So, let's talk Akali

I've been seeing a lot of "I can't play against Akali, too OMFGBBQOPBROKEN", and well, let's say that both on the Boards and in-game I've seen the main reason why that belief is true, but when I will reveal the secret as hidden as the fact that Zed is a wannabe mage, that downvote button will be hit at least 20 times before you can say "Yasuo is 0-20 at 5 mins".

Ready?

The main secret...should I say it? I'm already sweating, not sure if more people can handle it...will I get burned at the stake or impaled? Will I cause a mass outcry and downvote cascade on a thread made with lots of tips and tricks on how to deal with Akali just becasue people got offended? I want candy...and a shawarma....

To say, or not to say, that is the question?

Ok, here it is.

YOU GUYS ARE BAD.

Now, before I start the main things I wanted to talk about, I need to make something clear. I already see the "but Akali has 99% win rate in Masters and above" or "my Darius can't do anything to her, she OP" or "but when playing against an OTP there's nothing I can do so I permaban her".

• The first thing is wrong, Akali has a negative winrate until Grandmasters, so the only 2 ranks where she's in positive is Grandmaster and Challenger, at 51% on top lane, mid lane, she's negative everywhere.

• The second thing, get better at Darius. Akali has a 36% win rate against Darius in Challenger, so obviously, when both champions are played close to perfection, or the players are equal in skill, Akali ain't winning it.

• The third thing, well, unless you're in D+, the chances of getting against an OTP are slim, but there's a bit more to that. Even against an OTP you can duel her and even win unless the player has a huge skill lead over you. What do I mean with that? If both Jhonny and Dhennis are in Plastic 12, it doesn't matter that Dhennis is an Akali OTP, he still sucks as a player. To quote Moriarty from Mobalytics, when they talked about why they recommend Irelia for high rank but not lower ones, they were asked why that is as the guy who asked saw many Irelia who have strong laning phases, the answer was: "We don't recommend her in low elos, as despite there being players who would appear godly at their champion in the laning stage, unless they get fed by the enemy, they won't know how to win the game, and many times, even when fed they don't know what to do, as they are still low elo, so they lack any sort of macro decisions".

So, just because they can play a nice laning phase, they won't know how to win the game, and trust me, I've seen such Akali in my games, get fed by the enemy noob, spend all game farming and doing nothing else. And the other problem with that argument about the permaban, ya ain't ever gonna get better at playing against her if ya never play against her. By knowing what you can do to an Akali, it will help you to win the match-up against an OTP as well.

Also, neither you nor your opponent are Challengers, so you can always do something, just keep calm.

Now, back to what I wanted to say. After playing with, as and against Akali, there's a few conclusions I came to. The easiest match-ups for Akali are exactly the players (not the champion) that go with "it's Akali, I can do nothing" while the hardest match-up I had was a Teemo, but he lost it by doing a few dumb mistakes after playing what I can say, almost perfectly against me, but I'll talk about that one later, firstly, let's go over what I saw as options when watching others play Akali, both my team mates or opponents:

• They never expect return ganks. They make an escape from one, then go ham on the opponent because they don't expect the jungler to return like, right back in a very short time spam, before her R is back (like seriously, ganking an Akali with no R when your lane or yourself have any CC, she's gonna either have to burn Flash, pray her jungler is right there to help or if not fed, die.

• They expect the "overrespect" from opponents. They actually believe you will cower to your tower and let them free farm, combine that with the above, and well, you got your standard Diamond and lower Akali players.

• They have no idea how to play when put behind. While that's a more general player issue, due to Akali's design, that's even more of an issue, so just try to starve them from gold as much as possible. The dumb comments like "she can recover a 700 gold lead just by buying Gunblade" is dumb simply because those players don't understand how insignifiant that 700 gold lead is in the lower ranks, to put it bluntly, that lead is just 2 Longswords worth of gold, and as for why I'm calling it insignifiant? Because if people actually knew how to put a gold lead to use, they'd be raising it to a point where she's far more behind than just 700 gold. If you use that gold to get a complete item, while she has none yet, why aren't you setting her further behind?

• They have no patience. What I mean with that is that they know they are snowball reliant, but if you don't force feed them the lead they need, they grow into the mentality of "I need to do something NOW" and most of the time, they just end up dying, giving you the lead. Combine this with any of the above, hopefully, all, and you got yourself a won lane.

Now, on the other side of things, playing as Akali against my opponents, I've both stomped lanes and got demolished, both 1v1 by that "I just decided to 1st time Irelia so ofc I went to a low rank acc" smurf, a Darius thanks to a bug (my R2 sliced right through him, but dealt 0 damage, and no, he wasn't spinning so no "he healed from it", so instead of him dying, I got killed and just went downhill from there) and by ganks. So let's see why and what happened.

• I did stated that easiest lanes were the ones where the opponent overrespects me, but that's not the only one. Another easy lane to win if you're decently good on Akali is when the enemy is just mindlessly disrespecting you and trying to be Hashinshin and going only for the fights (unless you're Ornn, then do that). On the other hand, the hardest lanes I had to play through were the ones where my opponent had a calculated aggression. They didn't let me farm safely without threatening a trade, but also were showing enough respect when they couldn't force a trade. That Teemo I mentioned above was such a person, constantly harassing me with autos and Darts, his main mistake? Didn't use the minions as cover, so I hit enough Es on him to get him low and get myself a kill. Melee laners on the other hand weren't easy either when they showed the proper aggression, the above Darius is an example, I could've killed him by the same tactic as against the Teemo, as he didn't use minions as cover either, but oh well, ignoring that part, how he played it was interesting, he would let me hit Q's early, and when I would go for the auto on him, he would start his Q, meaning I would lose the trade if I got in range, but he would start it when I'm almost in range, forcing me to back with E or W, if I used W, the next thing he would do is grab me, slow me and then Q me, as E doesn't have enough range to get me out of his Q, and just run me down with autos if possible, while if I used E, he kinda did the same, as I would still not get enough distance after a pull and slow, and because of his Corrupting Potion and Cowl, there wasn't much I could threaten him with if he played it smarter and not eat as many Es because he was a Rambo. Tether her (game play wise, not ability wise, tho do keep in mind that tethers like Karma or LeBlanc do fully reveal her in her W), play smart, don't be Shaggy (not Ultra Instinct Shaggy, if you can be that, go for it) but don't be John James Rambo either, use your minions, manage the wave, here's a guide for ya'll, as the match-up is against Akali.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XgqP3DrOzmc

• Jungle ganks....oh boy are they a fun one. Gank after gank after gank after gank. Even if the laner was a bit behind, constant ganks kept the lane even or even got me killed, depending on who was their jungler, as I wasn't allowed to recover from a gank. In one game, they were a 5 man, and well, both the jungler and mid laner were either doing combined ganks or alternating, setting me quite behind. Basically, don't gank her once every 20 games and call her ungankable, remember, she thinks you see her that way, so if you do what she doesn't expect, you have a higher chance of winning.

• Executioner's Calling, Spectral Cowl and Hexdrinker....need I say more?

• Akali's own team mates. People hate her, so why not use that in your advantage? Unless in the very high elos, like D2 and above, most players will simply neglect her, junglers won't help her (except for my duo, I haven't had 1 jungler help me at all, two of them even saying "you're Akali, you can't be ganked so you don't need me" or "you can't win lane as Akali? I don't help trash"), the team will do team stuff, aka, everyone tries to get the most farm and such she won't be able to get as much gold as she needs to recover.

Obviously this isn't all there is to winning lane against Akali, and obviously for the high rank players (not Platinum) it's stuff they should already know and won't do much, but most of the people here aren't Challenger, so, hey, maybe it helps?