Sivir: The Fourth Main AD Carry

Right now, everyone hates bottom lane. Why? Because there are three jerks sitting around taking up all the space and winning a lot of games. Corki, Graves and Ezreal have taken to dominating the bottom lane, due to their mobility and high early game burst that transitions into strong mid games.

These three are currently widely considered to be the strongest laners available, as the tools that they have available to them apparently outclass every other carry. However, just because they outclass the other carries in a vacuum, does not mean that they actually have amazing matchups against everyone else. In particular, one carry has been seeing some niche play, but is starting to earn a little bit of respect.

These days, Sivir is not given nearly the credit that she deserves. CLG Prime gave her some stage time recently by abusing her pushing ability with their triple Teleport plus Promote composition, but that was a pick based largely on her ability to shove lanes better than any other carry. However, even outside of this context, she is an extremely powerful, and underrated laner that has a lot to bring to a team.

Be everywhere.  Push everything.  It works.

Sivir has an impressive combination of abilities that allow for her to fill a similar role that Ashe can, while also empowering your teammates in the way Ezreal is able to. Much of Ashe's power is derived from her ultimate; landing a successful arrow is a great way to start a fight, and being able to have the AD Carry be the one to begin a teamfight is advantageous. Sivir can use her ultimate in a similar fashion; by speeding up her team, it allows the team to force a fight and make something happen.

Not only this, but are there any bruisers on the team? If so, they just got much stronger for free. A Jax, Irelia or Olaf with a bonus 30% attack speed with no other steroid is extremely powerful, and will put out a huge amount of damage, and the movement speed makes it so that sticking to the opposing carry is easier than ever. Sivir not only makes herself more powerful, but she makes her team extremely potent in teamfights simply by exists and pressing R.

Bonus attack speed?  Cool, sign me up.

The biggest offender when it comes to too much lane power recently has been Ezreal. His extraordinarily high ranged poke as well as his attack speed debuff makes it nearly impossible for most laners to trade with him profitably. However, this attack speed debuff does little against Sivir in straight up trades. Sivir's autoattack > Ricochet > Boomerang Blade combo is completely unaffected by attack speed, and the movement speed boost will allow for Sivir to get out of range of Ezreal's counterattack quickly; if not, then a successful Spell Shield will soak up the damage from his followup Mystic Shot, or Arcane Shift, should he use it aggressively. Or, if you can successfully block Ezreal's Essence Flux, you can easily out-trade him and become very aggressive in lane early. Ricochet is incredibly good at creating a health advantage just through autoattacks, and is also extraordinarily cheap, so you can spam it whenever it is off cooldown, especially if you manage to successfully Spell Shield anything.

Sivir can deal with Graves in a similar fashion; by simply spellshielding a Buckshot, you have negated a huge portion of Graves's advantage. While this is not an easy feat, (Buckshot has a very quick cast time and can be difficult to react to) a single blocked buckshot will allow you to deal a very high amount of damage simply through the use of Boomerang Blade and Ricochet. The ability to negate the burst of another champion in lane as an AD Carry is completely unique to Sivir, and allows her to gain an advantage that might not otherwise exist in lane.

Well, I guess I could try bursting someone else once in a while...

Not only is she able to negate burst with her spellshield, but it also partially helps to compensate for her lack of escape. Instead of having to waste a quarter of her mana pool the way Corki or Ezreal do, she merely presses E, and the Taric stun that's flying at her is completely negated, and she even gains mana off of the exchange. Move like Dazzle and Rocket Grab are two extremely important skills to block, and both of them have enough of a windup that they are rather easy to react to. Rendering Blitzcrank's Rocket Grab useless allows you to dominate the lane with minimal fear of a grab > knockup combo that has become so popular. And even if you happen to miss the Spell Shield on the grab, guess what? Just mash that E button while you're being pulled in, you'll block the knock up! Autoattack Blitz once for some bonus movespeed, then run away as he angrily hobbles after you wondering why you aren't dead.

You don't even have to deal with the awkward happenings of getting knocked out of your escape the way that Graves and Corki do, because you escape just makes you ignore the problem in the first place. Once you block that pull, feel free to beat up on that Blitzcrank all you want, and be free to kite him around using your passive, especially if he doesn't have boots yet while you do. This will allow you to get all sorts of free hits in, not to mention the fact that there is only a 6 second period where Blitz will have his grab and you don't have your shield if you block the previous grab.

No beep boop jokes here, just a picture of a guy Sivir does well against.

Sivir works very well with a variety of lane partners. Throw her in with a Taric and was as you're able drop two thirds of the opposing carry's HP through a Dazzle > Shatter > Boomerang Blade combo. If youre planning on being aggressive and killing people as much as possible as quickly as possible, get ready to max Q and watch those numbers roll up, because you are going to do a huge amount of damage if you can land both hits successfully. Laning with Blitzcrank or Leona offer a similar scenario, and you should be maxing Boomerang Blade once again due to the desire to simply rack up damage as quickly as possible on a single target, and you likely won't be doing nearly as much harassing.

Sivir is a phenomenal tower diver when put into conjunction with an aggressive support.  Her combination of high burst and the ability to ignore high impact crowd control effects makes it so that it is very difficult to get her stuck underneath the tower if she plays well.  Whereas other carries have to lose time autoattacking in order to reposition,  Sivir simply blocks Janna's knockup or Sona's ultimate and keeps on fighting as if nothing happened.  This does unfortunately put in her the position of not having a blink to immediately flee tower aggro, however once again, her passive comes through in the clutch as an extremely powerful tool for escaping tower hits, though not as effectively as a true gap closer.

See this tower?  Me either.  I also don't

see any enemies alive under it

However, in a more poke and sustain oriented lane, you are able to instead max your Ricochet first. Since you often won't be engaging in a full out fight until later on in the laning phase, you will be able to wear down your opponent faster and more efficiently by maxing Ricochet and dominating autoattack trades. Auto-Ricochet-Auto puts you far ahead of your opponent when it comes to damage, and even having just a single point in Boomerang Blade will allow you some level of burst.

Not only does Sivir have incredible team-fight presence and AoE damage, she also fits extremely well as a split pusher. While CLG ran her in what effectively was a split-push composition, she is viable on her own as someone who is able to just run down a lane destroying towers more quickly than almost anyone in the game. Autoattack reset that affects towers? Check. Low cooldown spell that nearly clears an entire minion wave on its own? Check. Ability to actually enhance everything around you so even minions take down the tower more quickly? Check. Sivir can push a lane and drop a tower more quickly than any AD carry in the game, and she even has the capacity to escape from sticky situations through the use of her ultimate and spell shield. If any melee champion tries to come and take her down, her ability to kite over long distances is unmatched by anyone; she may not have an instantaneous blink to jump over walls, but when moving at 440+ move speed through the use of her passive and ultimate make her almost impossible to catch.

Sivir's mastery setup should be slightly different than normal. The most common setup for most bottom lane carries has been 21/9/0 recently; however due to the fact that Sivir has only 500 range, 19/11/0 is perfectly valid and likely even more effective. Being able to reduce the damage that minions deal to you while you are in the middle of them trying to trade with your opponent is extremely important, and will help you come out on top more often than not.  You need every bit of help you can possible get to deal with her low range.

Her build order is also very important; she does not rely on a Bloodthirster to survive, however it is extremely useful to have at least some lifesteal as quickly as possible, as her low range encourages her to grab some survivability as early as possible. She has such a short range that going into a defensive third item is often your best bet, unless you are absolutely dominating the game. You can rarely afford to let yourself get into the lategame without a Banshee's Veil, Guardian Angel or Quicksilver Sash to get yourself out of a hairy situation.  The only situation where you should allow this to happen is if you are miles ahead of your opponents, and are completely dismantling them in teamfights.

Dismantling an entire team  is quite possible; Sivir is extremely powerful and slippery in an all out fight.  She is able to spellshield the first major crowd control affect that goes flying her way, and doesn't have to send herself flying out of autoattack range the way Corki, Ezreal and Graves often do.  She is able to continue simply moving away from the fight at a much greater speed, and kiting anyone who tries to chase her away.  Any champion that does not have a consistent gap closer and high burst will not be able to stick to Sivir for any length of time between her various move speed buffs.

Being and underrated champion is truly unfortunate,  as there are many roles that Sivir can fill that simple aren't filled by the current dominant triad.  She may not have the sheer, raw power that Corki/Graves/Ezreal do, but she is still extremely potent and capable of exerting a lane dominance that few others can, while taking down towers faster than anyone else.  And truthfully, isn't that why we're all here?