Alistar is a tank support. You pick him if you want someone who can initiate, take damage, and disrupt the enemy team.

Because Ali needs to be able to survive the build focuses tank items. You'll notice the build rushes Emblem of Valor - this is an item that benefits Alistar himself as much as it helps the team. It has nice synergy with his E. The rest of the build is simply survivability and disruption.

You'll notice I buy a lot of ward items. Mid game you should have a ruby sightstone. Ali may be a tank, but he's also incredible at placing wards with his innate speed and mobility. The sightstone also helps his survivability so it's a good way to go. Here are my warding patterns. I won't discuss early game because it's fairly obvious.

If no one except you is warding (pathetic):
- Ward red bush
- Ward blue bush
- Sight ward dragon (before lv 12) / Ward dragon (after level 12)
- Ward baron (before lv 12) / Sight ward baron (after level 12)

If other people are warding save your sighstone wards to be used offensively. By offensively, I mean use them when you are roaming as team and you need to protect a flank.

Unfortunately, these days Alistar gets a rough start. This build is engineered to make his early game as smooth as possible. Usually mid to late game he's fine unless your team is really losing bad. The roughest bot lane matchups are high poke ones - especially magic damage. Examples are:

- Karma
- Nidalee
- Zyra
- Nami

Hopefully the bit of flat magic resist runes will help you survive these. It's sad to have to use runes, but really there's no good start for Ali that uses magic resist. Ultimately an AP support's damage will start to taper off as you level - the best way to keep you and your carry alive is gradual HP regen from the Emblem of Valor. And hopefully you zone out the support so he or she doesn't harass your ADC too much.

Remember, you won't have a ward to start so just try to use your Q and W to lock the lane in a position where your adc can farm but the tower isn't killing your minions. You also won't be able to ward the bottom bushes, and at level 1 it's very easy for a poke-y support to push you up to tower. It's likely a poke-y AP support will buy plenty of wards to start because they don't have to worry as much about taking direct damage, so this makes it even more difficult for you. If your adc is doing their job, you should be able to take back the bush position after a few levels. Don't spam your E - it's not a good use of mana generally. Only use it if you're at 75% or less, or if it's an emergency.