How to Counter Ahri

How to Counter Ahri in Season 14 of League of Legends

Ahri is one of the most popular Mid Laners in the game. She is a fan-favorite champion, and players love playing as Ahri. One reason players love her is that she has a really nice kit, and some good animations. Another thing that players love about Ahri is how customizable she is.

She currently has 17 skins, and with the announcement of Faker joining the Hall of Fame, she will receive a few more. The best one being around $500. This insane price for a skin is to honor Faker, but I am not sure about that $500 price tag. Either way, we should expect to see more players picking up Ahri and playing her, with or without purchasing this skin.

Due to her popularity and this upcoming skin(s), you must learn how to counter her. Generally, the more information you know and understand in LoL, the better your performance. If you know how to play against Ahri, the higher the chance you have of winning against her. If you’re looking for more advice to counter many champion in LoL, head over to the Mobalytics Blog for more counter articles.

General Counter Advice

No matter what champion you play, you should follow some basic rules when playing against Ahri. Failing to do so can be detrimental to your laning phase, and you will either lose a lot of health, die, or fall behind and not be able to get back into the game. This is why you must follow these rules.

Watch Your Positioning

The first thing you really need to be doing is watching your positioning in lane. Ahri has a lot of poke with her Q, so you want to stand outside of the minion wave as she wil use her Q to push and poke. By standing outside of the wave, you force her to choose between pushing and poking.

However, you don’t want to be too far away from the minion wave, as she will easily land her E on you. You should always ensure there’s always a minion between you and her so she can’t use her E.

As Ahri is a ranged champion, your best bet is to limit how many opportunities she has to harass you with her basic attacks. When playing as a melee champion, make sure you don’t stand too far forward just incase as she will auto-attack you for free. When you’re low, you’ll be unable to play aggressive.

Top 5 Counters for Ahri in Season 14

I will now list 5 champions who are good against Ahri. They may not be statistically the best, but they all have a positive win rate against her. They also have tools in their kit to counter her and abuse her when she makes a mistake.

The data for these champions are all mid-patch, mid-lane, and are from patch 14.11.

1. Tryndamere

The first champion on our list is Tryndamere. Tryndamere is not the most popular Mid laner in the world, but don’t let that prevent you from playing him into an Ahri. In this matchup, you just need to abuse Ahri’s cooldowns and play aggressively whenever she wastes one of her abilities. If you can, look to play aggressively whenever she has used her E. It is best to bait this ability out and then use your E aggressively and chase her down the lane.

If you can get 1 early kill over her, then you can easily beat her in the later parts of the laning phase. When you want to trade with her, make sure you go for those long and extended trades, particularly around your Passive so you can deal extra damage to her and abuse your AD nature. Post 6, it will be impossible for her to beat you in a 1v1 as your Ultimate will just save you.

• His win rate against Ahri is 53.45%.

2. Brand

The next champion on our list is Brand. Brand has been a really good champion in this whole season. He has become quite a strong Jungler who tends to be picked and banned, and while he has fallen out of favour in the Support role, he can be a good pick into mages such as Ahri. When playing Brand into an Ahri, you just want to focus on harassing and poking her down with your abilities.

During the early game, try to focus on just farming up a storm until you get your first item. After you’ve purchased your first component item, you can start looking for more aggressive trades with her. Aim your abilities, in particular your E and W so they hit her and the minion wave at the same time. This will help with pushing, preventing her from pushing you in, and also help with poking and wave clear. The only downside to this matchup is you need to watch your positioning and stand back so she cannot all-in you and abuse your overall squishy nature.

• Brand has a 52.88% win rate versus Ahri.

3. Tristana

The third champion on our list of picks is Tristana. Early in Season 14, Tristana was a real menace to play against as she could constantly all=in anyone who walked a little too far forward, and to some extent, that is no different when playing her against an Ahri. To abuse Tristana in the Mid Lane, you need to look for aggressive plays whenever you can.

Tristana is really good at all-ining anyone who mispositions or lacks an escape tool. So one way of winning this matchup early is baiting out her E, and then using your W aggressively and jump on her. Gaining health advantages this way makes it really hard for her to lane against you, and you can easily win this matchup if you abuse your auto-attacks and get an early kill. As Ahri is also a good roaming champion (and skirmisher), if she leaves your lane, just push and keep auto-attacking her tower to get a ton of free gold via tower plates.

• Tristana had a 51.05% win rate against Ahri.

4. Zed

Zed is our next recommendation for anyone who wants to counter Ahri. Firstly, Ahri wins the early game, but if you can get an early kill (by a Jungler gank, a good roam to another lane, or some early assistance that grants a lead), then you can quickly take over this lane against her. However, she does have the range advantage and can constantly bully you down, so keep an eye on your health bar and be preapred to sacrifice a bit early.

While you may not be able to kill her often early on, you can after you get some levels and items under your belt. You’ll be looking to play around your W>E and W>Q combo to poke and bully her down. You may wish to reactivate this ability if she throws out her E, and play aggressively while her charm is on cooldown.

• Zed’s win rate is 50.60% against Ahri.

5. Lux

Lux is the final champion on our list. The benefit of picking Lux into an Ahri is that you both want the same thing. You both want to poke the enemy down and blow the enemy up. Thankfully, Lux has really long range and more burst than Ahri. As long as you have good positioning and avoid walking too far forward, Ahri will never be a threat to you.

In this matchup, you should be looking to focus on farming early and playing safe. Then when you have multiple points in your E, and your first component item, you can look to push her into her tower. Abuse your E range and walk back so you’re out of range for her to land her E. Post 6, Ahri’s kill pressure intensifies, so be wary of using your Q as she could all in you while your Q is on cooldown.

• Lux had a 51.43% win rate vs Ahri.

In Conclusion

That about sums up our article on how you can counter Ahri in Season 14. If you don’t like playing against Ahri, my advice would be to ban her. Alternatively, you can upset all the whales who have brought this skin by banning her even if you don’t mind laning against her: it’s really up to you!

For more articles like this, head over to the Mobalytics Blog.