My name is bitsu, I'm a master tier player maining Ap Kai'sa this season looking to share the information I've learned. I want to share and show people another way to play one of my favorite champions Kai'sa! This guide isn't really too in-depth its just to really show a different way to play Kai'sa. Her play style changes a lot to a poke type mage with the focus around getting her W evolve as fast as possible. This version of Kai'sa is extremely fun to play when you're better at reading the enemies movements through fog because of her extremely high W range, I just find it so much fun to play and want to help other's enjoy the game the same way I do. I believe in explaining with an example of showing its the way I learn best so I'm really sorry if there's too many video links in this guide for your tastes. xoxo
Play Video

Item reasonings are in the notes by the build ^^
This guide isn't meant to be turbo in-depth on kai'sa basic's

What her abilities do... Play Video
Her Passive
It's the way she finishes kills, Her main form of burst at all stages of the game Kai'sa auto's apply 1 and her unevolved W apply 2 and evolved W applies 3
nearby allies's immobilizing effects and polymorphs against champions, apply a stack
Kai'sa detonates the stacks on 5 applications for damage

The timer on her passive is 4 seconds long** Important to memorize for ap kai'sa ( Double W timer ) lets you know your timing window for W into R + W or W + W to proc passive. If your 2nd W is less than 4 seconds you can always R + W for a passive proc ( it'll pretty much always be less than 4 seconds unless you're maxing Q first )


Her Q
Theres not much to really say about it but you should get the evolve at 280ish mana on manamune + lost chapter other wise at lvl 12 with nightharvester. It's just raw damage and your form of wave clear. Instant cast ability, Press when ever you want damage Ofc you should try your best to isolate who you're hitting Can use ulti for better angles as well : during Ulti, while you're autoing, while you're moving
Play Video
Her W
This is your main ability and evolve we rush first. This is your make or break ability you either hard carry with this or lose the game if you can't find any W's super punishing ability either hit it or you're useless for the next 10ish seconds. 0.4 Cast time, Applies 3 stacks when evolved, Use on stunned targets or anyone you can easily hit. Please cast this out of vision them seeing you cast it makes it extremely easy to dodge!!! You can start the cast animation during your ulti*** < Very important R + W almost always guarantees a hit
Kai'sa W Heavily rely's on CDR and Level 5 W to be able to increase her "Double W passive proc range" ( Procing passive with 2 Kai'sa W, Her insane burst damage ) Play Video *Kai'sa W Does more damage based on how many passive stacks are on the target aswell. We default always get 3 From intial W, W Auto W is most damage

Her E
Just use as its intended, E to go faster and hit faster. Main use running back to lane or pve ( Locks you out of autoing and casting other things ) Makes you go invisible with E evolve

Her R
Use this to help hit your W's, you can R into any where in the circle passive use this to find angles to land W. It's also a Auto reset and you can cast all abilities during flight but we always prioritize W
Play Video

Kai'sa's main damage combo is utilizing her "Double W" combo which is procing her passive within her 4 second passive window with just her W this increases the more cdr you have the 77% cd refund on kai'sa W was a massive buff now I believe more pure ap damage items > cdr, Where the patch before the 80 cdr build was about where the 35 cdr standard is.. ty riot. PLS UTILIZE PRACTICE TOOL ITS SO GOOD

Updated part
After playing more with this setup i find that 35-45 cdr is kind of the sweetspot for the build, 20 From ludens + 15 from manamune. This gives us our Double W range just under our rank 2 ulti range which gives us a lot more damage from pen boots. ofc if you wanna play sniper cross map more cdr will help you and make it less punishing for missing W.. Sniper kai is a lot more fun tho..
This just means I'm prioritizing more damage > more cdr because I think the addition ap I get from Gathering storm at 20 is stronger
Play cdr tho if you're trying this for fun!!
Go W rush > Manamune > Ludens/Nh > cdrboots > Cosmic > Dcap
Night harvester sounds cool when you hit them I like it

35 cdr standard ( Over half ) Play Video
80 cdr nh + cosmic drive ( Pretty close to the entire Kai'sa W range ) Play Video


Standard Kai'sa W into R + W Play Video
Kai'sa W + flash
You can change where you are casting W from with flash so it doesn't get blocked same idea as R + W just with flash Play Video
Here's with both in practice tool just do everything you can to hit W Play Video
This is R + Q + auto + W + Flash ( Phantom W )
Phantom W just bugs out your W animation you can do this by flashing the last possible second of your W cast time, Its hard to do consistently its not really too imporant for game play prio W into R + W or W + flash. this is what ever Play Video
Not super wildly important but you can Evolve cancel all your evolves by pressing B + clicking Evolve at the same time its basically mostly about feel it's useful sometimes.. Play Video
Small tip for hitting R + W more consistantly is Ultiing passed the target and W'ing behind yourself if possible it feels like it comes out faster to me their only real counterplay is flash or if someone else is like turbo hugging them Play Video
The best way to conisitently hit more W's is from just saving it until you know you can like 95% of the time hit it, Gambling if they have flash or not its generally better the just save it. Missing W is extremely bad and takes away like 85% of your damage output for 5-8 seconds Play Video ^ another example of the tip before and an example of holding W incase the enemy support has flash up

Lane
This pick is really hard to survive on in the higher elo's because of the state of kai'sa herself rn, She plays basically the same as normal ad kai'sa early game till first or 2nd back then she's slightly weaker than ad kai'sa on top of the fact that she still has tons of struggles in this current bot lane meta. Her main issue is range early game she's out ranged by nearly everything so most of her lane matchups are "survive without getting farmed", Cait/draven/jhin/jinx all seem pretty hard to me the only actual playable lanes are vayne/ezreal? maybe... without including the extra varients from supports. Just try your best get farm and scale with your items and evolves Save and only use W when you know you're going to hit it. Most of what kai'sa likes are things that can 1v2 lane ( mages like xerath lux karma ) and protect her from getting 0/10'd or something that'll help her survive and sustain ( yuumi nami raka )

Mid game
Once you get first turret or your W evolve you can pretty much just anchor mid and play like a poke mage and just look for free W hits when people are rotating around the map, Ariving before objectives gives you time to poke the enemy down. Ap kai'sa loves seiges just use the fog and pinks the best you can and change your W angles as much as you can most people above d2-d1 don't really just afk and let you hit them from the same direction

Late game Play Video

Just hit anything with a W.. It does so much damage after deathcap
Theres not really much to say about late game other than just group with your team and just follow up on what your team does with W spam, Try to be first on objectives and don't die randomly across the map. If people are randomly mid alone you can always try W into R + W them if they're medium squishy starting from mid game for a way to pick someone off for objectives/end

End
This is my favorite version of ap Kai'sa and the one I believe to be the best. I'll add more things to this guide the more I learn. I really hope this helps anyone looking to play ap kai'sa!
Play sniper kai'sa its really fun c:

Here's a full gameplay you can skip through to see some of the idea's I talked about during this guide. Play Video
Updates/Changes
Slight changes to my personal item preferences, (shadowflame will still always be the best damage output from pure W spam)
A couple more synergies (Anything with cc is still good)
Updated a few item notes
Ultimate hunter > Item cdr
Added mythic tier list
More info in tips
Less reliant on cdr more on damage for playing for ranked
Added for fun cdr build
Updated most chapters + 2 examples
Updated runes fleet is op
Basic information about Q first ap kai'sa
Sweetspot for cdr is 50-60ish Any more or less feels really bad to play
Been playing Dirk + manamune rush because its easier to waveclear and helps get gold into kai'sa faster and more reliably
PLAY DUSK KAISA!! Manamune + dirk > nashoors > Duskblade You're so strong with these 3 and you get the perfect amount of cdr for a good double W range
updated most item notes and builds
https://www.twitch.tv/bitsula <---- Follow pls