Hey yall! my first build so dont cyber bully me to death. Tell me what u think!
Swain is one of the most underrated chaps in LoL history. When he solos mid he is virtualy unrivaled. The fact is that with these runes and masteries he will be an early tank, and as an early tank he still does verry good damage with his spells. He can take out ashe from karth, ryze ro ezreal. And this build will show you how.

Swain is a powerful champion that can do some massive damage in spells but also has some amazing survivability due to his ult. But he needs to have a good amount of health, MR, and armor to help him along with that. I take magic penatration for the annoying other tanks like mundo and galio who stack enough MR to reduce your spells potential to a freakin annoying degree. These runes will help swain become a well rounded slaying machine.

I used to always get mostly offence runes because i thougt it would help out my AP. DO NOT GET OFFENCE RUNES WITH ANYONE WHO IS MAINLY AP! The offence runes, as i found out a while ago, really only help attack. So when we go with mainly defence runes, we actualy start out with one more ap then we would have with offence. I take preserverence and expanded mind due to the fact that swain is a verry mana and helth reliant champ.

I like these items because they dont only make him good MR and decent health but they also give him some stuff on his AP. Now im not saying that he will be able to nuke like ryze but if you play him right you should be able to take on almsost any champion 1v1. And you will be increidibly effective in team fights from ur ult and your survivibilty and damage. First of all the RoA. I think this is a verry effective item for Swain due to the fact that he needs ap helth and mana, and this item gives a good amount of those things. Its a great startup item. Next you get Rylei's. This is SUPER important as it works amazingly with your ult and can help in either running or chasing. Next we get Bansheees for health, mana, good MR and his kick Michal Jaxons butt passive. After that i get Zhonyas hourglass for that modest bit of armor, a nice bit of AP and a kick Elvis Presleys butt passive. This passive is great if u are being chased or want to get targeted. Especialy if u are low health and are in a battle. Just shove on ur ult in the middle of enemies, turn on the hourglass, then flash out. An instant heal and damage to the enemy. And last but not least I get the Abyssal Scepter
for AP, a nice bit of MR, and a passive that makes it easier to kill annoying tanks who stack MR. Now you might all be wondering why i dont go for a dethcap or a Archangels staff. Its really just because swain isnt a natural tank so to get him near it we need all the defence he can get. And for those who think having his ult on for an hour is cool, well its not. The defence items will save your skin a lot more then the loads of ult time a Archangles would give you.

Swains skills really all work together. He doesnt have a dominant skll like karthus or ahse that you want to max out first. When you do this it throws your whole game out of balance. He needs to have a balance of all his skills together which is why i dont recomend you follow the skill sequence i put up there for every game. IN GENERAL IT WORKS. But if you feel you are fighting idiots who dont know how to move then by all means max out nevermore. Or if you are figting a reall annoying quick team with ashe and/or teemo you might want to get the other two spells instead. He really just depends game to game. Usualy the best thing for swain will be the second you get level six to catch them in nevermore, shove on your ult then throw Torment and Decrepify at them. It should easily bring them to half health. This wouldnt work if you only maxed torment for example and ignored the other two, it just wouldnt work. Swain needs balance.

Now i used to get ignite every game with swain and i pretty much always got first blood, just because Decripify and Torment both work really well with it. but you will find in later game that flash is a thousand times more useful. Just because swain really is not good at getting our of sticky situations and flash will do that for you. Now some people argue that cleanse is good with him, but swain is so long ranged that you can do the same stuff if you just flash out and turn around and attack. I chose teleport because swain can be amazing solo and is verry good at pushing enemies off your tourets. Many times enemies will be attacking one of my side tourets when i teleport in. thinking it is just one of the other people they wont expect a fully charged swain to jump in with his ult on blasting spells left and righ with his cane. You can esily get one or two kills from this. Besides teleport can just be useful for grabbing a banshees and coming back fast.

Swains best advantage is that he gets underrated. Use your ult and shove all ur spells into one squishy boob and the whole team will fear you.

Swain is best mid. Thats just a fact. But he can be good side with a Xin Zao or a Jarvan. i have had many succesful games whith these champs as partners. Yi or Trynd might not work as well because they are so squishy and dont have reliant CC's. But if you need to lane just play safe. Once you get Rylai's you are an eccelent Ganker and should be bashing bot and top as much as possible. Dont be afraid to charge two other champs if ur ult is on and u have mana. but make sure your team is ready to help you. In many battles when i gank two people they try to kill me fast before my teamates come and engage, but my ult will make sure i stay alive and do a considerable amount of damage befor my team arrives. This will work a million times better if u have Rylais.

Pros
-Good spell range
-Good spell damage
-surviver
-good at ganking

Cons
-YOU WILL GET TARGETED
-long cooldowns