A little suggestion:

This guide is quite lengthy and I think that beginner LeBlanc player doesn't need to know all of this. Therefore, I'll explain my table of contents just below.
I scaled every section from what you definitely have to read (green) to purely optional knowledge (red). Please consider this.

• Introduction Clearly, you are reading this now :)
• Madame LeBlanc DEFINITELY. If you disagree with me here, probably this build is not for you.
• Brief Glance at Abilities and Skill Sequence Basic knowledge. Read this.
• Runes Rune choice is a matter of individual play style, but these are my suggestions
• Masteries ^ same thing
• Summoner Spells Important to understand what you should/should not take and why.
• Item build MUST read. A lot of explanations there.
• Mejai's Soulstealer If you are a beginner, don't worry just yet.
• Laning as LeBlanc. ((role)) These sections are my basic take on laning. I think they are quite important to read.
• Laning. Early levels guide. (Below level 20) If you are one of the low level summoners, I made a special guide for ya :) Runes, masteries, itemization and laning discussion. All there!
• Spell Shuffling. Your combo cheat-sheet Optional, but nice to know how to maximize your damage output.
• Last hitting. Essential, but not super important to read that if you are good at last-hitting.
• Warding&Map Control Very important, but not essential for beginners.
• Team-fighting Read this after you figure out how to handle LeBlanc. Not the thing to begin with.
• Split Pushing Totally not the way you'd usually play LeBlanc, but if you seek expanding your knowledge of what she is capable of, read it.
• Ranked. When and how to play LeBlanc? Read this if you intend to
  play ranked or draft-mode normals. Also, contains some general game info.
• Countering Purely situational. Got a tough lane opponent? Check this out.
• Deeper look into LeBlanc's abilities Same thing. More in-depth look at abilities.
• The Outcome. Screenshots. Want a proof? Some games using this guide.
• tl; dr Read this if you find my guide too lengthy or if you want to see another LeBlanc guide that I'd highly recommend.
• Closing statements I'd appreciate you reading this

LeBlanc is not a hypercarry. She cannot win the game on her own, but if serves a proper role, is unstoppable.
LeBlanc is not a useless champ. Those who say it don't know anything about her.
LeBlanc is not OP. And those who know her weaknesses make for a very tough adversary.
LeBlanc is not an easy champ. In fact, it will take a long time to master her.
LeBlanc is not the best champ for solo-queue. If you play with team that has 4 aforementioned misconceptions in their minds, don't wonder why you lose.
+ INCREDIBLE burst damage throughout the whole game!
+ Excellent counterpick to AP Carries
+ Very mobile and has some mind blowing tricks
+ Very good disabler
+ Great assassin late game
+ Forces enemy to stack magic resist which gives your AD part of the team more opportunities to dominate the opponent
+ Awesome character with sarcastic quotes =P

- Requires thoughtful play not to get killed (aka squishy)
- Skills are not spammable (a little mana-hungry early on)
- Very vulnerable to heavy CC
- Requires well mastered last-hit skill
- No lane sustainability
- It's really hard to play her correctly in late game (Lacks DPS and AoE abilities, not a good pusher)

Mirror Image (Innate)
Creates a controllable clone of yourself that lasts for a short time
This passive is truly amazing; however, very underestimated. Most LeBlanc players either don't know how to control the clone or just forget about it when trying to run away from danger. In reality, this trick gives you infinite number of opportunities to fool your enemy, save yours or you ally's life.

sigil of silenceSigil of Silence (Q)
Single target nuke on short cooldown
Works similar to most single target damaging abilities. On cast, it deals damage and applies the mark that can be triggered (by hitting an enemy with any of your other spells) within next 3.5 seconds to apply additional damage and silence the target for 2 seconds. This ability is what makes LeBlanc so viable against most AP carries.

Distortion (W)
Dash to target location, dealing AoE damage on arrival
Superb spell. LeBlanc dashes to the target location, deals damage and what makes it totally awesome is that within next 3 seconds you can activate this ability again to return to the original location from which you have casted the spell. As you may have figured, this provides huge amounts of flexible fleeing tactics and juking possibilities.

Ethereal Chains (E)
Skillshot chain that slows an enemy and then roots him in place
This ability is just great. You fling a chain at your enemy that deals damage, slows his movement speed and if the leash is not broken in 2 seconds, the target gets rooted in place and receives additional damage. Very good skill for both escaping and preventing your enemy from escape. I usually max it last, but sometimes it is a priority over Distortion

Mimic (R)
Allows you to cast stronger version of previous spell casted.
This ultimate is just ridiculously strong. I cannot even imagine what would be better for any caster. With this thing your sigil of silence will hit like a truck, you will be able to double flash using Distortion followed by Mimic or even triple flash if you add your Flash into the combination. Or maybe you want to parody Morgana's Soul Shackles for a little while with dual slow/snare from Ethereal Chains and Mimic =P

• Greater Quintessence of Movement Speed

  High MS is one of the most important characteristics for the assassin. Playing with these runes may seem a little tricky because you give up potential AP or health or magic. pen or any other direct damage/defense stat.
  But ultimately, you want to learn to control your opponent by managing your distance and avoid all the skillshot damage. When you will understand the full potential of these runes, you will run them on every assassin, I swear =P
  

• Greater Mark of Magic Penetration

  Magic Penetration. You need to be able to completely ignore their MR if they are a carry or at least greatly diminish it.

• Greater Glyph of Scaling Ability Power

  This ones are one of my favorites on any caster. These runes have a very good synergy with Rabadon's Deathcap, providing extra 36 AP at level 18. Although it may seem like a small number, but combined with your masteries, it actually acts like if you have a seventh slot to have another Blasting Wand, which is always nice :)

• Greater Quintessence of Magic Penetration

  Who said more magic pen. is bad? :D

• Greater Quintessence of Ability Power

  If you want to have some Ability Power right off the bat, pick these. However, as I said, if you think that running these is the best choice, you need to play LeBlanc for some more time to discover the true ways of life O_O

• Greater Glyph of Ability Power

  ^ Same idea, but I have nothing against running a set of these.

• Greater Glyph of Magic Resist

  I've been playing with a set of these during recently, they seem really good. I suggest running these alongside 21-9-0 masteries setup for a little more tanky start. Also, you might want armor yellows (listed below)

• Greater Seal of Armor

  This is generally a very good runeset. I don't really like running it in mid lane since I enjoy mana regen runes much more; however, if you are a fan of autoattack trades, of course go for it. Also MUST HAVE against an AD opponent (which is likely to be the case in S3).

Remaking the section atm.

This is somewhat outdated. It will take some time for me to remake the section, but you can still read it and figure out what's good for LB. Otherwise, just use the cheat sheet build, that's good.

• Clearly (I hope), the classic start for AP mids in current metagame. Provides mobility to avoid skillshots and escape jungle ganks and decent sustain in form of pots. Should be your starting setup most of the times.

• I used to use this setup when jungling was much more passive and overall, champions had less skillshot damage (Basically, it was good in old meta). This setup allows for fast catalyst the protector rush while also gives some sustain from health pots. Not so viable in current meta, as it cuts your mobility, but nevertheless doable if you're a big fan of the Catalyst build and like having a little more mana freedom.

• If you're a level 30 player, for god's sake, don't do it. The Doran's item start is more or less understandable at lower levels, when you don't have the proper runes and need the mana regen, but in normal play (>30 and Ranked), you are asking for huge trouble by buying the ring at level 1.

sight wardsight ward

• The support LeBlanc setup. Some mana regen., 3 wards to grant you vision and counterward the enemy wards. Good all around, I think it works the best on her.

• So I heard you like counterpicking LeBlanc with Talon? Running armor yellows+cloth&5 start usually gives you enough resilience and sustain to do fine/win lane vs him.
• Can be vs. top lane bruisers too, but imo, just don't play top lane LeBlanc.

• From one or three of them. Usually two. This is the widely accepted early game itemization for LeBlanc and most AP mids. Although you sell them later, they provide very nice stats for cheap price, which is what you want early. You're renting 15 AP, 80 HP and 5 Mp5 for 238 gold and that's a pretty good deal, generally :)

catalyst the protector

• An alternative to Doran's Rings. I've been using this item throughout playing LeBlanc and I'm not entirely sure whether I should RECOMMEND it. It's amazing in my opinion, works really great if you utilize it to the full extent, provides incredible lane sustain, doesn't result in any gold loss, since you don't sell it and has many other benefits to it. However, I've been getting mixed feedback on it, some people have called it amazing, others have found it terrible.
  Therefore, feel free to play around with it, if you don't like it, just build rings.
  
  If you want to see the reasoning of building it over rings, scroll to the end of the item list.

kage's lucky pick

• Get it early. You will need this item anyways to complete Deathfire Grasp and the earlier you get it, the better you are utilizing its GP10 passive.

• Magic penetration boots are the best choice on LeBlanc. In some rare cases MR and CCR from Mercury's Treads are more useful, but other then that, it's the best boot choice for you. Get this always (again, very few exceptions)

• These boots should be bought when they are absolutely necessary in order to outplay an opponent. Usually, the rationale for buying this is to reduce the enemy CC timers and negate their damage. Get this vs. Veigar, Kassadin and in a mirror LeBlanc lane. I've tried these boots vs. Galio and liked it a lot (it mitigates lots of damage, reduces his slow and most importantly, allows you to avoid his ult damage completely); again, not saying you should buy these vs. Galio.

• Get vs. Talon or Pantheon mid. Its armor helps a lot. Also, it mitigates the AD carry's damage (10% reduced AA damage). Not a lot, but a nice perk. If you get these, I suggest to get Haunting Guise for magic pen. since you won't have Sorcerer's Shoes

• Absolutely overlooked item. It is very good for cutting through the enemy MR even if they have defensive setup with around 50 MR. In addition, it acts as a great complementary item in case if you opt for buying boots other then Sorcerer's Shoes.
  Used by many high ELO players, this item can be ran alongside or instead of Doran's Rings. It's only real downside is the fact that it does not build into anything (there were some rumours about Riot designing the new item).

Philosopher's stone

• This item is a little situational. I wouldn't suggest to get it, unless you do not get the blue buffs ( Amumu and the growing number of AP junglers make this circumstance quite possible). In that case, double ring and philo stone should provide enough mana-sustain for you to play w/o running oom.

• Shortly speaking, your damage. LeBlanc's late-mid and late game revolves around having high AP, because her ratios are pretty amazing. This item provides the most AP in game, get it. If you're doing really great, rush it as your first item.

• DFG is skyrocketing your burst damage as well. Usually the biggest question is "do I get the hat or DFG 1st?". If we're speaking single target damage, Deathfire Grasp provides more damage then Rabadon's Deathcap as it literally gives you another ability that will slash 30% hp off the enemy health bar. Also, if you can't allow yourself to get into range for the full combo, getting DFG is much better since W-DFG-Q-R with DFG will deal more damage then W-Q-R-W with Hat.
  Only real con to getting DFG as a first major item is that you lose out on 1-2 hundred gold from kage's lucky pick.

• This item is more or less niche. Only case when I'd say it's a must have item is vs. Veigar. Other then that, if you feel like you need more MR, yet you don't want to lose out on AP, it's a fine item to get. Don't forget that it gives you 20 MR reduction aura, so running it together with Sorcerer's Shoes and Haunting Guise gives you a very powerful MR shred.
  Some people would argue that its aura is too short for LeBlanc. Don't think so. Generally, for the best case scenario you have to jump at your enemy, so you will be right at their face. It's useless only if you do everything at max range of sigil of silence which is really hard and uncommon.
  Just remember that in order for the aura to be effective you have to be within Distortion range for your target.

• Quite frankly, I don't like this item for LeBlanc for 1 simple reason. It costs 3k gold to build and doesn't really give any direct benefit other then AP. Yes, 90 AP is nice, but I'd rather prefer a Void Staff and Amplifying Tome for the same AP value and actual useful Magic Penetration passive while paying the same money. If your own playstyle revolves a lot around spamming skills and you actually need the mana regen. that grail provides, then by all means, go ahead. But generally, this item doesn't fit LeBlanc all too well.

• Might seem like a weird choice for AP mid, but it's pretty useful for a team. If your team roams in groups a lot and your support doesn't have it for some reason, you can get it by all means! All of the stats are useful on LeBlanc, the active is absolutely amazing for catching people who are out of position.

• Don't. It seems nice on paper, but after lots of trials, I can conclude that this isn't a good item to get on LeBlanc. She doesn't need the early AP, true, but having it is not bad at all. If you get RoA, it should be one of your 1st items, which delays your DFG/Hat which are core items on her. Also, LeBlanc doesn't need all that health and mana. You're not a tanky AP at all.
  Overall, there are better things to spend 3k gold on.

• This is the only really core late game item for LeBlanc. Inevitably, scared by your burst, people will build MR. As soon as all of them have at least 1 MR item, you will really need this item to keep dealing damage. Only exception is when their AD Carry doesn't build any MR for some dumb reason, in that instance you can keep the Haunting Guise and just deal true damage to them.

• I like this item all around. It brings in a great deal of AP, which is what you ultimately want, gives you some armor and has an amazing active that can save you from lots of what would otherwise be a certain death.

• My personal favourite item on LeBlanc. Its spell shield is absolutely invaluable for you as an assassin. Some champions possess abilities that can murder LeBlanc when she jumps in (*cough* Infuse *cough*). This shield basically guarantees you 1 second of being untouched by any hostile spells (even if several spells hit you at the same second, they are absorbed by the same spell shield), which is ALL you need to kill the target. Well performed burst takes up to 1.5 seconds depending on amount of **** you unload upon your enemy =P

• You've probably heard about LeBlanc having ~0 DPS in late game and thus being unable to push. Lich Bane is the solution. It offers great stats that all are utilized by LeBlanc as an assassin and it's passive makes late-game fed LeBlanc a dangerous DPS machine. Coupled with her excellent mobility, chain and a 14 second cooldown double jump, it makes her an amazing late-game split pusher.
  
  I can't claim anything, but according to my observations Lich Bane hasn't been actively used on her until I introduced it here in this guide around February 2012. Now it's pretty much a core item for LeBlanc late game. Egoooooooo =P

• From late game perspective, these boots are better then Sorcerer's Shoes since the latter will only obstruct the effect of Void Staff %pen. Therefore, after you are fully built, swap out your boots for Mercury's Treads

• I've never been a big fan of WoTA on LeBlanc. 80 AP is an amazing value for such a cheap item, but it's spell vamp isn't really utilized and there are other items that provide much more DIRECT benefit for LeBlanc. Nevertheless, there is nothing wrong with getting Will, if you are accustomed to running this item (and especially if you have an AP top laner), but if you are a beginner player, I do not recommend buying this item.

• This one pretty much repeats the Rod of Ages story. Useless health, 80 AP for 3k gold. Only thing that might redeem it is the slow... But, it's also useless.
  You're supposed to KILL the target in one burst. If they die, they die. If they don't, this slow is not helping at all.
  If you need to slow someone for your team, just use Ethereal Chains.
  No point in spending that much money on things you don't need. Learn to chain, get slow for free :)

• Really situational item. Get it only vs. very heavy AD team (double AD carry or AD top&jungle + AD carry). It's attack speed reduction is really great vs. AS based champions, namely AD carries.
  FH also indirectly boosts your damage through bringing you up to (and sometimes over) CDR cap. It also gives armor and mana, which are very welcomed on a caster.
  I've used it several times and it really works well. If you're sceptical, try it sometime in a normal game :)

• Honestly, won't even elaborate on this. Getting raped by suppressions or Mordekaiser/ Vladimir's ults? Get this.

• Can be bought under specific conditions when you get focused no matter what.
  If you are a beginner player, I do not recommend ever getting a GA for LeBlanc. If you rely on it too much, you won't learn LB playstyle properly.

I supposed I should speak about this a little bit more since I got a lot of questions about this, so here it is.


I do not suggest building Doran's Rings on LeBlanc, if you are well ahead, although a lot of players still do that despite having a huge lead. So... wtf?

First of all, why do people even get Doran's Rings on most AP champions? There are several reasons.

• Stacked rings provide decent mana regen. and ability power which allow to spam skills and harass your opponent in lane or quickly push the lane and deny them cs.\
• Stacked rings grant a nice health bonus early game that makes you tankier overall and allows to soak up some damage without getting killed.
• Doran's items are extremely cost efficient by themselves. (I believe you pay around 238 gold for an item, assuming you get half of the price back upon selling an item.)

Now, let's think if you need any of these in an already won lane...

Considering that you are winning your lane as LeBlanc, you will be the one to decide how the flow of the game goes. You are the one to force a fight or decide to stay back and farm.
Therefore, if you want to conserve your mana, you will always be able to.
Remember, LeBlanc doesn't spam skills generally (maybe one or two sigil of silence's occasionally). She only needs the abilities to get a kill of quickly farm a clogged lane.
So, even if you do get those 3 Doran's Ring, you will never use that mana regeneration to it's fullest.
Not to mention that catalyst the protector fits LeBlanc playstyle much more in terms of regeneration. You occasionally go for a trade/kill, you spend mana, take some damage and then rapidly regenerate both health and mana with catalyst the protector's passive.
Speaking of total health, catalyst the protector result in the same health gain as 3 Doran's Rings.
The gold cost of 3 rings and Catalyst is approximately the same.
Advantage of rings would be the 30-45 AP you get from them, but remember, rings don't build into anything and in a long run, they are a loss of approximately 520-750 gold.
Catalyst on the other hand doesn't grant any AP, but it builds into Banshee's Veil which is one of the core items on LeBlanc.
Therefore, if you are winning your lane, there should be no reason to even consider buying Doran's Rings. It's only going to put you behind on gold while not giving any huge bonus. Just proceed with farming, killing your opponent and buying core items like Rabadon's Deathcap and Deathfire Grasp.


1) vs. AP&low MR
2) vs. AD&low MR
3) vs. HEAVY AD (3+)&low MR
4) vs. AP&high MR
5) vs. AD&high MR
6) vs. HEAVY AD (3+)&high MR

Ok, we've gotta talk about this.

This item is recommended by so many builds on this site and many others. Probably there is a reason for it.
Well, of course there is. And it's very simple. It is super easy to stack Mejai's Soulstealer with LeBlanc early on due to fact that she literally kills within a matter of a second and can do it to practically everyone (including tanks).

The fact why I recommend to avoid it will become clear to you after you play LeBlanc for a bit and will experience both losses and victories and will really get a taste of this item.
See, a good team will always be able to shut you down through good co-operation. And trust me, the second they see you buying Mejai's Soulstealer you will become their main target. They will eventually find a way to kill you. And every time you die, you become 1/3 weaker.
Remember that you are a deceiver. By relying too much on this illusionary power, the only person you trick is yourself.
You might not beleive me now, then try it. Many times. And one day you will recall these words.

After reading this section, Critorious (An author of a very popular LeBlanc guide here on mobafire) left a very meaningful comment that absolutely supports my opinion on this item.

• You have to realize though you aren't making a guide for 2k elo players, most people that come to this site or play this game aren't above 1500. If I was making my guide for ranked on LeBlanc it would be almost 90% different, just because you play differently at higher ELO.

Therefore, you have to decide for yourself. Can you handle the job of keeping your stacks up? Is it a smart choice? Maybe you aren't going to get enough kills/assists and Mejai's Soulstealer will become a useless waste of money? But maybe you will win the game just for a little over 1200 gold :D
It's you to make the decision, after all.

Situations in which you can use it safely:

One of the options is the following. If you know for sure that you will be getting kills and assists AND that your team can protect you well, you can buy this item instead of kage's lucky pick and keep it until a point when you have your Rabadon's Deathcap and Deathfire Grasp.
But keep in mind that by getting Mejai's Soulstealer, you are waving a huge flag that tells:
"FOCUS ME FIRST, NOOBS, I'VE GOT SNOWBALL"

Please, please, please keep in mind that the aforementioned is applicable to worthy opponents only. If you decide to faceroll lvl. 1 players or a bunch of unskilled smurfs, Mejai's is a way to go =P

Role Overview:

Generally accepted, the most popular, and by far the most efficient way to play LeBlanc is a middle lane heavy AP burster.
Her kit is absolutely great for assassination, her mobility is exceptional and I would say she is only rivaled by Kassadin, Shaco and Lee Sin for a title of the most mobile champion in the game.

Mid LeBlanc is honestly the way you need to learn her before you even try anything else, so if you just started playing the champion, you definitely need to read this section to have an understanding of how you should play her during the laning phase.

Although LeBlanc is quite strong against anyone in hands of a good player, she is considered to be a counterpick (meaning you pick her only when you know your specific opponent and you do everything to make their life a living hell).
+ Very strong burst
+ Capable of completely shutting down the enemy mid
+ Very mobile and has some mind blowing tricks
+ Great sidelane ganker
+ Great assassin late game
+ Forces enemy team to buy MR unless they are willing to die
+ Doesn't really require blue (unless you roam 24/7 and use up a lot of mana)
- Has a lot (and by this I mean A LOT) of problems with playing against several mid laners.
- You need to learn how to manage your creepwave in mid, unless you want to get ganked a lot or sit under your tower all the time.
- Harder to play correctly in team fights
- Requires well mastered last-hit skill
- You will have to build very very squishy (for the sake of damage)

General knowledge (Beneficial reading

I will be adding more info to this part, if I find it useful for playing mid in general :)

In-Game:

What skill to take 1st?

After playing LeBlanc for a while I definitely understood 1 thing. Picking sigil of silence at level 1 is the worst possible option. It has the least damage potential, no CC capabilities by itself and doesn't offer you any mobility.
Although I still list in in the cheat-sheet (mostly to emphasize the importance of maxing out Q), you shouldn't ever start with sigil of silence

Take Distortion for:

• Clearly, your own safety. See that enemy team walk into the bush you're staying in? No no, don't blow your Flash. You can just W out.
• Preventing ganks. It's just that important. Does the enemy have a Shaco or Lee Sin jungle?? Take your W first. You have nothing to lose anyways.
• Messing up the trees. One specific case to start with W would be if enemy Maokai starts at his wraiths camp. You can Distortion in that area at around 1:25-1:30, proc the aggro from Sapling Toss and then blink out with W, wasting Maokai's mana, denying him that extra bit of gold and generally making him rage.
  In case there are enemies guarding him at wraiths, just W out as soon as you are in danger.
• Instaclearing the wraith camp. Another good scenario to start W with is if your own Lee Sin, Shyvana or Dr. Mundo start at the wraith camp. With LeBlanc's help, they literally clear the camp in a couple of seconds and don't receive any damage.

Take Ethereal Chains for:

• Feasting on people's souls if you invade the enemy jungle. It's a great dual CC tool with its slow/snare and unlike many CC's, it often ensures a kill even if the enemy Flashes away. Since the tether range is quite large, the snare still goes off, allowing your team to catch up.
• Scouting the bushes. I'm not quite sure about this one, but you can surely take E and just throw it into the bush to check for the enemy's presence.
• Preventing ganks. Alternative way of keeping yourself safe is chaining the enemy jungler (especially if it's someone like Nocturne or Warwick who has to walk up to you early on).
• Initiating ganks. LeBlanc is a very strong laner to gank for. Right from the level two, you can initiate with your jump and follow up with a chain, allowing your jungler to get into position. At level 3, you couple the aforementioned method with a silence and it makes you totally dangerous in any lane.

I recommend having 2 points in Q, and a point in each W and E by level 4.

Establishing dominance

This, frankly, is exactly the reason you even pick LeBlanc.
Your main goal is to harass your lane opponent as much as you can until the point at which you can kill them and of course, do so. After you get one kill, you are likely going to snowball, so make sure to thrive on this chance and get as fed as you possibly can.

But first, let's go over some harassment basics.

• Very basic thing to learn is that if you are ahead in lane, punish your enemy for every last hit they are trying to get with their auto attacks. AA them back and throw a sigil of silence on top of that. They don't really have a choice. Either they take a creep and take damage alongside or they just miss a cs.
• Your early combo is Auto-Attack- sigil of silence followed up with a Distortion and another AA and a return portion of your W.
  It is important to understand the importance of auto attacks early on, since they become a 100 free damage that you either choose to use or just throw it away. Try to land AA's when you can.
  Don't forget though that if you target someone with a basic attack, nearby creeps will start focusing you. Therefore, if the enemy has a large creep wave next to him, do not tag them with a basic attack, because the minions will do quite a bit of damage to you.
• From level 5, you can start throwing sigil of silences coupled with auto attacks to wear down the enemy HP bar.
  Make sure to auto attack and then use Q because the range on your Q is higher then your AA range.
• Good ganking intiation would be silencing the enemy with sigil of silence-> Distortion and then using Ethereal Chains to lock them in place. Sometimes this combo and another sigil of silence+ Ignite can be well enough to kill enemies on your own.
• Don't be afraid to use Flash offensively or use it to secure a kill. I personally blow Flash on LeBlanc way more often then I do on any other champion.
  Need to Flash into range for a killing Q-R-W blow? Do it. Just make sure that the enemy doesn't expect it.
• You can punish people really hard for trying to bait you out while being on low HP. If you know your Q-R- Ignite can kill them, then wait for all the cooldowns, make sure you have enough mana and then proceed to:
  Distortion-> Flash-> sigil of silence- Mimic- Ignite- Distortion
  Not gonna lie, this required pianist fingers at times, but after you will get used to doing it, you will also have a lot of fun by looking at the jungler coming out of the bush just to see their laner dying in a second and at the next second seeing you waving goodbye to them from your tower :)
• After you are ahead and they come back to lane, W towards them, Q-R for some serious damage and W back. Try to always keep your enemy at low HP. NEVER hold on to your ult, unless you will be doing the killing action within the next 30 seconds. You should be utilizing it as much as possible.
  Also, if you are about to recall and you still have some mana and HP, throw this combo at them to take down some HP. Your ult will be back up once you return to lane and their health will stay pretty low :)
  Of course, if they can kill you, don't risk your life.

After you have achieved a strong advantage, proceed to gank other lanes or destroy their mid tower, if no lanes are suitable for ganks. I would advise to ask for jungler's help with the turret. Also, remember to cooperate with your jungler to set up the best possible ganks and take objectives like dragon.

Don't forget that after you are ahead in lane, the enemy will start to worry and will likely ask for ganks. Never be greedy to buy some sight wards to foresee the incoming assaults.

Blue buff

Depending on what combo of Doran's Rings, catalyst the protector, Chalice of Harmony and philosopher's stone you're running, you might or might not need the blue buff.

From my experience if you have Catalyst or 2xDorans+Philo Stone, you absolutely do not need the blue for the mana regen. It's still great for the %CDR it provides, but in terms of MP5, you will be just fine without it. Don't forget, LeBlanc's bursts are spaced out and you don't spam skills during laning phase.

If you do get blue from your jungler, make sure to use it to the fullest. Go gank, farm the lane really hard, kill the enemy mid. Don't waste that CDR :)

Practice

This is middle lane LeBlanc in a nutshell. I tried to make it short and compact, so there are no huge pictures :D I apologize if it was boring to read, but it should have definitely taught you the theoretical basis for playing middle LeBlanc.

For your practice, I would recommend playing blind pick at first just to get used to LeBlanc's style in general and face off all the different enemies before moving on to draft pick and actually counterpicking certain champion.

To be quite honest, as long as you play well, you can even first pick LeBlanc and still be fine, but in general she is very vulnerable to certain counterpicks (I describe them in Ranked section, also there is a talk on HOW it's best to pick LeBlanc in draft mode).

Definitely feel free to use different runes/masteries and get a feeling for what's good against whom.

Role Overview:

First of all, yes, I HAVE actually played top LeBlanc (probably ~15-20 good challenging games), so I'm speaking from what I've experienced. If you have any suggestions/advises, tell me, I'd love to hear that.

Unlike the middle lane LeBlanc, top lane version is much more niche. You cannot pick LeBlanc against most bruisers and expect to do well. You also cannot build pure burst and AP since you need some tankyness as a top laner.
Another thing about top LeBlanc is that you lack AoE crowd control to be useful in teamfights and therefore, you will have to itemize properly to complement those weaknesses (I'll go over a sketch build a little later).
Finally, I strongly suggest learning classic mid LeBlanc to the bone before you even try any other playstyles.
+ Decent burst damage
+ Great single target CC
+ Very mobile, almost impossible to gank
+ Very good against AP top lanes
+ Still a very strong anticarry in late game
+ More useful in teamfights then usual mid lane LeBlanc, has more slows/debuffs
+ Absolutely doesn't require the blue buff. Neither for MP5, nor for CDR
- Isn't a true bruiser DPS which is a setback in a long run fights
- Hard to control the creeps during the laning phase
- Not the best pusher
- Requires well mastered last-hit skill
- You will have to build less damage (for the sake of tankyness, sustained DPS and CC)

General knowledge (Beneficial reading

Runes/Masteries/Summoners:

I would suggest running 9-0-21 on Top Lane LeBlanc for several reasons. 1st is more CDR on both Summoner Spells and your abilities. Second is lane sustain and faster leveling up.
21-9-0 and 21-9-0 are still possible, but they don't seem as good to me. I haven't tested 9-21-0 on top LeBlanc, but I doubt it would be a good choice.

For runes, you DEFINITELY want the following setup:

• Greater Mark of Magic Penetration - Magic. pen. for damage dealing
• Greater Seal of Armor - MUST HAVE for top lane since most laners will be physical damage based.
• Greater Glyph of Scaling Magic Resist/ greater glyph of defense - Depending on what kind of damage their team has.
• Quints are situational. I still like movespeed, some would prefer AP, others would go for magic pen.

This is probably the best reasonable combo of runes you can get for playing top lane LeBlanc.

For summoner spells, I've been taking Ignite and Teleport. You are not as squishy and your playstyle is a little different from assassin playstyle, so Flash isn't really necessary.
Teleport is very nice for ganking bot or coming down for a dragon advantage. Also pretty good for Lich Bane split pushing later in the game.

Items:

I've been running triple GP10 through kage's lucky pick, philosopher's stone and Heart of Gold. Surprisingly, it's not bad at all. Provides you with a GREAT gold flow ( Greed plays a role too ;), decent stats for laning and all of those build into items that are useful on solo top LeBlanc.

For boots, I would suggest either Mercury's Treads or Ninja Tabi. Of course, if you are stomping your lane hard, you can just go for Sorcerer's Shoes to boost the damage.

So... I spoke about complementing LeBlanc's lack of CC with items... This is exactly the reason why you are going to build Shurelya's Battlesong and Randuin's Omen. Both are crazily good for teamfights and will help your team a lot of times.
Also, with Randuin's Omen, LeBlanc's W-omen-W becomes a great initiation skill that slows their whole team. And if you pop the speed boost afterwards, you basically got them caught :)

Three AP items that you should generally have are Deathfire Grasp, Lich Bane and Void Staff. Of course, these are subject to change depending on situation.
Again, depending on circumstances you will want to rush either Lich Bane or Deathfire Grasp after your triple GP10.

Any aura items that focus on buffing your team/debuffing theirs are great to buy.

If you don't feel like you have enough survivability, Rylai's Crystal Scepter is a way to go, since it provides both tankyness and CC.

I have to warn you however, don't buy useless health items that have little to nothing but health itself in them. Warmog's Armor or Sunfire Aegis are a no-no. Remember, you have no innate CC to control the whole team.

Gameplay:

This may be hard. Not gonna lie.
Many top laners are beefier then you and deal more sustained damage. Therefore it's not really a good idea to try trading with them.
However, most are melee and most have only one gap closer. Your goal is to counter that with Distortion and keep your distance. You can actually deal quite a bit of damage with your right-clicks during the early levels.
Some top laners that have double dash ( Fiora's Lunge, Renekton's Slice and Dice or Lee Sin's Sonic Wave / Resonating Strike/ Safeguard / Iron Will) may be a real problem since they can follow your distiortion.

Almost always, their minion wave will push harder then yours. Many top laners use AoE damage abilities such as Tempest / Cripple or Broken Wings during trades and therefore unintentionally push the lane.
From my experience, LeBlanc is best coupled with a strong DPS jungler like Nocturne that can deal a lot of damage once you root them with your chain.
So call for ganks and you will likely succeed if your jungler or you don't mess something up badly.

You should generally hold on to your W, since it's a great escape tool. LeBlanc is a very slippery champion and it really takes a great deal of effort to gank her successfully.

Your main goal of top laning is to farm enough gold for triple GP10 and LB or DFG and then go split push like a ***** or nuke people down, respectively. Then get Shurelya's and Omen and you're ready to teamfight :)

Practice (I need some too =P)

Clearly, this concept isn't very developed yet and it's pretty hard to work on since I rarely get to play top LeBlanc. So I couldn't quite figured out the optimal build yet. Working on it though.

Feel free to try this out and maybe introduce your own opinion :) Runes, masteries, SS, items, gameplay, everything is subject to change in this chapter.

Most importantly, have fun :D

Role Overview:

Again, yes, I HAVE actually played support LeBlanc in my regular normal draft games, so I'm speaking from what I've experienced. If you have any suggestions/advises, tell me, I'd love to hear that.

I would mostly describe support LeBlanc as a very aggressive poke-style support. She doesn't offer much support utility, but her damage is absolutely dumb even without any AP and she has decent CC for ganks.
I can't really compare her to any other support, since LeBlanc style is LeBlanc style, it's pretty damn unique >_< Her poke is similar to that of Nunu & Willump, Gangplank or support Veigar, her mobility is unmatched, just because that's LB and she is definitely tankier then AP mid LB. Something like Janna in early game.

Core idea about support LeBlanc is lane dominance after you get the early lead. Seriously, if you and your carry got a kill or two, you just zone your enemies and either enjoy freefarm for your AD carry or free kills for yourself. And UNLIKE most supports that zone like that, LeBlanc is literally ungankable. If the enemy jungler decides to gank you, he's just going to waste lots of time as double Distortion covers almost the whole possible distance you'll need to cover on your way to safety.

Most problematic side to support LeBlanc is the lack of any supportive abilities and inability to actually defend the carry. Therefore you HAVE to play aggressive which isn't possible vs. each particular lane.

+ Get an early lead = GG, your AD carry's farm = 2x their AD Carry's farm
+ STILL a very strong early burst
+ Very mobile, almost impossible to gank
+ Great CC for jungle ganks
+ Much lower cooldowns then AP LeBlanc has
+ Benefits from 3 GP10 items well
+ You don't have to worry about Cs
- Weak levels 1-4
- You have to remember not to ks a lot (Quite hard at times, trust me :D)
- No supportive abilities
- You need to land Ethereal Chains to be successful

General knowledge (Beneficial reading

Runes/Masteries/Summoners:

For masteries, your choice is definitely 9-0-21 (support oriented masteries in Utility tree).
This is the best of what you can get on support LB, in my opinion.
I've experimented with 0-9-21, but I thought that drops some damage and also reduces the CDR which is very important for support LB.

For runes your choice is:

• greater mark of desolation - Vital for early game damage.
• Greater Seal of Armor - You need this for some protection.
• Glyphs are your choice. I've been using AP/level or scaling MR, but I suspect that mana regeneration blues could work very well.
• For quintessences, I suggest either GP10 or flat magic penetration for even more damage. AP works just the same as M.pen. so if you have a set of these, don't bother getting M. pen, just run flat AP.

Flash- Ignite seem to be the best combo of SS on LeBlanc in general, but for botlane you might deviate to either Exhaust, Heal or Clairvoyance, depending on the needs of your AD Carry

Items:

Start out with Faerie Charm, 2 sight wards, Vision Ward and a Health Potion. Classic aggressive support setup.
Grab Boots as soon as possible, because LeBlanc's base MS is veeery slow.

Your early game focus is double GP10 with philosopher's stone and kage's lucky pick. If you are really rich, get Heart of Gold as well.

Don't forget to keep the map warded by buying sight wards. Preferrably, get an early Oracle's Elixir (after your double/triple GP10).
If you want to play aggressive, you have to make sure that enemy doesn't have wards. Also, LeBlanc is a rather safe character to have oracles on since it's really hard to catch her.

Your boots choice is Mercury's Treads/ Ninja Tabi, unless you're raping them in all aspects and you are really fed. Then get Sorcerer's Shoes and maybe even build AP.

Two major purchases that you need to make are Shurelya's Battlesong and Deathfire Grasp. DFG is taken mostly for cooldown reduction and can be swapped with Morello's Evil Tome if need be.
Aegis of the Legion is a generally good item, so if no one is getting it, feel free to grab this baby for your team =P

In late game, you will probably want Randuin's Omen, Rylai's Crystal Scepter for extra CC and maybe Locket of the Iron Solari to have some sort of shielding ability.

ONCE AGAIN, FOLLOW ALL THE BASIC GUIDELINES FOR PLAYING GOOD SUPPORT. WARD THE MAP, GET ORACLES, CC THE FUQ OUT OF THE ENEMY TEAM :)

Gameplay:

Best idea is to couple LeBlanc with an aggressive AD Carry that has a gap closer and can some burst damage output. Three best ones that come to my mind are Graves, Corki and Tristana.

Don't pick her against a heavy sustain lane with potential counter initiate. I totally dissuade you from picking LB against Soraka, Janna or Alistar. Very dangerous supports that can completely disable you from taking action.

Also, having an aggressive jungler is very good as you will be able to constantly reach out for enemy with W and chain, setting up a perfect gank.

What you have to remember is you are still squishy and have to watch out for "tonns of damage" flying your way.

Generally you want to zone your enemy and poke using sigil of silence whenever you can. You will have decent mana regen. to support that sigil spam.

Go for a kill just like you would go for a kill on AP LeBlanc, just consider your damage appropriately. IF possible, try to let the carry have a kill.

Practice

Here, I gotta warn you =P Having 3-4 activatable items can be quite tricky to handle, but supposing you've had some experience with LeBlanc already (otherwise why the hell are you using her as a support????), I assume you know how to "play the piano" =P

So, have fun experimenting and if you have any suggestions, go ahead and tell me.

Yes, this is also possible, but I don't feel like I'm ready to guide people on this. Still experimenting.

I'm playing some AD LB games from time to time. Some on NA, some on PBE.
I hope you can understand that this is quite a niche role for her and I can't just spam ADBlanc games all day erryday.

Be patient and I'll get to this chapter too :)

P.S. If you have any suggestions, PM me, please.

In this case you likely won't have any runes (tier 2 runes are really bad, not worth the IP you pay for them), so you will have to slightly modify the build to allow for better laning. Also, I recommend taking Teleport instead of Flash if you are not very familiar with LeBlanc.

Also, I think I'd be correct to say that likely, neither team will have a jungler.

Depending on your level, you will be out to invest from 1 and up to 20 points into masteries.
Here is a quick order of priority for setting up masteries for low levels.
Scale is pretty simple:

(ABSOLUTELY A MUST, invest anything to get it)
O Archmage
O Arcane Knowledge
O Summoner's Wrath
O Sorcery
U Meditation
O Blast
U Runic Affinity
O Havoc
U Summoner's Insight
(Important, but can be left out for the sake of the ones above)

You are free and welcome to experiment with different masteries set-ups. I used all kind of weird stuff when I didn't have all 30 points in masteries :D

For runes (if you want really to get them), just get as much mana regeneration as you can. Marks, seals, glyphs, quints... All of them. This is the best you can get out of them at this point. Mana regen. is great ^^
Also, remember, there will be no jungler to give you a blue buff, so having high mana regeneration is very important.

Good summoner spell choices (if you are unable to get Flash/ Ignite) would be:
Teleport
Exhaust
Heal
Ghost (Not that good, but an OK take)

Now, let's proceed to the game.

The game begins. As you already know, your first items should be Boots and 3 Health Potions. Head over to your lane...

Checkpoint #1. What lane do I choose?

In this case, I say ONLY MID. In low levels gaming, LeBlanc snowballs like hell and there is nothing better then getting your level 6 and Mimic asap and going at every lane to get manymanymany kills. Make sure to pre-warn your team mates in the lobby that you need mid desperately.
Side lane LeBlanc is very hard without decent mana regen. as you will run OOM very fast.

Therefore, your only viable option is mid lane LeBlanc.


Checkpoint #2. How should I play through the laning phase?

Level 1

• Head over to the mid lane and try to last hit as much as possible. At level one, you cannot deal much damage, so try to avoid using your spells.
• Try to understand who your opponent is.
  
  Is it an unfamiliar, new champion?
  
  You can quickly refer to my countering section later in the build. It outlines almost every possible mid lane matchup that you're likely to face from level 1 and all the way into level 30 ranked games.
  Three most important things to understand about how your enemy functions:
  
  
  
  1. Is the champion melee or ranged?
     
     This is very important. If the enemy does not have any range and any sort of gap closer, you can play much more agressive, since they won't be able to damage you back much.
     However there are guys who are very powerful in mid lane, while being melee. Watch out for these: Mordekaiser, Talon, Sion, Akali, Kassadin
     
     
  2. Is the champion Attack Damage or Ability Power based?
     
     This is also a concept that you must understand well. Versus AP champions, laning as LeBlanc should be pretty easy. You have the silence which renders them completely unable to cast their spells and takes away almost all of their damage.
     AD champion, however, can still deal a lot of damage with auto-attacks and silence doesn't impair them in any way. Therefore, you should be much more cautious of their damage while farming or harassing them.
     
  3. How healthy/tanky is your enemy?
     
     You will be surprised how your damage can be underestimated or overestimated depending on your enemy's health amount and their magic resist.
     If someone like Veigar is overextended in lane, it's yet another kill to your collection, since you can burst him down from full health with ease. Yet a Morgana is a much more resilient target since her Black Shield can block severe portion of your damage, neglect the silence and leave her at good 3/4 HP and now that's you who needs to think about running away.
  
  Therefore, my strongest advice to you, every time you see an unfamiliar enemy champion, quickly refer to the countering section and enlighten yourself with knowledge of how to make them cry ^^

Levels 2-3

Now, after you got a point in your Distortion ability, you can start harassing your opponent a little.
Idealistic example of such harassment is to pick a position to land your sigil of silence, then jump in with Distortion, activating bonus damage and silence and blink back out by casting Distortion again. This way you will deal around 160 damage and silence your target without really taking any damage for yourself.

These are important points to keep in your mind while doing this:

• Make sure that your enemy does not have a ranged silence to disable you in advance. (Examples of such champions include Kassadin and Fiddlesticks)
  Not being able to activate the return part of Distortion will cause some problems for you.
• Be careful with AD champions like Graves. They can damage you even while being silenced, so unless you have some experience pulling off this combo lightning fast, don't jump at them at this point. Just keep harassing with your sigil of silence

For better practice of this combo, do 1-2 bot games. That should be just enough to sharpen your skill of performing this harrasment with ease.

At level 3, put another point into sigil of silence and keep exercising the aforementioned combo

Your goal is to get your enemy as low as possible(if you can kill them, DO EEEEETT!) and force them to recall, lose gold and experience.
As LeBlanc, you want to outlevel them by as much as you can and have them back to base as much as possible so that you can safely leave the lane and gank!

Levels 4-5

To be honest, not much to say here. Get Ethereal Chains at level 4 and another point in sigil of silence at 5. With level 3 sigil of silence, you can and should try to kill your enemy. If you succeed, it puts you ahead so much.

The most damage that can be dealt at this point comes from the following combo:

sigil of silence

Remember to Ignite the enemy in advance, ESPECIALLY if they have summoner Heal. Due to Summoner's Wrath , you will receive 5 bonus AP after casting it, which results in extra bits of damage on every other spell that you will throw at them within the next second. These 20 extra damage can make a difference, trust me.
In higher level matches you would usually save Ignite for a finishing blow when you are already sure that your enemy will die, but your spells are on cooldown.
But for you it's much more important to absolutely maximize the damage output and diminish any heals that the target might receive.


Your enemy will be forced to recall after getting this combo (if you do it correctly and fast enough) in the face in 0.01% of the cases. In 99.9% they will get a free ticket to base ^^
You want to quickly last hit enough minions to farm up level 6 and recall to base.

NOTE!!! If you are on low health after killing your enemy and you are tempted to go to base immediately, DON'T DO SO (unless there are MIA's called out). You absolutely want to come back to lane with level 6 and your ult in your pocket and there is absolutely no danger of staying and farming (since no one is missing on the map) and your lane opponent is enjoying the respawn timer.
Therefore, up 6 and recall only after that.

Level 6

At base, if you can grab 2 Doran's Rings. If you are out of health potions, get a couple. It's also good to buy a sight ward, they save lives, remember :)
Doran's Rings are must have items for low levels because you won't be getting blue buff and you still need the mana regeneration. Also it gives some AP to make your spells more powerful.
Then get back or Teleport to your lane, if it's already pushed up to your turret and the enemy champion is attacking it.

At this point, there should not be any problem for you to freely harass and kill your opponent. Just keep in mind what they can do to you and make sure not to get killed by them.

When they are at around 60-70% health (considering an example of AD or AP Carry), you can easily go for a kill.
Your deadly combo at this point is:

sigil of silence

As soon as you kill them, head over to the side lane and get some more kills :) (your ult cooldown is super-short)

Levels 6-11

This is the part of the game that you will probably like the most. Your damage is insanely hardcore at this point.
Therefore, to make it even better. get Mejai's Soulstealer AS SOON AS POSSIBLE and start stacking it. After that, rush your Rabadon's Deathcap and then proceed with the rest of a build.
Make sure not to die and lose all your soulstealer stacks.

Try to get as much kills as possible. The more you get, the more you hurt!

Don't forget to feed yourself with farm. When you will have 3 points in Distortion, you can clear the whole wave by marking the cannon minion with sigil of silence and the doing Distortion-> Mimic combo. This should kill all lesser minions and leave the cannon creep within 2 autoattacks from death, if not kill as well. Just make sure that you are hitting all minions at once.


These are the basic guidelines for low level gaming that should really set you ahead of the enemy team. When you will get more experienced, you will realize that it doesn't always work and then I suggest that you check out the Laning. Early levels guide. (Level 20+) section. But for now, don't worry, get out there and roflstomp some people ^^


As long as you don't get focused, your goal is to build up a ****-load of AP. And I mean that. You can have 600-700 AP with fully stacked Mejai's Soulstealer, and a couple of Rabadon's Deathcaps.
Yea, it's impractical in higher levels, but who cares now? Caps are stackable and are the highest AP giving items in game :D
Don't leave out Void Staff though. It's essential for late game damage :)


DON'T FORGET TO CALL MIA'S!!!
PEOPLE AT LOW LEVELS DON'T KNOW ABOUT SIGHT WARDs, ACT STUPID AND DON'T HAVE MAP AWARENESS.
However, sometimes they don't have chat awareness as well :D

1.

Instakill, WTF!!11 and so on :) Your main damaging combo.

sigil of silence

2.

Most efficient way to farm.

sigil of silence

3.

Your 6 second silence.

sigil of silence sigil of silence

Realize that this requires precise timing. First of all, you should not immediately hit Mimic. Wait for sigil of silence to cool down a little and then proc the mark (lasts 3.5 seconds). Same with Ethereal Chains. You should hit them right at the end of silence from Mimic.

This combo is really one of the hardest, but hey, you've gotta pay for the freaking OP 6 seconds silence...

4.

Safe and punctual escape. Your most guarranteed way to break away from chasing opponent (unless it's a Kassadin).

sigil of silence

You should time this well to jump out right as chains' root effect procs.

5.

Triple-flash. Your insane gap closer/creator.

6.

Soul Shackles'ish Dual-snare. Use this for setting up for the gank or to slow/stop enemies while fleeing.

sigil of silence

NOTE! Do not chain the same enemy twice before the 1st root-effect goes off. This will just cancel the original Ethereal Chains

7.

Safest distance harass (very quick, very hard to react to)

sigil of silence

Use it to jump from behind of minion wave, hit your opponent twice and safely return to your original position. If you can, it is always nice to proc the Mimicked sigil using Ethereal Chains.

8.

The finishing blow to enemies around 30% health, even if they are in the middle of their team.

sigil of silence

This one will give you another kill and after will put you at a safe distance from ferocious members of their team that thought their carry is safe in the middle of them. You basically will be 3 Flash distances from them.
However, be confident that your Q-R will kill them. Maybe cast Ignite, but nothing more. You just can't allow yourself to stay there longer.

9.

Delusive Waltz. Yes, I guess I'd call it that way :P
Use this when you are trying to confuse your enemy about your position and are buying time for your team to arrive.

(or any other combo of blinks/returns)

It is most effective near bushes or in the jungle. MAKE SURE to wait as long as possible before blinking back.
You can use Distortion, then run towards some obstacle, Flash over it and then activate Distortion again. Let them run around for a little, good exercise :)
Sometimes this combo will troll your opponents way too hard.

NOTE: Mimicked Distortion does not erase the original Distortion return point.

This is a very misunderstood concept. No one can write a guide to last-hitting. It's a skill that takes practice to master. So the best advice for getting the basics is simple:

PLAY -> Custom Game -> Just you and minions, <3 -> practice, practice, practice.

HOWEVER, there are some important points to keep in mind about last-hitting. Let's take a look...

As LeBlanc, you will get outpushed by majority of the middle laners, either it will be done on purpose or accidentially during harassment. Therefore, it is very important to realize how last-hitting alongside turret damage works.

Here is the basic rule,

symbolizes the turret's basic attack
symbolizes champion's basic attack

• Melee minion s' health = ->
• Caster minion s' health = ->
• Siege minion s' health = ~~~~ ->

This is a general rule for last hitting under the turret...
The BIGGEST problem with LeBlanc is that her basic AD IS NOT high enough to follow this rule.
If you just take LeBlanc into custom game and will try to follow this last hitting pattern, you will see that she cannot last hit according to this rule.

But as I said, LeBlanc gets outpushed and essentially, is forced to last hit under her turret. Usually it means she will be losing many CS while turret attacks them.

I've thought for a while about it and realized, you just need to get the AD boost, somehow. Building AD is ******ed, of course. So, clearly, there is some other route that has to be taken ;) Soooo, eureka, gentlemen.

Butcher + Brute Force + Summoner's Wrath provide exactly enough AD to make the aforementioned rule work for LeBlanc. Therefore, has a ton more worth then Mental Force that gives you only 3 AP.
I hope it's all clear now.


It's important to understand that you have to last hit even while pushing the lane. A lot of people tend to just shove the lane with spells and auto-attacks, missing a ton of easy CS.
Never, ever, ever do it. You are not gaining anything and in fact, you can push just as hard and get 6 minions per wave.

As LeBlanc, you have two ways of pushing the lane,

• - Easiest and common way of pushing the lane really quickly. Double Distortion is enough to annihilate every minion in target AoE, so you don't have to worry about failing to cs. You get all the gold anyways.
• sigil of silence+ Alternative way of pushing by spamming sigil of silence and constantly auto attacking. Here is where many people make the mistake.

Whenever you autoattack to push, make sure to AA the high health creeps and last hit the low health ones with either auto attack or sigil of silence. Don't just blindly right click.



As LeBlanc, lane freezing may be quite tricky since you cannot afford tanking creeps until the next wave arrives. However, you can benefit from lane freezing so much that it would be foolish not to try and find a way.
I'm gonna share the trick, of course ;)

• In order to freeze the lane and keep it around the river/jungle entrances from mid, you have to make sure there are 2-3 more melee/caster creeps or a siege creep in enemy wave (after testing for a while, I feel like that's the right number). This will prevent your lane from pushing.
• You want to only LAST HIT the enemy minions. By this, I mean wait till the very last moment.
• If the enemy creep kill your wave too early, instead of tanking them, use Distortion OVER the enemy creep wave, pull them at the maximum distance you can and then re-cast Distortion. It's important to land initial cast within the aggro area of all the creep so that they follow you. If you lose their aggro, some creeps may just proceed to your tower.

This little loop-trick allows you to pull the enemy wave back and forth in the lane, without tanking lots of damage, to wait for your next wave to come to lane, so that you can continue freezing it.
Whenever you feel like stop freezing the lane, just W-R the clotted minions for some nice gold ;)


This is actually the most important concept to understanding the reasoning for last-hitting.
If you think about it, on average, ~18 CS = CHAMPION KILL, ~6 CS = ASSIST

Now, let me outline some rules to clarify the priorities

• Simple harassment < Last Hitting
• Killing the enemy > Last hitting
• Getting dragon > Last hitting
• Roaming when you are ahead > Last hitting
• Roaming when you are behind < Last hitting
• Hitting tower < Last hitting

• Think twice before going for sigil of silence- Distortion harass, "Is it worth it?". Not if you are missing 3-4 CS in the process...
  Best time to harass is either in between waves or when the new wave just came up and there is nothing to last hit.
  
• If, however, you can heavily harass or even kill the enemy, prioritize it over the few CS. By doing so, you get gold/deny gold to your enemy which is also very important.
  
• DRAGON is always worth more then staying in lane and farming! If you are not sure whether your team can secure it or not, GET YOUR *** OVER THERE AND HELP!
  
• Roaming when you are ahead is likely going to result in kills and therefore is more beneficial then farming.
  
• Roaming when you are behind is not so guaranteed to result in success, so I would think twice about it. You may just end up wasting your time...
  
• FINALLY, this is what I see a LOT of people doing and which is very wrong... When you are at a tower, DON'T attack the tower instead of last hitting (Unless it's a team push, ofc). It's just stupid to miss CS for no reason...

Here is a video with Tips&Tricks for last hitting by TiensiNoAkuma which covers essentials for cs'ing. I highly recommend watching it.

Having the knowledge of the enemy's position and creating the opportunity for a sudden engage onto them is one of the most important skills to have to succeed as LeBlanc (and as burst assassins in general).
If you want to be sure that you're safe in lane, you want vision. If you're looking for a swift quick kill, you want vision. Warding is bearing the utmost importance while playing LeBlanc.
You do not want to spend a lot of money on wards, however. In turn, this means you want to be as efficient with your wards as possible.
It's important to analyze the flow of the game, behaviour of your enemies and your allies and ward the most important spots.
Warding isn't a thing which I want to write a guide on, but here is a couple of helpful tips for warding during the lane phase, both offensively and defensively.


Oracle's Elixir becomes a must-have attribute in late game and even mid game sometimes. As LeBlanc, it's important to be a threat. As long as your enemy cannot read your position, they will be scared to their bones because they know that you can come out, take a life and disappear. As soon as you find yourself roaming the jungle a lot, you want to ask your team for wards and oracle's. And the sad truth is, sometimes your team won't cooperate. In this case, it's really worth getting the oracle's yourself.
It's not a core item, really, but still an important one.
Here's a quick rundown of cases where you definitely want to get Oracle's Elixir if its affordable and no one else would do it.

• Clearing the area of enemy sight wards. Can't stress it enough, it's vital for success.
• Playing against invisible champions of high priority or threat
• Vayne's Final Hour. Get a ******* oracle if you want to 1v1 her ever. If she has good reflexes, you have no one to kill, likely :D
• Twitch, of course.
• Talon's Shadow Assault, same deal as with Vayne
• Fed Rengar. Definitely. You want to see him before he jumps on you.
• Akali's Twilight Shroud. Oh god, yes. If you can't see her, the shroud will become a juke machine.
• AP Teemo. Trust me, getting an oracle is better then having to die every few minutes because of an unlucky shroom.
• Evelynn, Kha'Zix, Wukong... not so much. Their stealth is either brief or like Eve's doesn't matter whether you have oracle's or not.

Never be afraid to get an oracle's if it will benefit your team. LeBlanc is a great user of it. With her mobility and slippery nature she is very hard to catch and kill.

This is when a real problem with LeBlanc usually arises. Since she is all about single target burst, prolonged skirmishes are usually not what you will like a lot. And you can't do anything about with this, or any other AP LeBlanc build.

There is a nice semitroll build on this website, called "tankblanc" (http://www.mobafire.com/league-of-legends/build/tankblanc-99094).

Why am I referencing it? Well, with that build, teamfights are a piece of cake :D So, if you want to troll with LeBlanc, check that amazing creation. Actually, a lot of fun.

So, back to our talk. You cannot stay for a long time in team fights. I'm going to tell you in advance :)

You will play a role of anti-carry. Eventually you will have to, since it is really hard to fulfill any other role with this build. Why? Here's a list of proofs:

• You have absolutely no sustained DPS. Only thing you can spam is your sigil of silence
• You are an assasin and just like many of them, pretty squishy. You will be one of the main targets of enemy team.
• You have an excellent assault mechanism, allowing you to jump in, kill and back off safely.

Cutting to the chase, let's discuss how you should behave at different levels of team-fights:

This is what you will absolutely LOVE!

If your opponents are really stupid enough to start team-fights at this point, it works only to your advantage. At this point:
A. You don't care whom to kill. Their tanks are not truly tanks yet and their carries are not that fed to really carry yet.
B. Turrets are still a huge damage-factor You may be well assured that there is not going to be a lot of tower diving. And this gives you so much more safety. If you failed to kill someone, just run to safety, no one will follow you.
And if they do tower-dive you, in most cases it will result in double and triple kills :D
Remember, you have a silence and two snares in your arsenal.
B. You will easily be able to hold a 3v1 lane, unless it's 3 fed Caitlyn, Kog'Maw and Tristana. Just turret hug and unleash your combo's whenever they try to close the distance.
Meanwhile your team will absolutely rape their bot and top.


Here, you have to be much more careful with picking your target.
Usually, the best idea would be to kill the carry or an off-tank that deals a lot of damage to your team or a support that literally sustains his team. Your burst should be high enough to kill them (carry or support) within a single spell rotation.
DON'T FORGET TO USE THE ACTIVE OF YOUR Deathfire Grasp! (If you already have it, of course.)

sigil of silence

Save your Ethereal Chains to escape the angry guy who decides to chase you after.


If you cannot go for a kill, do not just stay back! This way you are putting your team in a 4v5 situation way too early!

Throw your sigil of silence at enemies to lower their health and prepare for getting "insta-killed". If you can, proc the silences with either Ethereal Chains or Mimic.

DO NOT jump in with Distortion just to proc sigil of silence. A good team will CC you immediately. So it's a very reckless move.



Now comes the point when every player is already at or near to the full build.
Which means that off-tank like Irelia with her "atmog", Wit's End, Force of Nature and Guardian Angel is not a kind of target that you can handle killing.
And this is not because you are playing LeBlanc wrong or because LeBlanc is a bad champion. I've tried almost every single build from this Mobafire and many different combinations and came to a conclusion that at this point, this is just not your role - to control enemy fighters.
At this point your main goal is to kill the carry. At all costs. Doesn't matter if you die or not (of course, better live :), you MUST kill that Vayne that annihilates your team in seconds if let act freely.

• So, remember, if you succeed to kill the main damage threat, your job is DONE. Your team needs to know how to push without you.
• If you did not kill that main target and you got pentakilled, it IS your fault. Because your team waits for you to remove that threat, so that they can do their job.

In case if you have killed your main target you should do one of the following (in order of priority):

• Is there another squishy, high damage dealer?
  Wait for your spells to cool down and send them re-spawning as well.
  Remember to correctly estimate your health. If you are half-down already, maybe you should not try flashing into their team again.
  
  
• Is there an opportunity to split push? Do you have Teleport?
  If there is another lane being pushed and you do have Teleport up, do so immediately
  Split push is one of the most effective tactics to force your enemy to split forces and put them into a position when defence is 100 times harder.
  NOTE: Remember, that if there is a better pusher then you, let them run to another lane, while you will remain putting pressure on the current lane alongside with the rest of your team.
  Finally, remember NOT to split push while down in numbers. Usually ends up pretty bad for your team.

Split pushing during late game may very well we one of the most efficient strategies to employ as LeBlanc. Although it might seem awkward at first, it's actually very effective if you put a little thought in it.
Below, I will explain why do I think so, how to properly do it as LeBlanc and when to choose to split push.

• First and foremost, you have to be understanding LeBlanc's lategame capabilities correctly. Yes, she is still great at picking off people and instagibbing the squishies if you've been successful throughout early and mid game. However, on top of that, at the later stages of the game Distortion and Mimic provide a fast waveclear on a short cooldown. Alternatively both of those and Ethereal Chains can serve as an escape mechanism.
  
• When do you split push?
  It's a very important question. Even in lategame, LeBlanc's prime role is assassination and creation of threat for opponents. If they can see you on the map, they are not scared of you killing them. Generally, it's bad. However, there are cases where they wouldn't be all that scared anyways. Prime example - a tower push. LeBlanc isn't very good at sieging towers or poking during baron dances. Therefore if you can't see the opening to pick anyone off, you should splitpush the closest lane (it will be more beneficial for the team then having a useless 5th person).
  What if they get engaged on and lose a 4v5 a fight?
  Ideally, that should not be happening. Every team should have some sort of disengage and you absolutely have to make sure that they can disengage if you leave them 4v5.
  If the fight starts, evaluate the situation and either go there and pick a couple of people off(your mobility and damage at that point is great, so that shouldn't be a problem) or just continue pushing and take the objectives.
  
• Now the good part, why is LeBlanc so damn good at split pushing?
  If your team is any good at sieging, the enemies will eventually have to send someone to defend against your push. But wait... Who the hell would go 1v1 vs. a LeBlanc with all her spells up??
  This is the crucial point. They simply cannot send a single person to defend against your split push. Unless it's a tank. And if it's a tank, then they would lose the siege, because they will have no protection/peel for their carries.
  If they send 2 people, then they lose the siege as well, because now it's 4v3 and eventually your team will take down the tower.
  Also, you can't really kill the LeBlanc unless you catch her off guard completely. So the chances of you dying to 1 or 2 people are almost inexistent. And if it's more then 2, their team is definitely losing inhibitor/baron/whatever the objective is.
  
• Why would I even push as LeBlanc? She has no DPS.
  Meet Lich Bane, dear friend. This is an absolute core item on LeBlanc if you don't want to suck lategame.
  By the time you have it, you will have at least 400 AP, which will do some heavy DPS to towers and inhibitors.
  Your damage to turret scales off your AP passively + after you use an ability, your next attack will do your full AP in damage.
  With a spammable sigil of silence and Ethereal Chains, you can keep getting the Lich Bane procs and take towers down with almost Master Yi speed.
  Combined with her waveclear and best mobility in game, I don't see a reason not to call her a decent splitpusher.
  
  Additionally, since you will be leaving lanes a lot, it will threaten your opponents because a fed LeBlanc that's constantly missing creates a lot of tension.
  If you want to ensure this effect, make sure to ward up and get an Oracle's Elixir, unless you can rely on someone else to clear the enemy wards.
  
• If you are carrying a summoner Teleport, it makes your job even easier. You can splitpush like an absolute biiiiitch Shen. Keep pushing all the way until a fight actually breaks out. Then TP in there and clean-up.
  Alternatively, if two lanes are pushing hard, you can draw your opponents' attention towards one of them and then TP to the other one and free-push it.
  If, by chance, you have a Shen on your team, you can either double split push (abusing both Teleport and Stand United by creating possibilities for pushing all three lanes at the same time and then focusing attention on 1 or 2 of them).

To summarize it, split pushing isn't LeBlanc's primary role, but if approached correctly, can be performed very effectively on her.

I suppose, the title of the section is pretty self-explainatory. I want to quickly go over situations when you will want to play LeBlanc in ranked game and discuss what should you change about your playstyle/approach to the game when playing ranked.

First of all, let me remind you who LeBlanc is...

In first place, NOT AN AP CARRY. Don't fool yourself. If you want someone who will deal large AoE damage and will scale really well into late game, rather then have all the exciting action early on, pick Brand or Ahri.

LeBlanc serves a role of an assassin, which relies on precise and quick single target focus. Much like Kassadin, LeBlanc is a COUNTERPICK.
She is absolutely not the champion to pick every single game and moreover, not the champ to pick as a #1 AP-counter.

It's impotant to know when to pick LeBlanc and not Talon, Kassadin or Galio as a counter.

Therefore, let's go over some qualities that make LeBlanc a favourable option.

+ Longest silence out of all (up to 6 seconds)(Q-R-E-Q-W)
+ Strong CC for jungle ganks (really outshines Kassadin and Talon)
+ Quick engage AND safe back-tracking
+ Potential double silence on different targets (E-Q-R-W / R(q)-E-Q-W)
+ Crazy level 6 damage (Definitely higher then Kass's, maybe equivalent to Talon's)


However there are some downsides to her as an AP-counter.

- Squishier then other mage-counters, NO MR/Level.
- Harder time scaling into late game (apparently to compensate for the amazing early game)
- Can get counter-counter picked O_O ( Talon does it really well, as far as I am aware)

So... What kind of champion do I want to counter? What qualities should they have/not have

• Someone who relies on ability usage (Generally, an AP casters, however some AD champs also fall under this category)
• Someone who is really dependant on early game success (You are trying to ruin it for them... Y U so spiteful??? D:)
• Someone who has to come out and fight. Bigtime troll Anivia will just get blue and will spam her ult to farm until late game when she>you.
• Someone who is important to keep under control due to channeled abilities/high ability damage (Hey there, Katarina ^^)

Okay, stop that BS talk and cut to chase... When do I pick LeBlanc?

Good enemies to counterpick/easy to run against as LeBlanc

• Ahri
• Annie
• Brand
• Fiddlesticks
• Karthus
• Katarina
• Kennen
• Lux
• Malzahar
• Orianna
• Twisted Fate
• Viktor
• Veigar
• Ziggs

Whenever you see one of them, be sure, LeBlanc works as a couterpick to them. Because they fall under pretty much all the categories above and practically, can't do **** against your early game damage. It's inevitable.
Don't click on godmode though. A skilled player can and will be always ready to deal with you and will do everything to outplay you. Don't make stupid choices and keep concentrated. Then you will succeed.
Worth countering, pays off well, but if you fail it, it's game.

• Akali
• Anivia
• Cassiopeia
• Fizz
• Gragas
• Kog'Maw
• Mordekaiser
• Ryze
• Sion
• Vladimir
• Xerath

With these, you are taking a risk. Your bet is to shut them down early on and prevent from getting kills/cs/buffs. If you manage to get ahead a kill or two, it's usually very easy and fun + it really pays off, since the enemy team now has a handicapped AP carry ( Swain can rape face even though he's handicapped :D) who isn't able to do much damage.
BUT, if you don't succeed at that, usually they just play a normal game and slowly grow into a huge AoE damage factory that kills everythaaaaaaang ( Anivia, Xerath) or an insane burst damage dealer who jumps from one member of your team to another, eating up their lifebars in seconds ( Fizz, Akali).
Also, all of them have some sort of a safety mechanism that will make them somewhat resilient to your efforts to wreck their lives :D (either safe farming range or high MR or invulnerability and so on...)

• Anything bruiser-like (Pick a ******* DPS :D)
• Kassadin (It's like trying to counterpick your alter-ego. Bad idea, pure gambling. You may win 10-0 or lose 0-10, never know)
• Morgana ( Black Shield, aka Troll-bubble, aka wtf is the point of countering her? Non-aggressive, non-counterable lane, just pick AP carry, farm, win late game.)
• Swain (Harder then you think. Rapes faces with crazy DoT, and incredible self-sustain. Vitrually impossible lane to win as LeBlanc. IF YOU THINK OTHERWISE, YOU'VE NEVER SEEN A GOOD SWAIN. PERIOD.)
• Talon (Dangerous shiz... He is designed to counter people and he really has an advantage over LeBlanc. + He doesn't get countered the LeBlanc way. I'd suggest a tanky AP to counter him. Ryze or Vladimir actually do wonders, if you aren't acting stupid early game)

Really, title says it all, don't do this. Waste of a game. If you are good enough to beat the **** out of them as LeBlanc, you deserve my personal admiration, but I'm pretty sure that if you won any of these lanes (excluding Kassa), your opponent wasn't even close to being a good player =/

Now that we know when it's good to pick LeBlanc, how should you pick her? Yes, how?

Okay, their first pick was, let's say, Ahri. You decide to counter her. Your team partner locks in some Lee Sin (synergizes greatly with Madame LaBlanche, by the way ^^) for jungling and you pick LB with a trollface.
Well, gradually, this trollface turns into an expression of despair, because they get Graves, Taric, Irelia and Maokai... (In case you don't know, very tanky team with high late game potential)
So they carry the game into its late phase and then win with absolute ease, just because you are absolutely useless as a carry or an assassin since their team is very resilient.
Sucks, I know =/

This brings us to two ways to ensure good enemy setup for LeBlanc.

1) Best idea is to trade! Once they have their AP carry, it's absolutely unlikely to have them pick her. And at least someone on your team must have the most awesummmmm league champion ^^
By trading, you can avoid immediately giving a clue to your enemy that your pick will be LeBlanc and thus, can base your decision on their team comp. (Maybe it's better just to go for a regular AP carry, who knows...)
They may happily get an Ezreal- Soraka botlane and theeeeen, make sure to lock in LeBlanc and put Trundle's everyday facial expression over your face :) Sweet ganks at bot and at least 3 squishy champs on their team.
Get the general idea?

2) If you are last pick or near to the last pick, PERFECT. Just let your team know that you will be counter-picking and decide if you want to pick LeBlanc or someone else to do so once you know their team composition.
Not much different from trading.


Phew... So much text and I didn't even get to actual gameplay O_O But the aforementioned info really matters in some cases, so I hope you will find use for it ;)

All right, what's a damn difference? How will your gameplay be different from normal games?

Well, first of all, take this as a rule (even though it's not really true...): STUPID BAD PEOPLE DON'T PLAY RANKED. (We consider 1200+ elo)

But for us it is true. (It's better to overestimate then to underestimate) Generally everyone whom you will run against will be much better then people in normal games, considering your ELO in normals is similar to your ranked ELO.
Always expect your enemy to be just as good or even better then you. This way you will avoid underestimation. Which essentially forms rule #1,

1) NEVER UNDERESTIMATE YOUR OPPONENT.

Next, you have to know what you can do and what your teammates can do.
It's important to understand the damage that a certain gank can do as well as understand what kind of CC you/your enemies have. Always think about what would be a better decision, to CC the enemy or to deal more damage.
In a same fashion, think about if it's better to jump away or slow and root the enemy if you get ganked.
In lane, you should constantly remind yourself what spells/SS you and your vis-a-vis have up. Do you have enough mana to use all of them? Are you/they at full health? Can you get a kill without being killed? Is the harass worth the taken damage?
All these question will combine into the realization of current situation which will let you avoid making stupid mistakes.
(You can watch some of my replays and you will clearly see some of the misjudgements that I have made and that costed me an easy kill or resulted in my death)

If you have LoL Replay yourself, I recommend watching your lost games sometimes and analyzing what exactly you did wrong.

Thus, rule #2

2) ANALYZE THE SITUATION. KEEP TRACK OF HP/MANA LEVELS AND KNOW YOUR AND YOUR ENEMY'S COOLDOWNS.


Map Awareness... I swear, people misunderstand this word so badly. Map vision DOES NOT mean map awareness. If you are raging at your team for not calling MIA's, you have no map awareness yet.

There are two aspects to map awareness:
1) Where your enemies are.
2) In what condition your enemies are.

And this is crucial. Many people think that just because someone is in their jungle, he's automatically an easy kill.
But hey, there is a moderately fed Lee Sin there and by encircling him from mid and bot all at half HP, you feed him a triple kill and make the situation even worse.

Try to monitor the map all the time, call all MIA's for yourself. See a top lane missing? It's either MIA or respawning, duh...
If you go for a gank, ask if enemies have heals or summoner spells up (If you play with a duo partner, ask him about the condition of his lane occasionally). This will be a nice addition to the rule #2, will give you more awareness and knowledge of situation and will help you become a better team player.

So, rule #3 is,

3) HAVE MAP AWARENESS AND COMMUNICATE WITH YOUR TEAM.


Kind of continuing rule number 4 comes the next one... sight ward.

And no, don't tell me it's the support job ;) Remember, no support in his sound mind and memory will cruise all the way up top to ward a ******* tri bush :D
Therefore, keep up with buying wards. True map vision is acquired when everyone on the team places wards.
And I can't tell you how sweet it is to play with fully warded map and realizing that you are also to be credited for that amazing map control.

So, whenever you have some 163 gold and are tempted to go back to the lane, STOP and get two sight wards. It's not gonna hurt you, trust me ;)

4) WARD THE MAP. ESPECIALLY YOUR PART OF IT.


Finally, everyone loves having a blue buff while playing a mid laner, right? ;) Well, guess what, you are the one to ask for it and take care of it.
A lot, and by this I mean A LOT and sometimes junglers don't keep an eye on their own jungle at all.

Therefore, if no one else does it, call jungle timers on Blue Buff (Respawns 5 min after death), Dragon (Respawns 6 min after death) and Baron (Respawns 7 min after death).

Also, since you want to have quick access to your timers, avoid typing a lot of chat messages (I still can't restrain myself from chat flooding >.<).

5) KEEP UP THE JUNGLE TIMERS, DON'T FLOOD THE CHAT

I wager my right arm for it, if you just follow these tips, you will become a much better player in general and people will be pleased to play with you.


Also, remember, being a team player = being a good player.

Since now this guide isn't the absolute public domain anymore, I'll actually go into speaking about each champion rather then just listing the very basic info about them. I'll do it slowly, but thoroughly, so be prepared this section will have a lot of text in it :D

List is in alphabetical order, so just scroll down to the letter you need.

There are some replays from me (Currently, I'm taking a break from LoL, so I'm not recording anymore)

Currently present replay files:

• Annie (1400ish elo game and a normal Solo Q game, lots of lulz)
• Ahri (2 1300 ELO Ranked Games)
• Cassiopeia (4 people premade, an ok Cassio, I guess)
• Karthus (1300 ELO Ranked Game and a full 5 normals faceroll)
• Katarina (Duo Q draft normals)
• Kog'Maw (Triple-Q draft normals)
• LeBlanc (****ty game, but shows the basics, solo Q)
• Lux (Duo Q with a friend. Decent opponents, doing double ring)
• Malzahar (2 games. Watch for understanding of laning vs. Malz)
• Malphite (Solo Q, 4v5, LeBlanc penta included)
• Morgana (Full 5)
• Twisted Fate (Solo Q)
• Viktor (Normal draft. Triple Q)
• Vladimir (1400ish elo game, 1600 Vlad.)

There are more to come ;)


DISCLAIMER: Recorded games are just regular normal matches, I do not pretend that my opponent is the best in playing that champ. I will play more and more games and if I will encounter a better player who has played the same champion, I will surely substitute the replay file to demonstrate more competitive gaming. Sounds fair enough? Enjoy then :)

Most important points to keep in mind:

• Graves can be played as an AD Caster, not just as an AD Carry and can take mid by all means.
• Graves's Buckshot deals damage to everyone in a cone in front of him and isn't blocked by minions.
• Graves's Smoke Screen kills all the allied vision just like Nocturne's Paranoia
• Graves has a little in-built dash ( Quickdraw) that can make for an escape if used to rush over an obstacle.
• Graves's passive, True Grit increases his Armor and MR while he is in combat.

How to counter Graves:

• Know the range of Graves's spells and don't get hit by everything at once.
• If Graves attempts to Quickdraw-> Buckshot your face, quickly drop a sigil of silence on him and proc the silence to deny him the opportunity to shoot you with all 3 bullets.
• Pick moments to attack Graves when his passive is not fully stacked.

Difficulty:
MEDIUM

Most important points to keep in mind:

• Heimerdinger excels at pushing the lane hard and denying gold to enemy laner since he's not able to farm under the turret.
• Heimerdinger's passive increases the healing regeneration of all nearby allied units including towers.
• Heimerdinger's Hextech Micro-Rockets do not have any prioritizing system and will shoot at 3 or 5 closest units.
• Heimerdinger's ultimate enables him to fire 5 rockets instead of 3, makes his turrets shoot iceballs and increases his grenade missile speed.

How to counter Heimerdinger:

• Keep at least 3 allied minions between you and Heimerdinger to avoid getting hit by the rockets.
• Don't tower dive Heimerdinger unless you can get a kill 100%. A turret + 2 H-28G Evolution Turrets + a stun. Not a good idea.
• Call for ganks. A good Heimerdinger will pressure you very hard, so a gank is absolutely necessary.

Difficulty:
MEDIUM

Most important points to keep in mind:

• Karma's potential is highly underestimated, both her damage and utility. Make sure to carefully read her abilities descriptions and understand them properly.
• Karma's passive, Inner Flame gives her bonus AP per % of missing health that makes it extremely hard to fight her at low HP.
• Karma's Heavenly Wave deals damage and if enhanced by Mantra heals Karma and her allies for flat amound + % of missing health.
• Karma's Soul Shield is a ******edly strong shield that deals ******ed AoE damage around the target if enhanced by Mantra
• Karma's Spirit Bond can be used on both allies or enemies to speed up/slow their movement speed. Additionally, any enemies who touch the tether are damaged and slowed by the same amount.

How to counter Karma:

• Make sure to stay away from her minions as they can be used as a target for Soul Shield or Spirit Bond.
• Whenever Karma is at low HP, keep in mind that she still has a heal that will heal her for ~5-10% of her max health and a shield that will shield another 20-25% hp. Don't towerdive her alone.
• Remember to silence Karma as early as possible and keep her silenced for as long as possible.
• If you cannot kill Karma is lane, ask a jungler to hold it for you and go gank other lanes. Remember, LeBlanc is a spectacular ganker ;)

Difficulty:
MEDIUM

Most important points to keep in mind:

• Karthus must never be underestimated. He has a very strong laning skillset, can farm like crazy and harass you at the same time. Luckily, you have something really strong to put against.
• Karthus's Lay Waste deals double damage if it hits a single target only.
• Karthus's passive, Death Defied, allows him to cast spells for 7 seconds after dying.
• Requiem. Nuff said.

How to counter Karthus:

• Even though he is a very strong champion, Karthus is very susceptible to early ganks, especially if he doesn't have Wall of Pain yet. Use it to your advantage.
• As soon as you kill Karthus, get away from his corpse. He can easily catch you with Wall of Pain and Lay Wastes if you are too close.
• Warn your team when Karthus hits level 6 so that they will be aware of his ultimate.
• If Karthus is smart enough to start casting Requiem within your range, silence him ASAP to cancel the spell and save several innocent ***es.

REPLAY: Download here My personal recommendation. Decent Karthus, rather balanced game. Shows positioning, target priority and such.
REPLAY: Download here
(Normal 5's, fun pubstomping)
REPLAY: Download here
(1300 elo ranked game. Even though it's a defeat, I think I did quite well this game and there is something to learn from.)

Difficulty:
EASY

Most important points to keep in mind:

• Kassadin is a great counter to AP champions.
• Kassadin's silence/damage spell, Null Sphere has similar range to your sigil of silence, but does not require any follow-up in order to trigger the silence (duration 1.1-2.6 sec, gradually increases as spell lvl's-up).
• Kassadin's burst in incredibly strong, almost as strong as yours.
• Kassadin is less powerful without Force Pulse, so try to catch him when he doesn't have that up.
• Kassadin's Riftwalk is very similar to your Distortion, but it has a much lesser cooldown.

How to counter Kassadin:

• Kassadin is extremely susceptible to pre-6 ganks. He doesn't have any mobiliy and his Force Pulse isn't always up. So, call for ganks.
• If you are too worried about losing lane to him, you can always ask for lane switch. Again, I would prefer asking botlane AD Carry to swap you in mid since Kassadin's biggest weakness is physical damage.
• After level 6, you can actually trade with him quite easily. At that point, your damage is actually higher. The only problem is that you get silenced for 2~ seconds.
• Always call misses on Kassadin. He moves around the map extremely quick.
• Kassadin would be another type of champion that is very blue dependant. If he doesn't have it, he cannot roam nearly as effecient.

Difficulty:
HARD

Most important points to keep in mind:

• Kog'Maw will likely build AP if he goes mid. Therefore, Void Ooze and Living Artillery will be his main damage dealing spells.
• Kog'Maw's passive, Icathian Surprise allows him to run around after his death and explode after 3 or 4 seconds to deal significant amount of true damage (Scales with Kog'Maw's level).
• Kog'Maw has a very long range with his auto-attacks and his ultimate, Living Artillery, which is a very annoying, spammable harass.
• Kog'Maw's Bio-Arcane Barrage scales off your max HP which makes his auto attacks hurt even with AP build. Additionally, the spell increases his basic attack range.
• Kog'Maw's ultimate takes up increasing amounts of mana if casted several times in a row.

How to counter Kog'Maw:

• Be mobile. Start off with Boots, move all the time. Try to dodge his ultimate and harass him back as much as you can.
• If you are in control of the lane, push it and then go roam around. Kog'Maw has very long ranged spells and will be able to farm even if you pressure him. So there is no use of trying to deny him.
• Best idea to shut down Kog'Maw would be to steal him blue buff. Due to increasing mana cost on ult, he's really blue dependant.

REPLAY: Download here

Difficulty:
MEDIUM

Well, sure enough there is only one real advice to follow. Be a better LeBlanc. I can give you a ton of ideas about how to play her, but it's all just smoke and mirrors, unless you really play LeBlanc a lot and get a feeling of what you are and are not capable of.

Most important points to keep in mind:

• ^ Consider that your opponent knows EVERYTHING inside this guide and even more. Do not underestimate.
• In LeBlanc vs. LeBlanc fight, usually the LeBlanc that silences first and for longer wins.
• Your summoner spells and item build can really give you an advantage over the enemy LeBlanc or really give your opponent the upper hand.

How to counter LeBlanc:

• Call for a damn gank :D
• Try to push the lane. Farming under tower is very hard for LeBlanc and if you can push the enemy LB to her turret, you will be sure getting much more farm.
• Get Mercury's Treads. It's quite game-changing in mid. If both of you silence each other at the same time and you are 1st to take action after reduced silence duration, you prolong the silence on the enemy, rendering them unable to deal damage and eventually win the trade/get a kill. MR also helps.
• Rush a Banshee's Veil. No kidding, It has worked every single time for me. Against good and bad LeBlancs.
• If you have some CDR already to bring your sigil of silence CD to around 4-4.5 seconds you may want to try the following combos:
• Instead of classic sigil of silence -> Mimic combo, you cast sigil of silence and Ethereal Chains. At the same casting time, it will give you the same silence + a snare. By the end of the snare from chains, your sigil of silence will be available to defragment your counterpart into molecules with Q-R-W- Ignite combo.
• Usually both LeBlancs use Distortion at the same time which results in absolute waste of the spell. You may try casting Q and then Distortion in place. It works, sometimes.
• In the end, it will always come to the question "Who casts his spells quicker?". I know only one technique that allows you to cast them lightning-fast. And that's smartcast (There is a more in-depth explanation of smartcasting in the In-depth skills section).

REPLAY: Download here

To be honest, that's a very bad LeBlanc and the game was broken overall with a leaver. Nevertheless, it shows early game laning principles pretty well.
Never hesitate to get Banshee's Veil (even if you are doing great) against another LeBlanc. It's the hardest counter I can think of as of now.

Difficulty:
EASY-HARD.
Everything is in your hands, my friend :)



REWORK/COMING SOON!

Most important points to keep in mind:

• Malphite can be played as a tanky AP mid. His damage and farming capabilities are good enough. Don't underestimate.
• Malphite, however, is very squishy when built AP, unlike tank Malphite. Treat him as an AP carry. Don't overestimate.
• Malphite's Granite Shield allows him a little tankyness early on, but it's not very useful in later phases of the game

How to counter Malphite:

• Try to break his Granite Shield with 2-3 auto attacks early on, not to waste your spells for it.
• Aside from Seismic Shard, Malphite has no ranged harass, so feel free to harass him with auto attacks.
• Try to keep aware of Unstoppable Force and be ready to dodge it with Distortion. It does a loooot of damage when used by AP Malphite
• Malph is one of those champs vs. whom I would suggest going double Doran's Ring or demanding the blue buff asap. You need to harass him as much as you can.

REPLAY: Download here (Pentakill included :3)

Difficulty:
MEDIUM

Most important points to keep in mind:

• Master Yi built with a lot of ability power is a very underestimated champion.
• Master Yi is literally invincible during laning phase due to his Meditate healing whatever damage you throw at him while giving him ******ed resists.
• Master Yi's Alpha Strike will hurt very heavy due to its 1:1 AP ratio. Also, it enables Master Yi to clear waves in seconds.
• Master Yi has an extremely strong burst damage with Deathfire Grasp, Alpha Strike and Lich Bane.
• Master Yi's Highlander grants him increased MS and AS and makes him immune to all slows.
• Master Yi's Highlander also causes all of his spells to refresh cooldowns after he gets a kill. If he is able to get that CDR proc during a teamfight, he can annihilate the whole team in seconds.

How to counter Master Yi:

• Save your silence to disrupt Meditate, also remember that the spell has a really lengthy cooldown.
• Call for a gank. Yi is quite weak in 2v1 situations since he has no escape mechanism other then his ult. Sometimes, Alpha Strike can be used as an escape as well.
• If Master Yi Alpha Strikes you directly, use Distortion to get under your turret. This may get him killed, who knows...
• Focus on last hitting. Harassing AP Master Yi is very pointless

Difficulty:
EASY

Most important points to keep in mind:

• Morgana's Black Shield is just f***ing insane at blocking magic damage and neglecting literally ALL CC effects aimed at her in the process.
• Morgana's main farm spell, Tormented Shadow not only deals good chunk of damage, but also lowers afflicted enemies' magic resist, which makes the rest of her spells hit much harder.
• Morgana's ult acts very similar to your Ethereal Chains, however, it's not a skillshot, it chains all surrounding enemies and instead of the snare, it stuns... Oh yea, it also deals crazy damage.

How to counter Morgana:

• Scare Morgana with fake outshoots using sigil of silence to make her panic and pop up her Black Shield for no reason. After it expires you have around 10 seconds to freely work on her health bar.
• At level 6, Morgana's usual combo is to open with Soul Shackles, immediately root you in place with Dark Binding and all of that time you will probably be enjoying standing on Tormented Shadow and sparkling or even blazing with Ignite.
  This combo is one of the most effective in-game and usually leaves you no chance to escape. So, if you are fast enough to react, as soon as you see Soul Shackles been casted, just get the hell out of her range with your Distortion and Mimic. Don't be afraid to blow your ult for this. Your ultimate cd is only 30 seconds, while Soul Shackles is on cooldown of around 2 minutes.
  Needless to say that using this double-jump may be a question of life and death.
• When affected by Tormented Shadow debuff, don't be stupid enough to get hit by other Morgana's spells.

REPLAY: Download here

Difficulty:
TOUGH


Difficulty:
EASY

Most important points to keep in mind:

• Ryze's spells' strength scales with his maximum mana, not so much with AP. This allows him to buy only mana items, still be very powerful in dealing damage and also have a lot of armor and magic resist (since items like Frozen Heart and Banshee's Veil benefit him a lot)
• Ryze's passive, Arcane Mastery, allows his late game spell rotation to be longer then you may expect. (Considering he has some CDR). His damage can be easily underestimated.
• Ryze's early game is not so great, however. He doesn't have potential for long spell combos and his burst isn't very high yet.

How to counter Ryze?

• Ryze's Rune Prison can interrupt your bursts by not letting you cast Distortion. It is wise to wait for it to go off and then show Ryze some real witchcraft :)
• Ryze has no CC other then his Rune Prison and he is relatively slow (Don't believe the season 1 trailer =P), so he would usually be one of few champs that you can space out your abilities with.
• Try to deny him as much as possible early game and if you get ahead, stay in lane and keep focusing on denial.

Difficulty:
MEDIUM

Most important points to keep in mind:

• Sion is a pain in the ***. His damage is pretty guaranteed after he lands his Cryptic Gaze on you and this damage will start hitting right after level 2 when he gets his Death's Caress.
• Sion that builds AP will likely farm with ease and push his lane a lot.
• Sion's Death's Caress and Cryptic Gaze are both excellent escape mechanisms, but most Sion's will blow these spells offensively. Therefore it's very easy to bait them into over-extending, after which gank is just a piece of cake.

How to counter Sion?

• Do not be aggressive too early on. His level 1-4 burst is definitely higher then yours.
• Try to coordinate a gank on Sion.
• Don't forget to silence and chain Sion when ganking/fighting. If he's building AP, without his abilities he loses a lot of potential damage.
• Don't forget that Sion's Cannibalism gives him insane lifesteal, so better stay away from him, unless you are 200% sure that you can kill him. He can be easily underestimated.

Difficulty:
MEDIUM

Most important points to keep in mind:

• Sivir has a Spell Shield that blocks a single non-friendly ability directed at her. It is a very good defense against your combos. Also, if she successfully blocks a spell, Sivir recovers some mana.
• Sivir's Ricochet enables her next attack to bounce between enemies and deal damage. Technically, if she uses it and you are next to your minions, consider yourself hit.
• Sivir's Boomerang Blade damages all the units on both ways, away from and returning to Sivir.

How to counter Sivir?

• Make sure to force Sivir activate her Spell Shield as much as possible; however, try not to hit her during the time that shield is active. It has a significant mana cost and poor Sivir will run out of mana very quickly if you will trick her properly ;)
• Sivir is an AD-carry, so getting armor against her is a good idea. However, the better idea is to kill her (just for the same fact that she's a carry ^^)
• Unfortunately, Sivir isn't a common mid pick and therefore, I can't help much more.

Difficulty:
EASY-MEDIUM

Most important points to keep in mind:

• Soraka's main weapon against you is Infuse that silences for a long time on cast and deals damage.
• Soraka's Starcall deals a lot of damage with AP build. It also reduces MR, so repetitive Starcalls will deal increased damage.
• Her Astral Blessing and Wish can be quite annoying because due to high amoounts of AP, both spells will heal for a lot.

How to counter Soraka?

• Do not try to trade with Soraka at level 1. Her Starcalls will deal lots of damage.
• Ignite every time when you want to go for a kill. It will make her heals 50% less efficient.
• Another way to prevent Soraka from healing is to silence her. After practicing for a little, you should be able to use your Q-R combo faster then anyone realizes wtf is going on.
• Remember, when you get silenced by Soraka, don't back away from her. You should do the exact opposite, press onto her. When silence wears out, she's powerless against you. Remember this at all times.

Difficulty:
TOUGH


Your boss, ally and partner in crime ^^ (If you read the lore...) Btw, also OP as hell :)

Most important points to keep in mind:

• Swain is very tough enemy to play against as LeBlanc. You may not believe me, because he is so rarely picked, but once you'll face a good one, you'll understand. Maybe he is not as lethal as Talon, but he can give you a very hard time.
• Swain EXCELS in the same thing as you. Deception. Except for him it's so much easier because he is generally underestimated for the lack of immediate burst.
  Well, his damage is not worse then yours (maybe even better), but it's primarily damage over time. Meaning that you are fighting him, then you figure out that it's time to retreat, but his Torment, Decrepify and Ignite are already working to the fullest. All of a sudden, "OH **** I'M SCREWED!!". Just a mere handicapped guy...
• On the other hand. If Swain player isn't aware of what is in his hands, he usually fails (you will have fun time) and then calls Swain a "piece of ****" adding to the above-described misconception about the champion. Therefore, most of the times it's a question of being lucky :)
• Swain's ult, Ravenous Flock is a very good form of healing and cannot be interrupted like Fiddlesticks' Bountiful Harvest or Master Yi's Meditate. Ignite usually solves the problem.
• Swain's Torment gives his a damage amplification against you. (Think of it like it's a Hemoplague debuff, but the increased damage is given to Swain only.)
• Swain will most likely need to land Nevermove in order to kill you, so make sure not to get immobilized by that.

How to counter Swain?

• Don't force early level fights. Swain's DoT+aplified damage from auto attacks will allow him to win trades with you.
• Whenever you see Nevermove animation appearing under your feet, evade it. If you have to use Distortion to do so, do it. (two spells have approximately the same cooldown)
• When you are afflicted by Swain's Torment, you should better stay the hell out of his range. This spell can hurt much more then you think. Remember, "looks can be deceiving" :)
• Ask your jungler for a gank. Swain is slow and squishy and if he misses his Nevermove the rest of job is pretty simple.

Difficulty:
TOUGH-HARD (Remember, a good Swain)

COMING SOON!

Most important points to keep in mind:

• Teemo has an innate invisibility that he gains after standing still for several seconds ( camouflage). Keep this in mind when you are thinking about him as "MIA". He can be right in front of your nose.
• Teemo's only direct disable, Blinding Dart is not a big deal for you, since you do not rely a lot on auto-attacks and spell damage is not affected by blinding effect. Damage from it is annoying though =\
• Teemo's level 6 means that all surroundings will be probably filled with his Noxious Traps. You just have to live with it. Take uncommon routes to gank.

How to counter Teemo?

• Teemo is probably the most annoying motherf... woah, sry :) I mean, little sneaky yordle in the League.
• If you remember Teemo's position and know that he's there, camouflaged, throw Ethereal Chains and proceed with Distortion. He wouldn't dare to move :) Or else, just 3-shot his *** (QRW). With a slow from Ethereal Chains it should be relatively easy.
• When chasing Teemo, do not directly follow him as he will be luring you towards his Noxious Traps that deal a lot of damage if he builds AP.

Difficulty:
EASY

Most important points to keep in mind:

• Twisted Fate is a reckless squishy gambler that is usually very easy to burst down. However he is a really hard pusher.
• Twisted Fate's Pick A Card is the greatest spell for laning phase. It combines everything in it, free mana regen., great defense against ganks and great initiating tool for a gank and a farming tool.
  When used properly, it allows Twisted Fate to do ton of things with just one spell.
• Twisted Fate's Wild Cards do a lot of damage and therefore it is imperative to dodge them in best interests of your health bar.
• Twisted Fate has a great ganking/finishing tool that allows him to reveal your position and teleport to you almost instantly. So, it is important to remember the Destiny factor. Basically, you are never safe till you appear on your summoner platform :)

How to counter Twisted Fate?

• Silence, great damage and mobility, this is what you need in order to out-play Twisted Fate. Luckily, you have all 3.
• Wait until his Pick A Card will be on cooldown to attack him without a risk of being stunned and counter-attacked.
• Remember that Pick A Card empowers Twisted Fate's next auto attack and if it's already locked, he can use the bonus effect even when silenced. However, if you silence him after he casted the skill 1st time but didn't lock in the card, he will not be able to do so until silence wears out.
  I did it randomly to one TF. A little funny, confusing situation :)
• If Twisted Fate ganks to you with Destiny near your turret when you are recalling on low health, use Distortion to dash away from him, and when he will run past the original Distortion spot, blink back and silence him with sigil of silence-> Ethereal Chains. Alongside turret shots that he will be taking, this may as well kill him.
  If you don't want to play with Lady Luck, just use Distortion and then Mimic or Flash (if those are not on CD of course) to put yourself at the safe distance from those cards on the ground :)
• Make sure to tell your teammates about Twisted Fate reaching level 6. Just quickly type, "care TF 6, ult up".
  If you can, time his ult (approximately). It can be a life saver for you and your allies.

REPLAY: Download here


Difficulty:
EASY


REWORKING/COMING SOON

Difficulty:
EASY

Most important points to keep in mind:

• Vayne's early game damage with Tumble, Silver Bolts and critical chance runes is just unfair. On the other hand, Vayne is one of the squishiest champions in game.
  These two countraries make her a very unstable champion. If she does well in farming and gets a few early kills, she carries hard later. Otherwise, she may turn into a totally useless **** in late game.
• Vayne's Condemn and Tumble allow her to escape most dangerous situations.
• Her passive, Night Hunter grants Vayne 30 extra movement speed when facing an enemy champion, which makes her a very potent chaser. However, Vayne must see a target that she is chasing in order for this bonus to activate. Consider this while trying to escape her.
• Vayne's ultimate, Final Hour allows her to enter stealth for a short period of time after using Tumble.

How to counter Vayne?

• Play more or less safe pre-level 6. Harass a little bit and make sure not to lose too much health and control over a lane. After you have your ultimate, you will probably be 2-shotting Vayne for half of her health bar. Get a few kills and try to shut her down and prevent from farming.
• If you are trying to escape Vayne, using Distortion over a wall will cut her off completely since her Tumble cannot pass over walls. If she decides to chase with Flash, simply re-cast Distortion.
• When ganking Vayne it's always better to double-chain her. Since she is very squishy, you and your jungler will definitely deal enough damage, so it's way more important to keep her from tumbling all over the lane and pushing you away with Condemn. This will also hint you about her position if she enters stealth.
  Rememer to space out Ethereal Chains and Mimicked version for longest possible slow/snare.
• Since Vayne players usually run straight AD/Crit items, you can be sure (most of the times) that she will be kill'able at any point of the game.

Difficulty:
MEDIUM

Most important points to keep in mind:

• Veigar's Primordial Burst can 1-shot you in late game if you have a lot of AP. It scales with both Veigar's and yours AP.
• Veigar's Baleful Strike grants him 1 AP permanently if it deals a killing blow or 1/2/3/4/5 if he kills a champion with any source of damage. If left unnoticed, Veigar can easily farm up a lot of AP using this spell.
• Veigar's Dark Matter hurts a lot since it has a 1:1 AP ratio.
• Veigar's early game doesn't shine, however. It should be very easy for you, since your early burst is much more powerful, you can get a few early kills with ease.

How to counter Veigar?

• You can use Distortion over Veigar's Event Horizon; the stun effect should (I'm saying should because sometimes it does not :O) still proc. However, if it's a return part of Distortion (which is a blink like Shunpo), no stun will apply.
• Veigar is a very slow champion, so you should be able to zone him pretty efficiently. Just use sigil of silence into Distortion to force him back and try to keep the minion wave closer to your turret to have more protection.
• After level 6, you have a huge advantage, your sudden initiation. For Veigar to burst you down, it's necessary to walk up to you and this usually totally gives away all of his evil notions :) You can just jump at him, nuke him and blink out.
• Get a Banshee's Veil as soon as he starts getting scary. It's the best defense against Veigar.
• Later in the game, as both of you accumulate decent amounts of AP, Veigar can turn into a much larger threat. So make sure to let him have no time to react to your move.

Difficulty:
MEDIUM

Most important points to keep in mind:

• Viktor's choice of augment to his hex core actually affects his playstyle a lot. Make sure to see which of his abilities he did upgrade.
• Both Power Transfer and Death Ray can hurt a lot, so unless you want to go for some heavy harass or a kill, you should keep your distance not to get hit by any of those.
• Viktor's ultimate, Chaos Storm, can be re-directed by the player at any point of time while it's active. Important to know is that the cloud itself moves slower as it moves away from Viktor.
• Gravity Field applies stacking debuff that slows your movement speed and stuns for 1.5 seconds upon you getting 3 stacks. Therefore you have around a second to get out of its range without being stunned.

How to counter Viktor?

• Viktor is very skillshot reliant champion. Boots are a great opening vs. him. Mobility speaks for itself.
• Viktor is extremely fragile, if built straight AP. If you see him not building any survivability/health items, feel free to 3 shot him any time. Not kidding, I was surprised by how much damage sigil of silenceSigil- Mimic- Distortion deals to him at level 6. Probably 75% max health, if not more.
• If you are at low health and Mirror Image has activated, try to bait Viktor into ulting your clone. Chaos Storm automatically locks onto enemies, so you will be able to easily move the cloud away from real you by sending the clone somewhere (Unless Viktor re-directs it).
• Avoid fighting Viktor in the narrow jungle paths. He can lock you down with Gravity Field with ease. And that's a very nasty stun.
• Overall, Viktor should not be a problem for you. Just keep in mind to choose your positioning carefully and not engaging him when he has a clear advantage.

REPLAY: Download here - One thing I absolutely need to point out here is that knowing how much mana you have and can use is VERY important. You can see on this replay that my 2nd (I think) death is purely from not noticing that I'm oom and cannot cast Distortion for the kill.

Difficulty:
EASY

Most important points to keep in mind:

• Warwick, or midwick, in our case, is an uncommon mid lane choice, but nevertheless, he can do it.
• Warwick's Hungering Strike is his infinite sustain tool. It also deals damage based off your max. HP which is very annoying.
• Warwick's Infinite Duress is a suppression that lasts for 1.8 seconds and deals a lot of damage, applying all kind of on-hit effects including his passive, Eternal Thirst
• Warwick's blood scent gives him vision of low HP targets around him (range increases with spell rank) and bonus movement speed

How to counter Warwick?

• WW may be quite annoying to deal with in lane due to him healing up any damage you cause to him. Try calling for ganks and killing him all at once ;)
• Chain-Q him for possible suppression interruption. Never know when this will work, but try to predict his ult.
• Abuse your range. Pre-6, Warwick has no gap closer.

Difficulty:
MEDIUM

Most important points to keep in mind:

• Xerath can easily harass his enemies upon learning locus of power, even if they are on the other side of the river. Considering that his Arcanopulse is a straight-line beam of energy and his ultimate, Arcane Barrage, is an AoE long range nuke, first few times of laning against will feel like laning against a Lux and a Kog'Maw that both have the range of Caitlyn's ult :)
• Xerath's mage chains apply the mark which will proc and stun the target if they take damage from any of Xerath's abilities. Think of it like of your sigil of silence mark.
• Xerath excels at being able to damage you from long range, so if you keep closer to him, his locus of power may become a disadvantage because it immobilizes Xerath, making him an easy target for any skillshots.

How to counter Xerath?

• Definitely Boots first. All of his damage comes from skillshots ( mage chains are usually maxed out last or second), therefore high mobility will aid you greatly.
• As soon as you see him using locus of power, jump him! Silence, so that he will not be able to de-activate locus of power and do as much damage as you can before retreating.
• Dodge his Arcane Barrage with your Distortion. It has a total of 3 charges, 2 of which you can just evade by blinking here and there. If you give it some practice, Xerath's ult should not give you any sort of problems. (unless he stun you in advance, of course)

Difficulty:
MEDIUM

Most important points to keep in mind:

• Ziggs is a very strong AP carry, however he has several flaws. One of them is being quite blue dependant.
• Ziggs's Bouncing Bomb bounces up to 3 times. The distance of consecutive bounces depends on the initial throw distance.
• Ziggs's Hexplosive Minefield is a very highly damaging spell. Make sure not to collect all of those bombs :D
• Ziggs's Mega Inferno Bomb displays an indicator approximately ~0.5 seconds before landing. Reflexes might be needed in order to dodge.

How to counter Ziggs?

• Be aware of Ziggs's level 1. He has a very high burst with Bouncing Bomb-> Short Fuse combo. Don't even try to trade before level 2.
• Laning against Ziggs takes a lot of thinking, quick reacting and prediction. All of his abilities are skillshot based and therefore you should learn to dodge them.
• Distortion out of Ziggs's ult :3
• If Ziggs is missing, call it, immediately. Also, warn your team when he hits level 6.
• Steal his blue buff unless you want to practice last hitting under a turret

Difficulty:
MEDIUM

Most important points to keep in mind:

• Zilean isn't a good choice for mid, but I've seen some playing him (or trying to play) as an AP Carry. Well, in my opinion, Zilean is great at bot lane as a support, but is no good at mid. Mostly, because all the damage that he can do is 2 of his Time Bombs in quick succession. Although it may kill some mid champs early on, even after level 4, it becomes nothing comparing to what Brand or Kennen or LeBlanc can put against. Not speaking of level 6 damage.
• Zilean can, however, deny practically anyone during early levels. Be careful with his Time Bombs
• Zilean's ultimate, Chronoshift, acts like a portable Guardian Angel, so technically he can revive himself from time to time. The fun thing is, when I've played against Zileans usually I could burst them down before they could even react. (Implying that Zilean is super squishy.)

How to counter Zilean?

• Call for ganks pre-6. He will be pushed up really hard and Zilean should be quite easy to gank as long as you land your slow.
• Just stay away from him until level 4. Then just use the basic combo to silence him and deal as much damage as you can. I believe, you can easily get a kill on him at level 4.
• After level 6, I absolutely cannot imagine a situation in which you would lose to Zilean. Your burst is enough to insta-kill him and even kill him again if he is fast enough to cast Chronoshift of himself, while his damage will only take half of your health bar at most. (considering he has a level 3. Time Bomb)
• Shouldn't be any problem to you.

Difficulty:
EASY