Mastering Kai'Sa - a League of Legends Guide with DIG Tomo
DIG’s own ADC Tomo sits with us to break down everything you need to know about League of Legends Void Marksman, Kai'Sa
Kai'Sa has become one of League of Legends’ poster Champion since her release. Her visual design combined with her unique gameplay makes her one of League’s most attractive Champions for players at all skill levels, and when you watch her in the hands of Pro’s, that only amplifies the hype that surrounds her.
Today we’re sitting with DIG’s own ADC and well-versed Kai'Sa player, Frank “Tomo” Lam, to talk about the most dynamic ADC in the meta right now. With him guiding us through every inch of Kai'Sa’s void-corrupted kit, we’re going to come out on the other side ready and able to take on all the Solo Queue has to offer.
Ability Breakdown for Kai'Sa
Kai'Sa’s passive is a big ole text block that we’ll discuss later. But, basically at certain AP, AD, and AS thresholds, her abilities evolve and gain extra effects. Additionally, her autos, allied immobilizing and polymorph effects, and some of her abilities apply Plasma to their targets. When Plasma stacks are maxed, Kai'Sa’s next attack against the target deals large amounts of magic damage to the target that scales with Kai’Sa’s AP and the target’s missing health.
Kai'Sa’s Q, Icathian Rain is her primary trading and wave clear tool. This ability releases missiles that target visible units dealing Attack Damage against them. When it’s evolved, the missile amount increases from six to twelve, doubling the effect.
Her Q is her wave-clear ability, but it's also great for trades. Walking up and casting Q and auto-attacking causes her to win almost any trade if the Q doesn’t have to split between Minions. Fighting when waves are thin or dueling away from Minions is a great way to maximize this.
Kai'Sa’s W, Void Seeker, is her poking tool. This ability fires a bolt from Kai'Sa that travels far and reveals the area that it courses through. When it collides with a target, it reveals them and applies two stacks of Plasma, the secondary effect of Kai’s passive. When this ability evolves, Plasma stacks increase from two to three, and the ability is refunded by 75% when it hits Champions.
Her W is her primary poke tool, but it’s also a burst tool. Since it applies stacks of her passive, as you trade with your opponent, you can use W to quickly cap her passive onto an enemy dealing a big amount of burst damage.
Her E, Supercharge, is her mobility and repositioning tool. When activated, Kai’Sa becomes ghosted and gains bonus movement speed. After this charge up, Kai'Sa gains attack speed based on her bonus attack speed, and it reduces the windup for her auto-animation. Evolving this ability causes the initial movement portion of her E to grant her invisibility.
Her E is primarily a repositioning tool, so use it to avoid big skillshots, kite back, or go aggro whenever your opponents are missing big spells and abilities.
Kai'Sa’s Ultimate, Killer Instinct, grants her a shield and dashes her to a target affected by her Plasma. Additionally, this ability counts as a auto-attack reset, so it can be used to sneak in more damage.
Her ultimate can be used as a reposition as well, but it’s important to remember that this reposition can happen around any target affected with her passive and you can do it in any direction around them, so you can get behind them, beside them, or even use it backwards if the enemy is close and you need to kite back. And her ult grants a shield too. All of these effects and their evolutions package Kai'Sa as one of the most fun Champions in League to pilot. She has a ton of playmaking potential with these tools, and she fits into most any situation.
Understanding Evolutions and Itemization on Kai'Sa
When it comes to Marksman in League of Legends, traditional Marksman are all about reaching item thresholds and buying items that allow their unavoidable right-click focused damage to be maximized. Kai'Sa adds a unique layer to this item chase since her abilities ‘evolve’ as she reaches certain Attack Damage, Attack Speed, and Ability Power thresholds. These evolutions enhance her abilities giving them that extra oomph she needs to become a 1v9 all-star.
Knowing Kai'Sa’s evolutions is probably the biggest aspect of her kit. More often than not, you’ll be maxing her Q in lane, as that’s your primary wave clear and trading tool. You’ll follow this up with either W or E depending on your build and what your role is in the team comp. So, depending on your build, your evolutions can come at different stages. If you’re going AP, your Q evolve might come pretty late, closer to level 9, when you pick up Pickaxe for your Rageblade. Sometimes this can come as late as level 12, depending on how fast the game is going. But, since we’re not maxing Q, we’re getting our W evolve fast and that happens as soon as you get Nashor’s. For your E, evolve, it requires either Berserker Boots or one dagger after Nashor’s. Of course, you can flip how fast you get your evolutions by which items you prioritize. Berserker’s early nets E evolve faster, same with Pickaxe for Q and so on.
We’ve touched on this lightly as we’ve talked about evolutions, but damage diversity is Kai'Sa’s next biggest strength. Depending on how her team drafts around her and the enemy composition, Kai'Sa can opt for AP, AD, or Hybrid builds to fit whatever situation she finds herself in.
For AP builds, first rush Statikk Shiv. This item grants Kai'Sa extra wave-clear alongside her Q allowing her to play even safer and reach her following item spikes. Then, you pick up Nashor’s which causes your W to fully evolve as Tomo mentioned. Afterwards, you can opt for Guinsoo’s or Luden’s depending on what is more viable into the enemy team. If you find yourself in tight duels more, Guinsoo’s is going to increase your personal dueling potential while also evolving your Q. Luden’s is going to double down on your poke and burst from W. This is a fine option if you’re the team's primary AP threat. Afterwards, you continue down with Rabadon’s and Zhonya’s to round your damage and survivability out.
For Hybrid builds, you follow the AP build path but fully focus on Guinsoo’s as your core Mythic Item. Thereafter, you go for traditional ADC items like Phantom Dancer, Lord Dominik’s, and Guardian Angel to increase your dueling and survivability.
For AD, your itemization becomes Kraken into Navori Quickblades with typical ADC items to round out the build, depending on what you need: Bloodthirster for sustain, Lord Dominik’s for tank shred, GA if you’re being hard focused by divers.
Oh, and let’s not forget boots. For AP, you’ll naturally be opting for Sorcerer’s Shoes for that extra magic penetration. For AD and Hybrid builds, you’ll be going for Berserker’s for that E evolution and extra attack speed.
Kai'Sa Lane Partners, Team Compositions, and Weak Matchups
I think Kai'Sa is pretty blindable into most situations, considering her builds and damage. She does pretty much everything that any other ADC can do, and she’s got her own quirks that can help her outplay most scenarios if you’re good. She does well when paired with Supports that can help her get her passive stacks since this helps her get more damage out. Champions like Nautilus, for example, who is probably the most common pairing. But it’s important to keep in mind what damage your team has to define your build and playstyle each game.
Starting first with her Hybrid Build, Kai'Sa in this alignment can fit into pretty much every composition. If she needs to play Front to Back, she can. If she needs to play Dive, she can. If poking down targets is more of the angle, she can do that too. The Hybrid build makes her a catch all and it's a really great default option if you don’t know what direction to head for in a game.
Her AP build makes her a Poke Champion and she fits well into compositions that have defined tools to help peel for her and set up this poke. Common examples that we’ve seen in the pro scene have paired poke Kai'Sa into compositions featuring Maokai or Sejuani, who have multiple tools to apply stacks of her Plasma which allows her to follow in and quickly burst down targets with ease.
For both Hybrid and AP compositions, Champions with immobilizing tools like Naut, Rell, Maokai, Leona, or Amumu are grant lane partners, as their CC layering stacks up her burst quickly. Additionally, you can pair her with Mages like Xerath, Zyra, or Neeko who also have CC but extra damage to keep opponents low and within lethal range.
Her AD build is again a more traditional ADC setup. This makes her great at Front to Back fighting and shredding through compositions with multiple frontliners. While in these comps, Kai benefits still from traditional engage Supports, but her viability alongside Enchanters increases since their itemization is typically more geared towards increasing the output of auto-based champions. In these instances, she pairs well with Janna, Lulu, and Renata who all have excellent steroids and CC tools for Kai'Sa to play off of.
In terms of matchups that Kai'Sa struggles in, her biggest flaw as a Champion is her short range. So, she can struggle against Champions that can poke her and play outside of her range. Champions like Xerath, Karthus, Ashe, and Kog’maw to name a few. These Champions can either poke her out or slow her down making her an easier target to get on top of.
Understanding Kai'Sa’s Game Phases
One of the core aspects that any ADC needs to master is positioning and threat assessment. In your Hybrid and AD builds, Kai'Sa plays like a typical DPS Marksman, and thanks to her short range, she’ll be at a bigger risk of being all-inned by enemy Tanks and Assassins. So, before every fight and every skirmish, quickly scan the positions of the enemy team if you can see them and then consider what resources they have to get on top of you. If it's something like Malphite ultimate or Maokai ult, then waiting for the ult to come out, or playing behind someone that can soak the CC for you will be key in maintaining your damage output.
Think about what targets will be going in on you to kill you and consider what resources you’ll have to spend to avoid the death. Maybe it’s using E to avoid CC from the enemy frontline, while using your Ultimate’s dash to reposition yourself back or away from the enemy Talon diving, for example. So, think about what resources you have to fight, and if you’re lacking in comparison, maybe it’s best to call the fight off with pings, or just focus on farming towards your next power-spike.
Kai'Sa’s playstyle all depends on what build you’re going for. If you’re going for poke, then you’re playing pretty passive in lane unless something free comes your way. You’re focusing on farm and looking to get to your W evolve to be able to put out as much damage and poke as you can around objectives. Hybrid and AD Kai'Sa can fight a bit more in lane since there’s more DPS coming out, but this depends on your Support and the matchups you have. Her playstyle in these builds becomes like any other ADC, just pick and take smart fights where you know you can outplay or outright win when it comes to the mid and late game. Overall though, Kai'Sa really comes online in the Mid to Late game. She can outplay divers with her ultimate and E, and the damage that she gets from her items is huge. You can never go wrong with playing her to scale, but taking good fights early can get you to that point faster.
Kai'Sa Techniques and General Tips
Kai'Sa’s playmaker kit naturally comes packaged with many ways to make plays. Let’s break down a few of those scenarios where you can make the most of her damage:
Kai'Sa is excellent and dueling solo, when your passive stacks are applied, you can ult into any area around the target affected with your Plasma. This means if you need to kite back, you can do so at the furthest point away from whoever is on top of you, or if you’re diving, you can position behind opponents to cut their escape options down. Additionally, with her ultimate being an auto-attack reset, you can sneak in a burst of damage alongside her passive if you need a quick kill.
Kai'Sa’s E can be used as an animation cancel for her Q, allowing for quick damage and repositioning as needed. Additionally, Kai'Sa’s E and the Recall effect can be used to cancel the evolution animations of her abilities, but these both require that you click the evolutions icons.
Kai'Sa’s W will apply its damage first and then the execution effect of her passive after. So, you can build up three stacks of your passive first, then hit your W for a clean execution.
Probably the biggest thing is knowing how to R-W. When you apply your passive stacks on an enemy Champion, you can dash wherever you want in the radius near them. So, you can buffer your W in the air as you're flying to your target on the dash, this lets you get the W off really fast and honestly in a pretty sneaky fashion where a lot of players won’t expect it.
There’s everything you need to know about Kai'Sa to get started with your League of Legends climb! Before we sign-off completely though, here’s Tomo’s thoughts on the best and worst Kai'Sa skin!
The best Kai'Sa skin, without a doubt, is IG Kai'Sa. The skin’s animations are just so smooth and no other skin comes close. The worst has gotta be Star Guardian. I’m not a big fan of it and I think the visuals really bog it down.
So, there you have it! If you want to see more of Tomo, you can follow him at these social links! Thanks again to Tomo for sitting with us and good luck on your climb everyone!
