My Rant Video Addressing Cookie Cutter Itemization:

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History

Hello, my name is Solus, though I go by many aliases. I’ve been playing Nami since Season 8, and I absolutely love this champion. Over the years, I’ve gone to great lengths to push her limits.

I peaked at Diamond 1 during Split 2 of 2024 and was ranked among the top 10 Nami players in NA. However, I didn’t push for Master due to a loss of interest in the game. I’ve smurfed to Diamond multiple times and have tested nearly every possible build on Nami. The builds provided in this guide are the ones I’ve had the most success with.

There are only two viable keystone options for Nami: Aery and Guardian. I understand that some people may try to discredit the information in this guide because I haven’t reached Master or higher, but that’s a logical fallacy—specifically, an ad hominem. This occurs when someone attacks the person rather than addressing the argument. You should evaluate the information on its own merits and form your own judgment.

I created this guide because most existing Nami guides are outdated or contain suboptimal build choices. My goal is to provide players with an up-to-date and effective resource for mastering Nami.

Tips for Maximizing Your Value with Tidal Wave and Aqua Prison

NEVER—I repeat, NEVER—coin flip your Aqua Prison unless it's absolutely necessary! This tip alone can significantly boost your rank if you're disciplined and only use Aqua Prison to chain crowd control (CC). What do I mean by this?

For example, try using Tidal Wave on the enemy before casting Aqua Prison to almost guarantee it lands. Alternatively, wait for your allies to use their CC abilities, then follow up with Aqua Prison. Doing this will help you secure more kills and make your gameplay far more consistent. It's a good habit—stick with it!

As for Tidal Wave, I recommend using quick cast with an indicator to get a better feel for its range and to improve your ability to line it up effectively. When possible, position yourself in optimal spots to block off choke points or force enemies into them—this makes it much easier to land your Tidal Wave. Try to hit as many enemies as possible; it’s easily one of the strongest ultimates in the game when used correctly.

Tidal Wave applies a heavy slow, making it much easier to land Aqua Prison afterward. It also doubles the movement speed granted by your passive, which can help you escape ganks, disengage from teamfights, or chase down enemies to secure kills.

How to ultilize Nami's Ebb and Flow Effectively

Ebb and Flow is strongest at levels 1–3, as Nami will win most trades thanks to the sustain it provides. It deals more damage when cast directly on the enemy first and heals slightly more when used on yourself or an ally first. If you're at full HP, cast Ebb and Flow on the enemy for increased damage; otherwise, use it on yourself or an ally for better healing.

An additional tip: Ebb and Flow can bounce between allies and enemies. When used on yourself or an ally, it will bounce to the nearest enemy; when used on an enemy, it will bounce to the nearest ally. The ability can bounce up to three times, so proper positioning is key to maximizing its value in trades.

Whenever possible, start trades with an auto-attack, then cast Ebb and Flow, and follow up with another auto for optimal damage. However, if the enemy support moves forward to assist their ADC, it's usually safer to disengage. Against engage supports, this pattern is riskier—they can punish over-aggression. In those matchups, it's better to conserve mana and cooldowns for when they engage on your ADC.

Standard trade patterns for Nami at levels 1–3 include:

Basic trade: Auto-attack → Ebb and Flow → Auto-attack

With Tidecaller's Blessing: Auto-attack → Tidecaller's Blessing (cast while the auto is midair) → Ebb and Flow → Auto-attack

Engage combo: Auto-attack → Tidecaller's Blessing (mid-auto) → Aqua Prison → Auto-attack → Ebb and Flow → Final auto-attack

Take isolated trades when possible, and always prioritize the enemy ADC over the support.

Finally, abuse bushes to drop minion aggro! This forces the enemy to ward the bush—if they don’t, they’ll have to deal with your constant harass and lane pressure.

The Game Plan Versus Engage Supports

First step, choose Guardian as your main keystone. Why, you may ask? Because Guardian forces the enemy engage support to play around its cooldown. Guardian is like a get out of jail free card every time it is off cooldown. It provides a massive shield that can soak a lot of burst damage and comes with a lot of great defensive sub-runes to choose from.

Why not Aery!? Aery provides a much smaller shield in comparison and also loses value because you won't be poking engage supports often during the early game due to the amount of CC and kill pressure they bring to the table.

But Aery has better scaling! Yes, you're right—it does. However, you will still outscale the engage support regardless of whether or not you have Aery, making it a better decision to choose defensive runes to get you through the early game. Your job is to survive, reach your item spikes, and levels.

It's like a scale that tips after a certain period of time. Engage supports are on a timer—they have to play proactively and try to end the game as quickly as possible before you even have a chance to scale. Your job is to stop the bleeding and prevent as many deaths as possible. You're a neutralizer. You're not FULL AP NAMI ONE SHOT! While that may work in low elo piss, it won't work in higher ranks.

Next, you want to choose Exhaust as your main summoner spell. While some may argue Heal is a better option in some cases, I find Exhaust to be much more consistent. It's a last resort if all else fails, as it is essentially a point-and-click CC debuff that reduces the damage of enemy champions considerably. Especially versus assassins, it can single-handedly win games if you manage to Exhaust the 20-kill Zed and save your main carry.

In the early game, you want to avoid trading too aggressively, as you could compromise your positioning, which can lead to you getting hard punished and possibly dying. Ward early bushes to deny pressure from fog of war. If you ward early bushes, you can avoid being caught out by cheese plays. Avoid perma-pushing the wave, as it makes it easier for the enemy jungler and support to punish your positioning—you’ll be super close to their tower, giving them more time to run you down the lane and giving yourself less time to react to a gank.

Preferably, you want to freeze the lane near your tower, which gives you the ability to farm safely and stay safe from ganks. Never leave your ADC alone under tower vs engage supports. While there may be cases where it would be better to do so, it's good practice to always get back to lane if you are roaming—to support your ADC under tower—before the enemy minion wave crashes. It can solo lose you games if your ADC gets farmed by the enemy ADC, support, and jungler. They will rage and possibly leave the game, or the enemy will just build a lead that is far too big to come back from. So be wary when roaming and always consider the lane state.

Ping your teammates when the enemy support is missing or if you feel the enemy support may be there by evaluating the lane state of your allied laners. If your ally is pushed up in lane and you think Pyke is roaming there—HE IS! So ping your teammate! Always believe the enemy engage support will make the optimal play, as it could lose you games if you underestimate them. Never ward alone! You will die! Always try to ward with a teammate perferably a tank that can soak up huge amounts of damage to safely ward objectives.

If you don't get a tank top laner, jungler, or mid on your team, it may be a good option to dodge—unless you want to play Braum.

Mid/late game, you want to play around your teammates and ward jungle entrances when possible to avoid potential flanks and invades in your jungle. You can also ward the mid lane to spot rotations from enemy champions. The enemy will try their hardest to pick off one of your allies to make teamfights uneven—like 4v5s or 3v5s—where they have a high chance of winning the fight regardless of how strong you are at that point in the game due to your scaling.

Always take 5v5 even fights, as you will win most of the time because your kit provides much more than enemy engage supports due to the amount of healing, shielding, speed, empowered damage, and CC you provide.

How To Avoid Becoming A Hook Magnet

First tip is to stand behind your minions or stay out of range of being hooked by the enemy hook support. Second, buy early boots to gain more movement speed and dodge skillshots effectively. Third is to ward early lane bushes so that hook supports can't get the jump on you. Fourth, avoid taking aggressive trades in the early game. Always prioritize positioning first. Pay close attention to the enemy hook support's positioning. Never walk into the fog of war without vision of the enemy support, as they could be waiting. Lastly, it takes trial and error—eventually, you'll learn the range of each hook champion intuitively.

League is NOT a static game!

You must be able to adapt to every situation. This involves adjusting your runes, items, and decision-making/game plan throughout the entire game. While you can still find success by using the same runes and items every game, you're limiting your available options and making the game much harder for yourself—especially if you're a one-trick. If your goal is to only play Nami, that means you'll have to play into bad matchups and sometimes with team compositions that don’t synergize well with her. That’s all the more reason to always adapt and avoid becoming a static player.

I strongly encourage experimenting—not with main keystones like Guardian or Aery—but with sub-runes within those trees. For example, if you’re not a fan of Bone Plating because it gets procced too easily, and you’d prefer Second Wind or Conditioning, that is perfectly fine! Do it—I want you to!

This guide is meant to serve as a foundation of reliable resources to get you started. Feel free to make it your own and change anything you like.

VIDEOS ARE MORE EFFECTIVE FOR LEARNING

I believe watching videos is a more effective way to learn than reading a jumbled pile of text. Videos can demonstrate fundamental concepts more clearly than I could ever convey through text alone. This is why I choose to provide videos instead of a mix of images, GIFs, and text.

That said, I’ve linked the official League of Legends wiki page for Nami, which is updated every patch, in case any of the videos become outdated. If you're looking to learn specific mechanics or fine details about Nami, it's best to refer to the wiki and experiment with her in the Practice Tool.

RESOURCES:

League of Legends Official Wiki
Nami

Fundamentals & Content Creators
Coach Cupcake
League Fundamentals Playlist

Best Resource for Learning Matchups
YouTube Nami Challenger Replays Playlist

Useful Settings
WARNING: I don't recommend watching any content from SkillCapped, ProGuides, or GameLeap, as they often provide a lot of misinformation. However, the video they made on settings is accurate.