Table of Contents

  • Runes
  • Summoner Spells
  • Item Buildpath
  • Which build do I use?
  • Rune page explained (Electrocute):
  • Rune page explained (Phase Rush):
  • Item choices explained:
  • Combos & Animation Cancels:
    • Q+W
    • W+Flash
    • R+W
    • R Autoattack Reset
    • 5-stack Combo without W Evolve
    • Fast Combo with W Evolve+
  • General Tips:
  • Ending Notes:

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Snipy's AP Kai'Sa Mid Guide

Ready to 1v9?

SnipyOCE

January 15th, 2023 ⸱ 10 min read

Welcome to my midlane Mage Kai'Sa guide. This version of Kai'Sa relies less on autoattacks and focuses on stacking AP and CDR to spam abilities. In previous seasons, I've hit Diamond playing my AP Kai'Sa build, all streamed at:

 https://www.twitch.tv/SnipyOCE/

If you're interested in learning how to play Kai'Sa mid, check out my stream and YouTube channel!

My OP.GG - Snipy

My OP.GG - Void Seeker

Quick Kai'Sa AP Mid Build

Summoner Spells

Starting Items

Best Overall Build

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Runes

  • Electrocute
  • Phase Rush



Summoner Spells

  • Group 1



Item Buildpath

  • (MUST FOLLOW) Core buildpath:
  • Battlemage build:
  • Sniper build:



Which build do I use?

The sniper build is for when you're intending to scale and mainly poke from long range. This build is reliant on you landing your

Void Seeker
. It does insane damage if you can land all your skillshots and it works best when your team has multiple ways to apply plasma and/or CC the enemy. You'll be a glass cannon with no self-peel, but it is the easier build to play since you don't have to worry about approaching enemies.

The battlemage build has insane carry potential but is harder to play. It has roughly a 40/60 physical/magic damage spread and can be played much more aggressively at closer ranges since

Everfrost
helps you go for picks, kite enemies and prevent people from dodging your W. Additionally,
Lich Bane
makes you more mobile + buffs your DPS. I recommend taking
Ignite
and
Electrocute
with the battlemage build.



Rune page explained (Electrocute):



Electrocute
gives you burst damage to assassinate enemy carries. It is also more useful than
Hail of Blades
after the early-game.



Taste of Blood
is your only choice in this row because the other runes are useless for AP Kai'Sa.



Eyeball Collection
or
Ghost Poro
are both good choices for midlane.



Ingenious Hunter
is an insanely good rune for AP Kai'Sa. It makes the
Luden's Tempest
passive proc every time you Q. it also heavily reduces the cooldown of
Everfrost
,
Zhonya's Hourglass
,
Lich Bane
and
Manamune
.



Manaflow Band
is very important when starting
Doran's Blade
. You need it to be able to get Q evolution at level 9 alongside
Manamune
and a
Sapphire Crystal
.



Transcendence
gives you some more ability haste to be able to hit the 65 ability haste sweetspot earlier.

For stat shards I go for attack speed, adaptive force and either Armor or Magic Resist depending on the matchup.



Rune page explained (Phase Rush):



Phase Rush
will let you kite and reposition once you use your initial combo. It is good vs teams that don't necessarily have a key target to burst.



Manaflow Band
is very important when starting
Doran's Blade
. You need it to be able to get Q evolution at level 9 alongside
Manamune
and a
Sapphire Crystal
.



Transcendence
gives you some more ability haste to be able to hit the 65 ability haste sweetspot earlier.



Gathering Storm
is simply the best rune in this row, since you'll be aiming to scale to double evolutions.



Future's Market
helps you reach key item timings to unlock your evolutions even faster. Compared to other champions that scale linearly with gold, Kai'Sa gets massive powerspikes whenever she hits certain item thresholds. The initial Q evo will greatly speed up your waveclear + single-target damage, and the W evo will make you a teamfight/poke monster.



Cosmic Insight
reduces your summoner spell cooldown and your Mythic Item cooldown by a lot. In mid lane, you often need to buy early boots to stay mobile and dodge poke + ganks. This is because Kai'Sa has no innate CC and poor mobility. You can get easily punished if you run
Magical Footwear
, which is why I prefer
Cosmic Insight
instead.

For stat shards I go for attack speed, adaptive force and either Armor or Magic Resist depending on the matchup.



Item choices explained:



Manamune
is the key item used to evolve your
Icathian Rain
using its mana to AD conversion. The extra AD it gives your other spells as well, since they all scale with AD. We don't need to rush a mythic since
Kai'Sa
has great synergy with
Manamune
, so we usually buy a mythic item AFTER we get our Q evolve.



Ionian Boots of Lucidity
gives you much-needed ability haste for your spell cooldowns. It's cheap and also reduces your summoner spell cooldowns too. While
Sorcerer's Shoes
would make your
Void Seeker
deal more damage, you'll definitely feel the higher W cooldown if you ever miss the skillshot. Also, your Q is still physical damage and over half of your damage pre-20 minutes will be physical damage.
Ionian Boots of Lucidity
provides way more value because of this.



Luden's Tempest
is the best mythic item for a pure backline sniper playstyle. It's passive cooldown gets reduced by 3 seconds if you land multiple Q missiles on an enemy champion. With a stacked
Ingenious Hunter
, you'll be proccing the passive every time you press Q on enemy champions.



Everfrost
's active can apply a stack of plasma as well as prevent the enemy from dodging your
Void Seeker
. It also gives you some HP so you don't get oneshot by some assassins. It is a great tool to kite enemies that like to run at you such as bruisers. The active also cannot be blocked by Yasuo's
Wind Wall
and Samira's
Blade Whirl
.



Shadowflame
boosts your W poke damage by giving you more magic penetration. It also gives you some HP so you don't get one-rotationed when running
Luden's Tempest
.



Rabadon's Deathcap
will massively amplify your spell damage and
Killer Instinct
shield. This is a massive powerspike.



Void Staff
should be bought before
Rabadon's Deathcap
if the enemy is building magic resist.



Nashor's Tooth
buffs your
Supercharge
movespeed and increases your DPS as long as you can stay in autoattack range. However, Kai'Sa doesn't have any in-combat sustain so if you aren't be able to stay close to enemies to autoattack much then
Lich Bane
is a better choice.



Lich Bane
is a good alternative to
Nashor's Tooth
in situations where you want to maximize magic damage, and also where you won't have the opportunity to stay close to the enemy to autoattack much. The flat movespeed lets you kite in and out based on your current spell cooldowns.



Combos & Animation Cancels:

Q+W

QW is the most basic combo. It’s faster than using WQ, and the Q also hides the W animation somewhat, giving the enemy less time to react. You can also sneak in an autoattack when you press Q since it doesn’t cancel your autoattack animation.

Example combo: AA QW AA

W+Flash

    W+Flash is extremely useful. It helps you get around enemy minions if they are in the way, surprise people, and you can also use it to change the direction your

    Void Seeker
    goes. Early game it’s usually used as a finisher unless you managed to land the
    Void Seeker
    at the start.

    If you flash at the end of your W animation, you can actually make your real W invisible.

R+W

Another way to land your

Void Seeker
on people is to combine it with your ult,
Killer Instinct
. Kai'Sa is free to cast any of her abilities during her ult, so you could ult up to somebody and have your
Void Seeker
come out as soon as you arrive. Click the links below for examples:

Example 1

Example 2

R Autoattack Reset



Killer Instinct
is an autoattack reset, which is super helpful in applying your passive
Second Skin
during fights since this build doesn’t include any attack speed outside of runes.

You can take advantage of this with this combo: W AA R AA. In this combo you can use

Icathian Rain
anytime since it has no cast animation.

5-stack Combo without W Evolve

This is a quick way to get all your damage off and pop your execute from your passive, but the enemy needs to be in autoattack range first: AA Q W AA R AA

Fast Combo with W Evolve+
Flash


This combo is slightly slower but has a longer range: W flash Q AA R AA.



General Tips:

Early-Game

  • - Since Kai'Sa is AD and ranged, she'll have the push advantage vs many midlane champions.
  • - Focus on farming for your Q evolve. This is your first powerspike since you'll be able to clear minion waves very easily. 1 evolved
    Icathian Rain
    is enough to delete the first 3 melee minions, and you can autoattack and/or Q the leftover ranged minions.
    • - You can position yourself so that your Q only hits one minion (usually on a melee minion or cannon minion) but kills it immediately. It helps get waves pushing. This trick + her autoattacks give Kai'Sa pretty good early pushing/waveclear ability.
      • - Your Q missiles do double damage to minions below 35% health. Make use of this by autoattacking multiple minions and Q’ing at the end to execute them.
        • - Try to stand in a position where if the enemy walks up, they will tank more Q missiles since less minions are in range.
          • - Your W will continue to cast even when CC’ed. The W animation gets cancelled when you get cc’ed as well, making it harder for the enemy to notice you're casting it. Useful against champions like
            Twisted Fate
            ,
            Zoe
            ,
            Annie
            , etc.
            • - If running ignite, try to ignite early so that your passive execute will do more damage.
              • - After you trade with someone, you can back off a bit and if they walk back up while still having 2 or 3 plasma stacks, you can surprise them with a W+flash or W+flash+AA. Like this.
              • - Your W hitbox is very wide so you can even hit someone who’s hiding in a minion wave if you W+flash right next to or on top of them.

Mid-Game

      • - Since you will often have lane priority at this point, try to roam and help your jungler in skirmishes, establish deep vision, or gank a side lane.
    • - Q evolve is enough to easily solokill enemies by yourself while W evolve makes you a strong teamfighter due to your low W cooldown.
  • - Catch out stragglers with your W and R. By the time you ult in, your W should almost be off cooldown.
  • - Look to poke the enemies from far away, and use any friendly CC to ult in and R+W squishy enemies.
  • - Try not to miss your W, since it heavily affects your DPS if you don't get a cooldown refund.
    • - You can hide your W by aiming it through walls.
  • - Make sure to proc your caustic wounds with W and autosttacks whenever anyone has multiple stacks of plasma on them.
    • - Try to aim your W at enemies that are (or are going to be) CC’ed as they won’t be able to dodge.
      • - You can flash to cancel your R dash early.
  • - Learn how to walljump with Kai'Sa ult. It will help you. A LOT.

Late-Game

  • - Your W can easily 2-shot carries if they have no MR, with a W, R+W combo.
  • - Try to rely on your W for constant damage. Only get close to autoattack enemies when it is completely safe, or when you have your team near you. With this build you won't have E evolve to rely on for self-peel, but that should be okay since you don't need to be in autoattack range to do damage.
  • - Don't worry about only trying to hit the backline carries, your W will chunk the frontline too. Sometimes it's better to get constant damage on the enemy frontline instead of trying to snipe the enemy backline who are far away.
  • - You can use the enemy frontline to bunnyhop over and burst people behind them. To do this, W the frontline, wait 2-3 seconds for your W cooldown, then ult over the first enemy and aim your W at the person behind them.



Ending Notes:

Well that’s the end of the guide, so go out and have fun topping the damage charts with my build! Just a reminder that I post League/Kai'Sa-related content on my YouTube channel such as montages, tips/tricks and stream highlights.

Click here to subscribe, it would be much appreciated!

Congratulations, you've made it to the end of the guide so here's a little-known secret that will 100% boost your Kai'Sa skills:



MidKaisa
AUTHOR
SnipyOCE
ABOUT

Diamond AP Kai'Sa mid player from Australia

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