Hello, My name is Rostikcze98 and I am currently platinum ranked Azir main player, with over 170 games in solo/duo with azir this season, sitting on 63% winrate and id like to introduce new players to our glourious pigeon, but even skilled and experienced azir players could learn something new, because i will show you few different builds, explain skills, laning phase, matchups and even hard combos. I highly suggest you to think twice before trying to learn Azir, because he isnt champion, like garen,which you pick,start learning and you are OK, Azir is that kind of champion, who requsts from you alot of time and effort, you really need give Azir alot of time, starting from learning and reading some tricks/tips guides, then learning to them in practice mode and finally ingame, he is hard champion and really needs time and patience. Sorry for my bad english and long guide, but i feel, like azir needs a bit more attention and longer guide than simplier champions like garen, I also apologize for simple design of this guide, it is my first guide and I didnt learn yet how to design it very well

Pros :
- Long range
- DPS hypercarry, scaling into late game
- very mobile ( on cooldown of drift )
- pretty safe early game
- great teamfight/selfpeel ultimate

Cons :
- not good vs many assasins,especially those,who can ignore your R ( fizz, kata,zed )
- scaling takes tíme, so you are in danger of being snowballed by enemy team, if you or your team feeds
- has nice mobility,drift, but it has fairly huge cooldown,especially in early game
- hard to position, punished hardly for even small mistakes

Passive :

Azir can summon the Disc of the Sun from the ruins of allied or enemy turrets.
Tips
- Can be used aggresively,defensively and for gaining time
- aggresively when you want to push,so you place the turret behind you,so you can always go back a bit and enemy will have to "dive" your turret, keep in mind that this is your place for place and you can shove the enemies with your ultimate into the turret
- defensively, its basicly the same as the aggresive one, but it is used to defend agaist enemy push, to slow them down, best used when you are waiting for your team to gather to defend, someone to respawn or if you just dont wanna get damaged inhibitor etc.
- Time gaining, this is my favourite, it doesnt work vs smarter players though, for example,you want to baron,so you can place turret on mid lane just for fun and go help your team with baron , or you can stay with the turret and apply pressure, but you gotta keep in mind,that enemy will probably want to destroy the turret and dive you,so you have to drift to safety... ( as i said,smarter oponent will know and ward baron, but this does work vs worse players )

Q - Conquering sands

Azir sends all Sand Soldiers towards a location. Sand Soldiers deal 65/85/105/125/145 (+50% Ability Power) magic damage to enemies they pass through and apply a 25% slow for 1 second.Enemies hit by multiple Sand Soldiers will not take additional damage.
Tips
- Use this to reposition soldiers, keep in mind,that if you have more soldiers on board, some will take more time to reposition to your cursor area,if they are a bit more far away
- this ability actually has a pattern, for example, if you have 1 soldier,he will be repositionated exactly at your cursor, but if you have 2 soldiers, they will be repositionated to the sides of your cursor,one to the left,another to the right, with same gap between your mouse and left soldier, your mouse and the right soldier
- This ability can work as animation cancel, AA->Q
- This ability excels in procing the TLD ,especially in laning phase ( I will explain later )

W - Arise

Passive: Gains 20/30/40/50/60% attack speed.
Active: Azir summons a Sand Soldier for 9 seconds. When Azir attacks an enemy in a soldier's range, the soldier attacks instead of Azir, dealing 0 (+60% Ability Power) magic damage to enemies in a line. If multiple soldiers strike the same target, each soldier after the first deals 25% damage.
Tips
- you can actually make your cast range of this spell bigger, if you cast soldier over the wall, even the fat ones, so you can use this trick for some sneaky drifts
- you can see, if you can use the soldiers for AA, if you are in range,soldier stays like "ready to strike, in some sort of battle position" and if you are too far away, he stays with his polearm aiming to the sky
- Soldiers DO NOT proc on hit effects

E - Shifting sands

Azir dashes to one of his Sand Soldiers, damaging enemies hit for 60/90/120/150/180 (+40% Ability Power) magic damage.If Azir hits an enemy champion, his dash stops and he gains a shield for 4 seconds that absorbs up to 80/120/160/200/240 (+0) damage.

Tips
- This ability is simple, you dash to the soldier, which is used in a combo called drift, which is also used for even harder combos
- if you hit enemy while dashing, you give him some extra damage and gain shield, both of those values are pretty low, but in early game, all matters
- keep in mind,that if you hit an enemy with the dash, the dash stops

R - Emperors divide

Azir summons a wall of armored soldiers that charge forward, knocking back enemies and dealing 150/225/300 (+60% Ability Power) magic damage. The soldiers then remain as a wall for 3 seconds.Enemies will be stopped by Emperor's Divide, even if they attempt to dash over the wall, but Azir and his allies can pass freely through it.Emperor's Divide does not interact with Azir's basic attacks or spells.
Tips
- Sounds simple,but this..is the thing in Azir combos, which ill explain later
- Can be used for selfpeel
- Can be used for combos
- Remember, that this spells ISNT cast from position where is Azir standing, but a little bit behind him, so you actually hit enemies who are on melee AA range behind you with it
- This spell cancel dashes over the wall, like talons Q, rengars jump etc. but WILL NOT work agaist things like katarina E, ezreals E ( sort of flash/blink abilities ) and it also wont stop abilites, which render user untouchable, like fizz E

Soldier AA range

- tool, which lets you know when you can AA with a soldier or you need to move closer to the enemy
Play Video

Fast TLD proc & animation cancel on Q

- Usefull alot while laning, the best usage is : W->AA->Q->AA
Play Video

Drift

- Drifting is your mobility, you do it with E->Q
- the closer you are to soldier while dashing via E and then pressing Q, the more range you will dash
Play Video

Shurima shuffle

- Awesome combo, but if you fail it, in best situation, you kill only yourself, but you need to think alot about it, if it will be good move or bad move, because knocking enemy darius onto your AP midder or ADC can result in slaugher of your own team , think twice before doing this, because some champs like darius or kennen would thank you for gap closing them into your team
Play Video

Revenant shuffle AKA Red mercy

- a little bit different version of Shurima shuffle, which is also harder to pull
- Very hard to pull,because for this combo, you need EQR off cooldown, so basicly, you need an enemy player to literally not respect your soldiers and move close to them
- Very rewarding if used right, as i show you in the video, you can pick up an enemy and kill him before the fight starts, without any kind of risk, if you make this combo right and dont fail it,which is honestly,not hard to fail Play Video

At first, Flash is your must have summoner spell,like almost on every champion, the 2nd summoner is up to you, for new azir players i would suggest using barrier&Exhaust

Barrier

- Barrier excels in early/midgame fights, but falls off late game, used purely defensively

Exhaust

- This can be used aggresively and defensively and doesnt fall off late game, so it is "better" than barrier in many situations, it also helps to shutdown hypercarries like Yasuo or Master yi, but sadly for you, exhaust has very low range for azir players, because in theory, you never ever want to be on range of exhaust if you arent going for some ulti play, but if you play agaist things like fizz or master who just jump on you, this will do alot more than Barrier in most situations, especially later in game

Ignite

- Ignite is in my opinion purely cheesing summoner spell for azir, because he isnt something like early game burst power, but if you are experienced with Azir and know your matchup, you may actually make this work, Ignite even secured me my first blood on talon , level 3. I suggest you to take this only if you are really sure what you are doing

Teleport

- Like with ignite, take this only if you know what you are doing or you are on top lane, TP can be very usefull agaist poky poky enemy laner, so you can come back to lane alot faster and apply pressure, you can also use this to make the plays across the map ,which rewards you with even more pressure and can lead to snowball, but sadly for you,enemy mid laner will probably have ignite/barrier/exhaust and that means,that you have less 1V1 & laning power in exchange for that oportunity to make plays across the entire map

Well, lets talk a bit about itemization, some tips and info is in notes up there, but lets talk a bit more about it.

Starting buy

Dorans ring + 2 pots.
- I honestly dont see any other buy, which would help azir more, maybe you could try Dark seal + 3 pots/refilable pot, but i dont see any reason to go for that one, because Azir isnt going to look for early kills, Azir is weak in early in fights and has a lot less chance to gain those early kills than for example Ahri, LeBlanc or those assasin champions, he really needs his time to scale, Azir has 3 power spikes, which really increase his power alot.
- First powerspike is Nashoors tooth, alot of AP and attack speed, increases his damage output by huge amount, 2nd powerspike is rabbadon and 3rd is Void staff,for that sweet "almost true damage" to squishies and for melting those tanks,who buy alot of MR&HP

Opening #1-#5

- Mostly i buy First item in the opening, then boots of attack speed and then i finish 2nd item of the opening, boots are always usefull, so you may even complete then while building your first item, exluding ROD, which you want as soon as posible, that mobility from boots is very usefull for rotating around the map, roaming bot lane, going back to lane and also for dodging skillshots, for example, if you play versus Ahri champion, you will really love the extra speed to dodge the deadly charm

Opening #1

- Opening #1 is awesome if you want to scale into late game and you dont feel need to rush defensive item like Banshees or zhonyas. Rod will give you very nice AP for damage,HP to survive those pesky assasins and valuable mana, so you will be able to fight for longer periods of time without need to recall/get the blue buff , also passive of ROD,which you get from catalyst of aeons will grant you good sustain in laning phase, because everytime you spend mana,you will get some HP back, its not much,but in laning phase,it can mean alot more than you would really think,also if enemy champion will poke you,you will gain some mana, so the catalyst,which you want to buy on your first back, will give you HP&mana and also very awesome mana&hp sustain,which will let you to stay on the lane for longer period of time

Opening #2

- Difference between this item and ROD isnt very huge, so lets compare it
- Stacked ROD ( 100 AP, 500 HP, 400 mana, 2700 gold )
- GLP ( 80 AP , 300 HP, 400 mana, 3000 gold )
- Well, at first look rod seems better, but it depends on situation alot, because stacking of ROD will take 10 minutes, it really depends if you will want to scale into late and delay your powerspike of stacked ROD, or you just simply want to buy the item and have lesser powerspike, but without waiting,so you can make plays earlier, GLP is made from catalyst of aeons too, so it will give you that good sustain of HP&mana, but it also has unique active, which will do some damage, which is very usefull,but its not sooo much damage, but in early/midgame it can mean alot, in late game,its mostly about the slow effect and not that much about the damage, because it doesnt scale so well, only 35% of your AP. Active can be used defensively, if something is trying to kill you, you pop the active, deal that damage,but more important,you slow them and you run away. Active also can be used aggresively, you do damage the opponent and you also slow him,so he cant run so fast away from your soldiers, which will lead in even more damage they take, i personally prefer this choice agaist enemy compositions, which have anoying assasins and the slow will affect them alot ( yes, im looking at you Master yi, the slow ignorant )

Opening #3

- This opening will give you the most early powerspike you can have, but also nice tank melting power, i personally choose this opening agaist tanky compositions, because the liandris passive effect will trully melt all those pesky tanks, so i personally suggest you to use this opening when you see alot of tankiness in their team

Opening #4

- This opening will is very great,if you are laning swain/vladimir or some kind of sustain/heal champion, but also can be bought if you see soraka ( or chaampion like that ) in their team, but i usually dont go this opening,if i dont lane opponent with sustain, you can always buy morelo after finishing your opening. Morelo start will give you some usefull CDR, which can be very usefull for your WQ spamming and for ultimate, but it will also give you some mana and good mana sustain, so you can cast more spells in shorter intervals, but honestly,my only reason i ever had on Azir to buy morelo, was the grievous wounds, which is passive agaist healing/lifesteal

Opening #5

This opening is purely opening of respect, you will go for banshees only, when you respect your opponent power and you are scared and respect him, im going this opening usually vs syndra, fizz or those pesky champions,which can 100-0 on level 6.

Boots

- Boots are simple,always attack speed ones, because the extra pene from sorc. boots isnt good enough, you arent assasin,so you arent really looking to abuse flat AP pene, you really want the AS boots to increase your DPS power, they are better in 99.9% situations, even more,if enemy team has tank

Core items

- At this time,you have finished 3-4 items, Boots, your 2 items from opening and maybe 4th item,which could be zhonyas/morelo/banshees, depending on need of game, now you are going to buy rabbadon and void staff, if you are winning the game and you have lead,you are going for rabbadon first, but dont forget to check their team,if they are building MR, you may really want to start with void staff... If you are losing the game and are behind,you will more likely need void staff before rabbadon,because enemy tanks will have some MR item by this time and their assasins will have that pesky hexdrinkers.... You really need to look at items of enemy team and decide,if you will go for more damage, or penetration first

Last item

- If you didnt buy morelo/zhonyas/banshees as your 4th item , after boots and your opening, you may but that item now, morelo for anti healing , zhonyas&banshees vs assasins ,which already try to buttrape you, or you can go for even more damage in form of Ludens echo, or maybe rylais for the slow effect, i personally dont like rylais because of low AP value,but you can buy it if you feel like you like the slow effect or you want to COMBO WOMBO it with the liandris

Pots

- Feel free to buy refilable potion in early game
- DO NOT forget to buy the AP potion after completing your full build

So, lets talk about masteries a bit, Azir has now only one usefull option and that is TLD ( Thunderlords decree ) , because there isnt anything else Azir would make use of, maybe DFT ( deathfire touch ) , but I dont think that DFT is better option, because Azir really makes huge use of TLD , especially in laning phase, where your basic poke consists of W AA->Q->AA+TLD
- for example your W AA, will deal at laning phase ,at early start about 50-70 damage to an enemy champion, the Q damage will be around 70-120 at early levels, so your damage is ,lets say 60 AA+100q+60AA, which isnt that much, but the TLD proc will add another 100 damage, which makes huge poking difference, because most mid lane champions will not just let you to poke them for free and will try to punish you for it, so, thanks to TLD you will deal +100 damage for nothing, within same period of time, the DFT has low scaling via AP, so until late game,you wouldnt make really huge use of it and TLD really helps Azir alot to survive early game,even to secure early kill

Ferocity

Attack speed vs spell damage

- attack speed is indeed very uzefull stat for azir, but the other one will increase your damage with ALL spells, including your W, so you will really make better use of it

AA bonus damage vs sustain vs expose weakness

- you arent going to make use of AA bonus damage, because if you will go for an AA on enemy champ,he will punish you for it with spells,you want to keep your range and use soldiers. that sustain is very awesome and usefull,will not make any huge difference, but with every lane,you will gain +20 hp and that is indeed something usefull, the last one is more likely for supports or tanks with AOE abilities, i personally take the sustain one

spell vamp vs AP

- this is up to your preference, the extra spell vamp is usefull in sustaing yourself, but wont really mage any huge difference in fights, because you deal damage,when no one is attacking you and if someone tries to attack you,you more likely that dealing damage try to avoid taking it,so you stop attacking and start to peel yourself with R, drift or anything, so spell vamp will not be so huge,that it will make some huge difference,it is just bonus sustain,like previous sustain mastery, on the other hand, the extra AP damage is another +damage with your spells... but this one is really alot about preference

Bounty hunter vs double edged sword vs battle trance

- I personally use mostly the Double edged sword, but also battle trance could be usefull, really depends on your needs and your playstyle,both can be very nice, on the other hand, the bounty hunter isnt reliable mastery, because to make use of it,you need to get and secure those kills,so it is more likely scaling option,but you need to be sure,that you will gain those kills, so it is for scaling/snowballing and has really low use,if you are behind

Cunning

Out of combar MS vs farming damage

- i personally take the farming damage one, but if you are looking for alot of rotations and you can farm without using the farming mastery, but it also helps alot in pushing,faster clearing and farming under turret

Blue buff lenght vs cookies vs assasin

- I would recommend taking cookies or assasin, but i personally use assasin, because im not going to buy pots, just at the start those 2 with dorans ring and i always buy refillable potion on my first back,because it is alot more cost effective than spamming pots on every back, also Assasin will give you 2% more damage, even in laning phase, so it can do a difference

Damaqe vs mana

- This depends on your playstyle alot, but i prefer the mana regeneration one, because i tend to use alot of spells in early game,because im trying to push the lane as much as i can,because most opponents will lose some CS under turret and also it prevents them rotating

Dangerous game

- Nope,Nope and Nope, you can only really take this one, because bandit is for supports and that bush thing wont work on azir, because your W soldiers dont proc "On hit effects"

Pene vs CDR

- I would recommend to take pene, because Azir doesnt really need more CDR in my opinion, he will make more use of that pene, because he is DPS melter, melting even toughest tanks

TLD

Just take thunderlord,its OP, stormraiders surge isnt for Azir and support one? well,you arent going to buy redemption,are you?

Reds

- You want to take those penetration reds, because you will make huge use of flat AP penetration on enemies,which wont build any MR, you will deal alot more damage to them than if you would pick AP reds, especially usefull vs squishies

Yellows

- You want to take something defensive here, i would suggest Scaling health, because at the end of the game,just these runes will give you +216 HP, which can make very big difference and scaling ones,because Azir wants to scale into late game and to be honest, the non scaling HP ones will give you NOTHING in comparatision with these. You can also take armor runes here,if you really respect your AD opponent, like zed

Blues

- I have 3 scaling AP runes here and 6 scaling CDR, but this section is in my opinion very personal, because you can mix any amount of scaling CDR,scaling AP,flat bonus AP, armor and MR, depending on your needs, I am actually planning to buy more Rune pages and dedicate them to azir, that I will have 3 pages, Full AP one,like I have now and 2 respect pages, 1 with less AP and CDR ,but with armor and second one with MR, i would take these in very bad matchups.

Quints

- AP runes or scaling AP runes, depends on your playstyle, But I personally prefer the AP ones, even if i will have a bit less AP in lategame, they will give me some early power,which will help me to survive / win that early game

- In laning phase, your main goal is to gain Gold and levels, because Azir isnt good damager in early game, but if you play vs another scaling pick or versus someone, who doesnt respect you a bit or dont know your powers and what you are capable of,you can actually easily kill him
- lvl 1, just go and place soldier at enemy range minions and farm them , push the first lane so you will gain lvl 2 faster, so you can more easily pull off thunderlord proc in relative save situation, because your enemy will not want to trade lvl 1 vs lvl 2 and also will try to focus on minion farming, because you are just pushing the lane
- keep farming, poking and thunderlord procing in all moments you can and if enemy falls to like 30-40% hp, you can actually delete them, but be carefull and play it around your thunderlord proc,which can increase your changes of deleting an enemy, you can drift into enemy,applying QE damage + AA, which does some good burst and procs thunderlord, which can lead to enemy´s death if hes around 30-40% hp, but be carefull about doing this to a mobile enemy like katarina/fizz, because they can dodge it and then punish you, because you use all your cooldowns and you gap close INTO them, which leaves you vulnerable if you fail and lets enemy rape you , you can also wait for your lvl 6 to add some extra burst with ultimate, but keep in mind that ultimate of your opponent may be stronger than yours or give him some more outplay potential, viz Ahris ultimate

- Nothing much to say, if you feel like you can do some plays around the map,especially on bot lane,because there are 2 players to kill, you can go there and get some kills for you or your AD carry, I suggest you not doing this before getting level 6 ( of course, if enemy lane stays there with 10% hp, why wouldnt you just go and farm them,heh? ).
- You want to come to the bushes without being detected by an enemy team and then just pull good drift into shuffle, which resuls in awesome shurima shuffle and 3V2 fight, which often ends in enemy death or at least you burn their summoners and can come again,while they wont have it, which is very profitable for your team

- In teamfights, you want to stay behind your team and attack everything that gets in your range, even tanks, but you of course prefer to eat their carries and fed champs.
- You can also go YOLO and try to initiate the fight with The Shurima shuffle, but it can be really risky if you fail
- If you dont feel like this is good time to engage with one of your combos, just stay behind and attack the enemy, when the enemy team will start to retreat, because they know they will lose the fight, you can drift into them, shuffle them and destroy them. If you are losing the fight,you can drift to them,ult them away and just retreat with your own team though.
- You can play more aggresive,when you have your E ready, but when your E is on cooldown,i suggest you playing more safely, because you wont have any escape ability ( exluding ult and flash ) to survive, because their assasins will try to eat you, so you need to positionate safely, if you dont have some escape/selfpeel thing ready

I will write things here,which I am planning to add
- Top lane match ups ( i need to play top lane Azir a bit more to make really good decision about that match up , I will hopefully add this section soon )

Thank you alot for reading my guide, as I said, this is my first guide and if it will become at least a bit popular, i will keep it updated and try to answer all your question, if you want to know anything,just ask me in comments and i will reply you, id like to help my brother/sister Azir mains to grow their skills in playing our glorious emperor. I would also appreciate criticism, because i really want to improve this guide as much as I can,so if you know about something, which would make this guide better, let me know :)
Thank you all for reading and GLHF in learning&playing and stomping enemies with our pigeon