Guide Details x Introduction x Closing x Changelog Champion x Champion Identity x Pros and Cons x Abilities x Tips & Tricks

Pre-Game x Summoner Spells x Runes x Team Comp In-Game x Items x Gameplay x Strategy

Hi everyone!

I'm a high master peak mid laner that has held master since season 13. I play Annie quite a bit and I think this is her best setup for solo queue. I hope this guide helps you!

Annie's Champion Identity Annie is a scaling mage who has a low skill floor and high skill ceiling who wants to blow up squishy targets during teamfights. She is weak in lane into most matchups but scales extremely well into the mid and late game. Annie is also great at making picks that transfer to taking objectives. What will I learn playing Annie? Annie is great at teaching the fundamentals of laning, how to trade with her simple trading pattern, spacing, roaming, and how to pressure in lane and playing around powerspikes. She is a great beginner champion that can take you even to the highest ranks in the game.

What is my general game plan as Annie in the laning phase?

Annie is mainly looking to scale into the mid and late game. You should not be heavy trading early game since you will run out of mana easily and you should be playing around your level 6 power spike. We also spike at level 10 when we unlock our max rank W which will let us get priority in lane so we can make plays around the map.

We should be holding our stun accordingly for when the enemy jumps on top of us to allow quick and easy trades and we should also be holding it for when our jungler ganks to get easy kills. You should be looking to punish when the enemy wastes important cooldowns. Don't over force trades; let them come naturally. Also, Annie's auto attacks have one of the longest auto ranges in the game so you should use those every time the enemy laner mispositions.

Remember, Annie is a scaling champion, so playing slow early game and punishing enemy mistakes while keeping up our farm is our best chance at carrying mid and late game.

PROS + Scales extremely well into the mid and late game. + Big playmaking potential even when behind thanks to Pyromania and Summon: Tibbers + Great champion for beginners to mid lane. + Teaches fundamentals of laning and how to play mid game/late game very well. Annie has some strengths that make her very interesting to play and learn. She is a scaling champion who is great for beginners. She has great playmaking potential with her stun and ultimate and teaches the fundamentals of laning very well.

CONS - Short-ranged; Requires creative problem solving into long range compositions and hard matchups. - Has a lot of bad matchups; very punishing if you make a mistake in hard matchups in high elo. - Tibbers micro requires practice to get the most out of him. - Weak early game into most matchups. - Wave management can be awkward at times with the stun mini-game on your passive. - Bad spacing in lane and teamfights is heavily punished in higher ranks; one misstep means you are forced to recall and miss farm or die most of the time. Annie's weaknesses can be hard to play around without creative problem solving. She has a weak early game into most matchups, is hard to play into long range compositions, and hard matchups are extremely punishing with mistakes at higher ranks. On top of that controlling Tibbers can take some getting used to to make the most out of him and managing your stun can be hard to do at times. She also can be hard to play at times if you mess up your spacing in lane and teamfights since one misstep means you die most of the time.

7/29/2026 updated build, guide code is still a work in progress. Added some matchups.
8/24/2026 updated build and runes, new setup ive been using that has been giving me a lot of success, still working on guide chapters and matchups


special thanks to jhoijhoi's Making a Guide guide for the code templates and helping me learn more about bbcoding!