I won't bore you with the weird flexing everyone else seems to do for these guides, who am I? Just a nobody who likes to break the meta, Nami mid has been a long standing favorite of mine and here's why.

You take Nami mid when you are looking to harass an opponent or opponents who have large opportunity windows, you take her when your team needs a reliable source of follow up damage, and she soars in moments when she can kite enemies. she can heal allies in a pinch and lock down important enemies when needed, if you're still not quite sold, lets read on.

Pro's

* Self sustain
* Lots of CC
* Scaling movement speed
* easy late game team synergy
* Insane early game trades
** If you fall behind, you can just support!

Cons

* she's pretty item reliant
* fairly squishy
* decent at best spell scalings
* High CD's early

Domination



starting heal, Nami can proc electrocute really easily, it's a medium range targeted spell that actually cancels an AA animation allowing for an AA>W>AA really easily


Use Tidecaller's Blessing to proc the slow, every attack afterwards deals bonus true damage. prognosis...easy

Assists count, heal an ally, KS, kill a tower= free AP

This just stacks with Surging Tides and Celerity


Nami has pretty high spell costs early game, this helps mitigate some of that until you get Lich bane and Luden's


Trust me, this is what this build is all about.

Best Option
Corrupting potion makes up for any bad trades you may take and further helps negate Nami's high mana costs, you gain more health back then the Doran's Ring Provides and best of all it gives a burn to your already buffed Auto Attacks

Decent Option


The Doran's ring is a well rounded starting item, but the Ap it provides is negligible to your low early scalings offering at most 5-7 additional damage, if you really think you need the extra 80 health you can go for it, but Corrupting is better


you can start the boots of speed and 4 healing potions if you're against a skill shot reliant opponent, Xerath, Varus ect... after the recent nerf to Nami's passive it just mostly brings you back to her previous level, it's really only a good start for surviving as it offers no other benefits.

So I'm going to take a moment and give her first back it's own little explanation, so listen in a minute.

hitting your first back is pretty big on Nami and depending on your enemy laner this is probably your most important back as there's actually several different item paths you can choose with nami's flexible abilities.


First and foremost the Sheen, this item is my ideal first item on Nami in most situations, it provides 10% CDR and grants you the Spellblade passive buffing your next AA after you cast a spell, self casting E automatically procs this, essentially double buffing your next AA when you have this and thanks to Nami's easy animation cancels(which I'll explain more down below) makes it easy to take advantage of it's passive all around.


If you instead are finding your enemy running in fear and you can't make use of any AA's go for the blasting wand instead, still a component of lich bane, it provides you with a nice boost of 40 AP to give your heal and bubble a little more oomph.


The Aether Wisp on the other hand is the item you buy if you need that little bit of extra movement speed to go along with your passive, chasing, kiting, dodging ect. it still gives a decent bump to your AP but allows you to move a bit quicker and being a % MS increase actually scales with you.


ironically this isn't really an item I take if I'm behind, I usually take this item against zed or yasuo if I'm ahead in lane, the reason being I want to increase my damage but keep theirs down, this item has a great cost ratio and while I don't like the hourglass myself, it can certainly mitigate a lot of early damage from AD enemies

so we're in a good spot, we got a clean early back, we are dealing pretty good harass and we have enough gold to buy something, here's why we get the Sheen

The Term "Animation Cancelling" is pretty common, and in league it's pretty common knowledge but without knowing the triggers to take advantage of it, it becomes a useless statement for those unfamiliar it means how it sounds, you cancel an animation, you can do this by issuing a command at a certain trigger.

For Nami, all of her animations are cast at the beginning of her spells meaning they can be cancelled with relative ease, so after the ability is cast you cancel it with an AA and with the sheen that AA is now charged with bonus damage, so it's extra damage that requires no extra effort, just proper timing.

A little more in depth into animation cancelling on her abilities
all of Nami's animations can be cancelled by an attack move
for Aqua Prison wait until as soon as the bubble is in the air, the bubble can't be cancelled once it's in the air so as soon as you see it you're good to go
-For Ebb and Flow you can issue the attack move as soon as you see tip of your staff begin to glow, it's actually slightly faster than Aqua Prison
Tidecaller's Blessing is awesome because there's no animation for it, it's instant, so you can cast it while moving, if you have this ability off cooldown often times you can use Tidecaller's Blessing as your attack move, meaning you can cancel your other abilities with Tidecaller's Blessing
Tidal Wave is the only ability that can't be cancelled since the wave doesn't appear until the animation has actually finished. there's some microseconds I'm sure you could argue over but it's irrelevant, because of this, you'll always want to use Tidal Wave when you're out of the enemies range or as a last ditch effort as casting tidal wave leaves you immobile for e very important half a second.

: the Lich Bane is Nami's Ideal first item in all cases since the raw stats just synergize too well to give up. 250 mana, 10% CDR and another 7% movement speed combine with your passive, and offset your weaknesses and the spell blade passive is a great bonus with the tips I previously explained.
: Ludens Echo is your wave clear, since 2 of Nami's abilities don't deal minion damage, you're going to need the wave clear that this provides from it's passive, it also grants another 10% CDR with it's unique passive increasing it to 20%, The splash damage is also great for popping shields such as yasuo, malzahar or Banshee's veil.
Again the early cooldown reduction these provide is really good to help your harass the Aqua Prison is your main damage tool and needs to be up as often as possible, but if you have 40% CDR from other items, go Sorcerer's Shoes ofcourse.
The spellbinder is an item that was made for Nami, the passive movement speed combined with 120 AP are already a godsend but the active is just amazing, use it to run away with lightning speed or hunt down even the fastest enemy, combined with your passive you are one of the fastest things in the game.
the ability power from the deathcap Is a fantastic closer to your build, your movement speed will increase exponentially and you'll find you can kill a squishy in a single combo with relative easy. Just save it for last otherwise you've spent a lot of gold on a passive that doesn't work until late game.
A fantastic amaount of Magic penetration for when they start to build resistance, keeps your damage relevant in taking out the front line tanks. or back line carry's

Honorable Mentions


I personally love the Nashor's Tooth on Nami since it allows you to get your 3 E attacks off at a much faster rate but since her buff to Tidecaller's Blessing to include spells as well, it doesn't quite fit in anymore, still the 20% CDR is nice it grants a solid 80AP and in close range skirmeshes the attack speed really helps spell weaving and CS but it's still not the best option


While this item also provides 10% CDR and 45 armor, it falls a little slack with its 75 AP, the cost is pretty high and unless for some reason you find yourself just getting locked down and one shot every teamfight, you really won't be needing it. no, not even against Zed, Especially not against Zed! Stop it!


Don't fall into the inevitable rut of trying to buy a support item to save your teammates, with this warning I give one exception; Twin shadow's actually works pretty well for nami, it further helps her chase or Kite herself with the targeted slow, it can help seek out hidden or invisible enemies, and the 7$ base movement speed and 10% CDR are actually pretty decent for a last item

Surging: Surging Tides makes re-positioning in team fights super easy and fun, even in trades the movement speed it provides makes moving around fun and traveling the map becomes easy. It scales with AP too so it always stays relevant. Try to self cast as many abilities more than not. Early game this passive is like having a pair of boots, for a little bit of mana you can easily dodge skill shots or escape early ganks. You can also use it to buff an ally.

Aqua: Aqua Prison is Nami's most damaging and useful ability by far, the 50% scaling is more than you think when coupled with a 1.5 second stun/knockup. Using the bubble requires alot of practice since the bubble has a travel time try to cast it slightly in front of where you enemy is going to be, or use it when you know your enemy is going in to last hit, Use it when roaming or when getting ganked to stop your attacker, or when being chased chasing. best of all even if you are behind, the stun is fantastic in teamfights. I'll go on a bubble tangent down below

Ebb and: Ebb and Flow provides amazing sustain while in lane, but it's a mana hungry spell, always try to use it offensively while making sure you are in range of the bounce that way you deal damage and heal yourself in a single cast. When the heal bounces to you it also procs Surging Tides so you can attack, heal yourself and gain a burst of movement speed to chase or escape. further more it actually scales positively with AP meaning that with enough AP there is no longer a negative modifier, each bounce will increase the damage or heal, which is something a support Nami will never see.

TIDECALLER'S: Tidecaller's Blessing has amazing scaling if you can land all 3 procs. Self casting it also gives you the movement speed to chase, on top of the slow it provides for your next 3 attacks or abilities. With this update this ability went from a few uses to a few hundred it would take hours to explain them all, but the jist is that you cast this on yourself for movement speed and use the buff attack to slow your enemies making it easier to land the rest of your abilities. Just remember, only your first 3 are buffed.

Tidal: Tidal Wave should only be used as a counter initiate, it has horrible scaling and is slow but it has a really wide and long range. It's probably the single best ability in the game for turning around what seems like a lost fight. the knockup and slow basically guarantee landing the bubble, while speeding you and your allies up
using it to start teamfights try to aim it at a cluster or a choke point, backed up by your whole team this is an amazing initiation tool or in a pinch can be used to disengage as well.

in almost all situations I grab Ebb and Flow at level 1 it allows for easy trades and proccing of Electrocute
I grab Aqua Prison lvl 2 as by now you are going to want to start keeping up with waveclear and looking to trade a little harder...
I get Tidecaller's Blessing at lvl 3 since any earlier and you are just kind of wasting mana trying to use it.
Max Aqua Prison first as it's your damage, peel and waveclear and just about the only way you'll keep up with your opponents
in Melee matchups or if you find yourself needing the peel you can Max E first
while in Harrass and trade heavy matchups I prefer to max W
then ofcourse get Tidal Wave whenever you can

I'm going to go ahead and give this it's own section because it's key to being a good Nami or an ok nami.
Let's face it the bubble has difficult timing to master but landing one is game changing.
Here's how to step your bubble game up to pro status.

With the slow missle speed you can't cast the bubble where your opponent is (unless you are CC chaining)-((Crowd controlling an already stunned or immobile enemy)) instead you have to predict their movements and aim where they are going to be when your bubble lands. Sounds simple enough right?. wrong, this varies based on movement speed, spell abilities, and much more, but practice makes perfect. for example, if laning vs LeBlanc you dont want to cast it on the LB herself but instead the marker she left behind when she dashed, or when you get ulted by zed, his ult places him behind you, so when you see the cross on your champion, you know you have to place your bubble behind where you're facing.

getting two V oned is where Nami can really show off
when getting double teamed, you always want your enemies to share your abilities, sure if you can trap them both in one bubble great but more often than not you're going to want to bubble one, ult the other, slow the guy who just came out of the bubble, ect...Nami has enough CC to defend against up to 3 enemies, I've done it, many times. When you chunk 3 enemies down without taking damage, they'll probably back off, if not, keep it going.

Nami is in my opinion besides Lulu, the single best champion for turning the odds to her favor, and it's because many people underestimate her I think. Many people have never fought a mid lane Nami before, use this to your advantage.

Nami has some of best pre 6 solo trading I've ever seen in a champion, I've gone against a lot of champions, at lvl 1 you can out trade any single opponent.

Tidecaller's Blessing > Ebb and Flow this is your bread and butter combo, you will be able to proc Electrocute every single time, in fact the poor keystone can't keep up with lvl 2 Nami. Tidecaller's speeds you up on self cast getting you closer to the enemy, once your AA lands cast Ebb and Flow which heals back any damage they countered with, the speed boost from ebb gets you in range to proc Electrocute on your second AA which slows them again for another AA an ideal trade will reduce your enemy to 40% % HP while keeping you at 80%
Tidecaller's Blessing > Aqua Prison- basic lvl 2 combo- TB slow gets you in range and gives you an easier target to land your bubble
Tidecaller's Blessing > Aqua Prison> Ebb and Flow easy lvl 3 combo same thing as the first combo just cast the heal while they are suspended for easy damage, dont forget to finish always remember to start with TB as it buffs the damage on the rest of the combo, don't underestimate how much damage it adds
Tidal Wave Tidecaller's Blessing> Aqua Prison > Ebb and Flow

once you learn how to animation cancel you can weave spells like this
Tidecaller's Blessing > Ebb and Flow (procs Surging Tides)> Tidecallers blessing (these 3 hits are easy to land because of the slows and always procs [[Electrocute

or for the most DPS
Aqua Prison > Animation cancel with Tidecaller's Blessing> AA > Ebb and Flow> animation cancel with an attack move > AA

remember to use Surging Tides passive to constantly re position yourself while kiting or chasing while many champs have to run in a straight line to keep up, nami has the unique ability to move around since shes so fast, as long as you keep using abilities

also remember that Tidecaller's Blessing has a really low cooldown, you can use it to chase enemies and stick to them, if you time it correctly you will have your other abilities back as you hit the last proc..time her abilities so you always have at least one available, this allows you to take full advantage of Surging Tides.

Early game

Early game you come running right out of the gate, trade trade and trade again, Nami has a huge waveclear problem, deny them as much farm as possible, harass every chance you can but focus on farming with AA's (it takes practice but it can be done). Use Aqua Prison to thin waves and kill casters, Focus on learning your enemies movement patterns to land those bubbles, look for opportunities to roam, Nami's CC makes her roam game very good, having Tidal Wave isn't even necessary but is certainly helpful but feel free to roam pre 6 if you're ahead, she is incredible at it. look to set up ganks with your jungler as often as possible, being a supportive caster by nature you can really turn the tables on early game 2v2's

Nami is the queen of getting ganked, you will probaly get ganked first, second, and probably third, until after 3 double kills they learn their lesson,
because of all the cc Nami has, getting ganked almost always works out in your favor. With good bubble placements you can one v two under your tower all day.
and when you're getting a gank from your own jungler, your kits makes securing the kill easy.

after laning phase you want to look to join your team mates asap until you have your core items and can hold it on your own, you synergize well with a plethora of champions and with your high movement speed can create a huge impact on all other lanes, in team fights try to stick behind your initiator and save your abilites to follow them up, don't start with your ult ever because when you want it most you wont have it

in teamfights Nami is the unique ability in all of league to use her teammates to proxy on her behalf
confused? don't worry, I'll feed you baby birds...

Ability Proxy? what? who?

Nami has the unique ability in all of league to extend her range via her allies. is there an enemy running away that you can't reach but your nocturne is going in. tidecaller's blessing before he does. and you just got an assist if not 2 from a mile away...is there a big fight breaking out but your top laner is about to teleport in leaving you top all alone? Tidecaller's Blessing before she goes and rack up the gold as she cleans up from across the map.

is there an enemy who just flashed away from you but your jungler is within bounce range of your heal? you can cast Ebb and flow on your jungler to reset the range and secure the kill while healing and speeding up your jungler

is your volli bear dropping to all fours to chase down the enemy that just escape from you? pp Tidecaller's Blessing to watch him take off with insane speed and slow them down with his attacks for you to catch up and get the kill you deserve
BUFF THE BEARRRR!!!!

I think you get the picture, you can essentially extend your ranges using your allies to slow down or reach enemies you otherwise wouldn't have been able to reach, which is pretty damn handy.

Nami is my best and favorite champ,( though by no means am I saying I'm good at league) I'm just one of those guys that play for fun... hopefully I gave you a new perspective on her playstyle though.
This build is super fun and pretty darned effective but with anything takes practice, don't get discouraged
Thanks for checking out my guide, I enjoy making these and will probably continue to do so for a few more of my favorite break the meta's so keep an eye out for little old me if you enjoy spitting in the face of conformity.

in the mean time, have fun out there and try something new
so go ahead make me proud, I want to see some Nami's carry the mid Lane.

feel free to to let me know if I made any mistakes or if I left something out and feel free to share any comments or ask any questions, I love the feedback.