether is invading or acquiring the botside scuttle (the latter is just not going to be as soon as it spawns).

It’s very important for you to make sure they don’t freeze on you by pulling the wave before it crashes, otherwise you could lose full waves. Just make sure you escort it all the way if it seems like they’re threatening to hold it.

As Kai'Sa you will have lane agency in some matchups as your Q Icathian Rain is a great waveclear tool and your W Void Seeker can be combined with your support's engage to threaten a kill so the enemies will respect that in certain matchups. When clearing minions, be sure to position well so that your Q Icathian Rain is split amongst the melee minions, rather than being evenly split amongst all minions. With an evolved Q Icathian Rain, you can auto each melee once, and your Q Icathian Rain will instantly clear them. If you add to this the lane setups that have been presented earlier then you can give yourself Lane Agency through Health Advantage.

Look to crash your waves on cannon waves to allow yourself some extra seconds to return from base as a cannon wave will be harder to push and will take longer to get killed by your tower. Remember that minion waves always spawn first at 1:05 and then every 30 sec from there. Try to push the wave before the next one spawns in order for you to catch next one as the enemy will push it into your tower.

As one of your best early game buys is a Serrated Dirk for added sustain, look to back on the 6th/9th wave as it is a cannon wave.

If you notice a similarity to the Cheater Recall, we are just a few waves into the future, crashing a normal wave instead of a cannon wave. Cheater recalling can be considered the basis for fundamental wave management, roam timers and recalls. Therefore, always keep that in mind and make sure to practice it! These types of recall can be considered Economic Recalls as you use it to get an economic advantage on your opponent. Try to be mindful about this part of the guide as with items being so cheap and impactful early, your decisions and economy will decide many of the games you play.
IMPORTANT RECALL TIMERS

Your build paths will heavily depend on wether you are going crit or AP, and the specific variation. Here, I will break down a brief summary of the various build paths. Please remember that Kai'Sa is a versatile champion, so not all builds will be included here. Instead, I will primarily focus on the best versions that currently exist.
Teamfighting can be really interesting as Kai'Sa because of her R Killer Instinct. Unlike many ADCs that can only kite and orb walk around their maximum range in order to be effective, Kai'Sa can also rely on her poke, invisibility and ultimate to reposition and juke enemies that try to engage on her. This means that she can play a teamfight in many ways, depending on her build, the game state and the situation presented.

In teamfights you need to keep a mental list of things to look out for and target priorities
For things to look out for in a teamfight This list of things to look out for will help you prioritize targets during a fight:
For example, if you want to engage the enemy Ashe but she still has her R Enchanted Crystal Arrow up and you lack Cleanse or Quicksilver Sash, you should put her lower in priority as you will get stunned if you R Killer Instinct into her. Same situation would be with a fed enemy Zed. If your closes path to the fight requires you to go through the zone where Zed threatens to one shot you. You will have to either
  • Go around the specified zone

  • Be patient and wait for him to blow his CDs on one of your teammates

  • Ping your team for assistance to play around you and use your E Supercharge and R Killer Instinct as outplay abilities
The way you teamfight will also change depending on your build. If you play for the AP on-hit build then try to stay more in the back of the fight before it properly begins in order to poke with your W Void Seeker and abuse the 77% CD refund you get with every hit. Once the teamfight commences, remember you mental list in order to assess danger and priority targets. If you can continue to W Void Seeker and kill people from a safe distance then look to do that. If one of your teammates gets a lock-down on the enemy team you can your ability to one shot the opponent with your R Killer Instinct + W Void Seeker + Q Icathian Rain combo. Look in the combos section for how to do that. If you can kill the opponent, go for it because your W Void Seeker will do a lot more burst damage then on the AD build so the chances are you will blow up the opponent. After that, try to assess the fight and play around your CDs. Your passive and on-hit damage means you will also melt tanks extremely well so play slow and do not go for unnecessary risks. You will see you will win a lot more fights if you are patient and you play every fight thinking about the enemy CDs and positioning.

If you play the AD crit build that most Kai'Sa players are used to, then you will try to play more like a traditional ADC. You will want to orb walk and kite enemies around your maximum range, trying to melt the closest target that you can SAFELY hit. Remember that word as that is the most important part of being an ADC. Your reliable damage is your AA so you need to fire as many as you can, thus staying alive is a must. Use your E Supercharge and R Killer Instinct to mostly reposition if you get collapsed upon or to follow your teammates if they all engage on an important target. Always play close to your team and especially close to the champions that can peel for you (Usually the support or Jungler). I will remind you once more to be mindful about your target selection in order to dish out as much damage as you can. Good luck and make sure to review your team fights after the game in order to analyze your mistakes and fix them.
Mid game can be split into two sections, depending on whether you won your lane or not:

If you win your lane then you are in your prime, you have an advantage in items and you are more impactful than your counterpart so you want to look to secure global objectives like all the Tier 3 turrets, Dragon and Herald. Look to make a deathball with your support and Jungler and move around the map towards those objectives. Force skirmishes if you are in a good position and use Kai'Sa’s amazing single target burst to one shot opponents caught by your team. Whatever build you do remember that you have an amazing spike in power one you upgrade any of your abilities. Beware of giving shut down gold and look to deny enemy resources when it is safe to do so (freezing side waves when there is no objective available, taking enemy jungle camps).

If you lose your lane then you should try to either stay mid to soak up waves if your team does not have someone who can clear waves better than you, otherwise go to a side lane and try to freeze the wave when the enemy pushes into you. The idea here is to try to soak up as much experience and gold as you can while being safe and keeping an opponent locked up with you in the lane. If there is no important objective that you MUST fight for, look to deny as many waves to the opponent as you can because essentially you are cutting the resources the enemy gets by a quarter (3 lanes and the jungle makes the full income of a team). At the same time you are much weaker then your opponent so you want to avoid fighting until you get back in the game. This way, while the enemy will want to group up and force fights, sacrificing their income to do so, you will want to be alone to get back levels and gold. Don’t mistake this for playing alone all game as you will want to group with your team for important objectives that you cannot give to the enemy team without losing the game (sometimes Baron, Soul Drake, Elder Drake, etc…). If there are objectives to fight for and you are freezing in a side lane, you want to push and force an enemy to come back to the wave. This way the enemy team will have to make a choice; either they leave multiple waves of minions get lost to the tower or they send someone to catch those waves but they will not be able to force a fight in the meantime, giving your team even more time to catch up in gold.
As I have already presented you how to approach teamfights, this section will be more about your strengths in the late game and how to play around the map and the game state presented to you.

Vision becomes really important in the late game so make sure to stay only on the side of the map that you have vision on and the enemy doesn’t or else you can be blown up in seconds and lose the game because of one mistake. Make sure to fit in a space for Control Wards in the late game if you are not already full build. With pushing vision, you get access to objectives and the enemy jungle. You can look to steal the buffs and have permanent vision on their side of the map.

Late game, your ultimate Killer Instinct has good range and your damage is insane for any low HP target so look to fins picks with your aggressive vision and turn them into Barons or Elders. Before doing objectives, be mindful of enemy Flashes, Stopwatches/ Zhonya's Hourglass and other key abilities and position in order to not be the main target as even one second of being alive can mean that someone in the enemy team dies and the teamfight is won. Remember that the enemy team will constantly try to remove the vision you place down so you can stack in a bush to surprise them and get an easy teamfight victory.
Kai'Sa is a nimble Marksman that can cancel her abilities in order to get the maximum DPS available. I advise practicing some of these combos in the Practice Tool as they will be very handy in your games in order to surprise your opponents with the damage that you can dish out in a matter of seconds.
The simplest and most important combo on Kai’sa that you will always use in the early game when an enemy is locked down by your team is AA + Q Icathian Rain + W Void Seeker. Canceling the animation of your AA with an ability instead of a move command is not anything new to ADC mains but the fact that your Q Icathian Rain has no Cast Time means you can fit it in your combo and also hide its casting animation a bit by using your Q Icathian Rain first.
Before going into the combos that use your ultimate Killer Instinct as an animation cancelling tool, we can discuss about a little trick that I have seen many people don’t know about Kai'Sa and that is you can completely cancel your evolving animation when you upgrade your abilities. To do so you have to use your Mouse in order to Left Click on the Upgrade Icon and immediately after press B to start your Recall animation. This way you will get the upgrade and then you can cancel your back animation instantly to continue the game. This trick takes some time to get the exact timing of but you will manage to master it pretty fast.
When E Supercharge gets upgraded it becomes a powerful tool. You can use it to surprise opponent by coming out of a bush in stealth and getting the jump on them, or you can use it to reposition in a teamfight. A simple trick to do is to kite one way and then use your E Supercharge in the other direction in order to full the opponents into throwing their skillshots in the wrong direction. This can be used when kiting a big opponent but remember to keep your E Supercharge in teamfights in order to reposition yourself from an incoming threat
Kai'Sa’s R Killer Instinct is amazing. It can be used in so many ways to amplify your damage while also being an amazing repositioning tool. Below I will show you some combos you can do to maximize your damage using your ultimate Killer Instinct.
You can cast abilities during the dash of your ultimate Killer Instinct so you can press R Killer Instinct to a desired location next to your opponent and then move your mouse on top of them and cast W Void Seeker while you are mid-dash to cancel your animation. This way the opponent will be unable to dodge the incoming W Void Seeker, leaving them in a severe disadvantage. If you need to hit your W Void Seeker to win the fight, go for this combo.

As specified before, you can cast abilities mid dash so you can also use your Q Icathian Rain but be aware to use it closer to the end of the R Killer Instinct dash because the targets of your Q Icathian Rain are decided at Cast time so you can accidently use it on a target at your original position if you cast it too quickly.

A lot of people tend to forget that Kai'Sa’s R Killer Instinct resets her auto attack so you can always use it like that when your abilities are on cooldown and you need the extra damage.

The main combo you will use when going for an assasination is the one presented below - R Killer Instinct + AA + Q Icathian Rain + W Void Seeker. This way you will maximize your damage while surprising the enemy with the burst you can deal.

In the conclusion of this section I want to present the maximum damage you can achieve with Kai'Sa by combining all that we have learned until now into a single combo - AA x 3 + R Killer Instinct + AA reset + Q Icathian Rain + W Void Seeker + E Supercharge.


Ashe
Aphelios
Caitlyn
Draven
Ezreal
Jhin
Jinx
Kalista
Kog'Maw
Lucian
MF
Samira
Syndra
Senna
Sivir
Tristana
Twitch
Varus
Vayne
Xayah
Ziggs
Ashe has superior range and will look to poke you out in the laning phase. She wants to fight in choke points so she can hit her W Volley on multiple targets and guarantee an R Enchanted Crystal Arrow hit on an important target. Her scaling is pretty good and is slightly better than Kai'Sa as her ability to slow opponents with her AAs coupled with her superior range makes her a scary for to against in the late game.

You should go Flash/ Cleanse if Ashe is paired with a heavy point and click cc-team, otherwise you can go Flash/ Heal.

In lane, Ashe will look to abuse her auto-range (600) in combination with her W Volley (18s CD, lvl.1) to harass and trade. Her passive Frost Shot will slow you down, opening you up for a cc-lock and harass by enemy support. Additionally, Approach Velocity allows her to run you down if caught out.

Ashe’s primary goal is to win the lane by maintaining a health advantage and deny minions through her autos and W Volley. Her 2 and 3 item power spikes are as strong as yours so she will look for fights in the mid game with her R Enchanted Crystal Arrow.

Ashe will look to use her W Volley to harass you in lane so make sure to always stay behind your minions when her W Volley is up. When her W Volley is down, look to force small trades as your Q Icathian Rain and Hail of Blades will allow you to win small engagements. A good Ashe will always know where the enemy jungler is so do not expect jgl assistance in this matchup. Avoid trading after lvl 6 and when your Cleanse is on cooldown as she will engage on you if your Flash is down.

Most Ashe players will spam their W Volley in the early game so use the windows when it is down, but be careful of its CD as it drops fast with levels and it is the ability they max first.

Your goal as Kai'Sa is to win small trades and to not get harassed by her superior range. This is a matchup where both you and your support should focus Ashe if you go for an all in, so as not to be run down by her Passive Frost Shot + Q Ranger's Focus and W Volley if you fail to kill her support. You scale side by side with her and your ability to assassinate her in the late game will give you the upper hand as Ashe always wants to keep the enemies at a distance.


Aphelios is a strong abuser of the new Lethal Tempo rune as he wants people to engage on him so he can decimate them with his Severum, the Scythe Pistol + Crescendum, the Chakram combo. As Kai'Sa you will need to be very careful in how you approach him and try to avoid engaging on him when he has Chackrams stacked.

Flash/ Heal are the most summoner spells in this matchup though I recommend you take Exhaust against him in order to shut down his damage if he gets too many Chackrams in a fight

His key weapon combos to look out for are his Severum, the Scythe Pistol + Crescendum, the Chakram for close up sustained damage, his Infernum, the Flamethrower + Gravitum, the Gravity Cannon combo because of the burst + snare potential in the early game and his Calibrum, the Sniper Rifle + Gravitum, the Gravity Cannon combo that can lock you down from afar. If you want to learn more about Aphelios and his weapon combos make sure to check out my guide on him.

Aphelios wants to keep his Calibrum, the Sniper Rifle ammo early to harass you as he will have the same range as Caitlyn. He will look to zone you out of cs so try to punish him if he walks into the minion wave as he will take minion aggro during trades. He can 1v1 you in both the early and mid game if he has his Severum, the Scythe Pistol + Crescendum, the Chakram combo.

In the early game try to rely on your support to create opportunities for trades as he will outrange you by 100 range so even trades are hard to get.

Aphelios can easily be engaged on with a bad weapon combination so try to look for those key moments in the early game but that will depend on your support matchup. In this situation Kai'Sa can also out trade him and force an all in if her support can engage.

This matchup is good for Kai'Sa but it can depend on your support matchup. The early game is pretty difficult straight up because of his superior range and weapon rotation that allows him to poke ( Calibrum, the Sniper Rifle), burst + cc( Infernum, the Flamethrower+ Gravitum, the Gravity Cannon) and even deny you engages( Severum, the Scythe Pistol + Crescendum, the Chakram). Your 2 and 3 items power spikes are stronger than his so you can try to poke him down with your W Void Seeker and go in with R Killer Instinct for the kill when his team is not around him and he cannot one shot you with a million Chackrams.


Caitlyn can abuse her superior range to harass you during lane but your trades and all ins should be better than hers if you do not het hit by her E 90 Caliber Net + Q Piltover Peacemaker combo. Try to trade with her only when your Q Icathian Rain is up for the additional damage.

Flash and Heal are the go to summoners against Caitlyn.

Her main source of damage are her passive Headshot and Q Piltover Peacemaker. She will always use her Q Piltover Peacemaker to push the wave and also hit you, while her passive Headshot will allow her to walk up and take control of the lane.

Her early gameplan is to punish you for cs, crush 2 or 3 waves into your tower and make a wall of traps to deny you cs. If this is what she does, a gank by the enemy junger will save you or an engage by your support.

In this matchup you can also look to punish Caitlyn when she doesn’t have her passive Headshot as your short trade will out damage hers. If her E 90 Caliber Net is on cooldown you can punish her and try to take a trade together with your support.

Her E 90 Caliber Net is an amazing spell in this matchup because you want to trade with her and she can deny that with her E 90 Caliber Net + Q Piltover Peacemaker combo. A good Caitlyn player can also use her W Yordle Snap Trap to combo and get 2 Headshot passives off. If you are interested in these combos please check out my Caitlyn [Guide as well.

Teamfighting against Caitlyn can be tricky as her item power spikes and superior range will allow her to play more to the front of the fight and her line of traps will require your team to engage from the side in order to force a fight. Beware of the line of traps and try to not be predictable with your movement in a fight as a well placed W Trap can end the fight for you. Look for opportunities to assassinate her as once she is out of traps she can be easily dived upon.

Your main goal should be to get as much CS as possible and get to your item spikes that will allow you to play the fights against her where you can poke her and the use your R Killer Instinct to finish her off.


A nightmare for most ADCs in the early game. Draven’s main damage comes from his Q Spinning Axe as he will try to maintain 2 of them up at all times. As Hail of Blades has remained the dominant rune on him, his ability to triple axe you and kill either you or your support during lane is still a big problem and makes this one of the more difficult matchups for Kai'Sa.

Flash Heal or Flash Exhaust are the main summoners in this matchup. Take Exhaust if you have an engage support and your jungler looks to gank bot lane early in order to easily secure a kill.

His Q Spinning Axe is an insane damage spike that will hurt at every trade and Coupled with his ability to close up to you with his W Blood Rush and Hail of Blades makes you unable to equalize his trading potential.

He will look to force trades with his W Blood Rush as two Spinning Axes will always out trade your Q Icathian Rain damage + autos so be mindful of his damage.

Your can only force trades when Draven has no spinning axes or when your support can engage on him and you can finish him off by proccing your passive Second Skin.

The downside of his trading patterns is that he will always want to keep his axes up and thus he has to push the wave so your jungler can look for ganks when Draven crashes multiple waves into your tower.

In mid and late game team fights you can look for an engage on Draven if your team manages to get to him. Use R Killer Instinct to get in range and use your entire arsenal to assassinate him. If you are unsure if you can one shot him, better stay put and wait for the best opportunity rather than going in prematurely.

Your goal in this lane is to have your jungler gank him early when he eventually pushes the lane into your tower as his power level drop significantly if he is put behind in the early game and you can even start forcing trades against him. If your jungler doesn’t want to play around bot, you can look for all ins with your support as trading against him will rarely work in your favor.


Ezreal will try to play beside the minion wave to land Q Mystic Shot on you. His main goal will be to stack his Tear of the Goddess and get to his extremely powerful 2 item power spike.

Flash Heal are the recommended Summoner Spells as Ezreal does not impose on you taking special summoners for him.

Ezreal’s main source of damage is his Q Mystic Shot that you can avoid by playing in your minion wave most of the time. Other than damaging you, his Q Mystic Shot also reduces his cooldowns, thus missing a Q Mystic Shot is a big problem for him as you can engage on him for that mistake. You should only try to trade against his Q Mystic Shot with your W Void Seeker as you will out damage him.

Ezreal’s win condition is to get a CS lead in the early game from his long range poke and be the first to enter the mid game in order to abuse his spike in power.

In lane, try to stay behind your minion wave in order to not get hit by his Q Mystic Shot, essentially forcing trades in AA vs AA battle that you will win because of the extra damage you dish out with your Q Icathian Rain and W Void Seeker if you zone him away from his minions.

Ezreal will try to always line up to use Q Mystic Shot on you so try to abuse the windows when his Q Mystic Shot is down to position more aggressively in the lane with your support. Your kill threat on him is really high if his E Arcane Shift is on CD.

In team fights you can easily melt through him if he uses E Arcane Shift to damage someone but is unaware of your positioning. If he positions well but he gets engaged upon or you hit your W Void Seeker on him and his team is not around him, you can engage on him with your R Killer Instinct and finish him off quickly. Try to always use R Killer Instinct around the position where you think he will use his E Arcane Shift in order to always be close to him.

Your main goal in this lane is to not get poked down and win trades against Ezreal. Setting him back even in the slightest will make his mid game punch less impactful and will let you cruise to the late game monster you were born to be


All of Jhin’s damage in lane comes from his 4th shot and Q Dancing Grenade, especially if he can kill minions with it to increase its damage. He will look to force trades on every 4th shot since it will out-trade almost every ADC.

Flash Heal are the recommended runes in this matchup as Jhin does not force you into taking special Summoner’s

His main source of damage is his poke with his 4th shot and Q Dancing Grenade that he will use to chip away at your health. He is not able to burst you straight up but will look to go for the kill once you are at less than 50% of your health.

He will look to use Q Dancing Grenade on the caster minions and also hit you with it and trade on every 4th shot so be careful and wait for him to use it.

You can look to trade when he reloads his gun if he is too overextended but be mindful of his W Deadly Flourish as ,if you take any damage from any enemy champion, it will root you in place and can easily catch you off guard, but it's relatively slow so you should be able to sidestep it by going either left or right or using your E Supercharge.

The biggest mistakes a Jhin player can do in lane is spam his abilities or not manage his autos correctly, leaving him to reload while being overextended for a trade or CS. In those scenarios you can either short trade him or engage on him depending on the support matchups.

In team fights you can look to assassinate him if he is out of position as he is completely immobile when his Galeforce CD is down. Your R Killer Instinct is again your best friend in doing so

Your goal in this matchup is to abuse your trading windows when his Q Dancing Grenade and 4th shot are down and get to your 2 and 3 item power spike when you can shred the enemy team, Jhin included.


Jinx’s is a long range poking ADC that has a finishing burst with her W Zap! and R Super Mega Death Rocket!. She outranges Kai'Sa by a lot once she maxes her Q Switcheroo! and her lockdown with E Flame Chompers! and passive Get Excited! makes her a scary threat to play against in the later stages of the game if properly itemized.

Flash and Heal are your go to summoner spells in this matchup

Her main damaging source during the laning phase and throughout the game is her Q Switcheroo! rocket launcher. Be careful about standing close to minions as her Rockets have splash damage which can add up if you get hit multiple times.

Jinx players will look to poke you down with rockets and W Zap! in order to get control of the lane and zone you with her superior range. Be careful of getting cc-ed by the enemy support as her E Flame Chompers! follow-up snare is a powerful that will allow her to finish either you or your support off and then her passive Get Excited! will deal with the person left alive.

Avoid trades against her if you are close to her max range as she will dance around you with her rockets. Try to all in her if she positions poorly or your support can engage on her. If not, try to play at a distance from your minion wave and harass her when she is in her rocket launcher animation as her AS is slower.

Because Jinx will look to attack caster minions with her rockets in order to poke you, she will usually be the one to push the wave in this matchup so rely on your support to engage on them when the wave is in front of your tower. If she misses her W Zap! and E Flame Chompers! she is usually in a weak spot and you can look for all-ins.

In the midgame try to catch her pushing alone as you can almost certainly 1v1 her if you get a surprise E Supercharge engage on her. In teamfights be mindful of her superior range and only go against her if you can assassinate her or chunk her enough in order to then E Supercharge to reposition with back-up from your team.

Your main Goal is to either kill Jinx if the support matchup allows it or get a cs lead and move away from the 2v2 lane so you can soak up xp and gold. It is especially great if you can find good positions to freeze a side lane.


Kalista’s early game is the most important part of her game and will determine how relevant she will be during the game. She will always force trades and try to harass you in order to get an early lead. If put behind, she becomes useless and an easy target.

Exhaust can be situational in this matchup as it will deny her E Rend damage which is most of her all-in damage in the early game and thus shut her down for good
Kalista's dmg comes from stacking multiple spears for a big dmg with E Rend and her Q Pierce; in contrast, her autos deal very little damage.

She’s looking to get an early lead to snowball for the late game in order to have some value. She relies on an engage support during lane, otherwise she’s a really weak champ.

She’s going to try and Q Pierce low health minions if you’re standing behind them, as it will kill the minion, transfer the E Rend stacks to you and apply the Q Pierce damage as well. Once you are aware of this, position similar to how you would against Miss Fortune.

If she misses Q Pierce or wastes her E Rend, you can try to all in her as she will be missing most of her damage for 10+ seconds. BE CAREFUL, her E Rend cooldown resets if it kills any target, so she’s likely to use it to last hit minions.

In Teamfights try to always look for a position to surprise her with the help of your team. If you can’t one shot her she will kite you around as she always needs to AA to be useful. Another way to play the late game against Kalista is to constantly spam your W Void Seeker’s on her because if she is poked down she won’t be able to join a teamfight as easily as she risks getting killed.

Focus on not giving her a lead in lane, abuse your superior range, play around her cooldowns on Q Pierce and E Rend, don’t die and scale up. The early game is tough as she is one of the champions that can shut you down and Kai'Sa requires a decent early game to function as a champion in the mid and late game. You will be much stronger once you start getting items because it gets increasingly harder for her to 1v1 you.


Kog'Maw is an on-hit Tank Shredder that will look to abuse his superior range to poke you down during the laning phase and then get to his mid-game power spikes

The general summoner spells of Flash and Heal are recommended in this matchup.

His main source of DMG are his autos whenever he has W Bio-Arcane Barrage active; additionally, Q Caustic Spittle can deal some damage due to the resistances shred as well. If he can hit you for free with W Bio-Arcane Barrage he will often win the trade/all-in, especially in combination with Q Caustic Spittle + E Void Ooze.

His win condition is to poke you down with W Bio-Arcane Barrage and farm up to the point where he has enough on-hit damage to kill everyone in a couple of shots.

Never trade against him unless his W Bio-Arcane Barrage is on CD. Whenever he uses it (he starts glowing when it’s active) just walk back and come back after it’s gone to play aggressively. This champ is pretty weak if he’s not paired with Lulu since he'll be pretty squishy and won't deal as much dmg without Lulu pixy + attack speed steroid; if they’re paired together never trade when Kog'Maw has W Bio-Arcane Barrage available and/or Lulu has her shield available.

You need to play around his W Bio-Arcane Barrage and E Void Ooze CDs since the slow and extended range will allow him to run you down. As we have learned, play around his cool downs and look for all in opportunities with your support.

In team fights you can either look to assassinate him with your R Killer Instinct if he is left alone by his team or poke him with your W Void Seeker. He will shred your team before you kill his so try to engage on him if your team manages to get to him

He lacks wave clear so you can keep the wave in the middle depending on the support matchup but your main goal is to stay healthy and farm up to your power spikes and maybe find opportunities when he goes to farm alone on a sidelane to force a 1v1 which you will most definitely win. Difficulty here is hard to ***es because if he is not paired with a shielding support like Lulu you can trade against him and even engage on him but if he has one then the matchup gets a lot tougher.


Lucian is a more mobile version of Draven as his short trades are still amazingly powerful and will out damage Kai'Sa. He is looking to do 3 things: poke you while last hitting with Q Piercing Light, force trades with his passive Lightslinger + auto resets and all-in. His scaling is not as amazing as yours so he needs to get an advantage in the early game.

Exhaust can be picked up in this matchup to counter his all-ins but Cleanse can be a niche pick if you think he will go Exhaust and his support will go Ignite. This way you can remove one of the summoner spells or maybe both.

Lucian is looking to poke you a lot with his Q Piercing Light by hitting you with the tip by casting it on a minion. Try to bait this ability and side step it, if he uses it and misses a lot of his damage is gone.

His favorite short Trade is AA + Q Piercing Light + Passive Lightslinger + E Relentless Pursuit + Passive Lightslinger as it will chunk you to less that 50% so be mindful of his cooldown and positioning. He relies on chipping away at your health in order to zone you out of CS and get an early lead. The most important thing to do in this matchup is to not die as kills will allow him to snowball the lane and deny you lots of CS.

Try to sidestep his Q Piercing Light and play around it, when it is down his damage is highly reduced and for him to get a good Trade on you, he has to E Relentless Pursuit into you which can allow you to turn on him with your support and kill him. His W Ardent Blaze might seem as just a passive enabler in the early game but the added MS and Vigilance procs will allow him to chase you down.

If his Q Piercing Light is on CD then look to use Hail of Blades and Q Icathian Rain to trade against him. Punish him when he uses his E Relentless Pursuit forward and does not hit his double auto attack on you. Play around his cooldowns and punish his aggressive style of play.

He will usually look to burst people down with his Galeforce so wait for him to overextend with his E Relentless Pursuit before engaging onto him. He will usually play in front of his team so you can W Void Seeker him. Use R Killer Instinct to reposition away from his ultimate The Culling if a fight breaks out.

Your main goal is to play around his CDs early game and try to get to your item power spikes when his damage will not be a big problem for you anymore.



Miss Fortune relies on her reliable poke and zone control in the early game to wither you down and allow her to deny you cs by either pushing you under the tower or walking up to the lane and not allowing you entrance to it.

Flash Heal should be your go to summoners in this matchup.

Her main source of damage is her E Make it Rain with the assured Arcane Comet proc and her Q Double Up. She will use E Make it Rain to deny you entrance to the wave and chunk you down in the early game while her Q Double Up will force you to play next to your minion line and not behind it, making you susceptible to being harassed by the enemy support

Her main goal is to chunk you constantly and make your laning phase as annoying as possible. Her annoying zone control from afar coupled with her passive Love Tap that doesn’t allow you to take upfront trades either makes Miss Fortune a pretty hard matchup for Kai'Sa

Again, playing around her cooldowns and next to your minion wave is your best bet. Try to learn her E Make it Rain cooldown and play around it as most Miss Fortune players will use it whenever they can get a Manaflow Band stack off of it so try to position at the maximum range of her E Make it Rain, bait her to cast it then walk off or E Supercharge away to dodge the comet. This way you have 15 seconds where you can walk up to try and CS the wave.

The best way to punish her is to engage with your support onto her and proc your passive Second Skin on her. She is pretty weak when engaged upon if she doesn’t have Galeforce or a way to get a good R Killer Instinct off.

Remember to NEVER play teamfights against Miss Fortune inside choke points in the Jungle. She will melt through your entire team in seconds with her R Bullet Time, this is the reason why Miss Fortune is so popular in lower elo-s as players will not be mindful of her amazing zone control. If she starts of a fight with her R Bullet Time you can aim a W Void Seeker onto her and then use your R Killer Instinct to finish her off.

Your main goal is to survive the early game and the powerful short trades and poke of Miss Fortune. You scale way better than her so try to abuse your superior team fighting while being mindful of her R Bullet Time.


Samira is extremely weak lvl 1 as she is relying on small pokes with her Q [flair]] to get damage off in the laning phase. She has strong follow-up with her E Wild Rush + Q Flair and her R Inferno Trigger and W Blade Whirl makes her hard to engage on.

Take Exhaust into Samira and remember to build Executioner's Calling to deal with her in the laning phase.

Her main source of damage is her E Flair + Q Flair combo follow up by her R Inferno Trigger.

Her Win Condition is to follow up on her support engagements and all-in you around lvl 2 and 3. Avoid their gap closers by E-ing backwards. Samira has quite mediocre scaling outside her teamfighting abilities but it’s really hard for her to deal damage without items. Because of this snowballing since lane is kind of her win-con and playing off her team’s engagements.

You have a 50 range advantage over her and she cannot damage you through minions so trading against her is not a problem. Just stay in the minion wave and force trades when Samira’s Q Flair is on cooldown. Samira has insane all-in damage since pretty much every ability is an auto cancel, she can insta proc Conqueror and has increased damage at melee range. However, her trading potential is quite low since everything but Q Flair is an all-in ability.

The best way to punish Samira is to position well into the lane and chip away at her health with your superior range and potent short trade with Q Icathian Rain + Hail of Blades. Be mindful of the enemy support at all times as their all ins are really strong.

In teamfights be always aware of Samira’s positioning and her Passive Daredevil Impulse stacks as she can now cast R Inferno Trigger without mana cost and will always look to get into the middle of the fight to use it. Poke her before the teamfight, kite her away with your E Supercharge or use R Killer Instinct to reposition if she engages with ult in the middle of the fight.

Your main Goal is to punish her shorter range and chip away at her health in order to get control of the lane in the early game and deny her CS. This way you will slow her down and get to your item spikes before her


Syndra can be an annoying matchup because of her long range on Q Dark Sphere. Try to sidestep her Q Dark Sphere and play around its cooldown at all items. Generally play besides the wave so she has to either aim at you or the wave and can never hit both. She is very immobile and her E Scatter the Weak cooldown is pretty high so look for an engagement opportunity with your support when her E Scatter the Weak is on cooldown.

Focus on dodging her E Scatter the Weak and take Barrier if you are afraid of her burst


So the way Senna works is that she loves trading because her passive Absolution will give her a soul if she hits a champ with 2 attacks or abilities.

Take Flash and Heal in this matchup. Other runes are not as good here as she will not have a powerful burst that you want to cancel with Exhaust and you shouldn’t take Cleanse for her W Last Embrace

Her passive Absolution has a 6 second cooldown so she will AA+Q Piercing Darkness you off the Q Piercing Darkness cooldown to get as many stacks as possible.

Her way to win the lane is to poke you down while sustaining herself with her Q Piercing Darkness while getting as many passive stacks as possible.

Her superior range and great sustain will make trading against her a nightmare so you better look to dodge her Q Piercing Darkness and stay on the other side of the lane as her if possible. If she misses Q Piercing Darkness then you can look for short trades into her.

If you or your teammate can close the gap onto Senna, she is squishy and can be easily finished off.

In teamfights make sure to not get into her range and try to wait for her E Curse of the Black Mist to wear off before fighting her.

Your goal is to trade as little as possible so you don’t let her stack for free, which means standing outside her auto range. You want to always take a long trade versus her or an all in Abuse your superior midgame and try to force even fights.


Sivir is a nimbe Marksman that looks to chip away at your health with her Q Boomerang Blade and W Ricochet while remaining safe because of her E Spell Shield.

Flash Heal are the recommended summoner spells against Sivir.

Most of her damage in lane comes from her Q Boomerang Blade which is kinda slow and easily dodgeable; use your E Supercharge to dodge it if it will hit you without hitting any minions prior to that.

In lane she will look to push you under tower and punish you whenever you look for last hits. Depending on supports she can look to then freeze the wave in front of her tower because of her zone control

You should try to not allow her Lane agency and push as much as you can to counteract her tendency to push with her abilities. Your superior AA range, Hail of Blades and Q Icathian Rain allows you to take short trades with her when possible.

When her main damaging spells are on CD, her Q Boomerang Blade and W Ricochet, you can look to force trades or even all ins with your support but be mindful of her E Spell Shield and don’t throw your W Void Seeker when her Spell Shield is still available.

In the mid game be aware of her team’s chase potential because of Sivir’s R On The Hunt. She likes to hunt down targets one at a time with her team so beware to be hunted.

Your main goal is to take short trades when her abilities are on cooldown and look to keep the wave in the middle of the lane. You can look to all in her with your support when her Spell Shield is down.


Tristana is known for her ability to fast push waves and burst people down with her E Explosive Charge. She can be a hard matchup to Kai'Sa for multiple reasons but again, your knowledge and ability to play around her range can give you the upperhand.

Always take Exhaust into Tristana to mitigate her E Explosive Charge burst damage.

Tristana’s key abilities in this matchup are her E Explosive Charge and passive Draw a Bead so make sure to let her openings to W Rocket Jump on you and burst you down.

Her passive Draw a Bead is really strong in this matchup as she will look to poke you with it and get you close to kill range. She wishes to get plates in this matchup and push you under tower. If you have an engage support, call for your jungler and try to punish her aggressive tendencies.

Trading should be limited in this matchup and should be done mostly when her E Explosive Charge is on cooldown as then most of her damage is down but she can still engage on you with her W and her support if you overextend so be careful

If she ever hits E Explosive Charge on you just back off so that she can’t stack it up meaning it will deal very little damage. Whenever she uses E Explosive Charge on the tower, wave, support or on you and doesn't fully blow it up you should play aggressively since she will have no damage. She relies completely on bursting someone down with the bomb and that’s why we take Exhaust against her

In teamfights remember that Tristana will look to W Rocket Jump onto people and burst them down so wait for her to use W Rocket Jump before punishing her. Once she lands you can combo W Void Seeker + Q Icathian Rain + Hail of Blades to finish her off.

Your main goal is to survive the early game and to not allow her to push you under tower or to punish her for it. Exhaust makes this matchup much better than it would be without it and allows you to counter her amazing burst.


Twitch has an extremely low range but he makes up for that with his W Venom Cask, which slows for 30%, enabling him to get more autos onto you. He will always look to surprise you from stealth and assassinate you. Buy Control Wards and ward the most reliable ganks paths.

Take Flash and Heal in this match as you will rarely get close in time to Exhaust him if he gets the jump on you. If you have an engage support that can get onto Twitch once he comes out of stealth then Exhaust can be used as you will get in range with your R Killer Instinct.

His W Venom Cask is the annoying part of his kit in the early game as it can zone you out and give you passive Deadly Venom stacks that will chip away at your health if he uses E Contaminate. After the early game his Q Ambush and R Spray and Pray become the biggest problem as he can spend a long time Camouflaged and will look to hunt you down when you are alone. As a small advice, if you think Twitch is close keep your E Supercharge CD up in order to try to make some space between yourself and Twitch or engage on him if you have follow-up. (Once you have upgraded your E Supercharge).

His win-condition is to play like Evelynn and abuse his long time camouflage to get kills on your teammates. Remember to always ping when he is missing to alert your teammates that they might be his next target

Trading in lane is dependent on the support matchup but you can take small trades against him if you play around his W Venom Cask + E Contaminate combo.

His stealth plays in the early game are pretty predictable so always ask yourself where Twitch should be and you will find that 9/10 times you will suspect that he is looking to get the jump on you. Once the midgame has started and the first line of towers has dropped, his ganks and paths become harder to predict. Then Control Wards in the sidelane bushes will be your best friends.

Teamfighting against Twitch comes down to disengaging from him when he uses his R Spray and Pray and re-engage once its duration has worn off. As I previously mentioned, keeping E Supercharge + R Killer Instinct up for his ambushing strategy is essential if you are his main target.

Your goal is to force good trades in the early game when his cooldowns are down. Your mid game fights are stronger if you start them but his are way more impactful if he gets a good R Spray and Pray on all of you. As previously mentioned, Control Wards and game sense are essential here.


Varus has strong lane agency as he can poke you through minions and also push the lane. His abilities are hard hitting and with the current buffs, his builds may differ but his strong one target burst is still as potent as ever.

You should take Cleanse in this matchup as Kai'Sa since Heal has very little value and his E Hail of Arrows is very easy to hit on you.

His main damage comes from his Q Piercing Arrow + W Blighted Quiver active/passive combo but his attacks are also hard hitting as he can proc his W Blighted Quiver passive with his E Hail of Arrows as well which is guaranteed to hit if you use your Q Icathian Rain or he predicts it.

His main goal in this matchup is to poke you down with all he has and take short trades with you as his are a lot stronger than yours.

In the early levels try to bait him to use his E Hail of Arrows and trade when it is down. You can punish his positioning with your support as he is susceptible to getting engaged on.

After level 3 don’t walk up to auto him since he can just triple auto you with Hail of Blades and instantly proc his passive Living Vengeance with E Hail of Arrows or Q Piercing Arrow tap and he will win pretty much every fight. Focus on keeping your distance and if he misses Q Piercing Arrow, work with your support to get a good trade or even all-in; you need to stay as healthy as possible if you ever want to kill him.

In teamfights be very careful when walking up to him as you should never get too close to him if his R Chain of Corruption is up and your Cleanse is on cooldown. Dodge his abilities and engage him if your team gets on top of him.

Your goal is to survive the early lane agency he has and abuse your mid game spike at 2 and 3 items. Cleanse is your best friend after lvl 6 as his only way of making distance between himself and his enemies is removed.


Vayne is a scaling ADC that wants to play a front-to-back game as her W Silver Bolts allows her to shred any enemy in a matter of seconds. Her early game is not her strong point but with the new items, she will spike in power with the first items she buys rather than after 3 items like in the past seasons.

Flash Heal are recommended in this matchup as Exhaust will not deny her AS or her True damage on W Silver Bolts.

Vayne’s main source of damage is her W Silver Bolts and her entire build is around having a lot of Attack Speed to proc it as much as possible. Her R Final Hour + Q Tumble invisibility will allow her to reposition during fights and you cannot use R Killer Instinct on her while she is invisible so be mindful of it. Getting condemned will also be a problem so avoid having a wall behind you as much as possible.
Her Win Condition are her item spikes where she can start teamfighting. If left unchecked in the teamfight, she can finish it by herself quite fast.

Try to use your Hail of Blades and Q Icathian Rain to short trade her during the lane when she goes to CS. Never allow her to proc her W Silver Bolts as then you will lose the trade and she will be at a great advantage. Engage on her with your support when possible and use your W Void Seeker to poke when her Q Tumble is down.

Punish her when she comes for CS as you can use your Q Icathian Rain to poke through minions while she can only overextend to proc her W Silver Bolts. When her E Condemn is down and she does not have R Final Hour, you can look to all in her with your support as she will be very imobile.

In teamfights always be mindful of her position and try to poke her with your W Void Seeker before it starts. If you can find an opportunity to assassinate her with the help of your team then use your R Killer Instinct to get on top of her. Just be careful to not dash in front of a wall so she can instantly Condemn you.

Your main goal in this lane is to out trade her and deny her CS. Once the early game is over and she has her mythic then your 1v1 potential is gone so be careful when getting too close without your support to back you up.


Xayah has potent zone control with her feathers and will look to abuse her poke as much as possible against you. Her Feathers plus R Featherstorm makes her a very hard target to attack as Kai'Sa wants to 1v1 her but she can reposition with her Galeforce(if she goes Crit build) and get her Feathers to hit regardless.

Flash and Heal are the recommended runes in this matchup though Exhaust can be picked up if you are paired with an engage support.

Her key abilities are her Q Double Daggers and E Bladecaller as her build is now mainly lethality and relies on her bursting opponents with the aforementioned spells.

Xayah will look to poke you down in lane with Summon Aery and deny you cs + waves. The fact that she can also poke you under tower with this build makes it a very hard early game matchup

As with most ADCs that have strong damaging spells early, your trade patterns consist of short trades to proc your passive Second Skin when her abilities are on cooldown. Long engagements on her are tricky as you need to position in order to chase her but at the same time not get hit by her E Bladecaller.

If she uses Q Double Daggers at max range followed by E [bladecaller]] and she misses she is down on important cooldowns and can be engaged upon. Look for these windows to fight her and after lvl 6 abuse her long R Featherstorm cooldown.

The change from the usual Galeforce Crit build to the Eclipse lethality build has made new problems for Kai'Sa and solved old ones. The harder early game and mid game are definitely big problems for Kai'Sa as we have mentioned before, but the late game team fights are easier as now Xayah is completely reliant on hitting her feathers as she misses AS items and her AAs do not hit as hard without Crit.

Your goal is to dodge as much as poke as you can during the laning phase and get to your powek spike items. Beware though as her 2 items power spike of Eclipse + Muramana is stronger than yours.


Ziggs can be really good into Kai'Sa as he can push the wave with relative ease and deny her engages with his W Satchel Charge and E Hexplosive Minefield, but if Kai'Sa manages to surprise him, he is as good as dead.

Flash Heal are the Summoner choices for this matchup. Teleport can be picked up if you are afraid of getting chunked and in order to match the TP timing of Ziggs.

Basically what you want to do is NOT stay in minions because the easiest way for him to poke you is by Q'ing Bouncing Bomb the minions and then the splash damage will hit you as it’s very big, so stay on the side of the wave instead.

His Win Condition is to deny you CS and poke you down from afar without ever getting close to being in danger. In a perfect world he would love his jungler to play bot side so he can take your tower early with his W Satchel Charge.

You can only trade onto him after he uses his E Hexplosive Minefield as the mines can deny your ability to walk up to him. His W Satchel Charge cooldown is also long so abuse this whenever he uses it for Manaflow Band procs or to get away from a bad fight.

You can punish Ziggs when he gets to your tower as his abilities will no longer cover enough ground that you cannot catch up to him, though you need to let your support engage on him first. Tracking cooldowns is your friend here, check out the wiki and practice trading when his abilities (mainly E Hexplosive Minefield) is on cooldown.

Teamfighting against Ziggs can be really rough because at this point his cooldowns are low and his R Mega Inferno Bomb will deal a lot of damage even on the outskirts. Try to kill the closest people available and dodge his abilities. Once he is surrounded or engaged on by one of your teammates, he is an easy target.

Your goal is to not get poked out too much and get denied CS as you need to get your items as soon as possible in order to split push. Ziggs should require to stay midlane during the midgame as he cannot side lane against you but in most cases the enemy mid will also be a target that you can 1v1 so you will have a target that you can take fights against in the sidelane after you get your mythic item.



Alistar
Bard
Blitzcrank
Brand
Braum
Galio
Janna
Karma
Leona
Lulu
Lux
Maokai
Morgana
Nami
Nautilus
Pantheon
Pyke
Rakan
Rell
Senna
Seraphine
Sett
Shaco
Sona
Soraka
Swain
Taric
Thresh
Vel'Koz
Xerath
Yuumi
Zilean
Zyra
PLAYING WITH

In general, Kai'Sa fits well with CC supports due to the fact that any hard CC applied on the opponent also applies a stack of Plasma. Hence Alistar works very well with Kai'Sa for that exact reason.

Your level 1 will be very weak into anything that outranges you as Alistar is especially useless at this point. You should either concede the lane for the first 3 waves and pick up the scraps or avoid leashing in order to attempt to get a cheese level 1 or the push. The latter would allow you to secure level 2 first and attempt an all-in.

This lane is dictated by Alistar (as almost any lane with a CC support) so you should aim to follow up on his engages rather than create your own. The most you can do is bait the enemy to engage onto you by forcing a trade and rely on the Alistar to counter-engage. Depending on the matchup this can secure the 2v2 win.

Keep in mind that your biggest spikes are level 2 (when you and Alistar gain access to Q, W), your first reset when you get Serrated Dirk, which is the best 1st reset item component in the game and at level 6 when you acquire your ultimate as it will make dancing around the 2v2 much easier on an Alistar engage. Dives post Alistar level 6 are also a choice if you are snowballing the lane.

PLAYING AGAINST

Alistar is just as a good support to have as it is to face. Kai’sa is generally good into CC supports more than into ranged and hence any melee vs melee matchup generally will favor the Kai'Sa.

Abuse the fact that he is weak level one and get the push in order to secure the level 2. Take a look at Alistar’s summoners as that changes the way you can play the lane. If Alistar has Aftershock, it will become harder to force an all-in on him as he will just respond with Pulverize and proc it. If instead he has Lethal Tempo or Glacial Augment, it’s very easy to force an engage on him if out of position as he won’t have the survivability without Unbreakable Will.

Punish him at level 1 for every minion that he wants to take with his stacks and watch out as you always will be in engage range from level 2 when you try to poke him with autoattacks.

In teamfights, you should aim to wait out his combo before committing to a target or using your ult.

PLAYING WITH

It’s important to play around the minion waves with a Bard as he can easily stun the enemies if you’re fighting inside one, Bard also has healing with his W Caretaker's Shrine which allows you to trade a lot with the enemy especially if their support doesn’t have any healing.

If Bard misses Q Cosmic Binding then be extremely careful for around 10 seconds as that’s his only offensive tool in 2v2 fights, however if he does land it then make sure to get some damage off, either in a small trade to pop your Plasma or an all in if you think you’ll win.

In general your lane is very weak because Bard will like to roam around the map for ganks or meeps and hence you’ll be likely to be left alone at one point. Identify when the enemy can dive you and run away from the tower to clear camps to maximize your economy at that point.

PLAYING AGAINST

Try to bait the Bard Q Cosmic Binding as soon as possible; look to sidestep or E to the side and then use the 10 seconds window to walk up and trade with your autos until it’s back up. Keep in mind that Bard offers healing to the enemy ADC with his W Caretaker's Shrine so be careful not to trade evenly unless your support heals more. His shrines are likely placed behind his minion wave or in bushes so be careful with extended trades where you chase them.

Because of your low range and probability that you have stay in your minion wave to auto the enemy wave, it’s possible that Bard will have a lot of opportunities to land a Q stun on you so take care of your positioning and make sure there is at least another minion behind you that you can Q through.

Later one he’s pretty easy to play against as his CC is conditional and your mobility and invisibility makes it impossible for him to land his skillshots.

PLAYING WITH

Blitzcrank is a decent matchup for you. You generally prefer a melee support that can commit to a fight, but Blitzcrank is a fine choice especially into long-range supports as he can bypass the engage range with his Q Rocket Grab.

His Q Rocket Grab and E Power Fist both apply Plasma stacks so you’ll only need 3 more stacks (either 3 autoattacks via Hail of Blades or with W Void Seeker last). Therefore if he ever lands a hook you should commit to the all-in as you’ll force a Flash for sure.

Beware if they manage to stack 3+ waves as that will make it easy for them to poke you without worrying about the hook. Your go chances are when the wave in your tower is trimmed or when the wave is frozen just outside it, but you should ideally only start the trade yourself if the enemy is extremely out of position. Otherwise it’s best to wait for Blitzcrank to initiate the play.

Post level 6 your burst potential is very high, but watch out as Blitzcrank will look to roam and you’ll be likely left alone.

PLAYING AGAINST

This champion completely relies on hitting his Q Rocket Grab on you in order to be useful. It’s extremely important to stand behind minions and slow push waves to make it harder for him to hit his Q Rocket Grab. That’s usually hard for you to do because you are low ranged and have no wave clear so look to do that when the wave bounces from your turret (most likely after the first 3 waves).

If you’re crossing into Blitzcrank's side of the lane and you have no idea where the enemy jungler is make sure to ward, otherwise you can easily get ganked as Blitzcrank has great gank setup once he’s Level 3 vs you since he can just Flash + E Power Fist.

Later on, watch out for fog (fog of war) and never face check into it because Blitzcrank will probably be waiting there for a pick. In fights if you see Blitzcrank stepping up, remember to hold your E Supercharge to dodge his hook or kite back behind your team as he can also Flash and E Power Fist you.

PLAYING WITH

Brand is not very strong at level 1 due to him not having access to his stun, however his poke is quite strong and he can shift the priority of the lane by himself. However, once he uses W Pillar of Flame on the wave he is susceptible to engages and you, as Kai'Sa, don’t have the disengage or damage to win the trade afterwards. Hence it’s really important to show up first in lane against most matchups as it gives you the ability to control the lane without having to rely on Brand.

Once he has his combo try to focus on short trades, but don’t be the one to engage. Wait for him to land his stun, otherwise you are likely to get run down if you commit too hard.

In general this lane is not very favourable for you and you should try to snowball given the Brand is good enough to land his skillshots. If not play on the backfoot and try to reach your power spikes to come online as Brand does it anyway at one item disregarding his level.

PLAYING AGAINST

Brand’s most important skills of his kit in lane phase are his W Pillar of Flame (which is the main damage source) and his Q Sear (which enables his stun). Both of these are skillshots and if you dodge either of them with your E Supercharge, you either dodge his main damage combo (with passive Blaze application) or his stun which allows you to engage into a trade and chase him.

As mentioned previously, Brand is weak level 1, however into Kai'Sa, he has the advantage that because of Kai'Sa’s low range she will most likely be in her minion wave. Therefore, he can just aim the skillshot at her and regardless of whether you dodge it or not, he will hit the minion wave getting the push. Try to look to stay in the sides of the wave when possible to deter the Brand from getting a value W Pillar of Flame as a push from Brand will likely end up in a stack crash and you will end up conceding minions under tower.

Since Brand's a mage, he’s completely useless without his abilities; if you notice that he either used all of his abilities on your support, is out of mana or simply has them on cooldown, consider an all-in.

Be very careful of sticking together with your teammates whenever Brand's Level 6 since his ultimate Pyroclasm will bounce between targets and deal A LOT of damage if you don’t split apart quickly.

PLAYING WITH

Braum is a very weak pairing for Kai'Sa just like any other wardens as you generally don’t want to play on the backfoot. His CC is conditional on you applying autoattacks on the enemies and therefore not reliable.

He also has a general weakness into ranged champions and especially supports, just like Kai'Sa which means that hard matchups will becomes even harder. His level one in lane is weak and hence he can’t help you with contesting the first wave either. If you don’t want to give up your lane for the first 3 waves you will need to circumvent leashing and try to cheese from the bush or simply get the push first.

If your Braum misses his Q Winter's Bite in early levels then be extra careful as he’s kinda useless without it but if it hits then you can most likely get a really good free trade. Beware if you play into double ranged on bot as if you commit too hard to the trade, they will poke you down on your way out.

PLAYING AGAINST

You shouldn’t have any issues playing vs Braum as long as you stay behind minions / support to prevent him from landing Q Winter's Bite on you.

Braum's at his weakest whenever his E Unbreakable is on cooldown as that’s his main defensive tool and it has a HUGE cooldown of 16 seconds so fight whenever it’s down but be cautious of his Q Winter's Bite. If you enter an all-in with Braum’s E Unbreakable up, then he will most likely block your Q Icathian Rain which makes up to 40% of your full damage output.

PLAYING WITH
Galio is another one of those good matchups for you as he has a lot of lockdown in his kit, is able to answer you committing with R Killer Instinct into the opponents with his own R Hero's Entrance and makes up for your lack of good waveclear with his Q Winds of War.

Galio relies on combo-ing his abilities in order to lock down & oneshot the target, so don’t expect too much from him level 1 UNLESS he manages to land his W Shield of Durand / E Justice Punch in which case you can walk up and get some free damage on whomever he locks down.

If Galio starts with Q Winds of War then he’s only useful when hitting the wave along with poking the enemies. Try to hit the wave when he does that as his after-Q AoE will zone out the enemies of certain positions and that allows you to hit the wave without getting hit back. Beware that the CD is still high early and you can’t force all-ins or trades until he is level 3.

The synergy is quite good as with his Q Winds of War and passive Colossal Smash he can help you trim waves against dives or set up a push in lanes where you want to control it.

PLAYING AGAINST

Be careful of walking too close to the bushes as Galio LOVES to sit in them patiently waiting for you to walk close enough for him to W Shield of Durand. So long you have vision or play away from the bushes you should be fine since he has a hard time engaging onto you. Be VERY FOCUSED against him since he will try to Flash + E Shield of Durand you so he can guarantee his spells or straight up flashing in with Nimbus Cloak and running at you.

Later on it should be very easy to kite him as he no longer has any flashy ways to engage (W+F combo removed) and he’ll attempt to act as a secondary engage most likely.

Otherwise this matchup should be quite safe and you shouldn’t have issues scaling up into your spikes.

PLAYING WITH

Janna has quite a bit of poke damage and range with her W Zephyr level 1 so I suggest slow pushing the wave and attacking the enemy together since her slow should guarantee you get some free damage on them. It’s quite hard to all-in the opponents with Janna and instead you should focus on doing short trades and chip away their HP little by little BUT if Janna manages to land a Q Howling Gale on the enemy that could result in a hefty chunk of HP or even all-in if scenarios are right.

PLAYING AGAINST

Janna is a 50-50 matchup as she usually has enough range to constantly poke you down with W Zephyr, but assuming your support can react to that you can freely trade back with auto+Q Howling Gale and win the trade, though it depends heavily on the AD matchup as well. If you know your support can’t help with trading then try to play around the botside of the lane and abuse bush vision to gain a favorable trade position.

A Janna lane typically has the push into you, but you can let her W [[you once deep inside your wave as that will draw aggro and force the minions to reset it onto the same enemy minion. You can only use this trick on the first wave, but it’s quite useful for cheating lane.

It’s also important to take note of Janna at all times as she is likely to use fog (bush or out of range) to charge her Q Howling Gale. It’s generally good to stay outside the minion wave to not allow her to get a 2-for-1 situation (just like in the Brand matchup, if you stay inside the wave her Q Howling Gale will at the very least push the wave). Take note that this is situational depending on what state you’d like the wave in.

PLAYING WITH

Karma provides a lot of poke and boosts your waveclear with her Q Inner Flame, specially with Mantra. Her Mantra E Inspire will help run down enemy laners or disengage. Don’t trade when her E Inspire shield is on cooldown since that’s what you need to base your trades on.

Her waveclear along with long range allows her to 1v2 the lane for the first couple of waves, allowing you to hit your level 2 spike where you can start fighting.

Later on, she becomes useful as either with Moonstone Renewer or Shurelya's Battlesong she can empower you with her R+E during fights which gives you even more mobility during the teamfights.
Take note that she’s not a melee support and hence your all-ins in lane will depend on you to choose. You can mark a low-hp target with your W and look to R>Q in once you believe you can kill them.

PLAYING AGAINST

Karma’s by far the enchanter with the most damage in laning phase and A LOT of people struggle to play against her; Stay horizontally away from her and keep a minion wave between you so she’s not able to land her Q’s Inner Flame on you. Be careful of not staying too close to the minions since it could make the splash damage hurt you.

Be careful of entering into lane as a lot of Karmas like to R Mantra + Q Inner Flame whenever you walk up to the minion wave and it’s kinda hard to counter that if you are forced to leash your jungler. The WORST thing that you can do against Karma is walking up aggro into the enemy botlane without any minion protection when she has R Mantra + Q Inner Flame available as you’ll get extremely slowed & damaged if you get hit which easily leads into you dying.

Try to bait Karma R Mantra + Q Inner Flame as soon as you can, then walk up to trade whenever it’s on cooldown, which is 7 seconds; NEVER walk up if she has R Mantra + Q Inner Flame up.

Only look to trade against the enemy botlane whenever Karma's E Inspire is on cooldown.

If she lands a W Focused Resolve (tether) on you, don’t try to run out of it with E Supercharge as the range of it is quite big. Instantly Flash + E Supercharge out to break it if you’re close to dying or turn the fight.

If your supports matches your Kai'Sa pick then it might be good because melee supports thrive into Karma especially after acquiring levels 2-3 when they unlock their engage skills.

PLAYING WITH

Leona is quite weak level 1. The only way to all-in or trade at level 1 to gain control of the lane is to cheese in a bush before minions spawn and engage behind their minion wave once they crash with her Flash + Q Shield of Daybreak.

Just like the other melee support choices mentioned in the guide, Leona is a good pairing for you and actually one of the best in the game as her full kit can apply 3 stacks of Plasma. Her Q Shield of Daybreak being on low CD also means that she can dance in a fight and apply multiple stacks directly from level 1. To abuse this you can try to cheese in a bush to gain the upper hand as an isolated Q Icathian Rain from you and a Q from Leona will definitely force the enemy to either Flash or use all their potions.

You play this lane as a follow-up to her engages and from level 6, you can always R in to the target that she lands her CC on as it’s most likely to CC-lock them for >2 seconds.

PLAYING AGAINST

Leona’s quite weak level 1 as she doesn’t have access to both her Q Shield of Daybreak and E Zenith Blade. Beware of her level 1 when entering lane as she is very good at forcing level 1 all ins with Flash+Q when hiding in the lane bush before the minion waves hit each other.

After level 2 your low range will allow her to almost always be in range of E Zenith Blade + Q Shield of Daybreak if you choose to play on her side so it’s ideal to play diagonally from her in the lane. This way she has to commit a Flash/Hexflash to get in range of the combo. It’s easy to sidestep it however as the windup for E animation is quite big.

Regardless, you should always opt into taking Cleanse as it negates her kit. Watch out to either Cleanse her R Solar Flare (if she chooses to engage with that) to then E Supercharge out of her E Zenith Blade, or her Q Shield of Daybreak after she E’d you. If she chooses to opt into Flash + E Zenith Blade + Q Shield of Daybreak, you are forced to Cleanse right after Q Shield of Daybreak hits, because it has a longer duration. Cleanse too early and her Q Shield of Daybreak cc still hits which allows her to R Solar Flare you, Cleanse too late and her R Solar Flare will catch you anyway.

In fights, play away from her or wait for your Cleanse to be able to survive any engage attempts.

PLAYING WITH

Lulu is one of the only options that is non-melee that can work well with you as her kit synergizes well with your passive Second Skin and it accelerates your spikes massively. Lulu is also quite strong in lane even from level 1 as she can choose to either start Q Glitterlance or E Help, Pix! and trade aggressively which allows you to play as you want. Hence when Lulu trades you can either fix the wave or join the trade if she started Q as the slow is strong enough to allow a short trade.

The most important trading tool of hers is her E Help, Pix!, which is on a 8s cooldown. Try to play around it if the Lulu plays more deep and won’t force trades herself.

Later on, her W Whimsy and E Help, Pix! empower your survivability which is Kai'Sa’s biggest weakness considering the raw damage already existing in her kit either via her W Whimsy or R Wild Growth. Look to play close to her to allow her to cast her buffs on you.

PLAYING AGAINST

Walk up and try to bait the Lulu shield away; you can freely trade with them for 8 seconds once it's gone. Do not trade 1v1 against her if you’re in range of her abilities.

Lulu has a lot of shields and protection so make sure that the enemies don’t get an unexpected shield / ulti from Lulu if you do decide to all-in as you can easily get baited by that and maybe die.

PLAYING WITH

She will constantly be looking to poke with her E Lucent Singularity since it slows the enemies before dealing the damage, you can use this to hit your abilities more easily. If she hits the wave this also helps obtain lane prio. You could be looking to trade off her W Prismatic Barrier shield but it’s quite insignificant.

This is generally not a very good pairing for you, and you best chance to get a lead through lane is if she lands a clutch binding. Otherwise you should be looking to farm up and try to survive most matchups you face.

PLAYING AGAINST

Keep at least 2 minions between you and her so she can’t land Q Light Binding on you, since it can only hit 2 targets. Mainly you just wait for her to use Q Light Binding if you want to all-in and E Lucent Singularity/W Prismatic Barrier if you want to trade. Stay as healthy as possible and all-in as soon as you can since she is pretty bad in all-ins if she can’t land/doesn’t have her spells. Focus on punishing her cooldowns and when she runs out of mana.

It’s quite impossible to dodge her E Lucent Singularity as even with your E Supercharge, her range is long enough that you won’t have time to react or she will predict your Q Icathian Rain and look to follow up with her Q Light Binding afterwards.

It’s important to know which minions to give up (especially casters) as this is a very hard lane. Look for your spikes ( Serrated Dirk, Level 6, Level 9, etc) to create openings as she’s really weak against an all-in.

PLAYING WITH
Maokai is quite useless Level 1 so don’t expect much help, basically think of the lane as 1v2 unless the enemies walk into his saplings. Worst case scenario you can just fall back to the turret and let the enemy get level 2 first. Remember to be careful of being too far up if they do get level 2 first since they can potentially collapse on you.

The only option for you level 1 to win an all-in is via a cheese with his W Twisted Advance. This however has downsides as once he uses the skill it will follow the opposition even if they Flash. This can lead to you not being able to be in range to participate in it.

Before level 6, look to follow up on his engages if he lands his saplings on the opponent and in general play around the bushes as those are safe spots because of Maokai’s saplings. He runs out of mana pretty fast if he spams them so take care when that happens and retreat to a safer position.

After level 6 a F+W engage from Maokai is undodgeable and this can easily set up kills on opponents with no response (either no mobility or no flashes). In case the enemy reacts with their own escape tool, try to focus whoever is closer to you as you’ll waste a lot of DPS in the all-in if you chase after Maokai’s target.

PLAYING AGAINST

Maokai will most likely start his E Sapling Toss in which case all you have to do is stay away from the bushes as he will usually stack a bunch of saplings in the bush waiting for you to walk into it. Be extremely careful walking into the tri bush if you’re leashing. If he didn’t start his saplings be careful of his level 2 since he most likely will look to jump onto you or your support.

Your range is very low so beware of his Flash + W Twisted Advance engage as you can’t dodge it at all. In fights it’s best to position between your teammates in case the enemy Maokai decides to engage on you. If you have good reactions it’s also possible to R Killer Instinct + Q Icathian Rain before he uses W Twisted Advance to deny it and wait for your team to engage the flashless Maokai that is in your frontline.

PLAYING WITH

Morgana relies heavily on hitting her Q Dark Binding in lane to find opportunities. Her E Black Shield can deny most engages and with her W she can bypass your low prowess in getting lane priority.

Depending on her start you have different ways to play. If Morgana opens with her Q Dark Binding, you can wait for a binding to land and create a short trade with it. If Morgana opens with her W Tormented Shadow then you’ll look to play with the wave and attempt to get level 2 faster than the opponents.

She is a pretty bad pairing for Kai'Sa as her CC is conditional and she doesn’t offer anything impactful other than the E Black Shield which needs to have a very good timing to be usable. In general you’ll play the lane from behind waiting to hit your spikes.

PLAYING AGAINST

Morgana’s only offensive ability pre-6 is her Q Dark Binding, which is a very slow projectile and also gets blocked by minions so make sure to stand behind minions as much as possible, basically NEVER walk up outside of minions unless she just Q’d and it’s on cooldown. Don’t ever E Supercharge forward if you chase after the minion wave unless Morgana’s Q Dark Binding is down as it would make it really easy for her to land it and turn around the fight.

Beware of the gaps created by the two lines in a wave (melee line and ranged line). There is generally a diagonal through the lane through which Morgana can through a bind supposing you are playing diagonal from her. Her hitbox is quite big so the angle will be very small, but the hitbox detection at the end acts like a Thresh hook and could catch you off-guard.

PLAYING WITH

You can trade a lot against the enemy so long as you don’t walk past the enemy’s melee minions and get engaged while tanking minions. Focus on trading with her E Tidecaller's Blessing on you and healing back up with her W Ebb and Flow.

Even trades are always worth UNLESS the enemy bot lane also has a healing support in which case you have to be a bit more cautious about it.

You can even win hard lanes vs the likes of Kalista + Leona if you dodge Leona’s CC properly with either Q Aqua Prison or Cleanse. Your hardest matchups are long range poke like mage support with Ashe/ Caitlyn/ Varus.

When you reach level 9 you reach your hardest spike with Nami’s Imperial Mandate and W Ebb and Flow maxed. Once she buffs you with E Tidecaller's Blessing, you can do 70% of anyone’s HP with 3 autoattacks and Hail of Blades so look to abuse that in fights.

PLAYING AGAINST

Unless you have a healing support do not look to trade against this lane because they’ll just heal back up and you will lose every trade. You need to wait for her to waste both her W Ebb and Flow and E Tidecaller's Blessing if you want to ever win a trade. Q Aqua Prison is as very slow projectile that you can easily dodge if you keep your distance or with your E Supercharge.

Look to all-in the Nami when she trades into you with W Ebb and Flow, otherwise you won’t find many opportunities to outplay her lane.

PLAYING WITH

Just like Leona this is an easy lane to play for you because of the synergy between your champions. Your kill pressure gets high the more you level up and at level 6 with just a Serrated Dirk recall you can look to all-in in most lanes.

You can easily follow a long-range Nautilus engage with your R Killer Instinct so you should focus on dodging incoming skillshots or repositioning before using your dash.

Letting the enemy push into you also enables Nautilus to find more opportunities for hooks when the wave gets trimmed either before tower or under it.

PLAYING AGAINST

Always keep minions between you and him so that he’s unable to hook you. Slow pushing is highly effective against him for this same reason.

Your small range is not an issue because of the conditional ability for Nautilus to hit a hook. However as he gets 6, you will start losing lane because of his ability to lock you down without having the ability to dodge the CC. If he ever misses a hook you can look to turn on him as he doesn’t have any innate tank abilities like other CC supports.

Beware in fights and wait for him to use his ultimate before jumping in with R Killer Instinct + Q Icathian Rain so that you won’t get locked down. Positioning is also important as he can also catch you with an R Depth Charge on one of your teammates so look to E Supercharge to the side if that ever happens.

A nice trick that you can do is in case he ever Flashes to R Depth Charge you, there is a small timeframe in which you can instantly E Supercharge if you have it evolved to cancel the ability.

PLAYING WITH

Pantheon sees less play in the support role, but he is still effective at what he does. His all-in potential is one of the highest of any support and he pairs damage with a lot of raw front-loaded damage. This synergizes really well with your kit and it’s probably the best matchup that you can have for the lane phase.

You should look to always play aggressive and match Pantheon whenever he steps up to poke or to engage in an all-in as you win almost every matchup, bar Kalista+ Leona and the likes of it.

Also beware when you all-in if the enemy has Cleanse as it’s a direct counter to Pantheon and you won’t be able to win the fight further.

PLAYING AGAINST

Cleanse is very good against him since his goal in every lane is to oneshot you in a CC spell rotation. His goal will be to slow push waves and roam when they crash, mainly after 6; pings and wards are important if you’re ever shoved in. A good way to counter him is to keep him low HP and under tower. Play very aggressively whenever his W Shield Vault is on cooldown or he has 0 passive Mortal Will stacks.

Look to stay out of range of his W at all times because the reaction timer for his Flash + W Shield Vault is really low. Your aim is to play diagonally from him, let him shove and farm under tower.

PLAYING WITH

Pyke is pretty much a roaming champ so he wants to slow push waves and rotate when they crash. Pyke’s largely have two ways of playing, either for all-in or for a pick, changing the commitment level that they initially make for a play. The default stance they have is to stay in fog and charge their Q Bone Skewer to attempt a pick as trying to land a hook in the middle of the lane is impossible through the minion wave.

He is anti-synergetic with Kai'Sa because he prefers having someone set up his hook or someone that can push fast. Kai'Sa does neither and hence in this lane you’re likely to be left alone after a bounce resulting in you needing to scrap for resources. Collect only minions that you can get (melee, cannons) and run away from the tower if you are alone and the enemy is crashing 3+ waves.

If Pyke tries playing through lane then pay attention and wait for an opportunity when he either lands a Q Bone Skewer or if chooses to E Phantom Undertow + Flash over the opponents.

PLAYING AGAINST

Stay inside minion waves to avoid getting hooked by him. His goal is to slow push while looking for all-ins and roam when they crash. Focus on warding and not letting him crash waves. If he ever wastes his hook you can play aggressively. Be careful of him E Phantom Undertow’ing forwards and then Flashing behind you to guarantee the stun; track his flash and be ready to react to his whenever it’s up. Stay out of range whenever your Flash is on cooldown. After 6 it’s important to stay very healthy so he can’t go in with his ult Death from Below and kill you.

It’s not very hard to predict his E+F combo but you should look to always Flash it instead of E Supercharge as the animation is slower than that of Pyke’s E Phantom Undertow.

Short trades are not very useful due to his passive Gift of the Drowned Ones so it’s best to play conservatively to scale to your spikes.

PLAYING WITH

Rakan is a support that is jack of all trades meaning that while he doesn’t excel at either laning nor roaming, neither of them are weak. His biggest strength is in his engages post-6 however. He should have W Grand Entrance level 1 so be ready to hit whoever he knocks up. His Q Gleaming Quill provides a bit of sustain during the lane. Don’t get baited by his engages, remember he can easily disengage with his E Battle Dance, just make sure you’re in range for him to E Battle Dance you so he can get in and out of fights.

Since his kit plays around swift trades before level 6 you can start with E Supercharge and then commit to your full damage output on the opponent that he has found to then retreat and continue laning. You should do this until the enemy is in kill range (when they are low enough and have no potions or summoners to survive the next engage).

You most likely won’t have priority in lane, but like all all-in lanes, you can bypass that if you don’t leash and cheese in a bush at level 1.

PLAYING AGAINST

This matchup becomes harder the more the game progresses due to Rakan’s engage getting better once he reaches level 6. In lane it’s quite easy to dodge his W Grand Entrance with your E Supercharge so never look to trade with E Supercharge first into the enemy, instead keeping it to dodge the re-engage from Rakan. This isn’t necessarily bad as it allows you to farm freely while waiting for your spikes and using E Supercharge preemptively in a trade will likely make the enemy retreat from it and get out with a small win.

Once he gets 6, you’ll have to play further back as his R The Quickness > E Battle Dance > Flash > W Grand Entrance is undodgeable almost. Play deeper and wait for opportunities both in lane and in fights as otherwise you’ll get caught out.

PLAYING WITH

Rell will always begin with W Ferromancy - Crash Down / Mount Up level 1 and here she has two modes of playing her level 1. Because of your high all-in potential level 1, it’s very easy to actively play the lane at the beginning. Her E Attract and Repel also synergizes really well once you hit level 6 as you can land a long-range W Ferromancy - Crash Down / Mount Up and dive freely into the opponent while also applying her E Attract and Repel stun.

Rell excels at peeling due to her E, so into hard engage matchups she can also act like a warden. So long as you are not heavily out-ranged you can look to trade more aggressively after your first base, relying on Rell to stun whoever engages on you to then re-engage into them for the all-in.

Into long-range matchups you are forced to play the lane from level 1 so skip leashing your jungler as that will likely force you under tower.

PLAYING AGAINST

Rell will always begin with W Ferromancy - Crash Down / Mount Up level 1 and here she has two modes of playing her level 1. Either she stays mounted and awaits for a fast trade level 1, against which you can just poke her down when she goes for last hits on her support item using E Supercharge to dodge her W Ferromancy - Crash Down / Mount Up, or more likely she’ll use W Ferromancy - Crash Down / Mount Up preemptively in lane to gain the shield and negate your level 1 poke. Depending on the full matchup, you might want to attack the wave instead to contest for level 2. Her W Ferromancy - Crash Down / Mount Up cooldown is 13 seconds so it’s easily abusable if she misses it or uses it to gain pseudo-hp in a small trade.

Should you dodge her W Ferromancy - Crash Down / Mount Up it’s very easy to kite due to her low movement speed so feel free to re-engage and run her down.

The main issue comes later on in teamfights where you’ll have to split up from your teammates in order to dodge a possible Rell engage with Flash > W Ferromancy - Crash Down / Mount Up > R Magnet Storm > E Attract and Repel. Once stuck in her ult it breaks Kai'Sa’s mobility so your champions strength is nullified and you’ll be forced to R away to reposition.

During teamfights beware of her position as she can always play in a flank to wait for your engage. You should keep your ult up to reposition from her engage.

PLAYING WITH

Yet another anti-synergetic champion, Senna is a support that looks to trade really aggressively due to her range, heal and passive Absolution. Her kit can carry your level 1 if played properly, but watch out not to overextend in lane as you’ll draw minion aggro more likely than her if you match her trades. Currently all Senna’s run either Fleet Footwork or Grasp of the Undying (due to the change to Glacial Augment) so it’s harder to follow up on her trades in general.

Consider her in lane as a ladder that boosts your lane phase and accelerates your ability to contest CS and trade more safely. Watch out that since you are both ranged and squishy, you can get dove even without a 3+ wave stack.

PLAYING AGAINST

She wants to trade on you as much as possible so play around your support so you both trade on her when she walks up. Be careful to never get hit for free since she can heal and stack a soul when she AA+Q Piercing Darkness’s.

PLAYING WITH

She’s quite weak before level 3 and she will probably just poke a little bit with Q High Note or E Beat Drop, so you should play passively until then. Only trade when Seraphine has her shield up so that you take less damage than your opponent.

Just like Senna she’s very squishy and has low disengage ability so beware of low wave stacks or jungle dives.

Trade patterns are pretty straight-forward, if she lands a Echoed E Beat Drop then you can play for the trade, otherwise it’s best to leave her finish the trade and back off, only joining if the enemy finds an opportunity to re-engage into her.

PLAYING AGAINST

Because of her weak early laning (pre-3) and the fact that you can easily dodge her E Beat Drop which is her most important skill, you should have a pretty easy time against her. Just like any ranged supports that have AoE, you should look to not sit in your minion wave as that gives her an easy way to either poke you or push the wave.

Under tower, don’t greed for ranged creeps and try to pick up whatever you can without getting poked down too much.

If an engage happens, it’s usually easy to kill the Seraphine once out of position but watch out when chasing as her E Beat Drop can completely shut it down.

You can also opt into taking Cleanse as it’s useful against her ultimate Encore, but this also comes down to the full matchup.

PLAYING WITH

You have to be prepared to follow Sett's engages at all times as they can be quite sudden at times since he wants to Flash in a lot. Just like Pantheon this matchup is really easy for you to play as Sett can also tank a lot of the poke of the opponents due to his passive along with a really solid engage with either Flash or hexflash.

Slow pushing is very good with Sett and dives are not that hard because of his huge W Haymaker shield.

This lane plays a bit like the Pantheon one so your main role is to follow your support.

PLAYING AGAINST

Be very careful level 1 if you don’t know what ability he has since they usually level E Facebreaker and Flash in on the first wave. If he has W Haymaker or Q Knuckle Down play aggressively and poke him as much as you can. Remember to not walk up if he has Flash/Hexflash and your Flash is on CD.

Because Kai'Sa has such low waveclear in her kit, it makes it quite impossible, but if you can you should attempt to stack waves and harass Sett when you crash the wave under tower. While his passive regen is strong the lower his HP pool is, you can bait out his potions or W Haymaker which puts him in lethal range later on. Beware of sitting near your ranged creeps too closely as that makes it easy for him to Flash > E Facebreaker you.

PLAYING WITH

This matchup acts like the Maokai one, but to an even worse level. Unless the enemy support is Rakan, you are pretty much playing the lane 1v2. You can’t really play with him either so your best chance is to salvage as much of this lane phase as possible.

PLAYING AGAINST

Shaco's quite useless if you purchase the Oracle Lens trinket level 1 so I definitely recommend doing that or having your support do it; basically as you’re entering into the lane use it and then get rid of all of the boxes which pretty much renders him useless.

Be careful not to overextend into their side of the lane as there could be a bunch of boxes lurking there, so make sure to sweep if you’re uncertain.

Shaco support being the enemy allows you to pretty much always get the push regardless of the enemy AD so you have more options while playing the lane depending on the state of your jungler and support.

PLAYING WITH

Try to trade if she uses her Q Hymn of Valor by harassing the enemy bot lane and play passively until level 6 where you could all-in if she lands a stun and you have enough of an HP advantage. Overall you should focus on farming and scaling alongside her.

PLAYING AGAINST

It’s quite hard to stay out of her Q Hymn of Valor range so make sure to trade back into her if she chooses to do so. Play on her side of the lane to enable it and always ward her bush to discourage her from trading into you. After level 2, her W Aria of Perseverance shield makes it a bit harder to win the trade as she will also out-damage you until level 6.

After hitting your spike (level 9) you can treat her like a ranged creep.

PLAYING WITH

Play parallel to her so that when she walks up to Q Starcall you can auto attack or harass them easily with the slow if it does. If they have no heals or shields don’t be afraid to trade aggressively since Soraka can heal you back up. You two will be very weak to hard engage so play cautiously if the enemy team has any.

PLAYING AGAINST

Focus mainly on dodging her Q Starcall so she can’t heal and harassing her over the ADC so that she loses as much health as possible; once she’s in lethal go in so the fight is essentially 1v2 instantly. Play around whatever engage you have in your team since she’s really weak to it.

So long as you can consistently poke her while dodging her Q Starcall she has no self-sustain, so poking her under tower can easily lead to kills or big leads.

PLAYING WITH

You have to be prepared to trade or engage whenever Swain lands his E Nevermove; if he misses his E Nevermove then back off for 10 seconds until it’s back up as Swain’s practically useless without it. You have really good trades but mainly you want to play on your side of the lane and counter engage or trade them down to lethal and kill them off Swain’s E Nevermove.

Generally this is a bad pairing for you as Swain is a rather self-centered support so you’ll have to make do with whatever you can get.

PLAYING AGAINST

There’s one ability that you have to be wary of, Swain’s E Nevermove. It doesn’t matter if you hide behind your minions as the ability will hit you if your the last target it passes through. Learn the range of his E Nevermove and always play a bit more forward in your minion line. Remember that E-ing aggressively is always better into Swain than dodging back or to the side.

If his E is on cooldown (10s) you are playing the lane 2v1 so feel free to punish the enemy ADC on every minion.

Your kit hard counters his so as the game progresses you should be able to shred him easily.

PLAYING WITH

Taric’s level one is incredibly weak so you should give up the wave and prepare for a wave stack. Once Taric hits level 3 it becomes a bit more playable especially into engage supports because of the immediate peel and good low-ranged ability of both champions. Take every fight where the enemy engages on Taric and you are not in lethal range. Into ranged matchups it won’t get better at all and your best opportunity will be to engage with R Killer Instinct > Q Icathian Rain into them at level 6 abusing Taric’s W Bastion to land a long-distance stun.

Your aim should be to survive the early game as you both scale incredibly well with levels and items.

This matchup becomes insanely good however once Taric reaches level 6 and you have enough items to DPS as he can make you invulnerable with his ult Cosmic Radiance right before you R Killer Instinct in. This acts a bit like the Kai'Sa+ Kayle combo that you might have seen IG run at Worlds.

PLAYING AGAINST

This matchup is fairly balanced as you don’t have clear opportunities into him because of his E Dazzle, but nor does he have a way to engage or poke you. You can play this as a hard scaling matchup where you focus on farming and trying to scale as fast as possible (unless you are playing vs Kalista + Taric).

Dodging his E Dazzle with your E Supercharge is fairly simple and that gives you a huge window to trade aggressively into him. Don’t get baited however into fighting him melee range as he outsustain your damage with his healing if he manages to autoattack somebody.

Whenever Taric has ult Cosmic Radiance it’s better to try and bait it and then DISENGAGE until It’s gone; if you’re confident that you can kill the enemies before it procs then go for it as it takes 2.5 seconds for the channel to go through.

PLAYING WITH

Thresh’s level 1 with his E Flay along with your Q Icathian Rain makes for a pretty strong level 1 granted that you can get in range of the opponents. Not leashing is recommended as you can get control of the lane and dictate the pace of it. Any short trade at level 1 should result in the enemy burning one potion at least or even perhaps a summoner spell.

Because he is a pseudo-ranged champion he can aid you quite easily with shoving a wave so that helps your lack of waveclear.

From level 2, when he levels his hook you can start looking for all-ins on his Flash > E Flay or landed hooks. This is a snowball lane and you should treat it as such. Later on however, Thresh cannot commit engage anymore as he is fairly squishy for that role so you’d have to wait for the enemy to engage most likely.

In general the lane is dictated by the Thresh so you should look to follow him on trades.

PLAYING AGAINST

It’s important to know which ability Thresh started, and in order to do so press on him and in the top-left corner you’ll see his champion’s HUD and if you see the Flay Icon in there that means he started Flay, if not he started hook.

Beware of his level 1 trade with E Flay > Auto as that can deal an unexpected amount of damage that you won’t be able to trade back through his Guardian (should he have Guardian and not Glacial Augment or Predator).

If he started Flay simply don’t walk into the Flay range (537) so if you’re always at max range when AA’ing he can’t hit you, and if he started with hook then simply stand behind the minions in order to avoid that. Thresh's pretty weak until he gets his Q Death Sentence - E Flay combo level 2 though so don’t be scared to harass him.

PLAYING WITH

Mage supports are some of the worst synergies for Kai'Sa so you will have to let him lead the lane as you can’t follow most of his trades. As he pokes down the enemy that will give you openings to farm without getting punished so use it as a cheat code to bypass the lane phase.

If you have lane pressure it’s good to stack waves to allow him to land his poke under the enemy tower easily, but beware of the enemy junglers pathing as you both being ranged squishies will attract a lot of unwanted attention.

PLAYING AGAINST

Try to walk up and bait the Vel'Koz to throw out his Q Plasma Fission ASAP, sidestep or E Tectonic Disruption it if you can and then you can trade for around 6 seconds until it’s back up again.

This lane can go either way depending on how much poke Vel'Koz lands on you and on the rest of the champions in this matchup as it can snowball hard either way. It’s best if you don’t let the enemy stack waves in your tower, but it’s likely that it will happen given Vel'Koz’s ability to zone you off the wave with his poke. You can cheat the lane state by forcing him to push the wave faster than he wants (hitting a 2 wave stack instead of a 3 wave stack) by baiting his skillshots (Q Plasma Fission and W Void Rift) to hit the wave.

It’s very important to NEVER get hit by his E Tectonic Disruption as you’ll be knocked up and CC’d which can put you in lethal range easily. Normally you’d have no issue dodging it with E Supercharge, but his Q Plasma Fission makes it hard for you to choose a good place to E Supercharge towards.

PLAYING WITH

This matchup plays exactly like the Vel'Koz one with the exception that it’s even easier for Xerath to hit his poke if you manage to crash a stacked wave under the enemy tower.

Compared to Vel'Koz his CC is also easier to land and stronger allowing you to even get in range and utilize all your spells to proc the passive once.

PLAYING AGAINST

If you’ve never played dodgeball in your life, then this is the best simulator in a video game for it. Your aim will be to dodge his poke throughout the whole lane phase, either with E Supercharge or sidestepping, while farming up as much as you can and hoping either your support or jungler wants to take you out for prom.

It becomes increasingly harder even after first recall where he gets a bit more AP. Boots are your most important buy as it will allow you to save E Supercharge and sidestep the skillshots normally.

Don’t get baited by him missing a skillshot and E-ing or R-ing in immediately forward as that secures an easy E Tectonic Disruption land on you. Instead try to bait him to E Tectonic Disruption you and reposition to the side using your R Killer Instinct.

PLAYING WITH

Yuumi is the weaker version of Lulu for you. She has a weaker lane phase and her scaling doesn’t impact you as much as it would for a bruiser, mage or crit based ADCs. You want to give up the lane entirely and focus on short bursts of trade when the enemy steps up for a minion to then disengage with the movement speed from Yuumi’s E.

Stepping up to allow her to W You and Me! out, autoattack then jump right back on you helps her out a lot with her mana issues to watch the wave state and approach it more aggressively if you see an opportunity for it.

In general you’ll want to wait and scale for your spike. It’s also likely that at level 5-6 Yuumi will leave the lane on your jungler and hence leave you in a 1v2.

PLAYING AGAINST

Stay in the wave level 1 so that Yuumi’s not able to land her Q Prowling Projectile on you as it deals quite a bit of damage, and it also slows you which makes it easy for the enemy ADC to get in range to damage you. If she starts with E Zoomies just poke the ADC down with Q Prowling Projectile to waste Yuumi's mana.

Yuumi’s heal early on is very weak and you can easily trade through it. Generally Yuumi’s put 2 points into Q Prowling Projectile by level 4, so her heal will take until level 7 to spike.

PLAYING WITH

Be careful as Zilean doesn’t do much except dealing some poke damage with his Q Time Bomb so DON'T walk up too deep, simply harass the enemy. Don’t walk up past the enemy melee minions and / or get engaged on by the enemy support.

However, when Zilean reaches level 2 he’s a bit stronger since he’s able to stun the enemy by landing Q Time Bomb into Q Time Bomb which is a small window for you to walk up and trade a bit but it’s going to be hard to all-in unless the enemy is overextended or already low HP prior to the engage.

Generally, Zilean's a scaling champion, his early game isn’t all that great but he becomes a nice support in mid-game with all the movement speed, zoning with his Q Time Bomb as well as the amazing revive with his R Chronoshift. I wouldn’t say that you should trust Zilean 100% to R Chronoshift you though.

PLAYING AGAINST

Try to walk up level 1 & bait the Zilean Q Time Bomb as soon as possible, and then try to sidestep into harassing the enemies for 8 seconds before it’s back up again.

It’s quite easy to all-in together with your support as Zilean’s pretty much useless if he doesn’t hit his Q’s on you since he’s really squishy.

You pretty much only need to avoid 1 of the Zilean Q’s as he’s not able to stun you unless he lands both of them, so it’s very common to sidestep Zilean Q Time Bomb and then all-in right after.

Take in mind that if you’re inside the explosion zone of his Q Time Bomb and he lands the bombs on your support or a minion you will still get stunned.

PLAYING WITH

This matchup plays a lot like the Vel'Koz and Xerath ones. Your kits don’t synergize with one another well, but you can use her early laning prowess to bypass the first few levels.

PLAYING AGAINST

Zyra will be looking to spawn multiple plants to poke you and your support down; coordinate with your support since the plants will instantly die if you auto the same one at the same time. Try to step on her blossoms too so she can’t bring a plant up. If doing this makes her Flash + E Grasping Roots or just E Grasping Roots be ready to Flash away.

Take in mind that the plants spawned or buffed by her R Stranglethorns will be much harder to kill.

Zyra’s main fighting ability is her E Grasping Roots which roots & deals damage so as long as she’s not able to land that on you, fighting her shouldn’t be hard as she doesn’t have that much damage until level 6, especially because she’s a weak champ in the current patch.

If you’re playing against a lot of CC besides Zyra I recommend going Cleanse as that’ll make it A LOT harder for their bot lane to kill you since you can just Cleanse the CC, because Zyra’s main way of killing you is CCing you with her E Grasping Roots into R Stranglethorns.

Changelog
20/01/2022: Added changelog

League of Legends Champions:

Teamfight Tactics Guide