Ahri

Ahri is the mage who moves. Where her peers cast from a fixed position, she enters, executes and leaves on a three-charge ultimate. That's what keeps her playable when a game goes badly: she can miss her entry and still live.

The whole kit orbits Charm. It locks a target down, pulls it in, and raises the damage she deals to it afterwards. The champion isn't hard to play adequately, but he's very hard to play well, because every missed charm is a whole combo thrown away.

Mobility is her main asset. Three consecutive dashes let her cross a wall, cut through a scrum or escape a dive, and her passive heals her when she chains abilities. Orb of Deception clears a wave from range by hitting twice, out and back, giving her comfortable lane control without ever stepping up.

Against that, she has no crowd control outside of Charm, and Charm is a hard skillshot to land on anything that moves. Her damage, while good, doesn't match the pure burst mages: with the ultimate down she has no entry and no exit, and becomes an ordinary target.

Your pressure comes from Orb of Deception. Aim so the return passes through your opponent, not just the outgoing half: placed well, one orb does the work of two spells. Since it also hits the wave, it lets you shove or hold the line depending on what you want.

Charm isn't a spell you throw hoping. Wait until your opponent is committed to a minion, or has just spent their mobility spell. A landed charm is a won trade and sometimes a kill; a missed one is twelve seconds where you're no longer a threat. Fox-Fire is there to finish a target or clear cleanly, not to poke.

Your ultimate coming online is the first real change: you go from a lane mage to a threat that can appear on other lanes and leave again. That's when roaming starts to pay more than farming.

The second spike is your first large ability power item alongside sorcerer's shoes. From there your full sequence kills a squishy, and Charm stops being a control tool and becomes the trigger for an execution. Zhonya's Hourglass is a spike of its own: it turns a failed entry into bad news rather than a death.

You don't open a five versus five head on. Your place is on the flanks, watching for the isolated target: a charm on the enemy support or carry beats any damage you could put into the scrum.

Keep at least one ultimate charge to get out. The classic mistake is spending all three dashes entering, then dying without achieving anything. If the fight starts without you landing a charm, play the edges, poke with the orb, and wait for the second wave of the fight when positions loosen up.