Seriously, Riot was so bloody afraid of this champion's balance, everything about him screams "no fun allowed"
You simply can't last hit without the soldiers. His base AD is among the lowest in the game and so is his AD per level. Which would be fine if last hitting with soldiers didn't make you miss a fuckton of CS because his base attack speed is the lowest in the game and his AS per level is among the lower ones, so early on soldiers are as reliable as a Karthus auto attack. Well, he can still wave clear, right? Too bad, his mana costs and base damages are atrocious, a couple minutes and you're out of mana.
This thing is unplayable. All it takes is getting pushed to tower for you to make LeBlanc look like Ori. Sure, he's definitely strong if he gets going, but his laning feels so awful that no amount of skill ceiling will fix. I could obviously be wrong but I don't see any wriggle room for Azir to grow mid lane-wise.
Maybe he's retarded top lane because fuck melee, I don't know.