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Spells:
Flash
Ignite
Items
Ability Order
Shurima's Legacy (PASSIVE)
Azir Passive Ability
Threats & Synergies
LeBlanc
LeBlanc is a fairly interesting match-up. She has some of the best mobility in her kit, with 2 dashes followed up by 2 pseudo blinks. It's going to be very hard to kill him with soldier basic attacks unless you can land your CC, so I might recommend buying a Luden's Echo for burst damage, because with Distortion and Mirror Image, it's very unlikely that LeBlanc will fall to Azir's DPS. However, her burst is easily predictable. She'll walk near you, cast Sigil of Malice, and Distortion on you to harass pre-6. What you can do is anticipate this by placing a soldier between LeBlanc and Azir before she casts Distortion. Distortin does a lot of damage but it can be stopped with a properly timed Shifting Sands while LeBlanc is dashing. She also will be unable to cast it a second time to blink bakc to her starting location. Post 6, she can now cast any of her basic skills twice. The second caster deals increased damage. Her standard combo post-6 is to again, walk up and cast Sigil of Malice. Then she will proc the first Sigil of Malice with a Mimic : Sigil of Malice. She will then likely Distortion to proc Mimic : Sigil of Malice. If she lands the Distortion, you will die. You can't interrupt her Distortion any more, unless you ult, so it is a lot harder to win against her.
An Introduction to Azir













About me
I'm Infinite, but I also go by ShadowTagged on the NA server. I've been playing League since Gnar came out and Azir has been one of my favourite champions since I've picked him up. My favourite champions are Singed top, Gragas jungle, Azir mid, Lucian adc, and Thresh support. I don't main any lane but I prefer not to adc.

Pros
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+ The most teamfight oriented hyper carry + Very safe in the laning phase + Unique playstyle that allows for countless outplays + Extremely high late game damage + Can make a tower every 3 minutes. + One of the most loaded champion kits in the game. + Fits in to many team compositions. |
Azir is an extremely safe, high damage and high utility hyper carry. He can protect himself with ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Cons
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+ Weak early game burst. - You feel very useless without items. - His ![]() ![]() - Completely reliant on soldiers for damage. - Mispositioning soldiers usually means death. - Blinks will still cross ![]() - ![]() - High skill cap champion. - Is a very popular and strong champion in the metagame, so receives a lot of nerfs. |
Azir is a hyper carry. Every hyper carry in the game has a lot of early issues, and Azir is no exception. His lack of instant mobility (you need to ![]() ![]() |

Offensive Spells
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Easily the best spell in the game. A 450 range blink that can let you escape a bad situation or even make flashy plays with your ult. Always take this. |
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DoT true damage when you need vision or just quick damage for a kill. It can even help you against that pesky ![]() ![]() ![]() |
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Such a huge shield for 2 seconds that can make you seem a lot weaker than you really are. This spell can even make a difference in a losing battle - however, it won't save you from ![]() |
Defensive Spells
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A good spell to take against burst champs or long range opponents like ![]() ![]() |
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If you blind picked ![]() ![]() ![]() |
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Teleport helps you get back to lane faster if you couldn't push, lets you set up easy ganks with any laner, and is the BEST tool for split pushing with ![]() ![]() |

Runes




Greater Quintessence of Ability Power: Pretty standard on all mid lane champions for the early damage output.
Greater Mark of Magic Penetration: You're an AP mage and these let you shred the standard 30-42 MR that your lane opponent will have. Or, you know,
Orianna's `47-ish MR at level three when she takes
Command: Protect.
Greater Glyph of Scaling Cooldown Reduction: 20% from Nashor's Tooth, 15% late game and 5% from Sorcery helps give you the cdr cap on Azir.
Greater Seal of Scaling Health: AP mid laners don't do crazy amounts of damage with AA's, so this is the best defensive rune for... defending? against their spells. Scales really well into the late game as well.
Runes




Greater Quintessence of Ability Power: Might as well take it. No real reason not to.
Greater Mark of Magic Penetration: You're an AP mage and these let you shred the standard 30-42 MR that your lane opponent will have.
Greater Glyph of Scaling Cooldown Reduction: These are decent for the CDR cap.
Greater Seal of Armor: That measly base armor isn't that much, but 9 bonus armor really can make the difference between first blood and surviving on 15 health. It also helps you reduce hard hitting harass such as
Talon's
Rake.
Greater Quintessence of Movement Speed: Considering that
Azir's mobility isn't crazy, the extra 4.5% movespeed might help you outrun that
Annie, or dodge some harass from
Brand.
Greater Glyph of Scaling Magic Resist: These do actually provide some nice 27MR at level 18, but you shouldn't need it too bad if you can position behind your frontline in fights.
Greater Glyph of Magic Resist: I would take these against champions that you'll have a hard time against, like
Diana, or high burst champions like
LeBlanc. In conjunction with health seals, you might just live their burst.
Greater Seal of Health: Grants 72 bonus health at level 1 and are effective against strong early magic damage dealers like LeBlanc, combine with flat magic resist blues for the best defense early on.
Ferocity Tree
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Cunning Tree
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Resolve Tree
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This is one of the easier of ![]() ![]() |
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This ability allows you to control the positioning of your ![]() Utilization: ![]() |
Arise!...Where do I begin? This skill makes Azir, well, Azir. ![]() Utilization: ![]() |
![]() |

You're forced to take a point in



Then you'd want to max your W for more attack speed and more soldiers.
Obviously, take a point in


( talisman of ascension = soldier auto attacks)
Ranged Harassment
This is


If you freeze your lane, this is a great way to harass your lane opponent while not taking much poke back. Plus, it only costs 110 mana.
Standard All In
To begin this combo you want to have your lane frozen at your tower. When the other laner overextends, throw a soldier up, hit the minions a few times, then use



Throw in a few soldier auto attacks, and you just scored a kill.
This combo is what Burst Mage Azir was built around, after using Emperor's Divide, use Zhonya's Hourglass to confuse the enemy team while your team engages on the low health targets.
This combo right here is mainly used to knock your lane opponent into your tower when the lane is frozen on your side, or if they are a champion with a gap closer that makes them appear behind you (




"Banana Juke"
You can perform this juke by placing a soldier over the wall that you'd like to bait your enemies' flash over. You then


*Pretty sure I linked a video of this in the



Team Fight Engage/Follow Up
This combo is a mix of the "Banana Juke" and the standard all in. It is an incredibly strong engage for your team, and is best performed with the Burst Mage Azir and with follow up from your team, such as a


You generally want to perform this rotation in the jungle, where pathways are small and the enemy team is likely grouped up. You want to use the


When performed correctly, it usually leaves most enemies below 50% health.

Summoner's Drift




Thanks to some changes with how





This means that the Banana Juke is much easier. In addition, it allows some cool new mechanics that are possible. Like the Summoner's Drift. You use the standard





It's very similar to



Starting Items:













A)Base more often. Lose more CS and gain less experience, making you more likely to lose lane.

First Back + Pre Core Items
A second
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This item is such a huge powerspike, giving
![]() ![]() |

![]() Nashor's Tooth |
>![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() That 15% AP magic damage on your auto attacks doesn't matter when your primary damage source scales with 60% AP. |
![]() Rabadon's Deathcap |
>I don't know if there's ever been a mage that I don't buy this item on. 120 AP + 35% Ability Power. The spike in your damage after completing this item is extremely noticeable, although, if you aren't having an amazing game, or are against someone like ![]() ![]() ![]() |
![]() Sorcerer's Shoes |
>The magic pen on these boots is a lot more useful than most other boots in my opinion, and gives you a large damage boost. |
![]() Zhonya's Hourglass |
>This is such a solid item on ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
![]() Rylai's Crystal Scepter |
>This is sort of a personal preference. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() I've changed my opinion on this item since Nashor's Tooth became viable. If you're fed, or going even, it's not a bad idea to rush it as a second item. |
![]() Luden's Echo |
>The more I think about it the more useful this items appears to be. 10% movespeed is huge for a slow champion such as ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |

Q: "What's better,


A: It depends on your situation.
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa


>![]() ![]() |
>![]() ![]() ![]() |

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>![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
![]() |
>Need defensive stats? Need to revive and pull off the sickest xPeke? Buy a ![]() |
![]() |
>![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
![]() |
>A new AP item that fires of hose of spikes that pass through minions and apply a heavy, but short duration slow that does OK damage, while providing health mana, and 80 AP. I wouldn't recommend this on ![]() ![]() |
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa



- Buy
Sorcerer's Shoes standard, gives more damage
- Buy
Boots of Swiftness when you gotta go fast.
- Buy
Mercury's Treads vs very heavy cc team comps.

Lane Harass Placment
aaaaWhen farming, attempt to zone your opponents from farming with their auto attacks by placing a soldier between their melee minions and them. Many opponents you'll face forget that


Solo Blue Buff Placement
aaaaWhen taking your blue buff (with permission from your jungler of course) start by placing a soldier on top of the Golem, then as it attempts to find you, slide your soldier into the bush and continue to auto attack. You should be able to finish the buff quickly with a few auto attacks.
Dragon/Baron Placement

FYI, you can solo dragon when you finish your




aaaaWhen taking Dragon or Baron with a member of your team, place both of your soldiers on top of the monster and stand to the left of it for dragon, so your teammate tanks the AoE damage, or just strafe in front of Baron to avoid some damage.
Teamfight Placement
aaaaDuring teamfights, your soldier placement depends whether your team is playing passive, or aggressive. If your team is playing passive and is being engaged on, place soldiers in front of your ADC to zone enemy champions away from them. When playing aggressive, your goal is to place soldiers in the enemy teams backline to try and shred their ADC, or force them to walk into your team.

Your first priority during laning is to get as much cs as possible.
Here are some tips to make your lane safe for your while being challenging for your opponent:
- *Watch all of the minions* All of them, including your own. Not only will this help your CS, it will also help you find opportunities to harass your opponent when they go to last hit, or zone them with your soldiers. The more farm you deny your opponent, the better chances you have of keeping them shut down throughout the game.
- Try not to overuse your soldiers. Although
Arise! only costs 40 mana, it adds up over time. You can always harass with your auto attacks or only pick opportunities when you know your can get your full harass combo (W + AA + Q +AA) completed, or if you can zone the enemy from something important such as a cannon minion.
- Try to freeze your lane to your tower by strictly last hitting the minions. If you can do this you have control over your lane and have a much better chance of getting a successful gank or completing your all in combo (W + Q + E + R + AA)
- Look at your map and listen for pings. Probably one of the most basic tips I can give, but it really does help and is crucial to knowing when you can overextend or if you need to leave lane to go help (ie, the opposing jungler is ganking top, I can safely all in their
Katarina).
- Ward your lane.
- Try not to use all of your abilities when being overextended without wards, their jungler may kill you before you complete your combo or come in for clean-up duty.
- Your cs and your tower are more important than kills. Think of cs as your job, but kills are just an added bonus that your employer doesn't mind you doing.
- As of Patch 5.22, The Rift Herald is a thing. Try to ward around it, don't be that guys that steals it from the top laner, they need it more than you do.


There is no real numeric time when mid game starts, but I'd say that it's after the first dragon and first two towers have been taken. It'll probably be around 20 minutes at this point, and you should have your



Anyways, your main objectives during mid game are:
- Continue to put pressure on your lane by keeping it pushed out if you're ahead. At this point, if you're ahead, the enemy laner has probably seen your all-in and will likely not push your lane to tower with you in it. You want to keep mid tower for as long as possible.
- If you're behind, try to stay in lane to put pressure on the other laner and set up a gank. When you're behind, try to get the other laner to push you to tower so you can freeze and force them to stay to get ganked, or roam, which brings me to the next point.
- Keep track of your lane opponent. Call your Missing in Action pings and try to keep the area around your lane warded so the other lanes know when your mid laner is missing, and will probably stay out of fights in their lane, which leads to a lower possibility of them being baited into your lane opponent.
- Continue to get as much cs as possible, and keep in mind that eventually
Azir outscales most other mid laners.
Azir's late game is insane, just try to make sure he gets the cs to get there.
- Help your team out with objectives. If your team needs help with some pushing or a dragon, make sure to do as they ask unless you have a really good reason to not, i.e., don't say you can't miss this wave of cs.
- Roam and try to pick up some kills. If your team is fairly ahead or someone needs help in a lane, don't be afraid to push your lane and then roam for a very easy kill with
Emperor's Divide.
Late game also doesn't have a set timer to when it starts, so I'll just say that it begins when a team has two or more inhibitor towers or an acutal inhibitor. At this point in the game

In the late game, your objectives are:
- Maintaining control over the map. Map control is achieved with your team by being on top of buffs, wards, having ward control over Dragon and Baron, as well as keeping your lanes pushed.
- Helping your team in fights.
Emperor's Divide was meant to be a defensive ability, so if a teamfight didn't go so well, try to peel for your teammates with it as long as you don't die doing so.
- Split-pushing. This is one of
Azir's greatest powers. He has huge, consistent AoE damage, lots of peel and an escape, as well as a tower nuke with
Arise!. When a lane is fairly pushed or your team can't win teamfights, split pushing is the way to go.
- Securing Baron Nashor and Dragon. The buffs that these monsters bestow are incredibly powerful and better for you, often for teamfights with many places to trap the enemy team in with
Emperor's Divide. Remind your jungler when they are up, and let him make the call to take it.

Like many of the mid lane mages with CC,

>>>When to pick

- Lack of burst. Your team has a burst top laner and needs sustained damage for teamfights.
- Easy match up.The enemy mid laner has locked in a favorable match up that you feel comfortable playing against.
- Little cc.Few hard AoE cc champions on the enemy team.
- Friendly cc.Two or more hard cc champions on your team.
>>>Try not to play

- Blinks. The enemy team has many champions that are able to get past your wall with blinks.
- Hard match up.The enemy mid laner chose a match up that you are uncomfortable with.
- Split-push.Your team or the enemy team is split-push oriented.
A Word About Gnar
Just putting it out there, this combination WILL decimate entire enemy team comps. If you're playing this and can force team fights with Baron Nashor or 5 man pushing mid, you'll easily win the game with this combination.
But why does it work?
If you have ever played





But wait! There's more!
You may or may not remember about how







Anyways, you want to do this with

The combo looks something like this when pulled off correctly (credits to UberDanger):
Other Champions Azir Works Well With
aaaa






















All of these champions are pretty godlike when it comes to teamfights for their AoE cc abilities that can lockdown entire teams, and it's very useful for Azir because he needs more time than most mid laners to make an impact on a teamfight.















These are examples of some high damage champions whose abilities compliment Azir's skillset nicely by enhancing his damage out put by providing slows or bringing great AoE damage to teamfights to make up for Azir's lack of burst.

Thanks for taking the time to read this guide! I hope you consider using this build in your next



Credits to the following:
>jhoijhoi - For her amazing BBCode guide and the multiple templates I used, all can be found here: http://www.mobafire.com/league-of-legends/build/making-a-guide-101506
>Ahpulzz - For teaching me how to play Kassadin and for the formatting inspiration from his guide, found here: http://www.mobafire.com/league-of-legends/build/the-voidwalker-rises-in-depth-379157
>Emikadon - For showing me how visually stunning artwork can make a guide, her Katarina guide is here: http://www.mobafire.com/league-of-legends/build/the-blade-of-noxus-390482
>Fellow Summoner, Ascended Azir - For wrecking me with the

>I made all of the chapter banners!
>Any video that I do not own has been credited at its location.

- 04/22/15 - After finishing the Main Core Items, decided guide was fit to release, more updates to come soon! View count: 98
- 04/23/15 - Just finished the Alternate Items chapter, going to test some more before I write the next section on "Soldier Placement". View count: 100
- 04/24/15 - Finished a section on boot enchantments in the Alternate Items chapter, started the "Soldier Placement" chapter, and finished a section on Early Game/Laning Tips. View count: 142
- 04/25/15 - I made banners! Mostly just to make the guide a bit more visually appealing. I think I'll continue adding graphics. View count: 230
- 04/26/15 - Cleaned up the guide a bit, took away the original introduction because it didn't look amazing, and I added a credits section to acknowledge those that have helped me with this guide. I also completed the damage calculations for each ability. View count: 808
- 04/28/15 - Added in a few screenshots of the step by step 'Banana Juke', made a solo blue buff video, and finished the screenshot for the dragon placement. View count: 1K
- 04/29/15 - Made a new section talking about when to pick Azir in ranked, I went pretty in depth about Gnar. Also added in a ward map in the Early Game/Laning Tips section. View count: 2K
- 05/07/15 - Another new section about generals goals during mid/late game, and added in a few cool pictures around. View count: 3K
- 05/14/15 - I worked out a new item build vs AD mid laners and updated the main build as well as the main item section accordingly. View count: 4K
- 05/28/15 - I added a few points about Luden's Echo into the 'Alternate Items' Chapter and wrote about Malzahar and LeBlanc in the 'VS Champions' section. View count 7K
- 05/31/15 - I added in Ekko to the 'VS Champions' section, moved Luden's Echo from 'Alternate Items' to 'Main Core Items', removed the old 21/0/9 masteries because when Riot moved
Meditation to
Expanded Mind 's place, the 1.5% of missing mana regen/5 became a lot less sexy. I added in a Burst Mage Azir build and added its rune explanation to the 'Runes' chapter. View count: 8K
- 06/20/15 - I added
Athene's Unholy Grail to the items section, added in some music and added a new ability rotation. Thanks for 12K views, I'm really flattered <3 View count: 12K
- 06/21/15 - New chapter explaining some builds I like to take and the pros/cons of each. View count: 13K
- 08/11/15 - I've been super busy lately yet Azir has gone through his fair share of changes in 5.14 with passive attack speed on his W now, his attack speed scaling with CDR removed, and the knock up being removed from his E. I updated a few sections with this information and need to rewrite some champion matchups based on the change. View count: 20K
- 09/04/15 - Summer is almost over :( Anyways, Riot decided to nerf Azir's movespeed down and remove the additional damage on his Q. Since patch 5.14, mana regen items on Azir haven't really been necessary, so I removed
Morellonomicon,
Rod of Ages,
Athene's Unholy Grail and
Ionian Boots of Lucidity from the guide as I don't really see a use for them any more. The CDR is pointless with Scaling CDR blues. I also added a bunch of matchups for the lane and removed the 'Example Builds' chapter. I still want to add
Varus,
Viktor,
Kog'Maw and
Xerath to the lane matchups, but I need to play against them a bit more often. View count: 30K
- 09/09/15 - I fixed a few mistakes I left in the guide from a previous update and added a diagram to the "Lane Harass Placement" in the "Soldier Placement" chapter. I added a video by Bjergsen demonstrating the "Shuriman Shuffle" engage with
Azir's ultimate in the "Ability Rotations" chapter. I've added a few more matchups to the guide as well. View count: 31K
- 09/11/15 - Now taking a computer science class to help my coding. Not much has changed aside from a few small typo fixes and edits. View count: 31K
- 09/15/15 - Reworked the "Masteries" chapter, added
Jayce to matchups, and even used some kawaii ****ers ヽ( ★ω★)ノ. View count: 32K
- 10/14/15 - Changed my opinion on
Rylai's Crystal Scepter, the AoE slow is actually really strong and it gives a lot of health and AP for how useful the slow is. Maybe it's because I'm playing so much
Singed now? Who knows. View count: 37K
- 10/18/15 - Updated the "Introduction to Azir" chapter and made it a lot cleaner. Currently working on a
Singed guide, and also I realized that Rage Against the Machine's "Evil Empire" album fits
Azir well. View count: 38K
- 11/16/15 - Patch 5.22 dropped and reset everyone's masteries, so I redid them, and I wrote some notes about them. Everything that is AP is more expensive, so I'm playing more top lane right now until that gets changed.
Azir didn't benefit from too much with the AP item changes and mastery changes, aside from Oppressor. At least he's getting a new skin, that's kinda cool. (Kinda has the exact same color scheme as
Karthus, but I'm not complaining). On a final note,
Yasuo is just stupid with his free sustain from
Warlord's Bloodlust ,
Death's Dance, and the damage alteration from its passive. At least
Yasuo isn't
Tryndamere in Patch 5.22. These are rough times. View count: 41K
- 12/13/15 - Thanks to Patch 5.24, a bunch of new possibilities arose with
Azir's combos, since Riot changed the way his kit flows together. I added a section about it in the "Ability Rotations" chapter. Gravelord Azir is out too, and that is beautiful. Also, thank you very much for a year on this guide nearly, and 50 000 views. q(^-^q) View count: 50K
- 12/20/15 - Merry Christmas! I made a small error in the first mastery pages, so I corrected that. View count: 51K
- 03/20/16 - It's been some time since any changes have affected
Azir, but a new tier 2 mastery in Ferocity turns out to be much better in my opinion than
Feast, so I changed the guide to include
Expose Weakness accordingly. View count: 67K
- 06/08/16 - So
Azir is finally getting nerfed quite a bit again. His
Arise! no longer damages towers, his
Emperor's Divide has had its duration reduced significantly and no longer grants movespeed. This makes
Azir worse a split pushing and makes
Emperor's Divide less abusive. Also, Riot stole all the fun. You can't pin champions to thick walls anymore. Barrier's cooldown was reduced so I recommend taking it more often. For some unbeknownst reason, Riot has recently been making CDR super available to a lot of items, like
Iceborn Gauntlet,
Hextech Rocketbelt,
Trinity Force, and
Zhonya's Hourglass, so the game is in this weird state where everyone has a lot of CDR, and fights happen more frequently, spell casters are more viable, and CDR glyphs aren`t as great, so I`d consider taking ability power or MR in some of your rune pages. View count: 86K
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