I thought meta was the latin particle of "something withing something", which in this case would be "the game within the game" referring to how players tend to decide based on things that may not be obvious to people outside of the game
"The mentality in normals is different" Dudes in my normals play their mains, double invade early game, secure objectives, roam, ping, and overall play like they are at worlds and battling for a 2mUSD prize pool. Dudes in my ranked spam mastery, emotes and dance, try out new champs, and either try to FF at 15 or ask to FF@20 because their pizza arrived a bit earlier.
I remember once we were at fourty minutes, everyone on our team hit power spikes, were rolling the enemy and it was just a matter of time before we won, and our yuumi called a surrender with the reason being that she was bored
@@aerkrybryan3745 I may be too young (started) in S9 but wtf he could cancell dashes now I see why riot doesn't want him to be popular. But on a serious note they should revert that anti dash mechanic since almost every champ has 1 dash at least in these days.
@@misteriousgamers9290 I mean, that might make him even more broken, since there was less dashing back then, he would be a counter for literally every dash(would be nice to have a solid dash counter but riot says no)
@@misteriousgamers9290 That's good. Every character having a dash is completely stupid. Having a character that can counter the fact that every champ has a dash is a good idea.
@@MaccusFNS im talking about the champion winrate, not the player winrate... Before shaco support was considered good, it had a shitty winrate, yet i had a 80% winrate with that
you are completely wrong. Just because a winrate is bad for a chmapioni it doesnt mean its abad. You have to look on objectiv facts, his abilitys etsc. Not winrate. Shit champions like yi have an high winrate. When you want to know what champs are truly broken right now look at pro play, azir is oen of them
@@cybercipher5770 you missed the point where pro play can't be compared to soloQ. Champs can be broken in soloQ while being near useless in pro play and vice versa. Taking Azir as an example, he's got a very strong kit for pro play and thus is nerfed in all regards, in order to not overperform in proplay. Which makes him a bad win rate champ in soloQ. Thus the assumption in the original comment bears some truth.
I feel sorry for Azir. He was aborted twice and when he came back second time he was bullied by riot. Even in lore Bird boy was not wanted child. But even after all of that, Azir still keep going, waiting to get picked by the one and only mid-lane god Faker showing that no matter how much riot will sh*t on you, you can show people that you're not. The other good example will be Skarner. Yes, he's not very high skill level, but you get the point.
Season 7 Azir was perfectly balanced. He wasn't reworked yet. Had no presence in pro play, but was still great in solo queue. Pros still built Nashors into Rylais on him due to season 5/6 PTSD, but we all had moved on to rushing Void Staff second with magic pen runes. Imagine. A season where you were properly rewarded for the time you invested, had clear weaknesses and challenges to face, and no one to talk shit. If you popped off on Azir in season 7, you were called Faker. Your win condition was to not die in lane and if the enemy managed to die to you.. they were bad. Your wall actually peeled you, but people could still come over it. Blinks, flash, etc. Olaf ult, spell shields, Malphite, Vi, Nocturne, etc. You could still hit Azir over his wall anyway. Ahri felt like a fun matchup still and you were still playing League at a disadvantage even then. But, it felt rewarding. I can lane against someone now and tell I'm better than them. But, it doesn't matter. Their champion can afford to make mistakes and their champion automatically has more presence. I can even play a situation perfectly and still get bopped. I could've just played another champ and steamrolled them. Yet, in season 7, when Azir was still considered weak, I would've stomped any of them. Even if it was a flavor of the month pick.
man I've felt this. I feel the same way, I used to play Azir only in season 7, and he felt great. If I made mistakes, then i knew that losing a game was most likely my fault, if I played well however, I could 1v9 almost any game. Playing him now feels like flipping a coin, I can play a near perfect game with no mistakes and still have no chance of winning the game, because my team didn't manage to survive until 23 minutes with all of our inhibs up, at which stage of the game Azir is just not capable of carrying those types of games, like he used to be able to do back in S7.
As an Azir main since his release, proplay literally ruined everything. I deleted the game for a bit and now only play unranked but Azir in this current state definitely teaches you to play perfect or lose.
@@IncognitoSprax if you're below master you can't complain about the champion, he's only really an issue when you get into grandmaster/challenger and he becomes absolutely useless and meta mids just take over
@@balladani820 It was the range he had back then that gave players the possibility to make up for his weak state by using skill. Riot dont want skill in their game anymore, so they remove it more and more. New azir is a joke to play against pre rework azir, if we are talking about skill ceiling.
They should bring back the dash prevention on his ult considering literally every meta champion he goes against has a dash or two, but make the part of the wall that prevented a dash collapse allowing enemies to walk through. Should be interesting enough to see if enemies are willing enough to get funneled into a narrow area to get to azir or just give up. Or how about a more interesting change, give azir the ability to pick wall formations that have different effects. A spear formation (basically a V shape) - knockback on cast, acts like a soldier but isn't affected by q (they stay put) basically they auto targets in their range or at least in their cone of influence, enemies can walk through the "wall" A defensive wall (same formation as his current ult) - no knockback and no damage, can move champions similar to when anivia or taliyah hits you directly with their walls, doesn't attack but prevents dashes, portions of the wall can be destroyed like yorick wall, gives azir a shield/ movement speed
His numbers just way to low because of the amount of utility and skill expression he provides. To deal any sort of effective damage positioning and hitting autos is key, meanwhile a brand support can press two buttons on a mispositioned team and deal half their health, all while having only one item
@@VarsVerum oh right, thought I had already. Just want to say, I really like your content. Keep it up :) Or, if you want to start doing something new, I'll be here for it :)
Truth is I loved the OLD Azir, back when he had insane range. The feeling you had while playing him was great, and the drifts you could do was like making sick skateboard tricks. Azir nowadays feels too risky, even if the damage output is much higher.
i still remembered when azir was just released and loved everything he had,the wall bounce on his R IMO was one of the best defensive things he had and avoided those dash type champions wich now the solider's walls feels useless and get shit on pretty quickly. I mained azir for quite a while even took my time to M7 him and played a couple times in rank with him getting smurfed and otps wich sucks but getting praised by high elo players smurfing in Silver towards gold felt really good and gave me confidence on playing azir more,after the changes and nerf azir got annoying and it started feeling like a chore to play him and you had to micro manage even more than before so i got lazy and stopped playing him even tho he is still my fav champion so far and my friends told me that i wasted my potential and it is true since i rarely play azir now but it used to be one of my best champions but the term "Fun" with Azir is hardly achived. He really needs actual buffs or life quality things to be enjoyable again or at least items wich he can benefit or be stable.
I started playing azir some time after the patch where they removed his stun. He was by far my favorite champ. Took forever to get good with him just needed one more s for mastery 7 but took a long break from lol and came back to find him nerfed into the ground. He really is such a chore to play now haven't touched him since last summer.
Great video! I just found your channel today and I am already amazed. But I came up with a video idea that you may consider. I would call it: Why NO ONE played [insert reworked Champ here]. I know that this series is there to spark a discussion about why only very few people play certain champs, but I think that a series on Champs that already have been reworked would be important because it would reflect on past reworks that may or may not have been succesful and may help to understand upcoming reworks, such as the Mundo rework that will be released this year. Anyways have a great day and keep up the amazing content!
1 mil Azir here. A lot of what you said was spot on. The only reason I started playing him is because my friend said he’s the hardest champ in the game and I wanted to take on the challenge. Plus I also thought his kit was awesome. I definitely fall into that category of players that wants to take on a challenge by playing a difficult champ etc. else I would just switch to some broken champ and climb. I think his biggest weakness is “in game FF”. If they removed that from ranked then I think Azir would do better in solo queue. I can’t tell you how many winnable games I have lost because people just ff or grief. If FF wasn’t even an option and people had to play it out I honestly think my win rate would increase by a good amount. Too many silver/gold players that think they know the game/my champ and try to call the game early. In the games that did actually drag on...ive turned so many around and the griefers were shocked. So yeah that’s my biggest issue. I don’t mind all the weaknesses that Azir has, but I do mind investing 20-25 mins of my time in a game where people just ff and waste my time when it’s going perfectly fine. And yeah the fact that his kit is late game just makes it very hard for noobies to pick him up. When I first started playing Azir I remember being so frustrated by having no damage, high CD, mana problems and slow attack speed...I was so used to playing champs like Tryndamere so you can imagine how I felt lol. Compare that to other mechanically difficult champs like Lee sin who at least can do stuff early so it “feels” like you are actually doing something even if it’s your first time playing the champ. Azir feels clunky and like he has a wet noodle for his soldiers spears which can be frustrating to first timers Azir is a great anti siege champ as well as a great siege champ. He is one of the best imo for stalling games if you are losing cuz his wave clear is amazing and his passive turret can make it very difficult for the enemy to end the game. I wish more people would realize this and at least try to play it out till the end with me. Those are always the most fun games.
Hello there Vars. Wanted to say that as a 500k Azir main that tortured himself for over 6 years with this Sand Birb i agree with most things in this vid. Yeap, i'm a tryhard who also wants to have fun AND win at the same time, which in turn made me a mid lane main after i discovered how fun and tactical Azir's kit really is. Even despite his identity as the "Only good in pro play or if you are crazy enough to main him" battle mage, i still enjoy him nowadays because of his versatility, having like 4 to 5 viable rune pages to run, and very strategic buildpaths, either as a poke/burst mage or as the AP marksman...i just love this poor lost Emperor. Nice vid dude, i'm glad others even remember this pigeon. Well, except for ranked games, because i enjoy when people dont know how to play against Azir. They probably barely see one in ranked to begin with :p Keep it up, now i'm definitely gonna watch your other vids on my other shady preferred champs
You know ironically enough Zed is still a super popular champion while requiring a lot of mechanics. So I really do wonder if there's more to this than just "oh he's hard to play" like thematic or the fact that people prolly gravitate more towards skirmish based champs because fighting is fun farming isn't
I used to accept the explanation for Azir's constant nerfs, that in the competitive scene he was still an outrageously popular pick as his main weakness (difficulty) disappears in pro play. That Azir's kit was too overloaded to the point where he could do everything. This is why they needed to take away the E knock up, take away the effective range of the soldiers, take away the CD - AS scaling, make the wall narrower, remove the wall's ability to prevent dashes, remove his ability to expend soldiers to chunk turrets, and make his Q eat roughly a 5th of his mana in laning phase. Then they release a non-stop barrage of champs that can build tank and still put out absurd damage (looking at you Sett) or have stupidly overloaded kits (Yone's E is a zed ult with movement speed boost and not even an energy bar to keep him in check), and I see that Azir deserves some of his OP back. If Sett can ult his way into a 4v1 as a winning strategy because his W scales off of bad decision making, Azir can have a second knockup at the price of putting himself in harm's way. How 'bout his E only has a knock up if you Q your soldiers after you cast it? That way there's still some skill in using it, Azir gets back some means of playing through the mid game in non-competitive by bringing some CC that isn't in Ult form, and it probably won't get too abused in competitive as it involves using your Q and thus investing a lot of mana, meaning enemy champs can counter by being ready to dodge and thus forcing Azir to back early.
This video is definitely encouraging me to try out Azir cause the concept of a king 🤴 commanding his soldier sounds awesome and hearing that he is versatile with high skill ceiling and high reward but also high risk is something I absolutely love in a champion ❤. So Azir is definitely on my list.
Gotta say just recently found your channel but man you are so underrated, your videos teach a lot of things to even a league nerd like me and it's very interesting to see the why no one plays and why everyone plays videos they are very fun to watch, plus your voice is just very fun to hear. Hope to see more from you!
This hit different. You see, i played Team Fortress 2 for a LONG time, i tried all the classes,zatthe end i sticked with Soldier, Demo and Spy. All of them are really fun to play, but the Spy trickstabs video hooked me into becoming a spy main, and i realised, spy is really fucking difficult to play, trickstabs is literally being smarter and outplaying your opponent, basically you have to be a tryhard to main him, soldier and demo are hard too, but the amount of work you have to put to be useful in the match is lower than spy. With spy you have keep in mind how to move well disguised without the enemy team noticing you, know every every hitbox of every character like your own hand for knowing when will you be able to do a trickstab, be creative with trickstabs (because once you do a trickstab it won't work again) I have the same mentality with the Spy that Azir main have, i play it, not because its easy and reliable, but because is fun as hell.
Surely if champions were balanced for each rank these problems wouldn’t exist. They should balance champs for diamond and below and then masters and above. Seems a lot more fair rather than having the meta constantly orientated around pro play which just makes the balance so toxic at low elo where the sheer majority of the players exist.
bruh i got recommended this off the end screen of a mystery dungeon ost and i hear the exact same track playing right as the vid starts what a coincidence lmfao
Part of the reason that I love Azir is because he brings some of the elements of my favorite playstyles: control mages and assassins. Aside from Azir, two of my favorite champions to play are champions like Anivia and Elise, where Azir is a good middle ground for me. No it's not a perfect analogy considering he gets his damage mostly from Auto attacks but like what was said in the video, he feels like playing a good game of chess. The thing I love about Anivia is the feeling of almost toying with the opponent, and for Elise I love the high octane engage and outplay potential. Azir gives me both with soldier placement and high late game carry potential, while having tools like a good ol' shuriman shuffle for crazy engages.
I think the "infinite" possibilities is kind of an exaggeration. I mean, surely there are "infinite" as there are also "infinite" ways of positioning; but I am sure that they can be categorized into patterns and groups of actions, simply more complex and in greater quantity.
Bro I am so happy that made all these changes in the new season currently 12.12 the durability changes, and making it harder to end due to objective bounties, and champions being more durable, I knew this would benefit him.
Bronze Azir main here. I'm not the top crazy hard core 1% of players, but I just like this champ the most of all I've played. I have more fun loosing with Azir and a racing heart beat, than winning a boring game with other champs. :)
Hello, I play a lot of Azir as well as many other unpopular champions. My main champion has changed over the years. Some of my old mains include pre-patch Karma, Yorick, Evelynn, Urgot, and many others such as Skarner. In terms of character design, I really like Zed, Kassadin, Talon, and pretty much anything with a wrist blade on it.
yeah I started playing lol 2 weeks ago and azir is the first champion I mained M6 so far... He is really fun to play, but I heard he got nerfed soo bad, and I can clearly see his limits in ranked and normal games... sad...
Azir is so much fun to play. To anyone who is considering learning him, just spam norms. People don't quite play the same but honestly you will learn well enough and its totally worth it. I actually use him to climb at this point. I'm a former Azir one-trick (but he's still probably 80% of my games)
I have nearly 1 million Azir mastery points and find him to be still quite strong in the early game due to his superior poking power against many opponents. Rush liandrys and his poke goes thru the roof. Although it took lots of experimenting in s11 to rediscover his lost strength, I can say confidently he is again a force to be reckoned with. Ofc he will take lots of skill (since he's a high skilled champ) but once you get thru Lanning phase and enter team fights mid game you can dominate the fight, given that you have a decent lead to your lane counter part. All in all, Azir is a fun champ and extremely rewarding especially when you have mastered his mechanics.
I just discovered you today, and really enjoyed your remade Aurelion Sol video. Great work! I'd be very interested to see a take on Rek'Sai, as she's one of my favorite champions to play, though I never see anyone else play her.
So I began using Azir as a champ after a fun game with him in aram. When I played him in blind/draft I began to realize why I rarely see anyone play him. I'm all for risk and reward, but its like Asol with his orginal kit I feel where it left him very vulnerable after using an ability. I hope to see a rework or something for azir like instead of having the soldiers only attack when you do. Make them attack when anyone is in range, and attack anyone you are attack aswell.
To be fair after we got Kassadin v2(Ekko) and jg Vayne(Kindred) while already having Ryze and Vlad in the game and up mentioned Kassa and Vayne we did not need many more late game champs
I gotta say I love this champion so much! I love playing Cassiopeia and Azir is my backup champion which doesn't make a ton of sense, but I love playing him when I do! I love that I have to play Chess when I play LoL :D
as an azir main I can say that you require good ping to do some of the combos, for example, using w waiting for the enemy to get close then you e, q back, r to stay under tower while bringing the enemy under tower too, does require good ping, having high ping will make it impossible to do, like even 80 ping makes it impossible because the inputs come late making the ult go the wrong way, making the q not move far enough, I also experience bad inputs with 120 ping, where I would do a normal w, e, q, r to tower or teammate combo, and still, the ult manages to go the wrong way, I tasted this is not because I am bad, I had recorded it many times where because of the ping the ult will ignore the initial cast and send the ult to where I want to move it could be trying to dodge cc, like once I press r to push the enemy away and the I flash but in game, the flash went first and then the ult the wrong way.
azir last small rework thats why no one plays azir, i suggested riot to change his ult to become ascended and spawn above a shuriman disc dealing damage as a turret and heal him, and his ult becomes a cc ability and attack speed is no longer needed as his soldiers have a base attack speed
Riot needs to stop balancing around the top 1 percent of players because they end up limiting the roster to basic unfun champions for 99 percent of players.
@@magieenvtuber9783 why? that's a significant number of players. Also azir and other high skill champs like kindred have low win rates in those ranks too.
started pickibg up azir this season and dropped 600 lp but i can already feel it being worth it because currently im on a 8 game winning streak with him so yes its a huge investment but im confident itll pay off
"Your champion might collapse in on itself the moment Riot sees them too often in professional play." *cries in sylas main* :( I want old sylas back, give me back all the skill expression and mechanics I worked for :(
otp'd him into masters back in season 4 or 5. Man that was so fun. The recetn 10 base dmg nerf on his soldiers autos just put the nail in the coffin. He accomplishes nothing anymore in the early game in higher ranks vs other assasins and skirmishers. Not even HOB is capable of making up for his weak early, its disgusting.
Ah yes, the conventional champion that can summon a turret at any destroyed turret on the map no matter where.(I am only pointing this out because I myself am a azir main and find that last part funny cuz of all the turret kills I’ve gotten from people who have never seen an azir in there whole lol life)
I started maining Azir during his release and he's fun but also has a lot of bugs during that time. After Riot saw what happened in worlds, they gave Azir a lot of nerfs and probably some bugfix issues. During that time, I decided to quit the game because Azir is just so weak whether it's a mid game or late game even tho he shines the most at late game. Many years later I decided to go back when my friend told me that Azir got a buff plus conqueror got reworked. After a few days, he got another buff. Then comes the nerfs. And tbh, he's not that strong. I still recommend playing Azir ESPECIALLY if you're playing with your friends on comms because his teamfight is very strong. Not to mention that his ult can literally change the tides of teamfights. However, if you're a solo queue player like me, or if you're just new to him, here's no good reason to pick him up as he will rely so much on his allies.
Like,my friend said that Azir is imbalance because you cannot kill his soldiers(what).Like,if you can,it actually will make him more imbalance in some way(imagine have wall of soldiers that close you from Lucian R)
I remember when azir got his name as bullying range mage. Now he lost his range n his w poking power. New champ like sera got the most out range beyond 700 long which not got nerf at all
They really need to make a seperate patch for pro play, champions like Azir, Sejuani, and Kalista are borderline unplayable in solo queue because they're so strong in pro play.
Can be the next one why no one plays xin Zhao? my Main xD He is actually a good jgler and also can be played top. I don't understand why no one plays him he isn't even weak. Would be great if you make a video about him ^^
I have him in my list of champions to talk about! But if you want to see him right away consider making a donation to my patreon :) patrons can request a specific champion to come quickly!
@@VarsVerum Oh. My bad fam. Just kinda thought it was funny that a video with this title gets uploaded right after LEC xD Nice vid tho. Very informative.
I was an absolute scrub at playing Azir before. Until, I discovered that you can bind attack move click to a button. Easiest champion in the game. Literal giga gorilla brain plays.
to be honest with you i just started to main him in 2021. i got 86% win rate on him with 20 games : D so much fun to play.. even now they nerfed for no reason... since noone playing him kek.
Is funny couse i always like azir but i never like to play mid so recently i start using him has a ADC, well, in this case APC Bot, and is actually really funny to play, high risk high reward champion, i only play flex so i don't mind loosing some points to learn how to play him And if you are one of the persons who find me in the aurelion sol video of no one plays or the other way around, yes, i'm that offmeta dude. Anyway another good video :d
play viktor, ziggs, or swain bot instead. azir scales way too hard with levels because of how his kit functions ive tried to make him work but he just doesn't do enough damage with that little exp
I thought meta was the latin particle of "something withing something", which in this case would be "the game within the game" referring to how players tend to decide based on things that may not be obvious to people outside of the game
That's the regular definition of meta. But what gamers refer to as meta is M.E.T.A - Most Effective Tactic Available
I am today years old knowing what meta means also so dont worry I am just dumb XD
My mind is blown learning this
@@VarsVerum that is actually just a backronym
i got my mind blown by this omg
"The mentality in normals is different"
Dudes in my normals play their mains, double invade early game, secure objectives, roam, ping, and overall play like they are at worlds and battling for a 2mUSD prize pool.
Dudes in my ranked spam mastery, emotes and dance, try out new champs, and either try to FF at 15 or ask to FF@20 because their pizza arrived a bit earlier.
bruh, my normal game is either 5 monke vs 5 monke or pro team vs pro team rarely in the between
I remember once we were at fourty minutes, everyone on our team hit power spikes, were rolling the enemy and it was just a matter of time before we won, and our yuumi called a surrender with the reason being that she was bored
@@iiiivvvv9986 well, playing yuumi is boring tho
LMAO that's why I stopped playing ranked. They're either really tough pros or have monke level mentality
my games are the same it's like the matrix or something
Azir is just a cool concept and a lot of fun to play, he’s just been nerfed way too much
I was so mad when they removed the interaction with his ult...
@@aerkrybryan3745 I may be too young (started) in S9 but wtf he could cancell dashes now I see why riot doesn't want him to be popular. But on a serious note they should revert that anti dash mechanic since almost every champ has 1 dash at least in these days.
@@misteriousgamers9290 I mean, that might make him even more broken, since there was less dashing back then, he would be a counter for literally every dash(would be nice to have a solid dash counter but riot says no)
He suffers from Overloaded Kit Syndrome that reigns in pro LoL, so to not have Azir in every Wolds, they have to beat him down
@@misteriousgamers9290 That's good. Every character having a dash is completely stupid. Having a character that can counter the fact that every champ has a dash is a good idea.
"why no one plays azir"
Reason
Azir: *has any winrate above 47%"
Riot: "too strong, needs a nerf"
faker 78% WR picks azir all the time.
@@MaccusFNS im talking about the champion winrate, not the player winrate...
Before shaco support was considered good, it had a shitty winrate, yet i had a 80% winrate with that
A lot of the time it's balanced around highest elo, he is played constantly at pro play
you are completely wrong. Just because a winrate is bad for a chmapioni it doesnt mean its abad.
You have to look on objectiv facts, his abilitys etsc. Not winrate. Shit champions like yi have an high winrate.
When you want to know what champs are truly broken right now look at pro play, azir is oen of them
@@cybercipher5770 you missed the point where pro play can't be compared to soloQ. Champs can be broken in soloQ while being near useless in pro play and vice versa. Taking Azir as an example, he's got a very strong kit for pro play and thus is nerfed in all regards, in order to not overperform in proplay. Which makes him a bad win rate champ in soloQ. Thus the assumption in the original comment bears some truth.
I feel sorry for Azir. He was aborted twice and when he came back second time he was bullied by riot. Even in lore Bird boy was not wanted child. But even after all of that, Azir still keep going, waiting to get picked by the one and only mid-lane god Faker showing that no matter how much riot will sh*t on you, you can show people that you're not. The other good example will be Skarner. Yes, he's not very high skill level, but you get the point.
Skarner is a travesty of design.
it upsets me so much that skarner almost got a rework
@@averyjefferson2799 yes. After buffs in s10 he became really good. I even started playing. Must say his playstyle is pretty satisfying for me.
Axir is meta right now and has been regularly played in the LEC for several weeks now
@@averyjefferson2799 He needs it but Udyr has been needing one since forever. Throw the guy a bone. (I voted Udyr.)
Season 7 Azir was perfectly balanced. He wasn't reworked yet. Had no presence in pro play, but was still great in solo queue. Pros still built Nashors into Rylais on him due to season 5/6 PTSD, but we all had moved on to rushing Void Staff second with magic pen runes.
Imagine.
A season where you were properly rewarded for the time you invested, had clear weaknesses and challenges to face, and no one to talk shit. If you popped off on Azir in season 7, you were called Faker. Your win condition was to not die in lane and if the enemy managed to die to you.. they were bad.
Your wall actually peeled you, but people could still come over it. Blinks, flash, etc. Olaf ult, spell shields, Malphite, Vi, Nocturne, etc. You could still hit Azir over his wall anyway. Ahri felt like a fun matchup still and you were still playing League at a disadvantage even then. But, it felt rewarding.
I can lane against someone now and tell I'm better than them. But, it doesn't matter. Their champion can afford to make mistakes and their champion automatically has more presence. I can even play a situation perfectly and still get bopped. I could've just played another champ and steamrolled them. Yet, in season 7, when Azir was still considered weak, I would've stomped any of them. Even if it was a flavor of the month pick.
Azir has been in one of his best states in a long time for months now :p
man I've felt this. I feel the same way, I used to play Azir only in season 7, and he felt great. If I made mistakes, then i knew that losing a game was most likely my fault, if I played well however, I could 1v9 almost any game. Playing him now feels like flipping a coin, I can play a near perfect game with no mistakes and still have no chance of winning the game, because my team didn't manage to survive until 23 minutes with all of our inhibs up, at which stage of the game Azir is just not capable of carrying those types of games, like he used to be able to do back in S7.
As an Azir main since his release, proplay literally ruined everything. I deleted the game for a bit and now only play unranked but Azir in this current state definitely teaches you to play perfect or lose.
@@IncognitoSprax if you're below master you can't complain about the champion, he's only really an issue when you get into grandmaster/challenger and he becomes absolutely useless and meta mids just take over
@@balladani820 It was the range he had back then that gave players the possibility to make up for his weak state by using skill. Riot dont want skill in their game anymore, so they remove it more and more. New azir is a joke to play against pre rework azir, if we are talking about skill ceiling.
The second I heard the first noise of the opening music I knew it was the best song from the most perfect game on the DS 😍
what song is it
@@suzaku1679 I think its the time spire from pokemon dungeon adventure team time/darkness
@@Demagogines I'm listening to it right now, it does seem to be the case.
@@suzaku1679 It´s defenitly from the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon series.
Just keep serching there and you will find it eventualy ^^
They should bring back the dash prevention on his ult considering literally every meta champion he goes against has a dash or two, but make the part of the wall that prevented a dash collapse allowing enemies to walk through. Should be interesting enough to see if enemies are willing enough to get funneled into a narrow area to get to azir or just give up. Or how about a more interesting change, give azir the ability to pick wall formations that have different effects.
A spear formation (basically a V shape) - knockback on cast, acts like a soldier but isn't affected by q (they stay put) basically they auto targets in their range or at least in their cone of influence, enemies can walk through the "wall"
A defensive wall (same formation as his current ult) - no knockback and no damage, can move champions similar to when anivia or taliyah hits you directly with their walls, doesn't attack but prevents dashes, portions of the wall can be destroyed like yorick wall, gives azir a shield/ movement speed
also reverse his W range of control and attack plus making his passive cd go up to 300s but lasted forever and can have multiple turret
Vars: *uploads a video about why No one plays Azir*
riot a week later: *nerfs Azir*
yeahh.... :((
His numbers just way to low because of the amount of utility and skill expression he provides. To deal any sort of effective damage positioning and hitting autos is key, meanwhile a brand support can press two buttons on a mispositioned team and deal half their health, all while having only one item
Nothing but facts.
I definitely went on a nostalgia trip, wonderful music.
Like button for nostalgia? :3
@@VarsVerum oh right, thought I had already. Just want to say, I really like your content. Keep it up :) Or, if you want to start doing something new, I'll be here for it :)
Me, Garen and Azir main: Feels bad
Maining the easiest and the hardest champion to play in LoL. Nice!
with the new items, I find Azir hits a huge spike at Liandry's + Nashor's Tooth + Sorc boots. From then on out he just feels stronger and stronger
Truth is I loved the OLD Azir, back when he had insane range. The feeling you had while playing him was great, and the drifts you could do was like making sick skateboard tricks. Azir nowadays feels too risky, even if the damage output is much higher.
i still remembered when azir was just released and loved everything he had,the wall bounce on his R IMO was one of the best defensive things he had and avoided those dash type champions wich now the solider's walls feels useless and get shit on pretty quickly. I mained azir for quite a while even took my time to M7 him and played a couple times in rank with him getting smurfed and otps wich sucks but getting praised by high elo players smurfing in Silver towards gold felt really good and gave me confidence on playing azir more,after the changes and nerf azir got annoying and it started feeling like a chore to play him and you had to micro manage even more than before so i got lazy and stopped playing him even tho he is still my fav champion so far and my friends told me that i wasted my potential and it is true since i rarely play azir now but it used to be one of my best champions but the term "Fun" with Azir is hardly achived. He really needs actual buffs or life quality things to be enjoyable again or at least items wich he can benefit or be stable.
I started playing azir some time after the patch where they removed his stun. He was by far my favorite champ. Took forever to get good with him just needed one more s for mastery 7 but took a long break from lol and came back to find him nerfed into the ground. He really is such a chore to play now haven't touched him since last summer.
Thank you for the Explorers Time soundtrack; I feel like I'm climbing up the tower all over again.
Legend says that while stronger is the character on Lore, less played it is
Azir has one of, if not the coolest moveset design in the entire game. He also looks like a chozo kind of which makes me like him even more.
The music at the end is so beatiful!
Great video! Love the Mystery Dungeon Temporal Tower music too!
Great video! I just found your channel today and I am already amazed. But I came up with a video idea that you may consider. I would call it: Why NO ONE played [insert reworked Champ here]. I know that this series is there to spark a discussion about why only very few people play certain champs, but I think that a series on Champs that already have been reworked would be important because it would reflect on past reworks that may or may not have been succesful and may help to understand upcoming reworks, such as the Mundo rework that will be released this year.
Anyways have a great day and keep up the amazing content!
1 mil Azir here. A lot of what you said was spot on. The only reason I started playing him is because my friend said he’s the hardest champ in the game and I wanted to take on the challenge. Plus I also thought his kit was awesome. I definitely fall into that category of players that wants to take on a challenge by playing a difficult champ etc. else I would just switch to some broken champ and climb.
I think his biggest weakness is “in game FF”. If they removed that from ranked then I think Azir would do better in solo queue. I can’t tell you how many winnable games I have lost because people just ff or grief. If FF wasn’t even an option and people had to play it out I honestly think my win rate would increase by a good amount. Too many silver/gold players that think they know the game/my champ and try to call the game early. In the games that did actually drag on...ive turned so many around and the griefers were shocked. So yeah that’s my biggest issue. I don’t mind all the weaknesses that Azir has, but I do mind investing 20-25 mins of my time in a game where people just ff and waste my time when it’s going perfectly fine.
And yeah the fact that his kit is late game just makes it very hard for noobies to pick him up. When I first started playing Azir I remember being so frustrated by having no damage, high CD, mana problems and slow attack speed...I was so used to playing champs like Tryndamere so you can imagine how I felt lol. Compare that to other mechanically difficult champs like Lee sin who at least can do stuff early so it “feels” like you are actually doing something even if it’s your first time playing the champ. Azir feels clunky and like he has a wet noodle for his soldiers spears which can be frustrating to first timers
Azir is a great anti siege champ as well as a great siege champ. He is one of the best imo for stalling games if you are losing cuz his wave clear is amazing and his passive turret can make it very difficult for the enemy to end the game. I wish more people would realize this and at least try to play it out till the end with me. Those are always the most fun games.
Hello there Vars. Wanted to say that as a 500k Azir main that tortured himself for over 6 years with this Sand Birb i agree with most things in this vid. Yeap, i'm a tryhard who also wants to have fun AND win at the same time, which in turn made me a mid lane main after i discovered how fun and tactical Azir's kit really is. Even despite his identity as the "Only good in pro play or if you are crazy enough to main him" battle mage, i still enjoy him nowadays because of his versatility, having like 4 to 5 viable rune pages to run, and very strategic buildpaths, either as a poke/burst mage or as the AP marksman...i just love this poor lost Emperor. Nice vid dude, i'm glad others even remember this pigeon. Well, except for ranked games, because i enjoy when people dont know how to play against Azir. They probably barely see one in ranked to begin with :p
Keep it up, now i'm definitely gonna watch your other vids on my other shady preferred champs
i dont understand why riot just not make his soldiers do on-hit
Because Kata needed it more on her ultimate. Ya know, cause that makes sense
You know ironically enough Zed is still a super popular champion while requiring a lot of mechanics. So I really do wonder if there's more to this than just "oh he's hard to play" like thematic or the fact that people prolly gravitate more towards skirmish based champs because fighting is fun farming isn't
That temporal tower music be slappin
I used to accept the explanation for Azir's constant nerfs, that in the competitive scene he was still an outrageously popular pick as his main weakness (difficulty) disappears in pro play. That Azir's kit was too overloaded to the point where he could do everything. This is why they needed to take away the E knock up, take away the effective range of the soldiers, take away the CD - AS scaling, make the wall narrower, remove the wall's ability to prevent dashes, remove his ability to expend soldiers to chunk turrets, and make his Q eat roughly a 5th of his mana in laning phase.
Then they release a non-stop barrage of champs that can build tank and still put out absurd damage (looking at you Sett) or have stupidly overloaded kits (Yone's E is a zed ult with movement speed boost and not even an energy bar to keep him in check), and I see that Azir deserves some of his OP back. If Sett can ult his way into a 4v1 as a winning strategy because his W scales off of bad decision making, Azir can have a second knockup at the price of putting himself in harm's way.
How 'bout his E only has a knock up if you Q your soldiers after you cast it? That way there's still some skill in using it, Azir gets back some means of playing through the mid game in non-competitive by bringing some CC that isn't in Ult form, and it probably won't get too abused in competitive as it involves using your Q and thus investing a lot of mana, meaning enemy champs can counter by being ready to dodge and thus forcing Azir to back early.
This video is definitely encouraging me to try out Azir cause the concept of a king 🤴 commanding his soldier sounds awesome and hearing that he is versatile with high skill ceiling and high reward but also high risk is something I absolutely love in a champion ❤. So Azir is definitely on my list.
Gotta say just recently found your channel but man you are so underrated, your videos teach a lot of things to even a league nerd like me and it's very interesting to see the why no one plays and why everyone plays videos they are very fun to watch, plus your voice is just very fun to hear. Hope to see more from you!
When you're at work listening to this and wonder what song this is from. Then scream out "pokemon mystery dungeon" 😂
This hit different.
You see, i played Team Fortress 2 for a LONG time, i tried all the classes,zatthe end i sticked with Soldier, Demo and Spy. All of them are really fun to play, but the Spy trickstabs video hooked me into becoming a spy main, and i realised, spy is really fucking difficult to play, trickstabs is literally being smarter and outplaying your opponent, basically you have to be a tryhard to main him, soldier and demo are hard too, but the amount of work you have to put to be useful in the match is lower than spy.
With spy you have keep in mind how to move well disguised without the enemy team noticing you, know every every hitbox of every character like your own hand for knowing when will you be able to do a trickstab, be creative with trickstabs (because once you do a trickstab it won't work again)
I have the same mentality with the Spy that Azir main have, i play it, not because its easy and reliable, but because is fun as hell.
Surely if champions were balanced for each rank these problems wouldn’t exist. They should balance champs for diamond and below and then masters and above. Seems a lot more fair rather than having the meta constantly orientated around pro play which just makes the balance so toxic at low elo where the sheer majority of the players exist.
Excellent choice of music, Temporal Tower FTW
bruh i got recommended this off the end screen of a mystery dungeon ost and i hear the exact same track playing right as the vid starts what a coincidence lmfao
The mystery dungeon music is really nice :)
I really need a playlist with the music you use for these videos
Part of the reason that I love Azir is because he brings some of the elements of my favorite playstyles: control mages and assassins.
Aside from Azir, two of my favorite champions to play are champions like Anivia and Elise, where Azir is a good middle ground for me. No it's not a perfect analogy considering he gets his damage mostly from Auto attacks but like what was said in the video, he feels like playing a good game of chess. The thing I love about Anivia is the feeling of almost toying with the opponent, and for Elise I love the high octane engage and outplay potential.
Azir gives me both with soldier placement and high late game carry potential, while having tools like a good ol' shuriman shuffle for crazy engages.
I think the "infinite" possibilities is kind of an exaggeration. I mean, surely there are "infinite" as there are also "infinite" ways of positioning; but I am sure that they can be categorized into patterns and groups of actions, simply more complex and in greater quantity.
Bro I am so happy that made all these changes in the new season currently 12.12 the durability changes, and making it harder to end due to objective bounties, and champions being more durable, I knew this would benefit him.
Bronze Azir main here. I'm not the top crazy hard core 1% of players, but I just like this champ the most of all I've played. I have more fun loosing with Azir and a racing heart beat, than winning a boring game with other champs. :)
Meanwhile captions: „THE EMPEROR OF THE SANS”
Hello, I play a lot of Azir as well as many other unpopular champions. My main champion has changed over the years. Some of my old mains include pre-patch Karma, Yorick, Evelynn, Urgot, and many others such as Skarner. In terms of character design, I really like Zed, Kassadin, Talon, and pretty much anything with a wrist blade on it.
Forgot to mention A-sol.
it's fine to see the recognatioon of the skill required to make azir work but the best part about him is just how fun he is to play and learn
yeah I started playing lol 2 weeks ago and azir is the first champion I mained M6 so far... He is really fun to play, but I heard he got nerfed soo bad, and I can clearly see his limits in ranked and normal games... sad...
I was so sad when they took away the main aspect of his ult... A completely impassable wall that you could only get past with flash
I think theres an issue with your slide effect btw, they seem to flicker, most noticeable at the lich bane scene, great video as always though!
Azir is so much fun to play. To anyone who is considering learning him, just spam norms. People don't quite play the same but honestly you will learn well enough and its totally worth it. I actually use him to climb at this point. I'm a former Azir one-trick (but he's still probably 80% of my games)
That pokemon Mystery dungeon theme tho :’)
I have nearly 1 million Azir mastery points and find him to be still quite strong in the early game due to his superior poking power against many opponents. Rush liandrys and his poke goes thru the roof. Although it took lots of experimenting in s11 to rediscover his lost strength, I can say confidently he is again a force to be reckoned with. Ofc he will take lots of skill (since he's a high skilled champ) but once you get thru Lanning phase and enter team fights mid game you can dominate the fight, given that you have a decent lead to your lane counter part. All in all, Azir is a fun champ and extremely rewarding especially when you have mastered his mechanics.
I just discovered you today, and really enjoyed your remade Aurelion Sol video. Great work! I'd be very interested to see a take on Rek'Sai, as she's one of my favorite champions to play, though I never see anyone else play her.
Getting m7 azir in gold was one of the most longest thing i've ever tried achieving in league
So I began using Azir as a champ after a fun game with him in aram. When I played him in blind/draft I began to realize why I rarely see anyone play him. I'm all for risk and reward, but its like Asol with his orginal kit I feel where it left him very vulnerable after using an ability. I hope to see a rework or something for azir like instead of having the soldiers only attack when you do. Make them attack when anyone is in range, and attack anyone you are attack aswell.
My first main champion was azir, and it was really hard to learn, and now i cant play azir confortably
I love the PMD music by the way :D
I may be Bronze but Azir is just so fun and it's really fun getting oneshot by every single champ just to learn wtf I'm supposed to do against them.
I listen to these like a podcast in bed and i love it
To be fair after we got Kassadin v2(Ekko) and jg Vayne(Kindred) while already having Ryze and Vlad in the game and up mentioned Kassa and Vayne we did not need many more late game champs
This guy just presses F3, types music and likes all the comments related hahahaaha, great stuff.
I gotta say I love this champion so much! I love playing Cassiopeia and Azir is my backup champion which doesn't make a ton of sense, but I love playing him when I do! I love that I have to play Chess when I play LoL :D
as an azir main I can say that you require good ping to do some of the combos, for example, using w waiting for the enemy to get close then you e, q back, r to stay under tower while bringing the enemy under tower too, does require good ping, having high ping will make it impossible to do, like even 80 ping makes it impossible because the inputs come late making the ult go the wrong way, making the q not move far enough, I also experience bad inputs with 120 ping, where I would do a normal w, e, q, r to tower or teammate combo, and still, the ult manages to go the wrong way, I tasted this is not because I am bad, I had recorded it many times where because of the ping the ult will ignore the initial cast and send the ult to where I want to move it could be trying to dodge cc, like once I press r to push the enemy away and the I flash but in game, the flash went first and then the ult the wrong way.
I'm a simple man, i hear PMD music, i like
azir has always been my favorite champion period but i hardly play him just because i feel its high risk high reward either way his kit is fun as hell
azir last small rework thats why no one plays azir, i suggested riot to change his ult to become ascended and spawn above a shuriman disc dealing damage as a turret and heal him, and his ult becomes a cc ability and attack speed is no longer needed as his soldiers have a base attack speed
Also his skins are very colorful and cool to look at
Riot needs to stop balancing around the top 1 percent of players because they end up limiting the roster to basic unfun champions for 99 percent of players.
I feel like riot should not care about players under D2 for balance honestly
@@magieenvtuber9783 why? that's a significant number of players. Also azir and other high skill champs like kindred have low win rates in those ranks too.
Makes sense why my team on ranked didn't flame me for feeding, but flamed the shit out of Yasuo feeding
Today I learned that meta is an acronym and now I feel like my whole life has been a lie
THE MUSIC..... is that dialgas fight from explorers of time?
Not the fight! the dungeon :D
you know whats worse than being most requested "non-played" champ in league, being 2nd
started pickibg up azir this season and dropped 600 lp but i can already feel it being worth it because currently im on a 8 game winning streak with him so yes its a huge investment but im confident itll pay off
Azir actually stomps most champions in early lane, can take baron with a tank instantly at 20 minutes and scales well
can you do a "why no one plays sion"? I never found a sion player, but I love playing him
Thebausffs is your Sion player
"Your champion might collapse in on itself the moment Riot sees them too often in professional play." *cries in sylas main* :( I want old sylas back, give me back all the skill expression and mechanics I worked for :(
otp'd him into masters back in season 4 or 5. Man that was so fun. The recetn 10 base dmg nerf on his soldiers autos just put the nail in the coffin.
He accomplishes nothing anymore in the early game in higher ranks vs other assasins and skirmishers. Not even HOB is capable of making up for his weak early, its disgusting.
Ah yes, the conventional champion that can summon a turret at any destroyed turret on the map no matter where.(I am only pointing this out because I myself am a azir main and find that last part funny cuz of all the turret kills I’ve gotten from people who have never seen an azir in there whole lol life)
What sucks about Azir is that his kit has no counter to someone just walking away from his soldiers.
I started maining Azir during his release and he's fun but also has a lot of bugs during that time. After Riot saw what happened in worlds, they gave Azir a lot of nerfs and probably some bugfix issues. During that time, I decided to quit the game because Azir is just so weak whether it's a mid game or late game even tho he shines the most at late game. Many years later I decided to go back when my friend told me that Azir got a buff plus conqueror got reworked. After a few days, he got another buff. Then comes the nerfs. And tbh, he's not that strong. I still recommend playing Azir ESPECIALLY if you're playing with your friends on comms because his teamfight is very strong. Not to mention that his ult can literally change the tides of teamfights. However, if you're a solo queue player like me, or if you're just new to him, here's no good reason to pick him up as he will rely so much on his allies.
Why no one plays Ryze or Vladimir? I would love to see more battlemages
He needs to be severely buffed all around
Like,my friend said that Azir is imbalance because you cannot kill his soldiers(what).Like,if you can,it actually will make him more imbalance in some way(imagine have wall of soldiers that close you from Lucian R)
I remember when azir got his name as bullying range mage. Now he lost his range n his w poking power. New champ like sera got the most out range beyond 700 long which not got nerf at all
They really need to make a seperate patch for pro play, champions like Azir, Sejuani, and Kalista are borderline unplayable in solo queue because they're so strong in pro play.
With the current state of champion balance these days, Riot should really give Azir back his anti-dash ulti.
But that Elderwood skin is really poppin
Can be the next one why no one plays xin Zhao? my Main xD He is actually a good jgler and also can be played top. I don't understand why no one plays him he isn't even weak. Would be great if you make a video about him ^^
I have him in my list of champions to talk about! But if you want to see him right away consider making a donation to my patreon :) patrons can request a specific champion to come quickly!
10:30 Aphelios is a more recent late game champ than kindred, as is Senna
When I first started azir. It was because a azir basically removed me from the game.
Trying him was fun. But I had more fun with vel koz
I swear I miss playing him and not suffering every goddam GAME
Also Azir, being used in the LEC multiple times: 👁️👄👁️
In the beginning of the video I say solo queue *and/or* pro play. It can be one or the other.
@@VarsVerum Oh. My bad fam. Just kinda thought it was funny that a video with this title gets uploaded right after LEC xD
Nice vid tho. Very informative.
we're two episodes in and azir is already here (my main) and last one was aurelion (the champ i started learning), maybe i'm just an oddball lol
I'm probably too late but can you please tell me how can you dish out so much good content so quickly? How long do you edit?
I was an absolute scrub at playing Azir before. Until, I discovered that you can bind attack move click to a button. Easiest champion in the game. Literal giga gorilla brain plays.
I picked Qiyana not long ago and she is fun af.
Completely broken champion
Do taric next, i think he would be good for your format.
to be honest with you i just started to main him in 2021. i got 86% win rate on him with 20 games : D so much fun to play.. even now they nerfed for no reason... since noone playing him kek.
Is funny couse i always like azir but i never like to play mid so recently i start using him has a ADC, well, in this case APC Bot, and is actually really funny to play, high risk high reward champion, i only play flex so i don't mind loosing some points to learn how to play him
And if you are one of the persons who find me in the aurelion sol video of no one plays or the other way around, yes, i'm that offmeta dude. Anyway another good video :d
play viktor, ziggs, or swain bot instead. azir scales way too hard with levels because of how his kit functions ive tried to make him work but he just doesn't do enough damage with that little exp
Was that a stridebreaker shaco in that first clip?????
Azir looks fun!
Nice video! Please make one about Veigar.
This one's been hinted at for so long! Finally lol
Yeah but I got a skin for him so time to int all my games with him