For a quick access to any section of this guide, please click on the desired link below.
Introduction
Strengths and Weaknesses
Champion Identity
Abilities
Summoner spells
Runes
Itemization
Gameplan
Lane Matchups
Gameplay Concepts
Conclusion


Welcome to my guide! I am Ecyanaro and I started my League journey in 2012. I had been casually playing on and off since then up until 2022 when I started playing regularly ranked games with the intent to improve as a player. Anivia was one of the first few champions I started to play (along with Nocturne) and I fell in love with her design and her kit. I have played her ever since and I define myself mostly as an Anivia OTP nowadays, playing her in midlane.

I initially wrote this guide as a self-exercise to give me a frame of reference whenever I play Anivia and improve my knowledge on both the champion and the game. I am happy with how this guide turned out and with the results I got from it, which is why I decided to publish it in case if it can help a few of you in your journey with Anivia, the Cryophoenix.

The first part of this guide revolves around the champion itself to get a good understanding of who Anivia is. We will then move on to the tools (runes, sum. spells, items) at your disposal to get the most out of the champion. We will continue right after with gameplay and matchup guidelines to provide a frame of reference when it comes to game phases and enemy champions. Finally, we will close with some gameplay concepts that are universal to League but necessary to comprehend and mesh everything together. Enjoy the reading!


Let's first define Anivia's strengths and weaknesses to better understand what she brings to the Rift:

Strengths: ► One of the highest auto-attack range ► Good burst damage ► Good sustained damage post-6 ► Excellent at controlling teamfights ► Excellent waveclear post-6 ► Free resurrection through her passive ► Scales well to mid and late game ► Access to crowd control abilities and team utility ► Crystallize gives a lot of room for counterplay and skill expression ► Not often played or banned, perfect to OTP!

Weaknesses: ► Fragile champion early with low health pool and resistances ► Weak sustained damaged pre-6 ► Weak waveclear pre-6 ► Mana hungry champion ► Low mobility, mispositionning may get you punished and killed ► Medium ability range, may be difficult to space properly ► Very sensitive to crowd control, it negates half of her kit ► Harder to play against champions that have a lot of mobility such as dashes or blinks ► Simple kit, can be easy to predict for your opponents at higher elo

Now that we have a good picture of Anivia's strengths and weaknesses, let's define her identity at each phase of the game:

EARLY GAME

During the early game, Anivia is a burst mage that wants to interact with her opponent through short trades only. Her weak sustained damage does not let her perform well in extended trades or fights, which should be avoided. With her weak waveclear pre-6, she will have to concede lane priority in many matchups and stay in lane to farm since she is reliant on both gold and experience. This is reinforced by her mana hunger that prevents her from using too often her abilities to farm, leaving her with her auto-attacks as main farming tool. With her kit, she has the tools to set-up good ganks on midlane for her jungler through her Flash Frost and Crystallize. Because of her low mobility and her fragility, Anivia is sensitive to enemy ganks or getting collapsed on and should avoid overextending or roaming alone through the river, unless having good tracking of all opponents. Post-6, Anivia's waveclear gets very good with her access to her ultimate, Glacial Storm, which can be used to push her lane to get priority, setup a dive or punish an enemy roam. At this point in the game her ultimate is a mana sink and cannot be used too regularly.

MID GAME

During the mid game, Anivia has access to her core items. She has a strong burst combined with good sustained damage and pick potential. She does well in most duels and skirmishes and can oftentimes shutdown opponents or create a number advantage through her abilities usage. Be careful to not misposition and not get greedy though, she can hardly take multiple opponents on her own unless already fed. Anivia no longer has mana issues after having her core items. She can shove waves using Glacial Storm and rotate to objectives or other lanes to create play opportunities. Be careful when rotating to lanes or objectives, Anivia has a low mobility and can hardly survive if she gets collapsed on by opponents when left on her own. Anivia can start zoning opponents from objectives and focus on getting the Rift Herald, Dragon and eventually Baron Nashor with her team.

LATE GAME

During late game, Anivia wants to group with her teammates to be used at her full potential. She can catch side waves but shouldn't overextend or split push (unless fed) due to her low mobility and survivability when on her own. Anivia excels at controlling choke points and should use this to her team's advantage when fighting river objectives. She can control how teamfights are fought and can split the enemy team in two or get a pick with a good Crystallize. Because of these strengths, Anivia and her team need to play proactively and get on objectives first. It is paramount that Anivia follows and is synchronized with her team to create a number advantage as early as possible in the fight. At this point in the game, her natural itemization gives her a large health pool, which means that her Rebirth takes more effort from the enemy team to destroy. For this reason it is oftentimes better for her to soak enemy damage and return into an egg while her allies are around and applying pressure than returning into an egg at the end of a teamfight when none of her allies can prevent the opponents from killing her. Anivia has an excellent waveclear, she excels at defending towers and at sieging enemy structures. Because of that, Baron Nashor is a reliable win condition for her that will guarantee to destroy several enemy structures. There is also a lot of pressure on her not dying in late game since she is a key element to prevent the enemy team from closing the game.

Great, we start to better understand who Anivia is, let's now take a look at her kit and see how it can be used:

Rebirth This is Anivia's signature ability. As a phoenix, she transforms into an egg upon taking lethal damage and regains all her health. Anivia is targetable and unable to act for 6 seconds, after which she reborns with the Health points left on her egg. While it is available, it allows you to play aggressively or get a second chance in case of a mess-up. Do not waste it by overextending, it is fairly easy for your opponents to destroy your egg if you are left on your own. Ability in video (Credit to Riot Games) Further information and tips Rebirth is not affected by cooldown reduction and will always take 4 minutes to recharge. Your opponents and allies can see if your passive is available. It is indicated by the presence of wings above your champion level. Keep in mind that Rebirth reduces Anivia's resistances until level 12, making it easy for a champion with good sustained damage to destroy it before you are reborn. If you get killed after having drawn the enemy's minion or tower aggro, your egg will not cancel it and it will keep being attacked. Similarly, if any enemy champion attack your egg during Rebirth, they will draw your ally's minion and tower aggro. If you use Teleport before dying while Rebirth is available, Teleport will not be interrupted and will teleport your egg to safety, unless it is interrupted by enemy crowd control. Keep in mind that Rebirth cancels all your other channel abilities. During teamfights, Rebirth will exert pressure on the enemy team when triggered at the right time and place since they will have to decide between destroying your egg or fighting your surviving allies. Item passives affecting enemy champions, such as for Frozen Heart, Abyssal Mask or Thornmail are still active during your Rebirth. Use this to your team's advantage during teamfights.

Flash Frost Anivia brings her wings together and summons a sphere of ice that flies through opponents, chilling and damaging anyone in its path. When it explodes it does damage in a radius, stunning anyone in the area. This is your only form of hard crowd control and is simultaneously a key element of Anivia's burst damage pre-6 and your only defensive spell. Use it wisely. Ability in video (Credit to Riot Games) Further information and tips The slow of Flash Frost scales with the level of your Glacial Storm. Don't waste Flash Frost, having access to it can be the difference between life and death. In some case, it is best to hold onto it until your opponent has used their engage or gapcloser. While farming under tower, you can use the first cast of your Flash Frost on caster minions to damage them so that they need one tower shot and one auto-attack to be killed. Don't damage them with the recast. After casting your Flash Frost, you will be unable to recast it and apply the stun if you are silenced or victim of hard crowd control. In teamfight, cast your Flash Frost through the enemy frontline and towards the enemy backline, more often than not the backline will not see it coming until it is too late. When facing champions with Spell Shield such as Nocturne or Sivir, let your Flash Frost go through them before you recast it, the first cast will consume their shield and will ensure that the recast will stun them. Both Flash Frost cast and recast count as different instances of abilities activation towards spells such as Kassadin's Force Pulse.

Crystallize This is Anivia second signature ability. She condenses the moisture in the air into an impassable wall of ice to block all movement. The wall only lasts a short duration before it melts. Crystallize is a very powerful ability that has multiple uses. It can be used defensively as an escape or disengage tool in conjunction with Flash Frost, or aggressively to trap an enemy in your Glacial Storm or deny their escape. This ability has a high skill ceiling and makes Anivia a rewarding champion to play. Ability in video (Credit to Riot Games) Additional information Crystallize can be used in many ways, you can for instance use it to escape a gank, disengage a fight, make a pick for your team, split the enemy team during teamfights, keep opponents in your Glacial Storm or block opponents from contesting an objective. When put on top of an enemy champion, Crystallize draws the enemy's minion and tower aggro. Be careful when using it under an enemy tower. When put on top of an opponent, Crystallize will also grant assists. Since it is an instant spell and has a long range, use this to get assists you would not have otherwise got. Be careful to not save the opponent's life by blocking your teammates from chasing them. Up to season 13 you could use Crystallize to block your minion wave from going past your tower, the first level being enough to entirely block the wave. This was used to set up or break a freeze, farm under tower or prepare your lane for an ally gank. With the map update brought by season 14 it cannot be used this way anymore in midlane, but is still feasible in top and bottom lanes. In some specific matchups, you can use Crystallize to displace canon minions before they get hit by an opponent skill shot to deny your opponent farm or displace minions from Aurelion Sol's Singularity to deny him stacks. When put on top of an opponent, Crystallize will knock the opponent off and interrupt channel abilities such as Teleport, Katarina's Death Lotus, or consume Spell Shields. Crystallize has many interactions with champion abilities that are presented in the Wall Tricks section below. To summarize, it can prevent channel abilities, dashes, jumps, grabs, etc… The wall counts as a terrain and synergizes well with champions such as Vayne, Poppy or Ornn. Be mindful that once you cast Crystallize, you cannot cancel or destroy it. It will take 5 seconds to disappear. Take that into consideration when using it as to not block yourself or your allies from a play.

Frostbite With a flap of her wings, Anivia blasts a freezing gust of wind at her target, dealing damage. If the target is chilled, the damage they take is doubled. This is your main trading tool and what gives Anivia her burst and the ability to delete champions in the early game if it is cast against chilled opponents. Ability in video (Credit to Riot Games) Additional information Frostbite checks if the target is chilled for double damage when it reaches the target, not when it is cast. Cast it early for a quick burst! Use Frostbite to last-hit enemy minions you would otherwise lose to your turret or ally minions, the cooldown is fairly short. If you want to hold your Flash Frost, don't hesitate to poke your opponent with unpowered Frostbite. It deals decent damage and can be combined with auto attacks to trigger Electrocute.

Glacial Storm Anivia summons a driving rain of ice and hail to damage her enemies and slow their movement. This ultimate ability is what gives Anivia her strong waveclear, for which she is known for. This tool has multiple uses, like Crystallize, and can be used to shove waves, siege enemy structures or defends objectives for instance. Be creative with it, a well positioned Glacial Storm can change the outcome of a play. Ability in video (Credit to Riot Games) Additional information Glacial Storm damages do not consume Spell Shield since it is a damage over time. When canceled, Glacial Storm does an instant last tick of damage. This can help you save mana when shoving waves in the early game. When fighting a melee champion, do not hesitate to use Glacial Storm under yourself. This will allow you to kite your opponent while heavily damaging them if they come to your contact. Using Zhonya's Hourglass while Glacial Storm is active does not interrupt it. Use this to your advantage during teamfights to outplay your opponents. When the center of Glacial Storm is placed in a bush, the area of damage is not visible to enemies outside of the bush. Use this to surprise your opponents and start the fight with a fully formed ultimate. You can use Glacial Storm to zone out enemies from an objective, for instance by placing it in a choke point. It works even better when used in conjunction with Crystallize. When fighting the Dragon or Baron Nashor, you have enough range to cast Glacial Storm to damage the objective while standing in the river bush to get more vision on the river. Be careful to not get picked, do this only if you are sure that the bush is not warded. The slow of Glacial Storm leaves a trail that is visible even if the enemy is stealth, for instance in a bush or through abilities like Kha'Zix's Void Assault.

Trading

Trading Using your abilities and auto-attacks to trade efficiently is an important aspect of the game. Below is a few trading sequences that are used on Anivia. Trading sequences Trading sequence #1 AA > Frostbite > AA You found me, gg! This is your main trading tool in the early game, Frostbite deals decent damage even when it is unpowered. Using this sequence also let you hold on to your Flash Frost if you don't have a good angle to connect it successfully or if your matchup requires it (ex: has a dash or blink). You can execute this sequence from your level 1 if you start with Frostbite for an aggressive early game, which works best with the Summon Aery or Electrocute keystones. Trading sequence #2 Flash Frost > Frostbite You found me, gg! This is your bread and butter during the early game and what gives you your burst damage. Use this trading sequence only when you are confident to connect your Flash Frost since this spell is not cheap and has a fairly long cooldown. Add an auto-attack for extra damage if you are running Electrocute. Trading sequence #3 AA > Frostbite > AA > Flash Frost > AA > AA > Frostbite You found me, gg! This more advanced trading sequence is actually a combination of the two other previously mentioned with a few auto-attacks added to it. You are starting with the sequence #1 and if you get a good angle then you cast your Flash Frost to continue onto the sequence #2. The resulting sequence deals heavy damage and can be pulled off as soon as you hit level 2.

Combo

Combos Anivia's abilities can be used in specific sequences and timing to create combos that are presented below. These combos are split into two parts, the pre-6 and post-6 combos. Level 1 to 5 Combos Combo #1 Flash Frost > Frostbite You found me, gg! This combo use the essence of the trading sequence #2 but differs from it by the speed at which you execute it. Here you are casting your Frostbite before your Flash Frost connects, which leads to both spells connecting in a short time frame and thus instant burst damage. This combo significantly shorten the duration of your trade and thus shorten your exposure to retaliation. Combo #2 Crystallize > Flash Frost > Frostbite You found me, gg! This combo uses Crystallize as a tool to increase the reliability of your trading sequence #2. Crystallize is cast to block the escape route of your opponent and positionned in such a way that you can then determine their shortest escape route around the wall. You can then cast your Flash Frost in this pre-determined direction to get a guaranteed stun and follow-up Frostbite, unless your opponent is aware of this trick and forces their champion to take the longest escape route. Combo #3 Flash Frost > Crystallize > Frostbite You found me, gg! This combo is an advanced version of the combo #2 described above. Here Flash Frost is used as usual, which will make your opponent actively trying to dodge it. Therefore you follow up directly with your Crystallize to prevent your opponent from dodging your skillshot by using the displacement of the wall to push them in your Flash Frost. This will catch your opponent off-guard and let you follow-up with a Frostbite. Post-6 Combos Combo #4 Glacial Storm > Crystallize > Frostbite > AA > Flash Frost > AA > Frostbite You found me, gg! In this combo your are opening with your ultimate with the intent to keep your opponent in it. If your opponent is trying to escape, use Crystallize to keep them in your Glacial Storm followed by your Flash Frost to keep them in it even longer. In the meantime you should also weave as many auto-attacks as you can and cast your Frostbite whenever it is available and empowered. You can swap the order of Crystallize and your first Frostbite if your opponent somehow decide to stay in your ultimate. Combo #5 Crystallize > Glacial Storm > Frostbite > AA > Flash Frost > AA > Frostbite You found me, gg! This combo has the same essence as the combo #4 but starts instead with Crystallize, which happens typically when you are making a pick on an opponent. You can also derive this combo with a Flash Frost start, the possibilities are multiples.

Wall Tricks

Wall Tricks Crystallize is an amazing ability that can be used in many creative ways. Below are a few examples of wall usages that will terrorize your opponents on the rift (or your allies if you fail). Wave management Up to season 13 you could use Crystallize during laning phase to block your minions' path, which would artificially make the enemy minion wave pushed towards your tower. This could help you better manage your wave and you could also execute this trick on the opponent's minion wave to help your wave crash onto the enemy tower faster which in turn would give you a better recall. With the map update brought by the season 14 it cannot be used this way anymore in midlane, but is still feasible in top and bottom lanes, although out of the scope of this guide. You found me, gg! Recall interruption Due to the knock up induced by Crystallize when cast on top of an opponent, you can interrupt their recall almost instantly which will catch most opponents off guard and give you an edge. You found me, gg! Abilities interactions Crystallize triggers a knock up when it is cast on top of an enemy. Because the knock up is a form of crowd control, it can interrupt channels and override previous displacements. The challenger player SanSiroBro made a video in september 2022 that shows how Crystallize can be used to cancel many champion abilities. I recommend you to watch his video here. This makes Crystallize a powerful ability and gives Anivia players a lot of skill expression, because be mindful that achieving such interruptions is not an easy task. You need to be very precise on the position and timing of your wall, which requires in many cases good anticipation skills. Note that the displacement caused by the jungle's blast cone (plant) can also be cancelled using Crystallize as shown below. You found me, gg! Wall trap You can trap your opponent between your Crystallize and other terrain elements to prevent them from moving anywhere and thus locking them in position. It can be achieved against most if not all terrains of the rift provided that your opponent stands near the terrain and that you position your Crystallize correctly. You found me, gg!

Troubleshooting: Abilities




Let's now delve into the tools at your disposal. Summoner spells are powerful abilities that can be used in tandem with your other 4 champion abilities. They provide a lot of utility and should be carefully chosen according to your champion, your role, your playstyle and your lane opponent. Only summoner spells commonly used in midlane are discussed below.

Flash Flash is a summoner spell of unmatched utility that can be used to escape, dodge key skillshots, engage or secure a kill. Almost every champion takes it since extra-mobility is always good to have, even more so on immobile champions like Anivia. Most walls (terrain) of the Summoner's Rift can be flashed through, which opens up many escape path when being chased. In most games, Flash is obviously a must-have. This is especially true when you are facing opponents such as Veigar, Jarvan IV or Irelia who can trap you in a small delimited area through their abilities.

Teleport Teleport is a very strong summoner spell that gives you more options throughout the game. During the early game it let you return to base and back instantly almost without missing any farm or experience, or counter-gank a sidelane. Later on, it can be used to gank a lane, defend your structures against a splitpusher, or let you apply pressure on a side of the map while being ready for a teamfight on the other side. Teleport is a solid choice for champions that lack mobility such as Anivia and it also synergizes well with your passive Rebirth. Use it wisely though, its cooldown is long, you cannot cancel it yourself and being a channelled ability it can be canceled by your opponents. Note that the destination channel is visible to your opponents. It is almost mandatory to take Teleport if the enemy team has a splitpusher since you may need to very quickly reposition to prevent the enemy splitpusher from piercing through your structures, thanks to your depush capabilities. Note that Teleport will be cancelled when used on a tower which gets destroyed during the channel and its cooldown does not get refunded. Also note that it can be used on Zac's cells ( Cell Division) to make one of them invulnerable during the channel, which may save their life.

Ignite Ignite is a good choice if you are planning to be aggressive in the early game, this will add to your kill pressure in lane and can let you secure early kills. It does not scale particularly well in the late game so you need to capitalize on it early. Its biggest advantage in late game is its grevious wounds effect that counters champions who mitigate a lot of damage through healing, like Vladimir, Dr. Mundo or Swain. This gives you the grevious wounds effect without needing to buy a Morellonomicon. Another advantage of Ignite is to secure a kill when your target is low on health and escaping, which is generally more likely to happen during the early to mid game than during late game. Its activation range is not so high so you need to anticipate and use it before your opponent is starting to escape. When paired with Conqueror, Ignite makes it possible for you to quickly stack your Conqueror and even get it fully stacked, which is otherwise very difficult to achieve with Anivia.

Ghost Ghost is a great spell for Battle Mages like Anivia since it allows you to get back to a lane quicker, quickly reposition during fights, escape enemy ganks, kite enemy champions or let you get a pick or secure a kill when chasing an opponent. It is very valuable against Artillery mages, such as Xerath since it let you gapclose to kill them, especially if you jungler is coming to gank. Its cooldown is much shorter than Flash which will provide you more value throughout the game. Keep in mind though that a movement speed soft cap is in place in the game. Between 415 to 490 movement speed value, any bonus is only 80% effective whereas any bonus when you are over 490 movement speed value is only 50% effective. If you are planning to get movement speed through your itemization, you may not get the most value out of Ghost during the late game.

Exhaust Exhaust is a situational summoner spell that can be useful against all-in assassins or burst mages to greatly mitigate their damage, it scales well into late game. Unfortunately, the activation range is short which forces you to anticipate the enemy all-in to get most value out of this summoner spell. Exhaust has the advantage to protect all your team from the targeted champion, which is very valuable during teamfights and even more so if the enemy team has only one fed champion (for instance their top laner). The slow from Exhaust is useful pre-6, but does not mean much for Anivia once you get Glacial Storm.

Barrier Barrier is a situational summoner spell that is used similarly to Exhaust to mitigate damages from assassins, burst mages or artillery mages. It does not scale as well in the late game but provides good protection against champions that will typically burst you while being out of range of Exhaust. Many players tend to forget the presence of this summoner spell and may make a risky play to kill you if they see you low on health. Barrier can let you capitalize on that and be used as a baiting tool to give you opportunities for plays that you otherwise wouldn't get.

Cleanse Cleanse is a situational summoner spell that can be very useful in situations where getting stunned or disabled will get you killed and cost your team the fight. Against enemy composition that relies on chaining crowd control, this can be a lifesaver. Keep in mind though that Cleanse does not remove suppression and airborne effects and as such will not be helpful against Malzahar, Yasuo or Mordekaiser for instance.

Troubleshooting: Summoner Spells




Runes are an important part of a champion build. Although it does not necessarily make or break a game, a good rune choice will make a difference. Runes should be adapted to your champion, your role, your playstyle and your lane opponent. Only runes that are viable for Anivia are presented and discussed below.

xxDOMINATION

Keystone

Electrocute is an excellent rune for burst-oriented champions, which Anivia is mostly in the early game. It is a solid rune that is easy to trigger, privileges short trades and provides consistent and undodgeable damage. It is great to get solo kill pressure against your opponent but should only be taken if you can reliably trigger it during laning phase and get value from the pressure exerted on your opponent. Predator is mostly used on Anivia when played Support for more roaming and gank potential. Although unusual, it can be situationally used in midlane if you plan to roam a lot to other lanes or if you are against immobile artillery mages and need a gapcloser in addition to or as an alternative to Ghost for coordinated ganks.

Slot 1

Cheap Shot is an aggressive rune that synergize well with Anivia's' abilities and empowers your trades with more damage when using Flash Frost or Glacial Storm. This rune gives a lot of consistent damage and early game pressure which pairs well with Anivia's burst identity early. Note that it can only trigger with your Flash Frost pre-6 and may not give you much value early in matchups where you need to hold on to this ability. Taste of Blood is a defensive rune that gives you health sustain when you trade with your opponent. The health sustain can be valuable in rough matchups to get through the laning phase, although you need to trigger it consistently. It is best suited as an alternative to Cheap Shot in matchups where you cannot get your stun off your Flash Frost on your opponent consistently or on scaling matchups where you don't have any kill threat (exemple: against a tanky champion).

Slot 2

Ghost Poro gives adaptative power under specific conditions which makes it more difficult to stack than its alternatives. Against opponents consistently using Oracle Lens to destroy your wards, this rune provides little to no value since your ghost poros will not appear. On the other hand, it has great value against opponents that do not use the lens since it will effectively give you an extra minute of vision on your wards and automatically ping enemy champions passing by. Note that the utility it provides does not stop once it is fully stacked, you will benefit from it the whole game! Eyeball Collection gives you adaptive power for your first 10 takedowns. It is a straightforward rune that is easy to use and easy to stack. If you get an early lead and start being on a kill streak, this rune has the potential to stack the fastest among runes in this slot. Its only downside is that it does not provide any utility.

Slot 3

Relentless Hunter is a great rune for Anivia since it counterbalances one of her weaknesses which is her low base movement speed. It provides the same amount of bonus movement speed as most Tier 2 boots when fully stacked, although only while out of combat. This provides a lot of value and can be used in multiple ways, such as getting quicker back to lane, roaming to gank a side lane or quickly catching side waves which in turn can translate into getting more gold or gaining tempo. Treasure Hunter is a viable alternative to Relentless Hunter and helps you to complete your items quicker. The total gold you get from the runes is 450, and because you need unique takedowns, this rune has a lot of value if you can get kills or assists on the 5 enemy players very early in the game where these 450 gold matter the most. As the game forwards, the gold gained from this rune does not provide the same value (since enemy minions are worth more gold over time). Obviously, this rune is dead after you complete it and it does not give you any more value or utility.

xxSORCERY

Keystone

Arcane Comet is an excellent keystone that synergizes well with Anivia's kit and scale well throughout the game. Her crowd control and slow will almost always guarantee to land the comet and the AoE and DoT damage of Glacial Storm will drastically reduce the rune's cooldown, making it a very solid choice for Anivia. Arcane Comet has a high cooldown early and doesn't provide as much burst as Electrocute can do for instance, it is best suited for the mid to late game. The rune's cooldown can be reduced in the early game by casting abilities more often, but you then may end up having mana issues. Phase Rush is a versatile rune that can be used offensively as much as defensively at all stages of the game. It is great for short burst trades, letting you disengage after your burst and avoid getting damaged back. It can also let you escape a gank or an enemy engage when timed correctly. It is great for champions that lack mobility such as Anivia as it gives you more options. The slow resistance it provides makes it amazing against team compositions that relies a lot on slows to stay on top of you. Note that this rune has a high skill cap since it forces you to be mindful when using your abilities as to not waste your Phase Rush bonus movement speed when you don't need it and set it on cooldown. Summon Aery is a reliable rune for constant harass and trading in the early game, providing value especially against melee matchups where you can abuse Anivia's range. Because of its low cooldown, you can trigger it often and easily, it is also not committal as you can disengage until it is off cooldown again. Summon Aery does not scale well at all, you should take it only if you can have a lot of value out of it in the early game - you are looking to harass or poke your opponent constantly rather than focusing on short burst trades. The aery needs to be constantly moving between you and your opponent.

Slot 1

Nullifying Orb is a situational rune that is great against AP burst oriented champions that can abuse you and all-in you. It is the equivalent of a mini Barrier against AP damage and has the same advantages and drawbacks: it doesn't scale well but it can give you opportunities for plays when you are low on health to some extent. Manaflow Band is great and reliable rune. It gives a lot of value to Anivia who can fairly easily stack it with Frostbite and compensate her hunger for mana. It is a solid rune when playing both aggressively and defensively since it allows for more ability usage in the early lane which gives you in turn more options and more pressure against your opponent. Stack it as early as possible to get the most value out of it.

Slot 2

Transcendence is a scaling rune that provides ability haste, which is always beneficial, but most importantly a cooldown reduction on champion takedowns that has good value during teamfights as it can let you get back your Flash Frost and Crystallize slightly faster. Celerity is a situational rune on Anivia since it doesn't benefit her much in normal circumstances due to her low base movement speed and the lack of mobility in her kit. That said, it synergizes well with the keystones Phase Rush or Predator, the summoner spell Ghost, mobility items such as Cosmic Drive or mobility runes such as Waterwalking if you are looking to improve your roaming or repositioning capabilities.

Slot 3

Scorch is an aggressive rune that periodically gives additional magic damage to your abilities. It is great if you plan to play the early game aggressively, especially the first few levels, and should be used in matchups where you can apply a lot of pressure early on. It pairs well with Summon Aery and Cheap Shot and benefits from starting with Frostbite as first ability. This rune scales poorly so you should only use it if you can trigger it during the early game as often as possible to create a lead on your opponent. Waterwalking is a situational rune on Anivia and is more playstyle dependent. It lets you roam more efficiently and give you more AP to contest or defend early river objectives. Although more valuable to roaming champions such as assassins, it can be used on Anivia if you intend to often roam or gank (which may be hard in midlane due to her lack of priority pre-6). This is more often used on Anivia when she is played as a support in conjunction with Predator and Celerity. Gathering Storm is a great scaling rune and Anivia can use it at its fullest due to her ability to stall games, although the AP difference between one threshold to the other may not be game-changing and it takes a long time to come online. This is best suited in scaling matchups or in matchups where Scorch does not give you any value early.

xxPRECISION

Keystone

Conqueror is the only keystone from the Precision tree that is viable for Anivia. Although hard to play with at first, it can give you a significant boost of damage in the early to mid game ( Gathering Storm alone provides as much AP past 30 minutes), provided that you are chaining your abilities and weaving auto-attacks in between. Anivia can hardly stack this keystone at its maximum with her abilities only, which is why it is often played together with Ignite to get another source of damage and Conqueror stack. Note that this keystone privileges longer trades to get the most value out of it, which is generally well suited for the skirmishes and teamfights of the mid to late game but not necessarily in the early game, it will really depends on your matchup.

Slot 1

Presence of Mind is a great rune considering how Anivia can be mana hungry at all stages of the game. It is solid throughout the entire game but even more so in the early game if the right conditions are met: ► The mana sustain lets you stay longer in lane and give you more flexibility on your spells usage (harass, shove, etc...), provided that you can consistently poke your opponent. ► The 15% maximum mana refunded upon takedown lets you crash the wave with your abilities before you reset, which is invaluable in favorable matchups to snowball harder.

Slot 2

Legend: Tenacity is a reliable rune that scales well throughout the game and benefits Anivia since she will often be the prime target of enemy crowd control. It is crucial against heavy crowd control compositions as it can be the difference between living or dying and can be paired with Mercury's Treads for a total of up to 44% tenacity, almost halving the crowd control duration.

Slot 3

Coup de Grace is a great rune that synergizes well with burst-oriented champions, which Anivia is mostly in the early game. It provides a lot of value early against favorable matchups where you can reliably get your opponent under 40% health, giving you much more kill threat. The increased damage brought by this rune is reliable throughout the game, which makes it a solid choice even in unfavorable matchups since you will get value from it in later stages of the game. Last Stand is an underrated rune that synergizes well with Anivia's natural itemization and especially with the shield from Seraph's Embrace since it lets you get the maximum value out of the rune for longer. Early on, it gives a lot of value when you get low on health and will match Coup de Grace increase as soon as you drop down to 45% health. In mid to late game, it is solid during teamfighting and even more so against tankier team compositions or generally against champions that cannot easily burst you down. It is highly recommanded to go with Rod of Ages and Seraph's Embrace if you are using this rune.

xxRESOLVE

Keystone

Grasp of the Undying is a keystone that is more commonly used on Anivia when played as a tank in top lane. It is great against melee matchups and provides both sustain and scaling damage.

Slot 1

Demolish is an excellent situational rune that provides lane pressure and scales well with Anivia's natural itemization. It helps snowball off easy matchups by getting plates quickly after killing your opponent or lets you punish your lane opponent harder when they are roaming or taking a bad recall. Having this rune gives you a lot of lane pressure and may force your opponent to stay in lane, which is strong against assassins. Font of Life is a situational rune that is best suited for Anivia when played in top lane or as support. It synergizes well with your kit and provides additional sustain to your teammates during teamfights provided that your itemization gives you enough health. It gives a lot of value in front to back teamfights.

Slot 2

Second Wind is a defensive rune that gives you health sustain whenever you get damaged and which scales on your missing health. This is an excellent rune in matchups where you get poked a lot such as against artillery mages, but doesn't give much value against burst champions. When paired with Doran's Shield, it gives you a lot of health sustain and lets you stay in lane considerably longer. Bone Plating is an aggressive rune that periodically mitigates incoming damage over a short time window which lets you trade favorably. Because the window is only 1.5 seconds, it is best suited against burst damage and preferably in matchups where your opponent cannot easily trigger it before they deal their burst. It is therefore advised to play aggressively when this rune is off-cooldown and more defensively while it is on-cooldown for maximum value. Note that the damage is only mitigated from the target that triggered it and it does not scale well, which makes Bone Plating more suited for the early game (laning phase).

Slot 3

Overgrowth is a defensive rune that permanently increases your health and provides more value the more health you have, which synergizes pretty well with Anivia's natural itemization. It doesn't bring anything more than that and gives most of its value in mid game when the max health percentage bonus kicks in. It is best suited for Anivia when played as a tank, which is more common in top lane. Unflinching is a situational rune that gives you both tenacity and slow reduction scaling on your missing health. To get the most value out of it you need to be low on health which makes it best suited for Anivia when played as a tank in top lane. It is great against team compositions with a lot of crowd control or slow, especially when Plated Steelcaps need to be bought over Mercury's Treads for instance.

xxINSPIRATION

Keystone

Glacial Augment is more commonly used on Anivia when she is played as a support. It is a utility rune that synergizes well with her abilities and reinforces her control mage and disruption identity. First Strike is an offensive rune that increases your damage and generates gold when you initiate trades. It works well with burst damage champions, which Anivia is in the early game. It is only valuable against melee champions that don't have the range or gapclose to initiate trades themselves and deny you First Strike. It is great to build a gold lead and get your items quicker but cannot be reliably used in all matchups. To get the most value out of it you need to make short trades whenever it is up and not miss your combo, which is negated by champions with a lot of mobility.

Slot 1

Triple Tonic TBD. Magical Footwear rewards aggression, it gives a free Slightly Magical Boot with increased movement speed at 12 minutes, shortened for each takedown. This rune is best suited in matchups where you can reliably get early kills or in scaling matchups where you will stay farming under tower. The extra mobility is very valuable and can let you pick opponents with your Crystallize more easily. Don't take it in skill shot oriented matchups that require early mobility such as against artillery mages since it prevents you to buy early Boots from the shop.

Slot 2

Future's Market is a utility rune that lets you borrow gold from the shop to buy items you otherwise couldn't. It gives you more flexibility in regards to your resets and lets you get your first completed item earlier. It gives a lot of value to champions that are heavily item reliants and that don't have tempo reset, which Anivia is. Use it wisely though, the lending fee can quickly add up and set you behind in gold if you abuse it. Biscuit Delivery is a great rune in difficult matchups as it provides you additional sustain, both health and mana. This resource advantage can let you stay in lane longer and get a good reset, get tempo, trade aggressively or get lane priority for a river skirmish.

Slot 3

Cosmic Insight is very straightforward, it lets you use your summoner spells and your item's actives more often. It provides a lot of value if you are planning to buy Everfrost and Zhonya's Hourglass. Consider taking it also if you are running Teleport and are facing a splitpusher champion on the opposing team. It will considerably reduce your Teleport cooldown and have it available more often to protect your structure from the opponent split-pusher. Approach Velocity is a great rune that synergizes well with Anivia's kit. One of the biggest issue of Anivia is her low movement speed which may makes it hard to chase an opponent. This rune helps in this regard by giving you a burst of movement speed when you stun or slow an opponent, which pairs well with Glacial Storm. This gives great value against champions with more movement speed or mobility than you - provided that you are in a position to attack them. Note that you do not get the bonus movement speed when fleeing from your opponents, the buff only triggers if your movement impaired opponent is in front of you in a 180 degrees radius.

Troubleshooting: Runes








Itemization is the most important part of a champion build and the item choice can definitely make or break a game to some extent. While itemizing, you want to increase your damage, survivability or utility (depending of your assumed role) and mitigate your opponents' strengths while abusing their weaknesses. Only items that are viable for Anivia are presented and discussed below.

Starting Items

Corrupting Potion Corrupting Potion is a situational item that is often used defensively since it gives you both health and mana sustain with three stacks that can be refilled every time you back. If you are in a difficult matchup where you will need to use your abilities very frequently (ex: you will be outpushed), this item will let you last longer until your first back. It is best to have the summoner spell Teleport when buying Corrupting Potion. It also provides additional damage on abilities and attacks, but being damage over time it refreshes itself at each new instance instead of stacking. Your opponent will most likely disengage while you have the Touch of Corruption effect active which will deny most of these additional damages.

Cull Cull is mostly a farm item that will let you hit your core items earlier, given that you are farming at least decently. The bonus AD on the item makes up for the lack of minion last-hit damage and although it does not provide any health, it does provide health regen. It also has a niche use against champions that can mitigate incoming magic damage such as Kassadin, Galio or Morgana since you will now deal mostly physical damage while abusing your long auto attack range.

Dark Seal This is a snowball item that is recommended when you are confident that you can get early kills. The snowball potential comes at a cost compared to Doran's Ring, you start with slightly less health and give up on mana sustain and minion last hit damage (which can make farming much harder if you are not used to it). Once bought, you will have enough for a Refillable Potion to complete your purchase, which will give you sustain in lane and make you spare gold off Health Potions. The ability to be bought with a Refillable Potion also makes Dark Seal a good start in difficult lanes where you will need to often reset.

Doran's Blade Doran's Blade is TBD. It also has a niche use against champions that can mitigate incoming magic damage such as Kassadin, Galio or Morgana since you will now deal mostly physical damage while abusing your long auto attack range.

Doran's Ring This is the standard Start Item for Anivia and the one recommended when learning the champion. It gives you a bit of everything you need during the laning phase - health, damage and mana sustain. This covers a few of your early game weaknesses and gives you enough AP to burst down the opponent's health during trades. Once bought, you will have enough for 2 Health Potions to complete your purchase.

Tear of the Goddess Starting with Tear of the Goddess is not a good idea, you lose on health, mana sustain and damage which will make your laning phase much harder. Because Seraph's Embrace is generally built as a second or third item, it is unnecessary to start charging the tear so early, buying Tear of the Goddess on the first or second back will be sufficient.

Boots

Ionian Boots of Lucidity Ionian Boots of Lucidity are more aimed at Anivia when played as a support due to the utility they provide and their low cost which is valuable for low-budget games. They can be considered in midlane if you are behind and struggling to buy items or if you will spend the game as a glorified support and mostly peel for your allies and setup picks.

Mercury's Treads Mercury's Treads are excellent against team compositions that has a lot of crowd control since the tenacity provided by the boots reduces the duration of most crowd control status. In some games, it can make the difference between getting time to avoid a full combo and dying. This is the only item viable for mages that provides tenacity, which makes it that more valuable (excluding elixir). Because Anivia is a battlemage, she will often be in between the frontlane and backlane due to her limited range and will be a prime target of crowd control.

Plated Steelcaps Plated Steelcaps are excellent against team compositions with mostly AD champions that rely a lot on basic attacks. It provides great value against most marksmen and skirmishers. Keep in mind though that it doesn't mitigate on-hit (bonus) damage but mitigates transformed damage such as Vayne's true damage. These boots synergize well with Warden's Mail and its associated legendary items. Because the passive of Plated Steelcaps stacks multiplicatively with armor, it has diminishing returns the more armor you have, but it helps to mitigate the effect of the enemy’s armor penetration from basic attacks.

Sorcerer's Shoes Sorcerer's Shoes are excellent to increase your damage output through the flat magic penetration. They are one of the only three non-mythic items that provide flat magic penetration which makes them even more valuable for damage-oriented build due to the scarcity of this stat. This is often the default choice to take when playing Anivia.

Legendary, Offensive Options

Caster's Companion

Caster's Companion Caster's Companion TBD.

Cosmic Drive Cosmic Drive is a great item that can be used both offensively or defensively due to the movement speed it provides, à la Phase Rush. The movement speed bonus can be used to dodge skillshots, gap close, stick on or kite opponents. It counterbalances one of Anivia's biggest weaknesses which is here lack of mobility. The offensive stats provided by this item are valuable, it is a great item to buy when ahead or when being against team compositions playing at close range.

Cryptbloom Cryptbloom TBD.

Liandry's Torment Liandry's Torment item is excellent against team compositions with several champions stacking health such as Dr. Mundo or Cho'Gath. It synergizes well with Demonic Embrace and provides a lot of value against such champions or during elongated teamfights, which has been reinforced by the latest durability path. Its second passive, Agony, will also greatly increase your damage output and make this item also viable against non-tanky champions. This item works amazingly well with your Glacial Storm and will provide a lot of value in front-to-back teamfights where your opponents need to go through your ultimate to get to the backline and don't have any diver. The disadvantage of this item is that it gives you no survivability, which forces you to itemize around health thereafter and makes you squishy during midgame.

Malignance Malignance TBD.

Mejai's Soulstealer Mejai's Soulstealer is a great snowball item that doesn't cost much, counts towards your mythic passive and has excellent value when stacked. It is best bought early where the AP it provides has the most impact and lets you snowball harder. Having this item will make you the highest priority target due to the stacks and the likely gold bounty you have, you should associate it with a defensive itemization to counterbalance the risk. It can also be worth considering when you are slightly behind due to the low cost, if you can secure a few assists or kills without dying this may help you get back into the game. It should be sold late game when you are fully built for a more reliable item if you cannot consistently keep this item to its max stacks.

Morellonomicon Morellonomicon is a situational item that provides a lot of value against opponents with heavy health sustain that can't be burst down like Dr. Mundo, Kayn, Aatrox, Swain or any bruiser with Death's Dance and life steal. Anivia can easily apply the debuff with her Glacial Storm and benefits from the offensive stats the item provides. Against champions with a lot of health sustain but that are fragile (ex: ADC), you get more value from getting more raw damages and burst them down in one rotation. It provides a lot of value too against team compositions with a lot of heals, be it from their supports ( Soraka, Yuumi) or other champions ( Nidalee).

Rabadon's Deathcap Rabadon's Deathcap is a luxuous item, that greatly increases your Ability Power, although it provides more value the more AP you already have. It is a must-have for high damage output but is best built as the 5th or 6th item due to the passive giving more value the more AP you already have, the lack of stats or utility outside of raw AP and especially due to the very expensive components.

Riftmaker Riftmaker TBD.

Rod of Ages Rod of Ages is an excellent item that provides all the stats Anivia needs as a battlemage: strength and survivability. It also provides great sustain, both health and mana which is valuable during laning phase and mid-game. This item scales well and gives a free level once stacked, which Anivia does not specifically depend on but it is still a useful bonus. For this reason, there is no reason to delay Rod of Ages unless you need to build other items first due to your matchup. The advantage of Rod of Ages over the other mythic items lies in the survivability it provides, which lets you stay longer in teamfights and get the most value out of your kit - indirectly increasing your damage output by making you survive longer. The bonus movement speed is very powerful when used with intention but has a high skill ceiling to get the maximal value out of it. Be careful while using it, the extra survivability it provides can make one more prone to play over-aggressively and misposition.

Seraph's Embrace Seraph's Embrace is your second core item and is just excellent. It provides everything Anivia wants: strength, mana and survivability (through health and shield) and pairs well with Rod of Ages. Having both of these items gives you a solid foundation and plenty of flexibility for your other 3 legendary items.

Shadowflame Shadowflame is a great item that provides strong offensive capabilities. The flat magic penetration it provides will greatly boost your damage output against opponents who do not stack magic resistance. It provides much more value against squishy team compositions and even slightly more against champions relying on shields. It gives 10 flat penetration against opponents with 2500 current health or more, and 1 more flat penetration for each 150 health subtracted until you reach 1000 health or less and get the complete 20 magic penetration.

Stormsurge Stormsurge TBD.

Void Staff Void Staff is an excellent item to increase your damage output and is currently the only legendary item providing percentage magic penetration. Because this type of penetration applies before the flat penetration, building this item in mid game offers a lot of value, especially when associated with Sorcerer's Shoes. It is a mandatory item to buy to stay relevant against opponents who stack magic resistance. The caveat is that it only provides raw damage, no survivability or utility.

Legendary, Defensive Options

Abyssal Mask Abyssal Mask is an excellent defensive item that provides you with solid AP survivability and slight offensive capabilities through the ability haste and magic resistance debuff. This debuff gives an even greater value if you have other AP champions in your team. The range of the passive will force you to play closer to your opponents, although not so much closer than you used to do since it has almost the same range as Frostbite (600 vs 550). This makes it best suited against team compositions that come to contact but not against poke compositions. The passive still applies when Anivia is in egg form from Rebirth.

Anathema's Chains Anathema's Chains is a situational item that provides excellent value if there is only one fed or dangerous opponent in the enemy team or if the enemy team composition is a 4 - 1 with only one AP or AD source which lets you use Anathema's Chains against the single champion and itemizing against the 4 others. In these circumstances, this item offers you a greater survivability, but be mindful that it doesn't mitigate true damages and is less efficient against champions like Vayne, Sett or Darius.

Banshee's Veil Banshee's Veil is the only item providing both Magic Resist and Ability Power. The magic resist provided is quite sub-par but can help, it shouldn't be considered as a fully defensive option against AP. The stats provided outside of magic resist are good and benefit Anivia. In theory, the spell shield provided has a lot of value and can protect you against enemy engage or crowd control, but in practice, it is easily triggered by the abundance of poke sources and will rarely provide you that much value.

Dead Man's Plate Dead Man's Plate is a very situational item that can replace your T2 boots once you are fully built since it provides more movement speed while its passive is fully stacked. You are then trading your boots other stats for defensive stats and an additional legendary slot for your mythic passive which can be valuable depending on the game situation.

Fimbulwinter Fimbulwinter TBD.

Force of Nature Force of Nature is an excellent defensive item that provides you with solid AP survivability. The more instances of magic damage you get, the more resistance you will get which makes this item have a greater value against team composition with several AP champions. Because you don't need to be in close range to trigger it and due to the bonus movement speed it provides, it is best suited against long-range mages to either close gaps or dodge skillshots.

Frozen Heart Frozen Heart is an excellent defensive item that synergizes well with Anivia's natural itemization, providing you with solid AD survivability and slight offensive capability through the ability haste and mana (refer to Seraph's Embrace). It's passives give it an even greater value against auto-attacking champions relying on a high attack speed. These passives still apply when Anivia is in egg form from Rebirth.

Kaenic Rookern Kaenic Rookern TBD.

Randuin's Omen Randuin's Omen is a situational defensive item that provides AD survivability, although not nearly as much as Frozen Heart in most situations. It can be a great choice if the enemy team has multiple champions that rely on critical strikes, such as Jhin, Tryndamere or Yone. The item active does not provide much value to Anivia as it can only be used defensively due to its low range and is outperformed by Glacial Storm.

Spirit Visage Spirit Visage TBD.

Unending Despair Unending Despair TBD.

Zhonya's Hourglass Zhonya's Hourglass is the only item providing both Armor and Ability Power. The armor provided is quite sub-par but can help, it shouldn't be considered as a fully defensive option against AD. The stats provided outside of armor are good and benefit Anivia. The main advantage of Zhonya's Hourglass is its Stasis effect which gives you outplay potential and gives you reliable protection against telegraphed burst damage. This item has a high skill ceiling.

Troubleshooting: Itemization
















Early Game:

Your starting items should be whatever you feel the most confident with, or alternatively what is recommended against your lane opponent (refer to the lane matchup section). The first minute and a half of the game should always go pretty much the same way. Find a position where you can safely keep an eye out for a possible invade and be careful of champions such as Blitzcrank, Thresh or Nautilus who can grab you from distance.

In all matchups your levels 1 to 6 should be focused on you and your lane. Farm up and trade with your opponent when you have favorable opportunities to do so. Avoid enemy skillshots and extended fights to preserve your health pool. Don't overextend unless you are safe to do so or have the means to quickly get back under your tower. Place wards to get vision of your surroundings and stay aware of what is happening on the map.

Refer to the lane matchup section for guidelines on how to approach your matchup. Don't keep it by the book, always test and analyze your opponent to check if they are mechanically good with their champion. Look for any pattern they tend to have (in regards to trades or ganks). If you notice any weaknesse or mistake in their gameplay, take advantage of it and play accordingly even though it is not in line with what is recommended in the lane matchup section.

If your opponent roam, most of the time you shouldn't follow since you are vulnerable and do not have good escape tools if your opponent (and his jungler) collapse on you, even more so if you are against a Talon, Zed or Sylas. Instead spam ping whichever lane they are roaming to and crash the wave. Hopefully, your allies will retreat in time and waste your opponent's time who will also have lost one or two minion waves worth of gold and experience. The exception to this is if you are already fed or if you are against a lane opponent that does not represent a 1v1 threat on you (such as Lissandra) and their jungler location is known and does not risk collapsing on you. When crashing the wave on their tower, always take into account the possibility that they are baiting you to do so to then successfully gank you. Stay aware of your surroundings and always be ready to fall back.

During the early game, you need to identify a way to build a lead on your opponent in matchups that allows you to do so. It is not always possible and sometimes you will have to play from behind and accept it. To build up a lead, you have a few options. You can for instance either build it up through kills or superior push and farming.

Leading through kills

If you are winning by killing your opponent, keep the kill pressure on them and force them to play back or die. Punish them when they are trying to farm. Even though your opponent will not give you any more gold after a few death, by killing them over and over you force them out of the lane and deny them both experience and farm.

This will make your opponent irrelevant during the mid game and late game and turn your game into a 5v4 if your opponent does not manage to catch up (which you should not allow). For this reason, try not to roam too much in the early game to not give your opponent any breathing room and any chance to catch up - unless you see a great opportunity. If your opponent is roaming to get kills somewhere else, by any means follow them as you will achieve two goals at once: suppressing your opponent and transferring your lead to whatever lane they are roaming to. Be careful to not be drawn into a trap though!

That said, the key to capitalizing on kill lanes is that you are killing your opponent with ease. If you get one or two kills from them making a mistake or while you got almost killed, don't fool yourself into thinking that you can automatically transform this into a kill lane. Take the free kill(s), punish any mistake and keep playing conservatively until you are significantly stronger than your opponent. You do not want in any circumstances to apply kill pressure against champions that thrives in a kill lane such as Zed or Fizz who have very strong 1v1 potential and will still remain a threat unless you are massively ahead.

Leading by farming

If you're winning lane through better wave management and farming, keep doing the exact same thing. Push your opponent into their tower and starve them from all the farm you can. Try disrupting your opponent during canon waves to deny them the last hit on the siege minion which is worth a lot of gold early on. Hit the tower to get a tower plate if you are safe doing so.

If your opponent is roaming, it is even better! Communicate it to your team well in advance so they don't die, push the wave to your opponent's tower and get a plate down. Do not attack the enemy minions while yours are under the enemy tower since you want your minions to quickly die to not allow your opponent to be back on time to get any farm or experience.

In both cases, be careful when you are pushing your opponent under its tower, it makes you more vulnerable to ganks. Keep both sides of the river warded and keep a close eye on where the enemy team is on your map (everyone, not only the jungler) and at the first sign of someone else roaming to your lane, fall back and stay in a decent range of your tower.

Having opponents roaming to your lane to disrupt you is a good thing, you are drawing pressure from other lanes and thus indirectly transferring your lead. If you see an opponent in a bush that is warded, let them wait there and don't let them know that you can see them. The longest you make them waste time on your lane, the best it is for your team - especially that an opponent camping a river bush is soaking experience from your enemy midlaner.

Playing from behind

If you start falling behind, your goal is to farm and not give your lane opponent any (more) kills. No matter how your opponent managed to get ahead of you, they probably have kill threat on you and farming in the middle of the lane is a no-go. You need to get the minion waves closer to your tower by letting your opponent push the wave. Call for help if your opponent is freezing the help close to their tower, it may be risky for you to try to break the freeze alone.

Since you will be pushed under tower, you need to know how to efficiently farm under it. Having the waves frozen close to your tower will force your opponent to expose themselves to ally ganks. If your jungler is ganking your lane, pause your farming and help you jungler to secure the kill. The worst to happen would be to stay farming too long and get your jungler killed by your enemy laner because you weren't there, which will set you even more behind.

Because you need to farm under the safety of your tower, you will have to concede lane priority. Communicate this to your teammates to let them know and avoid any misunderstanding. Hopefully they will adjust their gameplay accordingly. While you are farming under your tower, your lane opponent will likely roam to gank a lane to snowball and transfer their lead. Signal it through pings well in advance to give your allies a chance to not die. Don't follow the roam even if your allies are asking you to, that would be a suicide.

When playing on the back foot, hold on to your Flash Frost and only use it defensively or to assist an ally gank. If your lane opponent does not want to roam and is getting impatient in the lane while you are farming under your tower, they may try to dive you and you may end up killing them with a well-placed Flash Frost. Patience is key.

Mid/Late Game:

At this point in the game, you probably have your core items. From now on players are grouping much more to contest objectives and push lanes, but are also trying to farm their respective lanes when they can do it. There is going to be a lot of champions movements across the map.

Being a continuation of the early game, you should continue with the same gameplay logic as mentioned before. Starve your opponents from resources and force objectives if you are ahead. Try to catch up if you are behind. Be careful to not throw your lead by being too greedy though, fighting at a numbers disadvantage will generally make you lose a fight, unless you are massively ahead.

From now on it gets difficult to give detailed guidelines on how to play Anivia since it will always come down to the specifics of the game you are playing, which will always be at least slightly different from game to game.

As general guidelines, group with your team when you feel that a teamfight is about to begin, but don't group permanently to not let your creep score fall off and lose on both gold and experience. Because of how well your kit is to control space, play around river objectives and try to force them if your team is ahead.

When having the occasion, place deep vision on the enemy side of the map to help your team takes the best decision and to punish enemies' mistakes (bad pathing, all grouped on one side of the map, overstaying alone, etc...).

Do not lose control over tempo after winning a fight (skirmish, teamfight). Take the nearest objectives (structure, river objective, enemy jungle camp) and reset to not overstay and get caught. You should always keep your lead in the form an item advantage over your opponents, unspent gold is worth nothing.

Late game punishes hard both teams for dying, so there is a much bigger focus on playing safe and minimizing mistakes. One death on any team can lose the whole game at this point, so no matter how aggressive or ahead you were in the early and mid game, play safe and methodically.

Focus on catching enemy mistakes (an enemy that overextends, that is alone farming your jungle, facecheck a bush, path badly, etc..) and punish them. This can then lead to your team taking an objective or pushing a lane and getting a few structures. Don't make these mistakes yourself as it can cost you the game. There is a lot of pressure on you NOT dying in late game due to Anivia's waveclear and utility. You are likely to be a key element of your team to efficiently defend against an enemy push or to siege enemy structures. Your impact in late game is too great to be wasted by dying unnecessarily.

For this reason, do not overextend alone, stay with your team and do not facecheck any bush (you should have Farsight Alteration by now). During teamfights you should use your abilities wisely. Anivia has a lot of agency in teamfights and can cancel many abilities, interrupt enemy champions or even exclude them from the fight. By not wasting your abilities at the first occasion, you can react to and counter your opponent's actions which will give your team a strong advantage.

If at any moment you are at a number advantage on your opponents and your team is healthy, call for a Baron Nashor if it is up. Its buff associated with your siege potential will help your team pierce through the enemy structures even if all your opponents are back alive (unless they are greatly ahead).

There is not much more to say since at this point in the game it comes down to which team makes the best decisions and the least mistakes. Play with your team, communicate as best as you can and think through your actions before committing to it. Good luck!


The guidelines provided below are for reference and not always 100% applicable against each corresponding champion. Use this as a baseline in complement with each champion's dedicated guidelines.

Also note that these matchup guidelines are simplified by only accounting for the opponent midlaner. They can be better tuned by taking into account both team's junglers who can have a strong influence on how the lane is played.

Playing against Assassins:


The following champions will be added to this list in the near-future: Naafiri, Talon, Ekko and Qiyana.

Akali Lane difficulty: TBD Laning against Akali Abilities: Section under work.

Fizz Lane difficulty: TBD Laning against Fizz Abilities: Section under work.

Katarina Lane difficulty: Even Laning against Katarina Abilities: Overview: Katarina is a mobile assassin dealing burst damage in the form of magic damage. She can easily snowball and become a threat if she gets a lead, she also thrives in skirmishes due to her cooldowns reset. Katarina only brings in damage to the enemy team, so if she gets behind in the early game she will be pretty useless later on. Her level 1 is the weakest, she will have to take Bouncing Blade to safely last hit and will not have any mobility nor trading potential. This is your window to punish her and play proactively. She can start trading inefficiently at level 2 once she has Shunpo, but can go for efficient trades from level 3 once she unlocks Preparation. From there onward you need to respect her mobility and burst damage and play reactively. Before level 6, most of her damage comes from her standing blades. If you avoid being close to the blades, you will prevent a lot of her damage. From level 6, Katarina unlocks Death Lotus which deals a lot of damage and unlocks her full burst potential. Because Katarina needs to snowball early to stay relevant, she will look for early kills. If she does not have kill pressure on you (she shouldn't), she will go to gank a sidelane to snowball from there. Most of the time Katarina goes to the bottom lane since champions there are usually more squishy than the top lane, have a level disadvantage and can give her two eliminations in a single gank. Prevent her from being able to snowball from your bottom lane by using good communication and counter-ganking when you have the opportunity. Suggested Runes and Start item: Keystone: Electrocute Primary tree: Cheap Shot, Eyeball Collection, Relentless Hunter Secondary tree: Manaflow Band, Scorch Starting item: Cull with a Health Potion Gameplan: In this matchup you will harass her a lot with your auto-attacks, Cull is a good first buy to punish Katarina early and get a gold advantage on her. At level 1 Katarina will not have any mobility nor kill threat on you, you can play proactively and damage her as much as possible with your Flash Frost and auto-attacks. To make this window of aggression as long as possible, kill the enemy caster minion as quickly as possible to start stacking a wave, get your next level faster and delay Katarina's level 2. By the time Katarina gets to level 2, she should be at low enough health to not want to try going for a trade on you, especially if you have a bigger minion wave. If that is the case, keep playing proactively and harass her as much as possible while keeping an eye on the enemy minion aggro and her daggers. If she is healthy and your wave does not outnumber hers, start holding on to your Flash Frost and only harass using Frostbite and auto-attacks. When Katarina gets her level 3 she can go for efficient trades. Hold on to your Flash Frost until she engages you and can't dodge it, you need to play reactively with it. Keep harassing her with Frostbite and auto-attacks when you have the opportunity to do so. Once Katarina gets her level 6 she will most likely try to gank your botlane. Coordinate with your jungler to get them in the bottom jungle when she is about to get her level 6 and spam ping bottom lane with Missing and Danger pings at the first sign of Katarina missing to give your allies enough time to fall back to their tower. If you have Teleport available, get ready to use it to counter-gank after you have shoved the wave. Try to always have the river bottom side warded. When dueling Katarina don't run away from her when she is throwing a Bouncing Blade at you or you will be in the blade spin range, instead walk toward her to deny her combo and most of her damage. Pre-level 6, use your Frostbite and auto-attacks to damage her and add Glacial Storm to this from level 6 onward. Always hold on to your Flash Frost until she is on you and hold on to your Crystallize to cancel her Death Lotus. If Katarina is ahead of you because she outplayed you in lane or got eliminations in the bottom lane, don't try to duel her since her burst damage will be very high. Instead, slow down the game and coordinate with your allies to play safely, you want to reach late game where Katarina loses relevancy. During teamfights, focus on canceling her Death Lotus and protecting your backline from her, using Glacial Storm and Flash Frost as needed. Watch Out: As always before pushing a lane, be careful to consider the enemy jungler in addition to your enemy laner. If you are against a strong early jungler like Shaco, Lee Sin or Jarvan IV, play safer and do not push too much so as to not get punished. If you are against slower jungler like Shyvana, Evelynn or Karthus, then you have more room to push your lane and punish Katarina. Watch out for Katarina's following combos: Bouncing Blade > Shunpo > blade spin + Electrocute > AA > AA > Shunpo (disengage) This level 2 combo deals a good amount of damage but leaves Katarina exposed for about 2 seconds before she can disengage. Bouncing Blade > Shunpo > Preparation > blade spin + Electrocute > AA > Shunpo > blade spin > AA > Shunpo (disengage) This level 3 combo deals a lot of damage and is often going to be used by Katarina as a trading tool for short and strong trades. As long as you avoid standing close to her blade after she used her Bouncing Blade, you prevent her following up with this combo. Shunpo > Preparation > AA > blade spin + Electrocute > Bouncing Blade > AA > Shunpo > blade spins > AA > Shunpo (disengage or follow up) This level 3 combo deals a lot of damage and is often going to be used by Katarina as an all-in tool to run you down in lane and go for a kill. You cannot prevent her from initiating it, but you can mitigate it by not running away when she uses her Bouncing Blade to not be in range of the spinning blade. Be careful if she has the Conqueror keystone, she can kill you either way by auto-attacking you. From level 6 onwards, Katarina has a lot of flexibility on how to combo and can place her Death Lotus anywhere in the sequences presented above. You need to play reactively and stay focused!

Naafiri Lane difficulty: TBD Laning against Naafiri Abilities: Section under work.

Qiyana Lane difficulty: TBD Laning against Qiyana Abilities: Section under work.

Talon Lane difficulty: TBD Laning against Talon Abilities: Section under work.

Zed Lane difficulty: Major Laning against Zed Abilities: Overview: Zed is a highly mobile assassin that deals high single-target burst damage and relies on killing in a single combo as he does not excel in sustained fights. He scales well with gold due to his high AD ratios and can easily snowball out of control. Zed is an early-game champion that relies on being ahead early to shine in the midgame where he can delete squishy targets and have immense lane pressure. He is dependent on his high damage to stay relevant and is therefore weak when set behind. Being a melee champion, Zed is vulnerable to poke from ranged champions such as Anivia on his first levels, although he can inefficiently last hit minions with his Razor Shuriken from safety. At level 3 he can start to trade using his main combo where you use Living Shadow to hit with Shadow Slash, slowing you and making it easier to hit you with a double Razor Shuriken, which will trigger Electrocute. Zed cannot one-shot you early in the game yet and will poke or trade until you are below 50% health where he starts having kill pressure. Zed relies a lot on his Living Shadow as it gives him his mobility, is a key part of his main trading combo, allows him to quickly push waves and is his only escape tool. You need to respect his shadow and punish him after he used it since it is on a 20 seconds cooldown early. Zed's power-spikes are on his levels 3, 6 and his Serrated Dirk and first mythic. Buying armor early can partly mitigate his Serrated Dirk power-spike. His ultimate Death Mark makes Zed lethal in mid-game if he is even slightly ahead as it gives him access to a third shadow and amplifies his combo damages. He is sensitive to crowd control that can heavily disrupt his damage and Stasis can almost nullify his ultimate. Zed falls off in late-game and loose threat and relevancy unless he is greatly ahead. He will generally focus on your backline and should be targeted by crowd control as soon as he engages. The key element against Zed is to not let him snowball, which means you don't need to win lane against him but you need to not lose it and let him get kills. If he cannot get kills off you, he will roam to the bottom lane to get kills there - communicate his roams to your teammates as soon as he is missing. Suggested Runes and Start item: Keystone: Arcane Comet Primary tree: Manaflow Band, Transcendence, Gathering Storm Secondary tree: Bone Plating, Overgrowth Starting item: Doran's Shield with Health Potion Gameplan: You will have lane priority in this matchup but will likely not have kill pressure on Zed if he is played correctly due to his ability to farm distantly and be evasive. You will get a lot of poke damage by Razor Shuriken and later on by his trading combo, so you need to keep an eye on your health and play safely as to not give Zed any opportunity where he can kill you. The most important for you in this matchup is to not lose lane and not set up Zed to snowball. Push the wave and harass Zed on the first two levels to deny him farm and hopefully lower his health, but be careful to minion aggro and his Razor Shuriken. You want to get the minions pushed to his tower so that it slowly pushes back to you, after what it is best for to freeze the minions on your side of the lane and play safely. Zed's Living Shadow is simultaneously his trading tool and only escape tool, if he uses it aggressively on you while he is pushing, we will be vulnerable to ganks. From level 3 onwards, Zed will have access to his main trading combo that he will use to burst you while being at a safe distance himself which makes it hard for Anivia to trade back at the same time. Instead, you need to prevent his damages and trade back after his shadow disappeared, taking advantage of Living Shadow's cooldown of 20 seconds. There are a few ways to prevent most of his combo damage, you either need to avoid his Shadow Slash to have more chances dodging the shurikens, or you need to stay behind minions when getting hit by Razor Shuriken to half their damage. It can be hard for Anivia to dodge Shadow Slash when Zed cast his shadow on top of you, therefore you need to play around his Living Shadow and stay out of range. His combo has a range of around 950, which is slightly less than your Flash Frost. While laning against Zed, never overstay in lane if you are low on Health as he will always deal his damage first and may kill you. Having Doran's Shield, Bone Plating and two armor runes will let you absorb a lot of his damage and let you in lane longer. When recalling, place a stealth ward on the lane to check if and where Zed will roam after he pushed the wave. Always hold on to your Flash Frost until he is on top of you (he misplayed), until he used his Death Mark and appeared behind you or when both his Living Shadow and Death Mark are on cooldown. If you have difficulty preventing his damage, consider buying a Cloth Armor on your first back. This will render his Serrated Dirk half as effective for a low cost and can be later on built into a Zhonya's Hourglass. Don't rush Zhonya's Hourglass though, you need your core items and don't want to lose lane pressure and give him room to roam. Mid to late game avoid dueling Zed unless he is behind in gold, he remains a solid threat with a strong burst and the toolkit to outplay you. In teamfights hold on to your Flash Frost to stun him when he engages, do not waste it aggressively. Watch Out: Do not overstay in lane while being low on health, Zed deals increased damages on targets below 50% health and can tower dive you fairly easily with his burst and mobility through Living Shadow. Do not follow Zed when he roams, he can dodge your Flash Frost using Living Shadow and can generally outplay you and kill you, do not take the risk. Watch out for Zed's following combos: Living Shadow > Shadow Slash > Razor Shuriken (double) + Electrocute This is Zed's bread and butter to trade from level 3 onwards. He will cast his shadow towards you or on top of you using Living Shadow, then use Shadow Slash to both damage and slow you which will make it harder for you to dodge his double Razor Shuriken, which will trigger Electrocute. This combo deals a lot of damage, stay out of range if you can it has around 950 range which is slightly less than your Flash Frost. Death Mark > Living Shadow > Shadow Slash > AA > Razor Shuriken > Death Mark This is Zed's all-in combo, Death Mark gives him access to a third shadow and will repeat a percentage of the damage he dealt after a short delay. Early on, Zed will need his target already damaged to ensure a kill with this combo, but quickly throughout the game he will be able to one-shot targets with this rotation. You can stun Zed when he appears behind you after his Death Mark to mitigate his damage. Living Shadow > Death Mark > Living Shadow > Shadow Slash > Razor Shuriken This is a variant of Zed's all-in combo that is safer for him to use but deals a bit less damage. When he appears behind his target after his ultimate, he can immediately return to his shadow from Living Shadow and avoid being stunned or targeted by an enemy tower during a dive for instance.

Playing against Artillery Mages:


The following champions will be added to this list in the near-future: Jayce, Ziggs, Kog'Maw (AP) and Kai'Sa (AP).

Lux Lane difficulty: TBD Laning against Lux Abilities: Section under work.

Vel'Koz Lane difficulty: TBD Laning against Vel'Koz Abilities: Section under work.

Xerath Lane difficulty: TBD Laning against Xerath Abilities: Section under work.

Ziggs Lane difficulty: TBD Laning against Ziggs Abilities: Section under work.

Playing against Skirmishers:


The following champions will be added to this list in the near-future: Irelia and Diana.

Sylas Lane difficulty: Major Laning against Sylas Abilities: Overview: Sylas is a mobile champion standing on the edge between being a bruiser and an assassin. He is an early game bully that has the tools to deal a lot of damage within seconds, has mobility through dashes and has built-in life sustain through his Kingslayer. Similar to most assassins, he can snowball off a lead pretty quickly and will often want to play aggressively in lane if the occasion arises. Sylas is dependent on his Chain Lash to farm at level 1 and usually starts with this ability although it is not unusual for him to start with Abscond if he is looking for early trades. Being a melee champion, he can easily be harassed by auto-attacks and Frostbites when he approaches to last-hit minions. Sylas needs to be on top of you to deal his damage, which means that he is dependent on connecting his Abduct to get onto a ranged champion like Anivia and start bursting you down. Sylas has a powerspike at level 3 when he has access to all his abilities. From there onwards he has a lot of mobility, damage and can punish immobile mages like Anivia. To take advantage of this powerspike, Sylas wants the minions to be pushed toward his tower which gives him a lot of room to run you down and kill you before you can retreat under tower. Because Sylas can easily snowball, giving him an early kill can let him dominate the lane and punish you by freezing the waves near his tower for example, which let him run you down again if you approach to farm. Sylas second powerspike is at level 6 when he has access to his Hijack, although its strength depends on your allies' ultimates. Your Glacial Storm will not be of much use to him, so unless he gets a good ultimate from one of your allies you will be at an advantage when dueling Sylas if he is not already ahead. Sylas scales well with items and will remain a threat in late-game through his high burst, mobility, survivability and ability to steal game-changing ultimates. Since Sylas needs to get in melee to deal any damage and has mobility through aggressive dashes only, he is sensitive to crowd control and has no reliable escape tool if he gets focused by your whole team. Suggested Runes and Start item: Keystone: Arcane Comet Primary tree: Nullifying Orb, Transcendence, Gathering Storm Secondary tree: Presence of Mind, Coup de Grace Starting item: Doran's Ring with 2 Health Potions Gameplan: In this matchup you should play defensively and farm your lane until your level 6 without dying to Sylas. Since you do not have kill threat on him before level 6, Arcane Comet is preferable to Electrocute because it scales better in late game and gives you access to better options in the primary tree. If you are confident in the matchup and your ability to dodge Sylas's Abduct, feel free to play the lane more aggressively and go for Electrocute instead. You can take advantage of your range to whittle down Sylas with auto-attacks and Frostbites when the occasion present itself to, but do not misposition or expose yourself while doing this or you will get punished. If Sylas starts with a Doran's Shield and has Second Wind, don't go out of your way to harass him. He will outsustain the damage and you may get damaged by enemy minions and/or lose farm in the process. Never use your Flash Frost aggressively against Sylas (unless on the first level if he started with Chain Lash), he can easily dodge it with his Abscond and punish you by getting onto you with his Abduct to burst you. When Sylas uses Abscond, get behind minions to not get hit by his Abduct, you can then punish him with a Flash Frost & Frostbite combo. If you do not have any minions to protect you from his Abduct, you can place Crystallize on top of him to cancel his pull (difficult to achieve). Try to never be in a position where you have no minions to protect you from his Abduct. Burst back Sylas with a Flash Frost, Frostbite and auto-attacks after he successfully engaged and burst you, his abilities will be on about a 10 seconds cooldown and at this point you want the trade to be at least even. If he uses his Abscond aggressively but missed his Abduct, you have a 10 seconds window to punish him. Don't push the minion wave toward him in the first levels to not expose yourself to ganks and to not give [8Sylas]] enough room to engage you and run you down. You are dependent on having minions close to you to protect you from his engage. If Sylas has kill-threat on you and freeze the wave on his side, use Crystallize to delay your minions' arrival and get the waves closer to you. Once you hit level 6 you will get the advantage on Sylas if he hasn't had a lead yet. You can prevent him or punish him from roaming with your good waveclear to set him back in gold and experience. If he stays in lane to fight and hasn't had access to one of your allies ultimate, let him engage on you then place your Glacial Storm under you to kite him and burst him. Use your Flash Frost to cancel his Glacial Storm if he stole it from you. You should be able to win duels against him from now on as long as he is not already fed and you are fighting him when you are not out of mana. If you feel confident in this matchup and can reliably stay out of range of his Abduct or dodge it, you can play aggressively with Electrocute by constantly poking him and pushing him under his tower. You can also use your Flash Frost aggressively to force him to dodge it with Abscond. Sylas will then need to use his Chain Lash to farm and Abscond to dodge your Flash Frost, he will quickly run out of mana which will decrease his threat level and let you apply even more pressure. Watch Out: Sylas' Abduct has a knock-up when it connects which allows him to prevent you from recasting your Flash Frost and to miss your stun. Always use Flash Frost after his Abduct connects. Be careful when chasing Sylas while you are low on health, even if he is low himself. He can heal significantly with his Kingslayer and usually deals damage first during trades. In teamfights Sylas will oftentimes flank your team to burst down your backline. Watch out for his engage and punish him when he commits using your crowd control and burst. Watch out for Sylas' following combos: Abduct > AA > Chain Lash > AA > Kingslayer > AA In this combo, Sylas uses Abscond and Abduct as a gapcloser to get onto you. Since his only form of crowd control will be then on cooldown, you can trade back without having your abilities canceled. Abscond > AA > Chain Lash > AA > Abduct > AA > Kingslayer > AA Sylas can only do this combo if he is close enough to you, which should never happen. It is harder for you to trade back against this combo since he can cancel your Flash Frost or Glacial Storm with his Abduct in the middle of the fight.

Yasuo Lane difficulty: Major Laning against Yasuo Abilities: Overview: Yasuo is a mobile skirmisher that thrives in sustained fights, he deals physical damages and builds around critical strikes. He scales very well with gold and can snowball out of control if he gets ahead in the early game. He has access to a conditional gapcloser through his Sweeping Blade, a knock-up through the third hit of his Steel Tempest, a shield through his passive and a wall blocking projectiles with his Wind Wall. Being a melee champion, he is vulnerable to poke on his first level but can quickly trade back once at level 2 or 3 depending on the first two abilities he picks. He has good waveclear capabilities early and has good early game protection with his mobility and shield which means that he will have lane priority and he will be hard to kill. Yasuo's kit completely counters Anivia pre-6 and still gives a lot of outplay potential post-6, you need to approach this matchup carefully and respect his mobility and damage. Yasuo's powerspikes are at level 3, 6 and when he gets his core items. He shines during midgame with his core items due to his high damage potential and outstanding dueling capabilities in lane where he gets a lot of mobility off minions, he will most likely push in sidelanes to force duels. Because he needs gold to scale, Yasuo will look for aggressive plays and will be hungry for kills. In lane, he excels when the minion wave is close to his tower since your minions then become both his source of aggression and his safety net. You need to avoid this and force the minion wave close to your tower and play safely, this will most likely frustrate Yasuo who will be more susceptible to making mistakes to get a kill off you. Your best bet against Yasuo is to play safely during the laning phase until you get your level 6 where he will have a harder time against you due to your sudden good waveclear, slow and the possibility to harass him with Glacial Storm and Frostbite. In late game Yasuo will be a threat when played correctly. He will shred through your team if he got ahead earlier and can still provide utility to his team if he got behind through his knock-up and Wind Wall. Suggested Runes and Start item: Keystone: Phase Rush Primary tree: Manaflow Band, Transcendence, Gathering Storm Secondary tree: Bone Plating, Overgrowth Starting item: Doran's Shield with Health Potion Gameplan: In this matchup you do not have lane priority, nor kill threat on Yasuo early and you should play mostly defensively and farm under your tower until your level 6 to force Yasuo to make mistakes to get a lead. Phase Rush will let you quickly reposition during fights, Bone Plating and Doran's Shield will let you build a health advantage through short trades and the other runes will make you scale. You can harass Yasuo at level 1 if he tries to push the wave, but do not attack him if he only goes for last hits since you do not want to have the wave pushing toward him. Communicate to your jungler that you will not have lane priority. Although you should play mostly defensively, there are some windows of opportunity when you should trade with Yasuo to whittle him down and make him more vulnerable to ganks. You should only trade with him when he has no stack on his Steel Tempest and when your Bone Plating is up. If he has his shield up, auto-attack him once to consume it. Then, harass him with auto-attacks and Frostbite to hopefully bait his Wind Wall and then back off when he has two stacks on his Steel Tempest and prepare to dodge the whirlwind (it is very narrow, dodge laterally if possible). If Yasuo wasted his Wind Wall, then you will have around 20 seconds where he will be vulnerable to your Flash Frost. If he comes on top of you, cast your Flash Frost and recast it instantly to not give time to Yasuo to use his Wind Wall. Even if he has had time to put his wall, if you make the projectile explode before it gets to the wall then the stun and the debuff will apply. Follow up on an empowered Frostbite and retreat using the move speed boost of Phase Rush if it is up. With Doran's Shield and Bone Plating you will suffer minimal damage during such short trade which will let you build up a health advantage over him. Outside of this window of opportunity, stay out of range of Yasuo, keep the minion wave close to your tower and focus on farming. If the wave is pushing towards him, use your Crystallize to delay your minions' arrival. Hold on to your Flash Frost since Yasuo can easily dodge it with his Sweeping Blade, although he is vulnerable to it while being in the middle of a dash. Once you get to level 6 things will get easier for you. You can now trade with or harass him with Glacial Storm and Frostbite and not depend on your Flash Frost to apply the Chill debuff. You also have a much better waveclear and can punish his roams by consistently denying him gold and experience. Communicate his roams as he will probably gank and try to snowball off another lane, especially when he unlocks his Last Breath. Take the opportunity to then push the wave and take a tower plate, avoid doing so when he is in lane with his ultimate. From mid game onwards, do not let Yasuo freely farm but do not underestimate his dueling capabilities either, he shall not get free kills. If you are looking for a defensive item to mitigate Yasuo's damage, consider Randuin's Omen. Note also that the active of Everfrost goes through Yasuo's Wind Wall and can be an alternative to Rod of Ages in this matchup. Watch Out: Do not stand in the middle or too close to your minion wave when laning against Yasuo since this would give him a large mobility advantage over you and an easier time to dodge your Flash Frost while making it harder for you to dodge his Steel Tempest's whirlwind due to minion body blocking. Yasuo's ultimate, Last Breath, has a long range (about 25% more than your Flash Frost range) and can be used as an engaging tool. Be careful if any of Yasuo's allies has a knock-up since they will be then able to set up his engage. Watch out for Yasuo's following combos: Steel Tempest > Sweeping Blade > AA > [..] > Steel Tempest > Sweeping Blade This is Yasuo's main way to trade early. He will wait until he has two Steel Tempest stacks, then knock you up with Steel Tempest, gapclose on you with Sweeping Blade, auto attack you and use Steel Tempest until he decides to disengage with Sweeping Blade (before he gets damaged too much). He will also use his Wind Wall when deemed fit to cancel your damage and extend the trade. Sweeping Blade > Steel Tempest > AA > [..] > Steel Tempest > Sweeping Blade Same trading pattern as before but will get to your contact first to attempt an undodgable knock-up. You can punish him with a Flash Frost mid-dash when he uses this combo. From level 6 onwards, Yasuo can only use his Last Breath on a knocked-up enemy which forces him to use it after a stacked Steel Tempest. Since his ultimate grants his critical strikes 50% armor reduction, he will look for using his ultimate at the beginning of a fight.

Yone Lane difficulty: Even Laning against Yone Abilities: Overview: Yone is a semi-mobile skirmisher that thrives in sustained fights, he deals a mix of physical and magic damages and builds around critical strikes. Being an hypercarry, he scales very well with gold and experience and will snowball out of control if he gets ahead in the early game. He has access to a gapcloser through his Soul Unbound, a knock-up through the third hit of his Mortal Steel and a shield through his Spirit Cleave. Being a melee champion, his first two levels are rough since he is vulnerable to poke, which will oblige him to play defensively and give up farm. As Anivia, this is your window of aggression where you can start to build a lead. Yone doesn't have any disengage tool and is therefore vulnerable to ganks during laning phase, coordinate with your jungler to shut him down. When he hits level 3 he has the tools to efficiently trade against you, so you need to respect his mobility and damage. Yone's powerspikes are at level 3, 6 and when he gets his core items. He shines during midgame with his core items due to his high damage potential and the difficulty for his opponents to defensively itemize against him (both armor and magic resistance) due to a lack of gold at this point in the game. Yone will look for aggressive plays and to secure objectives in mid game to secure a lead and snowball to late game. In late game Yone will remain a threat, unless he is greatly behind, and can turn around an entire teamfight with his ultimate Fate Sealed. His toolkit lets him be creative on the way he engages teamfights, but his end goal will be to flank your team to ultimate your backline or even ultimate the entire team. Suggested Runes and Start item: Keystone: Electrocute Primary tree: Cheap Shot, Eyeball Collection, Relentless Hunter Secondary tree: Manaflow Band, Scorch Starting item: Dark Seal with Refillable Potion Gameplan: In this matchup you should play offensively during the first two levels and then have a mixed playstyle where you switch between being offensive and defensive. The key in this matchup is not to die during the laning phase to not allow Yone to snowball so early, stick to a defensive playstyle only if necessary. Because you want to apply as much pressure as possible in these first two levels, start with Electrocute and Dark Seal since Yone does not have any disengage tool, which makes him vulnerable to your burst and can let you snowball off this lane. Play proactively and damage him as much as possible with your Flash Frost and auto-attacks on the first level. To make this window of aggression as long as possible, fast push for an earlier level 2 to hit him with a Flash Frost and Frostbite combo which will deal a significant amount of damage. As soon as Yone gets to level 3, he can trade efficiently with you and you need to respect his mobility and damage. Play aggressively when he has up to one Mortal Steel stack and stand back when he has two stacks (indicated by a tornado around him) to not let him favorably trade with you. It is recommended to rush your tier 2 boots against Yone to let you play around his abilities more easily and apply pressure. When punishing Yone, cast an instant Flash Frost and Frostbite for an instant burst to not let him use his Spirit Cleave and mitigate the damage through his shield. Communicate his roams as he will probably gank and try to snowball off another lane, especially when he unlocks his Fate Sealed. Take the opportunity to then push the wave and take a tower plate, avoid doing so when he is in lane with his ultimate. From mid game onwards, do not let Yone freely farm but do not underestimate his dueling capabilities either, he shall not get free kills. If you are looking for a defensive item to mitigate Yone's damage, consider Randuin's Omen. Watch Out: As always before pushing a lane, be careful to consider the enemy jungler in addition to your enemy laner. If you are against a strong early jungler like Shaco, Lee Sin or Jarvan IV, play safer and do not push too much so as to not get punished. If you are against slower jungler like Shyvana, Evelynn or Karthus, then you have more room to push your lane and punish Yone. When Yone has his Fate Sealed, do not stand in the minion wave to not be blocked by minions when trying to dodge his ultimate. Yone's Spirit Cleave and Fate Sealed can hit multiple champions and makes him a threat during teamfights. Be sure to have you and your teammates spread out to avoid this. Watch out for Yone's following combos: Soul Unbound > Mortal Steel > AA > Spirit Cleave > AA > AA > Soul Unbound This is Yone's main way to trade early. He will wait until he has two Mortal Steel stacks, then gapclose on you with Soul Unbound, knock you up with Mortal Steel, get a shield with Spirit Cleave, auto attack you until his shield is depleted and disengage, effectively winning the trade. His engage has the same range as your Flash Frost. Soul Unbound > Mortal Steel > AA > Fate Sealed > AA > Spirit Cleave > AA > Mortal Steel > AA > Soul Unbound This combo starts identically to the first one but Yone will follow with his ultimate Fate Sealed while you are knocked up to not allow you to dodge it.

Playing against Burst mages:


The following champions will be added to this list in the near-future: Orianna, Annie, Twisted Fate, Zoe and Neeko.

Ahri Lane difficulty: Even Laning against Ahri Abilities: Overview: Ahri is a mobile mage that thrives in skirmishes and is a "jack of all trades, master of none" with her combined mobility, health sustain, crowd control, wave clear, poke and burst damage. She shines in the mid-game provided that she got even or ahead in laning phase. She scales well into mid-game when her opponents do not have access to much health and resistance yet, but falls off in late game unless she is ahead. Ahri isn't particularly strong in early game as she does not have much mobility yet and her damage and wave clear are still moderate. Nevertheless, she has great health-sustain through her passive, decent poke and waveclear with her Orb of Deception, can dodge skillshots with the increased mobility provided by Fox-Fire and has access to crowd control through her Charm. Do not underestimate Ahri during laning phase, she can out-trade you if you are not careful. During laning phase, Ahri will not be able to abuse her spells since she is quite mana-hungry. Therefore, she will look for opportunities to cast her Orb of Deception to both push the wave and poke you, deny her this opportunity by standing beside your minion wave. Being her only form of crowd control, she will not use Charm unless she is confident to hit and all-in or needs it to protect herself, try to bait it. She can perform short trades at low mana cost with her Fox-Fire, watch out! From level 6 onwards, she gains a lot of mobility and will be harder to lock down during duels and teamfights. Try not dueling her when she has her Spirit Rush available as she will be able to dodge your Flash Frost and evade your Glacial Storm easily while ensuring her all-in. Do not give her priority of the lane either, use Anivia's wave clear to force Ahri's in the midlane and prevent her to roam to the bottom lane and snowball off them. Ahri shines in mid-game, respect her damage, mobility and watch out for her Charm. She falls off during late-game when most champions get tankier, although she can still deal a lot of damage through the way back of her Orb of Deception which deals true damage, be ready to sidestep and dodge it. Suggested Runes and Start item: Keystone: Electrocute Primary tree: Cheap Shot, Eyeball Collection, Relentless Hunter Secondary tree: Presence of Mind, Legend: Tenacity Starting item: Doran's Ring with 2 Health Potions Gameplan: In this matchup you have kill pressure but need to position well to avoid being burst down by Ahri, she can kill you if she manages to land her Charm. It is going to be a match of who can align their skillshots and burst damages first. Since she has a better health sustain than you do, you need to only go for favorable trades and avoid her poke to not get out-sustained and lose kill pressure on her. Since Ahri does not have much mobility pre-6, it is at your advantage to let her push the wave toward you, this will make her vulnerable to ganks. She will have lane priority but you cannot contest in a river fight anyway due to the threat of being hit by her Charm. While laning, never stand in the middle of your minions, this would let Ahri simultaneously poke you and push the wave with a single Orb of Deception and would make it harder for you to dodge the skillshot. Instead, stand beside your wave, leaning either toward the top or bottom river and always being ready to dodge it. It is vital that you at least dodge the way back of the orb that deals true damage. Positioning yourself like that also gives you protection against her Charm as you can quickly reposition yourself behind a minion. You must dodge her Charm, otherwise, she will all-in you with her level 3 combo. If she wasted it aggressively, punish her with a combo of yours! When trading with Ahri, try to stay out of her auto-attack range which is 550, which is slightly less than your auto-attack and Frostbite range. By doing so you can harass her while avoiding behind harassed and denying her to trigger Electrocute through her trading combo. Punish her lack of mobility with Flash Frost when her Fox-Fire is on cooldown. But remember, always have some of your minions between you and Ahri to protect you from most of her damage. At level 6 you need to play more defensively, Ahri suddenly got access to more mobility and can use this to her advantage to escape your Glacial Storm, dodge your Flash Frost and gapclose on you. Force her to use her Spirit Rush by walling her in your Glacial Storm and play defensively while she has charges left, then punish her when her ultimate is on cooldown. Mid to late-game you need to be careful to not facecheck bushes, you risk being picked by Ahri's Charm and killed. During skirmishes and teamfights stand always ready to dodge her Orb of Deception with which she will poke a lot and that deal heavy damage. Watch Out: Ahri's Charm will cancel your ultimate and prevent you from re-casting your Flash Frost if you are charmed, it is important that you dodge it and don't engage with your Flash Frost. Watch out for Ahri's following combos: AA > Fox-Fire > AA + Electrocute This quick combo costs almost no mana to Ahri and will let her trade back with you when you are in range. She needs to engage with an auto-attack to ensure her Fox-Fire will target you, abuse your higher range and tether her. Charm > Orb of Deception > AA + Electrocute > Fox-Fire > Orb of Deception (way back) This is Ahri's level 3 all-in combo that gives her a strong burst early. She is dependent on connecting her Charm for this combo to succeed, you must dodge her Charm. From level 6 onwards, Ahri's Spirit Rush will give her dashes that will let her reposition, dodge and gapclose. She will use them around her level 3 combo as she sees fit.

Leblanc Lane difficulty: TBD Laning against Leblanc Abilities: Section under work.

Syndra Lane difficulty: TBD Laning against Syndra Abilities: Section under work.

Veigar Lane difficulty: TBD Laning against Veigar Abilities: Section under work.

Vex Lane difficulty: TBD Laning against Vex Abilities: Section under work.

Playing against Battle mages:


The following champions will be added to this list in the near-future: Lissandra, Swain, Taliyah, Ryze, Cassiopeia and Azir.

Aurelion Sol Lane difficulty: TBD Laning against Aurelion Sol Abilities: Section under work.

Kassadin Lane difficulty: Extreme Laning against Kassadin Abilities: Overview: Kassadin is a mobile hyperscaling mage that thrives against AP champions due to his resilience against magic damage. He is known to be a late-game monster that can carry a game himself post level 16 due to the very small cooldown of his ultimate Riftwalk. Being a late-game god comes with a trade-off, Kassadin is weak early due to his lack of mobility, low wave clear and the fact of being a melee mage. This is when he needs to be punished and set behind. Kassadin relies on his Void Stone and Null Sphere early to mitigate magic damage and last hit in lane. Abilities cast near him charge his Force Pulse which will let him push the wave and trade later on. Due to his low base armor, he is vulnerable to physical damage early such as auto-attacks, take advantage of this. Kassadin has no mobility in the early game and unlocks it at level 6 through his Riftwalk. You can fast push the wave in the early levels to get it bouncing back to you, after which try to freeze it near your tower and deny farm from him. It will also make him vulnerable to ganks, coordinate with your jungler. From level 6 onwards, Kassadin gains mobility through his Riftwalk and will be able to trade and dodge skillshots. Be careful when dueling him since he counters Anivia's kit and can interrupt your Glacial Storm with his Null Sphere. He remains manageable and can still be punished if you got ahead earlier. In mid-game Kassadin will start being a bigger threat once he gets his level 11 and core items, which will get worse at his level 16 and with each additional completed item. If you didn't manage to set him sufficiently behind earlier he may take over the game from there. Focus your crowd control on him during teamfights to not let him delete your backline without being punished, he needs to be the priority target of your team. Suggested Runes and Start item: Keystone: Electrocute Primary tree: Cheap Shot, Eyeball Collection, Relentless Hunter Secondary tree: Presence of Mind, Coup de Grace Starting item: Cull with Health Potion Gameplan: You have the advantage in this matchup pre-6, after which it will be increasingly difficult as you reach mid to late game. You need to shut down Kassadin from the first few levels and get ahead of him. Due to his resilience to magic damage and his low base armor, it is recommended to buy Cull and start with Frostbite to constantly harass him and trigger Electrocute when available, this should give you kill pressure. You can use your Flash Frost aggressively when you see fit, for instance, to deny him canon minion or just burst him. You need to keep control of the tempo in this matchup and therefore play with Teleport to match his resets and not let him farm in lane uncontested. Do not permanently shove the waves since it will let him farm safely under his tower, which is perfect for his game plan. You have no reason to perma push anyway since as Anivia you are not a good roamer. Freeze the wave near your tower and crash it under his tower only when Kassadin backed, when he died or if you need to assist your jungler on an objective fight. While having the waves frozen near your tower, zone away Kassadin and keep harassing him, he shall not farm. Get AP items before your level 6 to transition away from physical damages. Now that Kassadin has his Riftwalk, it will be harder for you to kill him on your own as he becomes evasive. His wave clear is still not great, abuse this by accumulating 1.5 to 2 waves worth of minions and crashing them on his tower. Hold on to Flash Frost until he used Riftwalk and don't hesitate to use your Glacial Storm, your cooldown is lower than his Null Sphere's cooldown. Burst him with empowered Frostbites and be careful of enemy ganks. You can still duel Kassadin at this point but should respect his mobility and damage while doing so. Keep an eye on Kassadin's roaming potential post-6 and communicate his roams to your teammates to prevent them from dying From Kassadin's level 11 onwards it will get increasingly difficult to deal with him. You need to hold on to your Flash Frost to stun him right after he engages your allies during teamfights since crowd control will then be his only weakness. Burst him down before he escapes and use Crystallize to prevent his allies to join the fight. To make late game easier against him, consider taking Everfrost as a mythic item to keep him stunned longer and Anathema's Chains to reduce his damage and make him more sensitive to crowd control. Watch Out: As always before pushing a lane, be careful to consider the enemy jungler in addition to your enemy laner. If you are against a strong early jungler like Shaco, Lee Sin or Jarvan IV, play safer and do not push too much so as to not get punished. If you are against slower jungler like Shyvana, Evelynn or Karthus, then you have more room to push your lane and punish Kassadin. Do not chase Kassadin while he runs away unless he is very low on mana, his Riftwalk makes him incredibly evasive and chasing him will lose your time at best or get you picked by his teammates at worst. Watch out for Kassadin's following combos: Riftwalk > Force Pulse > AA > Nether Blade > AA > Null Sphere This combo is one of Kassadin's trading tools post-6, although the ability order can be rearranged and extended as he sees fit.

Malzahar Lane difficulty: Minor Laning against Malzahar Abilities: Overview: Malzahar is a control mage that is well known for his waveclear and suppression with Nether Grasp. He is a low-mobility champion that is vulnerable to ganks and play-around dot damage, he shines in mid-game after he has access to his Liandry's Torment. Malzahar is not particularly strong in early-game but can push waves easily and efficiently with his Malefic Visions and Void Swarm if left uncontested, which is what gives him his waveclear early and get a gold advantage over his opponent. It is hard to match his waveclear, kill his voidlings as quickly as possible instead and punish his low attack range and zone him away from minions. This will force Malzahar to spam his abilities to keep summoning voidlings and preventing his Malefic Visions to wear off, ultimately damaging his waveclear early on and making him more likely to run out of mana. Malzahar has low armor value early on, abuse that by dealing as much physical damage as possible and force him to trade and take minion's aggro. He doesn't have any particular trade combo, he will rely on his Malefic Visions and voidling to slowly eat through your health and will probably keep his Call of the Void to prevent you from stunning him with Flash Frost. When Malzahar hit his level 6 or gets his Liandry's Torment, you need to be more careful as he can kill you fairly quickly and destroy Anivia's egg with his voidling. Mid-game is where Malzahar shines the most due to his strong waveclear and his ability to suppress an opponent, especially in skirmishes. He is not as strong in teamfights since he is vulnerable to crowd control which can cancel his Nether Grasp. Suggested Runes and Start item: Keystone: Electrocute Primary tree: Taste of Blood, Eyeball Collection, Relentless Hunter Secondary tree: Presence of Mind, Coup de Grace Starting item: Cull with Health Potion Gameplan: You should play this lane aggressively and take advantage of Malzahar's lack of armor and low auto-attack range early. Start with Cull to shift your damage to physical damage and choose Frostbite as the first ability to help you trigger Electrocute. Harass him with auto-attacks and use Frostbite only when Electrocute is available. Take Flash Frost as the second ability and hold it until Malzahar summons his voidlings to instantly kill them with bot cast and recast and deny him both damage and waveclear. If Malzahar does not take Void Swarm at level 2, you are then free to use Flash Frost aggressively. Take Crystallize on level 3 to help you freeze the lane on your side of the lane, this will give you more room to zone Malzahar away and make him vulnerable to ganks. At this point, you should have the advantage over him. From his level 5 onwards, Malzahar starts to get more armor than magic resistance, you can then start to buy AP items to shift your damages back to magic damage, which is especially important before you hit level 6. From level 6 onwards, Malzahar had access to his Nether Grasp which has slightly more range than your auto-attacks and Frostbite. You need to change your trading pattern to not let him engage you and burst you down. Engage with your Glacial Storm and block him inside with your Crystallize, then stun him with Flash Frost before bursting him with Frostbite and instantly backing off to not get caught by his ultimate. Be careful to not get silenced by his Call of the Void. In mid to late-game, try to remove Malzahar's shield during skirmishes and teamfights to make him vulnerable to crowd control. Hold on to either your Flash Frost or Crystallize to cancel his Nether Grasp, preferably your Crystallize since it acts almost instantly. With his ultimate negated, Malzahar will not contribute much to teamfights anymore. Watch Out: As always before pushing a lane, be careful to consider the enemy jungler in addition to your enemy laner. If you are against a strong early jungler like Shaco, Lee Sin or Jarvan IV, play safer and do not push too much so as to not get punished. If you are against slower jungler like Shyvana, Evelynn or Karthus, then you have more room to push your lane and punish Malzahar. Do not duel Malzahar from his level 6 onwards if you suspect that he has an ally closeby, if he locks you down with his Nether Grasp it will be a guaranteed death for you. Watch out for Malzahar's following combo: Call of the Void > Void Swarm > Flash > Malefic Visions > Nether Grasp This is Malzahar's main all-in combo from his level 6 onwards, he will set up his voidling and dot damage on you before locking you down, which will deal a lot of damage, especially if he has his Liandry's Torment.

Viktor Lane difficulty: TBD Laning against Viktor Abilities: Section under work.

Vladimir Lane difficulty: TBD Laning against Vladimir Abilities: Section under work.

The following gameplay concepts can be learned and applied right away for immediate results. These skills will get refined as you play more games, mostly by being transferred to your muscle memory.




The following gameplay concepts can be learned and applied right away for partial results. These skills will mostly get refined and assimilated as you play more games, mostly through pattern recognition as you play and experience many different in-game situations and by being transferred to your muscle memory.











The following gameplay concepts are not mechanical but more linked to decision making and can be learned and applied right away to some extent. These skills will almost entirely be built up as you consciously play more games, mostly through pattern recognition as you play and experience many different in-game situations.








Thanks for reading! I hope this guide will help you as much as it helped me on my journey with Anivia.

Feel free to comment and share your thoughts! I will try to keep this guide updated as often as I can. If it has not been updated in a while, I most likely do not have immediate time to do so, be patient please.

Note that this guide will exclusively remain for Anivia played in mid lane. I truly think her other roles would benefit from having their own dedicated guides since there is so much to cover in both top and support roles that differ from the mid lane perspective.

If you are eager for more resources on Anivia or League of Legends, I can't recommend you enough to check theses out:

The official discord server for Anivia. Come and join us!

The Twitch channel of Poliko, a EUW Challenger who onetricks Anivia in midlane. He streams regularly and is a great player to learn from.

The YouTube channel of SanSiroBro, a EUNE ex-Challenger who also onetricks Anivia. He has a lot of informative videos worth watching on their channel.

The YouTube channel of Coach Curtis, a OCE midlane Challenger that has a ton of high-quality contents ranging from the fundamentals of the game to midlane champion guides.

The YouTube channel of Broken By Concept, a podcast hosted by the OCE players Coach Curtis and Nathan Mott. In this SoloQ improvement podcast, both hosts have passionate and deep discussions about many concepts of the game with the aim to help us improve in our SoloQ journey.