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My name is Sawyer Nelson and I'm a Challenger League of Legends player & Stream on Twitch.tv/SawyerNelson

This is a simple guide because I assume most players looking at this are new(ish) to League of Legends, or just now learning how to play well in League of Legends. This guide is to help that person specifically, and not water them down with to much information.

This rune setup will give you the most damage possible from Aatrox's kit, the champion doesn't benefit a ton from building tank items or running defensive runes, so it's best to all in what the champion does well rather than trying to compensate.

The runes give Aatrox more damage and some utility, empowering his laning, trades, and DPS during fights.

Aatrox has a very strong laning phase because of his Q The Darkin Blade it is on a very short cooldown, and has massive range, and it you land all 3 parts of it you will deal massive damage.

When the enemy moves up to hit a CS be ready to cast Q The Darkin Blade on them, then move forward to cast the 2nd cast of The Darkin Blade, the 3rd cast deals the most damage, especially if you land the center of it on top of the enemy champion, but it commits you further into them, so be mindful of this before somewhat all'ing

You can cast E Umbral Dash while casting Q The Darkin Blade! This lets you immediately reposition the landing zone of The Darkin Blade make good you use of this and you will be greatly rewarded. Try doing this a couple times in Practice tool to get the hang of it, you can also use Flash to relocate, so you have lots of out play potential to anyone trying to avoid The Darkin Blade

Aatrox's W Infernal Chains only deals damage and applies to the first enemy hit, meaning minions can block it, so when taking trades and you get past the minion wave and basically on top of the enemy champion you can cast this to setup either for a kill or more damage.

Infernal Chains can also be cast simply to deal more damage to the minion wave while pushing before recalling.

World Ender After level 6 all in's becoming even more in Aatrox's favore that is if you are even in items with the enemy laner, if you are even or ahead you get a lot of utility from World Ender being able to revive and gain bonus movement speed to chase someone down during a fight, the revive also lets you tower dive very, very easily.

Don't wait until the end of a fight to cast World Ender blow it fairly early, the duration last a long time, and offers you bonus movement speed and Attack Damage.

Q > Q > E > Q > E > W

or

Q >R > Q >Q > E > W

During any combo onto the enemy if you have Aatrox's passive up Deathbringer Stance your initial auto attack on the enemy will deal tons of damage, so try and factor that in, but going for an auto attack after using a full combo is also easier, do what works for you, then try and push it.

Death's Dance is Aatrox's first core item in every matchup, if you can buy a Caulfield's Warhammer on first back, than you will have a lot of power in lane.

You can then sit on Boots or build them into tier 2 boots in either Ninja Tabi or mercury treads

2nd item will always be Black Cleaver it gives Aatrox CDR + AD + Health and added mobility which is all he wants, 3rd item Sterak's Gage gives AD + Health again all that Aatrox wants.

The itemization is pretty simple and set in stone, you don't have to deviate from it, the more fed you get the more damage and tankier you become with this build.

You want to spend a good amount of your time in a side lane as Aatrox, keeping up gold and EXP lead is important to being able to overpower enemies in the late game, if you are underleveled than an enemy carry will be able to burst you very easily, if you are over leveled it will be very easy for you to run down and enemy without them dealing much damage.

So pick your fights wisely when you choose to leave lane, or Teleport to a fight.

Aatrox can demand a huge presence during a teamfight, with his ULT World Ender making him huge you will get a lot of attention. The CC from The Darkin Blade also demand a lot of attention from the enemy team to deal with. You should take fights front to back ( hitting the enemy front line) if you are ahead in items and XP.

If you are even or behind you might want to look for a flank onto the enemy carries, often the supports / peel for the enemy carries will most likely be looking to dive onto the first target they see during a fight, you can exploit this by flanking the enemy carries during a fight rather than simply trying to run at them through all their allies. Getting a position behind them will enable you to single them out and most likely solo them without much trouble from the enemy team.