PROS + Ranged champion + A lot of DPS + Amazing early game + A lot of poke + Very slippery + Versatile ultimate + Map Vision + Versatile runes Kalista is a great early game lane bully that can allow you to absolutely dominate your lane. She is very safe while also always ready to setup an engage with Fate's Call. She provides her team literally everything: DPS, poke, vision, engage, disengage and CC. She is fun, rewarding and very versatile support.

CONS - Squishy - Requires good mana management - Allies will flame you - Easy to counter - Long Fate's Call cooldown - Requires a lot of skill - Under-performing late game - Requires good follow up Kalista is very hard to play. A single mistake can lead to fatal death. Without a good and well timed follow up from your ADC her ultimate can get absolutely useless. Her Pierce costs her 20% of all her mana at level 1. When she falls behind, she loses a lot of game presence and won't be able to scale.

That is a very complicated topic to talk about. Usually people BAN champions that:

1. Are stressful to play against
2. Are very strong in the current meta
3. Counter a champion they want to play

A typical example of a champion that it is stressful to play against can be Miss Fortune. Miss Fortune is very annoying as she turns your minions into her strong damage source. All of a sudden there will be nowhere to hide If enemy support has hook ability. Sure you still can play around her with Martial Poise, but it will be very awkward and unintuitive.

An example of a champion that is very strong at the current meta as for time I was writing this is Lux. She is holding a 53.44% winrate and her playrate is only growing up. She is powerful, popular and very effective at this time.

An example of a champion that Kalista is bad into can be Soraka. She has better early, mid and late game. She can recover all your poke and she can prevent all your DPS. She is very hard to deal with and counters your playstyle quite a lot.


But If you really don't have a champion to BAN, then here are my personal recommendations:

In League of Legends Draft game modes there is one thing called autofill. Autofill means that roles you selected in lobby are currently very wanted and to shorten the time in queue the game has to give you a different role then roles you selected. Since you are playing on a support role, which is very unpopular, there is very low chance of that happening to you (like 0.2-0.5% I guess) so you don't have to fear this very much. But you should definitely fear getting pushed to your secondary position as there are other unpopular roles in the game. To avoid this I recommend you to select your secondary position midlane as it is by far the most popular role in the game, you can also select toplane but it is a bit worse choice. Definitely avoid selecting a jungler or marksmen as your secondary position - those are almost as unpopular as support.

STARTING ITEM?? As a support you have a lot of items you can buy at the start of the game, that will generate money for you throughout the whole game. Here are ones you should be focusing on, reasons why they are so good and in which situations you should take them.

SPECTRAL SICKLE Spectral Sickle is best when you want to win the early game. Because Kalista is strongest during this time, Spectral Sickle will be your go to item in most cases. It is very easy to get the value from, as runes like Glacial Augment or Hail of Blades synergy well with it. Stats from this item are very damage focused, giving you more DPS but low defensive stats.

STEEL SHOULDERGUARDS Steel Shoulderguards shines in passive situations. Sometimes you can't afford to get close to the enemy as they would shut you down with ease. This item focuses on staying at the backline and waiting for your time to come. It levels quite slowly but that is absolutely fine. Just wait for the right situation and play passively until the situation arrives. Don't forget to focus on cannon minions as they provide you the most gold. Make sure you ping them first to make sure your marksmen won't steal them. Stats of this item are quite bad for your DPS but it makes you stay alive for a bit longer.

DPS Synergy King This item provides you with a really cheap form of bonus DPS. It synergieses exceptionally well with Rend, Hail of Blades, Blade of the Ruined King, Muramana, Black Cleaver and other auto attack related items. This item is great in most DPS focused builds or builds against many tank champions as it gets easier to hit more then one target with this item.

Item For Everything This item is great in most Kalista item builds. It provides a lot of AD and CDR for poke centered builds and really strong DPS boost with additional +25% crit for DPS centered ones. This item's only weakness is it's relatively high cost that is not easy to overcome as a support item is your only reliable gold source.

I Will Survive Very good item that helps you get out of sticky situations. It offers under-performing DPS boost but the passive shield can be much more valuable then more damage. This item works best against assassin champions like Zed or Fizz or against burst mages like Syndra.

DPS Ant Tank + GA Proc A necessary item in all DPS/CC focused Glacial Augment builds. It offers acceptable stats that are great during teamfights and/or longer trades. It also provides you with a free Glacial Augment proc, which can be huge deal for your enemies. It is very expensive and offers low AD and low CDR, making it generally bad in poke based builds or builds without Glacial Augment. Can still be great against tanky threads though.

King of value One of the strongest items for you to buy. It offers 20% CDR which is really really efficient in poke builds. On the other hand this item also provides health for more defense, movement speed boost during trades and solid boost in AD. The armor shred is extremely efficient with Runaan's Hurricane, allowing you to reduce the armor of up to 3 enemies by up to 24%, creating some sort of damage boost for you and your allies!! This item is viable in every single build and can make your games a lot easier.

Cheap Vision Nullifier One of the most gold efficient items you can buy. It offers very underperforming combat stats making it very bad in DPS builds, but the low price, solid AD and 10% CDR makes this item an amazing opener for Poke based builds. The passive is also very good as it allows you clear wards easier and quicker.

Energised Snyergy Great item in energized based builds featuring tools like Rapid Firecannon or Fleet Footwork for effective short trades but solid overall DPS. Stats of this item are great but for quite expensive cost, making this item quite situational outside of energised builds. The slow this item can apply is great for chasing or running away.

Energised Snyergy Quite a bad item for Kalista in most cases as it gets horribly outclassed by Runaan's Hurricane but it can still find home in energized focused builds along the lines of Fleet Footwork or Stormrazor. It allows you to use Martial Poise from a long distance without the need of using Pierce and it works well during short trades.

More Mana & More DPS Quite a new discovery. This item provides you with probably the most gold efficient damage on the market. When combined with Presence of Mind your attacks can do a lot of damage after the transition to Muramana. It is somewhat awkward for poke based builds as it offers very small base AD even though the mana is nice. When paired up with Runaan's Hurricane, you can spread your damage at all directions at a cost of high mana drain.

Roam And Poke Hard Great item. The high AD, lethality and +10% CDR can be utilized in all poke based builds. This item provides great value, a lot of poke and you will be able to move around map much quicker which works great with Umbral Glaive.

• You can use Pierce to apply Martial Poise dash
• Pierce passes through units it kills
• By firing few spears into your enemy and then few at low health minions, you can use Rend to deal damage to your enemy while also resetting the cooldown as you last hit a minion with it.
• Don't forget that Sentinel has it's passive ability. Use it to control the minion waves and deal coordinated damage to champions.

In the game there are many types of wards and/or warding related items that you should know about. When it comes to your trinkets located in key 4 - You have 3 options: Stealth Ward, Oracle Lens and Farsight Alteration. Each of them have their pros and cons and situation when they shine the best. The most important one, Stealth Ward is necessary throughout the whole early game as you need to keep the vision up for your lane to stay safe. However once your Spellthief's Edge/ Relic Shield/ Spectral Sickle upgrade into Runesteel Spaulders/ Harrowing Crescent and they start to provide you Stealth Wards for the rest of the game, the Stealth Wards in your 4 key become almost useless as there can't be more then 3 Stealth Wards on the map anyway. And so when your support item evolves it is recommended to obtain Oracle Lens or Farsight Alteration. Oracle Lens are generally a better option in most of the situations as denying vision of your enemies is extremely effective strategy. Oracle Lens are also a great way to deal with trap abilities like Noxious Trap or Jack In The Box and has much lower cooldown then Farsight Alteration. Farsight Alteration is on the other hand a bit more situational trinket type as it has long cooldown and is very easy to spot & destroy. On the other hand Farsight Alteration can provide super safe warding as it has absolutely insane range. It is very effective when paired with long range marksmen abilities like Ace in the Hole or Curtain Call. It works very well when enemy team absolutely outpushed your turrets and the map is dangerous and hidden in fog of war, allowing you to quickly gather important information about objectives with a safe distance. Farsight Alteration also doesn't have a ward limit allowing you to ward as much as you want.

Then there are Control Wards. To obtain those, you have to buy them first for 75G and you can have up to 2 in your inventory. Control Wards are very effective throughout the whole game as they share the attributes of both Stealth Ward and Oracle Lens. Use them to clear enemy Stealth Wards, keep vision up and to disable traps. Make sure you buy some of them every time you recall home so you are always prepared to enhance your vision on the map while also reducing vision of your enemies.

Roaming is a powerful technique mostly used by midlaners and supports to keep the pressure over multiple lanes. It may sound complicated and hard but it is actually pretty easy. Simply just walk from bottom lane to mid lane. Yeah. That's it. Well, not really. The most important thing about roaming is knowing When to roam. Generally you should start roaming When: Your ADC recalls and your resources are pretty high You pushed your lane and your ADC is not in a real danger After you recall Another important note about roaming is vision - both yours and vision of your enemies. Remember that when you get spotted, enemy jungler can easily eliminate you and enemy midlaner can easily react to you by hiding under turret or setting up an ambush on you. That's why roaming is more effective with tools like Oracle Lens, Control Wards and evolved support item. Kalista can't usually use her Fate's Call on her midlaner, so her roams are generally not very effective, but she can easily follow up on CC from your midlaner or land some very needed poke with Pierce.

Do not waste your time by typing into chat useless information. Do not type that you are just extremely unlucky, you were in alpha, your Exhaust didn't cast, your allies are monkeys, jg diff, mid diff, top diff, ez, 1v1 me bro, nice babysit, your champion is not balanced, nice feed Yasuo, WTF Zed 0/2/1??, WTF is your hitbox, your mom gay, etc. By the time you were writing this you could notice Shaco quickly passing through your Stealth Ward and you could ping your midlaner that enemy jungler is prepared to ambush him/her. By the time you were typing this you could hit a really easy Pierce because your enemy mispositioned. You could ward a dragon or analyse the best itemization for this game, but you didn't because you just had to type some random nonsense no one else cares about at all. Keep your chat serious & don't complain and watch your winrate growing like a beautiful orchidea :)

Guys, I know that this might be a topic you hate hearing about, but hear me out - I will do my best to make it as appealing for you as possible. You should follow some rules to not end up with glasses/rehabilitation or any other physical handicap. Usually you should make a pause from PC/Phone screen every 2 hours for at least 15 minutes to not mess up your eyes. However I know for sure that nobody will follow this rule so I came up with a bit less efficient but still very good solution to this. LISTEN. TO. MUSIC. I know almost for sure that you love music. So every here and now it would be great If you would just stand from your screen and listen to a music for a while. Just one song you love the most and then back to game. Trust me that this trick alone helps a lot. It might not be the 100% safe 10/10 doctors approved method but it does the trick pretty well and gives your eyes a bit more energy. When it comes to sitting, it would be great If there would be a 90 degree angle between you and your mouse/keyboard hands. This trick can save you so much time. Just spend 3 minutes by setting your chair height and you will experience a lot less painful moments for your wrist If you had them before. For me, I can't play at all when my wrists start to hurt. My hands need approximately 2 hours before they can start working again. Now that my chair is well set up, I have more time for my lover in crime, Kalista <3

Last thing I should mention is that having a laptop placed on your Long Sword and 2 Oblivion Orbs can reduce the chance you will have Zoes, in your life. That is because Oblivion Orbs prefer Glacial Augment temperatures and your laptop is probably pretty Ignited already. So use a table and a chair If you want your Summon Aerys to work correctly. ;)

- God I had a blast writing this :DDD

Thanks for reading my guide. I hope you learned something new and interesting. If you like my guide consider an upvote, it helps me a lot. If you have any question, feel free to ask in the discussion or just PM me directly (I don't mind). If you would have any ideas how to make this guide better, express them in the discussion of this guide, I am doing my best to keep the guide to your likes. Also I am updating this guide pretty frequently now, If you feel like you don't like my guide, consider revisiting in near future, maybe I'll be able to change your mind ;) Good luck in future games and have a ravishing day <3