Hello, I have been a professional player for about 5 years and started playing at 15 (now 21). I used to be known for being an Ahri OTP before I went pro. I currently have 2.3 Million points on Ahri.
This guide seeks to help others in learning Ahri.
As of now, I stream everyday on Twitch .

I also use a Matchup Sheet where you can find different kinds of Ahri matchups in greater detail.

I have been in EUW high challenger (top 100+) with two accounts for more than ten splits now.

I have over 1.8 million mastery points for Ahri on a single account.

There are two mana items you can choose between for your first item: Malignance or Blackfire Torch.

Malignance
- Buy it to have lower ult cooldown
- Useful when you’re the only engage on the team
- Enemy comp is range-heavy

OR

Blackfire Torch
- Enemy comp is melee-heavy.
- You want higher overall damage.
- If your team comp already consists of good engage/setup champions.

Second Item Choices:

Horizon Focus
- Good to build most of the time; provides a lot of CDR and DMG + vision.
- Build it to spam spells.

OR

Cryptbloom
- If your team comp has multiple AP champions.
- If the enemy rushed or will rush MR items.

OR

Zhonya's Hourglass
- Against assassins such as Zed, Talon, Qiyana .
- Into heavy engage champions/comps such as Malphite, Vi.

OR

Bloodletter's Curse
- Provides survivability.
- Good into melee heavy enemy comps.
- Helps with damage if your team comp is AP heavy.

OR

Shadowflame
- Focus/one-shot enemy carry.
- Pair it with Sorcerer's Shoes

Third Item Choices

Rabadon's Deathcap
- One-shot opponents
- Deal tons of DMG
- Hard damage spike once you complete it.
(Generally, this will be the quintessential third item most of the time.)

OR

Cryptbloom
- If you built something else as a second item and the enemy is starting to build MR, now is the time to buy cryptbloom.

OR

Void Staff
- If you need more damage and if enemies are building heavy MR



Situational Items

Morellonomicon
- Enemy has a lot of healing.
- You can generally just stop at Oblivion Orb as there is no big value in finishing the whole item early.

Cosmic Drive
- Provides MS to space enemy and CDR to do more spell rotations, but LESS damage compared to Horizon Focus
Horizon Focus
- DO NOT buy Horizon Focus and Cosmic Drive together. Their overall value goes down.

Liandry's Torment
- Pair with Blackfire Torch to increase burn damage.
- For slower-paced fights.

Rylai's Crystal Scepter
- If enemy team comp is melee-heavy
- Effectively turns you into a utility mage.
- You will not be the main carry. Play off your carries such as Sivir or Jinx with an enchanter.

Lich Bane
- When you can weave in a lot of AAs during fights
- Very good for split pushing

Banshee's Veil
-If the enemy has alot of AP champions and/or assasins LeBlanc Karthus
- If you need to engage and there is only one CC stopping you, such as Shaco Jack In The Box | Lissandra Frozen Tomb

There are 3 Different boots choose between on Ahri

Ionian Boots of Lucidity
- Good early game boots as they are very cheap. DO NOT BUY 1ST BASE IF YOU DON'T HAVE Manaflow Band
- Gives more E flash Angles and TPs
- Very nice if you have Feat of strength as Ionians are the best boots to uppgrade.
My personal favorite. I like to go Ionians in most of my games as it allows you to gain access to alot more trading angles whilst also help you with spacing

Sorcerer's Shoes
- Playing to one-shot carries
- More dmg in fast all-ins
- If you have a team comp with good setup
I would run this when you have a point-and-click setup such as Vi and Nautilusand you're playing to flank and one-shot their important carries.

Mercury's Treads
- If the enemy has burst champs such as LeBlanc Syndra Vex.
- If you're playing into CC-heavy comps such as Lillia Leona
I run this when I need to play side and survive laning phase against the likes of Syndra and Leblanc or if the opponent have alot of CCs such as Lillia and Leona.

LVL 1
How well LVL 1 goes depends on how you use your Qs and Ws.
- Ideally, for Q, you will want to Q the enemy and the wave at the same time.
- For W, it's all about spacing the enemy and proc'ing Electrocute with your quick AA combo ( AA Fox-Fire AA)

LVL 2
- You should have both Q & W as there are some combos and tricks you can do with both.
- Gapclose with Fox-Fire into Orb of Deception and back off right after.
- AA, Fox-Fire, then exit while casting Orb of Deception proc the Electrocute.
- Your bread and butter combo will be AA Fox-Fire AA retreat. This will proc Electrocute.
- Use Orb of Deception when the opponent is last hitting minions
- Fake an AA into Fox-Fire in order to dodge opponent skillshots such as Syndra Dark Sphere or Orianna Command: Attack with its provided movespeed.

As you can see, most of the listed combos and tricks are meant for you to proc Electrocute and get out . Extending the trade is usually bad unless you already have an HP advantage or the matchup is very favored towards you.

LVL 3
- Depending on the matchup, you can go either 2 points into Orb of Deception or level Charm.
- You don't want to spam Charm, as it is usually a sign for the enemy to walk up. It is best to keep it and use it when your jungler ganks or when enemy misspositions.
- When you have 2 points in Orb of Deception, you're mostly looking to quickly clear the wave with the Qs in order to avoid bully matchups such as Syndra. 2 Qs on the wave is enough to kill the caster minions.
- You can also put 2 points into Orb of Deception in order to get a cheater recall and get Dark Seal.

LVL 6
- You unlock your ultimate, Spirit Rush, and now look to swap your trinket from Stealth Ward to Oracle Lens.

There are 2 ways of playing your LVL 6.

First Way:
- You secure prio and look to play in the fog of war. Utilize the fog and prio you have to check the side lanes. If the enemy bot/top oversteps, you can look to full commit. Otherwise, stay in one of the mid bushes and be ready for the incoming wave. Repeat that and at some point, the enemy will make a mistake. You can also play for objectives such as Dragon, Raptors, Voidgrub, and so on.

Second Way:
- Look to punish your opponent if they have low mobility or have no Flash with your jungler and/or support, as Ahri is a champion with a really good setup. You will want to utilize your Spirit Rush in order to land your Charm.

Keep in mind that what I've written down is simply a general concept.
- For specific matchups, refer to THREATS above, or this spreadsheet.

Sidelane
- Ahri has one of the safest sidelanes and is also one of the best champs at cheating the wave.
-- Cheating the wave refers to seeing the enemy team run to you, one-shotting the wave, and Spirit Rushing out if needed. This gives your team the oppotunity to make a play elsewhere and create a lead.
- At the same time, Ahri is very strong on side lanes while paired up with champs such as Vi, Pantheon, Xin Zhao, etc. You can easily catch the opponent on side with one of these champions on your team comp.
- If you manage to catch the sidewave first there are two plays.
-- The first is to walk around the side in the bot/top bush and suprise attack the enemy; either 1v1 or 2v1 with your jungler.
--- The second play is to look to play in the fog of war and create a numbers advantage while enemy sidelaner is catching the side wave
- If the enemy contests the vision in river, you should be able to force a 4v3 fight before opposing sidelaner is able to join.
-- This is referred to as "sidelane prio"; utilizing the fact you're first to fights.

Teamfights
- This is where Oracle Lens and Control Ward come in handy.
-- Use them and play in fog-of-war. Your missing presence gives the enemy team much more pressure than showing. Ahri is extremely versatile in teamfights depending on what your team needs. Sometimes you play to peel your ADC, sometimes you flank to find enemy carry, and sometimes you just hit the first target.

Item Spikes

Ionian Boots of Lucidity
- Provides alot of MS and CDR which makes your trades way smoother and allows you to move from side lanes or base waaay faster.

Lost Chapter
- Every mage spikes on this item.
- It is one of the best component items you can get in the game. You can now play for trades whereas before, you'd have to worry about mana during trades.

Malignance
- Your Spirit Rush becomes more spammable and you're able to look for more plays with ultimate.
- Trading ults might be very good for you because you will have ultimate way sooner than the enemy.

Blackfire Torch
-Your spells will hurt much more over time and your teamfighting becomes very powerful with the 4% more ap per target unique passive.

Horizon Focus
- You can spam a lot of spells during teamfights and find much more charm windows. You also provide so much vision during teamfights which makes enemy flanking way harder.

LVL Spikes

LVL 3/4
- Having 2 points on Orb of Deception enables you to clear caster minions with 2 Orb of Deceptions which can be very helpful when you just wanna fast clear wave and base or avoid the bully mid matchup.

LVL 6
- You have now way more threat and agency in skirmishes.Your laning threat is way higher as well since you can easily setup ganks with Spirit Rush into Charm. Your roams become much more powerful and this is where you can start going Oracle Lens.

LVL 7
- You can one-shot the caster minions if you have over 99 AP vs LVL7 minions.

LVL 9
- 99.99% of the time, you're able to oneshot the backline minons now. This ends laning phase since it would most likely be the case that you'd one shot the wave and move to river in order to look for fights.
- If bot or top overcommits, look to fight. If there are no fights, go back mid. Repeat until something happens.

LVL 11
- This is where you put two points into Spirit Rush. Now you can use Spirit Rush more freely. Look for potential picks starting with Spirit Rush and have it off CD very fast. Keep in mind that you don't want to use it before a big objective such as drake, baron nashor, etc.

Stealth Ward
- You can use the ward LVL 1 on the enemy Raptors against clearing junglers in order to spot enemy pathing. It's also useful to ward knowing you don't have prio over lane early game.
- It does not always have to be raptors; one in the mid bush spotting the entrance is good enough if you know that going to raptors might get you punished.
- During wave 2, if you know you have prio and just crashed the wave, it's a good ward timer as you'd place it before enemy jungler can do 3 camps into mid.

Oracle Lens
- Once your Spirit Rush is leveled, you can look to swap to Oracle Lens.
- This is when you have a lot of agency in lane. You're now able to take mid wave and move into fog-of-war. To make sure your in the fog-of-war, Oracle Lens does the job the best.

Farsight Alteration
- Would not recommend unless the team is very behind, no one can face check, and there is an objective up such baron nashor, drake, atakhan, etc.

- You can make Spirit Rush have a shorter cooldown if you happen to get LVL 11 and put a point into R before it ends. The cooldown will get reduced to base LVL 11 Spirit Rush cooldown. This works same with LVL 16. It also works if you manage to base and buy ability haste before Spirit Rush runs out.
--Turtorial: Video

- Remember that Fox-Fire's damage is doubled against minions below 20% maximum health. This means that if there are two low hp minions and one champion, you can secure the minions with the two Fox-Fire flames, and the third one will go towards the enemy champion. (Keep in mind if you AA something before-hand it will not work)

- Sometimes you can use Fox-Fire as gapclose in order to then Orb of Deception and exit, as the extra movement speed puts you in at the end of your Q while allowing you to exit right after.

This guide is far from finished. I will regularly update this guide, the spreadsheet, and the threats.

If there is something not in the guide such as combos, it's most likely the case that they're very hard to explain with just words. You can check my Twitch where I stream regularly with Ahri gameplay.