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Pros:

- You summon minions to do work for you * I am lazy *
- Extremely dynamic kit.
- Amazing play potential.
- Game changing ultimate.

Cons

- You have to order the minions to attack * this does not meet my levels of lazy I wish it to *
- Unique champion, may be difficult to get used to.
- Reliant on sand minions to do anything.

- Talon
- Fizz
- Syndra

Azir is an AOE disruptive caster. He excels at disruption, poking, disengaging, and flanking. Azir holds some pretty decent ability power ratios that allow him to do insane amounts of damage at a safe distance. He is one of those champions that has a game changing ultimate as well. Exclusively because of his ultimate, I believe Azir will be picked up in the competitive scene almost instantly. In team matches he can turn the tides of a fight and with the correct communication with his team, can really take control of games. One will probably see Azir primarily played in the mid lane but many think he can be a viable top laner with a slightly more bruiser / ap hybrid build. Either way he will be a strong addition to almost any team composition.

An oft-repeated legend stirs in the desert of Shurima. The swirling sands carry rumors of the ancient emperor Azir, somehow returned.

Once a mortal man blinded by his own hubris, Azir has recently returned as an Ascended being with unmatched dominion over the burning sands. He seeks to restore Shurima to its former glory, but some dispute his right to rule them. Azir's power, however, is undeniable.[1]

In ancient Shurima, young emperor Azir was persuaded by Xerath, his magus, to attempt the fabled Ascension ritual – despite ancient warnings to do so only in times of direst threat.

Azir’s hubris proved disastrous. As the Sun Disc focused the dawn rays into a transformative beam, Xerath betrayed Azir, shoving his emperor aside and stealing its power for himself.

In an instant, Azir was obliterated – and Xerath remade as a spectral being of pure, malevolent energy –as the city around them was swallowed whole by the desert.

Nasus and Renekton, Ascended heroes of Shuriman legend, sensed in an instant that something had gone terribly wrong and rushed to the Sun Disc. They hurled Xerath into a chained sarcophagus – but the magus shattered it into shards.

Renekton dragged Xerath into the Tomb of the Emperors and shouted to Nasus to seal the door. With a heavy heart, Nasus entombed his brother with a madman in the buried ruins for all eternity. Or so he believed…

Dorans ring + 2 Hp potions and a warding totem is a standard start for most mages. You should opt into this choice of starting items under a few conditions. One, if you need to be able to survive an opponents kit. What I mean by this is if you are afraid you can die in a full on, one on one, or if they have an easy way to initiate all in engagements. Second, if you will not be under heavy poke and can get away with only having two hp potions. Lastly third, if you feel like you will be initiating these one on one engagements to try and get a kill on your lane opponent. Dorans ring provides duel potential as well as an acceptable amount of mana regen for early stages of the game. Warding totem is the go to trinket for the middle lane, as it provides you safety from the jungler and as well as provides you with vision or information to help you make correct decisions during the early and mid game phases. I suggest placing the ward first ward around 2:50-3:10 minutes as this is the average time most junglers gank for the first time. ( also play safe around this time till you know where they ended up ganking )

Flask is a great start if you are going to be under constant poke, ( boots 4 pots are acceptable but dont provide you with any mana regen ) this item allows you to sustain all the enemy's poke throughout the lane phase. The reasoning this item is great is because just by having this item you have unbelievable sustain that most poke oriented mages will just give up early on trying to poke you out of lane. This happens is because if the enemy is trying to poke you out of lane early they will most likely be missing out on some creep score. Their poke can only last as long as their mana pool allows them to last. Flask will allow you to sustain this damage and still be safe to kill creeps confidently, this is happening while the enemy is losing out on their cs tryng to poke you. So they will quickly realize they dont have the mana pool to poke you out yet, and they dont want to fall behind in cs. In turn they should stop poking you or you get a gold lead from the start, its a win win situation.

Athenes should be your first non-boots item no questions asked. Since Azir is so poke heavy early stages in the game he benefits a TON from always having mana. On top of that he scales well with ap, and CDR which Athene provides as well. The CDR allows you to attack faster because of the passive conversion, and allows you to re-position his sand minions which is vital to Azir. All of his basic skills rely on the positioning of his ARISE! .... sounds awkward, his sand minions. Rylai's allows his sand minions to slow what they attack, this will allow them to get those all important auto attacks in as well as Azir's kite and chase potential. Also the durability helps him survive and makes his shield slightly bigger ( as it scales with hp ). Azir is a mage and all mages eventually get void staff because magic pen is just very good. I would get his mid to late game as it is more better spent when your enemies are investing a lot of money into magic resistance.

For Azir, maxing Q first is the way to go. Don't be fooled into maxing W first, his sand creatures are his bread and butter, however they do not scale up with levels. Only their recharge rate is affected. The sand guy's damage scales with your champion level, therefore you do not need to level this spell out. Maxing Q first scales the best and allows you to re-position your sand creatures much more frequent. This allows Azir to deal more burst type damage many more times in a fight, along side keeping the constant threat of the sand creatures in range.

Early Game

Early game should be fairly easy and safe. Azir comes with a nice long dash and lots of poke. This spells for a strong lane phase, if you over extend trying to push an opponent out you still can be safe with your dash. However be careful because junglers can will quickly figure out the only way to really gank an Azir is to come from behind. This way they can cut your dash off by standing in front of you. This is when you are just like any other squishy mage with no escape. Say your good byes. Also be very very careful when E'ing aggressively early lane phase, this has a huge cool down and is your only means of escape. Make sure you know what you are getting yourself into before making a commitment to an aggressive move like that. This picture below represents red arrows for likely jungler flanking ganks. ( either if you are on blue side or red side respectively ) and in blue circles good warding areas to help prevent this from happening in their favor.


Middle Game

Azir is solid through all stages in the game. I see no reason why mid game would be poor for him, he has many ways of setting up dragons or turret kills as he provides a game changing ultimate as well as substantial poke and all in engagements. He just is the trinity force of mages, hes got everything a champion needs. The only thing I can see happening is in an evenly skilled match-up it may be difficult for Azir to get a solo lane kill on an opponent mid game. This should not really be a problem though since he has many other ways of forcing fights and objectives.

Awkward Late Game of Throws

He is going to be such a great addition to any team late game. He can make so many plays its almost unimaginable. He can flank, he can disengage, he can set up turrets to defend, help siege, or pop one up right in the middle of a big team fight. There are just so many ways he can control how team fights go down that he is going to be a big riding force in the late game. Just play it smart, make the right plays when the team needs it. Flank when your team lacks initiation, or if the enemy team lacks vision control. If your team has a gold lead this is a great way to force a fight. Just make sure your team is on the same page as you! You don't want to be taken out before the team fight even begins.

Disengaging

Azir comes with some great tools for helping your team disengage. He can aoe slow with his Q when there are multiple sand minions on the field. Azir's ultimate again is so strong because of the big knock back and speed boost to your team. This is the ultimate disengage spell. This can buy your team enough time to re-position or let the back dooring Master Yi piss people off.

Flanking

Azir's ultimate is just so good for flanking as it stops all enemy dashes, knocks them all back to your team, and on top of that your team gets a movement speed boost from walking through it. Just be very careful as it is sometimes quite tricky to pull off an invade if the enemy has good vision control. This can be done in the jungle for maximum effectiveness as they will be choked into small spaces and will not be able to simply walk around your ultimate to escape. This can be done well by clearing vision of baron, for example, and then baiting the enemy in while you run around them from the side and ulti the into you team. There is danger in all types of plays and this type of strategy is no exception. You may want to consider buying an hourglass to help you survive a stunt like this because you will most likely be the first target.
Play Video Initiating

Initiating with Azir is very risky but can be done, I would only do this under few circumstances. You don't want to push enemies away from you as that would be counter-productive, so you would have to either flank or have flash up. If you must force a fight from the front, this combo shown in the video would be ideal. W -> Q - > E -> flash -> R
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Tips

Be careful about hitting an enemy champion with your dash if you are attempting to escape as this will knock you out of your dash.
You can lore an enemy team into an area where there is a dead turret, then you can create a turret when the fight has already started. This could tip the game in your favor.
You can place a turret behind you when you are sieging an enemy inhibitor turret, this allows you for an easy fall back to safety should something go wrong.
Make sure to keep track of your sand minions range, point your finger every time you can to get maximum poke.

Tricks

One thing to note is that when you are doing the Q->E dash combo, you must be careful because if you press E while the sand soldiers are still flying, it moves you to their current location, even if that is mid-flight. Not sure if this could be used to ones benefit yet, but would probably be very very situational and highly unlikely. With his dash combo it is good to note what walls you can and cannot jump over, however that being said, Azir has very easy wall jumps as it is very long. This allows him to be able to jump most walls without any issue. This is great for ganking, escaping, or flanking.

One other trick you can do is prolong the knock up your ultimate provides by twice the time. This is done by using your ulti when in close proximity to your opponent. ( very close ) As this will keep the opponent in the air for however long it takes to push them to the end of your ultimate. It looks like it hits the opponents twice, and effectively knocks one target up twice. Here is an example of what I am talking about.
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Champion 1: Darius... If you can utilize flanking with Azir's ultimate well you can force opponents into fights by cutting off their escapes. Champions that lack stick or mobility can benefit greatly from this, these champions would include Darius, Nasus, Rumble, Renekton, Tryndamere, and Mordekaiser hue hue hue ... These champions excel at close range brawls but lack the tools to keep champion close to them for long periods of time. I would really like to not be forced into a melee fight against a Darius, ouch...

Champion 2: I choose Amumu as a generic AOE CC tank. Azir has an AoE cc that is an AoE speed up these two types of champions should get a long just fine in fights. These type of champions can lock people down and soak enough damage up for you to let your sand minions decimate your opponents. Also they have AoE with their attacks as well so if your enemies get locked up in close proximity you can deal so much extra damage.

Champion 3: I pick Janna as a generic kite composition. Azir has quite a lot of mobility mid to late game as well as an AoE speed up for allies that pushes enemies away. This can be used very effectively for disengaging if you wish to run a split pushing composition or something rather.

Champion 1: Well, Talon just in general destroys most mages that build on the more damage side. He can deal his damage while the silence is on his prey. Be careful of this match up mid game, and try to poke him as much as possible without getting in range early on to try and get an xp and gold lead so that later he wont be able to one shot you.

Champion 2: FIzz is another assassin to look out for. During the early levels it may not seem to bad since you can poke him pretty heavily, however if he can pick a fight with you on fair grounds you better watch out. He can, if timed right, Stop your Q - E escape with his Q. Fizz's Q brings him other side of his target, this in turn can put him in the path of Azirs dash and stop him in his tracks. Much like running in front of a Rammus to stop his rollin.

Champion 3: Syndra just in general has no really bad match-ups, she can poke you from a distance as well as stun you from a distance and kill you before you can move. She is usually going to win most lane phases, the best thing you can do is try to farm, dodge, and send out some poke every now and then. You do not need to commit to an aggressive play style against a Syndra for you will be far more of a benefit mid to late game then a Syndra.