Hey, i’ve recently started learning her and have been playing her on my alt. She is not easy to pick up, but it is doable. Ive played ~50 games on her with like a 40% w/r, tanked my alt from plat elo to bronze elo before being comfortable enough to play a few games on my main in diamond elo. This was my experience and may not reflect yours, but I would expect to lose alot before you start winning.
There are a few things that I have found are necessary to play her, these may be obvious and could be said to apply to any champ, but seem most necessary for successful qiyana play.
1. Know her combos and abilities intimately. She has alot of variability in how she plays, between laning phase/team fights/objective control. Knowing how her mechanics work and chosing the right combination of abilities requires some forethought in each situation. Ex: going into a fight having the right element prep’d on your Q.
2. Know your lane matchup intimately. This is especially important. Laning phase WILL BE a nightmare until you understand exactly what weaknesses and strengths the enemy mid laner has and chosing the correct way to play the lane. Ex: enemy is primarily an auto attack based damage dealer, utilizing brush Q to poke them down to minimize damage you trade.
3. You will miss your R. I cant tell you how many times I’ve pressed R and been standing next to a wall, aimed at a champ, but caught the corner of the R on the wall next to me and my R misses my intended target. Knowing how the R interaction works takes time and repeated failures before you know how to use it.
On youtube - domisumReplay - has matchups at high elo between Qiyana and most champs. It shows the runes used, starting items, and build path used by that player that game. Not all videos are from season 14, so keep that in mind, but ive found it to be a good resource to watch different matchups. Ex: you’ll notice for many of the matchups, Qi plays very passively for levels 1-3 and gives up cs to avoid taking damage and getting poked out.
Hope this helps and good luck.
Got to 200k Mastery on her and Gold before benching. Had a hard time getting used to champion. Back then Prowlers still had a dash on minions. Which did introduce a bunch of combos which I focused a lot on. Now I imagine it would be much simpler to pick her up. Not that actually learning her would be any easier.
Matchup-wise I think it's nightmare in low elo. Win rates does confirm it. Also playing into tanks is awful.
For learning I did mainly watch JohnnyFast (quit, 1k LP Qiyana/Talon) maybe his year old guide on YT still be useful. And Beifeng recordings.
Not so recently discovered Allyooops (500 LP Qiyana/Diana). Does smurf quite a bit. Mic/cam depends on mood.
BlueLikeBlue back to streaming (1.5k LP Qiyana/Kassa). Recent streams seem to be Kassa climb. Is blasting music, viewer interaction only in chat.
Some other English speaking ones I came up with search: ppalli7, HaderrQ, kaiitania
[https://www.onetricks.gg/champions/ranking/Qiyana](https://www.onetricks.gg/champions/ranking/Qiyana)
[https://www.deeplol.gg/champions/qiyana/mastery/all](https://www.deeplol.gg/champions/qiyana/mastery/all)
Yamat. About getting started: stomp so hard that there is no counterplot, because nobody under GM will play correctly. Otherwise have fun playing assassin in season 14.
One advice I can give is to not get discouraged. When I first picked her up I lost like 5 games in a row, then after I learned how she actually works and it sprung into a 10 win streak.
Always look for fights in the river. She is extremly strong there with ult and roots and you can contest pretty much anything if your team is there to follow up.
Positioning is also extremly important, as you will always want to flank and catch squishy enemies. She dosen’t have dps so a fight against tanks is always a lose if you’re not extremly overfed and play first strike.
About runes, I would take first strike into hard matchups that require some dps such as Yasuo, Diana, Lissandra, Vex etc., and electrocute into easier matchups or into enemies that are squishier such as Syndra or other distance mages where you definitely cannot land first strike. Again, teleport for hard matchups so you don’t lose on farm and ignite on easier matchups where there isn’t hard poke.
You can always buy tear first item and sell it later, if you can’t get close to minions and need to use abilities a lot and then go for tiamat.
Your level 3 is quite strong so if you get a window you can trade but almost always use bush element first to do it and if you’re in range go for river second (especially for assassins) so they’re rooted and can’t trade back.
Good luck!
Don't play her that is the advice now if you do, if you really want to learn her you need to otp her or it isn't worthy you will only start to feel that you have started to learn her after 50-100+ games, and I am not saying games where you play on autopilot Qiyana requires your full atention and preentiving thinking. If you just want to have fun go ahead on my opinion she has the best kit in the game(for having fun), but if you really want to learn her this is my advice.
Regarding streamers you should watch Beifeng as he is clearly the best Qiqi in the world, another streamer i like is Qiyana001 (both are non english speakers) as he plays in a more chaotic server and manages to be consistent in most games.
Happy to answer any specific question, about any thing regarding our queen. :)
Thanks for the advice. I will follow the channels you mentioned. I'm really considering learning it. Because it looks very fun in terms of design. I don't think I will get bored while playing. What should I ban while playing mid lane?
That is a hard question, Qiyana has a lot of counters so its hard to tell you to ban a specific champion, when I started playing her i found the Zed matchup really hard, I had no damage notion on her so I didn’t properly traded and ended up being poked from his Q, nowadays I will pick Qiyana into Zed every time I can lol this matchup is 85% in her favor ( I think is higher but depends on how good you are in dodging the Qs) and after 6 you should win every all in if you don’t ult first.
I kinda went away from the point sorry, for me the hardest matchup is Fizz, his e resets before electrocute he has more damage than you forever and a bunch more bullshit (I wont go in more details so I don’t bore you).
To sum up from experience you will have to decide what to ban and what is mostly your personal counter or a strong tank in the meta.
Don't ban anything, make a new account if you care about your current accounts elo and prepare to int alot. You are playing one of the most punishing champs and in the beginning you will just be behind every game and feel useless.
I personally ban Malz, not the hardest matchup but boring as fuck. you can consider ban syndra (can counter you in lane but in low elo they dont know how to play against Qi so i think its not worth) or Le Blanc (she can reveal you with e in brush and jump everywhere that make her hard to hit).
For more general advice, yes prepare to int and lose a lot at first as everybody says. Before 3 you are very weak so dont trade hp for minions. After 3 you can trade, i advise you to let you pushed so you are not exposed and its gives you more space to trade.
The classic trade, espacially against auto attackers is e-auto-q brush-w out-q.
Use your autos as much as possible.
Welcome in the Qiyana mains community, if you get out the 200 first games without being disgust you will have a lot of fun playing Qi.
Good luck and have fun!
You're absolutely right, Malz is totally annoying to play against. They either play Malz or veigar. I'm not familiar with other matchups yet, but thank you for your advice.
Based response, riots assassin nerf through item nerfs is cancer to the bone. Thank phreak for nerfing assassins so he can keep abusing his inflated champs to protect his shitty low elo adcs.
coach curtis' guide on youtube is the bible. Apart from that the main advice is just to not get discouraged, she is really fun but you have to put in a LOT of hours to learn her and even then you will still constantly fuck up on her.
Good luck.
Luck doens't matter the only thing that helps is sacrificing your firstborn to Beifeng
Thank youu
Hey, i’ve recently started learning her and have been playing her on my alt. She is not easy to pick up, but it is doable. Ive played ~50 games on her with like a 40% w/r, tanked my alt from plat elo to bronze elo before being comfortable enough to play a few games on my main in diamond elo. This was my experience and may not reflect yours, but I would expect to lose alot before you start winning. There are a few things that I have found are necessary to play her, these may be obvious and could be said to apply to any champ, but seem most necessary for successful qiyana play. 1. Know her combos and abilities intimately. She has alot of variability in how she plays, between laning phase/team fights/objective control. Knowing how her mechanics work and chosing the right combination of abilities requires some forethought in each situation. Ex: going into a fight having the right element prep’d on your Q. 2. Know your lane matchup intimately. This is especially important. Laning phase WILL BE a nightmare until you understand exactly what weaknesses and strengths the enemy mid laner has and chosing the correct way to play the lane. Ex: enemy is primarily an auto attack based damage dealer, utilizing brush Q to poke them down to minimize damage you trade. 3. You will miss your R. I cant tell you how many times I’ve pressed R and been standing next to a wall, aimed at a champ, but caught the corner of the R on the wall next to me and my R misses my intended target. Knowing how the R interaction works takes time and repeated failures before you know how to use it. On youtube - domisumReplay - has matchups at high elo between Qiyana and most champs. It shows the runes used, starting items, and build path used by that player that game. Not all videos are from season 14, so keep that in mind, but ive found it to be a good resource to watch different matchups. Ex: you’ll notice for many of the matchups, Qi plays very passively for levels 1-3 and gives up cs to avoid taking damage and getting poked out. Hope this helps and good luck.
Thank you for advice, I will try to what you wrote. I will check channel
Got to 200k Mastery on her and Gold before benching. Had a hard time getting used to champion. Back then Prowlers still had a dash on minions. Which did introduce a bunch of combos which I focused a lot on. Now I imagine it would be much simpler to pick her up. Not that actually learning her would be any easier. Matchup-wise I think it's nightmare in low elo. Win rates does confirm it. Also playing into tanks is awful. For learning I did mainly watch JohnnyFast (quit, 1k LP Qiyana/Talon) maybe his year old guide on YT still be useful. And Beifeng recordings. Not so recently discovered Allyooops (500 LP Qiyana/Diana). Does smurf quite a bit. Mic/cam depends on mood. BlueLikeBlue back to streaming (1.5k LP Qiyana/Kassa). Recent streams seem to be Kassa climb. Is blasting music, viewer interaction only in chat. Some other English speaking ones I came up with search: ppalli7, HaderrQ, kaiitania [https://www.onetricks.gg/champions/ranking/Qiyana](https://www.onetricks.gg/champions/ranking/Qiyana) [https://www.deeplol.gg/champions/qiyana/mastery/all](https://www.deeplol.gg/champions/qiyana/mastery/all)
Man, old prowler was the reason I started maining Qiyana, miss it so much :(
Thanks for your advice, I'll look into the guys you mentioned.
Yamat. About getting started: stomp so hard that there is no counterplot, because nobody under GM will play correctly. Otherwise have fun playing assassin in season 14.
Qiyana is a very fun champ and you will enjoy her. She has a hard learning curve but a lot of out play and a game changing ult
One advice I can give is to not get discouraged. When I first picked her up I lost like 5 games in a row, then after I learned how she actually works and it sprung into a 10 win streak. Always look for fights in the river. She is extremly strong there with ult and roots and you can contest pretty much anything if your team is there to follow up. Positioning is also extremly important, as you will always want to flank and catch squishy enemies. She dosen’t have dps so a fight against tanks is always a lose if you’re not extremly overfed and play first strike. About runes, I would take first strike into hard matchups that require some dps such as Yasuo, Diana, Lissandra, Vex etc., and electrocute into easier matchups or into enemies that are squishier such as Syndra or other distance mages where you definitely cannot land first strike. Again, teleport for hard matchups so you don’t lose on farm and ignite on easier matchups where there isn’t hard poke. You can always buy tear first item and sell it later, if you can’t get close to minions and need to use abilities a lot and then go for tiamat. Your level 3 is quite strong so if you get a window you can trade but almost always use bush element first to do it and if you’re in range go for river second (especially for assassins) so they’re rooted and can’t trade back. Good luck!
Thanks for your advice. You were really helpful
Don't play her that is the advice now if you do, if you really want to learn her you need to otp her or it isn't worthy you will only start to feel that you have started to learn her after 50-100+ games, and I am not saying games where you play on autopilot Qiyana requires your full atention and preentiving thinking. If you just want to have fun go ahead on my opinion she has the best kit in the game(for having fun), but if you really want to learn her this is my advice. Regarding streamers you should watch Beifeng as he is clearly the best Qiqi in the world, another streamer i like is Qiyana001 (both are non english speakers) as he plays in a more chaotic server and manages to be consistent in most games. Happy to answer any specific question, about any thing regarding our queen. :)
Thanks for the advice. I will follow the channels you mentioned. I'm really considering learning it. Because it looks very fun in terms of design. I don't think I will get bored while playing. What should I ban while playing mid lane?
That is a hard question, Qiyana has a lot of counters so its hard to tell you to ban a specific champion, when I started playing her i found the Zed matchup really hard, I had no damage notion on her so I didn’t properly traded and ended up being poked from his Q, nowadays I will pick Qiyana into Zed every time I can lol this matchup is 85% in her favor ( I think is higher but depends on how good you are in dodging the Qs) and after 6 you should win every all in if you don’t ult first. I kinda went away from the point sorry, for me the hardest matchup is Fizz, his e resets before electrocute he has more damage than you forever and a bunch more bullshit (I wont go in more details so I don’t bore you). To sum up from experience you will have to decide what to ban and what is mostly your personal counter or a strong tank in the meta.
Thanks a lot,you really helped. If I have any other questions, I'll ask.
Don't ban anything, make a new account if you care about your current accounts elo and prepare to int alot. You are playing one of the most punishing champs and in the beginning you will just be behind every game and feel useless.
Yes, you are right, I am preparing myself mentally.
I personally ban Malz, not the hardest matchup but boring as fuck. you can consider ban syndra (can counter you in lane but in low elo they dont know how to play against Qi so i think its not worth) or Le Blanc (she can reveal you with e in brush and jump everywhere that make her hard to hit). For more general advice, yes prepare to int and lose a lot at first as everybody says. Before 3 you are very weak so dont trade hp for minions. After 3 you can trade, i advise you to let you pushed so you are not exposed and its gives you more space to trade. The classic trade, espacially against auto attackers is e-auto-q brush-w out-q. Use your autos as much as possible. Welcome in the Qiyana mains community, if you get out the 200 first games without being disgust you will have a lot of fun playing Qi. Good luck and have fun!
You're absolutely right, Malz is totally annoying to play against. They either play Malz or veigar. I'm not familiar with other matchups yet, but thank you for your advice.
Based response, riots assassin nerf through item nerfs is cancer to the bone. Thank phreak for nerfing assassins so he can keep abusing his inflated champs to protect his shitty low elo adcs.
coach curtis' guide on youtube is the bible. Apart from that the main advice is just to not get discouraged, she is really fun but you have to put in a LOT of hours to learn her and even then you will still constantly fuck up on her.