Once, no more than just a mere blinded man, he gave his sight to Shurima. His hubris was not unanswered though. Raised to become a demi-god and an emporer of the sands by the gods themselves, Azir has vowed to raise Shurima from the sands. He will bring Shurima back to its original pinnacle of power and restore its former glory.

Azir Introduction

Now you might be saying to yourself, if Azir is so powerful and awesome, why is he not played as much by professional teams?? Or even, if Azir is so strong why is it that he has such a low win rate in ranked play on Summoner's Rift? The answer is simple. His power is not felt until the mid and late game. For many teams, Azir does not pack enough punch that some other mid laners do in the early stages of the game and does not fit in the style of the meta since most games are practically won in the first 10-20 minutes of the game. Azir can not match up to the damage and mobility Ahri can bring to a team fight at level 6 or even come close to the amount the burst damage a Chogath can do at level 6.

Azir is simply a low to medium amount of damage dealer in the early stages of the game, around level 6. The best Azir has to offer to a team in the early game is seperating a team fight to maybe get a kill or two while he divides the team with Emporer's Divide. Now if the team fight can be sustained and be drawn out, Azir can shine, dealing consistant damage throughout the fight. But, that being said, most team fights that happen in the early game are usually decided in the first 5 seconds. Someone being picked, being caught out or simply enough, being fully engaged upon. His Sand Soldiers tickle beefy junglers and bruiser type champions until he has two items or more. This is why teams who do decide to pick Azir have to play a slower paced early game to allow azir to farm. Reacting to what the enemy team is doing and trying to survive the early game pressure. If you allow based god Azir to farm until mid game, which he is one of the best to do so, then the enemy team will have a true menace to reckon with.

Azir is not by any means a champion that you can just decide to play for the first time and expect to go 15-1-9 on. His power level is indeed over 9000, (measured by dragon ball z scouters, not made up) if played optimally. You need to play with him for numerous hours to learn how to position oneself and learn the strengths and weakness' like any other champion to expect positive results . There will be failures and herp derp moments, but you will have to take it all as a learning experience to harness such powers. Like what Ben Parker said in Spider-Man, with great powers come great responsabilites. The quote matches Azir to the T. He has unbelievable power, but one small mistake can turn you into a roasted pheasent and throw the whole game away.

Azir's Abilities

Passive - Disc of the Sun

Azir's passive is a stronger version of Heimerdonger's mini turret. With more health and packing way more of a punch, its comparable to a Floyd Mayweather punch to a Mike Tyson punch. Except digitally. The passive allows you to command the base of a dead turret to rise and become a totem of death ready to fend off creeps and enemy champions. This passive does not work on enemy inhibitor turrets or nexus turrets, keep this in mind! The one issue with this ability is that you need a dead turret to use it on, which is kind of a wasted ability in the early game, unless of course your team is stomping or you yourself is the one receiving the stomp, then in that case the ability is some what of a waste.

Come mid-game though this tower becomes a 6th teammate for pushing towers down. It gives your team something to fall back too if the enemy teams decide "you know what, im six of them sieging our turret pushing us around, lets engage." This tower is kind of like a no tag zone. But instead of protecting you from being 'it', it protects you from being 'dead'. The tower really puts a fearful mindset to the enemy team, installing a, wait wait wait, they have a turret, lets back off kind of mentality. Stopping flanks is also a huge boost of moral the tower brings to your team and yourself if you are alone in lane. Unless of course there is two people looking to cook up some bird for dinner, then you need to fly away. A huge bonus this free tower brings is the fact that if it kills a creep or an enemy champion, it gives you the gold as if you killed it yourself. Using the tower is help cs is a great use for it. But its true potentiol is the pushing power it can bring to your team.

Second Passive - Will of the Emporer

Azir scales off of CDR more just you would think. Sure it helps with his abilites but he also gains 1.25% attack speed for every 1% CDR. The more attackspeed you have the faster your soldiers will be attacking!

Q Ability - Conquering Sands

This will be the first ability you will be maxing on Azir. This ability is synonymous to throwing a dagger through the enemy champions. With this ability you order an already existing Sand Soldier to the area to direct them too while dealing and damage and slowing enemies in its path. This is your best poking ability. I can not overstate the importance it is to try and land your q everytime you are using it offensively in the laning phase. It is a significant amount of your damage. Maybe those Sand Soldier's auto attacks tickle the bruiser type champions but this ability will send shock treatment to them via sand soldier.

W Ability - Arise!

What kind of an emporer would Azir be without obedient soldiers to do his bidding. And you know when Riot themselves puts an explanation mark in the ability you know it has to be good! You have to put your first point into this ability to be able to use your other abilities. When using this ability, you call forth a Sand soldier to spawn at your cursor, it is a short range from where you stand though. Arise! can have 2 charges of soldiers ready for your disposal but it does take a few seconds to recharge. This is truely Azir's bread and butter ability. None of his other abilities work without having a sand soldier present on the field of battle. When you spawn this Soldier, he can use his auto attacks in place of yours. Your auto attack is basically Azir pointing at which target he wants the sand soldier to attack without having to mess up his nails. Now auto attacking with the Sand Soldiers is not easy at first, it does take practice with it to auto attack efficiently.

When you first spawn a Sand Soldier he has a small circle around him. The soldier can attack anyone in that circle if you are in range of the Sand Soldier yourself which is a decent lengths away. You can auto-attack an enemy champion while they are under tower without having the tower shoot at you! AWESOME RIGHT?! Sometimes no... While being under a tower the minions diminish twice as fast. If you need to push towers or your mid laner roamed bottom or top while you were mid, you can push your wave with your sand soldiers and then, while at the enemy tower, use this ability on the tower to deal 0(+44% of your ability power).

In the early game in most occasions you can at most have 2 soldiers up at a given time. But with his one or two item and level increase, you can have 3 up which can cause devastating damage to grouped up enemies. If the enemy is in range of 2 soldiers and you order an attack on the enemy, both soldiers will attack, diminishing damage for the soldiers past the first striking soldier. Having 3 soldiers up while casting Q and an auto attack is as equally painful as stepping on a lego for the enemy team.

You will be maxing this ability second in almost every game, no real reason not to max e instead of W since more soldiers=more damage.

E Ability - Shifting Sands

Shifting Sands ability is what seperate the poorly played, well played and challenger esque Azir's. This ability allows Azir to dash to an already existant Sand Soldier on the field. The important part of this ability is that if you have two Sand Soldiers up at once, you will need to put your cursor towards the one you want to dash with. This mistake can cause a facepalm moment. My sister would have thought I was making a V8 commercial with the amount of times I made this mistake the first few games I played with him.

Using this ability in the means of escape or engage can sometimes mean life or death and win or loss. This ability is a great escape mechanic, throwing a sand soldier over a wall and using E to hop the wall to avoid danger. Or simply a larger side step for dodging a projectile ability. In example, Sejuani's R. But this ability can also be a great engage mechanic. When you dash to a sand soldier and there is an enemy champion in the middle of your dashing path, it will knock the enemy champion in the air, dealing damage and giving you a significant shield for a short period of time.

The amount of skill it takes to play this champion is very dependent on this very ability. Split second decision making and proper use of mechanics can push the scale in your favor for victory. But also, if used poorly, can throw the game just as fast.

R Ultimate Ability - Emperor's Divide

Azir ultimate is very unique, no other ultimate is similar to it in the game. You may summon a wall of Soldiers to push back enemies dealing damage and not allowing enemy teams to walk or dash through them. They last for 5/6/7 seconds depending on the level of the ultimate. Enemy champions MAY flash over the wall though, leaving your strut back to safety into utter disappointment, or simply losing a caught fish! While enemies can not pass through the wall, Allies can move through the wall and gain a 20% movement speed for 1 second while passing through it. This is a great zoning ability for team fights. You can split up a team with this ability or prevent a dive from happening. If you feel like you have the upperhand on an enemy, you can even use it to try and deal fatal damage to the enemy. Many Azir players disregard the fact that this ultimate deals a decent amount of damage.

Using this ability is tricky sometimes. The ability is started on your back. You can drag an enemy that is almost right on top of you, even just a slight bit behind you with the wall. It is tricky to get the feel for how far they can be from the your back to get them caught up in the ultimate, but you will soon get the hang of it with a bit of practice.

Azir's Strengths

Now that we have the general idea of how his abilities work, we can now look at the strengths Azir has in the mid-lane. In the early game he can farm farely easily and safely due to his Arise! ability. You can summon soldiers and step back to safety while letting them auto attack for you. This allows for azir a somewhat safe laning phase. But this does not mean you can play aggresive. You may position your soldiers to a spot that can hit the enemy champion, you will want to try and get to level 2 as quickly as possible so you can use your q ability to cause damage to the enemy champion and auto attack where they stand. His poke in laning phase is significantly strong compared to some champions, the accuracy of his Q makes it easy to land. Not so much a skillshot, more as a killshot! This gives Azir a very strong laning phase, allowing him to push lanes quickly while at the same time poking the enemy champion out of lane.

- Azir has some of the best zone control in the game. If you do not want enemies to come through a specific spot, most likely a dragon choke, you can set up soldiers, use q, and watch the enemy run away in fear. If that does not work and they continue to bull rush into Azir his ultimate stops them in their tracks. He can seperate flanks and engage full steam ahead while the flankers are stuck behind Azir's wall.

- Azir's mid and late game is deadly. He can set up sieges stronger then xerath. At the late game it is easy for him to have 3 soldiers up at a time ready to auto attack anyone that is willing to defend a turret and is ready to Q the enemy like a pig on a spit.

- His 1v1 outplay is unreal. If you play Azir decently there is not one champion that has an edge on you. You can always come out on top in a 1v1. Unless the champion has an item or two on you, try and always look for outplays.

- Azir's mobility surpasses most. With his E ability, he can hop walls no problem, if you combine a Q after you use E there are even some spots that you can jump 2 walls. Surreal.

- Azir is one of the highest skill capped champions as a whole.

Azir's Weaknesses

Now with so many strengths, there is undoubtably some weaknesses.

- Azir is very vulnerable to CC. If the enemy team has good CC and is able to use it on azir, you can kiss your sorry self buh-bye. You are very squishy as a mage. With CC, it prevents Azir's mobility nullified and use of his ultimate.

- When Azir gets behind in a game, you might as well chop his head off because he is like a chicken with his head cut off. His damage falls off to snowballing enemy teams. They start to think your soldiers as nats. Just annoying creatures ready to get swatted. It is very easy to throw a game with Azir.

- In the early game, it is very easy for an assasin type champion such as fizz or talon to just stomp you at level 6. Don't be suprised if you get bursted 100-0 against assasin esque champions. With the resurface of champions like talon, it will be very hard to stay alive long enough to use your abilities.

- If you use your E to engage the enemy team, there is almost no turning back. It is either you go full out and go ham, or you just flop. Overextending with Azir is a very common occurence

General information

When you first choose to start playing the god of mid lane himself, you may ask "Where do I start?" Broad yet wonderful question my fine sir. First you need to spend 6300 IP or if you pay to win 975 Riot points.

Then its time to make a Runepage

I myself run a standard page of runes, just like any other mid AP lane champion.

It is important to know that Azir's attack speed is based off of your cool down reduction. This is the reason I picked scaling cooldown reduction for my glyphs and not MR. Also because I'd rather have 15% cdr then 9 Magic resist in the late game.

Also, if you are not facing a zed or talon mid lane, I would always recommend going Health scaling seals. Since you have the range with your Sand Soldiers, you will not be getting too much benefit from armor since you will be too far away to be auto attacked anyways.

Then the normal Magic pen marks and of course AP quints.

Now it's onto the Masteries.

Standard Mid lane mage masteries. The only thing that may be questionable is the 3rd row in utility. Some people would rather want runic affinity instead of Culinary master. Some games junglers don't even consider giving me blues, so I always run culinary. You can choose whichever though!

Summoner Spells

Now this is where the champion can start to become tricky. These summoner spells are always difficult to choose. Of course you run flash, on F, because F is for flash. . But if the enemy team is having alot of CC you would want to take cleanse. Now if it is a channeled cc such as malzahar do not take cleanse. Take cleanse if you are facing possible a sejauni and ashe team. Or thresh ahri teams. You really need to avoid being locked down from the enemy team.

Now lets say you have an enemy team that does not have much cc, in this case I would take barrier over cleanse. I would never take ignite in any situation just because of the fact that you are almost always far back in fights, no where near the range to use the ignite safely. Barrier has saved my life numerous times on Azir, being flashed on and engaged upon. If you can survive the initial burst and create some space after, you are golden.

One last major decision you have to make before you get to lane with Azir, is whether or not you will buy flask + 3 pots or ring and 2 pots.

Usually I would take flask + 3 health pots. It is very easy to run out of mana while poking in the early game. Flask allows you to pressure the lane more then the ring would. But if you feel like you can get early kills on the mid laner, possibly with the help of the jungler, I would go ring. If you do not kill the mid laner with ring and run low on mana, you need to back asap or play passively since without mana, you are almost worthless.

Items to be bought

> Morellonomicon is always the first buy, it is a very cheap item and gives 20% CDR plus 80 ability power and 100% mana regen. The small little plus is when a target is below 40% health reduces heals and regeneration effects by 50%. Even if you are playing against an AP mid laner, I would always choose this item.

> Now since you will be running 15% CDR runes, on top of the 20% CDR from morellonomicon, and 3.75% from masteries, CDR boots are just wasted. Always go for the sorcerous boots unless you do not want to run the 15% CDR runes then I would recommend the CDR boots.

> This is always a staple center item for AP mids. If you get an early lead and have 1600g for a needlessly large rod, do not finish your sorcerous boots and buy the rod. Deathcap is always good on any mid laner. The flat AP and 30% increase total AP is damage on top of damage! I would usually get this item as my second core item.

> Luden's Echo is super powerful at this current state of the game. On top of Azir's already impressive poke damage, lets just add an extra 100(+15% ap) damage on top of that poke. This ability can chunk an adc out with just one Q and auto attack. This item is amazing for Azir and I highly recommend buying it.

> Void staff will be needed when the enemy team starts to buy MR items. Usually you can hold this off until very late into the game. Since this item is only needed for champions building MR, and our primary targets are usually mid laners and ADC's who are not building mr until the late game, you can bypass this until after your deathcap and luden's echo. Come mid too late game though, you will absolutely need this item.

> Zhonya's hourglass is a very important item in certain matchups. For matchups against assasins you would definitely want to buy this as your second item. But if there is no assasins, then you can hold off on buying this item for last. If you feel like you over extended and are neck deep in doo doo (aka enemy champions) pop this sucker and pray to god your allies are there to help you out.

> Now I thought I would bring up this beautiful item just to smash it to the ground. This item is not good on Azir. The flow of this item just does not fit Azir. If you die in a fight, and your guardian angel is popped. You will most likely die without having it do any good again. You can not do much after you ressurect from the dead with guardian angel. Your positioning is probably bad, and are in no shape to use your abilities offensively. You are in usually a state of run the hell away. Now it's not always a bad item, but for the most part, Zhonyas hourglass will always be superior.

Skill Order

This is the basic guideline, but if you are feeling really aggresive, don't hesitate at level 3 to put another point into Q. It adds alot more poke damage. But this also puts you into alittle more danger to level 3 ganks, since you will not have an escape except for your flash. I almost do it every game no matter the situation. Just make sure to watch out for ganks.

Basic Combos

W + Q: This is your poking combo, summoning a sand soldier and then Q towards the enemy. After this combo onto the enemy champion you can auto attack for even more damage.

W + E: This combo is a small dash. A very quick dash at that, usually to be used over a wall or if someone engaged in your face and you want to knock him up and gain a small shield. I.E the dragon wall if you are on blue side to get out of the pit safely.

W + Q + E: This combo will be your basic long range escape. If you aren't comfortable with the next combo ( W>E>W ) this combo is similar but slower.

W + E + Q: This combo is one of the harder combos to perform. But is EXTREMELY useful. You will need to learn this combo to maximize Azir's potential. Summoners with high ping may never be able to do this combo due to the very short time you have to press Q after you press E. For a basis, I do this combo at 115 ping. RIP riot servers! Now with this combo, it is also A LOT easier to do it if you have some space between yourself and your sand soldier. It gives you just the slightless extra amount of time to Q. Higher pings might have to do this.

W + E + Q + R: This is sort of like the Lee Sin Insec except it catches everyone on the wall instead of 1 target. This combo deals an ABSURD amount of damage. With your Q hitting the enemy, your E connecting the knockup and giving you a sheild and to top it all off, the damage from your ultimate calls for an easy kill! (If landed properly) No enemy excepts this combo to come out and will almost always catch them off guard.

A great example of this is Easyhoons Azir solo-Q game at minute 12:00 Azir Insec combo

Early Game

Azir really can not solo kill a decent laner. There is not alot of damage that comes out of Azir that should be too suprising to the other mid laner. Usually Azir can win a lane by zoning our the other mid laner by harrassing him/her out of the lane with the w>q combo and sand soldier auto attacks. Do not be frustrated by this fact though! If your jungler decides to gank mid you can help the gank and try and earn the kill that way. Other then an early gank, kill pressure is not really there unless you land substantial amount of poke.

It is your job to keep the lane in the middle and keep farming until mid game. I can not stress this enough. YOU NEED TO FARM. Coming out of the early game is the biggest difficulty for an Azir players. You can not get too behind in lane or your enemy laner will be roaming while you are farming, killing your other lanes coming back even stronger. It is very important to keep some pressure if not a lot of pressure on your enemy. Lining up your sand soldiers correctly can be a huge bonus for lane pushing. Position your sand soldier to the adjacent part of the casters/melee minions so everytime you attack with the soldier it clips all 3 of the respected creep. Allowing you to shove lanes very fast and pressuring roaming mid laners. Do not be afraid to use Q as just a wave clear ability. If you want to go back and buy because of low mana, use the 3 creep attack technique and use q to really shove the wave out. If the enemy mid jungler keeps roaming, push that tower down. Put the pressure on the other mid laner to do something while she leaves lane. If he/she can not convert her time to other lanes, it's time wasted for her, while you get ahead in creeps and towers.

Try and not over extend in lane and ward your side lane. Overextending will force you to use your mobility combo w>e or if you are really over extended w>q>e which costs way to much mana to be running away. Ward one side of the river and hug that side. Also, if your jungler is trying to gain river control, you can sneak yourself on that side of the river since if a gank does come, you have back up close by.

Mid Game

Tower pushing!

You as a champion excel at pushing tower down. It is your goal in the mid game to try and stay grouped as a team or with 4 and try and push some towers down. Your extra damage on towers with W makes you a force to be reckoned with. Tower sieging and poking is what you aim to do. Poke the enemy down as much as possible while staying a safe distance away. If you have back up you can always play a bit more greedy. While pushing towers down it's very important to have your passive up for the tower that is dead behind you. It may seem like a small bonus to have, but that tower can really turn an enemy team off from full on engaging and chasing you down from sieging towers.

Roaming!

Azir is a very capable roamer in the mid game. It is somewhat easy to make ganks succesful with the mobility the champion has. With roaming though, you have to make sure you do not over roam. You still need to get farm. If a roam is unsuccesful, it's pretty detrimental to your mana pool and gold intake. Roaming is part of the learning process and will have to learn what is right and wrong with roaming with practice!

Dragon and Baron control!

Azir is one of the best zone controlling champions as stated before. He can control chokes and dictate where and when enemies can go through certain areas. His DPS is also absurdly high compared to other mid laners. Summoning 2-3 sand soldiers will burn that dragon/baron down in no time. With Azir you really want to abuse his power around objectives. Ping like crazy to your team to maintain dragon/baron control. It is a team effort and with a bit of a front line, Azir can do wonderful things.

Late Game

Azir's power will be felt once he gets all of his items completed. One Q to the adc and he/she will be chunked. Not to include the fact that the Q you casted could have 2-3 sand soldiers following it due to the 40% CDR you have. Having 2-3 soldiers out at any given time should be no problem. The mana does not become a huge issue in the late game, and every blue buff should be going your way. If you have hourglass, this is when you can start making plays happen. Trying to use the insec play on the enemy team and devestate them. Right when you insec zhonyas and hope your team capitalizes.

Make sure your team is on the same page though. One bad engage in the late game can mean a throw and a big fat L on your match history. Azir is a very sensative champion. Make sure you don't go too balls to the wall with him. Simple poking and auto attacks can be just fine in most situations. You do not always have to be the hero.

Enemy Mid Laners~

Difficulty 5/5 - Ahri is very mobile and has a high amount of sustain in lane. You can not poke her out of lane easily. Her spell vamp on her Q will allow her to stay in lane for long periods of time. She can also poke you out of lane very easily with the low cost mana on her Q. Try not to 1v1 her, she will be running ignite and a well casted charm can mean death for you. After level 6 it only becomes harder. Going even with her in lane is a feat in itself.

Difficulty 5/5 - Cassiopeia is a well rounded champion and has been seeing more gameplay ever since MSI. She is a huge bully in lane and can push you out of the lane in 1 Q and a couple of her fangs. When facing her you have to keep your distance while not being hit by her Q. If she lands a Q on you and some fangs early in the laning phase. You are in ALOT of trouble. If you are even a little bit away from your turret she can all in you with a single Q ignite and spamming twin fangs. *DANGER*

Difficulty 2/5 - Chogath is not a very big threat. Sure you will not be able to kill him but he will not be able to kill you. In this lane make sure you dont get hit by his feral scream too much. Your poke will consist of auto attacks, not as much of your Q. This is a farming lane. At level 6, you will need to make sure he can't get his full combo off on you or you have the risk of dying. Azir does not have kill threat in this lane, stick to pushing the lane and forcing him to use his abilites on the way to CS.

Difficulty 4/5 - Fizz, just like any assasin is difficult for Azir to handle. Fizz can get in your face and deal massive damage to you. At level 6, he can all in you very easily and snowball the rest of the game. Play very safe in this lane and try and poke him out of the lane before he can start trading with you. Always try and take the better trade. Always keep him pressured. There is potential for outplay at level 6.

Difficulty 3/5 - Another assasin, but Kassadin packs less of a punch then the other assasins in the early game, allowing you to snowball yourself faster then him. You can poke him out of the lane in the early game. Try and not let him use q on you too much, while allowing yourself to damage him with your Q and auto attack. Auto attacking him with your sand soldiers should be no problem, really abuse the fact that hes melee.

Difficulty 2/5 - Leblanc is very weak against Azir. She needs to get in close on Azir to use distortion, allowing her to be exposed to easy Q's and auto attacks. You can also combo and E on her easily when she distortions in on you. She also has very poor wave clear. She either has to decide if she wants to try and kill you or counter push. You can really abuse this and push the way over and over again. This will draw the attention to the enemy jungler though. So going slow with Leblanc is not bad either. Poking her is very easy and you can easily win the lane against her.

Difficulty 4/5 - Oh man is she good against Azir. She can push the lane in while harrassing you super easily. While you stop to auto attack she uses Q on you. She has a very good kit against Azir. You can not trade too well against Lux. She usually gets the upper edge with her shield and q/auto attack. try and stay behind your minions to avoid being locked down to her E cc. Any type of CC is awesome against Azir. Be very careful in this lane. At level 6, 1 full combo of q/auto/e/auto/r/ignite you are a goner. Really avoid the CC at all costs.

Difficulty 1/5 - Easy peezy lane. She is very susceptible to your poke. Even at level 6 she does not bring too much threat to you due to you being able to interupt her ultimate very easily. She will need a gank in order to kill you. Be weary of this fact. Avoing being too close to take her q repeatably.

Difficulty 4/5 - This guy is the master of assasins, he will go for a kill at level 6. Pre-6 his poke is very strong. He will be able to trade with you very effectively. Keep your distance while trying to cs. Avoid his shadow and q's. If you get close to his shadow he will jump to it and auto attack you. Be very cautious while laning aginst zed.

~!~Thanks for reading! POWER TO SHURIMA~!~