
A Lissandra guide | Feel the Power of True Ice
By Katasandra | Updated on February 19, 2021
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Choose Champion Build:
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Standard (VS Ranged)
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VS Assassins
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VS Tanks (3-4)
Runes: Standard

Domination





Sorcery






+9 Adaptive (5.4 AD or 9 AP)
+9 Adaptive (5.4 AD or 9 AP)
+8 Magic Resist
Spells:
1
2
Agressive


Flash

Ignite
Items
Ability Order


Iceborn Subjugation
Lissandra Passive Ability

Guide Details
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Champion
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Pregame
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Gameplay
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Hi there! My name is Katasandra and I am a Lissandra one-trick. I started playing her in preseason 8. Back then I was actually maining something else and I was searching for a secondary midlaner. After trying a lot of different midlaners I came across Lissandra. I loved playing her so much that I dropped my old main and now she is pretty much the only champion I play. Here are my account stats for those of you that are interested in it. | |
I have played Lissandra for a while and I really wanted to create something to help other people learn and discover what she can do and how you can play her. After a long, long time I finally managed to breach the 1M mastery threshold! Once again this guide has been redesigned. If you'd like to see earlier designs, feel free to check them out: (1. 2.). I hope you will enjoy reading this and if you notice mistakes or if you have questions, don't hesitate to comment! And for those of you wondering whether this is a qualified guide... It won a few contests, you can find that on my profile ;) |
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Pros
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Explanation
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![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() The midgame is her strongest point in the game. In this phase of the game she gains the freedom to roam around the map and setup plays with her kit. Especially ![]() As you might have guessed, ![]() |
When to pick Lissandra
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When not to pick Lissandra
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Passive: Iceborn Subjugation When an enemy champion dies near Lissandra they become a Frozen Thrall. Old text color = #a99dc9 Frozen Thralls seek out living enemies, slowing their movement speed when nearby by 25%. After 4 seconds, Frozen Thralls shatter from the intense cold, Dealing 120 - 520 (+50%) magic damage. |
Definitely one of the weirder and more impactful passives in the game. Thralls can either help you kill the enemy or do nothing at all. Do not expect them to be smart. They will always target the nearest enemy and will not chase invisible enemies or enemies that enter unwarded bushes. The place where the passive shines the most is in teamfights. Once you unload your initial combo and someone dies, the thrall will help kill others or force the enemy to flash/dash away. This creates a snowball effect that can win teamfights and skirmishes. Of course you cannot expect the enemy to ignore the thralls (although, sometimes they will). Look to root them with ![]() ![]() Thralls can help with clearing the minion wave after a gank or when the enemy laner dies. This speeds up your recall & return to lane or gives you more time to collect turret platings. | |
>> | Actually has the highest damage of all abilities throughout a large portion of the game. | |
>> | Even effective when behind as the base damage is quite high. | |
>> | When multiple people die at the same time, their thralls will explode at the same time too. This will result in a huge burst of damage. | |
>> | Try to layer abilities on top of the passive explosion to surprise enemies. |
Q: Ice Shard Throws a spear of ice that travels in a line and shatters when it hits an enemy, dealing 70 - 190 (+80%) magic damage and slowing its movement speed by 16 - 28%. Shards then pass through the target, dealing the same damage to other enemies hit (but not slowing them). Cooldown: 8 / 7 / 6 / 5 / 4 seconds Mana cost: 60 / 65 / 70 / 75 / 80 mana Range: 725 - 825 units |
This is ![]() ![]() The most important part about ![]() You can utilize this mechanic really well when pushing waves, you can position yourself in such a way to hit all 6/7 minions in a wave at once. It can also come in handy in teamfights, as it allows you to hit targets that are not in range of the unshattered projectile.
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W: Ring of Frost Cooldown: 14 / 13 / 12 / 11 / 10 seconds Mana cost: 40 mana Range: 425 units |
Perhaps the least exciting ability of ![]() ![]() The range of ![]() ![]() Another incredibly useful part of this ability is that you can use it to catch invisible targets. If you know/predict an invisible champion to be near, use it and if it hits you will see an outline. You can then run away or throw the rest of your abilities at the location of the enemy. | |||||||||||||
>> | Ring of Frost doesn't have a cast time, so it can be cast without interrupting movement. | |
>> |
Goes through ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() | |
>> | Does not interrupt dashes. | |
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Always try to cast ![]() | |
>> | The range is center to center, it might be lower than it seems. |
E: Glacial Path Cooldown: 24 / 21 / 18 / 15 / 12 seconds Mana cost: 80 / 85 / 90 / 95 / 100 mana Range: 1050 units |
This is my favorite ability. It kind of makes up for the lack of range on other abilities. Its most known (and major) use is to jump forward and get in range to initiate fights or follow up on your teammates.![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() This is not the only use. It can be used to dodge skillshots by throwing it out and reactivating it after a short time. A common trick is to throw it over the nexus to get faster to lane after a recall. You can use the same trick to extend the homeguard buff. Lastly, my favorite use, it enables you to get over all kinds of walls. This might sound a little dumb, but it gives you immense gank potential (even without the walls) and allows you to escape tricky situations in the jungle. I made a separate section on this and some other mechanics somewhere below. | |
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You won't be able to recast ![]() | |
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Reactivate ![]() | |
>> | The enemy team is (also) able to see the indicator, as long as it is in their vision or when they or a ward are within 600 range of it. | |
>> | Don't panic if you get stunned; the claw needs ~1.5s to travel to the end location and can be reactivated ~0.2s after it vanishes. You might still be able to teleport after the CC ends (Just keep mashing that button!). | |
>> | The speed of the claw is not constant, it will start at a speed of 1020 units and decrease to a speed of 640 units. |
R: Frozen Tomb Self Cast: Lissandra encases herself in dark ice for 2.5 seconds, becoming untargetable and invulnerable but unable to take any actions. Lissandra also gets healed based on her ability power and missing health. Dark ice then spreads from Lissandra's target dealing 150 / 250 / 350 (+ 75% AP) magic damage to enemies. The ice lasts for 3 seconds and slows enemy movement speed by 30 - 75% Cooldown: 120 / 100 / 80 seconds Mana cost: 100 mana Range: 550 units |
At last, the ability that makes ![]() But first the most important thing: use ALT+R to ult yourself or assign another hotkey in Options > Hotkeys > Abilities and summoner spells > Self cast (spell 4). This is vital! Ulting an enemy instead of yourself is one of the most painful things to do on this champion. Be careful when trying to ult enemies that are on top of you though. You might accidentally ult yourself instead, there is no solution to this issue. To come back on my comment on ![]() ![]() Self - ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Another thing you should avoid is ulting people with ![]() ![]() | |
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Self-![]() ![]() | |
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If you cast ![]() ![]() | |
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Self-![]() | |
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Space out the timings of ![]() ![]() | |
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You cast ![]() ![]() | |
>> | Not only who you ult is important, the place where you ult is important too. |
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Early Levels![]() ![]() If you went for an invade you should always take ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Skilling Order ![]() ![]() ![]() Maxing ![]() ![]() If you are new to ![]() ![]() ![]() However, once you get to know when and where you can use ![]() ![]() |
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Like on almost all other champions, ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() | |||
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Meaning Of Icons
Q/R Animation Canceling
Q Flash
Level 3-5 All-In Combo
Level 6 All-In Combo
Self Ult/Kill Combo
Quick Self Ult Combo
Escape Combo
General Teamfight Combo
Pick Combo
Q/R Animation Canceling
It is possible to cancel the animations of ![]() ![]() ![]() |
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Q Flash
Unlike many other champions, ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
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Level 3-5 All-In Combo
This combo can be used to all-in your opponent between levels 3-5 or at later levels when ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
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Level 6 All-In Combo
This combo can be used to all-in post-level 6. Weaving autoattacks is extremely important at lower levels, but can be neglected later in the game. Flashing is optional since it is mainly used to get in range of/surprise the opponent (and you can use glacial path for damage). There are also scenario's later in the game where you can lead with your ultimate and then execute the rest of this all-in combo. |
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Self Ult/Kill Combo
This combo is only used when you are jumped on by the enemy team or you're all-inning your opponent and dropping low. You self ult yourself roughly next to/on top of the enemy, so that they will be damaged and you will be safe. Although ![]() |
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Quick Self Ult Combo
Very similar to the self ult/kill combo. The main difference is that you only use ![]() ![]() |
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Escape Combo
Well, the name says it all. Don't forget that you can cancel ![]() ![]() |
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General Teamfight Combo
This is Lissandra's most important combo and the most important thing in this combo is speed. It should be executed as quickly as possible to minimize the window where you can get CC'ed.![]() ![]() It is very common to use ![]() The smoothness of the combo depends on the amount of ability haste you have. You need at least 60 haste to be able to chain ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() I strongly recommend you to jump into practice tool and practice this combo. |
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Pick Combo
This combo is extremely similar to the general teamfight combo. However, there is one important difference: you ult an enemy instead of yourself. This is makes the combo way more situational and dangerous to use, it is used when a carry is out of position and the enemy team cannot (immediately) turn onto you. If you have ![]() ![]() When you are running ![]() ![]() It is not necessary to execute the entire combo as quickly as possible. Sometimes it is better to delay the cast of ![]() ![]() ![]() |
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As I wrote a long time ago, ![]() If you really want to learn a champion, you should be testing its limits (and end up with your face in the dirt a few times). Always sitting back without knowing how far you can go won't get you somewhere. This section of the guide is rather large, so here is an overview of all the topics that are covered in this section: |
Ability Usage | ||||||||||
Not all abilities are equal, here is an overview of what you (in general) should do with each basic ability. | ||||||||||
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Is used for pushing/clearing the wave and poking the enemy. You can't just throw it around because of its high cooldown and mana cost. Try to secure most of your farm with auto's and save ![]() | Usage depends on the matchup. In ranged matchups it is rarely used (only for ganks or to push/clear wave) as the enemy will almost never be in range. In melee matchups it can be used to kite the enemy as well as for harass. | Isn't used that much. It has a high mana cost and cooldown, so its not worth to use it for harass. Its main use is to escape/setup ganks, waveclear before recalling or all-inning the opponent. | ||||||||
IMPORTANT NOTE: Using ![]() |
Lining Up Q | ||
Lining up with minions to hit the enemy with ![]() ![]() Essentially this is your action range, it can help with recognizing when you can harass enemy champions and when not. Keep in mind that you not always have to shatter ![]() This image is meant to give the idea, the green area is shattered range and the blue area is unshattered range. |
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You should position yourself around the minions in such a way that the enemy laner is somewhere in the Q shatter area (preferably not at the sides). This way you can easily hit them. However, there are times where it is simply not possible to position yourself like this. Sometimes you have to stay behind minions to avoid skillshots or you cannot move next to the side of the lane where the enemy jungler is. | ||
Trading Stance | |||||
The trading stance is one of the most important concepts of laning in general. Essentially it is trading with someone when they are trying to get a minion. As ![]() ![]() ![]() | |||||
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I often AA + Q and then, if the enemy doesn't back off, hit them with another AA.
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Same for AA - AA - Q. Once you hit the second AA, the Q and ![]() | ||


Warding | ||
Keep in mind that using ![]() ![]() | ||
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Punishing Mistakes | |||||
Sometimes enemies make errors in trading/wave control or whatever, which results in them being either overextended in lane or at low health. In case they are overextended and your jungler comes it's an easy kill, use ![]() ![]() ![]() | |||||
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Some Laning Tips | ||||||||||||||||||||
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Playing From Behind | ||
We've all been in that spot where you do something dumb, the enemy does something you didn't expect or the enemy jungler puts up a tent in your lane. Either way, your opponent ends up having a gold/xp lead over you. What do you do now? Well, that depends on the champion you are playing against. Overall, the main thing you should do is farm up, avoid roaming and utilize lane wards so you know where your opponent goes. | ||
Medium ranged mages ( ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Assassins ( ![]() ![]() ![]() | |
This is in my opinion the easiest class to play against from behind, if they try to threaten you, you can simply walk back and if you are unable to push the wave you can easily farm under your turret. Utilize lane wards as some of these champions roam a lot. |
It's pretty safe to farm close/under your turret against these champions as they cannot dive you due to your CC & ult. However, if you don't have ![]() | |
Poke mages ( ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Lane bullies ( ![]() ![]() ![]() | |
It is downright awful to play against these champions, your best hope is a jungle gank. At later levels, they'll push you towards your turret (just stay out of range till they start doing so), try to clear the wave as quickly as possible so they won't be able to poke you. | If one of these gets ahead... Unless your jungle ganks you, you're completely screwed. It's the same as playing against poke mages, but these champions have a higher all-in threat so you have to be even more careful when you are at low health. | |
Roaming | ||
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In case you didn't get shoved into the dust in the laning phase: Now is your time! You should be looking to farm in sidelanes unless your ADC is not able to waveclear/hold mid lane (in case the outer turret still stands). In that case you should hold mid lane. Avoid moving past the river unless you have vision/know where the enemy team is. It is also important that you farm on the side of the map with an objective (either drake or baron) so that you can join your team when a fight breaks out. In case you took ![]() Sometimes this simply doesn't work and both teams start grouping in midlane and start to fight for no reason. This can be really frustrating to deal with, your best bet is to simply join your team and try to force an engage. |
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Also keep an eye on the blue buff, ask your jungler for it when it's up. Don't steal it away when he/she makes it clear that he/she wants it himself. Playing without a blue buff is far easier than playing without a jungler. |
Using Your Ultimate | ||
IN THE MIDGAME | ||
In this stage of the game ![]() ![]() ![]() The general teamfight combo can also be used to engage small teamfights/skirmishes, but will not do much damage yet. Its main use in this stage of the game is to root people so that your team can follow up and kill them. | ||
IN THE LATEGAME | ||
There is much more damage flying around in this stage of the game. ![]() ![]() | ||
Self Ult VS Enemy Ult | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Sometimes it can be tough to choose when to ult enemies or when to ult yourself in a fight, here is an overview of when you should do what. Again, it's not always super obvious when you have to ult yourself and when you should ult an enemy. For example, you should only look to ult enemies for a 'more favorable' ult placement when you know that you won't die for it or that your death will win the fight. | |||||||||||||||||||||||
SELF ULT | ENEMY ULT | ||||||||||||||||||||||
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The downside of ulting yourself is that you cannot reposition yourself and the enemy can turn on you and kill you when you leave stasis. Here's an example of a midgame fight where this happens: |
The (obvious) downside of ulting an enemy is that you leave yourself open to attacks. When playing ![]() | ||||||||||||||||||||||
One last note before I continue: Before you dive in the enemy team/engage a fight, check whether your team is able to follow up. Unless you are ultra fed you won't kill the enemy by yourself, so if your team can't follow up do not jump in as you will probably die cold and lonely in the middle of the enemy team. | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Ultimate Placement | |||||
I mentioned this in the section above (and you probably didn't know what I meant ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) ). Ultimate placement is actually just what it says: the placement of the ice zone of ![]() >>(Almost) all enemies are on ultimate zone >>Enemy team is divided by the ultimate zone | |||||
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>>If you'd like to see some more clips of (successful) fights, there are some in the spoiler below. - These will be replaced as soon as I gain more footage. Speaking as of 24/12/20; I really gotta find new footage, all these clips are quite old!.![]() | |||||
Peeling VS Diving | |||||
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The answer to the question whether to peel or dive depends on your own strength and your teams strength. When you are really far behind you are next to no threat in terms of damage. The only thing you have is your CC, which is better used to peel than to dive. In midgame fights, people cannot deal with you as they won't have defensive items yet meaning that you can look to shut down their backline. This is also true when you are ahead as you can erase carries from Summoners Rift before they can react. In the lategame however, enemy carries should have the defensive tools to deal with you and it can be hard to threaten them. At the same time, your carries should be strong too (and if they're stronger than the enemy) you should be looking to protect them. |
Fighting Around Objectives | |||
Neutral objectives like
![]() ![]() It becomes a bit more difficult when your team is trying to take the objective. Unless you have a blue buff, the enemy is dead or the objective needs to be taken quickly you should avoid spamming ![]() It is a better idea to zone the enemy team or look for flanks. 'Zoning' is positioning yourself in such a way that the enemy is afraid of entering your 'zone'. In this case it would be that the enemy doesn't want to come close to you/walk through chokepoints because you might engage. | |||
Flanking is a much harder concept: you hide at the side/at the rear of the enemy and surprise them by coming from a different direction than the rest of your team. Having an ![]() ![]() | |||
It is also possible to flank with ![]() |
Fighting Without Ultimate | ||||||||
![]() ![]() There is a difference in fighting without ult in the midgame & in the lategame. In the midgame you can go in, use ![]() ![]() In the end fighting without ult always comes down to two scenario's, which you tackle in different ways.
Here's an example GIF, where you can see these alternating scenario's. I also added some notes below. This happened in a Nexus Blitz game. | ||||||||
There was just a large scale fight where my entire team died - I just came out of base, have everything up & am quite strong.
- Initially I make a mistake - I'm tunnel visioning on a lot of low health enemies and don't see
Zoe, luckily she's also not really paying attention. Always keep an eye on your surroundings, even if you see a really tasty combo.
- Small detail: If you run through skillshot reliant champs it becomes extremely hard for them to hit skillshots. This also applies to yourself, it is extremely easy to miss
Ice Shard when enemies do this.
- After
Zoe dies,
Kayn tries to run at me. I wanted to time Q + W with passive, but misjudged the passive explosion time. Nonetheless he is forced away.
Ring of Frost +
Ice Shard does a LOT of damage later on - in the lategame you can surprise ADCs with this (as a last resort).
- I see
Brand walking up and cast
Glacial Path, knowing he can never get away from it in time. If people walk on top of the (blue) casting indicator they almost never get away in time.
Kayn tries to follow up on
Rell stun. I like to
Flash +
Ring of Frost into my passive thralls. This tends to kill the enemy & allows me to hit as many enemies as possible with
Ring of Frost. Although again, you have to be careful to not overstep.
Wall Jumping | |||||
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The jump from baron pit to red buff is extremely hard. You have to stand in the right spot and make the indicator completely horizontal. The jumps from drake pit to red buff and the jump out of baron pit are hard. The jumps to the tier 1 and tier 2 turrets and the jump into baron pit are medium. All other jumps are easy. Here are a couple of gifs showcasing the hard jumps. | ||
The matchups have been moved to a separate guide, they're still being updated. Click here to go to them!
If you read this, it means that you managed to reach the end of my guide.
I hope you enjoy playing Lissandra as much as I do, as her unique kit and playstyle are really interesting to utilize.
If you have any questions, suggestions or feedback, feel free to leave them in the comments. You can also check out the Lissandra mains subreddit or Lissandra mains Discord (click the text below).
And last but not least: Huge thanks to YOU for reading this guide!
I hope you enjoy playing Lissandra as much as I do, as her unique kit and playstyle are really interesting to utilize.
If you have any questions, suggestions or feedback, feel free to leave them in the comments. You can also check out the Lissandra mains subreddit or Lissandra mains Discord (click the text below).
And last but not least: Huge thanks to YOU for reading this guide!
- Huge thanks to jhoijhoi's Making a Guide guide! I wouldn't have been able to create this guide without it!
- Thanks to Foxy's table coding guide for expanding my coding knowledge (and a very very helpful preset). Sadly all the images are broken, if you want to learn about tables check this out instead!
- Huge thanks to Psiguard for taking a peek at my guide and helping me with the cheatsheet!
- Lots of thanks to Fruxo for reviewing my guide and giving me feedback!
- Thanks to Silverman43 and Jovy for helping me with banners!
- Thanks to TheBlueImperial for helping me out and just being there!
- Thanks to everyone that left a comment on my guide! I wouldn't have known whether I my guide went in the right direction or not without you.
- Thanks to the Mobafire Discord! All of you are the best <3
- dd/mm/yy
- 20/02/21 Messed around with build. Runes/items section removed till later notice. Guide needs work.
- 03/02/21 Removed
Abyssal Mask,
- 21/01/21 Some minor tweaks here and there
- 06/01/21 Updated for new patch
- 01/01/21 Some proofreading and minor changes
- 24/12/20 Added a waveclearing section to laning & a bit on fighting without ult to post & lane
- 20/12/20 Item changes of course
- 12/12/20 More changes to items
- 03/12/20 Added some example builds since the other mythics felt left out
- 29/11/20 Hit 1M mastery :D
- 28/11/20 Yeeted
Imperial Mandate, it simply lacks the powerspike other mythics have and force you into specific runes/itemization to make it work.
- 27/11/20 Some minor fixes and tweaks
- 26/11/20 New version published!
- Changed items & runes
- New graphicals
- Changes to combo's, gameplay sections, etc (new clips/images)
- Matchups will come/be finished later



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Katasandra
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A Lissandra guide | Feel the Power of True Ice
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