Introduction

Hey there, I’m Peachfuzzz#NA1, a chronic low master player who recently picked up Annie after seeing her weird BIS on various stats websites. After playing 10+ games of her over the span of a few days, I think I have a decent baseline understanding of her various lines, and I thought I might write them up just out of boredom.

Note: This is meant as an entry-level guide, as well as exploring a few different variations of the comp for mid-late game. I’ve only played 30 games over the set (currently in low plat). Take my greedy opinions with a grain of salt.

Table of Contents

Core Reasoning

The core reason for why Annie reroll works is in her spell’s passive. Basically, she’s the strongest ramping caster in the game right now if she gets going early, and combined with the Emo trait, no amount of mana is too much. As a result, she has some weird and specific itemization which incentivises loss streaking, but is also surprisingly flexible with large numbers of components.

The core units Annie needs are Annie and Amumu. Amumu generally serves as the best tank item holder in Annie reroll boards, due to his innate defensive scaling and Emo synergy trait, as well as being able to obtain him earlier than other alternatives.

Beyond this, your first decision in building a board depends on the chosen trait that Annie has. Right now, Emo Annie has a nicer curve and caps out with 6 Emo if you hit a spat, but Spellweaver is still very strong and should not be passed up.

Play conditions

If you’re like me, every game that you get dropped defensive components + tear/bow/sword looks like an Annie game. If you’re sane or just trying to add a reroll comp into your repertoire, Annie is strongest with an early Annie chosen and any item opener with at least 2 items out of bow, tear, belt, sword. Hitting early super fans is a bonus.

Win conditions

Annie’s optimal fights are drawn out engagements where she simply outpaces the opposing enemy carry throughout the fight. To sustain her pace, she needs a ton of mana. To satisfy both of these conditions, when playing Annie reroll the optimal boards should satisfy both of these conditions:

• BIS Mana generation items (yes, this is an actual problem and not just greedy)
  • Annie’s first two items are non-negotiable! Shojin is currently the best mana generation item in the game, and Nashor’s synergizes with her spell giving her attack speed to rapid fire off casts. In fact, regular best-in-slot (BIS) Annie is Shojin + Nashor’s + Shojin by a long shot (-0.2 placement delta on almost every other 3 item combo, which is a lot).
  • Her third item is slightly (but only slightly) more flexible. Shojin is generally the best choice for a third slot. Other serviceable items include blue buff, generic AP items (archangels and gunblade), and AP artifacts. A special note should be made for Manazane, which is the super ultra niche BIS third item.
• Tanky frontline
  • To even get her casts going, Annie wants a solid frontline. Generally, this means at least 3 real tank items (no, spark is not a real tank item, but it’s still nice to have). This means you should look to prioritize frontline items after the first Shojin + Nashor’s. In many cases, Amumu with 3 tank items ends up being a secondary carry with his damage output. You’ll also lean towards 4 Guardian in a lot of games, though this isn’t always possible.
  • If you can’t go 8/9 for bigger frontline, rolling for 3 star Neeko/Ekko/Amumu is a strong alternative. As of the writing of this guide, those three units are extremely contested, so this specific line is pretty rare, but a 3 star Amumu is a strong win condition unto itself.

All Annie boards need to aim to satisfy both of the above conditions or you’ll be crying just like the rest of the Emo units. Your Annie BIS either needs to come from your synergies (Superfan), or from your augments (Pandora’s, Buried Treasure, etc.). Likewise, your team’s ability to stall needs to come from synergies or combat augments. Synergies and units who don’t add to Annie’s ability to carry or your board’s ability to stall should be skipped (looking at you, 5 Spellweaver). We’ll be looking at board variations that tackle these win conditions, with the first one being the most consistent way to play Annie.

Early Gameplan

Stage 1

So you got dropped a bow, belt, and tear. Great, you’re one sword away from a free top 4. The early game of Annie is very straightforward: lose streak until carousel to guarantee first pick, grab whatever component you need to complete a slammable Annie item. If you hit early Annie chosen, always click on it.

Stage 2

Save your econ and try to make 10 gold on 2-1. If you don’t hit headliner Annie, that’s still fine. You’ll be playing a lot of shitty boards in stage 2 like the following:

For now, making econ intervals is the most important. The rule of thumb that I’ve picked up over time is 10 gold by 2-1, 20 gold by 2-3, 30 gold by 2-5, and 40 gold by 2-6. You won’t be able to greed that hard every game, but as long as you full loss streak, take a 3 cost off of carousel, and sell unneeded units, you’re doing fine as long as you hit 5 loss with 30+ gold on 2-6.

DO NOT TRY TO WIN BEFORE CAROUSEL. I cannot overstate the importance of Annie BIS; you need to take an Annie BIS component off carousel or the game becomes very coinflippy. Thankfully, the player damage changes have been very beneficial for loss streaking early. If you’re above 60 HP by Krugs (which isn’t very hard unless you’re literally full open), you’re decent shape. Annie spikes extremely hard with Annie 3 and 2 star frontline. It’s not okay to lose by one Krug.

Building a Board

Variation 1: Superfan Annie

The first and most common Annie board variation is a Superfan board, since Superfan gives her a free Shojin and has nice defensive synergies. This is the board you’ll be playing in half your games at level 6, given Emo headliner. This also happens to have pretty perfect synergies, but don’t be afraid of dropping Seraphine for a different Spellweaver if you don’t find her, or temporarily replacing one of the other Superfans with Gnar.

Emo Chosen Level 6 Board (optimal)

With this board, Annie automatically gets Shojin-Shojin-Nashors, and if you hit a 3 star Annie this board is generally strong enough to streak until mid stage 4. IMPORTANT: ONLY ANNIE 3 MATTERS! Do not get baited by Lilia or Kennen or Seraphine. They are merely there as synergy bots and don’t actually do anything. If you hit Annie 3, immediately stop rolling and econ back up to push levels. Annie is a 1v9 machine who only needs other units to frontline and stall for her casts.

One thing to note is the lack of Amumu. This is natural: you’ll rarely be able to fit in Amumu before 7. This is fine; you’ll usually be prioritizing Annie items on carousel first, so you won’t have many defensive components most of the time. You can greed your tank items on bench for Amumu, but if you’re losing too many rounds or have Ionic Spark components (rod + cloak), feel free to slam them on Ekko, as he’s the second best tank item holder.

Spellweaver Chosen Level 6 Board (still pretty good)

Let’s take a quick detour to look at Spellweaver headliner Annie boards. Your level 6 board is similar, but you just drop Seraphine for Emo instead. Not quite as pretty, but still works very well.

As the game continues, if at all possible you should try to go 8 before completely all-inning and rolling to 0. This is because Annie boards spike extra hard with the addition of 4 Emo. Prioritize Amumu > Poppy > Vex. If you manage to reach 9, look to add Yorick for 4 Defender + Mosher with Poppy. Both Poppy and Yorick can hold random AD items if you have leftover garbage.

This is an example level 9 board with a bunch of miscellanous items you can think about throwing on various units. Prioitize Shojin and Nashors on Annie, then tank items on Amumu, then more tank items tend to be better than offensive utility.

Generic Level 9 Board (with item suggestions)

If playing with Spellweaver chosen, replace Seraphine with Vex. The spellweaver chosen board is arguably stronger than the Emo chosen board because Vex is better utility than Seraphine or Ahri. If you get even more mana items, however, feel free to stack Vex/Ahri as a secondary carry.

Variation 2: Just hit your items lol

Okay, so maybe you’re just a more skilled player and naturally hit your Annie BIS with God-given talent. Or maybe you took an item augment and can now greed a bit. Let’s take a look an example Superfan-free board.

Here’s the trick: a lot of the time, you’ll still be playing Superfans in Stage 3-Early stage 4. It’s just rare to hit your items so early, and you generally want to prioritize frontline items before your second Shojin on Annie regardless. If you do though, Lilia is the least useful unit in that board, so dropping her for Thresh/Yorick is a good idea.

Super capped level 9

There’s a surprising amount of variation with level 9 capped boards. Let’s let go of ordinary logic for a moment and assume we have infinite gold at 9 to build a board. Here’s the best I could think of.

Without Emo spat (Ziggs/Lulu are free slots depending on Chosen):

With Emo spat:

Ekko can be any spellweaver, with Lulu as the best alternative. I haven’t personally tried Emo spat on Sona, and I’m sure it’s good, but Emo spat on Thresh is quietly one of the best combos I’ve seen. Being able to stun the enemy team repeatedly when most people aren’t thinking about Thresh’s spell is a huge bonus for a stall comp like Annie.

Other notes: attack speed on Sona is probably the best way to get value out of her without items or Sona 2, but heal/shield Sona is okay as well. If she ever casts with her attack speed spell, you’re almost certainly guaranteed to win the fight.

Theorycrafting: Spellweaver Annie

Theoretically, a vertical spellweaver Annie wouldn’t be that bad if you randomly roll into a 3 star Ekko or played 5 spell through midgame. I have very little experience with it, however, so try at your own risk. Here’s an example level 9, 7 spellweaver board:

My main issue with spellweaver is the lack of strong frontliners in the transition from level 5 to level 8/9. If you hit this board, however, it can probably still win out many games purely off of the Sona/Illaoi value. Keep this in the back of your mind when flexing around Annie later in the game.

Final tips (augments/positioning)

Here are few other things to consider when playing this comp. Most of it is pretty self-explanatory; I only made note of a few niche things you might not immediately pick up on the first time playing Annie.

Augments

I haven’t fully figured out augments for this comp, so look at tactics.tools for inspiration. Some augments to take special note of:

• Item augments in general are pretty good. [Pandora’s] let’s you hard force and salvage bad items as well as play for 6 Emo with a spatula, [Buried treasures] is always nice for more items and you can use all components pretty well, [Impenetrable Bulwark] is fantastic for immediately giving your Amumu near-BIS.
• [Emotional connection]: Not amazing funnily enough, but getting a free Annie is nice early. Much better late than early I think? Notably, Sona’s value triples because she can actually get a cast off.
• [Portable Forge]: If you like gambling, Manazane is an instant top 2. Otherwise, tank items are always nice and Zhonyas/Sniper’s Focus/Goldmancer’s staff are all playable on Annie.
• Direct durability augments ([Cybernetic bulk], [Combat caster], [Crash test dummies], [Three’s a crowd], [Stationary Support], etc.) are all very good for making your team even stronger.
• Economy augments like the [ticket augments] are kinda meh. You only really care about hitting Annie 3; everything else is an accessory. If you don’t hit Annie 3 by 4-1 you’re probably going bot 4 anyways.

Positioning

Honestly, I kinda suck at positioning. This comp plays itself after you hit Annie 3, so here are just a few notes.

• Aesah has a good article on his website on how to maximize Thresh value (tldr; trap Thresh in top left/right corner with your melee units so he has a chance of walking up to hook backline).
• I think Annie is supposed to be same-side as the enemy carry to have a better chance of hitting them with her extra cast.
• Amumu benefits from being in the middle of your team to maximize redemption and his third casts. You don’t want him to die too fast on the corners. Obviously, be conscious of Akali and leave bait units in the corner to prevent her from one-tapping your Annie at the start of the fight.

Conclusions

Annie is a lot of fun, which came as a surprise to me. I don’t usually like 1 cost reroll (my heart belongs to the wildly inconsistent 3 costs), but set 10’s wide breadth of board variations through the headliner mechanic makes playing Annie reroll a lot more engaging than other historically strong 1 costs. Also, I just like how she machine guns down the enemy team after her first four casts. I’m a simple fellow. Give her a shot in your games if you like reroll which spikes in midgame and caps out to win lobbies!