Ahri, the Nine-tails Fox

Ahri is an extremely flexible champion which can be played in multiple ways depending on the player. Typically she will be seen as a Roamer / Assassin style mage. With a safe lane phase and good potential from early game to late game, she is one of the top picks at the moment.

Ahri's strengths

Charm

Ahri's ability "Charm" gives her a lot of power. In the early game she can safely farm in lane until she lands her charm. Upon hitting the enemy champion she can follow up for guaranteed hits from her Orb of Deception and Fox Fire. She can also use this ability to put you into a situation you do not want to be in, for example the Maokai who ganks me in the video. He ends up rooting me a bit too close to the tower, so I flash over him and taunt him under the tower range securing the kill.

Farmer/Roamer

A lot of mid champions fall into the category of a 'roamer', for example Le blanc and Kassadin. These champions struggle to last hit due to their skillsets in comparison to other 'farmer' champions - in example Morgana. Ahri is a fine balance of both, with the ability to use her skills to easily farm a lane and having the amazing maneuverability her ultimate offers to scout the map in search of some free kills. 

Spirit Rush

Her ultimate gives her great potential for chasing, escaping, nuking, roaming... The list goes on, but essentially having three swift dashes is extremely strong for a mid champion. Her ultimate makes her playstyle options open up and you should respond to this. Referring to the video, watch as Anivia wastes her one hard CC, flash frost, so I go in for the kill as she is helpless.

Any champion that is not a beefy tank or has no hard CC will be bullied by Ahri.

Team Fighting

In a team fight ahri can fulfill a few roles which makes her fit into many team comps.

• Initiator, by using her charm to bait out a key target who will then be nuked down by Ahri's team.
• DPS, using her skills to output as much damage as she can.
• Utility/Control, using her charm on a key target, building items such as rylais to put out a lot of slows whilst kiting the enemy with her ultimate.

If she roams, what should I do?

Depending on which champion you are, there are basically two ways to deal with a roamer. 

One way is to push out your lane, a farming champion is usually great at this. If Ahri leaves the lane for even just one minute but does not get a kill, pushing the lane will have been very worth it. The gold you would have gained from taking up the CS, the CS she lost to her tower and the damage you put onto their tower will give you a slight advantage. Each time she leaves the lane you gain a small advantage as long as she doesn't score a few kills. Think of it as she is taking a risk, whilst you are just taking the reward.

Another way is to counter gank the lane she is going to. Only some champions are great at this, but generally every champion can do it. Say you notice Ahri heading bot towards the tribrush. Ping your team to ambush her and she walks into a one vs three. Shutting down her roam attempt will not only mean you played well and countered her intentions, but also the player behind Ahri will be displeased and perhaps be put of roaming. If you can force a roamer to stay in lane and play passive the global pressure of that champion decreases which should help out the other laners.

Champion counters

Le Blanc                                                                                                    

Lane phase

In the lanephase do not expect to be able to win many trades and if you get hit by ahri's charm you are going to lose a lot of health. Try your best to keep the distance between ahri, or stand behind ally minions to be safe from charm. Ahri should never be able to start the fight on her terms as you should be engaging every fight with your full combo. The weaker you can get her before you hit level six the better, but don't risk your self incase she gets the kill on you!

Harass

At level six start to harass Ahri. Even if she does not die to your skill combo just be patient and come back when your ultimate has refreshed. You'll find later in the game if she picks up some magic resistance this will happen often. With the silence you should easily be able to position yourself to follow up with your chains to snare her. Don't stick around for her to counter harass you after the silence wears out and sooner or later she's going to have to go back to base in fear of being burst to death. Remember that your clone will act like a champion, which means her foxfire will prioritize it if it's closer to her than you. And Ahri's ultimate can hit up to three enemy champions, your clone can take up the damage for one person.

Late game/Team fights

As a LeBlanc your late game is very dependont on snowballing early. You should find in this lane match up you did relatively well. Your focus might change now also, you can choose to silence ahri and snare her in teamfights as you can shut her down however your focuses might be else where. Perhaps the enemy AD carry did well and he should be prioritized. This will come down to context, however if you denied ahri a lot of early game presence you have played well.

Itemization

Other than a usual Le Blanc build, Death fires grasp is not a bad item. You might already pick that up - but if you don't it will be usufull if you want to really shut down ahri. In the context that she is roaming it might be useful to turn the gank back onto her as you burst her for 70%+ of her health pool.

Talon

Lane phase

With Talon you should be able to win trades from as early as level one. Landing any autoattacks onto Ahri will deal a lot of damage, ontop of constantly harassing her as often as you can - but only when you know you can get away with it.  Be careful of getting in range for her to just poke at you with autoattacks as you try to CS, take too many and she'll slowly poke you down. The best thing about Talon is if you have not pushed her out of lane by level three you can probably just go kill her with your skill combo, ignite and a few autoattacks to seal the deal.

Harass

As mentioned, if you can ever go onto her without risk of being charmed do so. Use the trick as shown in the video as often as possible so that even if she tries to charm you she will just be wasting her mana. Avoid her taunt and you should be okay. If everything goes wrong, use your ultimate as an escape tool.

Late game/Team fights

If Ahri has not built armor you can engage onto her easily. If you have done well in your lane phase, which you should have unless the jungler intervened, you will have some strong items which will usually result in you being able to kill Ahri in a matter of seconds. In the situation that she built armor in the lane, although you might not be able to kill her easily she will do hardly any damage so it's fine. As far as who you focus in a teamfight it is again situational like Le Blanc as you should be shutting down the most optimal target as Talon. Silencing Ahri before she gets off her Charm will be very handy for your team but there may be an other champion who should be prioritized for silencing.

Itemization

Build everything like normal. As I mention in the video, Hexdrinker is only a good item if she has the damage potential to proc it, which she should not have. As talon you should have Merc treads + your MR runes and masteries. It's just as bad for you to build these defensive items as it is for her to come back to lane with armor.

Ryze

Lane phase

As Ryze you are not a "Hard counter" your skillset does not make you the Anti-Ahri of the league, it's more down to his itemization. Your lane will not be a walk in the park, yet it still is in your favor. Farm up and harass her with your Q as often as possible. Engaging is a bad idea in the early game as she has the ability to combo you and walk away unscratched. At any point you rune prison her do not walk straight up to her as you will walk into a charm which will result in either your death or a lost trade. If she ever roams you can easily use your ultimate due to its tiny cooldown and shove out your lane. 

Harass

Ryze deals sustain damage, whilst ahri can do a burst skill combo. It's best not to engage until you have some items or else she will deal her damage in a short time and walk away leaving you with another three or four spells you wanted to cast. With a jungler gank you will easily pin down the Ahri with rune prison also remember she can not dash whilst within it. FInally you have no skillshots as Ryze so she can not juke you with her high maneuverability.

Late game/Team fights

As Ryze she will most likely no longer be your focus in a team fight. However using rune prison to stop her kiting around the fight will put a lot of preassure on the Ahri. She should not be too much of a problem for you as after around level nine you can auto-cruise farm until you are needed elsewhere.

Itemization

Build typical Ryze items, as this is what counters the Ahri. Good choices are; Abyssal scepter so that you take reduced damage from her whilst improving your damage output, Banshees Vail for the great stats it offers including the spell shield to prevent those taunts, and merc treads to reduce the time you spend CC'd by taunt.

Congratulations to Key00 and Fantasy

Recently we held a Riot Point's giveaway contest on my YouTube channel and the previous blog. From YouTube the winner was Key00 and from the blog Fantasy. Enjoy your Riot points! - and good luck to anyone who enters any of our future prize draws.

Finally, please leave some constructive criticism. Lets improve the video + blog content together!

- Fourpaws.