The sands have begun to shift and the power of the sun has risen with Azir taking his place in the League of Legends meta once again. The Emperor of the Sands continues to be one of the most-picked champions in the game, especially in the professional scene where the best mid laners in the world have mastered him.
If you’re trying to bring some fun in the sand in your solo queue games, you’ll need a lot of practice to master the art of shuffling. Azir takes plenty of skill to pilot and the right build to reach your full potential as a king of the Summoner’s Rift.
From correct positioning with sand soldiers to correctly combining your abilities in teamfights, you’ll need the right baseline with items and runes so your hard work will be rewarded. Here is the best build for Azir in League.
Runes
Precision
Conqueror: Since most of Azir’s damage comes from Sand Soldiers and their auto-attacks, Conqueror is a great choice to maximize damage and survivability by stacking the rune’s effect before healing a significant amount in a teamfight. If enemy players stand too close, you can build up stacks incredibly fast and take over a teamfight with superior positioning.
Presence of Mind: Mana is an important focus for Azir throughout the game since he’ll want to have his Sand Soldiers up and running whenever his team is preparing or is in the middle of a teamfight. These handy spearmen can zone away players and deal a ton of damage in a skirmish, but without the mana regeneration from takedowns and damage dealt, you’ll run dry pretty quickly.
Legend: Alacrity: Attack speed is key for Azir and his kit since he relies heavily on his Sand Soldiers sliding into range and auto-attacking his enemies for a ton of burst damage. Later in the game, Azir should be a huge threat who can cut down any enemy after collecting some Legend stacks.
Coup de Grace: Players can either choose Coup de Grace if the enemy team has a lot of squishier targets or Cut Down if there are a plethora of tanks that Azir will need to whittle down through a teamfight.
Sorcery
Manaflow Band: When opting in for Manaflow Band, remember Azir must land some spell damage to gain the extra mana from the rune. Whenever the effect is off cooldown, throw out a quick Q or W auto-attack to start scaling even harder into the later stages of the game.
Transcendence: Another late-game choice, Azir will benefit highly from Transcendence since it will give him a 20 percent cooldown reduction on his basic abilities. This means he’ll be able to keep Sand Soldiers up throughout any skirmish, while also maintaining kill pressure with his other combos.
Bonuses: +10 percent attack speed, +9 adaptive force, +8 magic resist
Items
Starting items: Doran’s Ring, two health potions
As an AP caster, Azir will need the early mana regeneration to maintain some control over the lane. If an enemy mid lane steps up too close and takes a few too many auto-attacks from a Sand Soldier, that could mean the difference for an easy laning phase.
Core items: Luden’s Tempest, Sorcerer’s Shoes, Shadowflame
Luden’s provides Azir with everything he needs to succeed past the early game, with a significant AP power spike and splash damage effect to boot. That splash damage also gets reduced by the auto-attacks of every Sand Soldier on the Rift. As a result, Azir can activate Luden’s Tempest multiple times during a late-game teamfight, giving him even more poke damage along with his other items.
Meanwhile, Shadowflame gives Azir a great boost against team compositions with a lot of shield users, while also providing a decent amount of HP to help with his survivability when he slides around looking for an optimal place to shuffle the enemy team.
Final items: Zhonya’s Hourglass, Rabadon’s Deathcap, Void Staff
At his core, Azir is a perfect playmaker who can find unique angles to displace the enemy team with his ultimate ability, Emperor’s Divide. This does, however, leave him open for an easy counter-attack, since he’ll usually be in melee range to pull off his well-known Shurima Shuffle combo. Zhonya’s gives Azir a chance to survive, right after diving into an enemy team.
Rabadon’s, on the other hand, is the biggest AP power spike item that money can buy, and if Azir players find themselves really ahead, they’ll want to continue the snowball by increasing their total AP by a whopping 35 percent. As a third or fourth item purchase, this could push Azir’s power levels to unspeakable heights. Lastly, build Void Staff if your enemies are stacking magic resist.
