Introduction
In this article I will explain step by step how to counter Akali. After having encountered a lot of one trick pony’s that play Akali since her rework and considering how overpowered the champion (in my opinion the most overpowered after maybe irelia) I decided to write an article on how to counter her. This article will be focused very much on a specific champion and less on strategy. It’s a well known fact in the league of legends community that picking a counter champion could drastically impact how well you do or not do in the game. And while some people say this tends to take place mostly in higher elos like Platinum and above I believe the same holds true in lower elo’s too. Maybe in Iron or Bronze it may not be much of an issue but I think after mid-silver it starts becoming a problem.
So back to the topic of discussion we will analyze here how to counter her with specific champions and as of this article Akali is mainly played in mid-lane so the counter champions I would suggest are mid-lane specific. If she gets move to top later in time I’ll consider writing this again as the dynamics change a lot in the top lane and how you need to counter her. Another thing I want to outline here is that Akali has always been by design a problematic champion for Riot. They’ve desperately tried to fix her by reworking her kit which was already pretty overpowered but I think now they made it worst. I’ve seen them nerf her multiple times in the past 2 seasons (10 and 11) but the problem is still here as she’s dominating mid-lane with very little to do against her. Lets dive right in as I’m sure a lot of you are really anticipating this.
How Malzahar counters Akali
As you all know by now I’ve been maining Malzahar the past 2 years (I also play other champions) but by a lot of people I may be considered a one trick pony even though my champion pool is more diverse. Just to give you some background I was playing very few games in the last season and my win rate with him was 78% in 60 games and I was ranked #43 Malzahar in the world, I know this may not sound as impressive but keep in mind due to my lower elo rating relatively speaking it was important as people in Diamond 1+ reach this kind of ranking world wide (I was plat 4 at the time).
Before going into any details I recommend you read all the abilities of Malzahar on the official league of legends guide and the ones from Akali.
What Starting Items and Summoners to build for Malzahar
Starting with a sapphire with refillable is fine here it’s not very important as long as you are careful with your mana costs. Against an Akali there’s no point trading in lane unless you are pre-made with a jungler and you know he will come to help you kill her. One thing you will need against her is two important things:
- Futures market: This is vital as you will be going early back to get your lost chapter
- Teleport: In order to avoid losing any experience or minions you need to get teleport (more to that later)
For now lets just say trust me on the above two things I’ll break them down in the article on why and when they are needed.
How to early lane as Malzahar
The first few levels not much will happen in lane neither of you will have kill potential here but Akali might be able to poke you and be annoying with her Q and auto-attack passive (enhanced damage after Q). Having said that if you position properly and sit back and farm (I describe in my climbing article why farming is so important) it won’t be a problem as she simply does not have the range to kill you. One important thing to do here is that with Malzahar it’s very easy to push the lane do not do that!! If you push the lane early against an Akali and you get ganked you are probably dead if she acts fast. The reason for this is that lets consider you get slowed or cc’d by the enemy jungler Akali can use her e as a gap closer and then her shroud to gain movement speed and reach you before you know it. If that happens her damage with ignite will certainly kill you, even if the jungle does an auto only. So the bottom line is stay safe and position smartly without overextending the lane and you will be fine.
What to do in first back as Malzahar
Your first back is the most important part in this strategy to work against Akali. You only want to go back when you have enough money for a lost chapter. The futures market we mentioned above combined with if you decided to start with a Sapphire crystal will allow you to do this in 3-4 minion waves depending on the item cost on the season you are playing. A quick tip here is that if you are lazy to do math and don’t want to do calculations for how much the future market is giving you as a discount on the item and how much in debt you can go is to ping the lost chapter. This will show in the chat how much gold is necessary to buy the item. If you are god like in math ignore what I just said but I’m not so I use that all the time. Offcourse this advice works on everything else too in the game. The teleport which we also mentioned earlier will allow you to get back in lane fast! What this means for you is you won’t sacrifise any minion waves and if you did a good job farming you’ll be at a great advantage now. Malzahar is very ability based and can easily spam his e/w to push the waves under the tower forcing Akali to be in a constant defense state wasting her energy to farm. Lets say Akali doesn’t want to do that and decides to fight you (smart Akalis may do that) the majority will not (over 70% does not up to Plat elo), then the situation gets more complicated keep reading…
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How to play mid game as Malzahar
So lets assume Akali wants to fight you which isn’t an ideal case for you because you don’t quite win the 1v1 yet unless she really misplays it you need to start doing the poke game which means a completely different strategy of what we mentioned above which was pushing the waves into her tower. A good Malzahar and generally League of Legends player will adapt his strategy based on his opponent, this is a lesson I learned after playing against smurfs. Typically when I play in Gold I’m facing a Plat or higher smurf player due to my high MMR and this helped me learn how it’s important to be adaptive in my game play. Moving forward don’t be worried I have you covered if you face one of the aggressive Akalis but before we go into that let me say this, there’s two types of aggressive Akalis and without trying to sugar coat it I’ll simply say the lower elo ones and the smurfs which know exactly their damage output. You will be able to tell very quickly which one you are facing as the smurfs will also be able to maintain good farm. For the lower elo ones I won’t really break down any strategy’s here if a non-skilled Akali faces you, you simply need to let her do a mistake such as wasting her abilities on you and then all in her with your ult-e-q reset and she will likely have to back or you may even kill her if she’s not full health.
How to win lane against good players as Malzahar
This is probably the most difficult of all scenarios as a good Akali has almost no counters but a few. Luckily the kit that Malzahar has can stop that and sometimes turn the tides around. So lets go into the details of understanding what a good Akali will typically do when she faces you and if you haven’t guessed or experienced it yet, she will all in you usually initiating with her ult if you position properly or with her e as a gap closer. The next few seconds of your gameplay will dictate if you win, lose or come even at the trade. I will talk about the scenario which you do not have Zhonias purchased yet (which I think you should against akali). Once she all ins you, you need to be able to adjust your positioning either with a flash or by walking backwards if she hasn’t gone behind you already. This is the first and most important part to do if you fail to do this you will probably lose the 1v1. The reason for this is that Akali heavily relies on being close to you to output her q-auto damage and finish you with the second part of her ulti. If you deny her the q-auto she will not be able to kill you in one combo. So now that you’ve done that and you re-positioned yourself properly you have the possibility of killing her and this relies entirely on 1 thing how well you are with your Q abilitiy. The Q ability is a reset for malzahar so you almost always want to initiate with e/w then depending on the situation try to ult or q to get the reset going. If you land all of those she’s very likely dead if you miss lets say your q or she kills all your gobblings with her q before they output any damage it’s likely she will survive.
Conclusion
A few things that are good to know and they may help you during this encounter are:
- Finish your liandry’s torment as fast as you can
- Get Zhonia as it will help you mitigate some of her damage while allowing your abilities to refresh so you can use them again in the 1v1
- If you want to scale get gathering storm this is equivalent to an extra AP item at the end of the game
- I mentioned this earlier but as a reminder do not overextend your lane
- Try to keep your passive up as long as you can
- In late game group with your team and position yourself properly away from her, if she decides to all-in you try to create a gap as I described it above.
Generally I never had a problem dealing with Akali with Malzahar but I’m also a one trick and have a lot of games under my belt. It may take a bit of getting used to the strategy mentioned above but I believe it works well overall during all the parts of the game. Akali in general is a very hard matchup for any champion in the game and you should be careful regardless as the assasin herself says “Everyone dies, I just speed things up.”
Please let me know if this is a strategy you knew about and if you haven’t try it out and let me know your thoughts in the comments below! I’d be curious to learn from your mistakes or ideas on how to improve!
