My name is yodasonics, I am 21 years old and have been playing League since season 2. I have been diamond since season 6 and Alistar is my most played champion. I stream on twitch and post videos on YouTube. Feel free to add me on NA if you want to talk Alistar

Now that that's out of the way, lets talk Alistar

Ran on almost every champion, especially important on Alistar due to his reliance on it for combos(below).


Greatly increases Alistar's kill potential in lane. Best used before the enemy ADC uses Heal, as it reduces the total heal by 40%


Good alternative to Ignite in lane where you won't have kill pressure. Good at shutting down carries and assassins such as Vayne, Zed, Irelia, and Akali

Aftershock: Alistar is able to activate aftershock on each of his basic abilities. Most of the time you will be able to fully utilize both the extra defensive stats and damage from the Keystone.

Font of Life: With the relocation and nerf of Bone Plating, this is the most effective tier one rune on Alistar. He has a plethora of crowd control and has one of the largest base health pools to give his allies a lot of sustain.

Conditioning: In preseason 9, Bone Plating had it's duration decreased and was relocated to the 2nd tier of Resolve. Conditioning provides more tankiness later in the game than Bone Plating



Hextech Flashtraption: Allows you to make flash combos when your flash is on cool down. It also allows you travel around vision undetected.

Biscuit Delivery: Provides both mana and health sustain in the early game

PASSIVE Triumphant Roar Passively gives you a very small heal roughly every minion wave. There is no real depth to this ability, it is just sort of there and happens when it happens.

Q: Pulverize A 1 second AOE knockup that is often used with with his Headbutt or Flash. Has a slight animation prior to the knockup being applied.

W: Headbutt A single-target dash that knocks back the target. Most frequently used with his Pulverize but can be used to disengage or to knock an opponent into a wall.

E: Trample AOE around Alistar that damages every half second and gives Alistar a Trample stack. At 5 stacks Alistar will stun with his next auto attack.

R: Unbreakable Will Cleanses all crowd control effects on Alistar and grants him damage reduction. Allows you to body block hard CC moves and be able to absorb a lot of damage in teamfights and dives.

Basic Combos:

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Alistar's bread and butter combo. Simply press W and you can press Q at any point after he begins his dash and before he hit the enemy. Play Video
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Similar to the W+Q combo but using Flash gives the opponent less time to react to you. Because Headbutt has a small animation to it, you can press Q slightly before you flash to give your opponent less time to react.

Advanced Combos:

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Combining both Flash and Headbutt allows Alistar to engage from long distances. You can press W on the intended target before flashing and as soon as you are in range, you will headbutt the target.

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Similar to the Flash+W+Q combo, the only difference is that you have to charge Hextech Flashtraption briefly. Best used from fog of war.

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Allows Alistar to knock an enemy into his team with very little time to react.

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A very situational combo that is hard to pull off in a real game. W and as soon as you make contact, you flash immediately and then Q.

Putting this first to stress the importance of buying Control Wards. Always try to buy a Control Ward every time you recall. And if you get 5 items (boots, sightstone + 3 items) DO NOT buy the component items until you have enough to purchase the entire item. 3 Control Wards will provide significantly more impact than a Cloth Armor or Ruby Crystal


Relic Shield allows Alistar to help push the lane as a melee champion and stay healthy as a melee champion. Prioritize execution in this order: cannon > melee > caster as this is the descending order of gold. Swap your Stealth Ward to Oracle Lens as soon as you complete the item quest.


Mobility Boots allow Alistar to roam around the map quickly and make an impact on other lanes. If your first back with 900 gold, consider forgoing your Targon's Brace and purchasing Mobility Boots for a quick roam. Make sure to check that your solo laners are gankable before making this purchase!


Locket of the Iron Solari provides armor and magic resist to Alistar and the active applies a large shield to nearby allies. I often buy this after finishing boots and my Targon's Brace.


Knight's Vow allows you to link to an allied champion. You will take a percentage of the damage dealt to your ally as True Damage AND heal for a percentage of the damage that your ally deals to champions. People will often place this on their ADC but this is not always the correct choice. If your most consistent damage threat is somebody else on your team, it would be more beneficial to put it on them instead of your ADC. If your linked ally dies in a late fight, be ready to re-link with another ally that is still alive.


Similar to Knight's Vow, Zeke's Convergence allows you to link with an allied champion. When you cast your Unbreakable Will within range of your linked ally, your ally's auto attacks burn for additional magic damage and a slow field is created around Alistar. Zeke's Convergence is best used on auto attack based champions meaning that your ADC is your ideal target for this. There are cases where you want to link with somebody else, though. If your ADC is dead or in another lane, it is best to link with another ally. The more auto attack damage they do the better.


Turbo Chemtank's active greatly increases Alistar's movement speed when moving toward enemy champions. When coming into contact with an enemy champion you create an AOE slow that allows your team to catch up to you. Can be used to engage on targets that believe they are safe. Be careful using this as you might run into trouble that your team cannot get you out of.

Level 1: Alistar is very strong in invades and counter-invades. A Pulverize+ Flash on an unsuspecting target is very powerful and has the potential to hit multiple champions. In lane, Alistar is not the strongest champion champion, it is best to wait until at least level 2 to try to engage.

Level 2: If you somehow got to level 2 before your opponents and you have most of your health, you can look to engage here. Alistar has high base damage on his abilities and combined with Ignite you have high kill potential. If you are unable to get a kill here, you should wait until you have jungle assistance or your opponents make a positioning mistake. DO NOT engage on the cannon minion wave while it is still alive, it will make you lose the trade as hitting your Headbutt will draw minion aggro.

Level 3-5: Only try to engage if you have an advantage (health, minion, jungler, positioning, etc.). If you recall with more than 900 gold on your first back, look at your solo lanes and see if they are gankable. Solo laners often do not expect an Alistar to gank their lane at level 4 and it can greatly change the game. Make sure to communicate with your ADC that you are leaving and they they should play passively while you are gone.

Level 6: You can look to dive turrets with the help of your jungle. Begin dives with you tanking the tower, Unbreakable Will makes Alistar really tanky and allows him to tank the turret longer than other champions at this point.

General Advice:

If you destroy the enemy tower first: push another wave, recall and then head top lane with your ADC. The enemy top laner will not be able to defend the tower against 3+ champions and if the enemy team is slow to react, this can lead to a quick 2 turret advantage for your team.

Always try to be doing something, time spent sitting around is time that you can use to be roaming to another lane or controlling vision.

Just because you are able to get a big combo off doesn't mean that you should. Alistar is very effective at peeling and sometimes your win condition is to just keep your team alive.