Saturday, September 14, 2013

LoL Matchups: Ahri vs LeBlanc

Gonna write my thoughts on specific match ups that I have some experience with. Writing stuff down generally helps when trying to remember stuff, so this is both to help me and spread whatever knowledge/experience I have :)

Ahri is a champion I play quite often and also one of my favorite champions to play. I believe she is a pretty solid mid laner and doesn't have any really terrible match ups (as long as we look at things optimistically lol). However some match ups are more troublesome than others and LeBlanc is one of them.

LeBlanc has very high burst damage potential once she reaches level 6 and even before that, at level 3 her damage potential is also quite high if she lands her full combo. Needless to say, LeBlanc can instantly kill most mid laners with easy once she reaches a certain level and item threshold and Ahri is no exception.

However not everything is all doom and gloom and there are some things we can do to prevent getting killed. First of all, item builds are not fixed. This is very important! ITEM BUILDS ARE NOT FIXED. There are some items that people will recommend for certain champions and some guides will tell you such and such item is core on X champion. But we have to always remember that what items are good always depends on the current game situation. I'll probably do a full post on this another time and will leave it at this for now. Just keep this in mind.
Some items that are good to build against LeBlanc are as follows:

-Mercury Threads
-Athene's Unholy Grail
-Abyssal Scepter
-Banshee's Veil

All of these items give Magic Resist in addition to other beneficial stats for Ability Power based champions, which (in combination with MR runes) makes it harder for LeBlanc to kill in a single combo. Mercury Threads in particular gives Tenacity as well, which reduces the duration on the Silence from LeBlanc. This makes it such that you can either retaliate earlier or attempt to Flash to safety earlier than you would have been able to without Merc Threads. This might sound insignificant but it is actually a huge deal. Tenacity also reduces the duration of other crowd control effects, which is very useful.
Athene's Unholy Grail is also another very useful item as it provides MR, good Mana Regneration and Cooldown Reduction, all very useful stats for Ahri. 
Both Merc Threads and Athene's build out of Null Magic Mantle so buying a Mantle early and then deciding what to do with it later if you aren't sure is a good thing to do. 
I don't really like Abyssal Scepter right now but if your team has multiple champions that rely on magic damage then it can be a good choice as well, due to its MR reducing aura. 
Banshee's Veil is probably the most difficult item for LeBlanc to deal with in a 1 on 1 situation. The spell shield it provides makes it hard for LeBlanc to get max damage from her combo in 1v1 situations and the Magic Resist and Health it gives also make it harder for LeBlanc to kill even if she does get her combo off. Although this sounds great I don't recommend getting BV too early as it doesn't provide any Ability Power at all and your damage output will suffer if you rush this item too early.
Of all these items I recommend getting Athene's as a first item as rushing tier 2 boots is generally a bad idea. One of the more popular item builds for Ahri right now is Deathfire Grasp into more items that increases her burst damage (like Deathcap and Voidstaff). However building Athene's into Voidstaff/Deathcap is also very strong due to Ahri's skills being on relatively low cool downs. The Mana Regen and extra Cooldown Reduction lets you spam your skills in lane and during extended engagements. Do keep in mind that this isn't an assassin build so remember to adjust the way you play accordingly. 

Skill order is another thing we can change to make this match up more in our favor. Usually Ahri will want to max Orb of Deception first as it deals good damage and is good for wave clearing and harassing. However it may be hard to hit LeBlanc with it due to her Distortion skill letting her jump around and potentially letting her both dodge your Orb and dropping her Sigil + Chains combo on you. 
The other option is to max Fox-Fire first. At max level Fox-Fire actually deals more single target damage than Orb of Deception (280 + 80% AP for Fox-Fire vs 280 + 65% AP without factoring MR) and is also on a lower cool down. If you buy a spellvamp item (like Hextech Revolver) Fox-Fire will also give you more HP back when hitting a single target. If LeBlanc jumps to you to try to get her combo off it is very possible to press W fast enough such that Fox-Fire will cast before you get silenced and once it's out it will automatically search for its own targets while prioritizing champions and because LeBlanc already jumped close to you it is very likely that she'll get targeted. 
This might not seem that great but it is guaranteed damage because you don't need to predict where she'll be jumping to in order for your Orb to hit. Fox-Fire is also on a lower cool down than most of LeBlanc's (once Fox-Fire is level 3-5) skill so if you wish to continue trading before all her skills are up, it is definitely an option (well, actually depends on the items you build). This is great if you intend to try and fight her 1 on 1 (although most people will recommend against this).
However if you rather push your lane and try ganking other lanes then maxing Orb first is still definitely the way to go. So ultimately it depends on your play style :)

Which is also an option as LeBlanc is quite bad when it comes to clearing creep waves. Keep pushing your lane and warding it so you don't die to ganks from the jungler and take wraiths or try ganking other lanes while your creeps are closer to your opponents tower. If you do this and play safe, the LeBlanc player will be under a lot of pressure as the wave is always pushed in her direction which makes it harder for her to leave her lane to gank others. If she does leave lane it makes it easier for you to down the turret and if you always warn your teammates it should be harder for LeBlanc to get kills else where as well. Even more so if you follow her for a counter gank.

As for runes and masteries, definitely get all the MR you can (flat MR for runes obviously).

That's all I got for now! Might update this in the future if I think of additional tips. It mostly comes down to not being stubborn and actually changing your item build to win this match up and play safe so you don't die as LeBlanc snowballs very easily even off of a single kill. 

Good luck and have fun :)
 

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