Pro's/Con's

Pro's

- Powerful character throughout the whole game
- Excellent during team fights as well as 1v1
- Great minion farm with her AOE ability
- Excellent amount of CC with 2 Stuns & 2 Slows
- Very sustainable with her Passive Soul Siphon
- gives you 10/20/30% Spell Vamp
- Decent cooldowns
- Very good ganker with her Dark Binding
- Excellent in team fights when using Soul Shackles

Con's

- Very Squishy throughout the game
- Rod of Ages will help along with spell vamp for survivability
- Very susceptible to ganks before level 6
- Very spell heavy character requiring large amounts of Mana


Morgana is a very powerful champion when placed mid lane. Due to her passive Soul Siphon she has tremendous sustainability early game especially for an AP caster. In total she has 2 stuns and 2 slows making her and extremely good asset for team fights, and her cooldowns are relatively low. Her ultimate is a multi-target slow which further augments her power in late game team fights. The most important part that I find to playing Morgana is to be a little risky in mid lane but not to risky, find a good balance. What you'll see early on is that she is very able of being able to capitalize on low health situation thanks to the range of her spells. But we'll break that down more in the later chapters.

I have 2 builds listed for her. The first is a Morgana build that allows you to Dominate in lane early game, getting player kills early on allowing you to build the first parts of your build much faster. The second is a build for Morgana focused around farming minions, and playing the role of a support type Morgana, while still being able to hold your own in 1v1 situations.

This is the question you need to ask yourself.

Dominate

If you choose to play Morgana so that you can dominate your lane early game there are a few things you need to know.

- Your dark binding is your lead attack
- Skill Shot
- Heavy Mana cost
- More susceptible to ganks as you will be extending to get kills
- Most of your money goes straight towards ability power.
- Dominate with heavy damage
- Leaves you very squishy

Farming/Support

- Tormented Soil is your first ability
- Allows you to minion farm conveniently
- Not a great deterrent against ganks or player chases
- Not as mana heavy as dominate morgana is
- Allows you to build quickly with and increased amount of sustain

Summary

Those are your two main options. Both are excellent ways to play Morgana, it just depends how comfortable you are with the play styles.

Morgana mid lane makes for many an opportunity to help your team out. Whether dominate or support Morgana can be a deciding factor in how well your team does. When your jungler comes to gank mid it's easy to set it up if you can manage to hit your dark binding, allowing for a successful kill almost every time.

Along with being able to help the jungler easily gank mid, it's easy for Morgana to help feed kills to a carry in a ganking situation, once again using her Dark Binding to the advantage of her team.

Spell Vamp is the main thing behind my builds for Morgana, seeing as it's the same concept as putting a Blood Thirster or Stark's Fervor on an AD character. In the grand scheme of things it helps you survive tough fights. Coordinate with your teams support to maximize the spell vamp potential. Will of the Ancients is a fairly cheap item for the amount that it helps. If both you and your support run one it adds 50% spell vamp to not only both of you but the rest of your team when they are within your area.

For my rune page I have it set up for flat Ability Power. Greater Marks of Insight will help with both early and late game, allowing you to make your magic really sink in. Other than that flat Ability Power Seals, Glyphs, and Quintessences give you the upper hand early game, allowing you to hit large amounts of damage with your Dark Binding and allowing you to capitalize on the few seconds of stun time it gives you.

Other Viable Runes

The Runes that I have listed are meant to be very dominate in early game lane situations with Morgana, allowing you to hit alot harder than what most other mid laners could. If you find yourself playing very aggressively though it's easy to run out of mana as most of Morgana's spells are very mana heavy.

If you find yourself running out of mana quickly you can pick up Greater seals of Replenishment to increase your amount of Mana Regeneration.

The mastery I have listed on both are 21-0-9

The reason I choose these masteries is because the offensive Mastery will give you early game Ability Power that will help you both farm and dominate in your lane. People might ask me why I decide to put points in utility rather than defense due to Morgana's Squishy nature.

Morgana is a very spell heavy character requiring both a lot of mana, and a lot of mana regeneration.

Expanded mind when filled will give you +12 Mana per level(may not seem like much) but at level 18 that's an extra 216 Mana, and Meditation will help you early game with staying sustained in lane.

Often times when I play Morgana I like to be able to know that my lane will be safe in my absence. I run teleport to make sure than in the event of emergency I can quickly get back to my lane. As for ignite it helps get kills on enemies who are running away. I'll break down a few summoner spells that are viable with Morgana.

Teleport

As stated this is a safety device in the event that either:
A) your team needs you to gank top or bottom
B) you have to get back to your lane or another lane quickly

Ignite

Allows you to get kills without over extending yourself, it's very useful against teams who use spells such as Heal or build alot of lifesteal, offering a 50% healing debuff when cast.

Clarity

Morgana is a spell heavy character and you'll find that sometimes it's easy to run out of Mana with her, Clarity serves to keep you mana sustained in lane until you can build items that will get you more than what you have.

Cleanse

During team fights you'll often find yourself focused because of your ult, when this happens Cleanse is a great way to break free of your enemies CC while still being able to inflict alot of damage.

Surge

I don't run surge personally as I don't find it to be very useful for Morgana. It offers you a little more ability power, which could help you be dominate early game in lane, even if you choose to play the farming type Morgana.

Exhaust

Along with the 2 slows that are build into Morgana you may opt to run exhaust to further help your team grab up kills on the chase, or to help yourself get a kill on a fleeing enemy. Exhaust only lasts 2 seconds, but sometimes 2 seconds is all you need to throw another Dark Binding at your enemy to hold them while you kill.

The key to playing Morgana lies in the ability to make skill shots. Early and late game your Dark Binding will serve to be your power attack, it hits for a lot of damage and gives you the advantage of binding the player you chose. I'll break each skill down for you so you can get an idea of just what the purpose of the ability is.

Dark Binding

This is your Q ability, and it's the most important ability that you possess both early and late game. I get this skill first as it comes in handy to prevent the enemy from pushing your mid turret, and greatly deters ganks on mid early game. If they do bring a gank in snare the biggest threat and simply back away. Use Dark Binding to initiate team fights by binding the biggest threat player that you see. It is a skill shot and takes some practice to get used to, late game combined with the spell vamp that you will be building this spell will be your savior and possibly your turn around factor. If you're low health and being chase throw this at your enemy, with the damage that it provides you may be healed enough from spell vamp in order to turn around and turn that escape into a kill. Like I said early playing Morgana is all about taking risks.

Tormented Soil

Your W ability and your farming tool. Get this spell second to help you farm minions. When combined with Dark Binding it makes for a powerful combo and slows the enemy as they try to escape from it. Throw your dark binding out and when it hits immediately drop your Tormented soil beneath their feet. They will take damage over time, be slowed, and ultimately you will be healed more. Your tormented soil will act as your major way of staying sustained in lane especially early game after you buy your Hextech Revolver. I usually find that combined with Dark Binding and Ignite I can get a couple of kills in even before I have my ultimate. When not in a team fight use Tormented Soil simply to farm minions and to heal from your spell vamp. If you place this right you can defeat and entire minion wave(unless they have a siege minion) in a single cast, and with 6 minions taking full damage from this it means that you'll be getting spell vamp for the damage you're applying to all 6, leaving you with a nice healing effect.

Black Shield

Early game this isn't a very great ability, it offers a little bit of magic protection but not enough to be a deciding factor. I do my best to not get this until around level 5 or weaker, trading it for doing more damage with Dark Binding and Tormented Soil respectively. However if you are in lane against someone such as Ashe or Annie, or really any character that has a stun or a slow that might inhibit you from doing well it's worth getting Black Shield early, the shield will prevent them from slowing or stunning you, it's also good for game when there is a Warwick or a Malzahar, characters with supresses will generally tear your team apart, but part of black shield is knowing who those characters will focus on your team, give your teamates the black shield in tough situations. They need to be protected as you have enough spell vamp to keep yourself alive from your Dark Binding alone.

Soul Shackles

The ultimate ability, and one of the best CC abilities in the game I would say. Soul Shackles target multiple nearby enemies dealing damage when applied and slowing the targets, after 3 seconds any enemies still latched to you by the Shackles will be stunned shortly and the base damage of the ability will be reapplied to them. When you use your soul shackles it's important to try and lead the enemy that way you can take advantage of the after stun. During team fights this single ability will make or break the outcome. Much like Dark Binding the stun that you get at the end of it will break the other team down. In a team fight your team will have the advantage if you manage to get the stun at the end. By the time the stun hits the other team should already be fairly low on health, and the stun will be the killer.

Your Ability Combo

Many people might not see the possibility of Morgana being a burster but she really is. Lead with your Dark Binding, when it hits Drop your tormented soil beneath the enemy. If the enemy is a spell caster or if you're in a team fight throw up your Black Shield and rush in using your soul shackles to target & slow all enemies nearby, by the end of your soul shackles the character you were focusing on should be dead. Often times it's the reapplied base damage of soul shackles that will tear the enemy team apart, on top of being stunned they are now much lower on health than they were initially.

Early Game: What Player will you be?

Early game there is alot of choices that you'll need to make when playing. Morgana is a very powerful character at all portions of the game, but early one you have to decide on one thing, and that's what kind of Morgana player do you want to be? Do you want to be the Morg player that dominates her lane and shows not mercy to the enemy, putting yourself into harms way for the ultimate pay off of early game kills, or do you want to be the sustained Morgana who farms and keeps the lane under control.

The Dominate Morgana

If you want to play Morgana the way described by the first option then it's worth grabbing Dark Binding right off the bat. It will help you to deal damage to enemies in a controlled burst. When they are bound it's much easier for you to damage them than it is if they are running all over the place. This is the way I play my Morgana, but I have been maining her for a few months now, and I'll admit it took some time to get used to, and it took a long time for me to develop a strategy that would keep me safe. If you don't feel safe extending in mid lane early game then this is not the option for you.

The Sustained Farming Morgana

The second option is to farm your way to success, trading early game player kills for early game domination with minion farm. If you choose to farm at first than there is no doubt that you should pick up Tormented Soil before Dark Binding. Tormented Soil will allow you to have the advantage over most mid laners early game and also late. When placed correctly your Tormented Soil can easily kill an entire wave of minions in just a single cast, allowing you to push the other mid laner back to their own turret, the thing to be careful of when playing the farming Morgana is ganks. As you will be extended alot of the time it leaves you vulnerable from attacks from the rear.

There are a lot of ways to build Morgana, and a lot of items that work well with her. So many items in fact that I can't possibly fit them all into one build. I lay out a rough scheme of what your build should look like, but in complete honesty almost any of the items, other than Will of the Ancient and Rabadon's Deathcap can be substituted for alot of other items. I break down my build items to give you an idea of just why I buy them, and breakdown the many other items that could lead your team to victory. The items that you buy goes back to the question I told you to ask yourself at the start. Which Morgana are you going to play? If you want to dominate than it's mostly the AP you want to focus on.

As I said I build Morgana for massive amounts of spell vamp. Her Passive Soul Siphon makes her the perfect candidate for heavy spell vamp builds. At level 18 she automatically has 30% due to her passive. Hextech Revolver early game is a great way to ensure your spell vamp will be sufficient to be sustained in lane. At level 3 players won't be able to match you on your healing ability, but just remember Spell Vamp only works on your abilities so you're completely at the mercy of your cooldowns.

Other than spell vamp you should focus on building Ability Power for her. More ability power ultimately leads to more damage on your abilities which in return just means more potential healing for yourself. I'll break down each item and potential other items to use as well.

Hextech Revolver

Early game this is a cheap and efficient way to keep yourself sustained in lane as well as bring you a small amount of ability power. Even though it's only +40 Ability Power combined with your runes and masteries it will give you the upper hand.

Sorceror's Shoes

I personally don't use Sorceror's Shoes on Morgana but alot of people always ask me why I run the boots that I use. I'll cover my boot choice later. Sorceror Shoes will allow you to get +2 movement speed along with augmenting your runes for Magic Penetration. When it comes to Morgana alot of teams will build magic resist and these boots will help to negate the effect of items like Banshee's Veil or Force of Nature.

Rabadons Deathcap

The prize jewel of everything AP. Rabadons Deathcap is a must for almost any AP caster you come across in League of Legends. Giving a whopping +140 Ability Power and it's passive adding an extra 30% of your total Ability Power back to it. This item is often times the item that makes an AP caster what they are.

Will of the Ancients

If you're following the build up to this point that means you already have the Hexteck Revolver, what's another 900 gold? Will of the ancients will give you 40 more ability power total and increase your existing spell vamp by 15%, not to mention it's aura gives your teamates the same amount of spell vamp and 30 ability power. Not to bad for 900 gold is it?

Zhonya's Hourglass

I won't lie Zhonya's Hourglass is an expensive item but well worth what you spend on it. Giving you +100 armor to fight off the AD characters of the enemy team not to mention it's +100 Ability Power. It's the second best item in the game to ensure a maximum amount of ability power is met. And it's Active isn't bad either, allowing you to become completely untargetable for a short time.

Hextech Gunblade

At this point you might be asking yourselves. "Blade I've already got a Will of the Ancients, why do I need a Gunblade?" The answer is that it's the icing to to the cake. With both your Passive and Will of the Ancients at level 18 you have 55% spell vamp. Adding a Hextech Gunblade to that equation will give you 75% spell vamp. In my own experiences with this build your Dark Binding will hit for ~800 damage at level 18, so what is 75% of 800? The answer is 600. This is what I was talking about when I said your dark binding would be the table turner. Imagine you're fleeing the enemy team at low health but they still have one person chasing, all you have to do is pull your Dark Binding out and chuck it behind you, if it hits you're now 600 health up and they are 800 health down, in most cases you can turn around and pick that kill up while they are snared.

Rod of Ages

One of the main items you will see with most Morgana builds. It adds to the amount of Ability Power that you have, also giving you more Health which will continually increase over time. I used to run a Rylai's Crystal Scepter until I read the passive of this, and after time the Rod of Ages will be giving you more Health than what Rylai's will offer also giving you Mana Regen to help you with your every increasing Mana need.

Alternate Items for a Stronger Morgana

At this point you have to ask yourself: Do I want to hit harder? Or do I want to be completely unstoppable?

If you answer yes to the first then there's a few items to consider grabbing

Mejai's Soul Stealer

Although not a very great late game Item it is very good early game. I've found that getting this early game allows me to get kills much easier, and it allows you to start stacking your deadly ability power early game. Switch it out for Sorceror's Shoes and it shouldn't be much of a problem

Archangel's Staff

There are a few different ways this item helps you. If you've bought Rod of Ages than you already have and increased amount of mana on top of the mana that Morgana naturally obtains. Morgana is a very spell heavy champion requiring vast amounts of Mana and Archangel's Staff is just the item to provide her with all the Mana she will need, and it's not a trade off of any sort giving you more Ability Power for the amount of Mana that you possess.

Abyssal Scepter

Abyssal Scepter is a great item for the aura it gives, especially if you're playing with a team that has a lot of AP. Reducing the enemy Magic Resistance by 20 will make them weak, even if they choose to build items such as Banshee's Veil or Force of Nature. Adding to the amount of ability power that you have as well.

Sorceror's Shoes vs. Boots of Mobility

At this point I'll cover my choice of boots. There are a couple questions you need to ask yourself when you choose boots. First is, what kind of player do you want to be. Running Teleport with Boots of Mobility allows you to be a mid lane ganker and still not lose your turret. If mid is gone and your team needs help boots of mobility allow you to be able to assist them in a very timely manner, and then if Mid comes back all you have to do is teleport back to your turret. I find ganking Morgana is a very powerful way to play, as her Dark Binding almost ensures kills in both top or bottom lane. If you don't like leaving your mid lane alone then by all means run Sorceror's Shoes, in either case you should be able to get quite a few kills with this build.

Hextech Gunblade Breakdown

Some people ask why I have put down a Hextech Gunblade as an item of choice. It offers 20% more spell vamp and 70 more ability power, but other than that it doesn't help much with Morgana, offering a small amount of life steal as well as increased attack speed.

I take the hextech gunblade due to the spell vamp alone, and the life steal and extra damage from the other stuff doesn't neccissarily hurt you. If you find yourself opting out of buying the gunblade you can still manage a cool 70% lifesteal by just getting the revolver, but if you're against getting the revolver itself bring it to the attention of your support and have them build a Will of the Ancients as well. It's aura will stack with your aura allowing for 80% spell vamp, as long as you are within range of eachother.

That just about wraps up this guide. Morgana is an amazing character to play, but on the last note I'll add this. If you're going to play Morgana with this guide, Make sure that you are in mid lane, if you are forced to lane top or bottom it's worth it to use a different guide as you will be very squishy. This guide is meant to help players in mid lane stay sustained, avoid ganks, and late game be able to change the outcome of team fights every time. If you choose to lane it's worth grabbing a Rylai's Crystal Scepter and a Rod of Ages.

I hope this guide helps all of you who read it. Please leave me some tips. This is the first guide I've written and I'll be looking to improve it with some images and other things in time, but for now I hope the wording will help you understand why I use this build.