Hi everyone, I'm Namikaze Minato and my IGN is MindCrush currently in Platinum IV and this is a guide to my all-time favorite champion, Azir. I want to help everyone who wants to play this awesome champion by sharing this guide. Do note that this is based from my playstyle so I do appreciate feedbacks and I highly encourage everyone to adjust to your liking. This is just to give you insights of how i play him so this is not the only way to play Azir. To start off, Azir is fun to use with his soldiers. Almost everything will be about your soldiers doing the work for you. You can outrange almost everyone while laning and will easily zone out your enemy by properly placing your soldiers. Why auto attack yourself when the soldiers can do it for you and in a much longer range? Thank you for taking your time to read this guide and I do hope it helps you.

Pros

+ Long ranged poke and auto attack + Can easily zone enemies + Emperor's Divide is useful in team fights + Shifting Sands provides a lot of utility + Can easily win in melee duels + Shurima's Legacy is awesome for zoning

By strategically placing your soldiers and relocating them with Conquering Sands, your enemies will have no choice but to deal with your soldiers active. Azir is highly dependent on his soldiers so this should be favorable to you. If the situation gets tough, you can always get away with Shifting Sands and block their way with Emperor's Divide.

Cons

- Heavily reliant on Arise! - No sustain - Lacks CC - Hard to master - Uses a lot of mana - Shurima's Legacy gives huge gold to enemies

Nobody is perfect and Azir also has a lot of imperfections in his kit. It's a rough time laning against a champion who pokes a lot from afar ( Xerath and Ziggs for example). The worst time to duel with Azir is when he has no soldiers near the enemy. As listed, his role is put to a minimum when Arise! is on cooldown and with badly positioned soldiers because he heavily relies on his soldiers to do pretty much anything. Finally, his killing potential is good for individuals and not group killing because you will rely mostly on your auto attacks and Conquering Sands which cant really damage a whole group.

Runes

• Greater Quintessence of Ability Power: My main source of AP early to help me zone and poke. You want to dominate early and keep your enemy on a leash at all times so you need to show them how painful you are early and tell them to keep cowering.
  
• Greater Mark of Magic Penetration: Only decent rune for mages. You can get attack speed from your passive and items, you wont need it from runes.
  
• Greater Glyph of Scaling Ability Power: Your choice to get this or Greater Glyph of Ability Power. For me it's enough to go with scaling to poke and zone.
  
• Greater Seal of Armor: Helps you mid-game to late-game because you will have to deal with physical damages too when your team clashes.
  
  Alternate Runes
  
• Greater Glyph of Magic Resist: If you need to deal with pesky champions you hate like Xerath.
  
• Greater Seal of Health: If you want to do this then go ahead but its only good early game when laning.

My masteries are the usual set-up of 21/9/0. You can go for all sorts of usual set-ups for the mastery as long as you get the 5% Cooldown Reduction from Sorcery because the 35% will come from Nashor's Tooth, Athene's Unholy Grail and Ionian Boots of Lucidity. However, if you build Nashor's Tooth and Athene's Unholy Grail, then you can swap the points from Sorcery to Fury . Maximizing Ability Power from the offensive tree and just take the Juggernaut mastery from the defensive tree and you're good to go.

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Ignite: This is standard spell if you want to aim for a kill early on. This is also useful for champions with good sustain like Swain.

Flash: Staple Spell, always have this since the utility of this skill is just so good. Flash over walls, dodge skillshots with huge area or even flash behind your enemy and push them to your team with Emperor's Divide.

Teleport: I don't usually get this unless I am swapping lanes with the top laner. This is used when you have to defend your tower after pushing their lane. The use of this spell is to defend your lane tower while helping out your other allies elsewhere. Don't waste this spell by teleporting to a lane with no clashes. Just save this up for defending your lane towers or when a clash is going on far away from you. And remember that teleporting to a lane tower reduces the cooldown of teleport by a lot.

Heal: This spell is basically to survive if the enemy could easily zone you. This is used to get HP from nowhere but avoid using when an ignite is active on you.

It's arguable why I don't usually go for Athene's Unholy Grail and I get where it is coming from. But from how I play him, I keep my distance most of the times that I rarely get hit by spells except for really long ranged spells like Xerath and Ziggs. The mana usage isn't a bother to me since i rely on auto attacks from my soldiers and Nashor's Tooth to deal damage. Another thing is swapping out Rabadon's Deathcap with Liandry's Torment. I choose to do this if the enemies are building up a ton of HP and Magic Resist as it grants a good passive to burn down their HP and Magic Penetration and since it goes well with Rylai's Crystal Scepter too. If you want to go without Magic Resist than dont bother building them and go for glass cannon, at least you can survive physical damages because of Zhonya's Hourglass.

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Shurima's Legacy: This is Azir's passive skill which has two purposes. First is the real passive where he gains 1.25% attack speed for every 1% cooldown reduction you have. So the maximum bonus attack speed is 50% attack speed and 40% cooldown reduction. The second "passive" is the sun disc where you can right-click a destroyed lane tower and return it as if it was not destroyed.

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Conquering Sands: This is his skill that can move or relocate his soldiers and damage enemies they go through and applies slow for a brief duration. This is definitely maxed first aside from Emperor's Divide.

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Arise!: This is Azir's skill to summon soldiers and is the only available skill he can learn in level 1. The range is short but you can keep it from afar (I will confirm the range). Soldiers have vision so you can use them as temporary wards. Remember to keep one stack of soldier for utility purposes. Additionally, soldiers cannot attack enemy buildings and at the same time, they disappear quicker when near an enemy turret but you can attack enemies cowering under their tower with your soldiers and not get hit by the tower.

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Shifting Sands: This is Azir's skill to relocate himself to one of his sand soldier. He stops when he bumps an enemy champion and gives him barrier that lasts for a few seconds. Good for interrupting channeling skills.

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Emperor's Divide: The impassable wall of soldiers (you can't use your skills with these soldiers) that grants movement speed to you and your allies when you go through it like Jayce's Acceleration Gate and Anivia's Crystallize combined. This skill will block dashes but not blinks like Flash, Arcane Shift and the likes. Use this beside your AD Carry when you see from what direction the enemy assassin is coming so you can peel damage from assassins that aims for him. Casting this from an enemy LeBlanc's direction will peel a lot of damage from distort and make her turn around the wall first or back off. The wall becomes longer as rank increases.

• To maximize damage, cast Arise! near an enemy and hit them once with your auto attack. As soon as you hit them, immediately cast Q Conquering Sands on them then land another auto attack.
• Always keep a stack of soldier from Arise! to use in sticky situations. Either to use it as escape or use it for a sudden burst before casting Q Conquering Sands.
• Emperor's Divide is very useful against melee duels. Shove it on their face and push them to a corner. Go near your wall and harass the enemy with your Q Conquering Sands when he's going towards you and run pass your wall when he gets near so the enemy turns around the wall and you go through your wall again when he gets near. Repeat this until you munch his HP or kill him.
• Sand Soldiers can be used as ward so instead of face checking a brush, you can check with Arise! over a wall or by moving them with Conquering Sands.
• I recommend quick casting your skills because Azir is all about his soldiers and their mobility. Besides, high Cooldown Reduction means more skills to spam so why bother smashing your mouse. Display your range indicators to get the hang of it.
• Enemies champions hit with Shifting Sands and Emperor's Divide are knocked-up and will also benefit Yasuo's Last Breath.

Teamfights are different from the laning phase because this will require cooperation between allies and alertness on all of your enemies. Ideally, you would want to keep your distance from your enemies and hit them from afar. Dont be afraid to dish out tanks since you will most likely only be able to aim for them. Aim for melee champions like Master Yi, Fiora and Yasuo if in range and you can get near them as long as you wont get hit. Do keep in mind that assassins are after you or your AD Carry and you will be defenseless against their burst if neglected and would cost your team damage output. If the enemy assassin aims for you, Zhonya's Hourglass is a good option. If the assassin aims for your AD carry simply push them away or to your tanks with Emperor's Divide if needed.

The last think you would attempt to kill would most probably be their AD and AP Carries since they will also be keeping their distance from you but you can go for them as soon as the enemies going after you or your AD Carry won't be much of a threat anymore.

Overall, Azir is very fun to use with his very unique kit and gameplay. I do hope you learned a lot from my guide and I will update this as often as I can. I do appreciate feedbacks, criticisms and other opinions because I too am willing to learn from everyone and adjust accordingly. I will also update my match-ups as often as I can and will give more tips from what I experience against them. I again remind that this is a guide to how I best work with him and you are always free to change the build. I hope you find this guide very helpful in showing how fun it is to play as the Emperor of Shurima. Do remember that this is a game and it should be fun, and not all about winning and trash talks. Good day to all and have fun!