Overview

With the upcoming meta shifts, assassins are likely to be far more prevalent in the midlane than they have been throughout the recent patches. Regardless, this does not lower the importance of the mage class in the slightest. With their access to hard crowd control and their high scaling, consistent magic damage, mages will still have their place in many team compositions regardless of the upcoming assassin rework. However, not every mage performs the same from game to game. Picking the mage with the best tools for the job can make or break your ability to carry a game. While this can be tricky at times, splitting the various mage champions into four main categories- Control, Battle, Burst, and Artillery- can make it easier to narrow down which mage you should choose. However, there are a few mages that do not fit into these categories. These three mages, Ahri, Brand, and Twisted Fate, are the odd ones out when it comes to classifying the numerous mages.

Ahri

Ahri is classified, according to riot, as the only dedicated kite mage in the game. Her ability to output the majority of her damage while running away from the enemy team at full speed is unparalleled amongst other mages. Even Taliyah and Aurelion Sol, who would be close contenders for this title, are unable to reach the same level of slipperiness as a skilled Ahri. Due to the fact that Ahri has very low cast times on all of her abilities, low cooldowns, and mobility effects on two of her abilities, it can be difficult, if not impossible, to lock her down without catching her by surprise.

At the same time, Ahri has a unique kit that can fit into nearly any team composition. She functions as somewhat of a jack of all trades, with reasonably strong waveclear, a low cooldown form of crowd control, and the ability to leap into a fight and burst down a member of the enemy back line. She should never be the best choice to do any of these specific tasks, but her ability to do all of them reasonably well makes her one of the safest picks in the game. For example, if you are picking into an enemy team which is weak to strong poke damage, then Xerath or Ziggs would likely be a better pick than Ahri. However, if you do not know what the enemy team composition is or if you want to be able to fill any role your own team needs, then Ahri is one of the best mages you can choose.

Ahri is a champion with few outstanding strengths, but also lacking in outstanding weaknesses. She cannot match bursts with a burst mage, nor poke as well as a poke mage, nor support her team as well as a control mage. However, no other mage can match her overall mobility in a fight. In order to make full use of her damage, Ahri must take significant risks by closing in on the enemy team. However, she also tends to build only slightly defensive, which means that she will be killed near instantly if she is locked down. In order to maximize her potential, a skilled Ahri player will constantly be weaving in and out of a teamfight, staying just barely out of harm’s way while throwing a constant barrage of spells at the enemy.

Following her trend of being a jack of all trades, Ahri can build every ap item in the game and put it to use. Her build path can vary significantly depending on what the player wants to do with her, whether it be to burst a singular enemy, output constant damage, or help lock down and peel enemies for her team. However, the most common build path for Ahri is one that combines burst and constant damage, utilizing upwards of 30% cooldown reduction to throw a number of high damage spell rotations every fight. Morellonomicon and Zhonya’s Hourglass are almost always bought on Ahri, but all other items are considered situational.

Brand

If there could be a single word to describe Brand’s purpose, it would be ‘disintegrate’. Brand excels at one thing above all else- he does as much damage as possible to as many people as he can, regardless of what they build or how they try and deal with him. Enemies that jump on top of Brand, if they can not kill him instantly, are prone to being burned to ash by Brand as he unleashes his basic combination of damage on them. However, enemies that do not jump on Brand are not safe either, as Brand can throw numerous, high damage spells at them from a respectable distance. He is closest to fitting into the category of poke mages, but he has too little range to be considered a true poke mage. Instead of range, Brand commits fully to burning the entire enemy team to a crisp from a mid distance.

Against a Brand, even your own team members can be used as weapons against you. There is nothing a Brand loves more than a team that clusters together, as his passive and ultimate actually work best against a clumped up team. The closer the enemy is to one another, the faster Brand can kill all of them. Four of his five spells (counting his passive) have the potential to do area of effect damage, and three of these four spells have extremely high damage capabilities. Since he will rarely build cooldown reduction early on, if at all, the best situation for him is when he can land a single rotation of his spells on multiple enemies.

Brand works best in concert with teams who can clump enemies up for him or who can peel assassins away and give him the time to unleash multiple rotations of his spells. One of the most frightening combinations I have had to play against was Jarvan, Orianna, and Brand. With Orianna clumping enemies together and Jarvan locking them down, Brand would disintegrate anybody who was caught with a single rotation of his spells, whether they were tanks, squishies, or a combination of both.

Itemization on Brand takes full advantage of his dot passive, which allows Rylai’s and Liandry’s to be effective over a four second period after he lands a spell. The stacking max health burn from his passive, combined with the double effectiveness current health damage from the Liandry’s and Rylai’s synergistic combination, can quickly drop enemy health bars from even a single ability. Other than those two core items, Brand will usually build anything that allows him to do even more damage with a single combination. Sorcerer’s shoes, Rabadon’s, and Void staff are some of the best items for this, but not always considered core. In situations where Brand needs even more survivability than is granted by the health bonuses from his two core items, he is also free to build somewhat more defensively.

Twisted Fate

Twisted Fate, if I were to give him a classification, would be a dedicated pick mage. His ability to roam the map or to quickly stun priority targets is his strongest point, especially during laning phase. A good Twisted Fate player will know how to shove his wave out as fast as possible, then use his ultimate to quickly teleport in behind the bot or top lanes for a quick kill or two. Once Twisted Fate reaches level 6, he will rarely be in lane when his ultimate is up, instead roaming the map to make as many picks as possible. In order to facilitate his roaming potential, he has strong waveclear and extra gold generation from his passive, allowing him to keep up with or outpace the enemy mid laner, even if the enemy does nothing but farm and shove the wave.

Twisted Fate, thanks to his low cooldown, targetable stun and very high damage, is one of the strongest scaling mages in the game. His ultimate gives him vision on all enemy champions across the map and allows him to pick off stragglers or separated enemies, as well as get the flank on an unsuspecting team during a teamfight. If the game goes on long enough, Twisted Fate can systematically eliminate your entire team one by one under the right circumstances. However, his laning phase, when it comes to fighting 1v1 in the midlane, is somewhat lackluster. Instead of solo killing his lane opponent, Twisted Fate will generally snowball a huge lead for his team through constant roaming in concert with his jungler, getting both himself and his lanes ahead as quickly as possible.

Even though Zyra escaped from the teamfight with her life, Twisted Fate can easily pick her off with his ultimate.

On the other hand, Twisted Fate is prone to being quickly assassinated, and can have a relatively weak mid game. He has no defensive spells or quickly accessible self-peel, and relies entirely on proper positioning to stay alive, much like a poke mage. Unlike a poke mage, however, Twisted Fate is required to come to a somewhat close range in order to make use of the majority of his damage. Many Twisted Fates take the summoner spell Ghost in order to offset these problems with his kit, allowing him to outrun anybody who tries to chase him down, or close in on and chase down enemies with ease.

Twisted Fate is, quite possibly, the most common user of the item Lich Bane, as it increases his burst potential by a huge amount. Since his basic combination consists of multiple auto attacks as it is, lich bane does not force him to alter his playstyle the same way it would with many other mages. In addition, the extra movement speed it gives Twisted Fate is crucial, since he relies on precise distancing and dodging of enemy skillshots in order to stay alive. After lich bane, the next most important item for Twisted Fate is Zhonya’s, which allows him to get a flank on the enemy team with his ultimate without fear of instantly dying after throwing his basic combo. Zhonya’s can give his team the chance to catch up after Twisted Fate’s flank.

Conclusion

These three mages each serve a unique role in team compositions, completely different to the roles filled by the four usual classifications. Ahri is a jack of all trades who can fit into any team composition, Brand can near singlehandedly burn an enemy team to ashes, and Twisted Fate is one of the strongest roaming mages in the game. For those who don’t feel like the four regular types of mages quite fit their playstyle, these three out of the ordinary mages can be an excellent choice.

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