If you aren’t taking Kai’Sa into the jungle, here’s how to play the champion.
League of Legends’ latest champion is Kai’Sa, a fighter who bonded with the Void in order to survive the hellscape. She’s a fast-paced marksman, with a kit full of dashes and damage. She’s only been on the live servers for a few days, but pro players and Challenger-level mechanical gods have quickly picked her up. Though she can be played in the Jungle and Mid lane, she shines brightest in the bottom lane. When she isn’t banned, ADC mains like Deft and Rekkles have been spamming her in solo queue, trying to master Kassadin’s daughter as quickly as possible.
Kai’Sa is an alarmingly powerful champion, who only gets stronger as the game progresses. In the first few minutes of laning, she can output some disgusting damage. Her Q sends out a flurry of missiles, each one proccing a bit of her passive. If an enemy laner is on their own or away from the minion wave, she can chunk out a large portion of their health with just one ability. Just watch the first few minutes of this game with KT Rolster’s Deft. With just a couple of well-placed autos and Qs, he manages to get first blood and snowball his lane.
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During mid to late game, Kai’Sa shines even brighter. Her passive, which upgrades one of her abilities depending on her stats, should be activated by the time you buy her second item. At that point, she’s a borderline unkillable god, dashing around enemies with her ultimate and bursting them down with Qs and auto attacks. She does get countered by Marksmen like Vayne, Caitlyn and Ezreal who have their own dashes, so make sure to play safe until you have your opportunity to pop off.
Builds: If you’re playing Kai’Sa in the bottom lane, go Essence Reaver first. The cooldown reduction and critical chance gives her a huge power spike you can capitalize on for mid-game team fights. After that, Statikk Shiv is great for clearing minions, but an Infinity Edge will help you dish out those DPS. Blade Of The Ruined King is also an awesome buy on the void daughter; slowing enemies with the active abilities and then chasing them down for a kill is extremely gratifying. Pro players are still trying to figure out the best build on her, but CDR and crit chance are still the most prioritized.
Runes- You need Precision as your main Rune tree path, Fleet Footwork is a must have on all ADCs. If you are playing Kai’Sa like a risky pro, then Triumph, Legend: Alacrity and Coup De Grace will help you snowball your kills. For the second tree, it’s entirely up to your presence. Deft has been going the Sorcery path, picking between Absolute Focus, Gathering Storm and Scorch.
Abilities: You always want to level her Q first, followed by either W or E, leveling up your ultimate whenever it’s available.
Kai’Sa is still a new champion, but she’s already proven her worth. Like Zoe before her, expect to see a lot of this champion in your games, so don’t be afraid to ban her. There’s nothing worse than having a Vayne/Yasuo/Riven main who liked the color purple and tried her out for the first time in your ranked games.