Hello fellow summoners, my name is DammitShirley, and I greatly appreciate you taking the time to look over the guide I made for my new favorite champion, Azir, the Emperor of the Sands. In this guide I offer my own personal build and play-style I think is best for Azir, and you are free to leave some feedback as to whether you agree or disagree with me, or if you have some tips to help me improve this guide. Now I'm going to be honest, I am just a guy in Silver III (climbed out of Bronze I) that started playing League of Legends a little over a year ago, but please don't let this affect your judgement of the guide. I am just presenting my analysis and theories about certain match-ups and item builds. Mid lane is a place I like to call home when I play League of Legends, and I think Azir has an excellent role to fulfill when he is placed in that place, in his home (besides Shurima). Anyways, enjoy the guide and feel free to PM me or comment with feedback or if you want to add me in-game. My summoner name is DammitShirley.

So, if you actually read this far, you'll notice that I have two builds up at the top of the guide. The first is my personal favorite build that makes Azir a beefy caster that does good damage and can split push very easily. This build runs Teleport for reasons I will explain below.

The second build is a build I recently added after I saw how popular this was getting. It is a full AP build essentially, and it really maximizes Azir's damage output. I used to be very ignorant and stubborn when building this champion, but I've come to see the power of this build.

Basically, I suggest using the first build if A: The enemies have a nice dive comp, B: If your team is lacking in tankiness, and C: If you feel that you'll have trouble surviving fights and would much rather be beefy and split-push.

Use the second build for most other instances. If you wanna be the biggest threat, use the damage build. If your team has good peeling, use the damage build. If your team doesn't need another tanky person, use the damage build.

Both builds have their strengths and weaknesses and also come with different playstyles, so try them out and see which one you like more.

Please leave a comment if you would like me to experiment with different alterations of these builds.

Pros

+ Incredible Range + Excellent Zoning Kit + Nice amounts of CC + Very versatile ultimate. + Very nice mid-late game damage output + Can be supportive while dealing a good amount of magic damage. + Has a built in escape. + Most builds give max CDR + His passive can save yours or your teammates' lives (Sun Disk) + Can split push incredibly well + Best dance in-game.

Azir is just one of those champions that has a lot of options going for him. He can be a excellent AP carry as well as one of the best supportive mages in the game. He has a relatively safe laning phase with his escape tool Shifting Sands. Given that League relies on teamwork, this is very good. He can spam abilites with max CDR, provide great CC for slowing down enemies and helping allies, and he zone almost anyone away from where he wants. Emperor's Divide provides both offesive and defensive capabilities that can greatly change the course of a teamfight. Shurima's Legacy is also a neat tool to help maximize your presence in lane skirmishes.

Cons

- Very little mobility - Relies on items to actually do damage - Soldier placement can be confusing to follow at first - Performs very poorly against Assassins - His passive cannot be wasted - Soldiers will draw minion aggro - Very hard to retaliate when you use your skills and the enemy attacks - Bad ult placement will ruin a teamfight - Very hard to master

While Azir may be totally awesome in general, he has his flaws. One of the worst things about Azir is the skill-cap needed to master him. The placement of his soldiers on the battlefield are the key to making him perform to the greatest extent of his power. Emperor's Divide is the really the key to deciding a teamfight most of the time when playing Azir, and placing it in the wrong position can have catastrophic effects if your team really needs that skill. His damage really only comes after he gets a few items, and even then, you need to master positioning in order to gain the full effect. Shurima's Legacy is not to be trifled with, meaning DON'T USE IT RANDOMLY.

Greater Mark of Hybrid Penetration is one of the best options for Azir imo. This gives a small boost to his AA damage and his magic damage. Also, these runes are very useful on multiple other champions, so you could be benefiting yourself in more ways than one.

Greater Seal of Scaling Health is my personal favorite defensive rune for not only Azir, but for other mages as well. Since Greater Seal of Armor was nerfed a while ago, I find that getting the scaling health will provide decent durability early while paying off tremendously late game, where Azir shines. Having these runes can give you a combination of 1300+bonus health on Azir with the items I recommended.

Greater Glyph of Scaling Ability Power is my personal favorite glyph for both Azir and other AP champions. They really help increase your damage output later on, and that damage is amplified with Rabadon's Deathcap.

Greater Quintessence of Ability Power is the last type of rune you'll need. This gives you a nice 15 AP to start with, and even more when combined with your glyphs and masteries. They are pretty inexpensive and provide great damage throughout the game.


OTHER OPTIONS

Marks

Greater Mark of Attack Speed is a nice alternative for Azir since it allows his soldiers to attack faster, but I feel the penetration from Greater Mark of Hybrid Penetration is vital for his success.

Greater Mark of Magic Penetration provides a little more magic penetration than Greater mark of Hybrid Penetration, but I feel the damage is relatively the same and you can get better dueling and last-hit potential with the minor boost to your AA damage (kinda helps when you have a Nashor's Tooth).

Seals

Greater Seal of Health is good for early levels , but they really don't provide too much more beefiness for the mid-late game.

Greater Seal of Armor is still OK but I feel it really doesn't provide much protecton against assassins who are going to build some Armor pen anyway.

Glyphs

Greater Glyph of Ability Power this still gives you damage, but I feel it undermines the maximum damage potential of most mages. Not a bad choice at all however.

Greater Glyph of Cooldown Reduction is kinda ok I guess since it can give you early passive stats, but then you'll have to itemize a bit differently if you don't want to waste CDR stats on items. NOTE: These could allow you to build Sorcerer's Shoes or even Berserker's Greaves if you really want.

Quintessences

Greater Quintessence of Scaling Ability Power is ok but a little unnecessary as it kinda undermines Azir's early game balance that comes with the recommended rune page I set up.

Offensive Page, but you could swap Expose Weakness for Dangerous Game if you want. I just felt that the small boost in damage you could give to your allies would be more frequently beneficial than the health and mana regen on kills you can't guarantee you'll get.

As for the points in the Utility Page, I found these to be the most useful for maintaining mana with Meditation , returning to base for items with Phasewalker , having an even greater CD on Teleport with Summoner's Insight , and having that Blue Buff you either got from your jungler or the enemy laner last much longer with Runic Affinity .
Utility Tree. This provides more movement speed and potion buffs to help your mobility and lane sustain.

WHEN YOU HAVE A TOUGH MATCH-UP

Here is a rundown of Azir's abilities:

WILL OF THE EMPEROR: Azir gains 1.25% bonus attack speed for every 1% of his cooldown reduction.
DISC OF THE SUN: Azir places a marker above the ruins of destroyed turrets (both allied and enemy). Once within 400 units of the ruins, Azir can click on the marker to conjure a Sun Disc, which functions like a standard turret but grants Azir any gold it earns. A Sun Disc's health decays over 1 minute and will lose its armor if Azir dies or moves too far away. Azir cannot conjure Sun Discs within the enemy base.
STATIC COOLDOWN: 180 (starting after his Sun Disc perishes)

Will of the Emperor allows Azir to spam his skills and gain an attack boost for his soldiers. He gets a 50% attack speed boost when he reaches 40% CDR. This is nice, but the real glory of the passive lies in the second half. Disc of the Sun allows Azir to essentially resurrect a turret for a minute at most. This is excellent for allowing your team to either really keep up a push or just simply defend with more ease. The turret falls down drastically faster if enemies attack it however, so use it wisely when it will not be immediately destroyed.


ACTIVE: Azir orders all Sand Soldiers to rush toward the target location, dealing magic damage and slowing all enemies they pass through by 25% for 1 second. Enemies can be hit by multiple soldiers, but each soldier beyond the first will deal only 25% damage. The slow stacks additively.
MAGIC DAMAGE: 60 / 90 / 120 / 150 / 180 (+ 50% AP)
ADDITIONAL DAMAGE: 15 / 22.5 / 30 / 37.5 / 45 (+ 12.5% AP)
RANGE: 800 COST: 70 MANA COOLDOWN: 10 / 9 / 8 / 7 / 6

This skill applies a slow to enemies while re-positioning your soldiers. This can be spammed when you reach 40% CDR, allowing you to cause chaos in teamfights. Always use this to it's maximum effectiveness, but don't place soldiers too far away in case you need to re-position quickly for an escape.


ACTIVE: Azir summons an untargetable Sand Soldier for 9 seconds. When Azir attacks an enemy in a soldier's range, the soldier attacks instead of Azir - dealing 50 / 55 / 60 / 65 / 70 / 75 / 80 / 85 / 90 / 95 / 100 / 110 / 120 / 130 / 140 / 150 / 160 / 170 (45 + 5 / 10 at each level) (+ 70% AP) magic damage to all enemies in a line. If multiple soldiers strike the same target, each soldier after the first deals 25% damage, and the soldiers can't attack structures.
Azir can store up to 2 Sand Soldiers at a time, but there is no hard limit on the number of Sand Soldiers that can be active on the field at once. Sand Soldiers expire twice as fast while within range of an enemy turret, and will expire instantly if Azir moves too far away.
If Azir summons a Sand Soldier directly on top of an enemy turret, the soldier will sacrifice itself to deal 80 + (25 × Azir's level) (+ 70% AP) magic damage to the turret.
RANGE: 450 COST: 40 MANA COOLDOWN: 1.5 RECHARGE TIME: 12 / 11 / 10 / 9 / 8

This is Azir's main tool of destruction. Summon these bad boys to completely harass your opponent and wreak havoc in teamfights. These soldiers can be rep-positioned to your will with Conquering Sands and set up nice initiations and jukes with Shifting Sands. This skill also allows Azir to be an excellent split pusher, since Arise!, when cast on a tower, can deal a ton of damage with just one charge. Spam that, and any lane becomes yours.


ACTIVE: Azir dashes to one of his Sand Soldiers, damaging enemies he passes through and knocking them up for 0.5 seconds. If Azir hits an enemy champion, he will stop and gain a shield for 4 seconds.
MAGIC DAMAGE: 60 / 90 / 120 / 150 / 180 (+ 40% AP)
SHIELD STRENGTH: 60 / 100 / 140 / 180 / 220 (+ 15% bonus health)
COST: 60 MANA COOLDOWN: 19 / 18 / 17 / 16 / 15

This skill is the primary movement tool for Azir himself. This skill can help you escape ganks, hop over terrain, or even initiate on an opponent while giving you a shield that will be hella strong if you build the items I recommended.


ACTIVE: Azir calls forth a phalanx of shield-wielding soldiers who press forward, knocking back and damaging enemies.
MAGIC DAMAGE: 150 / 225 / 300 (+ 60% AP)
When the soldiers finish their charge, they stand as a wall, blocking enemy champion movement and dashes. Allies can pass through the wall and gain 20% bonus movement speed when they do. These soldiers cannot be ordered to move or attack.
WALL DURATION: 5 / 6 / 7
WIDTH: 4 / 5 / 6 soldiers
RANGE: 250 COST: 100 MANA COOLDOWN: 140 / 120 / 100

Emperor's Divide is Azir's game-changer. It is a wall that blocks enemy movement that can be used to separate a team from each other or from your team. You can even force flashes by trapping people at Baron or Dragon. Not to mention that the wall blocks all movement spells that aren't blinks, so Rocket Jump, Satchel Charge launches, Quickdraw, and Relentless Pursuit are blocked by the 300 Spartan- I mean Sand Soldier wall.

SKILL PRIORITES

> > >

Conquering Sands is the very important to max first. It provides great early damage and allows you to zone as often as you would like to very early on. This is excellent for poking in lane and zoning out opponents in skirmishes or teamfights as well. Originally, my own ignorance led me to believe that maxing Arise! first was the best option.

Arise! must be maxed second, since the ability will have nice base damage scaling by the mid-game. It's damage scales off of Azir's level, and is not as important as having your re-positioning ability at the lowest possible cooldown early. By mid-game, you should be spamming this ability on towers to utterly decimate them. This is his most important ability, however, since this is needed to use both Conquering Sands and Shifting Sands.

Shifting Sands is a nice ability and all, but it provides the least compared to the rest of Azir's skills. We max this last because it does not do too much damage and is primarily used as an escape tool. The initiation aspect is only to knock someone up or gap-close to set up your ultimate.

Emperor's Divide is Azir's second most import skill next to Arise!. Emperor's Divide is a knock-back stunning wall that prevents enemies from moving within it. This has so many possible uses it's insane. It can save your life by knocking back an all-in attempt, trap enemies under tower, trap enemies at baron or dragon pits, keep enemies out of baron or dragon pits, separate their carries from everyone else, etc. This skill needs to be maxed at level 16 and have points put in whenever possible.

Doran's Ring is the best start!!!

These will be the go to items most of the time when playing Azir. They all synergize so well with his kit and make him pretty beefy as well. The reason why I believe Ionian Boots of Lucidity are better than Sorcerer's Shoes and Berserker's Greaves is because you can get 15% CDR from the Ionian Boots of Lucidity and eventually max out CDR with Nashor's Tooth and Sorcery. Ionian Boots of Lucidity also provides more attack speed than Berserker's Greaves would while leaving room for other items. This allows you to skip buying items like Athene's Unholy Grail and build more damage and tanky items like Rylai's Crystal Scepter and Liandry's Torment. BTW: Building health greatly increases the strength of the shield you get when you use Shifting Sands to knock-up someone.

Honorable mentions include Zhonya's Hourglass and Void Staff. Both of these items are kinda situational, like get Zhonya's Hourglass if fighting assassins like Zed and get Void Staff if they start to stack Magic Resist.

OPTIONAL ITEMS



These items are perfect for being a huge AP threat from the backline. Your soldiers will hit so hard it's unbelievable. Nashor's Tooth and Athene's Unholy Grail give maximum CDR and mana sustain, and paired with Sorcerer's Shoes, you'll be hitting hard by mid-game. Rabadon's Deathcapand Void Staff will be essential to maximize your damage output, but the last item for your build is completely situational (if you haven't built it already). Zhonya's Hourglass is perfect if they have Zed or their team is AD Heavy, plus it gives a lot of AP. Rylai's Crystal Scepter is a nice item to give you health, AP and a slow for all of your attacks. Liandry's Torment is good if they have really tanky people as it gives even more magic penetration and provides DoT damage. Abyssal Mask is good if they have a large AP damage output.

Flash is a must have spell for Azir. not only can it provide excellent gap closing with a Flash- Shifting Sands combo, but it can also be used to Flash in and use Emperor's Divide to launch opponents towards your team or dive on a carry while pushing pack any form of peel. Do not go into a match without this.



Teleport is my personal favorite spell to run on Azir. Teleport allows you to be able to recall more frequently to buy items and keep up pressure in lane. Also, having Teleport allows you to split push effectively with the option of using Teleport to join a teamfight at any moment. Teleport also helps with ganking other lanes in a pinch.



Ignite for me is not my personal favorite spell on Azir, but it sure as hell works. I am a huge fan of Teleport with my build since it allows for map presence and split-pushing. Ignite, however, can secure some kills with Azir's poke and finishing burst combo with Arise! and Shifting Sands. I actually would consider this to be a standard, but it is not my style. Definitely take it if they have someone like Volibear or Dr. Mundo to prevent the massive healing.

Laning is very simple with Azir. Although, people can sometimes go crazy spamming Arise! in lane. In the early levels, the best option is to conserve your mana by last hitting with Azir's auto-attacks. Trust me, if you can last hit with the AA's on this guys then you can do it with anyone.

By the time you hit level 3 with Azir, you need to show them the power of Shurima. Begin to spend 1 charge of Arise! once in a while to not only farm minions, but to push the lane and harass your opponent. A nice Arise!- Conquering Sands-AA combo can deal a good amount of poke damage to your opponent. The most important thing to remember is to always have a charge of Arise! available to use as a gank escape tool. You can escape most forms of danger with a nice Arise!- Shifting Sands combo to run back to the safety of your turret.

Only send out multiple soldiers at once when A. you have a decent mana pool (see Rod of Ages) and B. you have some CDR (see Ionian Boots of Lucidity and Nashor's Tooth) or C. you are about to score a kill with ease.

Remember to COORDINATE WITH YOUR JUNGLER for not only acquisition of Blue Buff, but also in terms of when to go in on ganks. Azir is very good at initiating ganks with a proper Arise!- Shifting Sands Combo. Also, no coordination can lead to not only your death but your jungler's as well. Feeding either your lane opponent or the enemy jungler 2 kills because of miscommunication.

It is also important to COORDINATE WITH YOUR LANES when roaming. you can't just roam down without warning expecting your lane to be ready to respond properly. They need a heads-up before they see their emperor diving head-first into a 2v1 and dying.

REMEMBER TO USE PINGS TO ALERT YOUR ALLIES OF DANGER OR WHO TO FOCUS!!!


REMEMBER TO PINK ONE SIDE OF THE RIVER NEAR DRAGON OR BARON AND ALWAYS BUY VISION WARDS! THEY SAVE LIVES AND RACK UP KILLS!

In teamfights, positioning with Azir is key. You need to be able to stay far enough away to chip away at enemy champions with your soldiers, using Conquering Sands as often as possible to maximize the damage. When an opportunity arises, coordinate with your teammates to set up a dive on the enemy back-line. Set up Conquering Sands so you can use Shifting Sands as a gap-closer to dive, and hopefully knock-up, the biggest threat. Once you close the distance, use Emperor's Divide to knock-back any enemy resistance and start spamming Arise! to secure the kill. Once this is done, just regroup and clean-up.

If you are losing, however, be sure to try and kite the advancing enemy force with Conquering Sands as much as possible. If they have a good dive comp, try to stay further away from your allies so that you aren't caught in much when the enemy dives in. Use Emperor's Divide to halt their assault and hopefully allow you and your allies to pick up a kill or two to turn the fight around. Use Shifting Sands as another form of peel to protect whomever is currently the M.V.P. of your team atm.

Azir is an excellent champion with a lot to offer to a team. he can be a tanky APC support mage that can protect his allies or utterly ruin the enemies' formation. His kit is very nice, but it is hard to master. Knowing soldier placement is key to winning. Remember: Practice always makes improvement, whether you see it or not right away.

CHOOSE AND PLAY THE BUILD YOU THINK IS BEST FOR YOU.

Don't agree with me? That's perfectly fine. I know my personal favorite build is a little unorthodox now, but that's why I put in the more general build. Choose which one is best for you and your playstyle.

As for the guide itself please leave whatever feedback you can to help me improve, or just say whether or not you agree with my guide. I'm not that great at setting things up, so if you have any advice on how make this guide look better, please let me know. This is my first guide, so please be gentle haha. Also, as I said before, please don't let my rank affect your judgement too much about the guide. Thanks for reading and have a wonderful day! :D