Welcome to my midlane Mage Kai'Sa guide. This version of Kai'Sa relies less on autoattacks and focuses on stacking AP and playing around ability cooldowns. I've previously hit Diamond 2 playing my AP Kai'Sa build, all streamed at https://www.twitch.tv/SnipyOCE/ and https://www.youtube.com/SnipyOCE/
If you're interested in learning how to play Kai'Sa mid, check out my stream!

My main OP.GG - Snipy
My OP.GG - Void Seeker

The sniper build is for when you're intending to mainly poke from long range and don't want to walk up to enemies because they can punish you (think Malzahar R etc). This build works both mid and botlane and is reliant on you landing your skillshots. It does insane damage if you can land all your skillshots and it works best when your team has multiple ways to apply plasma and/or CC the enemy. You'll be a glass cannon with no self-peel, so I recommend taking a summoner spell such as Exhaust or Ghost.

The battlemage build is best when you want to do mixed damage (more autoattacks and Q's). It has roughly a 40/60 physical/magic damage spread and can play much more aggressively at closer ranges since Everfrost helps you go for picks, kite enemies and prevent people from dodging your W.

For rune pages, I would recommend the First Strike page for midlane vs melee matchups with low poke, and the Fleet Footwork for everything else. One of AP Kai'Sa's biggest weaknesses is her lack of HP sustain, and this rune fixes it.

For the most up-to-date item builds for each playstyle, check out my stream!

Manamune is the key item used to evolve your Q using its mana to AD conversion. The extra AD it gives your other spells as well, since they all scale with AD. We don't need to rush a mythic since Kai'Sa has great synergy with Manamune, so we usually buy a mythic item AFTER Manamune.

Ionian Boots of Lucidity gives you much-needed CDR for your spell cooldowns. It's cheap and also reduces your summoner spell cooldowns too. While you can buy Sorcerer's Shoes for even more damage, you'll definitely feel the higher W cooldown if you ever miss the skillshot.

Luden's Tempest is the best mythic item for this playstyle since your whole goal is to poke until you find someone to burst with an RW combo. It's passive cooldown gets reduced by 3 seconds if you land multiple Q missiles on an enemy champion.

Everfrost active can apply a stack of plasma as well as set up for your W. It gives you some HP and is a great way to kite enemies that like to run at you such as bruisers. The active also cannot be blocked by Wind Wall and Blade Whirl.

Horizon Focus boosts all of your damage by 10%. The damage buff can be applied with Everfrost too. This item consistently outdamaged Shadowflame in my tests. Before Patch 13.10, Horizon Focus was bugged and wouldn't amp Kai'Sa's damage, but it's fixed now.

Rabadon's Deathcap will massively amplify your spell damage and Killer Instinct shield. This is a massive powerspike.

Void Staff should be bought before Rabadons if the enemy is building MR.

Nashor's Tooth buffs your E movespeed and increases your DPS as long as you can stay in autoattack range. Kai'Sa doesn't have any in-combat sustain, so if you aren't be able to walk up to autoattack much then Lich Bane is a better choice.

Lich Bane is a good alternative to Nashor's Tooth in situations where you want more magic damage over physical damage, and also where you won't have the opportunity to stay close to the enemy to autoattack much. The flat movespeed lets you kite in and out based on your current spell cooldowns.

For skill order you want to take Q Icathian Rain level 1 and also max it first. It’s your waveclear and primary trading tool during early game since minions will usually block your W Void Seeker unless you go for some flashy play or the enemy mispositions. Max W Void Seeker second, and E Supercharge last, while putting a point into your ult whenever possible.

You can also take E level 2 if you feel like you can chase the enemy down for a heavy trade without taking too much damage in return.

Q+W

• QW is the most basic combo. It’s faster than using WQ, and the Q also hides the W animation somewhat, giving the enemy less time to react. You can also sneak in an autoattack when you press Q since it doesn’t cancel your autoattack animation.
• Example combo: AA QW AA

W+Flash

• W+Flash is extremely useful. It helps you get around enemy minions if they are in the way, surprise people, and you can also use it to change the direction your W Void Seeker goes. Early game it’s usually used as a finisher unless you managed to land the W Void Seeker at the start.
• If you flash at the end of your W animation, you can actually make your real W invisible.

R+W

• Another way to land your W Void Seeker on people is to combine it with your R Killer Instinct. Kai'Sa is free to cast any of her abilities during her R Killer Instinct, so you could ult up to somebody and have your W Void Seeker come out as soon as you arrive. Click the links below for examples:
• Example 1
• Example 2

R Autoattack Reset

• Killer Instinct is an autoattack reset, which is super helpful in applying your passive Second Skin during fights since this build doesn’t include any attack speed outside of runes.
• You can take advantage of this with this combo: W AA R AA
• In this combo you can Q Icathian Rain anytime since it has no cast animation.

5-stack Combo without W Void Seeker Evolve

• This is a quick way to get all your damage off and pop your execute from your passive, but the enemy needs to be in autoattack range first: AA Q W AA R AA

Fast Combo with W Void Seeker Evolution + Flash

• This combo is slightly slower but has a longer range: W flash Q AA R AA.

Assassination combo with Hextech Rocketbelt

• This makes use of the autoattack reset that Hextech Rocketbelt gives ranged champions, letting you proc your execute passive Second Skin with W R AA+proto+AA.
• example

EARLY GAME

• Since Kai'Sa is AD and ranged, she'll have the push advantage vs many midlane champions (except Lucian/Akshan).
• With the earlier level 2, you usually can gain control of the lane minions and go for an early recall after clearing the 3rd wave (cannon wave). You should have enough gold to buy a Tear of the Goddess.
• Focus on farming for your Manamune and Pickaxe to get Q evolve. This is your first powerspike since you'll be able to clear minion waves very easily. 1 evolved Icathian Rain is enough to delete the first 3 melee minions, and you can autoattack and/or Q the leftover ranged minions.
• Since you will often have lane priority at this point, try to roam and help your jungler in skirmishes, establish deep vision, or gank a side lane.

MID GAME

• Catch out stragglers with your W and R. By the time you ult in, your W should almost be off cooldown.
• Q evolve is enough to easily solokill enemies by yourself while W evolve makes you a strong teamfighter due to your low W cooldown.
• Look to poke the enemies from far away, and use any friendly CC to ult in and R+W squishy enemies.
• Try not to miss your Void Seeker, since it heavily affects your total damage output if you don't get a cooldown refund.
• Make sure to proc your caustic wounds with W and autosttacks whenever anyone has multiple stacks of plasma on them.
• Learn how to walljump with Kai'Sa ult. It will help you. A LOT.

LATE GAME

• Your W can easily 2-shot carries if they have no MR, with a W, R+W combo.
• Try to rely on your W for constant damage. Only get close to autoattack enemies when it is completely safe, or when you have your team near you. With this build you won't have E evolve to rely on for self-peel.
• Don't worry about only trying to hit the backline carries, your W will chunk the frontline too. Sometimes it's better to get constant damage on the enemy frontline instead of trying to snipe the enemy backline who are far away.
• You can use the enemy frontline to bunnyhop over and burst people behind them. To do this, W the frontline, wait 2-3 seconds for your W cooldown, then ult over the first enemy and aim your W at the person behind them.

• You can position yourself so that your Q Icathian Rain only hits one minion (usually on a melee minion or cannon minion) but kills it immediately. It helps get waves pushing. Cannon minions need to be missing some hp to die from Q Icathian Rain. This trick + her autoattacks give Kai'Sa pretty good early pushing/waveclear ability.
• Your Q Icathian Rain missiles do double damage to minions below 35% health. Make use of this by autoattacking multiple minions and Q’ing at the end to execute them.
• Try to stand in a position where if the enemy walks up, they will tank more Q Icathian Rain missiles since less minions are in range.
• Your W Void Seeker will continue to cast even when CC’ed. The W Void Seeker animation gets cancelled when you get cc’ed as well, making it harder for the enemy to notice you're casting it. Useful against champions like Twisted Fate, Zoe, Annie, etc.
• If running ignite, try to ignite early so that your passive execute will do more damage.
• After you trade with someone, you can back off a bit and if they walk back up while still having 2 or 3 plasma stacks, you can surprise them with a W+flash or W+flash+AA. Like this.
• Your W Void Seeker hitbox is very fat so you can even hit someone who’s hiding in a minion wave if you W+flash right next to or on top of them.
• You can hide your W Void Seeker by aiming it through walls.
• Try to aim your W Void Seeker at enemies that are (or going to be) cc’ed as they won’t be able to dodge.
• Use your R Killer Instinct to escape over walls.
• You can flash to cancel your R dash early.

Well that’s the end of the guide, so go out and have fun topping the damage charts with my build! Just a reminder that I post League/Kai'Sa-related content on my YouTube channel such as montages, Tips/Tricks and stream highlights. Click here to subscribe, it's much appreciated!


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Electrocute is a good choice for mid lane because often you won't be able to autoattack a mage 3 times in a row without overextending.

Hail of Blades is the strongest early-game keystone choice for botlane, it gives you a ton of damage by helping you apply passive stacks quicker.

Taste of Blood is your only choice in this row because the other runes are useless for AP Kai'Sa.

Eyeball Collection or Ghost Poro. Not much to say here, they both give you free AP.

Ingenious Hunter will let you proc Luden's Echo's passive with every Q. It will also reduce your Everfrost/Lich Bane/Manamune-stacks cooldown by a lot.

The mana from Manaflow Band converts into 6.25 AD via Manamune. More mana = more damage. You also need this to get Q evolve at level 9 alongside Doran's Blade + Sapphire Crystal.

Transcendence is always good for more ability haste to cast spells more often. The other options aren't useful anyway. For stat shards I go for attack speed, adaptive force and either Armor or Magic Resist depending on the matchup.

Phase Rush will let you kite and reposition once you use your initial combo. Alternatively, the First Strike page is good vs matchups where you can 'strike first' and farm gold off them.

The mana from Manaflow Band converts into 6.25 AD via Manamune. More mana = more damage. You also need this to get Q evolve at level 9 alongside Doran's Blade + Sapphire Crystal.

Transcendence is always good for more ability haste to cast spells more often. The other options aren't useful anyway.

Gathering Storm is the best pick in this row since you're a scaling champion.

In mid lane, you need early boots to stay mobile and dodge poke + ganks. You're pretty immobile without your ult and can easily get chased down by the enemy team. Cosmic Insight reduces your Flash cooldown and your Mythic Item cooldown by a lot.

This AP Kai'Sa build is all about rushing key items to unlock Kai'Sa as a powerful poke/burst mage. Future's Market helps you reach item timings even faster. With Q and W evolve powerspikes, you'll be able to farm even faster and make up for any gold lost from this rune.

For stat shards I go for attack speed, adaptive force and either Armor or Magic Resist depending on the matchup.