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Ahri is a skill based matchup. She can kite you but you have to play between her ult casts. You have to be very fast too. In an ideal situation she will waste her E to try to trade with you. Make sure you dodge this and immediately punish her for missing it. It has a fairly long cooldown so you could get at most 2 Q's in poke before her E is ready again. As far as all-ins it really depends on the both players skill. If shes a knowledgeable Ahri then once you ult her she will fire her E behind her and it will charm you then she will ult and murder you since your combo is screwed up. however if she is 60% hp or less and misses her charm then that should mean death for her. You will ult her then she will instantly ult away from you then you try to fire your Q at her position then try to follow her with your W and just keep trying to slip abilities in while she tries to kite. If your fast enough and you aim well you can get all your combo off on her. This is why I call this a skill matchup.
Akali
Akali is very easy for me. When she shrouds you can easily just sit back and Q her in the face if she ever throws a Q at you. Just wait out the shroud and when it is down she is very easy to kill. she can not escape you unless she flashes and if she does just follow her with your W.
Anivia
Anivia can poke you a lot. Her egg will cock block your combo. Her wall is basically useless other than just blocking your escape. You can W or ult over it very easily. Try not to fight her in her ult circle if it is possible obviously. Try to get a gank to kill her for sure.
Annie
This champion in the mid is broken. If you die to her early you will never kill her and she will just run around and 1 shot everyone whenever her low cd ult is off cd. Call me a noob but I always find Annie hard to out trade her early in the game. She will not use her W unless she Q stuns you can that thing is pretty good range and lock on. She scales absurdly high (trust me I play Annie support a lot). She will start running around and 1 shotting people and be deceptively tanky after buying only a RoA. I can not give too much info aside from Close the client when she pops up in champ select. Call me a noob but you have your opinions and I have mine.
Azir
This guy pokes so much. I have been doing this matchup a lot recently (thanks LCS) and it is always a pain. He will never engage you 1v1 because he is not that kind of duelist champ. If your enemy is engaging on your 1v1 to try and cheese he will fail in 1 shotting you then you have an opportunity to retaliate. However you can not engage on him with his ult ready. Early game, you can pretty much ignore his soldier damage but once he gets 3 levels in it then you have to try to avoid it. Unlike Annie, Azir is squishy but he is a bit tougher to get your hands on.
Brand
His W poke is hard to dodge if he puts it right on top of you. Buy boots early to avoid his W easily. Brand was riots response to Annie dominating the game meta. You can treat him the same but Brand is much easier for Zed to handle.
It is just a dodging poke lane. His ult is pitiful against just 1 target. However hex or merc treads are needed early game.
Cassiopeia
This champion is broken. I feel the same about Cass as I do Annie. You die to her once and its impossible to get back on your feet. You will probably need a gank at that point. Cass is vulnerable to ganks unless you both get caught in her ult. She will have to choose one of you at that point. However if you can predict and disjoint her ult with your own ult then you will have not been stunned and taken no damage and can have your way with her.
Cho'Gath
True counter to Zed. Point blank, wide cone, instantly, really long silence that also does a decent amount of damage, which is also on a fairly low CD makes you useless and you can not even retaliate. If he lands his Q on you he will follow up with his silence 90% of the time and silence you and you can not fight back. If you ult him he will just eat you and you die. Hes a tanky mid with an unhealthy amount of burst and an easy kit to use. Like really. You can not kill him and he can poke you all day long.
Diana
This is a burst contest honestly. And you fight that with a hexdrinker. You do not NEED merc treads because her CC is not significant enough to really disable you. Just dodge her Qs and poke her. If she shields your poke just trade and come out on top. Her shield is incredibly important for her.
Ekko
I have not played this much but I can give some general tips for fighting this guy. You should keep track of the direction he is facing when he casts his W. This will indicate that the circle slow/stun zone will appear somewhere in front of where he was facing when he cast it. Avoid that general area. This can be difficult because the spawned circle is insanely huge. Keep your distance away from his clone but do not stray too far away from it. If you do he can use it easily as an escape. He may build zhonyas but who knows. His ult will just ruin your ult with basically 100% effectiveness Its LIKE kayles ult but way better. They riot really needs update older champs *cough* varus passive *cough*
Fizz
This is a skill matchup. This is also a poke and punish lane. You both have equal capacity to punish and outplay eachother. However fizz has to commit more to trade with you. He can stop your ult by blocking the mark application with his playful trickster. However you can also dodge his ult with your own ult. However; if you do get your ult off on him he cannot block the damage from your ult if he tries to use his E to block it.
Galio
He pokes a lot but his escape is crap and his passive becomes somewhat useless however he still may build athenes anyways. His ult no longer can be countered by tenacity so getting ganked is painful. Defend your lane and poke him.
Heimerdinger
this guy is so annoying. Chances are he can not aim any of his abilities but he does not need to be able to aim his Q to completely rape you. The cardinal rule of fighting heimderdinger is that he cannot agress onto you. He capitalizes on your aggression. It is amazing how the people that play the champion with the biggest brain also have the smallest ones. They use the same old tricks. Rush zhonyas, blindly dump their abilities, spawn big turret and sit in zhonyas and run around in circles after zhonyas fades. You can not effectively poke down his turrets if you are not ahead. He can place them twice as much as you destroy them and to almost no cost to you. While your trying to Q down his turrets he will just throw abilities at you while you try and you will take too much poke. Ignore the turrets and just focus on poking him. By far the best way to deal with him is to get a jungler gank and make the jungler smite the big cannon then a couple auto attacks later it will die and he will just be crying and running away silly.
Karthus
He pokes a lot and dies to you just as much. His wall sets up his Qs and traps you in his damage field. Just cheese him and back off. buy a hexdrinker then win lane.
Kassadin
I have not played against the new kass but what I can say is he is basically how he was before but does damage slightly differently. Just poke him and prevent him from proccing his W on you. He will oom pretty quick if he tries to outpoke you while not cashing out on his W a lot. I GUESS.
Katarina
Burst competition. However you can avoid part of her ult with your own ult. Hexdrinker.
Kayle
What she lacks in damage early she makes up for her stupid ult. If shes retarded she will ult immediately after you ult her thinking it will prevent some deathmark damage instead of ulting to block the whole deathmark. But her ult does not make her untargetable.
Kog'Maw
I have not dealt with this matchup but I know his early game is pretty garbage. Late game prey on him how you usually do. He will be damaging your allies more than you.
LeBlanc
Her damage is really easy to deliver and hard to counterplay. She can just W you for more damage than you will deal back with a WQ combo. If she QW's it does even more damage. Shes a noob champ. I played her when I first started this game and I stomped every game same as riven.
Lissandra
Bah hes like ekko and kayle mixed. She slows, pokes easily, and poops on your ult.
Lulu
She constantly annoys and pokes and shields and runs away. Get a gank with some strong mobility and CC. Her damage is far from enough to burst you but she will whittle you down
Lux
Lux places a wall of defenses up with her snaring Q and slowing E but once you get in her face she can be played with a bit. Just punish a missed Q and grab merc treads.
Malzahar
A QSS will stop his damage and early in the game he cant 100-0 you with his damage combo unless he gets a gank. Defend your lane and ask for ganks but do not stop poking him and be wary to not stand next to minions when it dies with his space aids on it. His Q just pokes and it does not silence anymore. QSS is preferred but merc treads is OK but not nearly as good.
Morgana
Pretty silly lane. Buy merc treads and she will buy zhonyas. Kill her early. Dodge. W to escape her ult if you HAVE to. If you ult her she will probably ult in return then get try to W in a strange direction to break the chain then continue your combo. Shes a pretty easy kill aside from the fact she buys zhonyas almost first item.
Nidalee
Soooooo easy. When I play this matchup I intentionally eat her spears and hopes she all-ins me so I can murder her. She will spear you then try to pounce on her. Ult her pounce use your burst combo but stick close in case she heals and tries to survive. Ez lane. She should respect your ability to murder her face. She requires a jungler with hard CC and if a jungler comes to kill you and they do not have hard CC just W away and spam laugh because they can do nothing about it.
Orianna
In a perfect world you sill disjoint her ult with your own. Her poke range is quite a bit lower than yours. She can not 100-0 you with a single combo. Try to poke her down faster than she pokes you then all-in her.
Riven
I have not done this matchup but I imagine maxing E would be fine if you try to fight her if not just max Q like normal and farm. Yeeeh actually just max Q and farm she will out trade you at every phase of the game. Fighters counter assassins for good reasons.
Syndra
You can poop on her ult with your own ult. Merc treads are needed because her stun is really stupid and it sets up everything for her. She pokes hard too but shes so squishy with no mobility. Treat her like kog'maw.
Talon
If you buy the tier 3 trinket then fighting this guy would be pretty dang easy. You outdamage him and he cant escape. Your poke does more than his early in the game as well.
Twisted Fate
Kill him when his W is down. That is basically all he can do aside from poking you. He can not even ult away to survive, your death mark will still pop on him.
Veigar
Do people still play this guy? What?
Vel'Koz
He pokes a lot but hes all bark and no bite. He is just like Lux. I am not sure how his E is effected by tenacity though.
Viktor
If he gets an early kill he could burst you and poke you but you should just try to get off your burst combo as fast a s possible and use a clone to escape because once you ult him he will place his zone down and you have 1.5 seconds to burst combo him before you get stuck in it and you get analed.
Vladimir
His pool will stop your death mark application but not the damage it deals at the end. You poke more and all-in better. Buy a hexdrinker.
Xerath
With his rework he replaced Ziggs as the main siege machine. And then azir promptly replaced Xerath once pros learned how to play him. I would suggest buying merc treads and getting ganks. He is really annoying. He will poke you non stop and the only time he auto attacks is when he is trying to proc his passive or last hit a minion.
Yasuo
I suggest you maxing E in this matchup. If hes the normal Yasuo he will he aggressive as all hell and it will just be a fight lane. Constantly fighting unless he is afraid and you zone him. pop his shield every time it comes up with a Q so he never has a true advantage if a trade happens.
Zed
Treat it as any other mirror match. Get help and buy ninja tabi if you really want to.
Ziggs
Pretty easy lane. If he knows what hes doing he will try to land the bomb on the minions and the splash will hit you making it almost impossible to avoid. Just stand away from minions so if he wants to push he hits only the minions and if he wants to poke he will only hit you or you can dodge it. His W is kind of a crappy escape if you can work with it.
Zyra
A lot of damage at all phases of the game and a little bit of CC. It is hard to punish her when her E is on cd because she can Q with seeds and just make up for the loss of the E ability. This will force you to just all-in her or run away and get poked in the butt while it happens.
My IGN is Surprise Fatty. I main ADC, jungle, and top. I am currently looking for a duo partner or ranked 5s teams. But I will not plug that here. I am gold 5 currently and I am not really looking to climb but I would rather have a good and serious time rather than troll around. I do not play ARAM or treeline. Straight Riftin' it.
The armor pen will leave them at a pitiful amount of armor early in the game and makes every point of AD you purchase go even that much farther. High armor pen along with BoRK is also sexy. It will also negate a cloth armor if they decide to try and mitigate your damage by going armguard first. Your passive also makes last hitting a breeze so the extra AD is not needed. You may think its weird but once you hit someone with a Q you will join the club. I consider this standard on all AD assassins.
If your confident in your play you can go ArmPen quints instead of AD quints.
Masteries
Masteries
Offensive Tree:
-Double-Edged Sword: Your job is to kill stuff.
-Sorcery: Usually 4/4 unless you prefer the Butcher+Feast combo then you can go 2/4 in sorcery. But I do not suggest that. Last hitting should not be a problem with your passive and that extra 2 damage will not matter at all.
-Brute Force: Your abilities scale AD.
-Spell Weaving: Your auto attacks will apply a debuff causing +1% damage dealt from your spells stacking 3 times for a total of 3%. This will increase the damage of your ult and helps you come out on top after extended trades.
-Martial Master: Your abilities scale AD.
-Executioner: Increases the damage you deal against targets below 20%/35%/50% health by 5%. This is a must. The last thing you want is to turn your back on your enemy who you think will die by your ult pop but lives with 10 hp. This ensures that your impressive display of mechanics that you obviously learned from this guide, does not turn into an embarrassing moment. It also is needed to unlock Dangerous Game.
-Blade Weaving: Damaging an enemy with a spell increases your basic attacks damage by 1% stacking 3 times. This is sick for adding more Death Mark damage with your passive.
-Warlord: I go 2/3 because you would have to take a point out of Devastating Strikes and we want that armor penetration. And by now you should know you build AD.
-Dangerous Game: Yeh i am sure everyone reading this has experienced the frustration with almost going 1 for 1 in a 1v1 fight but the enemy killed you first and barely survived your ignite because they received 2.5% of their max hp. Its amazing how often this kind of thing actually happens. You do not want any regrets now do you?
-Devastating Strikes: Armor pen is juicy on assassins.
-Havoc: Your job is to kill stuff.
Defensive Tree:
-Block: Helps with the annoying basic attack harass.
-Recovery: Helps for sustaining when forced under turret or getting poked. Only times you will really think about this mastery. Thank you recovery senpai.
-Unyielding: Helps with the annoying basic attack harass but is not limited to basic attacks like Block is. Grabbing this will give you a chill 4 reduced damage from champion basic attacks and 2 from every other instance of damage from champions. Next time you survive with 5 health. Thank this mastery.
-Juggernaut: 3% max health is really nice especially if your running the scaling hp seals. Again, thank this mastery if you survive with 5 health. In defensive tree we trust. Also there is no other good places to stash this point.
Matchup Explanation
Matchup Explanation
Most of these champs are in the yellow region. To me this means they are not really challenging or it is just a skill matchup. Some of the yellow matchups would be greens but they have something that can happen to screw you or tney can be a good, Vel'koz for example, and just wreck you or make it a harder lane.
For those matchups that are in green. That means their play cap is just not as high as yours or you just simply outclass them or counter them.
The red matchups are counter/nightmare lanes. Ones like Riven will take an experienced Zed to deal with a braindead Riven.
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