TAKING THE OATH - KALISTA AND HURRICANE

Runaan’s Hurricane will be the #1 reason that Kalista is picked and banned in the LCS.

To expand upon this earth shattering and wholly insane statement, recently LCS players such as Doublelift and Sneaky have been experimenting with a Runaan’s Hurricane build on Kalista and it’s spreading like wildfire across the globe. Highlight reels have shown the absolute devastation caused by this build and it’s potency is without question.

THE BUILD

The current build being run by Doublelift:

• Start with Doran’s Blade, a potion, and the warding trinket (Standard start).

• Build a Vampiric Scepter and then rush Hurricane (Don’t forget boots).

• After Hurricane is built, go for Bloodthirster, Last Whisper, and Infinity Edge in that order.

• Decimate the souls of your enemies while hopping around like a madwoman.

As for runes, stick to a standard AD Carry rune page (AD, MR, Armor), but replace the quints with Attack Speed. For abilities, Max Rend (E) first, followed by Pierce (Q).

According to Sneaky, the build has a high emphasis on utilizing her passive to kite. It also has huge AoE potential assuming the player gets resets on Rend. Her power spikes occur when she obtains each of the core three items: Bloodthirster, Hurricane, and Greaves.Keep in mind that there are a few stipulations to this build, and it’s not the only way to build her -- but it is the most successful build so far. Keep an open mind and always react to the opponent instead of blindly following a buildpath.

MAKING IT WORK

Three things are important to keep in mind when evaluating or playing with this build as a whole:

1. It relies entirely on Kalista being able to kite around while hitting multiple targets.

Though most of this just comes down to pure mechanics. If LCS players try to just play Kalista because they feel she’s overpowered and pick her into a strong engage team then they’re in for a world of hurt. Avoid picking her if the enemy has Maokai, Malphite, Leona, or any other strong engage and lock down champions, as Kalista cannot escape from them and will get killed.

2. It relies on a decent/strong early game.

It’s incredibly important to this build to either get ahead early or at the very least go even. It won’t matter how many targets Kalista can hit when all she does is tickle the enemy. Fear not though, Kalista can work just fine if you build her as you would a normal AD Carry. Cut your losses and just build Bloodthirster/Shiv if you get behind.

3. It relies on being fully aware of the damage output of Rend.

One of the key points of this build is to stack as many rends as possible onto multiple targets and then crush their souls with a huge burst of damage. However, pulling spears back too early or too late will result in a completely neutered damage output, defeating one of the key pillars of the build. As an added bonus, Rend stacks infinitely on Baron and Dragon so it’s possible for her to give the team an extra clutch smite.

LCS IMPACT

Kalista's been recently practiced on streams and in scrims too often for teams to just ignore her potential, which means we’ll very likely see this build pop up more than once in the LCS. And when it’s pulled off correctly, it can melt the enemy team in mere seconds.

#lol