How to play Qiyana in preseason 2022

Nicholas James Published 18/11/2021

Qiyana, the empress-to-be of Ixtal, has grabbed League of Legends fans’ attention after showing up throughout the 2021 World Championship. With the brand new preseason hitting the rift, here’s how to play Qiyana just like the best players out there.

From the jungle to the mid lane, Qiyana is a mechanically intensive champion to play and can require lots of careful setup in order to annihilate your opponents.

Qiyana as a mid laner and jungler has one significant advantage over other positions, her easier access to all the elements she can adopt to empower her Q. Qiyana can pick up nearby elements in order to give her Q new abilities, from executing damage to a field of invisibility. Mid lane and the jungle both have the easiest access to all of the terrain elements that Qiyana cares about.

How to play mid lane Qiyana

Mid lane Qiyana is a straightforward assassin, meant to pick on immobile mages and open up team fights with explosive combinations. While most players tend towards Electrocute or Dark Harvest, some players are trying the new rune First Strike on Qiyana.

For traditional builds, Qiyana will take the Domination tree and select Electrocute, Sudden Impact, Eyeball Collection, and Relentless Hunter. As secondary runes, most high-level Qiyana players take Magical Footwear and Cosmic Insight.

The brand new build that has begun popping up focuses on converting Qiyana’s especially high damage into gold through the brand new rune, First Strike. This experimental loadout opts to take Inspiration primary and selects First strike, Magical Footwear, Future’s Market, and Cosmic Insight. This build takes Sorcery as its secondary rune tree, opting for Absolute Focus and Waterwalking.

Both builds focus on the same items, with most players building lethality through Eclipse, Youmuu’s Ghostblade, and Serylda’s Grudge. Some are opting to build the brand new assassin item, Axiom Arc, which both depicts Qiyana’s weapon and feeds into her gameplay by refunding her ultimate’s cooldown partially upon a takedown. Qiyana is especially strong at one and two items, so look to leverage your lane advantage into some serious damage.

Queen of the jungle

Qiyana has frequently made appearances in the jungle throughout the years, and this year’s Worlds was no different. Qiyana began to see play in Worlds, building Goredrinker and focusing on a more tanky build that could skirmish more effectively.

Qiyana’s strength in jungle is much the same as in mid lane. She makes an exceptional 2v2 skirmish member, able to team up with allied laners to bring the hurt to the enemy. Qiyana isn’t the strongest 1v1 duelist and can struggle against straightforwards brawlers like Xin Zhao or Graves.

For players looking to learn how to play Qiyana inside of the jungle, YouTube content creator Midbeast recently did an excellent breakdown of a 1800LP Qiyana player who had pivoted to maining jungle after recent changes. Qiyana sits at a 52% winrate in jungle at high elo right now, able to take advantage of the tight corridors and bottlenecks inside of the jungle. Use your water-empowered Q to root and lock down opponents for ganks, while the bush-empowered Q can let you slip out of dangerous situations with its stealth.

Nicholas James

About Nicholas James

Nicholas James is a gaming writer with a passion for all things geekdom, as well as live theater. Nicholas is best known for covering League of Legends and other top MOBA titles, but his expertise covers numerous games across multiple genres. When not watching the LCS or playing the latest new release, Nicholas can be found doing some tabletop gaming and painting his favorite miniatures. Nicholas has also published with Hotspawn, TheGamer, Dexerto, Esports.gg and other industry outlets.

View full profile