So I'm a pretty casual player, I don't play everyday and I usually just play normals/aram/bots. Then I decided to try out ranked, landed in Iron 1. Understandable, given I'm a newbie with no main. So I stopped playing on my usual gamemodes and played ranked exclusively aaand... Lose streak. I'm not joking, 1W 10L. But then I look at my opponents level and see they're mostly around 100+ meanwhile I'm 41. Am I supposed to stay away from ranked until a certain level? Because I'm just not winning at all.. I know the basics to my champ, I admit I'm horrible at csing and my vision score is low, but it feels like my opponents should be doing the same no? They don't play like irons. I was told that there's a lot of smurfs in iron but the levels of my opponents are 100+ so not smurf..? I don't know, can someone tell me when I should touch ranked? And maybe give some tips.. I enjoy playing Top>Support>Adc, mainly Sylas top, also Riven but with 230 average ping, I find it kinda difficult.

So, you wanna get to Platinum, but you’re stuck in silver or gold or whatever and you can’t seem to figure out why. Don’t worry homie, I got you. This is going to be an in-depth guide on how to get to platinum and even higher elos. Some of ya’ll wanna see my op.gg for credibility, so here you go: https://www.op.gg/summoners/na/DrMalz
RUNES ITEMS AND SUMMS
Runes are standard, if it aint broke, don’t fix it: Summon Aery (You want the constant DPS from your damage overtime), Mana Flow Band (You need the mana early), Transcendence (E and R cool down), Scorch (Damage. Also, games end too fast to use gathering storm and waterwalking just isn’t good), Magical Footwear (Best because of the extra bit of speed you get and you don’t have to worry about spending money and delaying your mythic item) and Minion Dematerializer (Details in next paragraph). I get both the adaptive buffs and magic resist/armor buff based on who I am against.
Minion Dematierlizer: This rune is insanely good. Like insanely. Most of the time I do 2 melee minions and a siege minion. However, if I can wait, I use it on 2 siege minions. If I am getting zoned out, I’ll E a melee minion and use the dematierializer to keep up the e. I never use this on caster minions because of how weak they are. I want to be able to E and W the wave and leave to an objective ASAP. Getting the buff on 2 Siege minions allows me to do that earlier in the game. Let me just say: 12% is a huge buff that is underrated.
Items, Malzahar is not fancy, he just needs damage. 99% of games you are going these items: Liandrys (You need the damage and the burn is too good with your E to get anything else) > Sorcery boots (You need the damage) > Rylias (THIS IS THE ITEM RIGHT HERE! THIS ITEM WINS THE GAME FOR YOU!) > Stopwatch (Keep your lead/die less) > Hourglass/oblivion orb (Ill get the orb before finishing hourglass if they have nonsense healing, which they do most of the time) > Morellonomnicon (Damage) > 6th item****
Your 6th item is interesting because theres a bunch of stuff you can do. Most of the time you shouldn’t get to your 6th item because the game should have ended. If you do however, Shadow flame is my go-to. If there are no shields, which is highly unlikely, I go Mejai’s. No, I don’t buy dark seal early in the game. I get my 5th item and if I back with 350 then I buy a dark seal. If not, then I buy Mejai’s outright for 1600. The speed boost you get can after 10 kills can save games. Honestly, if you are getting to 6 items, time is usually against you. Mejai’s will swing the game into your favor and allow you to keep scaling.
Sums: Flash (obviously) and Teleport. Teleport is needed for map pressure and to get back to lane asap. Without teleport, you will lose too much experience in lane, and it becomes a chore trying to climb back into games.
Why no ignite: I’m sure this is up for debate, but realistically, you have no Kill potential with Malz until you have your ult. If you do a full combo, you shouldn’t need ignite. You get more bang for your buck with teleport anyways. When you understand the game more, ghost is a good grab and so is exhaust is too vs a zed and a talon.
HOW TO ACTUALLY CLIMB AS MALZAHAR
Malzahar is in a weird class in league. He’s not a carry, he’s an anti-carry. No matter how far behind he falls, he is still useful with his ult. In theory, a lvl 6 Malzahar can stop a level 18 Hecarim from carrying the game with his ult. Press R and watch the team jump on him or have the tower do the dirty work. You need to know this because this makes Malz counterintuitive. Most champs want to interact (fight), YOU DON’T! You want no interaction pre-6. I’ll go into more detail about this further down in the Laning Phase paragraph.
LANING PHASE
LISTEN TO ME! YOU DO NOTHING WITHOUT YOUR ULT! NOTHING! Malzahar is all about his ult. If you don’t have it, you are NOT A THREAT! You have no dashes, no healing, no nothing. You have flash, your passive, and damage over time spells. Most champs will burst you down level 3 if they have ignite. If you want to climb as Malzahar, DICIPLINE is your answer. What do I mean by discipline? It means, NO MATTER WHAT, you don’t leave lane. You farm. Your jungler died in their own jungle? Farm. Your botlane is 0/12? Farm. Lee Sin is camping your lane? Farm. If Elise comes mid and my jungler is there, yup, I’ll throw a e and q out and maybe an auto. Other than that, I’m farming. Your job is TO GET YOUR ITEMS SO YOU CAN CARRY THE GAME or at the very least STOP THE ENEMY TEAM FROM CARRYING THE GAME! You know how you do that? FARM! This is why you are stuck in the elo you are stuck in: Your farm sucks.
If a champ is trying to fight me, I bring them to my level and make them wait. Most mid laners are impatient and if you continuously refuse to interact with them, they get bored and start roaming. THAT’S WHAT YOU WANT! THAT’S HOW MISTAKES HAPPEN. You have to be more disciplined than the other mid laner. You wanna win league games, make less mistakes. DIE LESS! Let me ask you, when’s the last time you played a game and had 0 deaths? Try it. You need to play stingy. If you have a lead, refuse to give it up! Your goal is to have not die, have perfect farm, and to crash waves, over and over and over and over. Get plates whenever you can. Plates/Farm > Kills. Plates/Farm = low risk high reward. Kills = high risk high reward. Once you have Liandrys and Sorc boots, then you can move around a bit. Until then, SIT IN THE MID LANE! If you haven’t taken mid tower yet, you don’t roam. Your team can moan all they like. It doesn’t matter. TAKE YOUR TOWER. PRESSURE THE MAP!!
WHAT ELO DO YOU WANT TO BE AT
What elo are you trying to get to? I ask because you need to know the goal. WARNING: As you go up elos, your window to do dumb things gets smaller. Giving a Zed one kill and a 10 cs lead can end the game within 5 minutes as you go higher. You also have less opportunities to gain leads which means you better be farming good or else you are in for some nightmare games.
LEVELS AND WHEN TO BACK
Know this info and move on: the 7th minion (2nd wave) gets you level 2. The 15th minion (3rd wave) gets you level 3. This works the same for your opponent. Many times, it’s a race to level 3. If you lose, sit under your tower. REMOVE YOUR EGO!
I literally played a game today where I was zoned out by an annoying Sylas. He kept engaging on me at level 2. He brought me down to 1/3 health at level 2 and I PRESSED THE B BUTTON. Then it happened again at level 3 and I PRESSED THE B BUTTON. THEN AGAIN AT LEVEL 5! I will literally lose 50 farm if it means I don’t die. I don’t care, I refuse to give up easy gold. You know what happened? Look at my op.gg. HE LOST THE GAME! You know why? When you understand the game, you realize there are a lot of cheesers in LoL. They don’t know how to play; they know how to fight. If you fall into this trap, YOU DESERVE TO BE IN THE ELO YOU ARE IN! Because I was willing to back and just say screw it, he lost the game because he never gained a lead. He didn’t know where to be and got caught by our Elise 4 or 5 times. He couldn’t cs to maintain a lead and over time my cs score eclipsed his. EASY WIN! The game that I am referencing, is the 3rd game down and I went 3 – 0 – 7. I had 196 cs after 23 minutes. Sylas went 3 – 9 – 2 and had 113 cs at 23 minutes. People always try to do this. They try to make you angry and make you want to fight with them. NO! MALZAHAR DOESN’T DO THAT! PRESS THE B BUTTON!!
Max E, then Q, then W, R whenever you can. I get my 2nd point in W at level 8 or 9, right after I max E, for the damage output. It’s not much, but it helps with towers.
I get so many midlaners on this one: YOU BACK WHEN A CANNON WAVE IS COMING! Yes, there are occasions when you don’t use this rule of thumb, like when you have no health (see above). Other than that, if you see a cannon minion coming down the lane, its usually safe to back. WHY? Because the cannon minion can hold the tower aggro long enough for you to walk back to lane. THAT’S WHY! If you back when there is no cannon minion, YOU ARE GOING TO LOSE THE ENTIRE WAVE! YOU LOSE ALL THAT MONEY AND ALL THAT EXP! If you are ahead, kill off their cannon wave and back. If you have items, then roam.
WHERE ARE YOU SUPPOSED TO BE?
You need to ask yourself this question every time you back. EVERYTIME!
Two examples:
1) 27 minutes in and all lanes are pushing towards the enemy. There is no baron an no dragon up for 3 minutes. Top has taken two towers, mid has taken one tower and bot has an open inhib. Bot and sup are mid, top is top and your jungler is in their top side jungle, where do you go? BOT LANE! WHY? PRESSURE!
2) 13 minutes in and mid tower is gone. All other towers are up and drag is up. Top is top, bot and sup are bot and jungle is sneaking drag. Where do you go? MIDLANE! WHY? PRESSURE!
League is about macro. Macro is about knowing where you are supposed to be in any given situation. You want gold and exp. Minions do that. FOLLOW THE MONEY!
TEAM FIGHTS
Team fights are 1 of 4 things. 1) you R the carry, whoever is winning the game and stop them from winning. 2) you r the front line and destroy it or at least hold the Leona/Garen in place so your team can get to the back line. 3) you r the zed/shaco that is getting to the back and killing your adc 4) you r the dummy that is out of place: the jhin that thinks he’s cool because he gets a speed boost on his 4th shot and thinks you aren’t a threat or the evelyn that refuses to respect that you can press r and stop her in her tracks.
WARDING
Use your wards. In places that are meaningful. Places you know the jungler has to path. In their jungle, in the river, in drag pit. YOU NEED TO ANTICIPATE! Don’t ward your laning brush because you need time to react to the gank. Put your ward just outside the brush in the river so YOU CAN ACTUALLY SEE THE GANK COMING AND REACT TO IT. ANTICIPATION!!
JUNGLE TRACKING
Find the jungler. Is he on the bot side map? Ward the topside river and Lean/play towards the topside of the lane. USE YOUR WARD! If you have warded a certain side, lean towards that side so its actually useful to you. If you know where the jungler is, put distance between you and them. USE YOUR BRAIN! I KNOW YOU HAVE ONE, YOUR’E READING THIS POST! THINK!!
PRACTICE TOOL
I shit you not, I tried it three times and it worked. I went to practice tool for 15 mintues on 3 different occasions. My goal was to have perfect farm by 15 minutes. Nothing else. Just from these 3 practice runs, my cs score went from 5 – 6 per minute to 8 – 10 per minute. I JUMPED ELOS! Put in the work. Make sure you know how to bounce your e. Look how much damage your autos do when you e is on a minion. See how long the duration of your e is. See how long you e lasts when you e then q the wave. This is stuff the other midlaner doesn’t know, but you know because you main malz. USE THE PRACTICE TOOL JUST ONCE AND SEE IF YOU CAN GET PERFECT FARM WITH ONLY A DORANS RING!
MATCHUPS
Are you struggling with certain matchups? Pick that champ and go into the practice tool. I swear to you, DIANA WAS THE BANE OF MY EXISTANCE! I took her in the practice tool and a couple of ARAM games to better understand her kit. Now that I understand her, I WELCOME DIANA MIDLANERS! I know how she works and know the range of her Q. Bring Diana mid and I promise you, I will make her cry. I wont go into details about certain matchups because honestly, I play them all the same (see above). If you are really struggling: Youtube.
MMR ISSUES
I won’t dwell on this, but I seriously think LoL’s MMR is bs. I felt this way for a while but couldn’t prove it. My previous account was stuck in Gold 3 FOR YEARS AND I KNEW THAT I WAS AT LEAST PLATINUM RANKED. I kept getting teams that were silver and the enemy team would be plat or high gold and I would have to carry games with A 1- 20 botlane or a suiciding jungler. I made a new account and leveled it up and went into ranked. In my promos I got 4 games with an afk 1 rage quitter, 1 loss, and 4 wins. I was placed in silver 2, but I was getting 30 – 35 points per win. In less than a week, I jumped from silver 2 to Plat 4. If you’re losing more points than you are gaining, your MMR sucks and you have 2 options: 1) queue up knowing that you are probably going to lose until your MMR resets (Please don’t do this. Your mental health deserves better) or 2) make a smurf and see if you really are where you are supposed to be. I’m not saying this will work for everyone. I am saying, I knew that my previous account’s MMR was screwed up and I wanted to see for myself. I have no doubt in my mind that I can make it to Masters/Grandmasters. IDK about Challenger tbh, those guys are dedicated. However, this leads me to my last point.
THANK YOU LEAGUE COMMUNITY!
I did it yall! I made it to Platinum with only Malzahar. In my mind I WON THE GAME! I mean, im in the top 12% of players as a Malz main. First things first, I messaged riot to have my accounts permanently banned because I am DONE with this game. DONE. DONE! DONE!! I have played this game for far too long and have missed out on too many things in my life. I am done with the ragers and the toxicity. I REFUSE to give LoL one more moment of my time and have uninstalled League of Legends. It’s time for me to move on. Best of luck to those of you who continue to have fun with LoL. It’s a super cool game that has brought me a lot of laughter and joy through the years. Especially once I understood how to play the game. But now: I got a life to live.
~DrMalz
Edit: TLDR: MALZAHAR ULT GO BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

Systems

Role Selection

• ADDED: Role selection can be fully ordered, with fill standing in for any unselected roles.
  • You have a clear ranking of role preference? A > B > C > D > E.
  • You don't care what you play if you can't get your main role? A > Fill.
  • You'll play anything besides the role you hate? Fill > E.
  • You have a favorite and a least favorite? A > Fill > E.
  • etc.
• NOTE: I know we can't guarantee that players get their first choice every game, but letting them further define their preferences seems reasonable enough. Even with this change, players would sometimes get their last choice, but hopefully less often.

Buyback

• ADDED: Players can now spend 150 gold per champion level to cut their death timers short and immediately respawn at their base (360 second cooldown).
• NOTE: I'm copying this concept from DotA2, I really like the potential tradeoff there of saving gold to give yourself another chance to defend vs. spending that gold on an item powerspike.

Directional Movement

• ADDED: Players can now use a hotkey (hold or toggle, like with Target Champions Only) to move in a direct line towards the clicked point without pathfinding.
• NOTE: Also copied from DotA2, it's nice for any situations where you need to get as close to a wall as possible without pathing around to the other side.

Tutorial

• ADDED: Many more tutorial missions, each one dedicated to properly explaining a specific concept.
• NOTE: The current tutorial is a good start, but it's only 3 missions (destroy enemy base, get experience for levels, get gold for items). I think this game could use many more tutorial scenarios than that: jungling/neutral objectives, warding/vision/stealth, etc.

Practice Tool

• ADDED: Multiplayer practice lobbies.
• ADDED: "Stack champion buffs" button.
• NOTE: Filling in some gaps. Testing specific interactions would be much easier if we could set up scenarios with multiple champions involved, and checking values at certain stages of the game would be easier if we could grant champion-specific stacks, like Gangplank's Silver Serpents or Aurelion Sol's Stardust.

Bottom role

• CLARIFICATION: Marksmen are not the only class that can be played in the bottom lane, some mages are viable there too; please stop calling it "ADC". Sustained DPS is only one of the multiple ways to help carry your team. Also, if you have other roles already providing the aforementioned DPS, consider picking more for utility instead.
• NOTE: The inconsistency of people accepting multiple classes in any other role but not bottom really bugs me; non-marksmen like Karthus, Seraphine, or Veigar could definitely also want a lane partner more than they want solo experience, while the physical DPS can come from Tryndamere top, Kindred jungle, Tristana middle, etc. Honestly, it's just weird to hear people say "top/jg/mid/sup" (role) but then also "ADC" (class), it's a mismatched comparison.

In-Game Missions

• ADDED: The Battle for Bilgewater in-game mission. If Miss Fortune and Gangplank are on opposing teams, Miss Fortune has at least 1 rank in Make It Rain, Gangplank has at least 1 rank in Cannon Barrage, and Gangplank has purchased at least 1 upgrade for Cannon Barrage, a 'quest received' ping signals each to take the other down, being rewarded for emerging victorious. When Gangplank takes down Miss Fortune, he gains 250 additional Silver Serpents, and when Miss Fortune takes down Gangplank, one of his purchased Cannon Barrage upgrades (randomly selected if he has multiple) is applied to her Make it Rain.
• NOTE: I really like the in-game rival quests, like RengaKha'Zix and Thresh/Senna/Lucian have, and Cannon Barrage is really just a larger version of Make it Rain. Perhaps a unique Cannon Barrage upgrade might be a more interesting reward than just a Silver Serpent bounty...

Champions

Altair

• P - Elemental Orbit
  • ADDED: Altair is constantly orbited by 3 elemental Orbs. Each Orb deals magic damage (scaling with Altair's level and AP) to enemies on contact.
  • ADDED: Altair cannot improve his abilities with skill points. He gains access to Cyclic Surge at level 1, Orbs Out and Orbs In at level 2, and Elemental Mastery at level 6 (improving automatically at levels 11 and 16). Instead, Altair may spend his skill points to gain ability power, magic penetration, or movement speed.
  • NOTE: It's understandable that Riot wanted Aurelion Sol's generally appealing thematic to have a kit that's easier to pick up so he could really become popular, but it was kind of a shame to lose a relatively unique kit. This champion is an attempt at using the precedent set by Aphelios to really give the player more control over his orbit. Altair is designed to be a mid lane battlemage.
• Q - Cyclic Surge
  • ADDED: Altair cycles his Orbs to the next Element (Fire, Water, Air, Earth) and gains a temporary burst of movement speed. Altair's Orbs have a bonus effect (refreshing on further hits, not stacking) based on his current Element. 1 second static cooldown.
  • Fire: Searing Orbs temporarily reduce enemy armor and magic resistance.
  • Water: Tidal Orbs temporarily reduce enemy movement speed.
  • Air: Guiding Orbs temporarily increase ally movement speed.
  • Earth: Jagged Orbs deal additional damage over time.
  • NOTE: The different Orb types should help make sure Altair doesn't feel too one-note, similar to Udyr's Stances.
• W - Orbs Out
  • ADDED: Increase the Orbs' orbit radius, up to a certain maximum. Continues while pressed; no cooldown.
  • NOTE: For finer control of where the Elemental Orbit's Orbs' orbit is. Orb orb orbit orb orbitorb.
• E - Orbs In
  • ADDED: Decrease the Orbs' orbit radius, down to a certain minimum. Continues while pressed; no cooldown.
  • NOTE: See above.
• R - Elemental Mastery
  • ADDED: For the next 7 seconds, Cyclic Surge has no cooldown, Altair gains 1/2/3 additional Orbs, and Altair's Orbs gain additional Element-based bonuses. 100/90/80 second cooldown.
  • Fire: Burning Searing Orbs now also deal additional damage over time.
  • Water: Rejuvenating Tidal Orbs now also heal allies.
  • Air: Grasping Guiding Orbs now also briefly pull enemies in.
  • Earth: Dense Jagged Orbs now also briefly knock enemies back.
  • NOTE: Removing the cycling cooldown helps Altair get to the currently-desired Element before Elemental Mastery wears off. Gaining additional Orbs increases both DPS and effect uptime, and locking bonus effects behind Elemental Mastery allows the Orbs to do things that would be too strong as permanent basic effects.

Gangplank

• P - Trial by Fire
  • Bonus movement speed increased from 15%-30% (based on level) to 20%-30% (based on level).
  • REMOVED: No longer deals an additional 2 damage per 1% critical strike chance.
  • NEW EFFECT: Now grants an additional 0.2% movement speed per 1% critical strike chance.
  • NOTE: It's more skillful and fun to kite and use resets to stack extra damage than it is to just slap people once.

Sylas

• P - Petricite Burst
  • NEW EFFECT: Stacks now display on health bar for the player.
  • NOTE: I like the display that was added to Riven's Runic Blade, I think it would fit Sylas too.

Sion

• Q - Decimating Smash
  • BUG FIX: Visual indicator updated to more closely match the ability's hitbox.
  • NOTE: We all know that this is not okay.

Ornn

• P - Living Forge
  • REMOVED: From level 13 onwards, Mythic items can be made into Masterwork items.
  • NEW EFFECT: From level 9 onwards, Boots items can be made into Masterwork items.
  • NOTE: This will make more sense when we get to the Items section. Sorry, Cassiopeia and Yuumi!

Items

Mythic items

• REMOVED: Mythic items are no longer their own category, and Mythic passives are removed. Existing Mythic items are now Legendary items and are nerfed accordingly.
• NOTE: I would prefer if the only mutual exclusivity in items came from items that do the same thing, like how you can't buy two Lifeline items. Mythic passives are generally too small to make all the restrictions worth it, they don't actually let you shift your build much. Nerfs to these ex-Mythics compensate for getting this build flexibility back, now that it would be possible to build both Divine Sunderer and Goredrinker, etc.

Boots items

• ADDED: Each Boots item now has a Masterwork version.
• NOTE: Ornn needs something to upgrade items into, and this might make it feel less bad to have an 1100g Boots item occupying a slot that could hold a 3000g Legendary item. Obviously movement speed is an important stat, but it sometimes feels like the slot is half-wasted because it could hold so much more gold's worth of other stats.

Edge of Night

• REMOVED: Annul passively blocks the next enemy ability after not taking enemy champion damage for 40 seconds.
• NEW EFFECT: Annul is an active ability with a 1 second channel time that blocks the next enemy ability within 7 seconds (40 second cooldown).
• NOTE: Reverting the spell shield to an active effect instead of a passive one feels better, letting players choose when they need it instead of letting it get poked off by something minor.

Banshee's Veil

• REMOVED: Annul passively blocks the next enemy ability after not taking enemy champion damage for 40 seconds.
• NEW EFFECT: Annul is an active ability with a 1 second channel time that blocks the next enemy ability within 7 seconds (40 second cooldown).
• NOTE: See above.

Horizon Focus

• BUG FIX: Hypershot's damage amplification no longer applies to true damage.
• NOTE: Items (specifically Anathema's Chains and Crown of the Shattered Queen) don't decrease true damage, and I want consistency, so they shouldn't increase it either; true damage should be true.

Evenshroud

• BUG FIX: Coruscation's damage amplification no longer applies to true damage.
• NOTE: See above.

Duskblade of Draktharr

• BUG FIX: Nightstalker's damage amplification no longer applies to true damage.
• NOTE: See above.

Navori Quickblades

• BUG FIX: Impermanence's damage amplification no longer applies to true damage.
• NOTE: See above.

Solari Chargeblade

• PORTED: Solari Chargeblade is now available in the shop.
• NOTE: This is a cool Wild Rift item that I would like to also have available in proper LoL.

Ixtali Seedjar

• PORTED: Ixtali Seedjar is now available in the shop.
• NOTE: See above.

Crystalline Reflector

• PORTED: Crystalline Reflector is now available in the shop.
• NOTE: See above.

Petricite Amulet

• ADDED: An AP and magic resistance option for longer fights.
• RECIPE: Verdant Barrier + Aether Wisp + 1050 gold = 2900 gold.
• STATS: 60 ability power, 45 magic resistance, 8% movement speed.
• UNIQUE ACTIVE - Persistence: Removes all magic resistance reduction debuffs currently affecting you, and for the next 6 seconds, magic penetration and magic resistance reduction are only 50% effective against you (90 second cooldown).
• NOTE: while there are multiple AD + armor and AD + magic resistance items, there's only one AP + armor item and one AP + magic resistance item, and they're both best suited for short and impactful moments (stasis/spellshield). Crystalline Reflector (above) fills the AP + armor niche for longer fights, so Petricite Amulet would ideally act as the AP + magic resistance equivalent.

Enchanted Scale Mail

• ADDED: A ramping sustain option for AP fighters.
• RECIPE: Forbidden Idol + Blasting Wand + Ruby Crystal + 950 gold = 3000 gold.
• STATS: 50 ability power, 200 health, 50% base mana regeneration, 16% heal and shield power.
• UNIQUE PASSIVE - Whiteflame's Protection: For each second in combat with champions, all healing and shielding received is increased by 3%, stacking up to 4 times. While this effect is fully stacked, gain 10 basic ability haste.
• NOTE: Though it has gotten better since the item rework, AP fighters are still somewhat under-served by the shop (though in exchange, their kits are often inherently strong). Heal and shield power is a good way to amplify AP fighters' built-in durability without letting mages poach this as a new defensive option.

Runes

Perfect Timing

• REMOVED: Removed from the game.
• NOTE: I think Stasis should be slightly less accessible; you should have to actually buy the ability to become invulnerable.

Fruitful Fertilization

• ADDED: Start the game with 3x Fruitful Fertilizer, which can be activated to instantly regrow the target jungle plant.
• NOTE: We need something to replace Perfect Timing, and this feels very Inspiration-y, I can definitely imagine some cool plant usage.

Game Modes

Rotating queue downtime

• REMOVED: No more gaps between modes. When one mode rotates out, another one rotates in.
• NOTE: The downtime drives some people away until another mode returns, because they're just left with normal games (too slow sometimes) and ARAM (it half plays itself, the game tells you what to play and where to go).

URF

• ADDED: URF is now a permanent mode, instead of being part of the rotation. It swaps between pick-ban and random draft each patch.
• NOTE: URF consistently has more players than any other RGM, or even ARAM (source). Given that we can actually see it level off at roughly the same player count as TFT (which is its own game entirely), URF deserves to have its own queue.

Cosmetics

Expanded options

• ADDED: Cosmetics will now be available for more than just champions/wards/emotes, we'll have options for the map, minions, towers, announcer, etc.
• NOTE: Snowmobile cannon minions!

Specific skins

• ADDED: Winter Rift
• ADDED: Spirit Blossom Rift
• ADDED: Mystic Rift
• ADDED: Santa Gangplank
• ADDED: Master Arcanist Gangplank
• ADDED: Culinary Master Sylas
• ADDED: Battle Boss Sylas
• NOTE: I personally want to use these, and while it's nice that custom skins exist for most of these, they're a bit of a gray area.

I am looking for midlaners or toplaners who want to improve each-other's laning through a lot of short 1v1's.
The main idea I have is that we can select a few champions that we want to improve on and then play against most picked midlaners/toplaners, our counters, and champions we counter. During this process we can best learn some key information that can help us improve at the game, such as:

• Do we want to push the wave at lvl1?
• Do we want to push the waves after lvl3?
• What kind of runes/summoner spells are best in this match-up while also being good enough for general 5v5 situations?
• What should we build early game?
• What trading strategies can we find? Maybe you can easily dodge some abilities to 1v1 a champion, for example you can often walk into Sylas to dodge his Q and win the trades and a lot of champions have tricks like these that if known will make your life easier.

We can also review each-other's games since we're often blind to our own mistakes and it is easier to spot someone else's mistakes.
Prefer 18+, with VC, EUW and hopefully a good enough computer setup and mechanical level to benefit us both. I'm also up for just fun ARAMs/normals/rankeds, I would rather not play with anyone who is toxic or takes the occasional trolls too seriously.
My IGN is: qww002
Hit me up to meet on the summoner's rift :D

Hi! My name is ThexLoneWolf, and I'm a long time Aurelion Sol enthusiast. With Aurelion Sol's CGU on the horizon, everyone will be wanting to play him. As such, I feel like it's only natural to want to put out a guide to help people re-learn the space dragon.
DISCLAIMER! Everything I've written here is my own thoughts from testing him on the PBE PRIOR to his release on live servers. I highly encourage you to experiment and reach your own conclusions.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Abilities
2. Runes and Summoner Spells
3. Matchups
4. Items
5. Gameplan

1. Abilities

Passive: Cosmic Creator: Aurelion Sol's damage abilities break down enemies into Stardust, which improves his abilities.

• Breath of Light's bursts deal additional percent max health magic damage.
• Astral Flight has increased distance.
• Singularity has bonus area and execute threshold.
• Falling Star / The Skies Descend have increased area.

Gathering Stardust stacks to improve your abilities will be mandatory to be effective as Aurelion Sol. While they don't increase your damage aside from Breath of Light's bursts, they significantly improve your ability's area or range, which lets you affect larger areas of the map.
Q: Breath of Light: Aurelion Sol breathes Starfire for up to 3.25 seconds, dealing magic damage per second to the first enemy hit and 50% of the damage to surrounding enemies. Each full second of breath on the same enemy deals magic damage plus percent max health magic damage and absorbs pme stardust if they are a champion.
This will be your main tool for lane harassment and damaging enemies. An important thing to note about Breath of Light is that at max rank, it's channel duration becomes infinite as long as you can pay its mana cost. Generally speaking, I would recommend grabbing a point here at level two and maxing it by level nine.
W: Astral Flight: Aurelion Sol flies in a direction. While flying, Breath of Light has no cooldown, no maximum channel duration, and it's flat damage is increased. Takedowns on Champions within three seconds of damaging them refunds 90% of this ability's cooldown.
This is Aurelion Sol's primary mobility and roaming tool. Leveling this ability up only improves Breath of Light's flat damage while flying and its cooldown, so pick this up at level three and max it last.
E: Singularity: Aurelion Sol summons a black hole, dealing magic damage per second and dragging enemies towards the center for five seconds. Enemies in the center below five percent maximum health die instantly. The black hole absorbs Stardust when enemies die within it and each second an enemy champion is inside.
The amount of Stardust this ability will grant you is dependent on the type of enemy. Minions and small monsters will only grant one, siege minions give three, champions and large monsters give five, and epic monsters give a whopping ten Stardust. It will also collect Stardust from champions inside it, so in addition to trying to farm minions with this ability, try to get some Stardust off your lane opponent with it as well. Grab a point in this ability at level one and max it by level thirteen.
R: Falling Star: Aurelion Sol plucks a star from the heavens and crashes it into the earth, dealing magic damage, stunning enemies, and absorbing five Stardust for each champion hit. Gathering 75 Stardust turns the next Falling Star into The Skies Descend.
R: The Skies Descend: Aurelion Sol drags a constellation's worth of fury down from the cosmos, dealing increased magic damage in a larger area, knocking up enemies, and unleashing a massive shockwave that deals magic damage to enemy champions and epic monsters and slows all enemies hit.
Even unempowered, Falling Star does a pretty decent amount of burst damage. This will be your main tool for assassinating people once you start roaming around the map. Don't underestimate the team fight impact that The Skies Descend can have, however. The main impact does a pretty hefty amount of damage and the shockwave is nothing to sneeze at, either. Level this ability up whenever you can.

1. Runes and Summoner Spells

Keystone Runes
Keystone Choice 1: First Strike: Aurelion Sol now prefers to play much more like a burst mage compared to his previous iteration. Naturally, we'll want to take a rune that augments that burst damage as much as possible. You can abuse First Strike during the laning phase to hit your power spike much sooner by using Singularity on your lane opponent. If you can execute a bunch of minions with it, that's even better. Once you hit your stride with items, your burst damage with Singularity, Breath of Light, and Falling Star / The Skies Descend can become pretty high. Another thing to note about First Strike is that since Breath of Light does percent max health damage when you focus it on the same target, First Strike can also do percent max health damage, and true damage at that. Ever wonder why top mains hate Fiora so much? That's why.
Keystone Choice 2: Unsealed Spellbook: While First Strike will be Aurelion's preferred keystone most of the time, it is a high-risk high-reward option. If you prefer a safer option, Unsealed Spellbook is a decent alternative. You lose out on First Strike's true damage and gold, but you get the potential to cast more summoner spells more frequently. While Unsealed Spellbook is not nearly as impactful as First Strike, it is more consistent. I would recommend going for Unsealed Spellbook over First Strike if you're in an especially bad matchup, such as Irelia, or if you're in a lane where you can't get consistent First Strike value.
Keystone Choice 3: Dark Harvest: This rune takes the snowball potential of First Strike and turns it up to 11. In exchange for losing out on First Strike's gold, you get much better potential to execute people with your Singularity, especially when you pair this keystone with Cheap Shot and your ultimate. Personally, I would never run this on Aurelion Sol in ranked, partly because Domination is now not the best tree for him, but it is at least workable, and of course, can be a lot of fun in ARAM.
Secondary Rune Choices
Magical Footwear: Aurelion Sol has decently good roaming once he gets his boots, and taking Magical Footwear can help you rotate to other lanes and gank enemy champions.
Minion Dematerializer: Farming minions with Singularity will be your primary way to gather Stardust stacks when you're not teamfighting, so taking Minion Dematerializer can help you with clearing waves, especially caster minions.
Future's Market: This is for if you want to maximize the gold you get out of First Strike. It's also a decent pairing with Dark Harvest since you should be killing a lot of champions. Personally, I prefer Minion Dematerializer to this, but it is perfectly viable and can be particularly snowbally in ARAM, where minion deaths give gold regardless whether you get the last hit.
Cosmic Insight: Fairly straightforward, but since a lot of mage item effects have cooldowns (Off the top of my head, I can name Crown of the Shattered Queen, Luden's Tempest, and Zhonya's Hourglass), Cosmic Insight can help proc those effects more often.
Absolute Focus: You'll be wanting to recall relatively frequently as Aurelion Sol to spend the gold you get from First Strike, so you should be able to maintain near-perfect uptime on Absolute Focus. This rune can also work in the Dark Harvest page, though again, Domination is not an ideal tree for Aurelion anymore.
Gathering Storm: Aurelion Sol can scale pretty hard, and we'll naturally be building Rabadon's Deathcap, so taking Gathering Storm can net us some extra ability power.
Cheap Shot: This is mostly an assassination rune for when you're running a Dark Harvest page. Your primary means of proccing this will be by using Falling Star / The Skies Descend, and to be honest, this rune isn't that great, but given the kind of playstyle you'll adopt with Dark Harvest, this is a much preferable choice to Taste of Blood.
Eyeball Collection: Your choice of rune in this tier when running the Dark Harvest page is up to you, but personally, I like Eyeball Collection because Aurelion Sol becomes pretty good at killing people once he hits his two-item power spike.
Ultimate Hunter: Aurelion Sol's new ultimate is pretty important for assassinating people, and it's also his only means of proccing Cheap Shot on his own. Having an extra 30 ability haste for Falling Star / The Skies Descend can be pretty huge, even if that haste is exclusive to the ult.
Summoner Spells
As is usual with most champions, Flash is pretty much mandatory. After that, your choices of second summoner spell are pretty open. Exhaust can save you from an assassin who dives on you. Cleanse can be helpful against CC-reliant champions like Zoe. Teleport can help you maintain pressure in your lane in farming matchups. Ignite can add some kill pressure if you're in a winning lane like Lux. Really, your second summoner spell comes down to personal preference.

2. Matchups

The primary thing to keep in mind about Aurelion Sol is that he is going to get demolished by many early game threats, and a lot of his previous bad matchups are still pretty terrible: you don't have many winning matchups. You're still going to get murdered in the early game by melee assassins and long-range mages who can outdistance you. In addition to those threats, enemies who can interrupt Breath of Light are going to be problematic as well. Singularity is your main source of area control and Breath of Light is your main source of damage, so enemies who can easily get away from the former and/or interrupt the latter's channel will be the most troublesome matchups. That said, here's the matchup list:
Ahri: This matchup is heavily biased towards the Ahri player. Ahri's very dependent on hitting skillshots to do anything, but since Breath of Light roots you in place while channeling, she can just charm you out of it. If the Ahri plays her cards right, there's almost nothing you can do to her. Focus primarily on farming over fighting her unless she whiffs her cooldowns.
Akali: Another pretty bad matchup for Aurelion Sol. She can't interrupt Breath of Light, but she can get away from Singularity pretty easily thanks to her E. This isn't as bad as the Ahri matchup, but you will definitely not be able to kill her without help. Just play safe in this matchup and focusing on farming as much stardust as you can.
Akshan: Yet another pretty terrible matchup for you. Mostly look to avoid using Singularity until he burns his E. Aside from that, once again, try to focus on farming Stardust stacks as opposed to trading with him.
Anivia: Not an automatically terrible matchup, but pretty skill-based. She's got two different ways to interrupt Breath of Light with her Q and W, but she doesn't have any ways to get away from Singularity easily, so if you spawn it on top of her and get help from a Jungle gank, it should be a free kill.
Annie: Mostly what you need to be worried about in this matchup is Annie's passive stun. If you keep your distance, you should be able to reliably wither her down with repeated casts of Singularity and Breath of Light. Just watch out for using your Q too close to her while her passive is up, because she can knock you out of it.
Azir: This lane has a very heavy focus on farming. Azir is dependent on using sand soldiers to bully you out of the lane, so farming from a distance with Singularity is key here. When Azir does step up to attack you, Singularity will slow his advance while Breath of Light breaks him down. Just be wary once he has ult, because he can use it to knock you out of your Q.
Cassiopeia: This matchup is more annoying than losing to be honest. The only ability of yours that she can shut down is Astral Flight, and it's your least important ability by far. That said, getting knocked out of Astral Flight will break your channel on Breath of Light, so be wary of that if you do decide to take to the skies for more damage. Her ultimate's stun can also interrupt your Q, so be careful of using it if she has her ult up.
Corki: A surprisingly decent matchup for Aurelion Sol. Mainly what you need to be concerned about is Special Delivery: it's Corki's main tool for bursting people and it can also interrupt Breath of Light. He can also get away from Singularity with his unempowered W, so that's another thing to be wary of.
Diana: A pretty bad matchup for Aurelion Sol. She can easily dash on top of and burst you with her Q-E-W combo, and her numbers are super-inflated, so if she does decide to jump on you, it's almost guarunteed you'll be slain. Thankfully, she's much more commonly played in the jungle these days, but if you do see her mid, your best chance is to farm with Singularity and try to stay out of her reach.
Ekko: Ekko may seem like a pretty bad matchup on paper, but surprisingly, it isn't as terrible as you'd expect. His W is very easy to dodge, and he can't easily get away from Singularity nor can he interrupt Breath of Light without his W. Mainly what you need to be worried about is his R and it's very high burst damage. Aside from that, this is a fairly laid-back matchup.
Fizz: Terrible matchup for Aurelion Sol. You mostly need to wait until he burns his E, but if the Fizz player is smart, that'll never happen. Focus on farming and try not to die to him until you hit your two-item power spike.
Galio: You outscale Galio pretty hard, but during the laning phase, this guy will be annoying to deal with. His W passive shield can absorb a pretty decent amount of your damage, but he's much better equipped to deal with burst threats as opposed to DPS ones. Consistently whittling him down with Breath of Light can spare you the worst of this matchup.
Gangplank: This is a pretty decent matchup for you. Gangplank's primary means of control is with his barrels, but you can disarm them with basic attacks and get some extra gold in the process. That said, Gangplank is one of the few champions who can keep up with Aurelion's scaling even into the late game, so he should be a priority target whenever you're roaming or in a team fight.
Irelia: Hard lose matchup for Aurelion Sol. You'll need to hold on to Singularity to zone her off you, she can stun you out of Breath of Light, and she'll heal to full off the wave because she rushes Vampiric Scepter. You can't even farm Stardust stacks easily because Irelia excels at punishing enemies who shove the wave. This is a champion I would one hundred percent recommend banning.
Kassadin: Getting jungler help to shut him down early will be vital. Once he hits 6, he gets a massive mobility advantage over you due to his R, so even though it's risky, try to force him out of lane before then so you have a gold and experience lead. At that point, look to snowball it wherever you can. Kassadin scales hard, so staying ahead of him will help you take him out of the game.
Katarina: Not automatically terrible for Aurelion, but definitely annoying. Katarina can both easily get away from Singularity and dodge Breath of Light thanks to her E. You're mostly going to be playing under your turret to keep her away from you. Look to farm up as much Stardust as possible before she gets out of hand: Crown of the Shattered Queen can be really helpful in this matchup.
LeBlanc: More annoying than bad, mostly don't even bother trying to get her with Singularity, she can escape it pretty easily with W and R. Aside from that, this matchup is pretty even. Mostly look to farm and harass her with Breath of Light.
Lissandra: A pretty even matchup. Mostly look to use your abilities once she uses her E. Be careful about using Astral Flight too early, because she'll just root you out of it with her W. This matchup becomes significantly harder once she gets her ult, but it's not impossible. Again, wait for her to waste it before committing too hard on her.
Lux: A pretty good matchup for Aurelion Sol overall, mostly what you need to be worried about is her insanely burst damage. She can't really get away from Singularity, nor can she stun you out of Breath of Light unless you're flying. That said, it is easy for her to deny First Strike. Whittle her down with Breath of Light and Singularity before you commit to killing her.
Malzahar: Most Malzahar players will hard shove the wave, so be prepared to farm under your turret. Keeping your patience in this matchup is critical: Malzahar excels at punishing enemies who engage on him, so try to wait until either your jungler comes in for a gank or he burns his ultimate on another target. Breath of Light is great at breaking his passive spell shield, so if you can, tap Q to make him vulnerable.
Neeko: Not a terrible matchup for Aurelion Sol, mainly you need to be worried about her ult, and it's super telegraphed, so if you see her run up to you, just fly away with Astral Flight. Aside from that, general rules of farming and trading apply here: focus on getting minions with Singularity, poke with Breath of Light, and try to commit to an all-in only once she's low.
Orianna: Probably Aurelion Sol's best matchup. Her basic attacks are going to hurt, but aside from her ult, there's not a lot she can do to you aside from just damage you. Mostly just try to whittle her down and commit to a fight once your jungler comes in.
Pantheon: Not automatically terrible, you mostly need to be wary of when he has his empowered stun. Try to bait his E so you don't waste mana channeling Breath of Light on it. Aside from that, mostly try to farm up as much as possible.
Qiyana: If you can, try to whittle her down with Singularity and Breath of Light. She's mostly more annoying than she is dangerous. She can't really get away from Singularity that easily and she also doesn't have poke to deny you First Strike. All the same, farm, farm, farm.
Rumble: Kind of similar to the Qiyana matchup, except Rumble has actual poke. If you can, try to save your cooldowns for when he overheats. Losing access to abilities is a big deal, and when Rumble overheats, he inflicts a silence on himself for five seconds and change. That is a massive window to punish him, and even in the early stages of game when you're still pretty weak, Aurelion Sol is more than capable of exploiting that opportunity.
Ryze: This is a very farming-focused matchup. Both of you will be looking to freeze the wave on your side of the lane so the other will have to overextend for the last hits. Unless you're confident that Ryze can't contest it, mostly avoid shoving the wave and focus only on getting last hits with Singularity. Poking him down with Breath of Light is always viable as well.
Swain: His root is surprisingly easy to land and if he does get it, he'll be able to get a nice chunk of damage on you as well. That said, he can't really kill you on his own unless he has his ultimate or his jungler comes in to gank, so try to freeze on your side of the lane and farm up.
Sylas: A pretty easy matchup for Aurelion Sol. Mostly you only need to be worried if he steals your ult and manages to smack you with it. Aside from that, this matchup is pretty easy, just poke him down and farm.
Syndra: A good Syndra player will be looking to get as many Splinters of Wrath off their lane opponent as possible, and Aurelion is one of the easier champions to do that with. There's not much you can do to stop her from getting splinters off you aside from poking her down so staying in the lane is risky, so try to focus on farming as opposed to trading.
Taliyah: Mostly what you need to be worried about is getting knocked into her boulder field. It does a pretty big spike of damage and will stun you if you get knocked in, so try to wait until she wastes it to trade back. Other than that, pretty safe lane where you can just farm and scale.
Talon: He can't stun you out of breath of light, but he's got enough mobility to the point where it arguably doesn't matter. Mostly focus on farming and getting Stardust stacks as opposed to trading, because he is going to out-trade you if you try to.
Twisted Fate: A pretty easy matchup for Aurelion Sol. Mostly you need to be worried about the gold card, but TF doesn't do much damage by himself, all he can do is throw out point-and-click stuns and lock you down. That said, if you are consistently dying to his teammates after he stuns you, Banshee's Veil can some of those stuns.
Veigar: Mostly annoying, what you need to watch out for is his cage. Try to save Astral Flight until after he uses it to trap you. Aside from that, focus on farming and try to dodge his poke.
Vex: Her passive's fear can interrupt your Astral Flight, so be wary about using it if she has her passive up. Her poke is also tied to her waveclear, so try to stand aside from the minion wave so she has to choose whether to poke you or clear the wave. Aside from that, pretty easy matchup for you.
Viktor: His E is his primary poke and it can deny you a lot of First Strike value, but it's also his waveclear. Much like you, Viktor wants to pretty much just AFK farm until he hits his two-item power spike. Unlike Viktor, however, you're much better at roaming in the early game due to Astral Flight. If he's managing to deny you a lot of farm in mid lane, start roaming and looking for plays.
Vladimir: His W will let him get away from Singularity, so try to avoid using it until after Vladimir becomes targetable again. Mostly what you need to be wary of is his empowered Q. He's also one of the few champions who can keep up with your scaling, so in the late game, you'll want to make him a priority target.
Yasuo: His W will deny you a lot of damage from Breath of Light, but if he wants to do anything to you, he has to come out from behind it. If the Yasuo player is smart, they'll focus on farming under their tower and focus on trying to win in the midgame because even despite his insanely high damage, Aurelion Sol will outscale him pretty hard. Watch out for his in-wave mobility because he can gapclose and kill you if you're standing too close to the wave.
Yone: This matchup is very similar to the Yasuo matchup, but significantly easier for you because he doesn't have a windwall and his engage is much more telegraphed. You should be able to beat him at all stages of the game unless you get camped by the enemy jungler.
Zed: Zed has pretty strong poke for an assassin, but his mobility is below average for one. He can't get away from Singularity very easily unless he burns his W2, and same goes for Breath of Light. This matchup is overall Zed favored, mostly look to bait out his shadow before you start trying to poke him down. As usual, Zhonya's Hourglass can deny a pretty big part of his burst.
Ziggs: A poke mage much like Lux, but with much stronger emphasis on poke. He's mostly annoying more than anything, mostly because he can deny you a lot of First Strike value. Focus on farming, mostly: Aurelion can't match Ziggs' poke, so don't even bother trying. That said, if you do manage to get your hands on him, he'll crumble to pieces, so if your jungler lands a stun, feel free to commit to a fight.
Zoe: Her star hits like a truck, but she has a lot of trouble landing it without first nailing you with her E. Cleanse to get rid of the sleep debuff can really be helpful here, though feel free to take something else if you don't feel like you need it or need something else more.

4. Items

Starting Items
Doran's Ring: The standard starting item for most mages. This will be your chief item for mana sustain until you got a Lost Chapter. By the time you complete your second item, Doran's Ring is mostly redundant, so feel free to sell it once mid-game rolls around.
Dark Seal: A more aggressive option if you want to try to snowball during the early game. This is a very high-risk high-reward option, though personally, I would recommend against upgrading this into a Mejai's Soulstealer and instead focus on completing your core, selling this item by mid-game.
Corrupting Potion: If you'll be fighting the enemy laner a lot, Corrupting Potion can net you some more damage than if you had just gone Doran's Ring. It can also work as extra sustain for the early game.
Mythic Items
Luden's Tempest: In my opinion, this is Aurelion Sol's best mythic. Its cooldown is reduced by dealing damage with spells, and because your primary damage spells do damage over time, we can reduce the cooldown on Luden's by a lot. When we take the Cosmic Insight rune to further reduce the cooldown on this item, we will be able to proc Luden's frighteningly often.
Liandry's Anguish: This item can be a situational counter into health-stacking teams and especially tanks. You lose out on Luden's ability to augment burst damage, but you gain some damage based on max health. Mostly build this into tanks and certain fighters like Sett or Darius.
Crown of the Shattered Queen: This is mostly going to be a reactionary purchase against assassin-heavy comps. Again, going Cosmic Insight is really helpful for builds involving this item specifically because it's passive has a fairly long cooldown.
Boots
Sorcerer's Shoes: These will be your standard choice for boots most of the time. They add a lot of flat magic pen and that's hard to pass up as a mage.
Ionian Boots of Lucidity: These boots can find some value when used in the Unsealed Spellbook rune page, given the point of that page is to cast more summoner spells. Combining Unsealed Spellbook, Cosmic Insight, and Ionian Boots of Lucidity will let you cast a lot of different summoner spells very frequently.
Mercury's Treads: These will mostly be a situational purchase into CC-reliant teams. Mages don't have many options in the way of tenacity, so you have to take what you can get.
Legendary Items
Demonic Embrace: A strong second or third choice if you're facing a super-tanky team and Liandry's Anguish just isn't cutting it. This can also be a good counter-purchase if the enemy team isn't normally tanky but they begin stacking health items. I would recommend against buying this any later than third item because by that point you should already have enough damage from your core and you can start focusing more on luxury items.
Zhonya's Hourglass: This item can be a strong counter to assassin comps and Zed specifically because the stasis will deny Zed's R popping on you. It's armor is also good into AD champions, as well. This item can be built at any stage of the game, though due to how strong assassins can be in the midgame, I would advise building this sooner as opposed to later (though not before your mythic).
Shadowflame: If all you need in a second item is damage, Shadowflame provides a lot of it. Twenty extra flat magic pen is nothing to scoff at, and when you combine this item with Luden's Tempest and Sorcerer's Shoes, you can ignore an alarming large amount of magic resist, even without Void Staff. Although this item works best when built second, it's perfectly viable at any stage of the game.
Rabadon's Deathcap: THE quintessential mage item. It's a massive bank of ability power just by itself, but given that it multiplies all sources of AP, including itself, this item can easily give more than double its base AP, and since we're running Gathering Storm most of the time, that's probably closer to tripled. In all cases, look to build this third or later.
Void Staff: Mostly a late-game luxury item you'll want to build fourth or later as a reaction to enemy champions stacking magic resist items. Generally you can do without this if you went for Luden's-Sorc's-Shadowflame as your core, but always keep Void Staff in mind when considering your item choices.
Morellonomicon: Mostly this item will be a reactionary purchase to healing-heavy teams. Because Aurelion Sol already has fairly high DPS, you can probably make do without this item until your fourth item or later.
Banshee's Veil: You'll mostly want this item as a counter against teams that have long-range long-lasting CC. People like Morgana and Ashe are prime examples of champions I would build this into. Banshee's Veil can also be a good counter to AP comps, though the spell shield is the primary reason you'll want to build this item.
Rylai's Crystal Scepter: On old Aurelion Sol, this item was practically mandatory for him to kite effectively. New Aurelion Sol on the other hand can largely be effective without it. That said, it can be a strong purchase if you want to augment Singularity specifically.
Horizon Focus: Aurelion Sol's spells have enough range to proc Horizon Focus on their own without first needing to hit enemies with Falling Star / The Skies Descend, so if you're the kind of guy to like Horizon Focus, Aurelion Sol is perfectly capable of running it. It's not something I personally would reach for, but it is at least workable.
Cosmic Drive: This item can really help with kiting around if you're facing a team with high movement speed. The passive is hard to maintain on Aurelion Sol specifically, but the extra damage you get for proccing it is pretty worthwhile in my opinion.

5. Gameplan

Early Game
The early game is Aurelion Sol's weakest stage. Unlike the previous version of him, who could just use his W to shove wave and roam in bad matchups, in this version, you have to actually farm minions in order to become powerful. Your primary goal during the laning phase is to farm Stardust stacks, as many as possible. Stardust will improve everything about Aurelion Sol: his roaming, his damage, and his area coverage with his spells. Farming minions with Singularity and poking your enemy with Breath of Light will be the keys to gathering the Stardust you need. However, you don't want to get greedy with farming minions and start shoving waves. The enemy laner will be able to freeze the wave near their turret and deny you a lot of farm, and even worse, you'll be overextended trying to farm near their turret, which is just asking to get ganked. New Aurelion Sol is just as fragile as the old one, if not more so, and getting ganked while that far from safety will usually guarantee your death. Finding the right balance of farming enough minions to grab a lot of Stardust without shoving the wave will take practice, but once you find it, you'll want to maintain it as long as you can to maximize Stardust income.
Of course, League of Legends is not a 1v1 game, which means you may need to deal with junglers getting into a fight over the scuttle crab or even need to roam bot lane to help out in a skirmish going poorly. There's not a lot you can do in these situations when it comes to gathering Stardust, but even in the early game, you are capable of roaming and having some impact. I would primarily recommend roaming if you're in a bad matchup and snowballing your teammates is your best chance for winning the game. That said, keep in mind that roaming will forfeit a lot of farm to the enemy laner, so only look for roams if you're ahead or if you're behind and snowballing your teammates is your best chance to come back from a losing matchup.
With regards to items, you will almost certainly want to rush a Lost Chapter during the laning phase. This will help you with farming minions with Singularity, as leveling up will restore a pretty sizable chunk of your mana. If you took minion dematerializer, you'll be even better at clearing waves. It's still unlikely you'll have priority, especially against assassins and skirmishers, but with a Lost Chapter, you at least become capable of contributing more than some measly control and damage to a fight. After you finish Lost Chapter, the mythic item you build it into will largely depend on the circumstances described in the "Items" section of this guide.
Midgame
At this stage in the game, you should have completed your mythic item and boots and you're on your way to finishing your second item. The Midgame is where Aurelion Sol really starts to come into his own. You're still not very dangerous and won't be until you complete your second item, but you are now at least a credible threat that the enemy team should take seriously. At this point, what you do will likely depend on how the laning phase went.
If you came out ahead of your lane opponent: The best thing you can do for your team now is start roaming and looking for ways you can contribute to their success. Denying the enemy jungler a bit of farm if you've cleared the mid turret is a great place to start with that, and if you're nearly full on mana, you can attempt to solo dragon. That said, you're not out of the woods yet. You still don't have very much in the way of damage, and you also have yet to finish your item core. Between roams, look to farm minion waves with Singularity to get more Stardust and gold.
If you broke even with your lane opponent: You're mostly going to focus on farming and roaming. You won't be able to make as aggressive plays as if you had come out ahead, but you're still going to be pretty good at assassinating people, provided you're consistently warding and picking your fights. Mainly be careful about overextending too far into the fog of war and try to roam with a buddy where you can. Of course, gathering Stardust and gold are still high priorities for you.
If you came out behind your lane opponent: At this point, the best thing you can do is focus on farming as much Stardust and gold as possible and trying to staunch the bleeding. Try to farm lanes relatively close to your teammates so you're not at as much risk should you happen to get ganked. If a team fight does break out, you'll primarily want to use Singularity for its control as opposed to its execute. The fact that the ability drags enemies towards a central point will encourage the enemy team to avoid it entirely, lest they get torn to pieces while they're grouped up.
When considering your items, Demonic Embrace, Zhonya's Hourglass, and Shadowflame are all excellent choices for second and third items, and I recommend choosing one based on the circumstances of your particular game. By third item, Rabadon's Deathcap becomes very appealing, and should be your primary consideration for that slot.
Late Game
By now, you should have at least three full items and three-to-four hundred Stardust stacks. This is the point in the game where Aurelion Sol truly starts to get out of hand, and if you've gone for a Gathering Storm rune, then you're likely an even bigger problem. Your primary focus at this stage of the game is having as much map impact as possible. Try to catch out and kill split-pushers or anyone cluelessly wandering through the jungle. With good positioning and management of your mana, Aurelion Sol should be able to kill just about anyone. You will of course want to continue getting as much Stardust as possible because it will only increase your effectiveness at this stage of the game. In team fights, your primary focus should be on melting the enemy team's front line. Singularity and Breath of Light combined do tons of damage, and if all else fails, you can just cast The Skies Descend and let them get dragged towards Singularity's center.
As for items, Rabadon's Deathcap is a must at this stage of the game if you haven't built it yet. Void Staff is a good counter-purchase if they're stacking magic resist. If you need more flat pen, look at Shadowflame. Zhonya's Hourglass can save you if you're dying very fast in team fights. Morellonomicon can be great at denying healing. If you need more magic resist or a spell shield, Banshee's Veil is a good last item to build.

I play in Akali silver Elo. I am currently climbing well, but im thinking of switching to teleport as my default sum over ignite.
Why i dont want ignite anymore as Akali
I normally win my lane, by which i mean that i am able to either solokill my laner early, or just get him low enough that he has to take a bad recall and give me control of the lane for the rest of laning phase. Whether i am able to acctually do anything intelligent with that prio or not is another matter but the point is, failing to get control of the lane isnt currently a thing that is losing me games, i feel like akalis kit is really good in the laning phase, her W lets you get great trades and a health advantage, and her damage is also really strong. Usually ill ignite when i all in for my first kill (im always looking for a kill at 3 and 6 every game) and even with no items the enemy laner will die with ignite still ticking away and me with damage left to spare (i should add i almost always take elec as i currently prefere it, and i will try and get a short trade to proc it before the big all in so plenty of dmg already is my point). It has secured me the odd kill where they flash under their tower before i manage to get the last hit in, but they would have had to recall anyway and lose their wave, or stay and die when my abilities are up again so id be happy enough with that either way.
once i get items, unless its something like a Sylas with crazy healing, i dont really find the extra damage on ignite that usefull, Akali isnt lacking in the damage department so it feels a bit placebo in any skirmish or teamfight i show up to. Even behind i can generally 1shot their main carries which is the best you can hope for if you fall behind as any assasin. And Akali has her w which lets her be in the fight longer than other assasins, giving her more time to do dmg.
I know other assasins take ignite for the kill pressure, but Akali has her shroud and Q so imo its much easier for her to get free damage on the opponent, and once you have a little gold, ignite is kinda meh (i play full ap not bruiser). My all in with electrocute will 1shot at least 2 of the enemy team, and do a ton of damage in a team fight. Shes awsome at dueling without it (shes so great). Its not usless, but its not great either.
why i think tp will be more useful to me
I beleive the reason we are told not to take teleport generally in low elo is that we dont have good enough macro to use it like they do in pro play where tp is much more common, but thats not why i think i want to take it.
One of my weaknesses is that i find myself under farmed in the mid game. Even if i have been 1shotting the enemy team up to the 25 minute mark, they start to catch up so i need to work on it. I have been trying to avoid the classic aram nonsense mid game before I push waves in side lanes, and generally think a bit more about my next move whenever i back (also my backs are bad). This has led to more gold and therefore an increase in staying power for those games that stall out, which happens a lot in low elo. But i have lost games frequently where my team insist on taking a bad fight and get wiped while im picking up a wave. A classic scenario would be l, ive just came out of base, theres waves pushing top and bot. Our Jungle and mid are all sharing bot wave, mid is already pushed in, drags not up for 130, no reason to fight and my team are behind anyway. I go top to farm the wave. All of my team of course run into the warded bot side river to secure scuttle crab together. They meet the enemy team, i'm pinging them off as im literally in another area code. They engage and get wiped. We lose drag, they tilt at me and start the surrender spam. everyone is angry, dumb things happen and we lose. (some of you might be having deja vu).
I would drop the wave and come help if i were closer (assuming im fed enough I think i can swing it), but im way too far away, so best i can do is ping to say im not going to be there, but pings generally get ignored (i feel like we get desensitised to them as they are so often just used to flame eachother). Teleport solves this issue as i acctually have a choice about whether or not i should back them up or just carry on pushing a side lane. In my example, i am 100% certain i could have won that fight if i were there, i was very far ahead and could 1v3 bot and mid, i would have tp'd for sure.
I know my team are dumb for doing that, but in Silver we do dumb things, i'm just trying to play for what the game is, not what it should be.
some other things i think are good about tp for low elo on akali (and anyone else who has enough dmg already)

• Extra life in lane if you screw up
  
• can deliberately take bad trade on a wave thats pushing towards you and then tp back to lane with health and item advantage (better kill pressure than ignite). Level 6 kill guaranteed if they stayed, cs lead if they back. with her mobility and shroud, if Akali can see you, Akali can kill you.
  
• smaller roam timer needed as can tp back to your tower. Akali likes to roam, Akali likes to kill....more Akali things.
  
• more options on how to respond to random nonsense on the map. Akali likes to fight, Akali likes to kill moar Akali.
  

-If your team screw up lane assignments you can take the wave oposite the objective without automatically losing it (Moar fighting , Moar Akalk, Akali most full).
Baisically it feels like i have more options without really losing anything. ima try it for a while and report back, but let me know what you think.