Disclaimer: I am NOT the original author of this guide. I do NOT play in Korean server, I am NOT a challenger either. I am just doing this to help a fellow who wishes to learn Cassiopeia. If there is any problem regarding to this, I will take this guide down.

I was asked by a redditor who wished to learn Cassiopeia to translate a pre-existing guide into English, and I am just using Mobafire as a tool to show him the translated version.

I do NOT own ANY of these knowledge and all the credit goes to the original maker of this guide, fair.

The original guide can be seen here:
http://lol.inven.co.kr/dataninfo/champion/manualToolView.php?idx=109097

if there is any problem with this post, I will take it down.
If fair already wrote english version/ or someone already uploaded the translated version, I will also take this down.

Also, as English is not my first language (and nowadays I feel like I am equally bad at Korean as well), there maybe some (if not a lot) of grammar mistakes, let me know about those.


Thank you very much reading this.

Hi, I am a S5 Challenger player Fairy da yo (previously known as I am Fairy/Operator).

Recently, Cassiopeia has became a one of the popular pick in game, and because a lot of people wanted to learn the champion, I have decided to create a guide. I wrote most of my my own personal tip in here.

Who is Cassiopeia?

Cassiopeia (Cass in short) has following traits
Pros:
- A skill range that is just right (not too short, not too long)
- Once you initiate to deal damage, you pump out massive damage with impressive fire rate
- Has an ability to regenerate health with her skill due to her passive
- A poison mage that deals Damage Over Time (DOT) damage instead of having a intense short time nuking ability
- Has an Area of Effect (AoE) that slows enemy, and a cone shaped ult that varies its cc based on the orientation of the enemy champion
- A champion that has great kiting ability using her Q and W
- Gets stronger as the game prolongs.

Cons:
- Mediocre to moderate laning capacity (not strong, but not weak either)
- Difficult to master
- Basically a champion that runs only with skill shot (since you don't use your E until you get a poison proc)
- Her ult is a conditional stun
- Cass's skill is purely dependent on how accurate you can hit the opponent with Q and how fast you can spam E

Season 4 Preseason last tier (top rating Master 442 point)



2015.02.10




Season 4 Preseason last ranked game result



Season 5 ranked game result

Cassiopeia got some changes at december 11th patch. Heres are the following notable patches for her
- Her mana usage during the teamfight decreased
- Made it faster to get to the 1st stage of the cass's passive, but slower for cass's 2nd and 3rd passive stacks
- Q's movespeed increase is now fixed at 20%, so it is hard to notice a big difference, but it is basically a buff for laning phase but nerf for team fight.
- New passive for E: Once you hit the opponent Q once and E twice, for next 5 seconds, your Q and W gets a LOT stronger. Because you will spam a lot of E when you fight or trade, your Q and W dmg amplifies. This is a HUGE buff for her.

However, her Q and E got nerfed at Febuary 11th (Increased mana usage), so if you really like laning phase, she would be difficult for you since it is really difficult to get a kill on your enemy when you are at max mp.

- Mark: Magic Penetration +0.87 x 9
- Seal: HP per level + 1.34 x 9
- Glyph: AP per level + 0.17 x 9
- Quint: AP + 4.95 x3
Total boost at lvl 18: +7.83 magic pen, +217.08 HP, +42.39 AP for 14,145 IP


This is basically best for her.

Because Cassiopeia is pretty squishy, I gave her scaling hp to cover that.

Even if you had such champs like , , or , if you have hp rune instead of +9 armor, they need to hit you once or twice more to kill you.

Also, beceause of spell vamp that Twin Fang will have due to her Aspect of the Serpent and Hextech Revolver (which you will get as one of the core item)[Translator edit: This is probably from his old guide, he never builds revolver], you could survive with really small amount of hp.

It is really a personal preference to decide if you want to run with MR or flat ap, but unless I am dealing with such champion like , or , I always run scaling ap glyph.
I tried flat ap glyph, but because her Noxious Blast ap ratio decreased, and you need to allocate points on Twin Fang to get higher AP ratio, I don't really recommend it. Also, Cassiopeia now doesn't have to try her best at early laning phase and just play well until you get your Archangel's Staff.

A lot of people asked about using move speed quint or spell vamp quint instead of AP quint.

First of all, Cassiopeia is all about how fast you can kill your opponent. This is because she drains her mp faster than Anivia or Karthus. I tried Anivia and Karthus time to time, but you can manage your mp a lot easier than Cassiopeia.

Anyway, the reason why you should and must put AP on quint is because her laning phase isn't like what it used to be (where Cass even loses to Twisted Fate) thanks to the recent patch.


You get a window of chance to kill your opponent once you poke with your few times, and you can get your mana by last hitting with while looking for a chance to kill your opponent.

If you were to replace AP quint with something else, you are basically cutting out all those damages which you will have to make up for it by hitting 1~2 more hits of , and you have to spam your 2~3 more times in order to get a kill.
Basically, you have to use your skill 4~5 more times, but this is a too stretching for Cassiopeia when she is ridiculously mana hungry.
So it is much more wise to get AP quint.

I tried 7 games with move speed Quint, but I didn't feel much of a difference. Your kiting with is really irrelevant with movespeed quint.

If you feel like spell vamp is a must because you are facing a hard match up that requires you to stay on lane with spell vamp, It seems like it is a lot better to go for without using spell vamp quint.

I tried both movespeed and spellvamp quint, but it gets really hard to last hit with your without AP quint. Moreover, that +15 AP will be multiplied by 1.6 times because of her and , so just grab AP quint.

If you are running top Cassiopeia and laning with tanky top like , , , or , you will harass with your AA a LOT of time. so it is also a good idea to run 3 hybrid pen and 6 magic pen.

and is useless for Cassiopeia because you rarely AA in both team fight and laning phase. it also doesn't proc with so just don't go for it.

in my opinion is one of the best mastery in offensive tree because you will never lose a trade against any mid laner that has similar item and similar level. Also, you could also survive due to this mastery even with ignite on you. You have greater chance of winning 1v2 in mid if you run with this rune. Also, because of this mastery, you get hp bonus for assist, so you may also make some outplays due to that.

I've seen a lot of people saying is a worthless mastery because it is a % based mastery. Of course at level 1, you have 36 ap without this and 39 ap with this. That only differs by 3, which is really not a lot. This is obvious at low level situation when mastery multiplies from original value. However, once you get your deathcap or seraph, you get close to 400 ap. Seraph and deathcap gives 240 ap, and 5% from that is 12. If you include masteries, and runes, it just addes on. on full item , you have 397 ap.

(this is excluding seraph and deathcap % increase and assuming seraph's ap is 120).

However, if you also add the % increase from seraph and deathcap, you get approximately 536.

If you are still going to say archmage is a worthless mastery, I feel like devastating strike is worse than this. Even if tank goes for mr items, they will run around 120~160 mr. Assuming that they have 150 mr, you will only penetrate by 9.

I recommend to take away and put and .

Before, had a bug where your own champion was also considered as "allied champion", but now it got patched.

It was great to get 2.5% extra damage by going for and , although is useful in team fight, Cassiopeia is not much of support type of mid champion, but more of carry style mid champion, and I didn't really feel too much of difference from it.

Instead, take so you deal extra dmg to minions with (better mana gain), and if you take out 1 full wave, you get 18 hp thanks to , so take those 2.
Faker and Dopa almost always put points on , , and . Those 4 masteries are really efficient when it comes to allocating mastery points

makes Cassiopeia to take more damage, so a lot of people usually don't run with this mastery. However, I strongly recommend putting point in this. Before I thought that an extremely squishy champion like Cassiopeia will just get nuked really fast,

but before when I put point to this, there were a lot of cases where enemy would survive with really low hp and I often had that moment where I thought to myself "I feel like I should be doing more damage than this...".

After getting this mastery, those moments gotten better, and honestly, because I depend on the spell vamp from , a extra damage would be a nice choice.

You could either select and for early-mid game sustain or go for damage for super late game with . All in all, it really depends on your preference for this case.


9 points on defense VS utility

I strongly recommend 9 points on defense.

is a must because even if you are in mid lane, you will still trade AAs and skills. Block is really good for reducing AA dmg.

gives 120 hp for 5 minutes. That is a hp potion every 5 minute, it is not a lot but its still better than Enchanted Armor so just give 2 points on Recovery.

reduces all the dmg that enemy champ gives by 1. This includes their skills. This is especially good because it also reduces AoE dmg by 1 as well.

3 Points in gives +36 hp, which is basically equivalent to getting 4 and a half flat hp seal and its a stepping stone for the most important defensive mastery for Cassiopeia.

is the most important defensive mastery that Cass must have. Lets do little math to just see how great this mastery is.

If you don't have , lvl 1 Cass has 506 + 11.97+ 36, so 553.97 hp.
However, if you have this mastery, it gives you 553.97 * 1.03 = 570.5891, approximately 17 hp is given for free.
This is equivalent to 2 flat hp seal.

How about lvl 18? you get 1781 + 216 + 36 = 2033 hp without @ lvl 18, but with , you get 2033 * 1.03 = 2094 (approximately).
So you get 61 free hp. Thats 7 free flat hp seal for 1 point of mastery.
This mastery also stacks with hp item , , , , , so it really impacts greatly for Cassiopeia.

I had a lot of moment where I lived with below 20 hp after 1v1 fight, and lived with 2~5 hp after enemy jungle gank.
Also, I survived ignite with 5~10 hp after getting a kill from 1v1 situation.
This really means that if I had utility mastery, I would've died from it.

The point that I want to emphasize in this guide is that because Cassiopeia sustains through spell vamp, you need to give her more of defensive mastery instead of utility mastery.

Cass is not the type of champion that could deal free damage by keeping proper distance like and . She must take a few hits in order to fight so I strongly feel that defense is really crucial for this case.

Of course, such masteries like and really good and there are many good utility masteries and I also had a lot of personal experience where I was saved by biscuits. However, defensive masteries are just a lot better for Cassiopeia.
If you were to go for utility masteries, you will probably start with a and 2 biscuit. That gives you 40 hp.

You can either get permanent 53 extra hp or temporary 40 hp.

After around 3 recalls, you would probably buy wards over pots. 1 pot is equivalent to 35 gold. buying 2-3 means you are losing sight ward or which could have been used for vision control.
In addition, once you recall, because of your spell vamp from E due to your passive, you will still be able to sustain in lane really well. For Cassiopeia, pots really don't mean a lot after recall.

and is the main and there are few alternatives which I will list out with explanation.


Exhaust


doesn't reduce enemy's AD but it reduces damage that you will take.

It doesn't matter if the damage is physical or magical, but it will reduce it by 2.5 seconds and also reduces enemy's move speed and attack speed.

You could actually be stronger with instead of because it not only gives slow, but also reduces incoming damage, so you could play with more confident. Which is not likely if you go with ignite.

Even if enemy try to get away with flash, not only they are slowed, once you hit your Q on enemy, you gain extra movespeed for chase, which will enable you to get a kill.

Exhaust is good against most of mid champion, and you honestly can do more damage than ignite by shooting E 2~3 times.


When do you pick this? pick this when you are not picking anything else.


Ignite


I usually run if enemy mid is like , or type of champ and enemy top is tank (such as , , , dr.mundo).

Good thing about is that you have a lot bigger window of getting a kill at lvl 2.
Also, by late game, your exhaust to tanks really doesn't mean anything since they already do not much of damage to you.

In addition, if enemy tank takes , they don't really get slowed a lot. So, for some cases, it would be wiser to run with ignite to reduce healing and deal true damage.


When do you pick this? If you are against the team comp that I mentioned, go with this.


Barrier


If enemy team comp has a really good team fight opening ability with a follow up (ex. , combo), take . Honestly, if they have a incredible follow ups, is meaningless. Also, if you already got ignited, in such team fight, it is way better to take to reduce the ignite damage than . I personally prefer over , but if you like Heal, it's fine to take heal as well.


Teleport


I personally take with me 8 out of 10 games if I am playing top Cassiopeia.
Once you hit the high elo, you can feel the importance of teleport, and because Cassiopeia is a late game carry, you can use TP to quickly get back to your own lane and boost your growth. If you aren't too great with TP use, ignite, exhaust, barrier is a far better choices.


When do you pick this? Take it only if you are good at using TP


Cleanse


If enemy mid laner has a strong cc (like , , fiddle stick), take .
However, if you are against a nuking champ like , , (rip), , take because it is much more beneficial to reduce their damage then taking their CC away.
Cleanse may seem good against , Her Q is a skill shot that deals a lot of damage. Not only that, your exhaust will be useless with her black shield so take against her.


When do you pick this? pick this if you are against a lot of CCs

Tip: You can put maximum of 5 spam with 1 proc, and 3 spam with 1 proc.

Her is a key skill for her with great spam capacity and explosive damage.

Thanks to Cass buff at September 26th 2014, which fixed the bug where her cool down started after it hits the enemy champion instead of the moment when you use E.
Thanks to this, you can hit 5 with 1 proc instead of 3~4 .

[Before the patch, cool down started after it reached the target (which took 0.1~0.3 seconds).This means that the actual cool down ranged from 0.6 seconds to 0.8 seconds]


Not-So-Tip-ish Tip - Getting stacks for her passive:
Honestly, just prolong your laning phase and get stack with your Q. Now you can no longer gain stack with . So your passive stack is really dependent on your accuracy and how well you can place your . You really should try to hit as much as possible during laning phase to make your stacking experience smooth.


Tip - Cassieopeia's flash ult (such aesthetic, much technique, so pro).
Play Video This video shows no matter which direction you use your ult, it will always direct the ult to the direction of your flash. So if you used your ult to right, but flashed left or top, it will effect whoever is on left or top respectively.

Play Video
This shows another way to use flash ult.
It shows how I changed the target from Sion to next enemy.
It could be a lot easier to use ult for CC rather than AoE damage.


Tip - Cass's poison is not the only poison that will tingle the fang sense.
Play Video Here are some things that will proc your .




ALSO, toad's dot dmg that junglers get for smiting them also procs . So always tell them to get toad with smite before team fight.

Here are some that doesn't tingle fang sense.

Item build:
[Start item]


[At first back]


[Final Item]


[Final Item]
=>


[Cassiopeia's item order: rushing seraph is a must]

Whether you start mid or top, always start with a doran's ring and 2 health potion

Rush then , then finish your .

Seraph is a MUST HAVE item for Cassieopeia you are nothing without it.

It covers Cass's mana, and extremely efficient compare to any other Cass's item.

Seraph gives you free so its a MUST HAVE for Cassieopeia.
Play Video Long live the Seraph

[Cassiopeia's item order: flexible 2nd item]


Grab deathcap if your team is ahead and superior in team comp.



Grab rylai if your enemy's team has poke focused or AA based team comp such as
poking:
AA based:



Grab abyssal if your enemy opponents require to rush to you in order to kill you.
ex:



==================================================================================================


I now don't really go for hextech revolver, because of mid lane assassin that can nuke you.


I generally go for over rabdon's deathcap nowadays.

it provides you great tanking ability, cheaper than deathcap and still be able to pack some punch to your enemy. While deathcap basically makes you into pure glass cannon.

Because Cassiopeia needs to get close to enemy to deal damage, she needs a good balance of defense and offense at early~mid stage.

In addition, rabadon costs 3300 gold while rylai costs 2900.
So nowadays I strongly recommend grabbing Seraph, tier 1 boots then rylai.


[update: Feb 17th 2015]
=========IMPORTANT=========
You should grab ward trinket upgrade by lvl 9. You basically have 4 wards with this upgrade. You don't really go lens as much as you did before. with a simple payment of 250 gold, it will make you breathle.. I mean reduce your ward money and optimize your item slots.]
=========IMPORTANT=========



If game is going smooth, grab deathcap after seraph and rylai. It gives you 30% extra AP, and gives extra spell vamp from extra AP.



If enemy is stacking MR, grab void first.



Whether you got deathcap first or void first, get the other item for next.



You upgrade your boots based on your situation. If enemy doesn't have much of CC, grab , otherwise grab .


For last item, you can decide between liandry or guardian angel.

if you are not really dying a lot, grab


however, if you are a not comfortable, grab




Also, a lot of people have a problem against such champs like and , if you are against melee based ap assassin, you can also just get abyssal after seraph.




Also, if you are up against / and if you feel like they are skillful then you, grab after getting .

how ever, do note that you should only be getting this if you are relatively new to Cassiopeia and have problem with / .




I personally rush deathcap after seraph if I am against / because I know I can withstand their damage with + , and they are really weak after their assassination attempt. Also, because I am adept with Cass's ult position, I am confident that I can outplay Zed, I generally grab deathcap over zhonya.




If enemy mid is such champs like or javan, just grab . This is generally enough for them thanks to armguard's stack. Also, they are really efficient thanks to their stacks.


If their top/mid/jungle are all ad (ex / / mid, / / top), grab after , and grab before your .



If enemy has , grab zhonya right after abyssal. Because of her patch, she now uses a lot of AA and her E dmg is also pretty dangerous.




Ideal Cassiopeia final item


Ideal TOP Cassiopeia final tiem


Ideal Cass final item for AD heavy


Ideal Cass final item for AP heavy





==================================================================================================

Translator's edit: I know that he doesn't talk about revolver, gunblade and woa after their own section (not even on final build). I believe that was old recommendation from his guide. I don't see any harm from reading this, but if you just want to know full build, it is not necessary to look at this part
VS



You can go either hextech gunblade or will of the ancient based on personal preference.
Basically you can go with the build at the top

has 60 second cooldown on their active, but cooltime is reduced by 3 seconds for each E. So, + 5 = 15 + 3 seconds, so you will have 42 seconds remaining. If you do this 3 times, you get to use it again

Cass is really busy with spamming her E during teamfight, so if teamfight goes on for a bit, you can use it at least twice.

Gunblade has pretty nice damage as well. 150 +(813 * 0.4 = 325) = 475 magic damage.
Not only that, it gives out 2 second slows, giving you another cc.

Also, it gives you hp thanks to spell vamp.

Honestly, I go this item more often than Will of the Ancient because you get this item at the very end. Since this will be your very last item, you will not be able to use a lot of your gold after this. Thus, I usually go with expensive item that has good active skill.

However, it is really expensive and has some unnecessary stats (AD/lifesteal) so cass players don't really opt for gunblade.

Just from looking at active skills, it is a great item, but the downside of gunblade makes it not really famous choice for Cassiopeia.
Also, it is sometimes annoying to keep track of cooldown of 1 more item.




is really cheap compare to Gunblade.
Also, it gives 15 more AP compare to gunblade (gunblade gives 65 while this gives 80).
Not only that, it gives you a CDR so you will have max CDR with this item.
Because of its cheap price, it is a lot easier and faster to buy .


However, it doesn't have a good active skill like Gunblade.



I recently started to buy this item and then if the game doesn't end, I change it to gunblade. However, I buy the elixir as well just so that I could cover the lost 10% CDR from Will of the Ancient.


Boot choice:

sorcerer's boots - if they are all ad
- if their top or mid is ap
- melee attack based team such as top tryndamere/mid yasuo/ jungle jax.


Enchantment choice:

- if we are wining
- if we are losing
- if you got ghost/flash on Cass


Q: Why go for Furor??

A: Because her is single target skill, so it procs furor, allowing you to chase or kite even faster after your and

(not mid j4) jungle jarvan is a pain when playing Cass. If you are not careful enough and allow j4 to gank you with his EQ combo, you will automatically lose 3~4 blocks of your hp, and with their mid laner, you might even die from the gank. If you flash to escape, you are now in much more uncomfortable situation.



Plz ban dis rito



Plz ban dis rito

[translator edit: this may not be a too much of a thing nowadays simply because eveyln is just underwhelming in season 5, but I translated this as well since original author has enlightened me with his knowledge about stealth jungles]



It is pretty stressful to have enemy jungler as evelyn. It is really painful due to her .
However, there is one situation where she must decloak: when she is farming jungle.
If you place sight ward on enemy jungle camp, you can easily track her movement down.
This is much more beneficial since you can spend 75 gold to place sight ward on their ghost so you will know where she went off to. (instead of spending 100 gold for and let her take it.
Junglers usually take ghost and wolves a lot so if you can ward at ghost camp and tell your jungler to ward at their wolves, you can easily track her movement.
Also, early level evelyn is really squishy so as long as you keep your mid opponent's hp low, its really hard for eve to gank since you can kite here easily by keeping your distance with and spamming .

In short, evelyn is one of the most easiest champ to kill when you get ganked.

Zed, the master of shadows


Zed is melee based champ so he must get close to get cs. However, Cass is ranged champ so you don't need to get close to minions to get cs.



At lvl 1, stay close to your melee mobs and if you think zed is in your range, use it to poke/zone him.
After awhile, zed will try to cs with his , but because he needs to step further to land it, you can time yourself to land 1 and 1 AA.
This will also make them to take hp pot rather quickly.

Important thing to remember is that don't try to harass too much with your and try to keep around half of your mana while harassing.

If you harass like this, you will most likely hit lvl 2 first. If you got lvl 2 first, keep using your to last hit and regain mana, and keep on using and AA to harass and zone Zed.

Because now requires much less mana, you can actually use it to further harass Zed with it. Cassiopeia shouldn't have too much of trouble against Zed

Once Zed hit lvl 2, he will try to use and to harass you.
It is really important not to get hit by this.
This really hurts especially if you are the only one who gets hit by this.
Dodge as much as you can and stay with minions so you can at least reduce the dmg.

After lvl 3, because he is melee, he will be forced to AA sometimes. if he tries to go for melee creep, put on top of your melee minion.
Just getting touched by this will grant you stacks.
Also, mana usage for and is same at lvl 1.
If you want to win against zed in laning phase, dodge as much of his as possible.

When Zed uses his , he himself will get to behind of Cassiopeia. So, as soon as you see him ulting you, move forward and use your petrifying gaze size30 backward. This will most definitely stun him for 2 seconds. At this moment, you can outplay him with and spam.
Play Video
However, if you weren't able to stun him, wait 0.5~0.7 seconds and use your .
If you use it as soon as he uses his , because exhaust lasts shorter (2.5 seconds of exhaust compare to 3 seconds of zed's mark), you will get full damage of .so NEVER exhaust right away.

Laning phase against Zed as Cassiopeia Play Video








Syndra, the dark soverign


Syndra is one of those champ that doesn't have clear counter. She is just difficult to deal with.
I personally have trouble laning against her with any types of champion and Cassiopeia is not an exception.


Why is she so scary?

First of all, she can use her spell while she is moving, making it harder for Cass to land her Q.
To elaborate, Cassiopeia needs to stand at one place and throws while Syndra doesn't have to be forced to stand still to use her .
This means that if enemy needs to go through a short animation to cast their spell, Cassiopeia can easily land her .
However, because Syndra doesn't have such motion, it is actually pretty tricky to land .


Secondly, her combo is really deadly.

Really good Syndra will use their when their stun is almost done. This will effectively put enemy to be cc'd for approximately 3.5 seconds.

While doing so, if she has 3 balls on the ground and lead up with her and , you will be most likely to be taken down really quickly. Even at full hp, Syndra's full combo is dangerous.
So be careful if you don't have too much hp.

In addition,her 1.5 seconds of ranged stun (with sphere + scatter the weak combo) makes her really good for opening a window for jungler gank.
If enemy jungle is such champ like or , you are basically dead if they gank you once syndra lands her stun combo.



To fight against her, use your range as advantage. Cass's range is slightly longer than Syndra's and it has equivalent cool time. Thus, it is crucial to land your Q before Syndra do.

This is because Syndra's will only deal damage while Cass's will boost your move speed so you will have upper hand at lvl 1 trade. Which will lead up to greater benefit in laning phase



lvl 2 moment is really crucial for this match.

If she comes out aggresively (up to our melee creep line), use + AA and 2 to harass.

If she is playing safe (behind their ranged creep line), safely farm with (to gain mana at the same time) and once you have some breathing room, get your stack with + .

If you and Syndra traded a lot of Qs at level 1 and took out about half of hp, check your mana and decide if you want to play safe or make an attempt to kill her with and fight.









LeBlanc, the deceiver



IF YOU ARE FIGHTING AGAINST LEBLANC ALWAYS FIGHT HER IF YOU HAVE SIMILAR HP/MP

Most leblanc wants to get thier Q proc off with their W.

However, your is 150 longer than her so use that as advantage.
once you land your , you can dodge their sigil of malic combo thanks to the movespeed boost.
If you keep on harass them, they should start to try to trade with you using sigil of malic .
Just stay behind minions.
If she uses her , place your on her original place and throw to where LeBlanc is currently at.
This will make her destined to be hit by one of your poison.
Keep on chase and spam .
This will at least take out her flash.
Cassiopeia will never be behind if they are fighting on equal footing.



After lvl 6, there is a few ways to take out LeBlanc but do note that her lvl 6 is really strong due to her .

One of the way can be used if she used her flash because of pre 6 trade, as soon as she uses her , her and stun her .


another way is to wait for her to use her lane clear.
You can try to bait this by staying out of sight from mid. This will make her to think that you either backed or went to take blue and use her WR.
If you get this chance, you can try to surprise attack her.

footage of taking leblanc down when her is down. Play Video







Xerath, the magnus ascendant



People have trouble against Xerath, but he has some weakness that you can exploit.
Here is my guide on taking down Xerath, who packs with long range, hard cc, insane damage and incredible mana sustains.



1. Wait for the moment when he tries to CS.



If he wishes to gain his mana back with or to take cs, he will have to hit it with his AA.


Once his is out, he is forced to auto attack low hp minions to cs.
At this moment, if you place your on him, it will definitely hit him.
If he stays at back, he is basically missing out on cs.



2. Think of his position and Q gauge.

His at beginning has range of 700.

This is shorter than Cassiopeia by 150.

However, when he fully charges his , the range is 1400, which is why some people think that is the problem when facing against xerath.


But I will explain this to you with a picture.
I will distinguish Xerath's location by number and tell you exactly what you should be doing based on this.

If Xerath is at positon 1 (furthest), that is the position where he will try to harass Cass with max range .
At this case, try to side step it or back away little bit. This will either make him to use it on minion or cancel it.

position 2 and 3 is where Cass can start use her .
At that distance, when Xerath is channeling his , he is basically a sitting duck for your trade because his Q slows him.

Not only that, those position is too far for Xerath to zone out Cass with his and .

At this moment, calmly use your to get close to Xerath, and when doing this first get toward Xerath and side step to try to dodge his .
If you dodge his skill shot, he will try to use eye of desctruction or in panic.
Xerath will probably use his since his takes some time to hit.
However, with movespeed buff, you can easily sidestep his .


basically how to fight against Xerath in a nutshell Play Video




1 vs 1 footage special thanks to IvNar Play Video

Laning phase lvl 1~2



if you have janna on your team, you will reach to the point where Cass is at by 00:31 second.
If you don't have janna in your team, it will be 00:34 moment.
The red circle behind it is where your enemy mid laner would be at if both of you guys ran toward mid.
Unless enemy has or , go a bit forward and throw on the other side, it is possible to get 3 stack from here.


However, if you don't see your enemy, place ward at position above.
Don't save up your ward before minion spawn.
You can prevent possible enemy invade and if you see them through your ward, you can also try to land to get your stacks.
This will help you in the long run during mid/late game snowballing.
Just do this until 01:15 mark, and recall back to home and get your mana back and run to your mid.
This will allow you to take full potential of super early stage by getting free passive stacks and getting quick vision on them.



However, if enemy have really strong cc at lvl 1 (like , or ), just ward.
Also, if enemy support is such champion like , or with , do not trade with them and do not let them get free gold.



Laning Phase start:

At lvl 1, your accuracy is really important.
Because your has pretty big range, if you allow them to throw AA on minion, they are forced to be within your range.
You need to make smart decisions in lvl 1.
If you have , decide if you want to kill the enemy by lvl 2 or not.
If I am against , I personally take and try to keep 75% of my mana at lvl 1, and go for kill at lvl 2 with and so on.

If you are against other champ and you have , just try to land as much as possible and if you have been consistently landing your on them, as soon as you become lvl 2, put , land combo and so on to kill them off.

Your entire game play is really dependent on how many you land during laning phase to get your stacks up and have easier time becoming a mid late game carry.



Laning Phase lvl 3~6:

After preseason, the jungle route has changed a bit.

Red team:
Grump -> Blue -> wolves -> recall -> red

Blue team:
Double Golem -> Red -> Wraith -> recall -> blue


Back in Season 4, such champs like would try lvl 2 gank after buffs, but now that is really unlikely, so there are less pressure during this phase.
You can call this as partial buff if you want.

You just have to be careful when they took their last buff camp.

If you keep your enough distance where you can land your noxious blase and don't get hit by very hard CC, it is easier for you to evade enemy gank with your move speed buff.



Laning Phase lvl 7+

Once you are past lvl 7, you generally start to take blue, and because you got your ult, you start to do "dirty farming", taking jungle farms.
I personally recall back just before you can take blue (around 6 minutes mark) and take blue.
By this point, I will have a few sight ward and under my belt.
At this point, enemy mid laner would try to push, roam and gank other lanes or do take jungle farm.
For Cassiopeia, you can push the lane really fast with , and use whenever you can get your tear stack so that you can get your ASAP.
This is a good time for Cass because you can push really fast and depending on team comp, you can also try to take away enemy vision with your jungler using wards and lens, and if you see enemy jungler near top, you can rush dragon with bot lane.
Important thing is that your bot lane should also try to take drag with you so you can fight for potential 4v3 team fight




Team Fight

You generally focus different champ based on your team comp.
However, realistically you want to focus on ADC > mid > strongest > somewhat weak > weakest order, but this is really hard to explain because there are just way too many scenarios for team fight.



However, one thing that doesn't change for Cass is the use of your during team fight.

You can use it if the enemy is all bunched up, or to fend off the enemy that is trying to focus you by first using and ult them once you have some distance away from them.


Also, another thing that doesn't change is that you use and to lock down main dmg dealer and burst them as fast as you can with your combo.


Anyway, the team fight is really based on how well you use your and any other tools at your disposal.
It is really difficult to teach how to team fight in paper.


Here are some videos to help you understand how you should play in teamfight
Play Video Play Video

Well that is the end of the guide.

Took me about an hour or less to translate fully, but more than 3~5 hours just to get everything in place.

I only translated this because a redditer wanted to learn Cassiopeia, and maybe some of you guys may want to learn Cass as well.


There are some parts that were confusing while I was translating (And you guys might find it sometimes either contradicting or confusing) this because this was kept on being updated.

If you guys want to ask question, you guys came to a wrong guide because I personally don't play Cassiopeia. But honestly, I should play Cass because just from reading this I learnt so much about her playstyle and league knowledge in general.

However, if you guys want to correct me (in grammar or anything english based), feel free to do so since English is not really my first language (although I feel like Korean isn't really my first language any more)



I will just attach this video (one of the video from Fairy's youtube channel)
where he kites and outplays full item 22 kill rek sai in 1v1 situation.
Play Video