Hey everyone! I am Stollie, a master tier mid laner, content creator, and known as one of the best Brand players on the server. I got to 400 lp in season 11 playing Brand mainly in the mid lane. I fell in love with the champion late last season because of how much damage he can pump out and the outplay potential that he has with certain combos, and I have been basically onetricking him ever since. I created this guide to help players that dont understand how Brand works, or just have overall questions about itemization on the champion. I have tried out a lot of builds and have my own preferences, and I wanted to share all of the information that I have found with everybody interested in learning. There are not a lot of people who play Brand mid lane, but I firmly believe that mid lane suits the champion better than support.

Brand's best qualities → Incredible damage output → Good pick potential → Quick waveclear → Great teamfighter → Best in mid range → One item power spike

Brand as a champion excels in his high risk high reward playstyle. You have to get a bit close to the enemy team in order to pump out damage, which makes flash an extremely important engage tool with combos like Q + Flash + E to catch the other team off guard. Getting your ult off in teamfights can literally turn the game on its head because of how much damage your passive can pump out against a grouped team. He has some decent matchups in mid and support, and can survive a lot of assassin's combos because of his Q ability. He can go even in nearly any mage matchup, and poke out a lot of champions while simultaneously clearing the wave with his e, and can also use that ability to poke the enemy bot lane. Optimizing which ability you want to use the Blaze passive with is key to winning lanes as well. If you are not going for a full engage, using your Q on a minion, following with your E on the same minion when an enemy champion is in range, then finally using your W on the enemy champion does a very surprising amount of damage.

Brand as a champion excels in his high risk high reward playstyle. You have to get a bit close to the enemy team in order to pump out damage, which makes flash an extremely important engage tool with combos like Q + Flash + E to catch the other team off guard. Getting your ult off in teamfights can literally turn the game on its head because of how much damage your passive can pump out against a grouped team. He has some decent matchups in mid and support, and can survive a lot of assassin's combos because of his Q ability. He can go even in nearly any mage matchup, and poke out a lot of champions while simultaneously clearing the wave with his e, and can also use that ability to poke the enemy bot lane. Optimizing which ability you want to use the Blaze passive with is key to winning lanes as well. If you are not going for a full engage, using your Q on a minion, following with your E on the same minion when an enemy champion is in range, then finally using your W on the enemy champion does a very surprising amount of damage. Waveclear Waveclear on Brand changes throughout the game, so there are a few different combos that I use based on cooldowns, mana, and my items/level. At level 5 with around 65ap (normal after one base at this level), you should be able to oneshot the backline with one Conflagration bounce and one Pillar of Flame. You can do this in multiple ways, but the most important thing about waveclear is knowing how your Blaze passive works with each ability. Brand's worst qualities → Gets outranged → Low mobility → Weaker 1v1 than other mages → Unreliable crowd control → Little damage without passive/mythic Brand Also has many weaknesses to his kit. As season 12 becomes more about invisibility and movement speed, it can be difficult for Brand to actually get off his three ability passive. There are a ton of dangers in the mid lane specifically, as the enemy jungler frequently realizes that you are playing an immobile mage with one CC ability that is dodgable. Keeping vision is incredibly important because after level 3 I end up getting ganked. Like a LOT. In a vaccum without junglers, I am normally able to poke out the enemy mid laner under their turret after I shove a wave super fast, but I normally end up trying to look for roams or set up vision instead because of how vulnerable my champion is. Another con to Brand in both roles is that he gets outranged by high range champions such as artilery mages, and can also get outdamaged 1v1 by other mid range champions. This makes it really hard to participate in fights because later in the game, mages like Xerath and adcs like Ezreal hurt a lot and can poke you out before you can even use any of your abilities. I find that the best playstyle is to try your hardest to get every ounce of vision that you can. Staying out of vision is super important because it allows you to enter fights from an unexpected angle most of the time and look to land your CC or throw your ult at a grouped up team. Trading Patterns This is a relatively simple trading pattern if the enemy is out of range of your Pillar of Flame. You should be able to simply Cast your Pillar of Flame on the caster minions and then cast Conflagration on the minions that you hit to extend the range and poke the enemy laner. This is a super useful combo for catching the enemy laner off guard. Your Sear travels faster than your Pillar of Flame can cast, so you can use it to hit a minion, extend your Conflagration range, and then go for a Pillar of Flame on the target with the bonus damage from its passive with Blaze units. All in potential If an enemy is caught out of position with ~50% HP, this is a great combo to practice. This is one of the most difficult combos that Brand can perform, but hitting it will leave very little reaction time for the enemy. You can stun a target with your Sear by using your Conflagration while the ability is mid air. Since your Sear stuns a target if they are affected by the Blaze passive, a combo that you can use is Sear Flash Conflagration, followed by a Pillar of Flame to finish your three stack passive on Blaze. This combo does an immense amount of damage, and also is extremely hard to react to, so I would advice players to practice this combo in the practice tool and then try it out in normals games because it is very easy to mess up.

Blaze Brand's spells light his targets ablaze, dealing damage over 4 seconds, stacking up to 3 times. If Brand kills an enemy while it is ablaze he regains mana. When Blaze reaches max stacks on a Champion or large monster, it becomes unstable. It detonates in 2 seconds, applying spell effects and dealing massive damage in an area around the victim.

Sear Brand launches a ball of fire forward that deals magic damage. If the target is ablaze, Sear will stun the target for 1.5 seconds.

After a short delay, Brand creates a Pillar of Flame at a target area, dealing magic damage to enemy units within the area. Units that are ablaze take an additional 25% damage.

Brand conjures a powerful blast at his target that spreads to nearby enemies, dealing magic damage. If the target is ablaze, Conflagration's spread is doubled.

Brand unleashes a devastating torrent of fire that bounces up to 5 times off of Brand and nearby enemies, dealing magic damage to enemies each time bounce. Bounces prioritize stacking Blaze to max on Champions. If a target is ablaze, Pyroclasm will briefly slow them.

Liandry's Torment - This is going to be your core item basically every game. Liandry's Torment is important because of how it synnergizes with Brand's passive, and how easy it is to proc on multiple people in fights. Brand's passive burns people over 4 seconds, and Liandry's Torment resets its duration every tick, making it the best mythic for Brand.

Rylai's Crystal Scepter - This item is amazing for a similar reason that Liandry's Torment is good. Every proc of Brand's passive resets the duration of the slow from Rylai's Crystal Scepter, and it is also easy to get the slow proc off on multiple people in teamfights. The item is super useful for chasing and it definitely my favorite second item as of right now.

Cosmic Drive - The idea behind cosmic drive is that Brand can proc any 3 hit passive ( Electrocute and Cosmic Drive) with only two abilities because his passive counts as one as well. It gives good stats, including CDR and health, and also gives movement speed comparable to phase rush in a way.

Demonic Embrace - Another burn item to synnergize with your passive, Demonic Embrace fits well in the build in patch 12.12 because having HP is very nice and also it deals %hp damage making it valuable against tankier characters. Since the durability changes, demonic has definitely become one of the best items for Brand because of all of the stats it provides.

Void Staff - This item took a hit in patch 12.10, but it is still a very useful item on Brand. Brand's passive, Blaze, deals %hp damage and does not scale very well with flat AP. Void Staff helps the %hp damage do a lot more because it makes you shred through 40% of the enemy's magic resist with every ability and passive proc. Void Staff can also synnergize very well with Liandry's Torment and Demonic Embrace %hp damage.

Force of Nature - This is definitely a hidden tech item, but I really think that Force of Nature is an underrated item for brand because he already has so much base damage with only one item. The item gives movement speed, which can help Brand close gaps on artilery champions, as well as 70 magic resist and damage reduction vs any ap champions. It feels super good to buy against Xerath or any ap champions that are an issue because they are fed.

I have seen a lot of questions on reddit and wanted to give some insight on a couple of the things that I have talked about in the subreddit.

Q. How do I get better at Brand in (insert role)
A. Watch people play. I am a high masters brand onetrick and I have a twitch stream, but even if you are not watching me or if you prefer other youtubers or streamers, watching people play is a great way to improve at the game. I love meeting new people and could be helpful if you wanted a dedicated Brand streamer, but there are some other options on different platforms as well.

Q. Do you like (insert item) on Brand?
A. Everything can be situational, but I mainly like to stick with one single build. Most games I go Liandry's into Rylais, but I have also had different build paths in past metas. His build path will always change with the meta, but the build that I use is the one that ensures that I deal as much damage as possible while also trying to remain safe.

Q. How do I play against (insert champion)?
A. If the information in this guide is not enough to help you with that question, then watching people play is another option. High elo brand players have most likely figured out some type of way to survive even the worst matchups, and we will have little tricks that we do in the laning phase to help us out.

I would love to answer some more questions that people have, and I am trying to become a more consistent streamer on Twitch. If you are interested at coming by and chatting, catch me the next time that I am live at twitch.tv/stolliejr :)