Foreword.
For regular updates, look to my channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/r3negade37 All new videos are posted there. TY
I haven't forgotten this guide - I'm just waiting for season 3 before i commit any major updates/writing sprees. I hope you understand.
I've decided to put this section in here to explain the guide a bit.
Whilst initially all I had intended to do was simply to write about Leblanc, quite frankly that isn't possible to do by itself if I wish to do her any justice.
You can have as good mechanical skill as you want... but if you have non-existant general game skills like map awareness, then no amount of writing purely about Leblanc will help you.
This is why I wrote sections like Who I am, my experiences, How I play her, in an attempt to instill some background knowledge into those who read this guide.
So it's split as such:
You want to learn to play Leblanc to the best of your ability?
Read everything.
You already have good game skills and knowledge, and just want to know about Leblanc and how she works?
I guess you can skip straight to Runes, Masteries, Summoners.
That is all.
Thank you.
Introduction
Is any introduction needed? This is Leblanc. At one point or another, (unless you've been a very sheltered person), people will have been at the receiving end of an absolute drubbing by this champion. Comes out of nowhere, combos you, and gtfo's. Typically followed by "OP", or other choice complaints/expletives.
I intend to be as detailed as I can in this guide. But I will make one thing clear: guides are no substitute for experience. If LoL was a game where it had one-size-fits-all solutions it would be rather stale. (ok. maybe
. Or
. Or
. Or.. ehh nvm). Likewise, this guide is not a light read. This is literally the distillation of everything I have learned - and if you're here panicking because you've locked her in before a ranked game and don't know what to do, you're out of luck buddy. To this end, I've tried to make this guide moderately visually appealing, but It's substance that matters. You won't find funky banners, icons, ponies w/e here. If you're here to actually get better at her... then read on.
Let's make another thing clear: playing Leblanc properly is both hard, and not hard.
Any idiot can QR someone. Any muppet can get a good game with a champion and carry his team. It takes practice, skill and knowledge to consistently do your job well. Leblanc's kit is so incredibly versatile, that the amount of intricacies in the variables one considers in decision making takes far longer to master than other champions. And even then, Leblanc relies on your opponents making mistakes. At high ELO, that happens very rarely. Miss your opportunity, and you WILL fail. No amount of farming will rescue you if you fail in your window of dominanceas LB. It generally only takes one mistake for you to die horribly. But luckily for you, I will be spelling most of these out later on.
On the other hand, if only people weren't utterly brain-dead sometimes they would find themselves so much better off. I'm talking about consistent face-planting into walls, building items which just don't work on Leblanc, and having one-track minds. This latter part I will elaborate on later on in this guide.
As with any champion: USE YOUR BRAIN . This guide is how I play her. It would be short-sighted, not to mention arrogant, to say this is the only or best way to play her. I'm sure someone else will have success with her by playing her differently.
Nevertheless, this guide might have a shade more bitterness in it than others. So I apologise for that.
But lastly, and perhaps most importantly: always look to what mistakes you made. . You know the drill. "Elo hell." "feeders". "ragers". It's simply too easy to state you lost the game due to other people's mistakes. Perhaps. But in my games I still find that one mistake or two that i could have avoided. Try it. Get LoLreplay, set it up, watch your games.
About the author
Ingame, my main account is "totally not n00b". I play AP mid preferentially, maining Leblanc and Veigar, and if not, support. Why? Because I like having fun . In this case, killing things. I like having the power within myself to dictate the course of the game. I find champions like Morgana boring and one-dimensional. I don't see the point in winning if one doesn't have fun. Hell, even if I lose, I'll generally have fun. Sitting back and farming until a team fight to me is just tedious and dull.
"But soviet, why a support? isn't that tedious and dull?"
Common misconception. I always felt support was the most important of the roles, but at lower elo it isn't as important.
On a more practical note, you're
a) not going to get mid everytime
b) not going to get a favourable mid everytime
c) not going to get anywhere in ranked if you know the one role.
On a more hilarious note, because although people complain about ******s in carry positions, believe me when i say you can fail just as hard as a support...
I'll make a video one day of what i mean. Imagine a soraka with half the team's deaths.
I am steadily rising through the ranks when I came back to SR from a spree of bashing people on Dominion - Under the name "I SEE SQUISHEEE". The time i spent playing LB there honed my abilities enough to normally wreck people in mid without a problem. The greatest test will be in ranked, which I am doing now.
Because this is a wall of text and needs pretty pictures, here's one or two:
These aren't bragging rights or anything, as I found stats to be a tad pointless - you can only tell so much from a picture.

I am also referred to as "Soviet", from other games. Long story... and pending investigation.
I have yet to lose mid in ranked as LB - sounds impressive, isn't an idle boast, but it will become clear why this is the case later.
About Leblanc
To understand Leblanc, and how I play and win with her, requires understanding the game.
When I first picked her up, I was
good with her. I knew the basic combos, I knew to focus the squishies in a team fight. I didn't understand the finer points of her mechanics, and more importantly,
what her role is in the team . Thus, like most LB players it would seem, you swing wildly between massive killing sprees and being utterly shut down. These people don't understand that you're not an AP carry.
An AP carry, in my books... sod it. Let's turn this around. Ask yourself : What is an AP carry?
Someone who fights using magic?
Someone who wins the team-fights with magic?
Someone who is adaptable, has both good killing and farming potential, and wins the teamfights with magic?
It's not that straight forward is it? In general, AP carries (in ranked anyway) tend to focus on AoE, and low-cd/highly repeatable burst, and as such win the teamfights.
LB, at least the way I play her, doesn't fit into this definition at all well. If you're content to farm away for 20 minutes, pick another champion. If you're content to build CDR over AP, pick Ryze.
Leblanc is known as a single-target assassin. Or, in less technical terms - a champion which goes:
She is also known as a ganking champion. Again, in less technical terms - A champion which has decided that farming is terribly uncouth and for the peasantry to do. Real champions do the harder job of
murdering people .
Her job is not to win the teamfight through damage, it's to win the teamfight before it's even happened.
Hopefully by the end of this guide you will have formulated your own opinions as how best to utilise this champion.
How I play leblanc... and more.
Warning: wall of text. Skip to TL:DR if you must.
I feel Leblanc fits into her own niche - that of suppression . Look at it this way: a common comment thrown around about Leblanc is "she's useless lategame."
Let's assume it's true. Does it matter? If you've done your job, their mid-pick should be in a far worse state than you are. You may have lost your early-game ability to effortless kill who you please with impunity, but they will have become a non-factor if you do it right.
That's half the story.
So, I repeat, this guide will be focusing on how I play her. I play her as a counter pick - always vs
/
, etc. Because she, in turn, is easily counter-picked.
"But Soviet, isn't it easy to win vs a champion you naturally have an advantage over?"
- No. It's easy if the enemy is ******ed. But as stated, this guide assumes they aren't. If an ahri player hasn't met an LB, she's lucky. Secondly, your kit gives you an advantage. It's up to you, the player, to abuse it.... Â
Â
As a result of my actions, my mid opponents become far behind where I am and don't influence the teamfights as they should.
EE: Eviserate enemy.
So that's that: I play her as a suppressor . Doesn't matter if you "fall off." In order to fall off, you need to be in a position to fall off from. If their mid never gets there... job done.
Do you know the common advice given to counter LB? "Build a banshee's." Unless you're
(SOD Ryze) this is the single biggest piece of rubbish about LB you will ever hear. They've bought a banshee's veil. Hm. I distinctly remember this being a team game... don't you? By the time they've got it, team fights will start occurring - and with that, other targets who don't have one. You,
, having built AP will continue doing damage and killing, they, your average mid player, will do nothing in comparison due to having an item which gives no offensive benefit.
Perhaps they're actually clued and build offensive items anyway - that vlad getting his
 at minute 18 is still majorly behind. I call that job done. But since you're most likely a Solo-Q player, that isn't enough.
GG: Go ganking.
But wait. What's better than their mid being behind? Their entire team . Â
With the introduction of diminishing returns on repeatedly raping killing a target, it is even more beneficial than before to seek fresh blood. But look at it from another perspective, that Lb players tend to forget: If only you are fed, you've got to carry. So why bother? Give your other lanes an advantage - invest in giving them an advantage now, profit by being carried later.
Here's an example: Enemy jungler tries to steal your red. You notice it because, like all non-******s, you bought those lovely sightwards. The kill is going to happen regardless - and you give it to your jungler. What happens now? He can do his job better. He can suppress the enemy jungler, and the enemy lanes better than he could before. Meanwhile, you're still free to continue making your mid opponent cry.
Example:

Spoiler: Click to view
Remember: The primary goal of a gank isn't to kill - That's a bonus. It's to give whatever lane you're ganking the advantage. Normally, that means a kill. Best outcome. But even if say, both of bot lane get away on 20% hp - they're now behind. Assuming you've been doing your job in mid, that's now two lanes which are being dominated. You're on your way to victory.
RR: Rally ******s.
Objectives. Know them. Love them. Admit it. You've seen it before: You kill bot lane and their jungler, all of you are alive, and you recall instead of doing dragon. It's the natural instinct at lower levels to be "low health - go back and heal." Sometimes you have to poke them to the obvious - It's a safe dragon. What's mid going to do, waltz in 1v4? (Obviously, assuming he's been duly suppressed)
Other objectives - Red, Blue. giving them to your team and denying them to your enemy... maybe a small thing, but small things build up. That
isn't going to be happy when you're shoving

down her throat non-stop with what was meant to be
her blue. That
will be being flamed for being a useless jungler (because she's the jungler. No.1 rule of SoloQ -Â It's always the jungler's fault. (Unless there's a
... maybe)) because you helped your jungler take their red. But these things require co-ordination.
This boils down to a few basic principles:
1) People aren't mind readers.
2) People are sheep.
3) People like listening to the fed LB in mid... mostly. Ok, they don't, but nvm.
1)
Speak to your team. try it. The difference between saying "ganking bot" and just going there is quite measurable, for example. Maybe there's a ward you haven't seen. Maybe your bot wants to B. Heck, maybe they just don't notice you going in. - You want to tower dive that 30% HP
in an
,
lane? It's the difference between getting a heal/shield from your support, and giving away a kill.
2)
The "low health, = must B" mentality isn't a bad one. Heck, part of playing LB is getting there before they can B. But as in the aforementioned example, if you've killed bot lane, telling people to "go for drake" is enough. Maybe a small explanation is required, but in most cases, they will listen. They just need someone/thing to break them out of their mentality.
3)
If you play/do well, people are more likely to listen to you. Obviously, you're bound to have bad games, but in the most part as long as you're not a **** about it people will co-operate. But don't wait for others to do what
you can do yourself - Namely, getting objectives like dragon.
Lastly, win the game whilst you're ahead. Gather everyone, move together, push, before your enemy can farm up and fight back. It's just habit of so many people to enter the "we're stronger, I want to kill more, let's make this last." Win it whilst you still can. Or look at it this way. Win faster, play more, win more.
TL;DR:
Split game into three phases:
EE - Eviserate Enemy
GG - Go Ganking
RR - Rally ******s.
Runes, masteries , summoners
| Runes |
Greater Mark of Magic Penetration
9
|
Greater Seal of Mana Regeneration
9
|
Greater Quintessence of Ability Power
3
|
Greater Glyph of Ability Power
9
|
Not really much to say here.
Magic penetration reds
Magic pen reds are pretty much standard on any caster, being the most effective.
Flat mana regen yellows
Mana regen yellows are required to fuel your spells - with other casters, say,
or
, you could arguably swap these out for something like more ap or armour - push lane, go back to base, return. You need these to harass your opponent down to killing range, especially with the periodic Q to get a minion.
This, in combination with masteries, allows you to get away without mana-regeneration items ingame.
Scaling vs Flat
Scaling AP vs Flat AP
Scaling AP beats flat by lvl 10.
The question you need to ask yourself is simply "can I kill my lane opponent without flat AP?".
If you feel comfortable with scaling AP, then it's the better option as it'll give you that little bit more later on in the game.
In season 3, however, I have switched to flats. Leblanc seems to be back to being an early-mid game shutdown machine, which involves as much power and pressure as early as possible, for as long as possible. Your period to shine is in the early game. By the time you're level 10, too much of the game has passed for my liking.
As
, you'll be the aggressive one in lane. Yes, they will probably retaliate if they have a clue - but to me, it's better having the extra AP to go killing with than some flat MR in the early game. If you enter the mindset of "he's going to kill me before i kill him', it's already lost. There's pretty much no excuse not to take these over certain champs like
, whose damage relies on skill shots. Dodge the skill shots, don't get hit, don't take damage... and if you don't take damage, MR will be pointless.
MR?
That said, perhaps if you're not brilliant at dodging skill shots yet - or somehow you've found yourself against
. Apart from a healthy dose of swearing, i suppose once again, this is up to preference as to what you prefer. I guess i'll concede the AP difference isn't going to make that much of a difference, and some security in the lane allows you to be aggressive. You can't dodge every singleshot thrown at you after all. Or maybe you can, and you're reading this for laughs. In which case, screwwwwwww youuuu.
Flat AP quints
Again, more power. 15 AP at lvl 1? Yes please. In my opinion, not really any other quintessences you can take. Perhaps if you had ubiquitous rune pages (new, wanted a page which would work for everyone) then i guess movement speed quints would work too. Or just cry at your support and get her to take Janna. That works too.
| Masteries |
|
1/1
|
4/4
|
4/4
|
3/3
|
1/1
|
3/3
|
4/4
|
1/1
|
3/3
|
2/3
|
3/3
|
1/1
|
Offence tree:
.
Summoner's wrath
5ap and 5 ad in one mastery point is a damnable good spend.
vs
Sorcery vs Butcher
I get 4 points in sorcery, as in conjunction with
and blue buff, you're sitting at 39% CDR. In my opinion, putting points into butcher is debatable.
2% CDR loss isn't going to end the world by any stretch of the imagination, whilst losing CS is always a bad idea.
Conversely, if one learned to last hit better, then the 2 points into butcher are wasted, no? better to have 2% extra CDR than nothing.
This is personal preference. 2 in sorcery and 2 in butcher, or any combination inbetween to suit your own tastes.
Rest of the tree i feel is standard, taking all the mastery options that relate to AP and increasing your damage.
Defence tree:
I honestly feel this has nothing to offer
.
You're not designed to take punishment, and no amount of masteries or items will allow you to do this as if it was your main role. Your role is to kill your opponent. not to AFK farm for 20 minutes, not to tank stuff, but to
kill.
KILL DAMMNITZOR. BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD! SKULLS FOR THE etc etc etc.
Utility tree:
Wanderer
You're a roamer, and that extra movement speed will definitely be relevant to you.
Summoner's insight
I don't get this for two reasons:
1) I put points into mastermind, thereby reducing my
and
cooldowns.
2) As such, since it only affects
in my case, it doesn't help.
is the "get out of fail free" card in most cases. I.e, position better, get better map awareness, that malark will offset you needing to flash more than you should.
.
Meditation
2 points into here is generally enough, in conjunction with your runes, to fuel your mana needs for the game. It bears repeating: You're there to burst people
instantly. not whittle them down and kill them
eventually.
.
Mastermind
I get this because of how its the most relevant of the second tier utility masteries.
Scout
Pointless. extra vision for 3 seconds. Woop. Not even supports get this.
artificer
Pointless - when you get item actives, you rarely have full-on fights requiring them within the space of a minute or two of each other. Ergo, CDR on the actives is wasted.
In the unusual circumstance that it isn't, simply
communicate as to how long you need for them to be up. It's not that hard.
Meditation
Isn't bad. But if you're running out of mana, you've got other issues that points into this won't resolve.
Therefore, we're left with mastermind. Reducing both of your summoner CD's by 10%. Groovy.
Lastly, I put a point into
. Increasing blue buff duration by 20% is incredibly good for a single mastery point.
Because what else would you use it for? 1% spell vamp and life steal? A little bit more ambient gold? A biscuit? You see what I mean.
Okokok. A biscuit could technically help you out in the early game by giving you that little bit more sustain. But it's a one-time only item, and to me is definitely not giving up 20% extra buff duration for.
Summoners.
and
Not really negotiatable.
First and foremost: "get out of fail free" card. You know the drill. Over extending, caught out of position, being a n00b. In alot of cases this can fix it. Well, not the last part. Sorry.
Getting that little bit of range needed to fire off a finishing

In addition, pulling off some maneuvers that will be demonstrated later than only LB can do.
But lastly, not having flash makes you a far more tempting target for the jungler, due to the lack of another escape mechanism.
Needed to get kills in mid. You're Leblanc. You kill people. See the synergy?
Sigh.
For the sake of completeness, I'll go through some common alternatives and why I think they're sh----... suboptimal...
Get better mana management. Stop Q-ing the minions so much.
Technically, this was a way of constantly harassing your opponent. But do it too much, and they'll just B...
"But Soviet, isn't that a good thing?"
Yes... and no. It's much better if they B via you killing them. Sure, you;ll get the level advantage, probably be able to gank, but quite frankly, I'm impatient. I MUST KILL.
Urgh. The rise of heal... on an AD carry, sure. On ap mid? You shouldn't be in a position where you're in danger of dying. Which spell would you give up? Ignite? you;re not a sustain caster. Flash? Read the flash notes.
"But Soviet, what if they take ignite and heal?"
Get the jungler to gank him more and make him regret his decision.
Urgh. I sort of see why.... ghost to a sidelane ultra quick, gank. Person being ganked has less time to react, and less time for mid to call SS. I give in. This is sort of a viable alternative. But i just don't like giving up the versatility of flash.
Items to get.
Foreword:
The item list in the cheat sheet isn't the full six-item malark because of the fact that you should pretty much never get there. Full build leblanc? You're there for two reasons:
a) you're so hideously fed that you could build AD and still win
b) pretty much everyone is built, in which case you've failed in your task. (Or at least, failed in the way i would play her)
Ergo, I've listed in the "cheat sheet" the items you will get 90% of the time before a game ends, because it simply should/must end. For completeness sake nonetheless, I have included items to get later on.
| Item Sequence |
Boots of Speed
350
|
Health Potion
35
|
Health Potion
35
|
Health Potion
35
|
Haunting Guise
1485
|
Sorcerer's Shoes
1100
|
Deathfire Grasp
3100
|
Rabadon's Deathcap
3300
|
Liandry's Torment
2900
|
The above is generally your core.
x3
In season 2, this start was non-negotiable.
Lack of boots = no sustain, and a massive target over your head for ganks.
I present to the court, exhibit A:

Spoiler: Click to view
In addition,
you will be the aggressive one . Which means, if they buy boots and you don't, they can just keep walking away from you. Good for you with your +15/20 ap. It's of absolutely zero use to you if you can't bleeding hit people. However, with season 3 this has changed. I will explain later.
"But Soviet, Can't I just


them?"
Yes you could. But you would run out of mana ridiculously quickly.
"But Soviet, I'm using
, mana isn't too big an issue".
'sigh'. Ok. But then you're obviously not packing ignite.
"But Soviet, I am using
!"
Which means you're not using flash... and therefore, you're blowing your escape mechanism constantly to do sub-optimal damage? Why, hello there Mr Jungler. What brings yo- OMFGMYFACEITBURNS
So conversely, if they don't buy boots, you're free to harass them, and if you don't want to (i.e, can't retaliate) then you can just walk away. Maybe you'll get zoned a bit - but a) they take minion damage, and b) they're an easier gank for the jungler.
And lastly, 450hp for sustain in lane, from trading blows with your opponnent. Assuming he's not some scrub you can just walk over, he'll be trading... or at least,
trying to trade with you.
Anyway. Moving swiftly on.
Season 3
Alternative starts
x2
x7
x2
The issue with not starting boots in previous seasons was two fold: Lack of sustain, and inability to zone due to increased threat of being ganked.
With this start, you have:
- More sustain than someone starting boots 3
- the ability to play aggressive and zone, since you have wards
There is however one big disadvantage: Lower mobility = increased time to get to a side lane if potential kills are there. Since
is reknowned for her ganks, what might to other mids be an acceptable trade-off, is a much more marked issue for LB.
Which one to choose depends on what you're facing, and your preference.
This start did contain
, but with the adjustment to it (+50% cost, +20% regen) I don't think it's worth it anymore.
Why so many pots?
Ever faced a
with
x13? It's ridiculous sustain, but more to the point, it has the effect of making the person attacking him feeling like they're wasting their time. Either they burst through it all, or not at all - whittling away will just drain their mana faster than your health pool.
Other thing is, what else would you buy after the two wards?
doesn't build into anything useful for
. Neither does rejuvenation beads.
If you saved up your money, you're essentially entering lane at a disadvantage to your opponent as he's got more money to use than you.
Oh, and if you can't dodge skill shots for ****, start boots >.>
sight wards
"What? What are these? These don't help me do damage! "
'sigh'
These will often be the difference between you going 10-0 and... i dunno. 0-10?
Wards give you the safety you need to be aggressive. Read: Blowing distort
Because ganks generally happen under three circumstances:
1) Someone's pushing.
2) Someone needs help.
3) You're being a slag and just want to murder people. Trolololol.
2+3 will most likely be happenning to you (i.e, they need help, and you're just being LB.)
So, for your own sake, since you need to stay ahead of the curve, stay alive.
In addition, it allows for counter-ganks.
Example:
In the following video, go to 5:05
Obviously, this requires your teammates to have a clue on how to play.
I will go more into how to deal with junglers in another section of the guide.
But for this scenario:
1)Acted as if i didn't know she was there.
Last hitting. Hanging around in mid, not favouring either side - (i.e, as if i hadn't warded)
2)Waited for Jungler to be in position - slowly move towards that side, again, as if just to get a last hit. Also note how he abuses both their lack of vision, and his abilities.
3)Wait for initiation.
If you did it, then you risk your jungler not being able to help. In this case, if i had moved first,
wouldn't have been in a position for
to

to him. (Ok, read that you shouldn't be on that side of the bush if you must, but hey - exploit mistakes.)
I'm not going to bother doing a warding section as there's plenty of good stuff running around this website on the subject anyway. So might as well shove it here.
So, actually, you can ignore everything in this guide if you want. Just take away this one point:
" SHUT UP AND BUY WARDS BILLY!"

Spoiler: Click to view
(and obviously, the above is not my video <.>)
Ahem. Back on track.
First items:
and
and
Sorceror's shoes, haunting guise, mana potions
Are a get ASAP item. The extra movement speed is just vital - dodge more skill shots, get more lane dominance. Read the above on boots as to why it's needed for lane dominance - control who can attack who. MAgic pen is also sexy.
In addition, it helps you move between lane's faster - less time lost, those precious seconds recovered that mean a kill, as opposed to them cowering under a tower.
That said, it doesn't give you much in the way of sustain. No extra health or mp5. So if you're not yet good enough to manage your mana well, then these will quickly become sub-par. Golden rule of mana-based casters. You can have 6 freaking
, and they can have nothing. If you have no mana as Lb you're useless. Zip. Nada.
Haunting Guise
Health to trade hits better, Ap and Mpen to hit harder.
In S3, LB is back to being a ruthless early game murderer, with a really sub-par late game.
It is therefore imperative we capitalise on this as quickly as possible.
I avoided this item in Season 2 because it was also a waste of an item slot later on - now it does build into something that is worth while, i've changed my mind about it.
Get kills. Get more kills. GEt your lanes rolling. Win. You're not a carry. Stop thinking like one.
Mana potions
The lack of
in this build is because
I personally don't like delaying my later build more than I have to. Health and AP are provided by
which builds into something later.
However, the crucial weakness is the lack of mana-regeneration. You
will find yourself running out of mana, sometimes even with blue, and leaving you unable to complete a kill when you go wandering. It's embarassing. Don't do it. Take a mana potion, get a kill.
Viable alternative t2 boots:
or
Mercury's Treads and Ninja Tabi
I get
against
, both to reduce his stun and to somewhat help mitigate his ultimate. It's a good choice to get vs heavy CC teams. After all, you can either have ~ 100 damage less on your spell rotation, or full damage, but be unable to throw out any spells at all.
On the other hand I rarely get
. You should be able to drop their AD carry before he gets a chance to seriously attack you. Or put it this way. The 10% reduction from it (in addition to the armour) isn't going to help you survive - you either kill them, or you escape. Sticking around being shot will end badly one way or another. But again, this is just personal preference.
"But Soviet, Why not any other boots?"
"Sigh"
Ok... if i must spell it out...
... You're not a freaking Pony. Or, heck, i don't think even ponies buy this item as it does BUGGER ALL.
This... i can see an argument for. You're a ganking champion. You need to run between lanes faster. So why not? Answer is,
you give up too much burst . The additional Mpen from sorceror's shoes gives your burst a heck of a lot more power. In addition, mid-late game, you'll be using

to get into position. Short of it is, the window of opportunity in which these would be an OK choice is too small for me.
. Short answer is, you're a burst mage, not a DPS mage. Sticking around for that extra 4 s to get something off CD... not going to be very useful as LB. You're meant to blow them up
instantly... not
eventually...
Deathfire Grasp
Needed for murdering people.That much hasn't changed.
HOwever, It is a tad rarer that you will be able to 100-0 people from blinking over a wall, etc. Use this where possible, the active is still very sexy.
To note, is that the active is for
max hp, as opposed to current. You'll want to use it early on in your combo for the amplification, of course, but its something to remember.
Later on in the game, I generally hang around the squishies and blow up the offending bruisers. LB's single target burst is legendary. Since if you're protecting your carry from bruisers, you're free to use

for damage as well, as opposed to positioning.
TL;DR: S3 DFG - think about what you can blow up. Then blow it up. Or don't, and die.
Rabadon's Deathcap
Damage... with a passive that gives even more damage. Getting it first makes your later offensive purchases more gold efficient too. However, as stated judge the situation. In most cases by the time you get this people will starting moving in groups, making it impossible to full-combo someone safely.
Maybe at lower level play you could get away with getting this first as people have a habit of walking around by themselves or being stupid, and are waiting to be picked off. Read the game, and make a decision for yourself.
and
vs
and
Rabadon's Deathcap and Deathfire Grasp vs Rabadon's Deathcap and Void Staff
I prioritise a
over a
because if it was vice versa, the



combo is both temperamental (

is easily blocked and has a wonky hitbox) and not enough damage to kill your target. I'll explain more later, but AD carries pretty much never build MR til later - hence, a
is superfluous and inefficient.
There are exceptions - if their squishies are so behind that their presence on a TF is useless, and/or their tanky people are the biggest threat, then a voidstaff would probably be a better choice.
Lastly, and
probably more importantly around midgame MR isn't overly prominent to the point where a
would be a cost-effective item. I'm not sure what the actual figures are, but due to my play style it doesn't really affect me. I buy it when my priority targets get MR.
Again people. Use your head. I can't babysit you in your game X_x
Liandry's torment
Now, we get to this item.
"But soviet, this item sucks on burst casters"
LEt's get this straight.
In s3, You either win big, win hard, win early,
Or become a second support.
Seriously.
If you have DFG, Rabadon's, and the game isn't won or being won,
you're stuffed .
AT this point, you should have enabled your team to carry you.
ENemy team should be grouping, and believe me, if you haven't won yet you're very rarely going to get a chance to wipe out the enemy ADC before a teamfight starts.
So you're stuck being trying to prevent your ADC from dying.
But soviet, shouldn't i get CDR items to throw chains out more often?
And what would that achieve. Since you're maxing chains last, that snare isnt going to do you very much good. You're better off increasing your damage and killing that bruiser faster.
Oh, and league of warmogs = get % health damage.
SOd penetration.
TLDR:
Liandrys sucks on burst casteres.
LB sucks as a champion if the game isn't already won by the time you have this.
Such is the nature of the game. Do you want to win or not?
Non core:
Why do I call this non-core? Because in most games as LB, game will have ended before this point.
vs
Void staff vs Abyssal Scepter
Now. This requires a bit of thought. Which you build depends on the enemy team items, and more importantly, how long the game will last. If for some bizarre reason they sport no MR, then by all means get the
. The aura helps your team as well. But in most cases, the enemy isn't totally brain dead - they may not have MR in early midgame, but by late midgame, an
isn't going to cut it any more.
The aura from an
is also short ranged. In many instances, by the time you've delivered your combo, either you're out of range by the time it hits, or out of range when you begin. It honestly doesn't suit you too well.
As such , I generally don't buy an
anymore.
If they have an AP carry who's a credible threat and displays an active interest in me, I buy a
, then a voidstaff.
With one exception :
. Common to contrary belief, building more AP to burst him down faster is probably not the best idea... Against this guy, I get boots and dorans, and then rush this item. flat -50MR total, a good chunk of MR for yourself to avoid being instagibbed by his ult. More on countering him in the relevant section.
vs
vs
Zhonya's Hourglass, Banshee's Veil, Quicksilver Sash.
A defensive item. (Ok,
sort of counts, but I’ve gone through why I don't get it usually) Generally last on my list of things to get. As LB, you need power, not survivability - survivability depends mostly on your positioning...
Zhonya's hourglass
Which is why I like
. Out of all the defensive items it still gives you AP. Just remember to actually use the active to dodge things - like

or

, or the ubiquitous
. There is nothing worse than buying an item with an active and never using it... <.< Ok.... Maybe AP Gary? eh w/e <.>
Banshee's Veil
Pretty much never get this item because games just don’t drag out that long. But I generally prefer this over QSS (assuming there's no suppression running around) because your job is dangerous enough as it is. Get in, fire off your rotation in as little time as possible, and get out. You simply don't have time to press another button (not to mention the time to react to said CC). If you do need to press that button - you're normally dead anyway, and for the most part, your target will be away.
"But soviet, Isn't baiting CC a good thing?"
You are not the tank. Or a bruiser. LB hates CC... ok, there's a tank-blanc guide running around somewhere, but i dunno <.>
Quicksilver Sash
I get this if I'm against teams with suppression - but for the most part all this does is sit in your inventory and isn't used. I mean, is that
going to suppress you with the QSS, or that AD carry without one? That said, I will bump this pretty high up my priority list of "to get" if I’m against
. Gets rid of his

,


all in one go. Proceed to combo his face down. Profit! (Ok, it isn't that easy in practice, but regardless. Getting combod by
is baaaaaad.
6th item
Ehh... I don't know what do put here. It just never gets to this stage. Normally you would make sure, if it did pass mid/early late game, to give your AD carry all the farm. ERgo, you would be stuck with a
in your 6th slot, and just buying potions. If i did have a choice, maybe
? just to keep your carry alive for longer by slowing their bruisers/tanks. Urgh. No comment.
Items not to get.
These items generally involve poor gold:AP ratios, and should not feature overly prominently in your build order. Or, they involve exposing yourself for longer than is neccessary. Bear in mind, this is my preference due to my playstyle: Get in, do damage, get out, and exposing yourself to danger for as little time as possible.
Rod of Ages
For alot of casters, a very good item to get. But it just doesn't suit leblanc in anyway shape or form.
- More HP is useless - you're not meant to be in the thick of things, taking hits. And you're not exactly a short-ranged caster either like
.
- More mana is pointless - you have enough as it is to do your job, and bluebuff will be plenty.
- Which leaves the AP - considering how the other two stats aren't great on
, the gold:AP ratio is plain unacceptable.
Rylai's crystal scepter
- Health - pointless, as stated above.
- Gold:Ap ratio- terrible.
- A slow - whoop de doo. There;s no point slowing someone if they're DEAD.
- which is why I sometimes get it later in the game if it drags out that long, and you want to help control the bruisers.
Lich bane
Ok. I'll probably step on a few toes here who swear by this item. I don't. I feel that by the the time you have enough AP to make its passive useful, teamfights will already be the main thing - and as I’ve constantly stated and reiterated, you do your spell combo in as little time as possible. Ergo, there's no bleeding time to stick around AA'ing people.
Mind you, i'm the type of person who likes living. Maybe some of you really don't mind getting stuck in, in which case, go for it. This simply doesn't suit
my style of play - non-sustained burst. If I can buy items which mean I can kill them without AA's, why would I ever want to buy items which mean I would need to AA?
Morello's... something
On paper, a good item to get. But the active from
is simply too good to pass up on, regardless of the fact that its needed to keep you from becoming a suicide assassin. You can buy this when starting out as
to get a better feel for her moves I suppose, but otherwise, avoid.
Archangel's staff
Same as
in the sense that it takes too long to get the AP benefit from it. You would be running around in lane with a
which gives no useful stats at all, and spamming spells... which just isn't the way to go.
Will of the Ancients
You're not a DPS mage alla
,
or
. Neither is your place to be the thick of the fight. You're the opposite - a massive burst mage who gets in, combos, and gets the hell away.
Lastly, you have more efficient items to get - namely power. Sustain is secondary to LB in relation to raw power. If you can't combo down your priority target, you've failed your task. You being alive is quite frankly inconsequential.
That said, maybe if you're ahead to the point that you need to stick around in a teamfight to do the damage, this might save you. But honestly, i've never had a time where I need to use it.
Mejai's soul stealer.
Yep. This thing. Purely offensive. MOAR AP on kills. looks so good on paper. potentially ridiculous Gold:AP ratio. Pretty much follows the general philosophy of LB: GF or GF.
Get fed or get F***ed.
Don't get it.
As always, this guide assumes your opponnents aren't total morons. If they are, go ahead and buy this. run around Q-R'ing people from 100-0. (It is pretty fun...).
Back to gold:Ap ratios. It's only good if you get kills. before then, it's rather inefficient gold-wise. Your loving lane opponnent isnt going to give you stacks on a platter. Infact, in most cases he'll now have the advantage due to buying rings/boots which are far more efficient, and you simply won't be able to farm him.
But let's ignore that. Go back to principles. That of:
Everybody hates you . In most cases, simply being present will make them go after you through whatever means neccessary, ultimates, summoners and all:
Buying a
only serves to further paint a ruddy great target over your head. Remember those games where your opponnents say "GG, easy!"? Buying this pretty much states:
"HAHA NOOBS! I THINK YOU SUCK AND IM GOING TO PROVE IT. COME AT ME!!1!one1!"
Believe me when I say that the difference between focus when you have
and you don't, is remarkably large. Something about having stacks is just threatening...
Furthermore, if you die, you lose 1/3rd of your stacks. The loss of AP is secondary to the loss of you knowing what your killing potential is. Late game, suddenly dropping in the region of ~60 ap from one death is quite spectacular to say the least...
So, as always, use your brain. If you think you can hold onto your stacks, as well as getting them, then go ahead and buy this. Otherwise, know that people hate you enough as it is <.>
Skill sequence
| Ability Sequence |
| 1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
12 |
13 |
14 |
15 |
16 |
17 |
18 |
|
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Put points into your ultimate whenever possible. This goes without saying.
Which skill you take first depends on the situation.
Never take a skill before you get to lane. You never know what you'll need, be it chains for CC, distort for an escape/damage, or Q for if nothing happens and you just want to go back to lane.
Example of chains first:

Spoiler: Click to view
I have a rule of getting distort whenever there is a stealth champion around. They gank lvl 2, and your lane is still in the centre at this time. The likes of Shaco/Twitch are pretty easily nullified if a) you play more passive than normal to begin with and b) on being ganked, you immediately run - 6 stacks of

is bloody lethal. The sooner you get out of there, the freaking better.
Regardless of what you pick, by lvl 4, always have
2 points in

,
1 in

and
1 in

. Max

first for maximum damage output.
I see some guides/people not bothering with

at all... and I just palm my face. You need that slow and snare for the time it buys you for your

to come back off CD and finish the job.

Is a quintessential part of
's kit. Learn it, master it, else you will never be able to play her as well as you could.

vs
There's an argument to max

over

(besides the points at lvl 1-4 obviously), or at least level both together.
Most of the time you'll be using

to get into position in order to



or



your target.
Ergo, surely it makes more sense to put points into an ability that will actually damage your target?
This is purely down to preference. I max

because I like having it on a far lower CD. I find that


does enough damage in most cases with

at lvl 1. Whether chasing or running from a fight, it is far more useful to have that

back up ASAP.
Leblanc's abilities.
Passive: Mirror Image
What's there to say? A passive which requires thought.
Allows for so much, used by so little. Worse than
Eve's(OMG her passive is actually worth a damn now...) in the wrong hands, totally brilliant in the right ones.
But let's not pretend everything's rosey: this passive can be rendered useless by factors beyond Leblanc's control...
the problem with this passive for beginners is that you can't control when it pops- having to do "40% of my health =? " In the middle of a fight is a bothersome distraction in between positioning and casting. I'm guilty of not always using it when it comes up...
Obviously, if you are at around 40% health and take damage greater than that (ala

) then it wont help either.
On top of that, AoE almost totally nullifies its usefulness- two
's? kill them both!
Lastly, if you have buffs/debuffs on you (commonly blue buff, ignite, leashes, etc) your copy will be without them - needless to say, a dead give-away.
So.... This passive isn't without it's drawbacks- most of its advantages are nullified by the above, but I look it another way- its a trade off for being able to pull off some spectacular deception.
To understand this, one must know the default behaviour of the clone...
It doesn't move unless ordered, does no damage and typically hangs around the real Lb doing nothing but AA... Which does no damage... more on this later.
Lazy players - Those who make it totally obvious which is the fake one - the one which doesnt move at all - actually should be thanked. This lets you, hopefully after this guide a much wiser Lb, exploit it to varying degrees.
So start with the obvious. Move your clone.
If you're in a fight, its far easier to note your health passing 50%. When this happens, be prepared to control your clone- like any other pet, use alt+click as soon as stealth begins.
It's a far harder job for your opponent if both copies are moving.
One step further. Stop moving, move your clone. Remember what your atypical Lb does? Play to it. Your opponent will almost always go for the one which is moving. And they will pursue it, chasing the copy, usually wasting spells on it as well... exposing themselves to you - a clean shot with chains isn't uncommon, and normally at least your

is off CD as well.
Don't give the game away - the clone can't cast. It can't do damage either. But, if you and it stay there shooting at your enemy, short of the aforementioned shortcomings, there is no way for him to tell. (both attacks land at once, in this case) Many

panic and just become ryze, throwing whatever is off CD at their enemy. Considering you're a combo based champ, you can see why this is sub-optimal... In alot of cases where you would otherwise die, you can turn the tables with those precious extra seconds.
Make the clone believable.
Yes, technically in order to fool your opponent you will need to do this at its core- but the above are typically 1v1 circumstances.
In a team fight situation, the squishys hang around the back. Suddenly having a half-health Lb charge at you raises eyebrows. (although do feel free to check bushes with it at a bare minimum)
So do the same:
:
Looks can be decieving...
Example:

Spoiler: Click to view
Malphite sees my clone hanging around, a little behind the front line. Given how normally in this position the attention is glued to their side, the lack of movement isn't a big issue. Should have moved it around a bit to make it more convincing though.
Regardless, he gets baited, and we get a kill out of it. This isn't the best example i've ever done, but is one that comes to mind and makes me chuckle.
Everyone hates you as
.
Abuse it.
I'm guessing that a lot of people will be thinking: "but this only worked because he's a (insert choice expletive here)".
Perhaps- but if you do nothing with your clone, you can't bait mistakes. Take your pick.
Or on the other hand, are you yourself a player who makes no mistakes whatsoever?
Take the following:

Spoiler: Click to view
This is from a ~1525 elo game.
Think about it. Do
something with your passive, and something *may* happen, that you can exploit to your advantage. Do
nothing with your passive, and something will *never* happen. The choice is yours.
Another one:

Spoiler: Click to view
Normal game. But it still stands. Split second decisions on the behalf of your opponnents lead to their mistakes. And as always, you luuuurv punishing mistakes...
When stealthed, you can sometimes fool people by flashing over a wall during it, and still moving your clone. either giving you the chance to escape, or dive back in rudely. -
Always remember: you can be on 1hp, but your abilities still do full damage.
Lastly, the clone does no damage but does proc on hit effects like black cleaver, wits end... And red buff.
Better opponents know your clone does no damage. They therefore automatically ignore your clone, just like in this video:

Spoiler: Click to view
at 7:15. (this isn't mine. This is TiemsnoAkuma - 2.2k elo... goes to show how even there, people don't know the ins and outs of Lb. It's rare that you would hang around if you were that low to utilise this, but it's always good to have that knowledge...
surprise them... Or at the very least, get in that free damage.
And lastly, use the clone to block projectiles, like

.

Spoiler: Click to view
AUTO ATTACKS
this is your bread and butter skill. NOT your sigil.
This humble and overlooked aspect of LB is a good indicator of player skill. Seriously. You have those who


, and those who


+AA. such a basic skill, yet so overlooked.
Last hitting well with this is a skill that must be mastered since
isn't well suited for farming. To this end, she has a brilliant animation - responsive, fast. Compare it to Annie's, who has a significant wind up time (although omgwtf range to compensate)
This common ability should be used whenever possible to harass your opponent at the early levels, as it almost does as much damage as your abilities, yet costs no mana. a
AA ->

. Bam, one health bar gone lvl1. why AA first? Because it has a lower range. if you can AA someone, you can

them. Simple as.
Example:

Spoiler: Click to view
Obviously, there are exceptions. Sometimes you want to keep at range - the likes of
, for example.
Last hitting under a tower is standard for all ap casters generally- one AA on a caster, tower hit, AA to last hit.
One AA on a melee minion, two tower hits, AA to last hit.
Consider the following:
Three caster creeps. AA each once, then let tower hit them, then hit them again. Simple, right?
WRONG.
Always note where your wave is. time and again you will see people prepare minions for last hitting, and not realising that their own minions are there who will do damage- thus resulting in the tower killing the lovely creep instead of you.
Last hit, last hit, last hit.
As a rule, Lb can't afford to continually use her

to last hit without blue buff... and even then, you probably wont be able to sustain it. That said, having a full mana bar doesn't give you any bonus's either. Feel free to

a creep from time to time if your mana allows it - especially in those cases where two are low enough, and you can only AA one. AA one, sigil the other. Canon minions- last hitting those with an AA can be hard to judge at times, so I guess its more acceptable sigil them if you must. But otherwise, learn to last hit well without

, and you'll go far.
Q: Sigil of Silence
Your standard nuke. Yeah right. Your standard nuke is a fire and forget affair, ala


.

isn't that. To get the most out of it, you need to activate the second part.
And it's that activation that is so interesting. 2 second silence and damage if the mark is triggered within 3.5 seconds. It's what makes Leblanc so annoying to most ap mids- an inability to retaliate with damage of their own. But be careful: The silence does
NOT stack, and the silence is less than the mark duration. So be patient in your attacks to maximise the silence, but not too much - else they have a window to get away. Refer to next section for more on silencing.
Another overlooked part is the marking- 3.5 seconds. You have that long to activate it... Yet many Leblanc's won't realise this. Hell- most people won't realise this.

Spoiler: Click to view
Most people expect the mark to be used as soon as its fired. Your normal LB will try to follow up a

with

. Your opponnent gets marked, and move away to get you to screw up your

Heck, some know this to the point that they will try to counter you pre-emptively - like this vlad.

Spoiler: Click to view
So... an adequate Leblanc quote:
Patience, summoner...
Abuse the 3.5s and
wait .

your opponent and back off. Most of the time your opponent will walk right back into your distort range.
Example :
In the following video, please go to (2:35)

Spoiler: Click to view
Other things to note is its CD: 6 seconds, typically 5.75s early game due to 4%cdr. A lot of people underestimate its cooldown. With modest cdr, it opens up a lot of different combinations, which I will go through later.
Drawbacks
yep. as with most abilities, there are drawbacks....
The damage on the second part- not utilising it cuts off a fair amount of your damage, and at a disadvantage compared to other nukes.
The silence is on the secondary part- and that any follow up ability takes time to get there. So between that

and

, that 10hp Veigar is still free to wtfpwn your face if he's quick enough. Again, please read the following section on how best to utilise your silence.
It has a travel time. Yes, statement of the obvious, but if you're here your LB isn't perfect - and a common mistake is distorting too early, thereby the sigil lands
after you distort- so there is no secondary activation.
(Edit: Not sure if this is still possible as the sigil travels ALOT faster now)
For those who are curious, it has to be activated by Leblanc's abilities- so no item actives will trigger the mark.
W:Distortion
Gives Leblanc her range, mobility, and ganking potential.
Jump walls, juke enemies, it's all in here.
It comes in two parts- a dash with damage, and a blink. In most cases, the mobility difference won't matter - but a select few scenarios will. I.e, you will be stunned if you dash through an event horizon

, but not if you "return" out of it. (refresh bug not withstanding)
The damage aspect of this ability is easy enough to understand- like
's

(without the stacking part). Damage in an area around your arrival point, which means it can trigger your

. It also technically gives her a range of 850- but it shouldn’t be used for damage by itself in normal situations. Early/mid game it's primarily there to trigger your mark, and get away from dangerous situations. Later, it's used to deliver the rest of your combo.
I'll put up a video as to where you can

over later, but for now, enjoy the fact that LB can moonwalk:

Spoiler: Click to view
(QUICK! WHERES THE NERF BAT?)
Return
The second aspect is where a lot of fun and manipulation can come into play... And is sadly also greatly overlooked.
Upon casting distort, you have
three seconds with which to return. Play a custom game by yourself and distort - and see for yourself just how long you have and how far you can walk before it runs out. Heck, for extra experience, distort over common points and try this out.
This has numerous applications, primarily juking. The obvious ones- get caught in a gank, you distort - and they follow you. If they gap close all the better (i.e flash ) proceed to "return". Walk away.
:
It's all smoke and mirrors
Example:

Spoiler: Click to view
Another handy tip is to walk into a bush before you "return". This is due to the nature of how people look in a game - they don't watch the minimap, and they shift the screen to where they're
going to be looking. Ergo, where you "would" have been if you kept walking... allowing you to get away scot free.
example:

Spoiler: Click to view
Now, remember how you have three seconds before you can't return? Forget it. Almost everyone ignores the fact that you
can return in the first place. They chase a bit, lose interest... And stay right by your return point.
proceed to return, and watch the lulz.
:
Classic misdirection...
Example:

Spoiler: Click to view
Or, in another scenario, use it to dodge skill shots, like
's
Example:

Spoiler: Click to view
Onto other stuff:
Remember: on casting mimic distort, your original distort point is lost, and you can only return to the mimic distort return point.
This is no longer true!
Note however, that your return point is both highly noticeable, and gives no vision. Wise/irate enemies will simply camp it if they can - and you will have your pants down. But in most cases, they won't, and hopefully, once you have learnt positioning, can't.
So let's abuse this further. the maximum range of Leblanc's Q is 1350 right? (650+700)
Wrong
Surprised to see me?
The maximum range of your

and subsequent combo is the range of

+
.
This is a useful tool for those enemies who are wiser to your moves, knowing the range of your

and

and

, who stubbornly hang around on low HP, farming away. So do them a favour - farm them.

Spoiler: Click to view
Secondarily, one can abuse the fact that
doesn't overwrite your return point. Therefore, an enemy who thinks he's safe, since he knows he's out of distort safe distort range and will often be yet another kill.

Spoiler: Click to view
Lastly, distort's return function does
NOT interrupt casting. I.e, you can continue casting a spell or, and interestingly enough, recall.
Observe:

Spoiler: Click to view
Casting not interrupted:
Recalling:
Drawbacks
Yep. This has drawbacks as well.
Namely that the first part of this ability is a dash - it can be interrupted, notoriously by knockups.
Example:

Spoiler: Click to view
Secondarily, if you get charged by a
whilst

, her charge will take priority. Sorry. No video yet.
E:Etheral Chains
This ability makes or breaks a Lb. More so than positioning. Before you get a
, your main damage source in a fight will be



.
That's around 200-300 damage hinging on those chains connecting.
Technically it's a bit of an anomaly: can be blocked by minions, takes time to do full damage, unlike the other skills in her kit which are on-hit. The most basic actions of this ability are often not utilised by a Lb: bush checking. You're a squishy, so for crying out loud please stop face checking when you have perfectly good tools to avoid it most of the time.
The other thing of important note is that it's a skillshot. Or, another way - fire and forget. It's travelling distance and trajectory is determined at point of firing, utterly independent of where you are. SO many Leblanc's sit around after their




combo, exposing themselves to unnecessary danger.
the ONLY thing that is dependent on your position is whether it remains leashed or not. Obviously, if your objective is to kill, you will stick around. If all you want to do is damage on distorting however, throw the chains after your

and/or

, and immediately return.

Spoiler: Click to view
A lot of mid-players, normally due to their incompetance as well as their characters, have an awful habit of walking in a straight line to harass you. In these instances, it can be worth while to fire a speculative

, and make something happen from there. After all, they're under
your control. Engage? Disengage? It's your call.
Sometimes you will find yourself in a position where upon returning from distort the leash hasn't broken - in which case it is an easy job of keeping within range to trigger the secondary damage- they're slowed, you've already paid the mana cost, and there are few reasons why you wouldn't want to nurture the root if you're under no immediate pressure.
Other things to note:

(and obviously by default

will happily stay attached through walls.

Spoiler: Click to view
The tether range of

is
1000 units .

Spoiler: Click to view
Lastly, Chains and Mimic chains. If both land, both will go off, and snare independently of each other. (I.e, like silence, is from the last applied CC, not a culmination of them)
How to throw your chains
Example:

Spoiler: Click to view
This is the part of LB which requires practice, practice, practice.
So much hinges on landing your chains that it will make or break you in most cases. Look at any of my videos which include chains, and in most of them a kill would have been lost if it hadn't connectd.
What I can tell you about it is that it is incredibly wonky - The hitbox is fairly large, which can be a good or bad thing. Good, in the sense that with no minions, itll be easier to hit, but in the presence of minions, it can randomly attach itself to them.
R:Mimic
This spell is thankfully one that hasn't been recycled into new champions.
This is what makes
herself. It's as it says: copies the last skill cast, with additional damage. Honestly, this grants a layer of complexity that no matter how in depth I explain it in this guide, it won't do it justice. You will simply have to practice.
there really isn't anything I can say about this that hasn't been covered in my previous sections, so I'll keep this brief.
Mimic'd versions only do increased damage - 10/25/40% at rank 1/2/3 respectively. There is no increase in non-damage aspects- no increase in silence/snare etc.
It takes experience to know what you can kill - use mimic to do heavy damage by all means, but using it to kill is the best outcome. But be careful- without mimic, you are alot more vulnerable than you would like to be.
Notes on silence... and other hazards to avoid.
So. Learn to abuse this, and you will become that much scarier in lane. You have a choice. Silence for 2.2 ish seconds, or 3.8 ish. The difference is an auto attack or two - ~100 damage. (6s silence is possible, but very advanced...) Apart form having no mana if you're a mana-based caster, being silenced is one of the worst things to happen to you. For close to 4 seconds? Terminal. 4 seconds of being unable to retaliate whilst you're being 100-0'd is one of the terrors your opponnents will face if you master this.
Example of total silence:

Spoiler: Click to view
Look at the bubble. He is totally silenced for the whole duration. I keep my distance, abusing my range, and once he's silenced, go in for the kill.
Example of total silence for 6 s:

Spoiler: Click to view
Got it nailed down. Just people won't normally let you execute this combination as eventually LB is just broadcasting
"FLEE IN TERROR MORTALSSSS!!"
ahem.
Make no mistake: If you can 100-0 them within a second then there's no reason to wait. (I.e, caught them from a brush). Like this once thriving specimen:

Spoiler: Click to view
But
most importantly , waiting gives you a huge advantage - knowing whether you can commit or not. Let's run a thought experiment.
You're against
.
You're both lvl 6.
Your average LB will



in quick succession. But wait! What's this?
has

'd to you before

landed? So you've wasted the damage on your

, and the mark of

, and to top it all off, shes now between you and your tower? Uh oh.
Assuming she's not as braindead as you are, she'll wait for the mark to wear off, and then lay into you. Whoops.
If you had waited on the other hand, you could have kept her silenced, and prevented her from retaliating, and prevented putting yourself in a bad spot. If
only you had listened to your own champion.
Be patient
So I'll break it down as to what you should do:
This is one of the most common combos you will use.
Basic 4 second silence combo



This is the one you'll be using the most, since hitting chains from a distance is fiddly, and won't happen against a decent opponnent. Hence, you need to

onto them, to make it pretty much un-missable.
But before that, you'll fire off


. Now wait.
As described above, it's to get people to either take the whole thing, or blow their escape mechanisms. If they don't run, then proceed with the rest of it. You win either way. Now when you

onto them, they will have an additional 2 seconds of silence to deal with. Proceed to throw

, and auto attack. Remember to dodge any retaliatory fire if they're not close to death through AA's, or a late
There are several methods of 6 seconds of silence, but since that's a tad more advanced, I'll go over it in the main sections.
Combos, starting Q.
Combos.
Here comes the fun part. The part which makes or breaks you as a player. Pulling the right one off in as little time as possible. Your enemies won't give you a second chance. Don't screw up. Practice, practice, practice.
For clarities sake I'll go through these in as logical an order as I can. I don't include ignite as it goes without saying that if you think it'll kill them, do it.
I don't always include AA's either, as you should always remember to AA inbetween your more complex combinations. It's too messy for me to put AA's everywhere. You do them when you can, assuming the scenario allows for it.
Like I said at the beginning of the guide: Use your brain .
Lastly, these aren't all the combos there are out there, just the one which I feel have a use. I really don't have the strength to list every single one.
AA,

,AA
You can do this at Lvl 1 if you feel like being ultra aggressive- the likes of
who have weak early games and cannot compete with your damage, and if you're out for a lvl 2 kill. Not recommended if you lack experience- you can run out of mana, take too much minion aggro, etc.

Spoiler: Click to view

,AA,

, AA
Your early game combination. From lvl2, you do more raw damage than other casters, and if they're slow and/or you've exploited timing (more on this later) you can do heavy damage with little/no reprisal.
Remember the mark time. Damage wise there is no difference between waiting for 2 seconds to distort and doing do immediately. It keeps your opponent on their guard.
Always remember to auto attack when you can... Those extra bits of 50+ damage add up. Take the following example:

Spoiler: Click to view
If I had just


her, it would have done ~80 less damage. Pretty much a

worth of damage. Considering how it's free, I see no reason not to abuse my range.


Now we start getting multiple uses of combos.
If you've done enough damage early game, you can often get a kill at Lvl 4, especially if your jungler shows up. I can't emphasise how important it is to land chains. That slow and snare gives an extra second or two to land those auto attacks. The difference between an enemy on 30hp and living, or you getting your reward.
Example -

Spoiler: Click to view
Or, conversely, you can turn it on its head. Maybe you're the one being ganked. In alot of cases a low- HP enemy will follow the jungler to get a kill. After all, if they die, surely you must as well right? or at least burn summoners to do so?
Example:

Spoiler: Click to view
Wait in the


the low HP mid lane,

the jungler, and proceed to walk away laughing.




This is technically your most damaging combination once you get past 500 ap and lvl 5 chains. Some brief maths if you don't believe me:
Lvl 5

= 330 + (500x0.9) = 780
Lvl 5

= 280 + (500 x 1) = 780
Ergo, anything past 500 will mean more damage from double chains.
However, this comes with the drawback of needing to A) landing both, and B) sticking around for them to proc. Ergo, although it does more damage, you will prretty much never use this.



This requires abusing your 3.5s mark time to the full. By waiting, you allow your

to come back off CD, adding more damage to your rotation, that many don't expect.
Example:

Spoiler: Click to view




A lot easier to pull off with modest CDR - read: blue buff. Best used as a sudden aggressive move - the CDR means you don't need to wait to launch a killing offensive in most cases, although its still a good habit to get into.
Even without it, you can pull it off sometimes. The sudden switch in play style throws people off.

Spoiler: Click to view



This combo looks odd, but the reasoning behind it is this:
You've managed to mark your opponnent, but perhaps they've
, or have juked into a bush. They're on low enough health that a standard


will kill them. So your

is utilised to trigger the mark instead.
Example:

Spoiler: Click to view


, AA
not normally used early game, as it'll be hard to land chains, due to
being blocked by minions and how people back off after being marked. Still, it can be done to control junglers, or maybe you started with chains due to needing the cc at the beginning.

Spoiler: Click to view
But later on, one would use this combo to harass whenever they could in order to leave their

free.

Spoiler: Click to view
REMEMBER YOUR AA'S!



Used against more aggressive opponents who have shorter range, and have a habit of walking at you. I.e,
, etc.

them -
in pretty much all cases will out range her opponent. Wait until they try to get aggressive- they will pretty much always want to retaliate.
Throw

. They are now silenced, and will soon be stuck. AA them whilst moving on top of them, so you're in a dominant position.
If you've done this right, when the snare wares off your

will be back off cooldown. Use a


combination afterwards. to deliver even more damage.
Your Sigil has a much lower CD than a lot of opposing mids. That, and many do not or cannot judge the damage a full double sigil will do. Exploit it.


Primarily used to escape. Immediately silence to prevent gap closers. Whether or not you wait for the chains proc is down to the situation - if they're faster than you or have a method of slowing you down (like
's

) then you don't want to stick around.




.
Same as above. Stop the gap closers, get the hell out of there.



Mimic chains has few uses in a fight. There is no elongation of its snare time, just it's damage. So the only time you would use this is if you needed to help allies run away from enemies,


one with a gap closer, and

the other, whilst using

to get yourself out.
Have yet to use this.


This is probably the most famous part of LB. Damage... with more damage.
Basic harass involves walking up to them (after they've used an ability, so as to not get smacked in the face for your impudence)

Spoiler: Click to view
The primary advantage of this is having your

and or

free to use for later.
Example:

Spoiler: Click to view


Probably what makes alot of people call LB an easy to play champion. I won't lie. The damage from this at lvl 13 is quite disturbingly high.
Even before then, it damage is huuuge.

Spoiler: Click to view
Things to note: as stated under my "silence" section, please
wait after you're fired off


. I try to explain here why it's a bad idea:

Spoiler: Click to view
Basically, as stated under Sigil: Drawbacks, it takes time for the silence to activate. Between

and

landing, they have an opprotunity to flash/insertchoiceofescapehere/die which would mean you would effectively waste your distort if they decided to do so.
Once


has landed, they're silenced - so you have that 2 second window to safely distort to them with no chance of them pulling a fast one and avoiding your damage.



Perfectly doable if you abuse your mark time. You use this if they're huddling inside their minions for protection against your

. So wait... and kill them anotherway.

Spoiler: Click to view
N:B Yes she was derpy. But you're here to punish mistakes. Make no mistake. Play perfectly against LB, and she'll be useless. But isn't that the same for everychapion? D=



Surprisingly enough not as commonly used as distort first combo, since many people just don't want to stay within

range. That said, same rules apply.


, wait for silence to take effect, distort to trigger additional silence, throw chains and auto attacks to get the kill.
That said, this can very commonly get you a kill at lvl 6, if you go for it.
The following is admittedly a tad poor example - but it gets the point across.

Spoiler: Click to view
So, he was in range for


, but walked out of distort. So throw

to proc the

mark, and get the kill.
However, out of lane you can use your



to (over)kill one target, whilst using

to CC the other for your team to pick up.
Example:

Spoiler: Click to view




I am starting to use this combination more and more often, just to abuse the silence as much as humanely possible. This method was sort of developed both as an analysis of leblancs abiltiies, and a desperate countermeasure to that SOAB
. This keeps them silenced for 6 seconds, and is possible without CDR, but requires pretty precise timing. This combination without CDR isn't really possible in a teamfight - you need to do your damage/silence ASAP.
1)

your target - and back off.
2) Then, after ~ 3 seconds

your target. AA.
if you have to, assuming you are going for the kill(
But only if


lands, and are silenced. )
3)

onto them, AA.
Keep moving!
4)

them and

immediately.
I put the AA's in because it's a rough indicator, once it lands, of when to initate the next step in this combo.
Hazards to aware of:
6 seconds of silence... great... they can't retaliate. It doesn't stop them from running. Ergo, you can get pretty overextended if you're not careful.
Beware of tenacity, or
. These can screw you over quite hard. The former, because this combo will cease to be be effective, allowing them to retaliate. The latter, because of the same issue - allowing retaliation that you may not expect.
Example:

Spoiler: Click to view




Requires CDR to pull off in most fast-combat scenarios.
example: (0:40)

Spoiler: Click to view
Again, try to wait until

has landed before proceeding to minimise potential mishaps.
You would use this combo preferentially if possible, due to the fact that

is by far much easier to land the moment you

onto someone as opposed to a second after it.



This will primarily be used to lock down someone, typically the AP caster, in a fight, in order to let your team-mate escape.

is then available to either escape with yourself, or to do damage with.
Example:

Spoiler: Click to view




6 seconds of silenc, another method. This definitely requires a fair bit of CDR (close to max) Will pretty much never be utilised because of just how long 6 seconds is, at the time of the game where you could possibly pull this off, people are clustered together. Other methods of attaining 6 seconds of silence are better.
Nonetheless, for your benefit.

your target. Wait for around
2.5 seconds, then fire
(2). Wait for
1.5 seconds, then fire another
(4). Wait again for
1.5 seconds, then
(6)and
Or, if you realise they don't know how sigil mechanics work, proceed to just space out your attacks and murder them.
Combos, starting W.
Foreword:
I do not include the return part of
in these combos because whether or not you decide to return is NOT set in stone. You will see quite a few LB's blindly return after a combo into an incredibly bad situation, purely because they are used to it. I will state again here: Use your head, judge the situation, and whether you should return or not.

- return
Utilising the return function to its full is something that will take
alot of practice to nail down to an artform that doesn't require thinking.
Because quite frankly, judging that 3.5 seconds whilst in a combat situation isn't as easy as it sounds. Alot of calculations need to be made.
"Where is my opponnent?"
"Why am I distorting away?"
"Would it be more beneficial to bait them instead, and use it for damage?"
"Would returning be more useful than just running, and hopefully hopping over another wall?"
"Use mimic distort or Distort?"
"chains?"
Anyway. One of the most fun and rewarding parts of this function is just how infuriating it is for your opponnents if exploited correctly...
Examples:

Spoiler: Click to view
Tips I can give you concern, yet again, abusing vision.
This is due to how the human mind works - it likes to predict things.
Champion X is heading towards the baron, the player will instinctivly move his screen there to keep it as centred as possible, instead of waiting for his character to reach the edge of it.
This allows for exploitation: Namely, enter a bush, and
then return.

Spoiler: Click to view
Likewise, it also helps if you

out of one as well.
Using bushes nullifies their vision of you (sight wards not withstanding). Ergo, they cannot use targetted abilities - and this brief respite of quasi-invulnerability is all you need to make a getaway...

,aa
eh, I've considered using this if I'm against the likes of relatively short ranged melee casters like
. In general, not used overly much. If I've taken

first, I've taken it so I can get away quickly. Kinda defeats the point if I then go aggro with it.
Although sometimes you might get lucky, where all that's needed is an AA to finish the job...
Example:

Spoiler: Click to view
To get the extra distance, to cross a wall, in order to fire off a killing blow.
Example:

Spoiler: Click to view
Too mana inefficient to harass with if the only damaging part if the

. If both parts can damage, then it should be

first.
The only viable time otherwise to do this would be like this:

onto him to get into range for AA's, and whatever happens (I.e, where ever he flashed) I could chase him with my own flash if needed. He didn't. Proceed to
Maybe if you're ganking at Lvl4, or jumping over a wall to get a kill. Not overly used, as by using

to get into range, it lacks the damage of


, since if it can do damage, most likely you could have done the above combination. However - sometimes you need begin with

when otherwise they would quickly leave the range for the rest of your combo, say, on the otherside of a wall. Or, you need to kill them quickly - and take the risk that

might miss.
Nonetheless, a good part of your post

combo in a team fight, for getting into positioning to tag someone. Or heck, when you know you can kill people without

.
Or, you never know when the opportunity arises to sneak in a kill with it.
Example:

Spoiler: Click to view

This is the combo that mid's
hate when playing vs Lb. No matter how far behind they are, you can distort into range,


, and be beyond retaliatory distance.

Spoiler: Click to view
But
be warned wiser people know your moves, and those more confident/knowledgeable can attempt to turn this to their advantage, catching you out and unleashing their combo instead, knowing that yours is now over - hence why you will see commonly see
's throwing

and

in an attempt to catch you. From there, they can burst you. I can't teach you how to avoid this 100%, beyond being attentive to your opponnent. I gave one example in the video. Another would be having quick reaction times. This guide is meant to teach you how to be better at Lb first. Being a better player in general takes practice beyond the scope of this guide. Like I said. This is not a quick-fix solution to your fail, if that is what you are seeking x_X.
But just for you, another method: Abusing vision. Attacking from an angle where the opponnent can't see you gives him less time to react.
Time to make an appearance.

Spoiler: Click to view
And lastly, delivering heavy, often fatal, damage and getting a kill from a lost situation. Salvaging something from nothing is a skill you will have to learn - sometimes it is just impossible and you will have to accept it, lest you end up donating your corpse as well. But otherwise, it keeps things even...ish.

Spoiler: Click to view


In lane:
Can be equally as damaging as




, if the conditions are right, and you land everything. (Yes, this may be obvious to some of you, but I'm spelling it out so there's no doubt.
Even if it fails, if you land your




, you normally do enough damage to force them to back off.
Example:

Spoiler: Click to view
Most damaging harass in lane from a distance.
Whether you decide to

immediately or not depends on both you, and your opponnent. Use your judgement.
On the one hand, the 2 second silence from the

coincides perfectly with the activation time of

, thus locking them down. On the other hand, wiser opponnents may pre-emptively attempt to juke you.
Example:

Spoiler: Click to view
Gone killing:
In alot of cases you will need to distort to get into position, before you can throw down the rest of your combination, pretty much like in lane. Difference being, that in alot of cases there may be other circumstances to consider: CC? presence of jungler? Number of people? Your mid opponnent?
Use your judgement.
But for now, enjoy.
Example:

Spoiler: Click to view
Or heck, maybe the situation will be right to get a double kill.
Example:

Spoiler: Click to view
If you take away thing away from this particular combo: it's how vital it is to land those bloody



So sometimes you'll have sufficient CD/ they last long enough that you can fire off an extra

. Nothing overly special.

Spoiler: Click to view


Your team-fighting combo reserved for your target. In most cases,


will be enough as AD carries don't build MR til very late. (And if they do, then your team overall has an advantage in damage output.... right?)

Spoiler: Click to view


Double dash. Only thing better than having one escape is having two... and remember,

overrides

return point.
Secondarily, remember that technicaly with this combo you can jump over walls
4 times.
Thirdly, you can use it to juke skill shots, like in the following:
Classic misdirection.

Spoiler: Click to view


There's no escape
This combo is generally used to either rapidly close distance in order to deliver a killing blow, or do rapidly scout.
Example:

Spoiler: Click to view
Usage of this combo is limited, but as with everything I'm putting here, bear it in mind. Like the following. You can pull off some spectacular stunts with Leblanc that other champions can only dream of.

Spoiler: Click to view
Use this combination to lock down kills, to give to someone else. The lack of

makes it riskier that said victim might get away, but also vastly mitigates the possibility of a donated kill going wrong.
Can be used at lvl 4 for harass if you feel you're swimming in mana, but generally this combo won't see much use in lane, due to the delayed silence proc.
Outside of lane, it's primarily used in order to tie someone down ASAP for your team to kill.
Yes, you do run the risk of taking the kill with the secondary proc of

and

, but use your head. If

is enough, then stick with that. If not, then get it done quicker with the addition of an
Examples of locking people down:
Right where I want them.

Spoiler: Click to view


My prefered method for engaging for the kill - If the chains connects, then you can proceed with the rest of your combo (i.e,
) knowing that your chances of a kill are alot higher.
In addition, you're also pretty much guaranteed to fully proc both
As always, examples:

Spoiler: Click to view
Also useful for the laning phase, by abusing vision.

Spoiler: Click to view
Combos, starting E.
So. I guess these are the trickier ones, since they're not "point and click".
These exist unfortunately, and if you want them to be part of your repetoire of tricks then you'll need to practice/master the art of throwing
.
As stated, it's easier to throw
whilst giving them as little time to react as possible to maximise success. But then you get wiser opponnents who screw you over and move about the place. Bleh. Can't win everything.

.
Like I said for the vice-versa combo, generally not that great due to the comparative difficulty of landing

compared to
But anyway. Possible with practice, but generally low on priority of stuff to know.

Spoiler: Click to view
very rarely actually done this - it's just too fiddly, and incredibly suboptimal to use 1v1, or during ganking. - Since if it's an early level gank (i.e, pre 6 in this case) you'll need to be fast, or else your mid
victim opponnent will get a sizeable advantage over you.
but as always, there's a time and a place for everything. Like an early gank where they havent seen you coming.

Spoiler: Click to view


This is used a little bit more, as it keeps your

off CD ready to be used whenever. Does require that you get the jump on your opponnent, or he makes a mistake, but with enough practice, you can predict how best to trap them into this combo. The main point of this combo is that it can easily lead to the next step - by not using

, you still have the option to use it, if the damage is insufficient. But if it's overkill, and you've put yourself in far more danger than is neccessary.
Example:

Spoiler: Click to view


Strangly enough I do this combination a fair amount.
This is because the longest part of your combo to trigger is your

. Ergo, by using it first, you minimise the total time spent being vulnerable (read:

] down to the 2 seconds required for the chains to proc in most cases.
Secondarily, it also means you know whether you can commit to the kill or not - If chains connects, you have its damage. Whereas if you approached the combo from another pathway, you always have the risk of

not connecting.
So, without further ado, examples:

Spoiler: Click to view


Again, nothing overly special. Standard combo, followed by another

to finish off an opponnent. Really useful against champions that have methods of negating damage, ala [vladimir][fizz][shaco]

Spoiler: Click to view
One of your escape combos. Do think though. If they're at a long range,

maybe enough - and in addition, by using

, you might break the tether. But if they're in your face, then by all means, this is a suitable method of running.


Use this in order to retreat from a situation you cannot win. OR at least, try to. I've actually ever used this once, which I managed to dig up as follows:

Spoiler: Click to view


(

)
"LOLOLOLOL FACECHECKING SCRUB LOLOLOL"
Well, not to be harsh, but that's pretty much the most common thing to happen in order for you to pull this off. People aren't going to stick around for you do your combo once you've attached

- ergo, if it's not from face checking a bush they are:
A) Caught through FoW (Fog of War - see my abusing vision section)
B) CC'd by somene else.
C) R-tarded.
In cases B+C you have time. But since you'll mostly be acting alone as an assassin, A) is most likely. Therefore, they must have no vision - who the hell walks from A to B in zigzaggy juky lines? This results in them having no time to react.
A case of A)

Spoiler: Click to view
Gameplay:
So. Here's the bad news. I can only tell you the theory of what to do. You yourself will need to practice.
I will be uploading some LB games that I go through, explaining my thought process and what not, but for the most part, It's down to you now.
This section is on a few things to look out for, general tips, and that kind of malarcky.
Biggest thing about Leblanc that you should master if you want to really be annoying?
Don't die
Early game
Think about the game. Are you invading? In danger of being invaded? Check their jungler. Is it an early threat?
These questions will determine what skill you take first. Never until you're sure you will engage the enemy should you select one. These smallest things can set off a snowball for either team.
For the purposes of this guide, well assume you took
first, as this is the most common outcome.
Remember to last hit. At all times. Yust because you're playing a champion which thrives on kills, doesn't mean you neglect farming. It's just too easy to neglect farming as LB - and you will see plenty of them out there with around 60 farm by 30 minutes.
Judge your lane opponent. Is he long ranged like
, or short ranged like
?
This will determine your harassment strategy.
General tips: (These things are but a brief overview of what you need to be thinking about. Heck, alot of it is pure gamesense, but i'm putting it here anyway for you to think about. )
- What has your opponnent got? If it's not boots, tell your jungler. If he has no escape mechanisms, tell your jungler. If he's pushing, tell your jungler
If you fail, blame your jungler.
- As soon as they use their primary ability, (I.e,
/
, you have an opportunity to attack with no retaliation. They know this. They'll back off. So zone them. Dodge again, keep zoning them.
- It is a risk to
early game as you have no wards. Many a LB has met her demise by being predictable and always 
at lvl 2, and getting murdered for it by the camping jungler.
- Which is why a more advanced method is to bait your opponents abilities - therefore if a jungler does show up, you're in no real danger. (1)
- That said, as soon as you see their jungler (Cv, in another lane, dead) you are free to use
to harass with.
- Remember your auto attacks. They hurt.
- When your enemy comes in to last hit a creep, AA him/her. They have a choice: Either take the damage, or retaliate and miss a creep.
- Don't over do the aggression . Minion aggro at early levels hurts . Use this to your advantage - If he's being aggressive, fight him when he's amongst your creeps.
- Be wary of where your jungler is, and shift position accordingly. If he's counter jungling, this is the difference between him making it out alive, or him giving a kill to your opponnent in mid lane.
- On the same coin, if he wants to gank at lvl 3, there's no point sticking 2 points in
and 1 point in 
- But if you're close to said level, tell him as such. He might wait for one or two creeps. But two waves? nah.
- Is there an opportunity to kill him before lvl 6? You would be surprised how many people expect a sudden change in aggression at 6, but not sooner. Know how much damage you can do at all levels if you need to. (2)
- Is there an opprotunity to kill a sidelane? It isn't uncommon for one of the lanes to be pushed, leaving them vulnerable. Early levels, you can push the lane out, and slip out into a side lane to give your side the advantage. (3)

Spoiler: Click to view
Midgame
Where next?
Now comes the time of
killing .
- Look at your lanes. See if any opprotunities arise. For instance, is bottom lane low, at their tower? Might be an idea to head there - many times they're just seconds away from being tower dived.
- But, regardless, you'll probably need to go back to your lane to get farm and XP. zzzz. But wait, there's someone there with you just waiting to be culled! Past 6 is the time when alot of mid's absolutely hate being in lane with you. It's a constant rain of

that chunks off half their hp or more at a time. (1)
- But remember. If you think you can do more damage by landing those
then do so. (2)
- Even better. Do what you were meant to do. Punish the mistakes they make - with their lives. (3) (4)
- Zone them. Suppress them. Remember what I said: EE. Eviscerate enemy.
- What was next again.. ah yes. Suppress the enemy team. I.e, GG: Go ganking.
- work with your jungler .
If you can slip out of lane and the two of you gank somewhere, it not only puts you and your jungler ahead, but gives the lane you're ganking the advantage too. Remember the whole point of ganking: giving your lane the upper hand, so later on, the pressures off you. (5)
- On which note, if your jungler is standing in the wings waiting to gank, but you know you can kill them anyway, it's good manners (and good team play) to let them in on the fun. Because now they get EXP and gold as well. (6)
- Begin RR: Rallying the ******s. Complete previous steps, get a kill or two (preferentially jungler included) and get the objectives - Dragon, buffs, etc.

Spoiler: Click to view
Lategame
Ideally the game should be over before it gets here. But if you've done your job, it should still be even. You have enough to still be a presence, and be able to snipe off a priority target. More importantly, your teammates should be sufficiently ahead of their opponnents to be able to more than make up for your non-carry team-fight status.
(NB: Sorry. close to no videos atm, the ones which I do have are sub-optimal.Secondarily, some of them might be considered mid-game, but the principles stand. Teamfights. Sorry. =/)
- By this stage, always have as close to 40% cdr as possible. Heck, when it moves onto team-fighting, get as close to 40% cdr. Grabbing that
can make the difference with both the AP and CDR it brings. Don't skimp on these things.
- Your job at this stage is ideally to pick off someone before there's an engagement. (1)
- If there is no teamfight, first priority is to escort your support around with others to clear wards and to place wards at objectives like Drake and Baron.
- Your job in a teamfight is the same out of it: Pick off the high priority-target. This might involve waiting, it might result in you being flamed. PATIENCE. (2) (3)
- Analyse who you're killing. If their AD carry is hideously behind, and your AD carry is ahead, there is 0 point picking off someone who will have little impact on the fight. It actually might be wise to go after the bruiser(s) assailing your carry, allowing them to kite and survive, and thereby letting him output his far greater damage.

Spoiler: Click to view
1)
For my next trick, I'll make their lifebar disappear
2)
3)
Closing notes:
There are two major things this guide cannot teach you. Map awareness, and positioning. These take experience. There isn't really a shortcut. The most helpful advice I can give is to look at your replays. See what opportunities you missed, what you cocked up, whether there were any warning signals. You would be surprised how, if only you had paid attention to the minimap, you might have avoided that terminal gank...
How to counter Leblanc.
Honest. Some people have a page dedicated to screwing you over, just due to how easy it is. (OMG I SAID EASY QUICK GET THE BAN HAMMER)
This is inconjunction with a non-bruiser mid pitches you at 68 mr, and if they're total party-poopers, 74 due to masteries, and then 98 with a null magic mantle.
Add a
to the mix, and you're crying.
Honestly. This stuff is just plain ******ed. It sort of forces a farm fest, of which LB is definitely not happy with.
Beyond this, there are direct champion counters - rapidly pushing the lane screws over LB like no tomorrow. She doesn't want to be at her tower. She wants to kill. Go ganking. Be upper class. Whatever, just not farming like a peasent. In this catagory:
Shield, so cant harass him, and then insta pushes the wave.
. Can safely push lane from a million miles away.
Plops down black stuff, walks away.
Probably missed a few.
Other counters: Methods of preventing the champion from dying.
Like
, ults whoever you're bursting, prevents them from dying.
, Ults whoever you're bursting, prevents them from dying.
, ults everywhere to piss you off, so you have to murder him regardless of the situation. No wait, disregard this.
Yes writing this is making me mad. Because by god did this drive me insane when i faced it. Reaction:
Quoted:
WHY THE F*%$! IS THIS AHRI A TANK?
(I.e, Petekes.)
Champion analysis: A-J
This is the section where I detail appropriate things to look out for/ what counter measures to enact to ensure success... or at least, try to.
Some sections will be longer than others for obvious reasons.
Against mid opponents, you must be aggressive. Your job is to shut them down . This means hamstringing their farm, their levels... hmm.. Their lives come as an added, although frequent, bonus.
Remember. Against mid opponents, this guide assumes that they are:
A) Not braindead.
and
B) Not trolling you with full MR.
Ahri

Spoiler: Click to view
Role: Mid, normally.
Difficulty: Easy -
If you play your cards right (and by that I mean, not only
know every trick in the book but know how to utterly abuse them too). Otherwise, mediumish. If you screw up, hard. Advantage lies with you in this match up.
Jungler synergy -
Medium - CC is not exactly guaranteed to land.
Threat to you directly -
High - Make a mistake, and you'll pay for it.
Threat to you indirectly -
High - Can pretty easily switch to just passively farming.
Gankability -
Very high pre-6. Post 6, gains use of ultimate. Forcing it is still a good move. Tell your jungler if she uses it - she's highly vulnerable without it.
Explanation:
I guess I'll start my champion analysis with a common pick nowadays. This lane is quite fun. You have the advantage, but if they're any good, they're the same as you- make a mistake, and it's often terminal. unfortunately most people at 1550 just don't know how handle my lb, and I end up running roughshod over them.
Each ahri player is different. But you knew that already. I'll give a list of things to look out for, and how I handle her.
I can generally catagorise this into three advantages:
A) Nature of your skills and kit.
B) Your CC> Her's.
C) You can deal heavy harass to her relatively safely, whilst she cannot do the same.
a)
. blei. Get hit by this, expect to die. that window of vulnerability is all she needs to murder you. If you were
, consider yourself bad. either you took too long, jumped right on top of her, or you were too predictable.
- to that end, try to bait her skills. Being skill shots, she might take that chance to

you... In which case, pounce on her. (1)
- Again, she's skill-shots for the most part of her damage. Same deal as
. Stand away from your minions so she can either
you, or the minions. Don't get hit by
, and you're golden.
- Get a gank. Honestly. This lane is so neck and neck that ganks are almost alwaysa must. Once you have the advantage, you can suppress her like no other mid champion can.
- Roaming. She loves to roam almost as much as you do. In fact, sometimes if you can predict where they're going, you can just happily sit in that lane and turn the tables on her.
- Later on, you might not be able to kill her with your combo as she grabs MR - that's fine. Don't be obsessed with killing your lane opponnent in the game. Kill the most important target that you can... like that AD carry who doesnt really have the luxury of building non-full damage items til alot later into the game.
B)
- Your CC is lethal to her. at level 6: 1 second charm vs (normally) 4 seconds of silence and a snare. 5.5 seoonds of locking down her ultimate... Believe me. It's incredibly infuriating, and inevitable. You have the tools needed to utterly shut her down. Use them wisely.
- Spread out your silences. 4 seconds of silence and 1-2 seconds of snare means thats 6 seconds where she cannot use her ultimate - a fair source of her damage. Which is good. Make it better. 8 seconds of no-ultimate usability.
But be warned - lose control, and most likely she will just kill you.
C)
- Your
is your main tool against her. It puts you into range to fire off 
, without taking damage in return - if done properly .
- To that end, there are some parts of your combo repetoire which require additional attention...



Is not safe to do against
. Against a fairly decent opponnent you will never have the time to throw
before you get
. Heck, if you've been predicted, you might not even have enough time to fire off
.


.
For the love of all that is [insert choice word here], do NOT use this. Unless she's utterly braindead and doesn't even attempt to
you, if you do this combo you will be so hideously vulnerable as you are interrupted before you can fire off 
. Thus you're left with
, but NOTHING to trigger it... and often, you're right next to her...
Disadvantages:
She has innate spellvamp, giving her a degree of sustainability that you don't.
Her main nuke is AoE, allowing her to just push the lane if she wants to.
Jungle influence:
Vital. Pretty much first to get a kill will forever put the screws on the other in the lane.
She is more gankable than you are pretty much always.
Conclusions:
So all in all, experience is what's needed to win this lane. If you know every trick in the book, you can use your silence and snare to utterly wreck her damage output.If not, it'll be 50:50. If you get charmed/die, you're doing it wrong.
Examples:

Spoiler: Click to view
(1)
Random ranked games vs ahri:
1600
1550
Annie

Spoiler: Click to view
Role: Mid, normally.
Difficulty: Easy, unless you screw up hard. In which case, prepare to be sat on by that freaking bear every time you show your face in lane.
Jungler synergy -
high- Charges passive, targetted unavoidable stun.
Threat to you directly -
VERY High - Has the ability to gib you at level 6 very quickly unless you neutralise this threat. In addition, has second highest AA range in the game.
Threat to you indirectly -
Medium- short range makes her not really suited to safe and rapid clearing of minion waves.
Gankability -
Very high No escapes. Stun won't stop most junglers from being successful in their ganks if they position right.
Explanation:
Annie, the upstart kid. In my opinion, incredibly annoying, but also easy to shut down. She has a stun to stop your combos, whilst you have silences galore. No escape mechanisms result in high-gankability, in conjunction with

will result in the lane pushing in most cases. She might try to intimidate you with her passive

and zone you, but quite frankly, since you out range her spells you can normally hit her anyway. A good Annie will endlessly throw AA's at you... which can wear you down.
She also has the ability to 100-0 you at level 6 quite easily. As such, it's imperative you get there first.
1 vs 1:
Substantially stronger than you level 1.

is on a shorter cooldown, higher damage and scaling than you at this point. Expect a good annie to be aggressive at this point, but feel free to engage her around your minions.
If she comes to lane with pyromania charged instead, she'll have taken

first. There's a bit of care required here. Either she's expecting her jungler to gank level 2, or she was part of a jungle invasion. Throw a

to poke a little, but stay at range. You can't afford to give her a lead on you, so surrender CS if you have to.
Level 2 and beyond, things even up with it tilting in your favour. Your


, as in alot of cases, out damages her


substantially. If she uses hers, retaliate in kind. Otherwise, poke with

, keeping

up until you know you're safe to use it. What really stops this from being fully blown in your favour is her insane AA range.
Level 4-5 you can attempt to kill her.
The only real thing of note in this match up is rushing level 6. Once this is done,
to her and throw


. This is to force her to use her
. She's only a threat to you if this is up, as it allows sudden initiation and gives her the chance to unload on you first. By using
, she has no method of getting the jump on you. If she doesn't flash, follow up and kill her if possible.
Post-6, it's your normal



all around - just don't be a moron and jump into her range...
Watch out for:
She has the ability to gank side lanes pretty early. She shouldn't be able to leave the lane at all, but let's assume their junglers been camping mid. Be aware that she is fully capable of doing your task if you let her.

does damage if you stay around it, and if you let it hit you. So please, don't.
Secondarily,

blocks

. I have seen many a
fail horribly when they got jumped on and couldn't land

because
pretty much hid inside her bear.

. Free MR to counteract your



harass. See how much she's getting. If it's more than 20, she's levelling this up. In which case, go directly aggressive onto her. She won't have the damage to compete.
Jungle influence:
High on both sides. She has hard cc, so attracts hers. The only problem is that post 2, if she initiates with

, you'll be able to escape before her jungler gets there. If she initates with

two things happen. Either her jungler already shows his face as soon as its in the air, in which case you have time to escape whilst the projectiles in the air, or the jungler appears when it hits, in which case refer to above.
She has no escapes, so attracts yours.
She can only stun one of you unless your positioning is derpingly poor. Ergo, in most cases the one who isn't disabled can CC
, allowing the stunned party to catch up.
Those freaking fire/snowballs. Urgh.
Counter measures :
Forcing her
is the key here.
Hitting her when she uses

on a minion will drain her HP quick. Short range and a cast time means you will almost always be able to punish her for it.
Conclusions :
Easy lane for you. You have the kit to totally neutralise her. Just make sure you do. Not dying to her is never enough. You have to farm her.
Examples:

Spoiler: Click to view
Sowwy, none yet =/.
Anivia

Spoiler: Click to view
Role: Mid, normally.
Difficulty: If you play your cards right,
easy. If not, be prepared for AFK push to your tower.
Jungler synergy -
Medium - CC is slow, predictable, although this is a non-issue with junglers like
or
. She has some pretty nasty damage too if you let her.
Threat to you directly -
low. She should never be able to kill you.
Threat to you indirectly -
Eventually High -AFKFARMWITHULTIMATE
Gankability -
high No escapes, but could try to wall one of you and stun the other, but she has massive mana problems as it is. Win/Win
Explanation
Let's get one thing straight. Her stun

, a slow moving, predictable skill shot, is one I have trouble dodging.

? Fine.

? Fine. I have major issues with this projectile. Its just. Gah. I dunno.
Her central gimmick is that you have to kill her twice. This makes alot of people enter a mode of not-bothering, which is exactly what she wants you to do.
has sufficiently low CD's to kill her in her egg form assuming there is no outside intervention. Add your own jungler, and shes definitely dead.
She is very VERY fragile, and incredibly easy to zone. The difficulty is getting there.
Most
players are terribad. They see a pro do it, yet don't know what she is capable of, and end up feeding like crazy. nom nom nom.
1 v 1
Dodge that freaking

at all costs. After that, aggressively zone her. She has weak AA's, and no real-way of damaging you if she cannot land this.
This is one match up where it might be beneficial to buy mana-potions as opposed to health potions. Since her damage is non-existant without landing

at levels 1-5, excessive use of

will neutralise her easily... so long as you don't jump into her face, a reactionary

won't have time to hit you.
If she fires

at you, walk to the side when you can. A smart one might try to fire this when she knows you'll get blocked by minions. In which case, she deserves special attention.

to counter, and then


her, with copious amounts of AA's.
Levels 2-5 you should aggressively attempt to go for her life. Ignite her if you have to - removing that egg makes alot of
so much more cautious that they zone themselves out.
In addition, if you're out to kill her, igniting her to egg form means she can't retaliate... sure, seems obvious now, but alot of people seem to reserve this for after the egg's been popped. Trust me, you don't need it to kill her. Removing the egg is more important.
Post six, she will probably attempt to cheese


you. If she does, the answer is to just keep walking to her and combo down her face. She want's to be that close to you? Make her regret it.
Post-6, deny her blue at all costs. She cannot farm effectively without it.
Silence immediately turns off her ultimate

.
Watch out for:
Be careful of drawing too much minion aggro when attempting to make an omelette out her. Alot of people have met their demise with a point blank

->

combo.
Being baited by her egg timer. By which I mean seeing it's greyed out, commiting to a dive and then realising within those few seconds between examining and executing, she has it back up again. I mean, I sincerely hope you're not the type of person who get's heal baited.... else this could be a trickier match up for you.
Make a judgement call on whether to snipe her when she has her egg up or not. On the one hand, she will have absorbed your burst. On the other, it forces her team to stay there and defend her egg... Or heck, have
grab it... and tuck in.
Jungle influence:
Depends on jungler. If it's a ganky one, they'll visit fairly often. If not, they won't.
Your jungler should visit early on so you can hopefully get a kill and keep her zoned and denied.
Counter measures:
Squish.
Excessive use of

will help guarantee you avoid her damage if you can't side-step it.
Deny blue at all costs
Ganks.
NOMNOMNOM EGGS
Conclusions :
Most
players are horrible. Go super-aggressive, and they wont know what to do.
The more competent ones may require some persuading to tone down their brazen afk-pushing. Enlist jungler support for the early game, and proceed to shut her down mid-game after that.
Examples:

Spoiler: Click to view
none yet. Sowwy =/
Brand

Spoiler: Click to view
Role: Mid
Difficulty:
Even fight if they know what they;re doing
Jungler synergy -
Moderate. High damage, stun which shouldn't hit you but stuff happens
Threat to you directly -
High. High damage, and if you don't think about what you're doing can easily kill you.
Threat to you indirectly -
highEasily push the wave at level 9.
Gankability -
High. No escape mechanisms.
Explanation:
Ahhh
. Braaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand has fallen out of favour recently, but underestimate him at your peril. He is one of those champions which you technically beat, yet has the kit to go head-to-head with you...
if you allow it .
He has the capability to push the lane really hard, and outfarm you like crazy. Your window of opportunity isn't as large as you may think.
Basically, be predictable, and you'll be punished for it.
That said, he is gankable, with no escapes - but be careful, lest he just burst down your jungler instead...
1 v 1
The key problem with
is that his passive lasts for 4 seconds - i.e, longer than your

time. Ergo, assuming you traded conflageration and

, an on-the-ball brand will just

you when you attempt to

, stranding you next to him, free to AA you - thereby causing you to lose the trade. This therefore makes lower-level trades inadvisable. Yes, you could

him, wait for his passive to go away and then

, but you would end up OOM very quickly.
In addition, early level exchanges tend to work in his favour due to his passive,

. Since I've spelt out why you cannot trade full combos for full combos, the only thing left would be one-for-one spell exchanges. Ergo, his passive tilts it in his favour. Your only real option is to wait for him to blow a spell, and
then engage on him. If he doesn't, you'll just have to be
patient .
As an extention of this, you might try baiting out an ability or two. Erratically moving around, sometimes moving in to engage, then sharply breaking off, etc. Once he uses an ability, then you can "safely" proceed to be more aggressive.
Eventually you should be able to wear him down with sigil spam post level 3, as he'll be maxing

. This is when A) you're more mana efficient in your harass and B) the disparity in where your power lies increases. If he cannot land that pillar, he's stuffed.
Speaking of which, for that reason dodging

is
utterly crucial. Either try to bait them out, and then aggressively zone him, or

out of it and harass him. But for crying out loud
don't return into it ;.;
6s of silence can work against
, as it's not uncommon for him to be near your tower. However, the most likely situation is that he would have tried to

you as you approach him, and will back well away from you. He knows he cannot fight you without his

, so will avoid you at all costs without it.
You will most likely need to

into range to


him. So be wary of his attempt to conflaguration

you. If you can successfully do this combo against
, then you will have no problem against
.
Later on, he may try to just push the lane with his


combo to keep you at your tower. If he tries this, take some minion aggro to keep the creeps out of tower distance, and call your jungler. Pounce when he tries to push it again. If he doesn't, proceed to zone him.
Watch out for:
Your jungler turning up to lend a hand and ending up dying to him. Trust me. It happens.
Your clone. I've seen some smarter
players who caught a
, the latter of which proceeds to get out of there, yet left their clone behind.
proceeded to unleash

on the clone, which warped to the original
because it was out of maximum leash range... and proceeded to bring along a nice present with it.
In the same vein, move your clone away from you if it pops. Else

will just bounce between the two of you...
The fact he can go head-to-head with you. It catches quite a few
players off guard...
Jungle influence:
He has hard CC if he can land it. Has quite alot of killing power as well, making it a tastier prospect than most. Definitely expect ganking junglers to show up and try their luck at least once or twice.
Yours will turn up because of his pushing power, and lack of escapes.
Counter measures :
Post-6, it shifts wildly in your favour.
Test him. Bait skills.
Conclusions :
Try to avoid going head-on at earlier levels. He's stronger than you would think.
Make sure he gets punished if he tries to AFK-push.
Avoid [

at ALL costs.
Examples:

Spoiler: Click to view
Cassiopeia

Spoiler: Click to view
Role: Mid
Difficulty: Dicey.
Jungler synergy -
Moderate. Can stun you if you make an error, has the burst AND dps to take you down.
Threat to you directly -
High.

. Hope you like dancing.

. Hope you enjoy BS.
Threat to you indirectly -
medium-high AFK farming is possible.

maisma can pretty niftily clear a wave.
Gankability -
High. No escape mechanisms. Will be inevitably pushing.
Explanation:
A bad
is food for anybody.
A good one will drive you up the walls with her BS.
Central gimmick of


x3, rinse and repeat from level 2. She will easily out-damage you if you let her, but she cannot out-burst you.
She has no escape mechanisms, and her

is AoE - she will inevitably be pushing.
This match up requires
epic concentration.
1 v 1
Watch what she's maxing. If it's

, she can easily clear waves, and use it to poke you. If it's twin fangs, expect her to try to kill you. IF it's the latter, use

followed by


to immediately silence, since she can still throw out maisma to poison you.
You're going to have to try to mix up your last hitting. A good
will watch you going for last hits before trying to land a

. Bait them out, and zone her after.
At levels 2-3, return the favour. Her only reliable method of last-hitting with his her AA's, (Poison means a minion could take the last hit). Due to the sigil speed change, you can now quickly pull off


, dodging any attempt to poison you.
Post six, the danger to both combatants goes through the roof. Her ult will make short work of you if you're caught, but the same applies to her. So there are a few steps we can take to try to gain the advantage...
See if you can bait her ultimate.

in, and
LISTEN . A lot of
players anticipate a standard follow up of


, thus interrupting you in the middle of it. Her ult has a cast time and a really noticeable sound effect during charge, and if you can successfully bait it, the lane is uninhabitable for her for the next two minutes.
In addition, post six, if she's stupid enough to attempt to continue her


xN , 6 second silence her. This move requires nerves of steel as your health will fall quick and first, easily below 50%. But after that, she will be straight 100-0'd. The issue with 6 second silencing is it requires your opponnent to be in range all the time. If she wants to be aggressive like this, then let her, and punish her severely for it. Suddenly turning around and keeping her constantly silenced will shut her down completely. No spells, no spam. No spam, no cass. No cass, freaking hip hip hoorah. (-.-')
Watch out for:

. 850 range is not to be trifled with. Neither is 2s of stun time.

. She relies on this spell for the rest of her arsenal really.
Being baited into her jungler. She has no escapes, true, but has the DPS to kill you if she get's an opening. AKA, you get cc'd to all hell and back.
Jungle influence:
She's normally pushing, so get ganks to get ahead.
Her's may turn up due to her DPS, and post-six when she has CC, so be on your guard.
Counter measures :
Walk in
really janky angles (sudden right angle turns, etc) to make it hard for her to land her

. Some times, keep walking at her also throws her off as well
Deny her blue. She's alot less scary when she can mindlessly spam spells some of the time as opposed to all of the time. Yes, I'm freaking bitter about cass, what gave it away?
can actually work here. Once she throws ult, she relies on the 2s of stun time to kill you,
not the damage of the ult itself. If you can continue moving, (I.e, not get poisoned) then she's going to lose the trade.
Ganks. She pushes, she should die for it.
Conclusions :
Snake woman needs to be turned into handbags.
Seriously.
SOD Cass.
Examples:

Spoiler: Click to view
none yet =/
Fizz

Spoiler: Click to view
Role: Mid.
Difficulty:
AAARRRRGGGGGHHHHHH
Jungler synergy -
moderate- Has no cc, but has the damage to get the job done if he gets an opening.
Threat to you directly -
High- Assuming he's not brain-dead,
you will never kill him . His troll-pole means he will
always get the burst in on you first.
Threat to you indirectly -
Low - Suffers from the assassin's curse of being unable to push safely/efficiently.
Gankability -
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA no. Troll pole.
Explanation:
This guy. Can take
/
and
pretty safely as he doesn't give a damn about junglers. Unlike
,

is both on a shorter CD, and doesn't cost health.

also results in you never being able to


him. Same deal with vlad - He'll hop on his pole, and laugh at you as the projectiles magically disappear.
1 v 1
You won't be dominating him any time soon. Ironically enough this might be one of the match ups where you're better off trying to farm whilst denying him. He scales worse than you do - to do his abilities he has to get into melee range (ala thick of it) and if he isn't fed, he'll just be walking gold.
You have got to constantly shove

onto his face and AA him. If he uses

, that's actually his loss - it costs considerably more mana. The key here is to wear him down to the point that if he did initiate, at the very least you could take him with you.
Use

to proc the

to test his reactions. Eventually, this will wear him down.
Avoid

at all costs.
if you have to. It's almost half of his damage. Without it, he
cannot kill you.
Open with

whenever possible. Same deal with vlad'd pool (for more information, go to his little section to see what i'm talking about) If you land this, squash him.
Watch out for:
Being gibbed. Alot of LB players don't expect another champion to be able to 100-0 them. After all, isn't that a right reserved by LB?
He does ALOT more damage than people expect.
Don't get baited. Look at what his summoners are, and what CD's he has.
Gets health pots. Loads of them. STaying at near-full health will mitigate his damage somewhat.
Jungle influence:
You might as well tell yours to concentrate on the other lanes, as they will have to win without you. Your job is to keep him contained.
His jungler would probably show up just because he can actually kill you.
Counter measures:
Get's rid of the fish, but it drops it underneath you.
If you get hit by

, get the hell out of there by whatever means neccessary. Double

if you have to, or
Drink those pots, and go aggressive on him.

spam. Get those creeps. Push it to his tower. Save

for escaping.
Conclusions:
Won't be a fun lane for you. You won't be doing much in this game besides trying to deny him kills. One wrong move, and you'll be fish food.
Push him to his tower, try to keep at full health whilst whittling him down.
Examples:
LB vs fizz: 1650 elo.

Spoiler: Click to view
Galio

Spoiler: Click to view
Role: Mid
Difficulty:
Medium-hard
Jungler synergy -
Low- Moderate. Slows, flash -> taunt post 6. Not good news. But nothing overly major.
Threat to you directly -
Low. He should never kill you in lane. Out of it?
Threat to you indirectly -
high Long range instant wave clear. Your favourite. <.<
Gankability -
High. No escape mechanisms. Will be inevitably pushing.
Explanation
Is an ***. Not so much a counter pick as in "Lol you ded", more of a "GL in trying to be useful".
EVentually gets to farm at long range
and can do so quickly - pushing things to your turret. It really will be a choice between farming vs roaming. And believe me, farming sucks.
Will have a heap-tonne of MR by mid game, so GL killing him.
1 v 1
The saving grace comes that early on, he's not that bad. Melee, and mana-hungry, you can often get one or two kills off him by being aggressive.


is often cast together. As such, you can dodge

with

if you so wish. Often, it's advisable to. Just don't do it post-6 if you have no idea where the jungler is. Please.
IF he starts with lots of MR, he's often not running mana-regen seals. It isn't uncommon to see such galios run themselves dry.
Likewise, a lot of galio-players don't have a specialised rune-page, and need to buy their MR.
See what happens.
In addition, they fit into the "Lol come at me LB" perade - 6 second silence can work quite nicely, as they'll happily run around with a sigil on their head.
Lastly,
is your friend. A lot of galio players forget the damage fire does.
Watch out for:


combo. It hurts, ok?

.
WEll duuuuhhhh you guys say
Dont go near it!. No, i'm talking about when he's using it, and you think "He's the tank! I can't use abilities on him!"


and you're golden. Much better than watching your team derp around as they get caught.
Oh, and yeah. Don't get caught in it.
Jungle influence:
Pre-6, your jungler should show up and lend a hand. Because seriously, Leaving LB to languish at her tower as its being pushed in is
dumb. But then again, people are dumb, so.... b*tch at your jungler.
Post 6-, his might actually turn up. Flash -> Ult and his buddy kicks/punches/w.e your face in.
Counter measures :
Don't get caught in his ult.
Avoid his harass. It burns.
Bleed his mana dry. He'll run out fairly quickly early on.
AA his face in.
Don't get caught in his ult.
is your friend. Remember that.
Don't get caught in his ult.
Conclusions :
Thankfully, has little use in the current meta, and i dunno if anyone even plays him anymore.
They might just pick him as a counterpick, and run around going "Ehh,,, what do i do again?"
Otherwise, prepare to cry at your tower.
Examples:

Spoiler: Click to view
Nope.
Champion analysis: K-R
Karthus

Spoiler: Click to view
Role: Mid
Difficulty:
easy-medium
Jungler synergy -
Moderate. Wall of pain makes you easier to kill, but doesn't stop you from escaping in anyway shape or form.
Threat to you directly -
Low. He should never kill you in lane. Out of it?
LOLREDLIGHTNING
Threat to you indirectly -
high AFK farming at max range will be his game.
Gankability -
High. No escape mechanisms. Will be inevitably pushing.
Explanation
Karthus fares extremely poorly against hyper-aggressive mid laners.
This is further exacerbated by his inability to retaliate against those with gap-closers, as his only methods of dealing significant damage either take time to do so ala

or make him hideously vulnerable

.
Get your jungler to gank him a few times in the early levels. The sooner you can farm him at a whim, the easier your whole team can be about that red-lightning that does nothing.
1 v 1
Karthus's mentality will be to farm as much as he can, get a
, farm some more, and out scale you.
Your job is to stop him from getting there. Same deal with Vladiqueer in some aspects - with vlad, you delay his
. With karthus, you delay his
.
Unfortunately, unlike vlad, he can actually farm at veeery long range. Only popping in for a fleeting moment to get that minion.
The good news is, you don't really need to worry about
killing you, unless you're a skittles addict and want to collect them all with your feet. In which case, yes, you'll probably snuff it.
Earlier levels, You need to find an opening to


onto him, drawing as little minion agro as possible. Whenever he wants to

, give him a

.
Post-6, he is one of those champions where it's prefectly fine and indeed advisable to throw

before your


, since he neither has a method of interrupting your combo like

, nor does he have huge burst damage you could be vulnerable to before he gets silenced like
.
If you can't see him in lane (short of having just killed him), check your side lanes to see what they're up to. If they're fightin/low on HP, you can be almost certain
wants to sing a song. By doing this, sometimes you can save your team-mates by diving a tower and silencing him before his

channel is complete.
Yes, it is risky - for all you know the jungler might be in mid for some odd reason, but a) this is unlikely - why waste time on a lane where your mid isn't even trying to fight the other person? B) You're playing
. Risk is the entire name of the game here.
Watch out for:
The fact he stays alive after killing him. Don't stick around in his

, or take too many smarties, else you might wind up within

killing range. It has a pretty high base damage, and giving your lane opponent kills, as always, is a biiiig nono.
Straying too close to him, and him using
, and proceeding to drive at you with everything he's got...
Random

-> land mines everywhere. The debuffs don't affect your offensive capabilities - He throws this and tries to put bombs under your feet, either he's:
a) got a jungler nearby and he's going first or
b) wants to put some fear into you.
If it's a), you have to make a decision based on who the jungler is, and if a threat, where they are.
If it's b), wait for said land mine before using

onto his face, and


.
Don't be afraid to trade AA's with him. His AA's are pretty much considered to be non-existent...
Jungle influence:
His won't overly like the lane since you can get away, and
lacks any real source of damage/hard CC.
Yours should like the lane as he'll be pushing and lacks escapes. Unless you're zoning him ridiculously hard... which is job done anyway.
Counter measures :
Farm him so he can't farm creeps.
Silence him if he's within range of you when he's trying to sing.
Deny blue. Or if you want, give him blue, and then kill him for it. Lolololol.
Conclusions :
It's down to skill really. Can you shut down his passive farming? He won't be a threat to you, in laning phase, but by god do you have to stop him from being a threat to your team late game...
Examples:

Spoiler: Click to view
Kassadin

Spoiler: Click to view
Role: mid
Difficulty: Depends on his rune set up. If it's standard AP
easy , to survive the lane,
hard
Jungler synergy -
very low. His silence a) requires time to reach you and b) isn't that long at all early levels. Slow requires for him to be in your face. But post 6, increases to
moderateMore info later.
Threat to you directly -
Low. He should never be a threat to you... but really? His threat to you directly is
?????????
Threat to you indirectly -
?????????
Gankability -
High. No escape mechanisms before level 6... give him the
treatment. Camp lane before level 6 to stop them from ever becoming a threat.
After 6?
Very hard.
Explanation:
So.
. I wish I could play against more of them. Unfortunately perma banned in ranked, and alot of people adopt the "why practice him in blind if i can't play him in ranked" mentality. I don't blame them. The "???" is tied to why he's always banned - He's a massive snowball champion that can quite easily get fed off side lanes. So if your team mates are... erm.. special? shall we say? you'll lose this indirectly, and as such when he returns to lane he might end up bullying you around.
He's bad at pushing, but actually better than
post-6 at it. High mobility, silences and slows...sounds familiar right? He's classified as an anti-mage, with a pretty damn nifty passive. Unless you know your stuff, you might end up feeding him.
In my honest opinion?
You should never lose to him
1 vs 1
As always, check his runes. Avoid him level 1 if he's running high AP if you want.
Two abilities in particular tend to screw casters over. They are:

.
Has a silence in itself. However, it's also got a few mechanics we can exploit.
- It has a travel time. Ergo, you have time to react. Before it hits you, you can cast what you want... which quite frankly, if you're any good, can easily be 3 spells at max range.
- Early levels has a shorter duration silence than you, and at max level, is a shorter duration than the mark... leaving him open to combos.
And

Blink on a short cooldown... sort of. It's what makes Kassadin Kassadin. Being able to blink everywhere destroying faces. But at a price...
- at 100 mana a pop, it's pretty darn expensive.
- and it's no
. It still has a casting time. Ergo, post-6, stay close to your minion line. Every time he fires
, walk towards him. You can happily 

onto him, as A) he can't stop you and B) if you positioned correctly he'll be in range, as he won't be able to
away in time.
- If he rift walks onto your face, throw
first. Since
still has a cast time, you should easily be able to land this. From there, punish him.
Here's the thing.
Pre-6, you'll pretty much destroy him.
He's melee, so shoot him constantly.
He's got severe mana issues until he gets a catalyst - Either he uses

to counter-harass, or to get creeps. If he uses both, he'll run out. If he harasses you, you harass him back for more with AA's. Even if he has more AP, your AA's will tip the balance. The better
players know this, and will last hit with

instead, biding their time.
Again, same as above.

consumes pretty hefty sums of mana, and if you do things correctly, he'll almost always be using it to run away.
So you pretty much wear him down with AA's. He'll try to replenish his mana and last hit with his own, so keep hitting him.
Your best bet at killing him is levels 3-5. When he's taken a few hits, and before he's gone back. This is doubly important, since this is when your jungler should be focusing his efforts on mid. Normally harass him: AA

AA, then jump on his face, chains, and AA him to death. Your

is on a few seconds lower CD than his

, allowing you to win the trades at this point.
Post 6?
The key here is tilting the trades
heavily in your favour by abusing your mechanics, and his.
It is bleeding obvious when kassadingalingaling decides to

onto you, as it has an animation and sound preceeding it.

his location, and keep AA->kiting him. The key here is locking out his ability to escape, whilst remaining within comfortable range. If he is so brazen enough to think he'll get away with pulling
your speciality of jumping onto people, by bloody god are we going to show him the error of his ways.
So when back pedalling, don't run the full gamut away. You need to be out of his melee range, but within your AA range. It's a delicate and uncomfortable balance at first, but you'll get the hang of it quickly.
Once

has proc'd, quickly fire off


to keep him silenced and unable to escape.
KEEP AA'ING HIM .
Then

onto
his face, and judge for yourself. If you think he's within burning distance,
him. If not, proceed to walk away. He's typically at critical health at this point. (I.e,

will kill him.) So. Zone him out.
If he opens with

, then retaliate in kind. Quite frankly, some Kassa's will do this just so they can't be pinned down and CC'd after. They want to blow their load on you and walk away. To me, yes, this makes sense. Normally casters won't be able to retaliate in time. But for you? Ohoho..
If he opens with

, then

, your

should still be on his head... so give him the morde treatment.
(N.B:
DO NOT throw

at him at this point. It renders your retaliatory options for the next 6-8 seconds close to moot. He'll win the trade. )
6s silence him.

as soon as silence wears off, (I do so hope you remembered to position correectly), AA'ing him as you go.

to keep him silenced, and within AA range. Then proceed to quickly


him. (It
MUST be this way around, or else he can jump away in the time it takes for the sigil to proc from the second part of chains.
And that's pretty much it. Bully him to all hell and back 1-5. Post 6, abuse AA like crazy, and smack his face in.
Other useful things:

is in one direction.

has two. If for whatever reason you're trying to run from him, do it over a wall. If he follows, return. He's got a good few seconds before he can try to follow you again.
Tell your jungler how he plays. If he uses

aggressively, then it's a simple matter for your jungler to turn up once he's used it. He'll feel mighty stupid being silenced and bound in place with your buddy wailing on him.
Jungle influence:
Ironically enough, it
can be high on both sides.
His, because his "knows" kassdingad0ng has a habit of being camped until 6, and will try to "baby sit" kass to that point. But in solo-Q this rarely happens. People want kills. If they wanted to baby sit, they would play support. >.>
So, post 6 - he gains some synergy. That is, his behavioural patterns wont obviously change, but he can easily apply his slow if he so wishes to for his jungler to catch up.
So that leaves yours - who should be in this lane 1-5. pretty much always.
Only issue is if you keep AA-ing him, the lane will push in his direction. As such, it might be an idea to go ganking at level 4.
Special mention goes out to
. He can walk up to Kassadin, and use

once Kass uses

to pull him back into favourable position.
Other junglers post 6?
(

overrides pretty much all blinks/dashes.)
Tower diving alistair perhaps.
and

once kassa has used

,

to you. But generally, yeah. Post-6, you're pretty much on your own.
Counter measures
might be a worthwhile investment here. If he has a clue, he'll get these. THen it becomes a lane where neither of you can kill each other.
AA him to death.
The possibility remains to switch lanes with your bruiser.
or
top? It's perfectly doable. Sure there's the issue of pride, but... hey. Do you want that ELO or not?
Watch out for:
Getting into a war of attrition with him. LB doesn't like these, nor does she particularly win these. You gotta hit him ultra hard every time he wants to try to wear you down.
If you get fed late game, stay away from him when you try to assassinate someone with

. Else you'll wind up in the same boat as if you were against soraka. Silenced, and looking mightily tasty.

has a pretty short range. In order to hit this correctly, many Kassadin's will get as close as possible to you... making

easier to hit. Sometimes, if you back pedal quick enough, they'll even miss...
Conclusions:
Shut him down or go home.
Since he relies on hyper-mobile repeatable burst, he'll do better late game if he stagnates the lane. You'll need to get fed elsewhere, or you'll be left in the dust.
Examples:

Spoiler: Click to view
Kennen
INCOMPLETE

Spoiler: Click to view
Role: Mid, Top.
Difficulty: Medium
Jungler synergy -
Medium
Threat to you directly -
Low. if you do your job correctly, he'll have to max his Q to farm - and you should never be hit by it. That said, if you screw up, you'll be stunned ->deadified.
Threat to you indirectly -
Medium- Can't exactly AFK push, but can always farm from long range, and scales far better than you into late game,
Gankability -
Medium Lightning rush awayyy. That said, jungler can come around again, or you can bait him to use it. But it doesn't help him if he's movement cc'd - slowed, stunned, etc.
Explanation:
Pikachu is annoying on all fronts. you can't really stop him from farming, although you out-damage her 1v1 no problems. It out-scales you too. Seriously, that "wait-til-30-minutes-to-counter-lb" rubbish? it's actually true for this... thing. He scales
really well with levels - level 3

gives her the ability to CC an entire team
alone . Ergo, to it, its a matter of not feeding you. He technically doesn't need items to enable the most dangerous part of her kit.
So, it'll be up to you to shut down it, and his team. Deleting her before the fight starts, or before it's ult has had a decent amount of time to roll (I.e, less than half a second at most), will normally tilt the fight in your favour. Don't be surprised if you see him building defensive-offensive items like
. She wants to stay in lane to farm, so there is relevant damage as well, but doesn't want to die to you.
If you're not careful, you
can die to lightning rat with his multiple stuns.
1 v 1
Your damage beats hers by a significant margin. It's the price one pays for having mass AoE damage, as opposed to single target. That said, his passive -

needs to be analysed. If you're not careful/ they're smart, they can turn the tables on you faster than you think.
In addition, you out-range him, assuming you either A) know how to hide behind minions,or b) can dodge skill shots.
Whenever he has his

up, (his shruiken turns blue) he'll probably attempt to throw it on you. Whilst it is dangerous, and you're well advised to back off, like all mids who attempt to be aggressive on you, you can try catching him with

, and working from there. Obviously, as it's an augmented AA,
he can throw it even if he is silenced.
TL;DR
of his marks - if you ever have 2, stay away. Else you'll easily get stunned, and lose the trade via AA's. If you have 3,
you're either bad, dead, or both. That said, be aware of his cooldowns. He needs them to proc his passive - without it, they're just pretty baubles floating around you.
He will be most likely maxing his Q -

. This will allow him to stay out of your range, and still farm. Later on, when both sides are warded, you'll want to zone him out - as soon as he throws this,

to the side and towards him to dodge, and throw


. Even if he gets sustain, its not enough to withstand your harass.
I'll divide this into pre and post 6.
Pre-6
Early on, you'll want to lay into him as much as you can, as he has reduced means to proc his passive. Try to bait his

, and zone him hard. Be careful though - you may be against the jumpy kind of
- the kind which will use

, both as a form of mitigating your damage, and applying a

to you.
Some activate it upon seeing

- Congratulations. You've got an easy lane. Proceed to feed off him.
The smarter ones will wait until you use

, forcing you to take a

and some damage in return... and then most likely attempt to zone you with more
It is for this reason that you shouldn't try using

(sigil mark or otherwise) if it's a clear line to him and he has everything off cooldown . (i.e, no minions in the way). He can quickly



, in that time, and AA you to oblivion. Unless.... you intend to abuse some mechanics.
You can exploit a few advantages you have over him:
Use

over minion lines to prevent his

from landing.
Or, the old fashioned way, bait his

, and proceed to work on his face.
Abuse the fact your

is on a lower cooldown (at this stage) and fully proc'd does
much more damage (all stages).
It doesn't matter if kenny gets his full rotation pre-6 on you. It won't kill you unless you're staying in lane on stupidly low health.
At level 5 (This theorycrafting is using base damage) his


does around
380 damage. (proc'd W included). That's less than your freaking starting health. Your




deals around
585 damage. AA's or not,
he cannot rival your early damage .But
you , the player,
must be patient - abuse that mark time.

onto him at the last moment, and stick on his face, and complete the combo. And
that is how you kill him before level 6.
Jungler influence
Be wary. He has really good mechanisms to set up a gank, rapidly applying his passive to allow his mates to wail on you.
His escape mechanism is temperamental - if he suffers no ill effects, its quite good - free, fast, resistances. But if he suffers from any sort of CC - slows, snares... then he's dead in the water. Stuns are a particular favourite, as its just a lovely ball of lightning on the spot.
TL;DR: His will probably show up due to his CC.
Yours will try to avoid it due to his escape mechanisms. That said, speak to your jungler - some kennys have an AWFUL habit of farming with
Counter measures
Avoid his passive stacks,
especially after six.
Run around jankily to avoid his

Put the pressure on early. His

is on a high CD, and its hard for him to farm from a distance consistently at this stage.
Later on, either you've shut him down to the point that he is terrified of you pouncing on him, or he'll just afk-farm with

and ignore you and out-scale you.
Oh, as an aside, remember that his ult,

takes time to work. If you can squish him before his passive procs, do so. Don't be intimidated by his passive, but don't be ignorant of it either.
Conclusion:
Squish early, Squish hard.
Examples:

Spoiler: Click to view
Lux

Spoiler: Click to view
Role: Mid. Have seen a few support, but generally, Mid.
Difficulty: Ehhhh... Dodgy.
Jungler synergy -
moderate- Snare with a long duration, and if you're not careful you might end up caught in the secondary snare when you try to dodge.
Threat to you directly -
Medium - You shouldn't die to her, as the spell she needs to set up her kill-combo is easy to dodge, doubly so as LB. But bloody hell, one wrong move and its
LAZZZZORRBBEEAMZZZZ -> free trip to fountain.
Threat to you indirectly -
Medium Pushing power just isn't in the same class as the other pushers.
Gankability -
So-So. You'll need to see her behaviour... more on this later.
Explanation:
saw a resurgence due to her ability to gib someone with her combo from a bazillion miles away. Her CD's hold her back from being a true top-tier champion, but then again, as a
player of all people (besides maybe
, but hopefully you're not playing LB to troll with...), that's not an excuse to take her any more lightly.
And that's what you have to deal with in lane. Long range poking. For obvious reason, she will want to go no where near you. She'll attempt to stay back, farm as best she can, because... well.. she can. And feeding you is something most people unfortunately don't want to do.
Unfortunately, due to her passive,

, she's not exactly bad in a trade either.
What you need to do, is to dodge her skill shots whilst still applying the hurt. It took me a while to develop the appropriate counter-measures, but they do exist.
1 v 1:
The key here is the fact
cannot detonate

if she is silenced. This gives you several interesting options.
You should always be moving towards her aggressively. As soon as she uses

,

onto her. Then look at where your return point is -
but do it quickly - and make a decision.
Ideally you would have been able to use

before you used

. Ergo, You have 2 seconds on arrival to determine whether to return or not. So if your return point is around the edges of the bomb, then feel free to return and walk out of it. If not (or she isn't silenced) you'll want to stay and keep AA'ing her. Even if you missed your

, you've dodged her most damaging ability.
She may attempt to keep AA-ing you at this point. Trade AA's, whilst trying to go back. You should be able to land an easy

, followed by

to do even more damage.
Be wary of minion aggro... and junglers.
Most
players will try to open with

, as it opens their most damaging combo:

AA


AA

.
Walking to the sides of your minion line therefore forces several issues onto them: If they don't use

, they either have to back off, or take your damage. It also forces

to either be used to harass you back, or the minions.
So erratically move around the sides, and go in once you've baited and dodged (By dear god I hope you're not dumb enough to bait out and then get hit by an ability)

.
Post six, you should still try to full-combo her face down. But



still works on her.
Watch out for:
light shield. It'll block ticks of
, and she will attempt to use it to block your harass damage.
Her full combo. Believe me. It hurts.
When you go ganking, are damaged, and are recalling. Have your fingers over your escape mechanisms, to escape possible
LAZZZZORRBBEEAMZZZZ
Jungler influence:
Hers will turn up due to her

being easier to land than most cc-skill shots.
Yours will turn up due to her lack of escape mechanisms.
Countermeasures:
Ganks, dodge her abilities.
Judicious use of

will prevent you from taking major damage.
Conclusions:
Underestimated. She can burst you down if you're not careful.
Hasn't got the pushing powers of others, yet lacks escapes.
Your burst is larger and easier to land than hers. Abuse it.
Liberal useage of

will negate her main damage.
Examples:

Spoiler: Click to view
Sowwy, none yet!
Malzahar

Spoiler: Click to view
Role: Mid, normally.
Difficulty: Easy, unless you screw up and get
BLAARRRRRGGGHHHHHEEEDDDDD. In which case, you fail.
Jungler synergy -
None, until lvl 6 - And then, its temperamental. Will explain later.
Threat to you directly -
Low. lvl 2 onwards, you shouldn't die to him. but make a mistake, and you'll die. Hilariously.
Threat to you indirectly -
medium-high - Can get to AFKpush stage quite quickly if you let him.
Gankability -
Very high No escapes, no method of stopping CC.
Explanation
Malz is a pusher.


alllll day, every day. Trouble is, he takes a while to get there... which is your window of opportunity to smash his face in.
He has no escapes, so is a fun person to gank. And unlike TF, he has to actually move into range to effectively push...
However, he does have some pretty fierce damage if you let him.
So countering malz revolves around a few basic principles:
Heavily punishing him in the early levels.
NEVER allowing him to burst you.
Getting the jungler to join the party.
1 vs 1
Again, you have some marked advantages over him, but he has some serious threats that you need to be wary of.
threats:
Lvl 1, his damage is
stronger than yours.

has both higher scaling and base damage than your

.
Alot of
go pretty heftily into early AP, as they know they'll be pushing and B'ing, making Lvl 1 trades hideously in his favour if he takes this first.
Sometimes you can judge by his mana and voidling summoning icon and see whether he took

instead. In which case, walk towards him at all times when he throws his Q, and hit him. 95% of
Malzahe players will put it behind you... and then cry when they realise they will never be able to land this on you by themselves.
He can 100-0 you pretty nicely if you're dumb/not careful. I explain why later on as to why he should never be able to, but he is one of your opponents who can happily nuke your face down if you get too cocky.
Due to his pushing power, he will almost always have the minion advantage. Take care not to draw too much aggro.
His ult is pretty much instantaneous. I.e, same deal with soraka. If he wants to be an absolute *****, he'll save this just for you, so his team can eat your face. Be careful.
Onwards to farming... him.
From lvl 2 onwards, you'll be able to out damage him at all times.
At lvl 2, you abuse the fact you can easily do damage to him. His

is targeted, but his

is a skillshot. I.e, you will dodge his

with

.
PLEASE don't do what a lot of LB's do and "return" immediately. Too many times I paw at my face when I see people "return" into

. It's just stupid.
Be wary of

jumping to you, but
don't let it zone you out. Early levels, he needs to AA the afflicted minion to push it along... meaning he's in range for you to punish him every time. Obviously, if there's just the one let, stay away, but otherwise, it will most likely jump to another minion. Besides, if it *does* jump to you, he doesn't get any mana back... but it's not the best situation by any means.
Every time he tries to

you, you can walk to and

to him. ALWAYS wait until the last moment if you are going to

onto him.
The vital thing vs
Malzaho is
never to get hit by this thing. If you do, a competent one will just
and combo your face off. If he misses via you walking, then its up to you. Just zone him. If you

onto him, you should be able to hit him with it - he stands still whilst casting, and your distortion damage range is technically longer than his. If you timed it correctly, he won't have time to do a killing-combo. Refer to paragraph after next.
Lvl 6 - Do
NOT 
to him if you haven't warded the sides, and don't know where the jungler is. It's too risky :A clued
malzaha will

under you, and

you, allowing his jungler to turn up and wreck your face as well.
"But Soviet, LB's mean to wreck faces at lvl 6, and is meant to be aggressive!"
Yeah. Sure. Just like a x3
wreck's faces? Oh wait. You can't do bugger all if you're DEAD.
You want to be aggressive? Good. But at the cost of living? Bad. Buy wards. Save yourself, save everyone else. *then* be an absolute [CENSORED] to people.
The thing is, without jungler support, there is
no way Malzahaha can get his full combo off on you - Refer to two paragraphs above as to why he can't

you. If he summons a

, just

out of it, preferably onto his face.
"But Soviet, I just used

to dodge his

!"
Then blink back. If you've timed your

correctly, his

should have finished. leaving
again, without a crucial component of his combo.
Or you can be a baller. (Or, wait until your jungler is nearby...)
BEHIND him. He's now wasted two skills. He has
ZERO chance of killing you right now.


by itself will do 40-50% of your HP at most.
Here's the genius of it. If a jungler shows up, you still have time to "return". If not, you can combo down his face.
"But Soviet, OMG HE BLAAARRGGHHHED ME!"
Remember how you used

? That means you can

out of there.
"But Soviet, he
away!"
Where. Where can he go. not towards his tower - you're in the way. (Or, if he did, kill him.) If he didn't, then he can only go to the sides... ping to your jungler/lane, and you're golden. I mean, you
did ward his jungle entrances... right?
Jungle influence:
His jungler is unlikely to turn up before level 6, but it can happen - if they have something which holds you in place for a while like alistair, he can land his

and proceed to wail on your face.
Post 6, if you get caught, you're boned.
Your jungler is far more likely to turn up, and put you to the point where its just free kills and gold all around. In fact, your jungler is borderline *must* turn up, else malz will just AFKpush the lane...meaning you can't roam, and your team falls behind. It's in your jungler's interest to. So make sure he knows this.
Counter measures:
. HAH.
Just kidding.
. This baby gets rid of everything. His suppression, his funky dream stuff, alllll gone.
Ganks.
Jump on him and blow his face off. He cannot safely farm since you can jump into range to Q-R-E-Ignite him at any time.
Conclusions:
Malz cannot safely farm in your presence.
There is a fairly large window in which you can shut him down before he gets to AFK push stage.
Early game, he pushes, so is vulnerable to ganks.
Avoid him at level 1.
As long as you're not stupid, he can never kill you .
Avoid

at all costs.
Examples:

Spoiler: Click to view
Mordekaiser

Spoiler: Click to view
Role: Mid, normally.
Difficulty:
Easy, or
close to impossible.
Jungler synergy - none - Has zero CC.
Threat to you directly -
High - LOLOLOLOLOL shield LOLOLOLOLOLOL
Threat to you indirectly -
High - Push push push, dont care, farm, push push. gah.
Gankability -
Extremely high - Unlike the other pushers like
who just don't care,
is ultra susceptible to ganks as he has no means of escape or negating CC. And even compared to
, he has to be pretty up-close and personal to push the wave.
Explanation:
Facing morde head on is a recipe for disaster. You either kill him at lvl2, or forever hold your peace. You beat morde by having a good jungler. If morde pushes, he dies. If he doesn't push, he's useless. Put the fear of God into him - refer to the video example.
He does however have a habit of being cocky with his shield - once marked, they don't back off. So 6 second silence him. If you get him at the right moment, he'll fall like the rest.
Jungle influence:
His jungler will pretty much not turn up ever, as they expect him to autopush.
Your jungler will pretty much have to always turn up, again, as they expect him to autopush.
You
need your jungler to win this if he's in anyway shape or form decent.
Counter measures:
Alistar
MOOOOOO
Ganks. Make your jungler build a fire,tent,house whatever, just make sure it's in mid lane.
Morde is easy to shut down, and once you're ahead, you can keep it that way.
He's melee. So AA him whenever possible. Once he uses

, that's pretty much it. Everything else is melee-distance. Abuse it. Unlike other casters, he'll push anyway.
More Ganks.
to remove his

if he uses it on you.
Did I mention? Ganks.
Stand away from your minions. That way, he either hits you, or them.
EVEN MOOOOOAAAAR GANKS
Conclusions:
TL:DR, Kill him level 2 if you want any hope of winning the lane 1v1. Otherwise, get jungler to camp the lane. Otherwise, proceed to be useless. Hope you brought those tissues. You'll be crying a fair amount.
What? You wanted some spectacular super-secret special Soviet sorcery to counter this
person thing? Sorry! No can do.

Spoiler: Click to view
Morgana

Spoiler: Click to view
Role: To be Perma banned. Or Mid.
Difficulty:
Don't even ******** try.
Jungler synergy -
high - Snare with a HUGE duration from get go. Slow and stun from lvl 6 onwards.
Threat to you directly -
Low - You shouldn't die to her.
Threat to you indirectly -
OMFGFACESMASHINTOKEYBOARD - Push, push, push, LOLBLACKSHIELDWUTGANK, push, push.
Gankability -
Don't even bother- O hai mr jungler. Meet blackshield TROLOLOLOL
Explanation
Ok, I lied, there are methods to fight this [CENSORED] But generally? This match up is pretty much an eternal nightmare for
.
has the kit to shut you down like crazy. Sustain, range, omfgwtfbbq pushing power.
Unlike the other pushers, she doesn't give a damn about junglers. blackshield means she can ignore CC, and

will almost always be up to root them in place.
In addition, unlike other long-range pushers, she has practically infinite sustain via

. Innate spell vamp. Woohoo.
The only time you can kill her is levels 1-5 pretty much. After that, one

and the waves already at your tower. Enjoy.
Jungle influence:
Tables have been turned. Her jungler might show up because of her CC.
Your jungler will almost dread turning up due to her renowned ungankability.
That said, there is normally a window of opprotunity levels 1-3, as alot of Morgs take x1 in

at level 1, then x2 in

, leaving

to level 4.
Counter measures:
Outplay/think her.
Alot of
will

if you throw a

at them. And it has a higher cooldown at all levels... Ergo, communicate with your jungler. Once she uses it, wait a few seconds, then move in.
Or just try to flatout overpower her. Like other "LOLOL COMEATMELB IM INVULNERABLE LOLOL" type-champions (Read:
), you can try to 6s silence her combo, as she will almost always happily walk around with a

on her head.
But really? Ban her.
A
who knows what you do will just absorb the

you throw at her if she has no wards. Her spell vamp is enough to recover it's paltry damage.
All she has to do is walk within range to plop down her soil, and walk miles away. She will never be anywhere near you to do damage to her.
If you



on her, she'll just walk away until it wears off, then heal back up again.
Watch out for:

. You shouldn't get hit by these. Because if you do, you'll end up taking absurd amounts of damage, possibly even dying. She really isn't shabby at wrecking you, but in most cases she must land this.
Other things to watch out for? I dunno. A good tv program? This match up is pointless.
YES IM MAD.
Conclusions :
If you like being given the
treatment, then by all means, go for this match up. By that, I mean looking at defeat through the inevitability of it all. You'll be pushed to your tower non-stop, and you can't do a flipping thing about it.
Even if you out play her early levels, she can just run in, plop down her

and run out again. It's just brain dead farming that you can't do anything about.
Avoid at all costs.
Examples:

Spoiler: Click to view
HA! You wish. I ain't a sadist.
Orianna

Spoiler: Click to view
Role: Mid.
Difficulty:
Easy, or
close to impossible.
Jungler synergy - low/moderate - Soft cc. Hard CC is obvious, and you shouldn't get caught in it anyway.
Threat to you directly -
Low-moderate - hasn't got the damage to burst you down, but will whittle away at you slowly if you let her. Ori with blue buff is an absolute B**** to face.
Threat to you indirectly -
High - AFK farm at high range. Poke you in the bargain. Effortlessly zone with blue buff. Lots of AoE damage in a team fight. Yeah. Not fun.
Gankability -
Moderate Has an ability to speed her up, but won't be enough generally if you play smart.
Explanation:
Let's make one thing clear. An expert
has
no counter picks. Zip, Nada, none. Farm at a million miles away, pokes you when she feels like it, but you cannot stop her farming, and unless she's dumb can't really be killed either.
Fortunately for the rest of us, those are few and far between. I mean, Let's put it this way. Good
scrambled eggs
players are hard to come by as well. When did you see one last that played flawlessly? that's right.Either never, or a long time ago.
Ori relies on poking you to pieces, and trying to intimidate you that way to let her free farm.
She does not (unless she has a death wish) want to fight you directly. She hasn't got the damage.
This match up requires you to play
smart and dodge her ball, and put the pressure on her and make her really uncomfortable.
Watch out for:
Champion analysis: S-Z
Shaco

Spoiler: Click to view
Threat:
High.
Role: Jungler.
Explanation:
Sigh. Forces passivity in the early levels, so I always take distort with him around. And since LB is known for early game damage and aggression... yeah. You can see where this is going.
You
cannot combo him if his ult is up.

is the same as Vlad's trollpool and Fizz's trollpole - it makes him untargetable, and will in effect "eat" anything that's in the air flying at him. You would have to employ


(wait)

.

which takes too long in a teamfight.
Countermeasures:
Wards. Take

first. Don't die to him, ping where he's going. He'll fall off quite hard - harder than you if unfed.
decieve This has a distinctive puff of orange smoke that can be seen through FoW - so if you see it, back away ASAP.
As soon as you see him in another lane, you can happily be aggressive to your lane opponnent.
Conclusions
Stay safe, don't feed him.
Be aggressive vs your lane opponnent when you spot him elsewhere.
He falls off harder than you do.
Gank side lanes as per normal.
Wards.
Sion

Spoiler: Click to view
NB: I'm going to try another method of beating him. Stay tuned.
edit: Nope. New face and keyboard time.
Role: Mid, normally. hardly ever see him in the jungle nowadays.
Difficulty: My honest opinion?
Get a new keyboard, or face. Or both.
Jungler synergy -
Hiiiiiiiigh as a kite. -
Threat to you directly -
High - Stun. Explodes shield. Repeat. Die.
Threat to you indirectly -
Very High - Shield up, can't kill, shield explodes, minions die, goes ganking.
Gankability -
So-So
Explanation
His shield has high base and high scaling, making him absolutely impossible to lane against.
Passive mitigates your AA harass, and at level 6 has an ult to gain it all back anyway.
A little bit of AP and he can insta-push the lane.
Has high-jungler synergy with his on-target stun.
His only real weakness is he's mana-hungry. But that isn't much help when he can just push the lane and go B.
1 vs 1
Unfortunately, you cannot AA down his shield unless he's blinking stupid. The better ones will wait at a distance, toggle shield when a last hit is about to be available, and go for it. His shield has the utterly ridiculous function of doing 100% damage even if its at 1% health before it goes bang. Ergo, he'll manually detonate it before it expires.
Maybe first few levels you can try going all in, but he knows all he has to do is get 2 rings and you're forever stuck at your tower.
If you try detonating his shield before he can, you'll run out of mana as you're using 2 skills to his one. Second,

is on a shorter cooldown than your

. Third, If he's not utterly stupid (a smart sion is an oxymoron) he'll wait until he can manually detonate it before he comes within range of you.
He'll inevitably have
, meaning he can just run at you from a side bush and do his combo.
Sigh.
Jungler influence
He will attract his jungler quite nicely with his hard CC.
Yours won't overly like ganking this lane, as he is quite hard to kill. Only real hope lies in lvl 2 ganks and camping it, morde style.
Counter measures
Ban him if you're dead-set you want to play LB. In which case, be prepared for a lot of QQing from your team.
Other counter measures? Go AFK. spare yourself the pain.
Otherwise, ward the sides, ping if hes going ganking somewhere. He scales off pretty hard due to only having two damaging abilities.
Conclusions:
I hate this guy with a passion. Honestly. Boring champion, boring mechanics, inevitable failure. Shield is bloody stupid. Impossible match up.
Examples:

Spoiler: Click to view
How about no.
Soraka

Spoiler: Click to view
Threat: Annoying to high.
Role: Support. Or mid if they want to troll you.
Explanation:
Gives MR as a passive... which ok, isn't specific to LB, but is annoying nonetheless.
The thing which makes her a threat is her

. It's a long,
instant silence which will render you helpless. If you

in to do your combo, and if she's on the ball she will

, and you're left looking mighty stupid... and mightily
dead.
Countermeasures:
Wait until she uses it if possible in a teamfight. If you're going to be using

to get into position, and she's range.
Make sure you have enough health to tank a tower shot or two if you're diving.
Never, ever

to scout if she's around. (I.e, looking into baron). A
who knows what she's doing
will murder you for it.Ok, correction. Will enable
others to murder you for it.
If she's mid vs you, get ganks. She has no escape mechanisms.
Conclusions
Has the ability to make you seem very stupid if she's clued up.
Passive makes teammates harder to kill.
Has double heal to save whoever you're trying to murder.
Is as close to a pony in this game as you'll get. So needs to be culled.
CULL HER DAMMIT.
Swain

Spoiler: Click to view
Role: Mid, normally.
Difficulty:
Hard
Jungler synergy -
High. If he has a CC jungler, have

up religiously or buy life insurance.
Threat to you directly -
High
Threat to you indirectly -
Medium-high Can't afk push the lane very quickly, but compared to others can do it pretty safely.
Gankability:
High. No innate escapes, but has methods of either keeping people away, or surviving.
Explanation
This match up has one overarching factor:

. If he can land his

, you won't be able to kill him without judicous jungler help. If he can't, you're still in for a rough ride. Post 6, he gains
CAWCAWCAWCAWCAWCAWCAWCAW
sustain so you can't whittle him down. Pre-6, he trades harder than you do of he knows what he's doing. Post 6, he'll normally be able to survive your burst, and be unable to be whittled down to bursting range.
That said, Good
players are rare nowadays, and so in most cases you'll be running over them anyway.
1v1
The key problem here is that in order for you to do meaningful damage, you'll need to be on top of your opponent due to

. Ergo,
's weakness of short range is negated by your own kit. You want to do damage to
? You're going to take plenty back in return.
here's what normally happens against a good swain.
Every time you attempt to throw

, he'll throw

. 1 for 1, he wins the spell trades. If you back off, he'll zone you.
So you

in. He's silenced, but he would have been able to use

.

is a nasty spell. It amplifies
everything
throws at you. Ergo, he doesn't really care if he's silenced. Once he's thrown his spells, he'll just keep hitting you, knowing that this spell tilts it in his favour.

means that, although he has less raw damage, you'll be AA'd to hell and back, and since a good
will be religiously aggressive on you once you've thrown

, he'll be moving towards you, making sure he gets those AA's off.
Once silence wears off, he'll throw down

, resulting in you having to take a detour and take
even more AA's.
To further compound issues, his passive means that he can get away with swapping out mana regen yellows for something else, be it defensive or offensive, further tilting it in his favour, on top of the fact that thanks to it, he can throw out more spells than you do.
Post 6, you'll be unable to chip him down as he'll heal it back up. Or if he can't, he'll B and buy. During a flat-out trade, he won't run out of mana from full. Ignite or not, he can sustain straight through your burst.
Is all hope lost? Are the birds going to have their way?
Time to learn how to cook chicken.
Counter measures
Patience . The main thing to note of

is that it amplifies all damage on the target
for the duration of the spell . AKA, just
wait before you jump on him, and he won't get as much bonus damage as he otherwise would.
burst . He hasn't got it. On a lowish-health vs lowish-health scenario, you should win purely because your up-front damage is higher. The issue is getting him to bursting range. Novice
player's don't like being the ones in lane with close to 50% hp, and as such lose their window of opportunity. Do your combos correctly, and you;ll survive. Just.
Cooldowns . His are quite a tad higher. Same deal with patience - if he throws

, and you trade

, once the spell wears off, you have a window in which your rotation is up but his is not. Be
very careful of your mana. But in a lot of instances, it's better to have him on lower health pre-5, than for you to have an abundance of mana. Seems quite familiar, no? Having to carefully manage your resources against certain champs? No?
KEEP READING AND PAY ATTENTION THEN!

A good
will never waste this spell. It's on a
very long cool down. He'll use it to force issues - be it towards him, or keep you away from him. Avoid it at all costs.
Be aggressive on him before wards are up. He cannot afford to match your aggression as well as he could as he lacks reliable escape mechanisms. If he does, he's too vulnerable to ganks. In which case, he falls behind, and goes squish like the rest of them.
Post 6, try to bait his ult form. It's on a sizeable cooldown that you can exploit if you're fortunate -
players are like others sometimes - they see a

, and immediately expect an

, so turn on ult form in anticipation of your burst. If he does, wait. Keep within pressuring distance so he uses his mana sub-optimally. He's got to turn it off some day. And when he does,
then go to town on him - without the healing, he's considerably easier to kill off.
Ganks. A saving grace in this match up is how vulnerable he is to them if he wants to crush you utterly. Better do them before he can just walk away with

on though.
Due to his short range, he has a habit of walking in a straight line towards you.
(NB: This is most effective before level 6, but can be used to bait his ult form)
See how he moves... and if it's predictable, throw

at him, and then engage when its about to proc. In most cases, he'll be stuck in your minion line, so you get the benefit of minion aggro, thereby causing you to win the trade,

or not. Plus, it also means you got your whole arsenal on him. So long as he misses

, he'll be behind.
watch out for:
Death by Dots.

can easily catch people off guard. You
must either run away immediately with

, or outright trade with him in such a situation.
Being baited by

. Seen quite a few people stick around under a tower trying to finish him off with an aa, only for him to heal just enough to survive and for the tower to kill you instead.
However, even if you get

under his tower, you'll be ok - your stealth breaks tower aggro. But if it was already used, then yeah. Watch out for being stuck there and dying. <.<
Conclusions :
Not your worst, but not you easiest match up either.
Avoid

at all costs.
Get ganks, as most likely you'll need them.
Don't underestimate his damage, and don't underestimate his ability to survive your burst.
Jungler influence:
If he's good, his will turn up.
Otherwise, yours should because he has no escape mechanisms, and is significantly more vulnerable pre-6.
Examples:

Spoiler: Click to view
Twisted Fate

Spoiler: Click to view
Role: Mid, normally.
Difficulty:
Easy-
medium.
Jungler synergy -
High - ontarget stun... assuming he locks it. (As always, I try to assume my opponent isn't a lemon)
Threat to you directly -
Low-
Medium.
Threat to you indirectly -
High.
Gankability:
Very high. No innate escapes.
Explanation:
In a way, Triangle Feet (no really, look at them.) is like you (no, not the feet... thank god): his gameplay revolves around ganking people. To this end, he will also counter you
indirectly if you let him - Red card


the wave to keep you pushed to your tower.
As such, you have the window of opportunity before that point to keep him suppressed. If he's too scared to go anywhere near you, he won't push the lane as effectively as he could.
Twisted Face has no gap closers, but a non-avoidable stun that can interrupt you. He thus has great synergy with his jungler due to the hard CC.
1v1:
You have a reliably greater range. Use it if you have to.
Remember that the stun is
less than the mark of your

. If you Q each other, you have time thereafter to

onto him to return the harass. If you're trying to back off, and he fires it, walk back to him. Else he can just stun, throw cards, and be loooong gone out of your reach.
In addition, his burst is considerably weaker than yours - you should never die in a 1v1 situation.
Your silence can interrupt his ultimate, if he's stupid enough to do it within your reach. You'll save your team mates, and possibly kill him as well - alot of Twisted Foot's have a habit of fixating on where they're going, and ignoring where they;re going from...
Jungle influence:
Junglers on both sides will like this lane. He has hard CC, so attracts his jungler.
He has no escapes, so attracts yours.
Quite frankly, priority ganking for this lane is high - it is
imperative that you get fed, and suppress the lanes. Thereafter, it's free kills really. Look at it another way. Who does your team want roaming? Twit fate, or you?
Counter measures:
Be aggressive from lvl 2. Once he's used his Q, zone him. Avoid

at all costs.
If he uses

to gank a side lane, judge the situation - can you salvage a kill if you follow? Are you better off ganking another lane? Are you better off hunting down their jungler/taking another objective? (I.e, he goes top, you take drake)
Once he's used his ultimate, how is he going back to lane? B? Or walking back? Vision is important here. Its the difference between a kill and/or gaining a level advantage in lane, and wasting your time.
Watch out for:
into Gold card. Sudden, unavoidable CC. If you have quick reflexes you can

away, thereby causing him to waste his precious
, and normally his jungler's patience as well.
Conclusions
If he tries to fight you, he's a moron. Stomp him.
If he doesn't try to fight you, he'll be pushing the lane. Stomp him.
This lane is down to whether you can shut him down before he can just AFKpush the lane, or not. It will determine who gets to gank, and who's left in mid lane.
There will be looooooads of zoning.
Examples:
Ranked: TF vs LB. 1550 elo.

Spoiler: Click to view
Vladimir

Spoiler: Click to view
Role: Top, normally, in current meta.
Difficulty:
Easy
Jungler synergy -
some - CC causes him to die faster, but

can be pretty nasty with high-damage junglers like leesin
Threat to you directly -
Medium.
Threat to you indirectly -
low - early levels, cant push quickly or safely AND costs health to do so. Later on, gets a little bit better at it, but still nowhere near as safely/good as other pushers. And besides, you should have smashed him into the floor by this point.
Gankability -
Surprisingly high - Yes, the infamous trollpool. But Vladiqueer's pool has a miiiighty long cooldown... and highly exploitable.
Explanation:
Vlad has the potential to stall and wreck your game if you let him. Sustain, Sustain, sustain. The longer you delay that
, the better.
If you play predictably, he'll just laugh at you, sustain, and push the waves. He requires pretty intimate knowledge of timing and skill to successfully suppress, but once nailed, this is one of your easiest matchups.
This thing is what drives alot of people insane. It will "pop" projectiles - I.e, anything targetted at vlad when he pools will just become null and void. For the more attentive of you, this means you CANNOT



or


him without first making him use this.
Example as to why:

Spoiler: Click to view
So. Onwards to how to break it.
We exploit two things.
Vlad's pool:
Doesn't break leashes
Doesn't get rid of marks.
Put the two together, and if he's got an

on him, he's pretty much guaranteed to die.
E - pools. he loses health, proceed to QRW-ignite to kill.
E- attaches. If he pools, it procs anyway, hes stuck. he loses health. Q-R-W ignite to kill.
E- attaches. you throw Q - he pools. E still procs. Q doesn't. R-W ignite will still normally kill him - pool costs a fair amount of health. But even if not, safely landing R-W (safely as in, it wont be negated) will allow you to deal a substantial amount of damage - at which point Q-ignite can kill later.
E-attaches. Q - lands. whether he pools or not- Chains procs, Q triggers. He's silenced. lost health. R-W ignite. Dead.
Never, ever q-r a vlad if you havent established whether they're slow or not.
they;ll just pool through it and proceed to zone you.
Never e-q-r either. Risk of pooling is too high. there;s no need to.
TAKE YOUR TIME!
Once pool is used, you have ~18 seconds on which you can safely hit him without the risk of him negating some of it. Which is where the jungler comes in.
Jungle influence:
His jungler won't like this overly much. No cc on his part that is reliable or hard (I.e, can't stop you from just

away.
Your jungler won't like this overly much. He can just

away.
Junglers have a habit of hating to gank Vlad lanes because they'll just pool away. But as we described above, forcing a pool costs him health, and safety - 18 seconds from which you can just full-combo him.
Or, after a failed gank and he pools, see what he does. If he just goes back to farming, then your jungler should turn around and try again... with better results.
If he's passive like crazy, then that still works in your favour.
Counter measures
Avoid him at level 1 -

has a ridiculously high base damage (20 more than you, since you can't activate the second part of your

). It does however come with an appropriately long cooldown. (10 seconds, unmodified). Once he uses his

, zone him.
At lvl 2-3, you should have free reign to harass him, as it out damages him like crazy. If Vlad takes

at lvl 2, he can't out damage you and is vulnerable to ganks. If he takes

, he "still" can't out damage you, since using it to dodge

costs the same if not more health than if he just took it to the face.
Watch your mana . Against Vlad, it is far too easy to run OOM trying to keep his health bar low. At which point he'll get far more aggressive and win the lane. You need to keep enough pressure to make him feel threatened, yet not so much that you run out of steam.
Start your combos with

whenever possible, as it's the best way to bypass his defences.
Gets rid of

, although in most cases he's so badly battered he just becomes a non-factor.
Stand on top of him when you're trying to combo his face, if applicable. This minimises the travel time from you to his face, and also if he pools, you're far less likely to have been allowed to cast said spell. (I.e, if he pools the moment you target him, your spell won't fire)
Watch out for:
You cannot assasinate Vlad. Unless he's REALLY not paying attention, he'll

whilst its in the air, thereby negating it and making you look miiighty stupid.
Do not
ever let him wear you down. It's what he wants to do. This match up requires careful management of all your resources.
AIDS. AKA

. The amplification is pretty nasty - towers, friends, minions and all.
Conclusions
This match up requires a very good ability to manage your resources. Too much, and he'll win through attrition. Too little, and he'll win by attrition.
Know your tricks and methods, and you'll keep him suppressed easily.
Examples:
Vlad vs LB: 1550 elo.

Spoiler: Click to view
Warwick

Spoiler: Click to view
Threat: High, post-6.
Role: Anywhere.
Explanation:
This guy counters my play style completely, if they're not thick. The smart ones will literally wait until you show up, and if you

, BAM! you get

. Proceed to cry as you get focused down to all hell and back. Hell, did I say you needed to

? Sometimes they are SO eager for your blood that they will simply
Countermeasures:
comes to mind, although quite frankly by the time you use it, you'll have lost too much time in order to safely pull off your combo.
So, unless you see him use his ult, or can position yourself in a manner that prevents him from doing so, I would help deal with the bruisers that are assailing your squishy line.
If he's chasing you,


has a habit of forcing him to use his ult to get to you - so when sigil procs, he'll be silenced and bound, so you can keep running. Or he gives up. Either of which is still a good thing.
Zyra

Spoiler: Click to view
Role: Mid/sup
Difficulty:
medium
Jungler synergy -
Moderate. Get bound down, expect to die.
Threat to you directly -
low-Moderate. "shouldn't" kill you. IF you screw up though, by all means, you're take a LOT of damage. That said, she is very squishy, and cannot face you in a raw power fight.
Threat to you indirectly -
high inevitably will try to farm from max range, or poke you down, or both.
Explanation
is one of the few casters who can actually screw over
's game. She lack's escapes, raw power, and hates gap closers. That said, she'll be a tad similar to
in that she'll want to AFK farm in this lane. Where she won't be so similar is that if you screw up, she'll easily dominate the lane, with snares and damage to back up any ganks that may occur on you.
Her main source of damage,

like many of the annoying mids nowadays, is both AoE, and her main damage tool. It's also a "skill" shot. Treat it a bit like playing vs morde -
give force a choice between you, and the minions.
Secondarily, pressure her. Zone her out. Dodge the snare, and continue pressuring her. Zyra's hate being forced to fight. Their ability to retaliate is really limited if one can exploit her skill-shot dependent nature.
And once you kill her, (if you don't then skip the rest of this section, you're already
boned ) don't be tempted to go roaming too early, or else she
will catch up. It's a judgement call - if you think you can shove it to her tower and reset the lane
before she gets there, do it. IF it's happily stuck in the middle,
immediately go back as well - this is one champion where it is
imperative they remain sacred of you.
You should aim to kill at least once before level 6, and once again at level 6, because you'll get 6 before her. After that, feel free to roam a bit more. But I find that squeezing that extra death on their part sets them back very hard indeed. Of course, Im
not telling you
not to roam - I'm telling you to use your judgement, and in this instance place a higher priority on shutting her down.
Oh, and as always, walk Jankily to avoid being predictable.
Or don't, and die. It
is your choice after all.
Watch out for:
Her passive. Doesn't hurt as much now, (thank [-insertchoicedietyhere-]) but don't give her a free kill. Please. It's dumb.
Those plants. They
burn .
Taking too long when harassing her - YOu'll look mighty stupid being bound down by
Sticking around on

- The
damage is instant, the cc is
not.
+ a high-damage jungler like
. Play passive as freaking hell, because you have money written all over you, until you can get wards, or until you see said jungler else where. Too easy to lose the lane/game within the first 3 minutes of a game this way.
Jungle influence:
she has no escapes, so attracts yours. Will inevitably be pushing.
She has CC, and to some extent the damage to take you down, do will attract hers.
Be ultra-aggressive when you spot the jungler elsewhere.
Otherwise, be a tad more cautious until you can ward everything up.
Counter measures:
Dodge her snare, wail on her.
Blow her up repeatedly.
Walk around in
circles an unpredictable manner to bait her

. She
will get psyched out and lose a lot of mana trying to regain lane control.
Squish.
Zone her out, but
do not get caught .
SQUISH DAMMIT.
Conclusions :
Onus is on you to squash and shut her down.
YOu screw up, and she'll sit on you in lane, or AFK push.
You gotta take risks in this match up, as her raw power cannot match you. Forcing that confrontation is what takes skill, without getting gibbed in return.
Examples :
[spoilers]none yet. She's fallen out of favour recently. [/spoilers]
Understanding that s*** just happens.
Honestly. You can't win everything.
Sometimes, the derpery is just too strong.
So have a laugh at my expense.
A collection of clips from my journey my part of ELO.

Spoiler: Click to view
Casts of my own games
This section is here for those who want to know why I do.
For the most part, these will be ranked games - I will state before each game what they are.
So, enjoy.
1) ~1550. LB vs Ahri.

Spoiler: Click to view
2) ~1600. Lb vs Ahri

Spoiler: Click to view
3) ~1550. Lb vs Vlad

Spoiler: Click to view
4) ~1475. Lb vs Karthus

Spoiler: Click to view
5) ~1550. Lb vs Twisted Fate.

Spoiler: Click to view
6) ~1500. Lb vs Mordekaiser

Spoiler: Click to view
Acknowledgements
Welp. Time to eat some humble pie.
The videos are made purely by me. Hence some of them are rubbish, and some of them aren't so rubbish as I learned how to tidy them up.
They are from both normal and ranked play, solo and duo and pre-made.
As a rule of thumb, srs bsns is conducted in Leblanc's Prestigous skin, whilst general gimmicky gaming is done by one of the other two.
I'm not a fan of mistletoe Leblanc.
Yes I'm aware I might get downvoted for that.
Yes I probably should stop talking to myself.
So. People who have helped with the guide one way or another, in no particular order.
Plusled - Duo Q partner, present in alot of my videos. Also gave advice on how to actually make the things. WATCH HIS SHOUTCASTS! - http://www.youtube.com/user/WhatsYourPulse
Spuddyt- Everybody must have a posh person to rely upon to give unrivalled upperclass criticism (Read:it's all rubbish) on projects such as this.
Petekes - Duo Q partner, source of good humour.
CrazEeEeEeE - For being a joker, and keeping the game fun.
Hypnotiq1337 - For being the mandatory twit that everyone knows. <3 you really.
Blankmind - Has moved on to pastures new, but was fun a fun guy to play with.
JhoiJhoi - Indirectly, but helped nonetheless. Looked her guide up for the basics on how to create a guide and what was wanted in one.
IceCreamy - For helping this n00b with coding ;>
RootsRockRiot - For pointing out a pretty fundamental misunderstanding in my knowledge of MR and penetration.
And of course, Riot, for making the game which we all play and love. Most of the time. F*** the trolls.
Questions and answers.
For others that come along, ill put them here, and answer them if you wish.
Q: Why have you spoilered all your videos?
A: A common issue with the guide was how it would take forever to load sometimes due to the amount of stuff in it. Ergo, since this guide was sort of intended as your one-stop-shop reference for LB, people would come back to it anyway. So, by spoilering videos, you would only have to load what you needed... and improve performance of the guide.
Q: Why is your item build incomplete?
A: Although i've stated this under the items section...
The item list in the cheat sheet isn't the full six-item malark because of the fact that you should pretty much never get there. Full build leblanc? You're there for two reasons:
a) you#re so hideously fed that you could build AD and still win
b) pretty much everyone is built, in which case you've failed in your task. (Or at least, failed in the way i would play her)
Ergo, I've listed in the "cheat sheet" the items you will get 90% of the time before a game ends. For completeness sake nonetheless, I have included items to get later on.
ANd because so many ******** idiots like Darkpercy CBA to read properly:
Q: OMG! Liandry's sucks on burst casters! Why buy it?!?( Insert choice-cuss word(s) here)
A: Since these people obviously lack the intelligence to read a guide that practically spoon-feeds ideas and explains everything since the author treats everyone as if they have no clue purely for thoroughness's sake, I'll sum it up again.
You're right. Liandry's sucks on burst casters.
LB sucks as a champion by the time you would be able to get it in the build.
TLDR: Either win before you buy it, or go cry in a corner.
Changelog, Stuff to do.
25/04/2012 : Guide published.
24/05/2012. Additional videos to passive, casts, started matchup section.
25/05/2012 : Changed all videos to spoilers in an attempt to improve loading times.
27/05/2012: Spent a long time going through every spoiler tag to make sure the videos weren't obscured. God i fail at Coding. Everything should be as intended now.
15/06/2012: Champion matchups. updated a few, added morde, malzahar, adding karthus. More info on Doran's rings.
20/06/2012: Vlad, Morgana added.
21/06/2012: Kassadin added.
22/06/2012: Annie added, split champion analysis section into 3.
27/06/2012: Karthus, Sion. Tidied up a few areas, added more videos here and there.
02/05/2012: Wahey. No1 guide. Inb4 mass troll voting. anyway, added Anivia, confirmed sion as ABSOLUTE BS.
03/05/2012: Added 6 second silence video. Finally got it.
06/05/2012: Added Brand.
16/05/2012: Finished lux. Finished Fizz. Tidied up other champions.
19/07/2012: Added videos for Brand and Kassadin.
18/08/2012: Added Cassiopeia. Began work on Swain. Still on holiday.
02/09/2012: Finished Swain. Began kenny.
05/09/2012: Ran through guide and tidied up some odd bits and pieces. Still working on kenny.
12/10/2012: finished kenny
19/10/2012: Added swain video
11/12/2012: Updated items and masteries.
20/12/2012: Further updated items.
23/12/2012: Further updated items.
24/12/2012: Realised I was missing mimic distortion images.
25/12/2012: Fixed even more missing mimic images.
02/01/2013: Updated countering LB section. More erroneous images replaced.
12/01/2013: More erroneous stuff replaced. Tidied up a few things, started work on zyra.
15/01/2013: Additional stuff on zyra added. updated acknowledgements <.>
21/01/2013: Finished Zyra. Started Orianna
24/01/2013: Someone kindly pointed out i had a major bout of lysdexia. Lux is now in the section she belongs. Oh, and updated the first build order thingies since riot changed stuff AGAIN.
03/02/2013: Changes runes in the initial build thingy. Because i hadnt swapped them to flats <.<
08/02/2013: Added stuff about Liandry's. TLDR: Win by the time you get it, or its the best thing in a very bad situation for you.
09/02/2013: Been busy with IRL stuff. Tidied up a few things here and there.
17/04/2013: Added galio
18/05/2013: Updated build order, added an FAQ on liandry's. ******** r*tarded scrubs.
Stuff to do:
Champion matchups.