Ever since her release in March 2018, Kai’Sa has been a staple of the bot lane, offering a decent learning curve that allows high mehcanical outplay potential and ludicrous damage numbers in the lategame of any League of Legends match.
Like most AD carries, Kai’Sa scales incredibly well as the game goes on, due to her nature as a bottom laner, but also thanks to the true and magic damage she can pump out thanks to moderately high stat radios in her kit as well as her common itemization. With the right runes and trading patterns, her early game isn’t as weak as one might expect given the power tradeoffs in her favor later on.
Although she can be build as an AP carry, and that’s part of her appeal, more likely than not you’ll be playing her as a physical damage-dealing bot laner. Her AP builds aren’t quite as strong as they used to be, thanks to recent nerfs to her Void Seeker (W)’s AP ratio, but with power coming back to those ratios in other abilities, her mid lane and off-meta builds do have viability.
That being said, for those who want to play the Daughter of the Void in a more traditional way, here is the best build for AD Kai’Sa in League.
Best Runes for Kai’Sa in League
Domination
Hail of Blades: Kai’Sa’s upfront early burst between her auto-attacks and abilities is amplified by Hail of Blades. It’s a great early laning rune that allows you to come out on top in early trades. On top of that, the attack speed increase makes it much easier to proc her passive and finish off enemies in early skirmishes.
Taste of Blood: With a 20-second cooldown, Taste of Blood essentially gives a double-digit heal every skirmish, and once every two or three trades in lane. Kai’Sa’s inherent strengths are in her scaling and mixed damage, and these rune choices are to shore up her early game to allow her to more easily get that deadly AD carry snowball rolling.
Eyeball Collection: The short answer here is it’s simply better than the other choices in the row as an AD carry. Leave the Ghost Poro stacking to your support.
Treasure Hunter: Similar to Eyeball Collection, the other “Hunter” runes don’t provide Kai’Sa with nearly as much value as Treasure Hunter does. By the time you’ve scored a takedown (kill or assist) on every champion, that’s 550 gold, or a free item component, in your inventory, allowing Kai’Sa to accelerate her devastating mixed damage right on through the game.
Inspiration
Magical Footwear: Kai’Sa loves movement speed! Especially 10 additional MS that comes for free. Plus, not having to spend the 300 gold on boots just feels nicer. Item powerspikes arrive sooner, chasing down targets is easier, it’s a really solid secondary rune choice on her.
Biscuit Delivery: Sustain in lane is the name of the game. This, combined with the omnivamp that Doran’s Blade provides, makes taking Kai’Sa out of lane outright a very difficult task. And the extra early maximum mana and mana regeneration make it even easier to frustrate lane opponents.
Bonuses: +10% Attack Speed, +9 Adaptive Force, +6 Armor
Best Items for Kai’Sa in League
Starting items: Doran’s Blade + Health Potion
The omnivamp alone makes Doran’s Blade a severely underrated early game item that will give you value in your inventory right up until you have to sell it. Because it’s not as restrictive as life steal, Kai’Sa’s high damage output as her abilities scale into the lategame will still be getting at least some value in the form of health returned right back to you.
Core items: Kraken Slayer, Berserker’s Greaves, Phantom Dancer
Assuming you’re not building Kai’Sa AP, Kraken Slayer is the near-universal Mythic purchase. The synergy with Hail of Blades and the eventual attack speed Phantom Dancer gives a ton of value and scaling. If you need the early game lethality into a squishier team, Collector is a good buy after Kraken Slayer, but get Phantom Dancer in some way, shape, or form. Now that it gives AD, Phantom Dancer is a less niche item than before. The movement speed it gives, plus the ghosting and attack speed buffs all at only 2,600 gold are perfect for a champion like Kai’Sa who can gap-close effectively and tear through targets once in range.
Lategame options:
Unless the game takes some really wonky turns, Infinity Edge should be high on the priority list of items into the midgame. Surprassing that 60% critical strike threshold is a massive powerspike for any AD carry. After that, Guardian Angel provides extra durability and a second chance in fights if Kai’Sa gets a little too close with Killer Instinct (R) or one-tapped before a fight gets going.
Depending on the enemy carries and overall team’s composition, consider Lord Dominik’s Regards for armor shred, or a Maw of Malmortius for the extra magic resistance and general survivability.
If fights are drawn out and scattered, a Bloodthirster is a valid consideration for a sixth item.
