WELCOME

Hello and welcome, reader! You are about to embark on a long journey to learning how to play Ahri, the Nine Tailed Fox. You can expect this guide to cover every little detail in regards to playing this role successfully, and why these choices work to your advantage. This guide is set up in a way so that it will shift from game knowledge (what items to get, what runes and masteries benefit you the most, decision making in all phases of the game) to actual gameplay (mechanics like attack moving/spell moving, positioning, controlling the creep wave). It will also chronologically move from the very start of the game (champion select) into itemization and goals during the laning phase and teamfights. Anyone who has ever seen any of my guides before, you might notice a few things. I am basically stealing the coding from my ADC guide, which I archived a while ago due to the pictures and some of the game details going out of date. This is a suuuper long guide. It is comprehensive and will cover every little thing one should know while playing Ahri. You are welcome to just skim through it, but I highly recommend taking some time every now and then to read it completely :)

ABOUT ME

I'm Emikadon, a Gold IV ranked player on the NA Server. I main Support and ADC, but I have come to love mid-lane as well due to the carry potential. If you liked this guide, you should check out my others as well! I currently have a total of 5 unarchived guides, which you can find here. I have a Graphic Café where I make custom signatures and graphics for guides. In addition, another resource is my Review Shop.

WHO IS AHRI?

Pros + High Damage + Good Sustain + Multi-Target + Damage Amplifier + Excellent Duelist + Very mobile Strengths Ahri's abilities are very powerful due to the large amount of damage she can deal with them. In addition, her passive allows her to heal obnoxiously in lane. With the exception of her E, all of her abilities are multi-target, so she makes a great addition to any teamfight. Her only single-target spell is one of the most powerful CCs in the game, and it amplifies all of her magic damage to that target by 20%, making her a very scary duelist. Finally, she is extremely mobile with her ult, which can be used to chase, escape, and reposition. Weaknesses Ahri, like all mages, is very squishy. Her focus on offense makes her defense very weak. Her offense itself is also very reliant on her landing her skill-shots. As a result, she relies heavily on positioning to both land her combos and to avoid being locked down and getting killed. Without her ultimate's mobility, she can easily be CC'd because of her low base movement speed. Her skills are quite costly, and if her abilities are wasted, she goes out of mana very quickly if she doesn't have a mana item. All of this together makes her hard to master. Cons - Squishy - Skill-Shot Reliant - Needs Positioning - Weak w/o Ult - No Mana Item - Hard to Master

RUNES	BACK TO TOP
The generic rune page for a Ahri is one that has both offensive stats like Ability Power and Armor/Magic Penetration, but it also has some defensive stats mixed in, like resistances or health. Under situations, you can take different mixtures of runes, but the first one in each list is the recommended one.

MASTERIES	BACK TO TOP
In all cases, you want to take 21 points into the offense tree, because your role requires you to have as much offensive power as you can. The remaining 9 points are often placed in the defense tree for survivability. But like with offense, there are situations where utility can be more useful.

SUMMONER SPELLS	BACK TO TOP
All champions, roles, and players will have the choice between 2 summoner spells, which you choose during Champion Select before the game even begins. For an Ahri, the optimal summoners are limited. The combination in which you take them, as well as what opponent you are facing, all must be taken into account.

ABILITIES	BACK TO TOP

			Essence Theft (Passive) Whenever Ahri hits an enemy unit with one of her abilities, she gains a charge of Essence Theft, and can gain up to 3 charges per ability cast. Upon reaching 9 charges, Ahri's next ability will heal her for 2 + (Ahri's level) (+9% AP) for each enemy hit.
			Useful tips This is a great passive as it allows you to stay in lane for ridiculous amounts of time you manage your mana right. Once you hit 9 charges, your orb will turn green. Even through Essence Theft is a widely known as a form of "spell-vamp", it does not follow the traditional spell-vamp rules. Instead, it scales off of Ahri's level and the amount of AP you have, meaning that it does not get reduced for AOE skills. Always save your passive for your Q, Orb of Deception and use it on the entire minion wave for the maximum amount of healing you can do. If you have an irregular amount of charges, use your W Fox-Fire or E Charm to cap it out before vamping off of your Q. Fox-Fire does not proc the spell vamp if it goes over the 9 essence theft count. You can check if there are enemies in the fog of war/in a suspicious bush if your essence theft charge goes up after you toss a Q or E in there. Things to note Try not to waste this on a Charm or Fox-Fire because they can only hit 1 target or 3 targets respectively, while Orb can hit many more. If you use W or E to cap out the 9 stacks, be wary if the enemy jungler comes to gank! You won't have two of your abilities, and early game their cooldowns can be your death.
			Orb of Deception (Q) Ahri sends forth an orb of arcane energy in the targeted direction, dealing magic damage to every enemy unit it passes through, then pulls it back to herself, dealing true damage on the way back.
			Ability Details Range: 880 Cooldown: 7 Cost: 55 / 60 / 65 / 70 / 75 Mana Magic/True Damage: 40 / 65 / 90 / 115 / 140 (+35% AP) Max. Damage: 80 / 130 / 180 / 230 / 280 (+70% AP)
			Useful tips Orb of Deception is the bread and butter ability of Ahri. She uses it to poke, to harass, to wave clear, and to burst, so learn the range and the width thoroughly. I highly recommend switching it to Smartcast. The fraction of a second delay can mean the difference between a kill or an escapee. The range indicator for this spell is considerably shorter than its true range. The spell's range is 880 units but the range indicator cuts off short by about 50 units. Another reason I would recommend Smartcast :) Hitting the enemy with the very tip of the orb will deal both the magic and the true damage at the same time, making it impossible to dodge out on the return trip. It also deals a huge chunk of damage to the enemy. Even if you miss the enemy initially on the throw, you can reposition yourself to hit them with the return, which would deal more damage anyway because it deals true damage on the way back. Things to note Orb of Deception is a boomerang skillshot, meaning you can move after casting and it will change the path of the orb as it comes back. Keep this in mind, otherwise you might misposition yourself and miss out on a kill because the return shot missed the enemy! Spamming this ability nonstop will drain your mana pool incredibly quickly. Only use it when you know for certain that you can hit the enemy in at least one direction. Learning to hit this ability and not blindly shooting it is essential.
			Fox-Fire (W) Ahri summons three spectral flames, which orbit her for up to 5 seconds. After a brief delay, each flame will target the closest visible enemy unit, prioritizing champions then the target of Ahri's last basic attack, dealing magic damage upon hit. Enemies can be hit by multiple flames, but each flame beyond the first will deal only 30% damage.
			Ability Details Range: 800 Cooldown: 9 / 8 / 7 / 6 / 5 Cost: 50 Magic Damage per Fox-Fire: 40 / 65 / 90 / 115 / 140 (+40% AP) Max. Damage: 64 / 104 / 144 / 184 / 224 (+64% AP)
			Useful tips While Fox-Fire can hit multiple enemies, the fires themselves are actually considered single target. This means that a single fire can pop spell shields, slow the full amount on Rylai's Crystal Scepter, and spell vamp for the full amount. This is a self-targeting ability, so you don't need to worry about skill shots! The cooldown on this ability is very low, and the cost is fairly cheap as well. Use it in lane if the enemy mid steps out of position and punish them for it! If there are both minions and champions standing near you, the ability will prioritize the champions. Things to note Each of the 3 flames have their own separate ranges, which means 1 flame could potentially be in the range of the enemy champion and hit him/her while the other 2 flames are not and will target minions instead. While activating the ability does not interrupt movement, there is a brief delay before the Fox-Fire actually targets an enemy. You can see this when Ahri jumps and spins.
			Charm (E) Ahri blows a kiss in the targeted direction, dealing magic damage to the first enemy unit she hits, as well as appealing to its desires. The enemy is then charmed, forcing them to walk harmlessly towards Ahri, while slowing their movement speed by 50% for the duration. Enemies hit by Charm take 20% more magic damage from Ahri for 6 seconds. Orb of Deception's true damage is also increased by this effect.
			Ability Details Range: 975 Cooldown: 12 Cost: 85 Mana Magic Damage: 60 / 90 / 120 / 150 / 180 (+35% AP) Duration: 1 / 1.25 / 1.5 / 1.75 / 2
			Useful tips This is Ahri's only form of CC, but it is a very powerful one. Not only does it essentially taunt the enemy towards you, it amplifies all of your magic damage (and true damage!) to that target by 20%. The damage amplifier stacks multiplicatively with Deathfire Grasp for a total of 44%. Charm can slow enemy champions who are chasing you. Ahri is notorious as a champion who punishes chasing opponents, hitting them with Orb of Deception and Fox-Fire repeatedly while they are charmed, leading them into turrets and team ganks. Charm is also great for suspicious bushes. Cast it at a bush and listen for the hit and watch if it stops early. If it hits any enemy, they can even be lured out of the bush because of the taunt. It provides a fantastic synergy with all of Ahri's other abilities, as she can easily land both directions of Orb of Deception and lure the enemy into range for all three procs of Fox-Fire. Quickly casting Q and W immediately after E hits will ensure a massive amount of burst within half a second. Your can combo this with your ultimate for a surprise attack, as the dash allows you to get in range/reposition yourself for a well-placed Charm. Things to note Unfortunately, this ability is relatively slow moving. Always try and aim towards where you think the enemy will go, not directly at their character. Missing this ability basically drops your kill potential to zero. If you didn't land it, back off and wait for the cooldown before trying to go for the kill. Without the CC and the damage amplification, it becomes exponentially harder to kill your target. This ability costs a lot of mana at all stages of the game, making it very risky to just toss out blindly. In addition, it has a pretty long cooldown as well. IF you continuously mis-use it, you'll find yourself out of mana and ganked very, very often.
			Spirit Rush (R) Ahri dashes in the direction of the cursor and fires up to three essence bolts, which target the closest visible enemy units, prioritizing champions, and deal magic damage upon hit. Spirit Rush can be cast two additional times within 10 seconds of activation, at no additional cost, before going on cooldown. The same enemy can only be hit once per dash.
			Ability Details Range: 450 Cooldown: 110 / 95 / 80 Cost: 100 Mana Magic Damage: 70 / 110 / 150 (+30% AP) Max. Damage: 210 / 330 / 450 (+90% AP)
			Useful tips Ahri's mobility comes almost completely from this ability. The dashes can be used to escape from ganks (saving you your Flash), chase down running targets, and make epic plays. This can be used for easy turret diving because you have a total of 3 dashes, not just one. Dash once to position, use another for the damage, and use the last one to escape turret aggro. This spell makes Ahri a powerful roamer. Let your other lanes know if you're heading up for a gank, and use your dashes as a way to close the gap/position yourself to land your Charm. The 100 mana cost is only for the first dash and the other two uses won't cost you anything extra. Like with Fox-Fire, each of the bolts count as a single-target spell, despite it being able to target multiple people. Each dash resets the counter for your Essence Theft. This means that if you use your Spirit Rush in a teamfight, you always proc the spell vamp at least once. Learn how to wall-jump with Ahri, and you'll find yourself with many new uses for Spirit Rush, just as using it for a surprise Charm! Things to note Using Spirit Rush all at once may not be the smartest choice in a fight. Try saving them using them to position yourself for your skillshots, chase down stragglers, run away, or to turn the fight with another quick burst to the right champions. Each charge is a dash but not a flash, so larger walls that can be cleared using flash can not be cleared with her ult. This also means she can be interrupted by obstructions, such as Azir's Emperor's Divide or Veigar's Event Horizon. Ahri does not dash a set distance. If your cursor is on top of Ahri, she will dash on the spot and won't move. The bolts will still fire though.

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Orb of Deception Fox-Fire Charm Spirit Rush

1 Q

2 E

3 W

4 Q

5 Q

6 R

7 Q

8 W

9 Q

10 W

11 R

12 W

13 W

14 E

15 E

16 R

17 E

18 E

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#1. Spirit Rush 6 / 11 / 16 #2. Orb of Deception 1 / 4 / 5 / 7 / 9 #3. Fox-Fire 3 / 8 / 10 / 12 / 13 #4. Charm 2 / 14 / 15 / 17 / 18

On Ahri, you want to max your Q, Orb of Deception first. This is your primary damage tool, as it has the longest range and it deals a lot of burst if you can hit the enemy at the very tip. Plus, it deals true damage! Next, you want to start maxing your W, Fox-Fire. This is your second major damage dealing tool and can deal quite of a bit of damage as it scales into mid-late game. The cooldown decreases with each rank, making it a good spamming ability because of the low cost. Lastly, you want to max your E, Charm. I feel like this ability is a "one point wonder", since the defining attribute of it is the taunt and damage amplifier. Only the duration of the CC increases, but the amplifier stays the same. Always take a point in your ultimate, Spirit Rush whenever you can.

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Usually, you want to put your very first point into Orb of Deception for the level 1 dominance and to get those out of reach minions with the range. In addition, it can be used for early harass by tossing it to the enemy as they go up for CS.

Next, I typically want to take a point into E, Charm as this can give a really nice level 2 combo with E + Q and it can really chunk the health of the enemy if you can land it. If the jungler comes to for a level 2 gank, this can actually save your life because it'll stop the enemy right in their tracks.

Finally, whether you take Fox-Fire or a second point into Orb of Deception at level 3 is completely up to your playstyle. I myself prefer having the extra pushing power and utility on W, but the extra damage on Q makes for extremely good early game poke. However, if you take Q at level 3, you must take W at level 4, as it is a major part of your combo!

EARLY GAME	BACK TO TOP
Every game of league of legends is different, thus every game you'll have to make tweaks to your build. However when narrowed down, there is one major build that you'll follow. Some items are situational and will be discussed later on in this guide. For now, I'm going to talk about what items are good to start with and what items you should be aiming for in the early game, which is the first 15-20 or so minutes of the game.

CORE ITEMS	BACK TO TOP

ALTERNATIVES	BACK TO TOP
Finally, I will round off the itemization explanations with Alternative item choices. Every game is different, so you can't really expect all builds to be the exact same. Sometimes you can opt to go with a more Utility based build, or you can go full glass cannon and get all damage items. In this section, I will discuss what items are viable, and what items you would swap out from the primary build.

LANING PHASE	BACK TO TOP
Now let's get fancy. So far in this guide, you have learned who Ahri is, how to prepare her, and what items to build and when to build them. Now, we will discuss the actual gameplay, or how to play your champion to maximum possible efficiency. There are many different things that you need to be able to do/keep track of in just the first 15 minutes of the game (also known as Laning Phase). Last Hitting Lane Momentum Harassing and Zoning Roaming Map Awareness Warding

LAST HITTING		BACK TO LANING PHASE
	Knowing how to last hit is one of the most important (if not the most important) skill you can have as a player. This includes last hitting while pushing the lane, last hitting while freezing the lane, last hitting while being pushed under tower, and last hitting when you're in danger of being zoned. Knowing how to get farm under any of these circumstances is essential to being able to survive to late game, and in the long run, through all ELOs and Leagues of the game. A good goal to have by the 10 minute mark is about 100 CS, but this can be very difficult to actually hit. This gets increasingly difficult against enemy lane bullies (Leblanc, Syndra, Ziggs)
because focusing on farming correctly while simultaneously worrying about taking damage is very hard to do. Many lower ELO players will easily be able to hit 80-90 minions by the 10 minute mark when under no pressure. However, as soon as you add in an enemy that knows how to pressure, their CS drops down to low 30-40s. As Ahri, you want to avoid spamming your abilities to last hit, as this can rapidly drain your mana pool. If there's a couple minions out of range, toss out an Orb of Deception, but always try and nick the enemy laner with your ability so that you can deal some damage in addition to getting the minions.

HOW TO GET BETTER

One way to improve this skill is by simply opening up a custom game and farm for 10 minutes straight. See how far you get! If you can hit 80 CS by 10 minutes, try doing it without any items/runes/masteries. If you're still doing well, add an intermediate bot (Don't go and kill them. They're supposed to be there as a distraction.) If you can still get 80 CS at 10 minutes, then your last hitting skills are at least that of High Silver/Low Gold. If you want even more of a challenge, ask a couple friends to help you out. Have them play as an early game dominant enemy Mid Laner/Jungler. While you're trying to last hit, have them pressure you and try to distract you. This will simulate the worst case scenario in a real game, where you are in a situation against a lane bully and a gank-heavy jungler. If you can learn to farm under these circumstances, then you will be easily be able to do so in normals/ranked.

COMMON MISTAKES

Hitting a minion too early/too late. This is not something that is easily fixed. Timing your attack correctly only comes with a combination of intuition (The creep is low, but is it low enough?) and practice (I've done this before. I know that if I hit it now, I won't kill it.) Going for 2 minions at once. This problem just boils down to decision making. I have seen many people make do this when they see 2 low health minions. They panic and auto attack one of them without any regard to which one they to hit first, then end up missing both of them. Slow down and identify which creep is being focused more and kill the one that is dying faster. Using AOE abilities to hit random minions. As a general rule, you don't want to spam your AOE abilities too much or you'll go out of mana/push the wave too quickly. Only use your abilities to get CS if you know for a fact that you won't be able to get it otherwise. Your skill usage and mana pool can be much better spent poking or trading. Not CSing under tower effectively. Learning how to last hit under turret can be very difficult if you don't know how, and sometimes even requires help from your support. The only way to get the maximum number of minions while under tower is if you waste the tower shot. This means that you let the turret focus on a minion, but you kill the minion before the tower does. Of course, before you do this, you must soften the minion so that the tower will not kill it outright. Melee minions can take 2 tower shots and still live, whereas Caster minions can only take 1. So, if you need to get the melee minions, wait for the to shoot at it twice, and then it will be low enough for you to kill. Caster minions are a bit harder because even if the turret hits it, it won't be low enough for you to kill outright. So, you must hit the Caster minion before the tower, then let the tower attack it, and then hit it again.

LANE MOMENTUM		BACK TO LANING PHASE
	What is Lane Momentum? As the name suggests, Lane Momentum is you being able to control the placement and size of the minion wave and being able to swing that momentum in your favor. For example, if you build a large wave of minions on your side and you push to tower, you can call your jungler for a tower dive in which the enemy would take a lot of damage from the minions. Basically, another way to think of Lane Momentum whether it would be better to push the lane or freeze it. There are pros and cons to both options, and there are different circumstances in which pushing/freezing is essential.
Pushing the lane is essentially just weakening the enemy minions so that they die faster than your own minions. You can either slow push (auto-attack a couple times more than your opponent) or hard shove (use your abilities to quickly kill off the wave). Pushing the lane makes it much harder for the enemy to trade with you, due to how the nature of the minion aggro switches when you are focused. However, it does open yourself up to ganks, so always be sure to ward! Alternatively, you can freeze the lane instead. This can deny huge amounts of CS from the enemy and when executed correctly, you can completely shut them off from getting any farther in the game. However, you must be at enough of an advantage to do this, otherwise they'll just call the jungler and break the freeze (which can result in you dying). This is can be dangerous because you'll have a large wave pushing towards you, and thus the enemy will have the advantage of the additional minion damage. You do this by keeping the enemy minion wave pushing towards you in the place that you want it. You let the enemy minion wave kill off your own wave, and then tank the minion damage until your own wave catches up. This will ensure that the enemy minion wave is always larger than your own.

WHEN TO PUSH THE LANE

You want to get a level advantage. By slow pushing the lane, throw in a couple auto-attacks so a few enemy creeps die faster than yours. When the minions die, they give some experience. If the enemy minions are dying faster, then you get experience faster. Pushing for a fast level 2/level 6 can be extremely helpful: trading while you have an additional ability and more base health/mana than the enemy will easily give you an advantage. The enemy can lose CS to the tower, giving you a gold lead. It is already very difficult to last hit under tower as it is. If you add in Ahri's poke and all-in potential with her Orb of Deception and Charm, it becomes even harder. A giant wave of minions will begin to build up. This gives you yet another advantage when trading, because minion damage hurts a lot. If the enemy decides to engage against you, all the minions on your side will automatically switch targets to them. Hard shove the lane when you need to recall. This will minimize the amount of exp you lose to your tower. If you buy quickly and head directly back to your lane, the minions should be resetting or slightly pushing towards you. The enemy mid laner dies and you have vision of the enemy jungler. Know where the enemy jungler is on the map is essential if you want to shove into the tower to get some damage off on it after getting a kill. This is because sometimes you'll be very low on health, and by pushing the lane, you'll be very far from your tower. Roam and gank other lanes to snowball off of kills. Ahri is a very potent roamer because of her Spirit Rush allowing her to chase down and gap close to enemies. If you see any opening where bot/top lane is being pushed into their tower, hard shove your lane with a Q + W and head down there to potentially net some kills. (More in the roaming section.) You want to execute a tower dive. If the enemy is low on health or has run out of mana, ping your jungler and let him know that there's an opportunity to dive. Just be careful of where the enemy jungler is. It is nearly impossible to win a 2v2 if the enemy has a turret with them.

WHEN TO FREEZE THE LANE

You want your jungler to come gank. Keeping the minion wave near your own tower will force the enemy to come farther forward into the lane to get CS/experience. This will place them in the ideal situation to be ganked. Be careful when running up to engage though! You will have a large wave of minions that can deal quite a bit of damage. You have no wards, so you want to play safer. If you have no vision around you and you have no idea where the enemy jungler is, it can be dangerous to stray too far from your tower. Instead, let the wave push towards you until your trinket is back up. You're ahead enough so you can zone the enemy from the wave. If you are strong enough to the point where you can punish the enemy for coming up to get CS, then you can completely shut them off from getting experience/gold until they get help from their jungler.

HARASSING AND ZONING		BACK TO LANING PHASE
	Harassing is a slow and steady whittling down of your opponent's health bar by dealing damage to them every time they go for CS or come into your range. The best type of harass is maybe an auto-attack every time they go in for a minion, because if you're auto-attacking the minion, there is no possible way from them to auto-attack you as well. You can also throw out an Orb of Deception to chunk their health bar from farther away. The idea is to discourage the enemy from last-hitting, because they will be afraid of you. This tactic is called Zoning, where you essentially keep the enemy away from the minion wave and
they will lose experience and gold. This is good for you, because you will be getting CS while they will not, which will subsequently you ahead in lane. However, it is very important that you do not sacrifice your CS for harassing, as harassing gets you no gold (unless you get a kill, lol). Harassing should never replace last hitting. You must improve your CSing skills to the point that it is completely natural before attempting to poke. Once you've established how to harass, we can now move onto how to zone. Zoning is essentially when you have intimidated the enemy into being scared of you, and they are now scared to approach the minion wave to last hit/farm. Ahri can easily zone if she's ahead because all she has to do is threaten a Charm + Orb of Deception combo. Added in with the fact that she a lot of sustain and most other champions don't, she'll have ways to stay healthy while the enemy gets slowly eroded down. In lane, there are 2 stances you can take: The CSing stance and the Trading stance. The first one is the CSing stance, where you're safely behind your minions. This stance is used when your own minions are low and you want to focus on getting last hits. The second one is the Trading stance, where you're at your melee creep line. This stance is used when the enemy minions are low and the opposite laner want to get last hits. If you throw your Q at the enemy while they're trying to get the CS, they'll have to make the choice of either giving up the creep or taking free damage.

THE TRADING STANCE

The Trading Stance is when you are at your own melee minion line, next to dying minions. While you are in this stance, you have to make sure there are no potential last hits. This is super important because you are very, very close to the enemy, and if you go for a last hit, you will be attacked yourself. The image above is an example of the trading stance. Notice how Bjergsen is in between the dying minions. As soon as Diana tries to go for the last hit, he auto attacks her for free. This is a very important concept to learn. If the enemy is auto attacking something else (a minion, an ally, a turret, etc.) then there is no possible way for them to auto attack you as well. This concept is the exact reason as to why you cannot stand up at your melee minion line to farm. If you do this, the enemy can freely attack you, and you cannot attack him back.

THE CSING STANCE

The CSing stance is the passive one, where you are trying to safely get farm and as many last hits as you possibly can. You stand back here when there are many enemy minions dying, and you know that you need to prioritize last-hitting over trading. However, if you notice the enemy mid laner adopting the trading stance, you must be ready for an all-in engage. This is especially true in lower ELOs, because most players will not know the difference between these two stances. If they go for a greedy trade while you are in your CSing stance, they will take massive amounts of creep damage, resulting in you most likely winning the trade. Winning said trade will give you the lane dominance, which can set the pace for the entire laning phase. In the image, you can see Ahri standing safely behind her own minions, so Diana cannot easily attack her without taking minion damage herself. However, Diana is still standing in the Trading Stance (next to the dying red minion), because if Ahri makes any mistakes, she would immediately be able to capitalize on it. Hypothetically let's say Ahri was actually standing next to the minion that is about to die. She would instantly get engaged on by the Diana and would take a lot of damage from both Diana's Crescent Strike and the minion aggro. This demonstrates the importance of knowing these both of these stances, and when you are supposed to stand in what. Understanding how all of this works will prevent you from getting caught, as well as minimize the chances of you dying because of bad positioning.

ROAMING		BACK TO LANING PHASE
	When you roam, you are leaving your lane to visit other lanes to potentially net a kill or take an objective. Why do you do this? Well firstly, it puts tremendous amounts of pressure across the map. If you just stayed in your own lane and did nothing but farm, the enemy top and bottom lanes have only the jungler to watch and keep track of. However, if you throw in a second roaming entity, you throw in twice the amount of map awareness needed. By forcing the enemy to multitask as they try to keep track of when and where you are, they are more prone to making mistakes that your team can capitalize on.
In addition, by roaming to (let's say) bot lane, you can possibly net a few kills, as well as forcing the enemies to use their summoners to try and escape. Since summoners have such a long cooldown, you are ensuring an advantage for your teammates. If you do end up getting a kill, you get massive amounts of gold (both from the kill, as well as the assists). By eliminating the champions around important objectives, particularly Dragon , you can take them for free and get one step closer to winning the game. Ahri is a very strong roamer due to her high amount of damage from Orb of Deception and Fox-Fire being multi-target (making bot lane a great place to net kills), hard CC from Charm, and her mobility through Spirit Rush. When you want to roam, you want to push out your lane. This way, you force the enemy laner to farm those under tower, and they won't be able to follow you to counter gank.

GANK PATHING

Once you've pushed out the minion wave, it's time to start actually running to different lanes. Keep in mind that should you run into any wards, a smart enemy will immediately back off and you will have wasted your time. Usually to minimize this as much as possible, I ask my teammates whether or not the river/tri-bush is warded, and adjust my pathing with the information. If your allies don't know, this is the general pathing you should take, depending on which side of the map you are on. When on the blue side of the map, it is easiest to roam to the top lane. You can gank top unseen by walking behind the Baron Nashor cove, and cut off the escape by surrounding in the enemy. Roaming when playing on the purple side of the map is very similar to doing so on the blue side except that you will be walking behind the Dragon cove to gank the enemy bottom lane. Alternatively, you can gank through the river. I would recommend doing this if the enemy is pushed really far up and you can still cut them off as they retreat.

MAP AWARENESS		BACK TO LANING PHASE
	Having good map awareness is essential carrying as Ahri. As discussed in the last mini-chapter, roaming is extremely important to how Ahri snowballs through the game, and the only way to do this is if you are constantly looking for windows of opportunities. Being aware of how your teammates are doing through all stages of the game is not just the jungler's job. It is also yours! Every few last hits, just glance over at the mini-map and see how your allies are doing. When you glance at the mini-map, know what you're looking for so you won't take too much time in that single "glance."
First, check and see if any of your teammates are being pushed into their tower. If they are, then you can start planning a roam and gank for them. Second, look and see where the enemy jungler is. If you can't see him, then it might be beneficial to play more passively, as they might be hidden somewhere waiting to gank a lane. Finally, you can quickly hit "tab" to see how each individual person is doing. Glance over yours and your opponent's CS. Who has higher? Look over what items the enemy has. Are they stronger/weaker than yours?

THE IMPORTANCE OF WARDING		BACK TO LANING PHASE
This is, hands down, the most important aspect of map awareness. I have said time and time again in every single one of my guides: Vision. Wins. Games! Since you are a solo laner, you do not have a support to help you ward, nor do you have only a single side to keep an eye on. Instead, you have two sides to be careful of and only yourself to count on for warding and vision coverage. These are the major warding spots that you want to have vision of. In the picture to the right, the green spots are the standard places to ward if you need vision in either your own jungle or the enemy's. These allow you to see when the enemy jungler is doing jungle camps, roaming up and down river, in the major bushes, blind spots, etc. The pink dots are good spots to place your vision wards. Why are Stealth Wards so valuable? There are always a million excuses to not get one of these cheap consumables: "I don't have enough gold!" "Once it's used, it's gone. There's no point." "It's the support's job!" "It gives me no damage." Please don't be one of these people :( Wards are valuable because they offer a simple thing that is absolutely crucial at all stages of the game: Vision.

REASONS WHY VISION IS VALUABLE

It can keep you alive. Both during Laning Phase and later on while teamfights are breaking out, a well-placed ward will let you know of an enemy that is coming to kill you. This could be the jungler coming for a gank during Laning Phase, or even an entire team out for your head while you're split-pushing. It can get you a kill. With wards, you know where the enemy team is. If you notice someone out of position on their own and they are completely isolated from their team, you can easily burst them with the Deathfire Grasp + Charm combo and pick up a free kill. Kills -> Gold, experience, and bragging rights. What's there not to love? You can warn your teammates of incoming danger. If you notice that someone is roaming down the river about to gank bot, send out a ping and tell your bot lane to back off before they die. Same thing if you have a defensive ward in your own jungle. If you see that the enemy jungler is stealing buffs or camping a bush, let your own jungler know to prevent his death. You won't get baited or juked. It's always the worst when you lose sight of a fleeing enemy into the brush/fog of war, face-check, and then get blown up by the entire enemy team because of a bait. You can also avoid getting juked by someone slippery like LeBlanc or Fizz. You get control over objectives like Dragon or Baron. Dragon's importance has been greatly increased due to all of the buffs it provides for each dragon kill. Having vision in the pit can let you know whether the enemy is trying to sneak it and you can group together with your team for an all out fight. Alternatively, if you're really good, you could potentially steal Dragon with a well placed Orb of Deception. Same thing with Baron.

MID-LATE GAME	BACK TO TOP
Now we've finally gotten past all of the stuff you need to know for the first 15 minutes or so of the game. Now, we get the part where teamfights are breaking out and objective control is becoming more and more important. All out fights can start when Dragon or Baron is at stake, and getting that Inhibitor down mid-lane becomes extremely valuable Late game.

GETTING PICKS

Ahri is extremely good at picking off champions one by one, because her Charm is essentially a DFG on a 12 second cooldown (less, if you factor in CDR). Once she has a couple items, getting hit by this ability basically spells death for any squishy champion and a huge chunk of health on tanks. Before teamfights begin, you should be either looking for a sneaky spot out of sight to pop out of to catch a target out of position, or simply be out in the open, threatening to kill with Charm. One way to easily get picks is by camping a bush in a heavy traffic area. For example, if you tell your team to create pressure in an area and hide in common transit locations to that area, then often times people will take dumb routes to defend, and you can pick up free kills. Killing someone then allows you to take towers and dragons and buffs with smaller risk. Let's pretend for a moment that the image on the right is Ahri instead of Lee Sin and that the map is for Season 5. You can see how Ahri's team is pressuring by pushing out bot lane, and Draven decided to walk down through the fog of war with no vision. If it was Ahri, all she had to do was wait for Draven to get into range and Deathfire Grasp + Charm combo him.

SPLITPUSHING

Play Video CLICK TO ENLARGE Alternatively, you can Splitpush instead. Splitpushing is when you leave the rest of your team to push one of the side lanes and take down more towers. Ahri isn't the strongest of splitpushers because of her weak autoattack, but she can easily clear large waves of minions with Orb of Deception and Fox-Fire. This can create massive amounts of map pressure because they will always have to send someone to come and stop you. However, when splitpushing you need to note several things: Make sure you let your team know you're splitting from them. This is very, very important. If your tanky initiator isn't aware that suddenly he's in a 4v5 situation, then he could potentially engage a teamfight, only to realize after he's dead what the circumstances were. By making sure your team is aware of the situation, they can pressure mid lane while making sure none of them engage or are engaged upon. Have everything warded while you're by yourself. Also extremely important. This is because your purpose as a splitpusher is to create map pressure by drawing enemies down towards you. Once you see them heading in your direction, back off so you don't get caught out. The only way to see them coming is if you have previously planted wards to spot the enemy. You are not leaving an objective open while splitting. What I mean by this is that when you are splitting from your team, no objectives like Baron , Dragon , or even your inhibitor are left for the enemy team to take for free. If there is a Baron fight about to break out, please do not roam down bot lane to farm. Baron buff is much more useful for a longer period of time than an outer turret. However, there are some cases where it might be worth to continue splitpushing. If you can take their inhib, that's a pressured lane for the next five minutes. They might have the buff but they have to defend against super minions as well.

SHOT-CALLING AND TAKING OBJECTIVES

Learning to shot-call is not only a skill that's limited to just Ahri. Every single player should know how to use this skill, especially if you're ahead. If you're doing extremely well, you must know what objectives to take, what champions to focus, where you're supposed to be a certain time, so on. If you think that you have an opening to take Dragon (you killed off the enemy jungler and bot lane is pushing out), ping your jungler to come and take it before your window of opportunity closes.

TEAMFIGHTS

Knowing your job and what you're supposed to do during these massive, all out fights is crucial. Mispositioning yourself can lead to your death, and a probable loss of the teamfight for your team. Knowing when to enter the teamfight, who to focus your attacks on, or what actives to use; all of this together leads to a lot of different things to think about at once.

WHAT DO YOU DO IN TEAMFIGHTS?

Let's start simple. What is your job as Ahri in teamfights? Your job is to be the person who gets into the back line of the enemy to assassinate the highest priority target. This usually ends up being either the squishy ADC or APC. However, like said earlier, they will most likely be in the back line, behind all of the tanks and next to their support. Therefore, getting to them without dying or getting locked down can be difficult. This leads us to our next question: When do you enter the teamfight? You enter the fight 2-5 seconds after the fight so that the enemy tanks/bruisers/assassins burn through their abilities. THIS IS THE MOST COMMON MISTAKE. I have seen so many assassins get overexcited and jump head first into the fight, only to be locked down and killed instantly. Be patient! Once you see that all of the major CC spells are blown, enter the fight from the side and go straight for that squsihy target and Deathfire Grasp + Charm combo them. How do you "assassinate" your target as fast as possible and still stay alive? You want to try and kill your target as fast as you can, and then exit the fight to wait for cooldowns. This is made easier with your ultimate, Spirit Rush, having 3 charges. Use one charge to get into the fight and into position, use another for both the damage output and to dodge out on any CC thrown your way, and the last to get out before you're killed while your abilities are on cooldown. Where do you stand in a teamfight? How should you be positioning yourself? Enter the fight from behind your backline or flank the enemy team to try and catch your target out of position. You should constantly be moving. Weave in and out of the fray with Spirit Rush so you can dodge damage and CC thrown your way, all the while still using your abilities to hit as many people as you can (preferably the squishy target you're after). Use your mobility to your advantage by repositioning yourself while you kill their ADC/APC. What if you can't play the assassin because the enemy ADC/APC is so well protected? Should this be the case, you have no choice but to play the back line utility mage. Stay behind your own tanks so that enemy assassins can't get to you and with the support so they can peel/heal/shield you. Deal as much damage as you can from a long range with your Q, and try and hit as many people with your bolts from W and R. Ahri's multi-target damage is insane if she doesn't get locked down.

TEAMFIGHT AFTERMATH

A very important mindset to learn is to always take an objective after a teamfight in your favor. It doesn't matter how low you and your teammates are. It doesn't matter that you have 3k gold in your inventory. If there are objectives to be secured, take them. The enemy team is dead, so they can't possibly kill you (Unless there's a Teemo. Then you have to be careful of shrooms). The point is, if you've won the teamfight, you have to take an objective. If there's a minion wave, go and kill the tower. If there's an open inhibitor, destroy it so that you'll have a pushing lane for the next 5 minutes. If your team is healthy enough, go and secure Baron . The worst thing you can do is all start recalling and waste the free 40 seconds in which the enemy team can't do anything to stop you.

MATCH-UPS	BACK TO TOP
We're nearing the end of the guide! This is the final chapter, and here I will be talking about champion match-ups for Ahri and how well she fares against other common mid-laners. I will give a difficulty rating for each person, but keep in mind that most of this is from personal experience. Of course, I have taken the liberty of quickly skimming other Ahri guides (both from this site and others) to make sure that my reasoning is solid, so you may rest assured that the information I am feeding you is accurate. :) Note: This is still a work in progress. For now, I have the match-ups through the letter K. I'll get the rest done sometime this week! ^_^

	Akali | MEDIUM/HARD | FIRST ITEM | RUNES greater mark of hybrid penetration If you're super far ahead, rush Deathfire Grasp. If you're falling behind, Abyssal Mask is good because of the magic resist. If you're even/slighty ahead, consider getting a Morellonomicon for the healing reduction. Run MR blues for the defense. Akali is a dangerous opponent because she easily snowballs off of just a few kills, and her damage goes off the charts once she hits level 6. For this reason, you want to be careful with your build, and you might find it more beneficial to play more of the utility mage than a squishy assassin. Try your best to shut her down pre-6. She's weak until she gets her ultimate (but she has a jump for each of your dashes), so capitalize on this by poking/harassing every time she goes for CS. If you just let her free farm, you'll end up regretting it. Always try to grab a Vision Ward every time you recall, as her Twilight Shroud can allow her to remain relatively safe as she farms because of the invisibility. If Akali engages on you and then stealths so that you can't retaliate, drop the pink ward to get vision of her.
	Anivia | EASY/MEDIUM | FIRST ITEM | RUNES greater mark of hybrid penetration If you're falling behind, Athene's Unholy Grail or Abyssal Mask are good because of the magic resist. Otherwise, just go full damage with Deathfire Grasp. Run full AP with scaling health for the mid-late game survivability. Anivia isn't very hard to deal with as long as you don't consistently get stunned by her Flash Frost. It is a slow moving ability, so you should be able to dodge it relatively easily. However, if you do get slowed/stunned, then she can chunk your health bar with a Frostbite. It is very dangerous to turret dive this bird, because her passive grants her a revive. She'll be difficult to kill, because you have to deal twice the damage to kill her a single time. Pop her passive, back off, and try again once you're abilities are up. Her entire kit is very short-ranged, so if she tries to Frostbite you, you can turn and hit her with a Charm to pull off your own combo. You deal more burst damage than her, so you'll win the trade more often than not.
	Annie | HARD | FIRST ITEM | RUNES greater mark of hybrid penetration Only if you're extremely ahead, get Deathfire Grasp. Otherwise, I would recommend playing safe and getting MR items like Athene's Unholy Grail or Abyssal Mask. Run MR blues for the defense, or AP blues if you're confident. This little girl's burst is very scary at all stages of the game. Added along with her 100-0 power is a CC passive Pyromania that is most likely going to be used on her targeted ability, Disintegrate. This basically means that it's impossible to dodge. A stunned Ahri = A dead Ahri. Play it safe and wait for ganks from your jungler. There is a chance that the Annie will mess up, because all of her abilities are very short-ranged. If she steps out of position, punish her with a Charm to the face. A lot of Annies like to save keep their passive stacked at 3, so that the swirls indicating her stun doesn't give her away. Make sure you click on her champion figure so that you can get the tooltip. If you see it's at 3 charges, stay away!
	Azir | MEDIUM | FIRST ITEM | RUNES greater mark of hybrid penetration If you're falling behind, Athene's Unholy Grail or Abyssal Mask are good because of the magic resist. Otherwise, just go full damage with Deathfire Grasp. Run full AP with scaling health for the mid-late game survivability. You out-damage and out-range this guy. His Conquering Sands has a maximum range of 800, while your Q has a range of 880. Plus, his Sand Soldiers have a brief delay before attacking so you can dodge them if you have fast reflexes. He can be annoying by interrupting you mid-dash with his Emperor's Divide and you can't dash over it either (you'll get damaged every time you try). Try and dodge to the side before the wall actually hits you, that way you can chase more smoothly. Because of his Sand Soldiers, he'll probably end up pushing the lane. Ahri isn't the best at CSing under tower, but you can use this to your advantage by calling your jungler for a gank.
	Brand | EASY/MEDIUM | FIRST ITEM | RUNES greater mark of hybrid penetration If you're falling behind, Athene's Unholy Grail is good because of the MR. Otherwise, just go full damage with Deathfire Grasp or Morellonomicon. Run full AP with scaling health for the mid-late game survivability. Brand relies almost completely on landing his skillshots. His Pillar of Flame has a delay before exploding, so it becomes pretty easy to dodge after some practice. Avoid standing next to minions so that he'll have to either waste mana to risk missing you or to get last-hits. His abilities have pretty long cooldowns if you dodge them, so jump on him as soon as you can within the next couple of seconds. You can burst him very quickly because of his squishiness and lack of mobility. If your jungler comes to gank, make sure that you do not stand next to each other. His ult will bounce, dealing massive amounts of damage to both you and your jungler. Always keep some space so that the ability doesn't rebound.
	Diana | MEDIUM | FIRST ITEM | RUNES greater mark of hybrid penetration If you're falling behind, Athene's Unholy Grail or Abyssal Mask are good because of the MR. Otherwise, just go full damage with Deathfire Grasp. Run full AP with scaling health for the mid-late game survivability. Diana is pretty weak early game because of her being melee and not having her dash until 6. Abuse this fact by constantly poking her down with Orb of Deception and auto-attacks. If she ever mis-steps, Charm her and blow her up. Keep in mind that she becomes more tanky as the game goes on because of her double shield. Try to juke her Crescent Strike, as her entire kit basically revolves around first hitting that ability. It always curves from her right hand, so dodge to the opposite side. The ability is curved, so sometimes you can just run forward and it'll miss altogether, but it's still better to be safe than sorry. She has a double jump from her ultimate, Lunar Rush, but you have a triple dash with your own ult. If she engages on you, keep kiting her backwards. If the Diana is good, she might actually interrupt your dash with her Moonfall, so bait out the ability before trying to escape.
	Fizz | MEDIUM/HARD | FIRST ITEM | RUNES greater mark of hybrid penetration If you're falling behind, Athene's Unholy Grail and Abyssal Mask are good because of the MR. Otherwise, just go full damage with Deathfire Grasp. Run magic resist glyphs for the survivability. Against this match-up, you must poke him down as much as possible, otherwise he'll destroy you once he hits 6. He has insane burst with his ultimate, but if you can get him really low before then, you can counter-engage and kill him. When facing Fizz, you have to wait for him to initiate. If you use Charm to try and engage, he can easily dodge it with playful/trickster and then jump to you with Urchin Strike and you'll have no way of escaping. Wait until he starts the trade, and then Charm him to counter-engage. His ultimate has a travel time, so you can attempt to dodge it with a charge of Spirit Rush. It has a pretty wide projectile width though, so it might be a little difficult. However, if you do end up dodging it, you have a huge advantage in the impending fight because he'll have lost a major damage source.
	Jayce | EASY/MEDIUM | FIRST ITEM | RUNES greater mark of hybrid penetration If you need the armor, I would recommend rushing Zhonya's Hourglass for the survivability and invulnerability active. Otherwise, go full damage with Deathfire Grasp or Morellonomicon. Run armor seals for the early game defense. Jayce only hurts if you let him get free auto-attacks off on you. If he ever comes into range to do so, punish him with a Charm + Orb of Deception. In addition, you can poke him incessantly with autos yourself if he's in melee mode. He has extremely strong poke with Acceleration Gate and shockblast, so be careful to dodge it. It moves pretty quickly, so if you get hit by it just try and heal back up with your passive. He doesn't have a very powerful power-spike at level 6, so you can abuse this by engaging on him then with your Spirit Rush or by calling your jungler for a gank.
	Karthus | EASY | FIRST ITEM | RUNES greater mark of hybrid penetration In this case, I wouldn't flat out rush Zhonya's Hourglass, but it can be useful mid-game to dodge his ult. Just go full damage with Deathfire Grasp or Morellonomicon if you're falling behind. Run full AP with scaling health for the mid-late game survivability. Karthus excels at safely farming from a long range, so just wait until you're level 6 to dash to him and blow him up. If he ever missteps, you can just Charm him and you'll be able to burst him relatively easily because of his nonexistent mobility. After killing him, make sure that you get away from him or he'll just keep popping Lay Waste on you and then finish you off with a Requiem. If he uses his wall to try and keep you in range, just save one of your dashes so that you can disengage. Once he hits 6, let your teammates know so they can play safer. Otherwise, they might get killed if they ever get over aggressive and fall below 20% health. If he starts channeling his ult and your teammates are low, interrupt it with a Charm to save your teammates' lives.

A few people I'd like to credit: Jhoijhoi, Jamespongebob, and Foxy Riven for their wonderful coding guides. PhRoXzOn's absolutely incredible LeagueCraft 101 lectures. I would not be half the player I am today if it were not for him and his videos. Most of the concepts discussed in this guide were taken and adapted from them! emoriam for his wonderfully detailed review! He caught quite a few typos and provided a lot of tips. If you want one, visit his shop here.

I have written quite a few other guides, for Lulu, Morgana, Katarina, and Diana: -A Whimsical Wonderland Support- -The Tormented Protector- -The Blade of Noxus- -Ascending Nightfall-