Who am i ?

Hi, i'm Yurox. I managed to reach Grandmaster in Season 11 and 12 and challenger 1080 LP in Season 13, i managed to climb with Cassiopeia only on Mid and AD role.
I'm starting to stream on my Twitch (https://www.twitch.tv/yuroxlol) for Tryhard/Educational stream, if you wanna pass by, it will be appreciated. I will also be starting coaching. I will also point out this is a midlane guide. I might eventually add the botlane guide if enough people are interested in it but for now it would make the guide way too long.

Why would you pick cassiopeia ?

Pros

- Very high DPS if you can land it
- Very high clutch factor due to her W and R
- Very fun to master
- Can 1v9 in soloQ as long as you're good
- Playable Mid/AD/Top so it's okay to get filled

Cons

- Hard to play and need good mechanical skills
- Not a good blindpick
- Not good in every game (Aka range compositions for example)
- Need a deep understanding of spacing to pull the full potential

General tips

Early game

- Don't tilt when you have a bad early, you have one of the strongest low ressources champs in the game : You don't need that much gold to be useful to your team. You can almost always be useful in fights and side.
- Your champs can get priority vs a lot of matchups. Don't allow enemy mid to roam freely when it's possible.
- Passive early game isn't necessarly bad ; Your champ scaling is insanely good.
- Last hitting is very easy by doing AA E, but don't forget to delay a tiny bit your Twin Fang or sometimes your Twin Fang will hit before you AA and you will lose mana.

Mid to late game

- Don't underestimate your W, it's one of the best zoning ability in the game. Especially in fights, it can comes clutch when you zone the backline or cancel a dash from a carry.
- Catching people with your rylai Q's can be a key for a free drake/nashor.
- You have a very strong 1V1 as long as you can DPS your target. People will often underestimate you.
- You have an amazing 2 items spike when you finish seraph's, use that at your advantage (forcing objectives / fights).
- Until very high elo, you can 20min nashor VERY OFTEN because of your very high DPS. Try to call it to your team. If possible, don't tank nashor, you deal half damage if you do. Also nashor is a huge mental buff for your team and mental debuff for enemy. If you do it, PICK A PINK!
- DON'T WASTE YOUR FLASH IN MID-LATE GAME, YOU WILL NEED IT TO CLUTCH FIGHTS : R FLASH or FLASH TO DODGE A KEY ABILITY.

Overall tips

- Whenever it's possible, especially in lane, you should go for a Miasma to secure your Noxious Blast with the slow, it also prevents eventual dash/flash.
- Try to be unpredictable with your R in 1V1 fights. A good way to do so is to DPS normally and use Petrifying Gaze right after E or Q. Another way is to simply bait the enemy if you are low-life for example.
- In early game, you should always try to optimize your DPS, hit those auto-attacks between your Twin Fang. If you don't, you are missing a huge part of your DPS. You will also run out of mana faster if you don't, because you will need Twin Fang to kill your opponent.
- Mana management : Be aware that if you fight out of your spike, you will often run out of mana if the enemy has tankyness or use potions. So you should aim for your spike lvl 3 and 5 and poke with your AA when it's possible.
- A good way to hit your R flash when you want to kill in a 1V1 is to time it on a cannon minion ; Do it whenever the enemy is gonna last hit.
- When you want to dive mid or bot, but especially bot, your Miasma can prevent enemy botlane from outplaying/flashing and secure damage for your mate because of the slow. You should always aim to put this Miasma when it's possible.
- Mental mindset : While that might sound difficult, playing to try to improve only and not watching at LP gains is a great mindset to progress. Also, League requires a lot of focus. If you want to grind, you probably shouldn't do 10 games per day. Do a few games and be 120% focus. Note that mental depends on the person, if my advices didn't worked for you, you might just have to find your own recipe.

FlashIt's a no brainer. Very precious summoner on cassiopeia as it is your only real mobility tool. Be sure to use it wisely especially in late game and don't waste it before objectives if possible.

GhostAllow early cheese kill in lane when wave pushes under your tower in certains matchup. Also a very important tool in fights to chase and position yourself because ghost duration will expand on every kill/assist which is just really strong for chasing in teamfights. However, be aware that you will need a very good lane management because you don't have teleport anymore. Especially in Syndra, Viktor matchups, you might take Teleport over ghost to stay in lane because of the heavy poke.

TeleportSafest way to play cassiopeia. Will allow you to have a better lane especially in poke matchup and/or if you die to a gank. Also allow you to roam easily because you can teleport back to lane after the move. Also just got buffed to 10 min (compared to 14min) so you can teleport to botlane early in the game, can be useful for that. If you are starting cassiopeia, you should probably go teleport.

Ignite I used to play it but not anymore. It's a good summoner to cheese kill early paired with Liandry's Torment. However it's a dead summoner in mid/late game and since we don't build liandry anymore, it's not as good as before. Even VS Vladimir i wouldn't take it.

Exhaust Not a huge fan, but it's a decent summoner in assassin matchups ( Qiyana, Zed, ...). If you feel like you need it, take it. However, in others matchups, you probably shouldn't take it.

Cleanse You might need it in matchups like Zoe, Lissandra or Twisted Fate and/or paired with CC jungler such as Fiddlesticks, Elise. When you feel like you can get CC to death in general.

PRECISION

Conqueror will be your main rune for Cassiopeia. It offers you a lot of damage by stacking it with Q, E and auto attacks. You can note that Phase Rush would be a decent option for poke matchup such as Orianna Viktor or Syndra but if you use ghost, you won't be needing it. Phase rush has been in a tough spot for ranged since the nerf but it's up to you.

You don't really benefit from others runes so it's an obvious choice. It's can comes clutch also when you miss mana for a fight and get that extra kill that let you fight through. Basically a no brainer.

Not much to say, others runes are bad for you. Gives you some CC resistance, can be useful.

So here i would recommand last stand for the clutch factor. That's a lot of damage even if you are not that low, it's such a good rune. Some people might prefer Cut Down which is very good usually but not as good as before because you will stack a lot of HP with Rod of Ages, Archangel's Staff and Rylai's Crystal Scepter.

Most of time i take AP AP resistance (depending on damage) but it's okay to take CDR for the first one because you don't build liandry and it can feel clunky to play with low CDR.

SORCERY

Manaflow band is some extra mana and mana regen, it's really nice to have even tho it's not mandatory. Some people might take Absolute Focus or Gathering Storm which are valid choices.

Mandatory rune especially with Rod of Ages. You NEED that extra CDR which is basically extra DPS in your fights.

Rod of ages

VS

Liandry's torment

Why should i buy RoA ? RoA is a very underrated item on Cassiopeia in my opinion. It offers an amazing scaling and a lot of tankyness (700 EXTRA HP at full stacks) and quite a good amount of AP. It allows us to fights properly and being less worried about assassins and burst damage dealers.

I continue to see a LOT of people building liandry's. So liandry's have a few advantages obviously ; It offers a better early game for eventual snowball or tough matchups and it also offers us all the cdr we need quite early in the game. While liandry's has quite a few pros, the fact that you are a low-range mage means you will have a very tough time entering fights to actually deal damage. That's why i recommand Rod of ages in most games if not all games. In my opinion, liandry's is a good option if AND ONLY IF it allows you to snowball early game.

Archangel's staff

Rylai scepter

Gives a lot of damage as well as CDR which is important on Cassio and a LOT of survivability. Of course, you will need this as well for mana issues. Just mandatory. You will build that as your second item in most games.

Excellent synergy with cassiopeia Q as it slows 5s an enemy. You can also press E to slow and hit Q easier. It's a very good tool to catch your opponents off guard as 1 Q might be enough to force a kill or a flash. Also gives extra tankyness which is good.

Rabadon

Void staff

In my opinion, a heavily underrated item on cassiopeia. This allows you to obliterate fights if you can step up and hit your Q's. If you don't need defensive items, that's a very good 4th items. Eventually i take it as 3rd item when i need to 1v9.

If you are needed to kill tanks, take it. You only want to build this when you are forced to cause cassiopeia has so much better options.

Gargoyle

Frozen heart

Excellent item for EHP (Effective Health) as it gives you 60 armor/mr and a very good anti burst active. Highly recommanded if you are facing a burst compo with a lot of assassin / high dps. Works especially well vs balanced team (Not either full AP or full AD).

Excellent item if you are facing full AD team as it gives you a lot of tankyness and CDR. It's especially insane because you already have some HP from the rest of your build. Note that you can do some cloth armors early for this if you need it (Assassins matchup for example).

Abyssal mask

Zhonya

Especially since the new patch. Abyssal mask is now the best MR item in the game so we would be stupid not to build that vs heavy AP composition.

Zhonya's is almost always a good item. If you don't wanna commit for a full tank item like gargoyle or frozen heart, it's a good overall item cause it mitigates AD but also his active will help you for AP damage.

Items that i don't build often but situational

Situational. I take it when facing champions that have an undodgable life-threatening ability ( , ,...) plus there are some AP damage in enemy team. Most of the time, i'd rather do others tankyness items.


It's a bit of a preference. Very good item to get if there are AD in enemy team as a 5th/6th item. The extra MS can be crucial to dodge/kite (as you don't AA with cassio in late game). However, if you play ghost, you won't necessarly need it.


You just have so much better items to do. If someone in your team can build it for you, you should try to avoid it. If people don't build it, just build Oblivion Orb.

Bait items

While some of these items might look decent, most of them are either bad or outclassed by others options. Some of them might become good again if they get buffed such as Cosmic Drive Everfrost. I will not explain every single one of them but if you build them, you probably should change that.

Early game

Lvl 1-2, you are usually pretty weak, and you don't especially want to trade unless you need to trade back. You have big spikes lvl 3 and 5 (when you up your E). This is where you should abuse and try to trade/kill eventually. Especially as cassiopeia can Auto attack + E to trade, it makes her a very strong trader early game if you can be in range. If you play ghost, you might find opportunities lvl 3 and 5 as well to ghost in and force a flash/kill.
If the matchups allows it, you can take priority quite easily, especially after first back, and roam bot or help your jungle to make the difference if you are vs passive matchup ( Veigar, Kassadin, ...). Taking priority also prevent assassins from roaming freely. However, don't do that unless you can take priority without dying. That's why taking vision is a KEY point. You should always try to take a pink when you back and keep track of the jungler if possible. If you try to force priority without vision, you will just feed.
Note that flash ult angle can find you a kill in lane VERY easily ; If you find a stun, you can W and avoid him flashing out easily from your combo.

Spike lvl 3 example : Play Video You can see that despite the fact ahri hit her combo, she can't answer our damage. We pop ghost and get a kill opportunity.

Should i roam every game?

Ultimately, it depends on your playstyle and matchups. This champion don't excel at roaming but it's still decent roamer because of his excellent DPS in 1V1 vs ADC and Miasma that allow you to setup dives. If you have free roam, you should probably give it a try. Just be aware that over-roaming might get you behind in some matchups which make you dependant of botlane success. As you get more experience, you will understand better when to roam, and when to not. However you should always try to be active on the map when the game allows it ; Pressure / Roam / Cancel enemy mid roam.

Mid to Late game

You want to play around objectives : Drake and nashor.
Usually around that time (if you have a decent farm), you will have seraph's finished and will have a huge powerspike (especially considering you don't buy boots!). You can use that to force fights in your favor and force drake. Nashor at 20 is a really nice call when it's possible (Once again, having a pink can secure you the nashor by denying vision). One thing you also want to notice is, it's OK to let a wave crash to help your teammates. You won't be that behind and will still be relevant.

But what if my team is behind and i can't force objectives?

Well it will happens in some games. If you feel like you can't force fights and win them. You can concede drakes and farm. Your champ scales exceptionnally well so it won't be that bad. Farm well and look for a good pick to get nashor for free and get back in the game.

But i'm vs a poke composition ( Caitlyn, Lux, Xerath, Jayce, Varus)...how do i play?

If you are vs a poke composition, whenever it's possible you will have to find either flank angle (Don't just group with your team and let enemy pokes you) or a Flash. Note that plants can be very useful for flank angles. Also if you happen to be in a drake + nashor alive situation. You can turn tables by going nashor if they commit at drake.

Flank example : We can see here that we play vs jayce and jinx in late game. It would be very difficult to approach them so we use explosive plants to our advantage. Play Video
But...my team is consistently fighting, i can't farm and scale. What do i do?

At this stage, you should be ready to give up farm to help your team. It will almost always be better to fight and avoid a losing fight than taking a wave. While this sounds strange that we give up farm with such a good scaling champ, Cassiopeia don't need that much ressources to be efficient. Especially vs champions that NEED scaling like Vladimir/ Syndra...forcing these fights can be beneficial.
Note that some people rather farm, gather ressources and 1v9 fights which is harder in my opinion to accomplish unless you are smurfing.

Common mistakes

- Mana management : I already talked about it but i can't stress it enough.
You hit some Noxious Blast in lane and proceed to poke your opponent... but somehow you are oom and can't lane anymore. Now you have to either recall and lose waves or stay low mana in lane and completely lose priority. You don't want any of that to happen. Be wise and don't waste your mana if you can't kill and use your E spikes to have a better damage per mana ratio.
- Assassins matchups : Most of them are skill matchups but mostly positive except for a few such as Fizz. You shouldn't force a trade kill. Your champion will do WAY BETTER than an assassin if you are 0/0. Giving kills to an assassin means that he can build letality early and kill you faster.
- I kind of talked about this one but. Do Not Waste Your Flash in Mid to late game.
- When chasing : Often you will try to chase for a kill with Cassiopeia. When you hit a max range Noxious Blast, you should just run to gapclose with that extra movement speed then proceed to DPS by hitting a second Noxious Blast. This will often be used in mage matchup or VS adc to land some extra Twin Fang.
- Respecting too much : As i explained, you are very strong in trades early. Especially vs mage or champs that have CDs, you can literally run them down if they have a bad position.

If you have any questions or correction you want to add, feel free to comment and i'll try to add this to the guide. Thanks you for reading !