This guide is my first guide I have ever written for anything, and my goal is help achieve knowledgeable league of legends players to pick up Vlad and use him effectively.
Things that will be covered
-Masteries
-Runes
-Team fights
-Solo mid
-Champions that are a pain in the *** to fight against
-Items
-Jungle Vlad(just kidding)

I have played well over 400 games as Vlad, and I picked him up as soon as he came out, this guide is constantly changing, hopefully for the better and I really hope you take some information out of this and put it to good use. Lastly all I can ask is that you rate my guide accordingly thumbs up or thumbs down, but if you do decide to give me a thumbs down please give me a reason at least, I read the comments section and take into consideration what is said and I have changed some points in my guide to what users have put in the past.

Thanks guys and enjoy

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Runes



x9 Greater Mark of Insight
x9 Glyph of Insight
Greater Seal of Vitalityx9 Seal of Vitality
x3 Quintessence of Fortitude



Its very basic how I have my runes set up, since you are full AP, magic Pen is very important and the higher the better, with this you get
+14 Magic pen, +78 Health at level 1 +175 health at level 18(+9.72per level gain)

the early health gives me survivability, and the early magic pen really lets you harass mid lane. End game you get almost 300 bonus health from Runes, that is pretty much a free

of course you can alternately go For yellow Runes

and for blue runes

so we have a few different ways to start off the game you can go and a or and 3x its up to you and how you want your items to lead into each other (Tome goes into Rylais, void staff and Mejais Soulstealer| Boots obviously go into any tier Boots)


The early AP from amplifying will give you 610 Health with runes and masteries, at the same time the boots are good for harrassing(even though i do not have a problem with harrassing without boots)but it puts you at 574 health, really Its all a matter of what you are comfortable with.

So as long as you have been last hitting for the past 6-10 minutes, your first big item will be and or , you should get this when you have 2000 gold and then work toward Finishing your As your very first item since it gives you 240 AP.

Next i recommend one of these Many boots After finishing boots and death cap, get your . (Note if you are doing amazingly well early game its ok to start working on two items at the same time for example getting a Giant's Belt after buying Needlessly Large Rod just be sure to finish Deathcap first)

Next you start building and after Hourglass you need to see what Magic resist they have and who has it(i say this because if the tank only has MR, you should not be targeting the tank to begin with but the casters and DPS)but if you are making a heavy impact on the opposite team they will stack MR against you and i almost always go . Our last item really depends on you, Just make sure it benefits you since its endgame, i usually go for the extra MR and AP.

End game you pretty much end up with insane AP damage, coupled with the void staff, you are doing 600+ Damage every 2.2 seconds or 1.8 with transfuse, Just remember MAX CDR on transfuse is 1.8 and it cannot go any lower than this.

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Defensive items

If you are being targeted a bit too much then this is very useful
If you are having trouble with any spell caster like veigar who can blow you up almost instantly(even though thats what sanguine pool is for)
for the amazing Magic resist
For health, CDR, and two slows, get this if you have a terrible tank
If you need AP and magic resist

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Items In order

My core build usually ends up as these items, Except the boots is your choice, and also the last item is up to you honestly, Realize that this is the safe Route to go with steady AP.
{Last Item is up to you}

Secondary build
I do have a second Build you can go which is very similar to what i have posted up, instead of getting a last item, get Mejai's Soulstealer As you're first or second item, then move on with the item building order, This also builds perfectly with amplifying tome as you're first item. The only problem i have with Mejais is how good you're team is, and how safe you can keep you're self from being targeted, Its just as easy as a team to target you and ruin any stacks on soul stealer, which then makes the item useless because you are being targeted constantly and you now have an item with no stacks :(

Good Summoner abilities
Ghost is my top choice, with Mobility you can cover ground with movement speed up to 500+, its amazing to cover the map and get to allies if they are being hunted
This is my second top choice, it cuts healers heals in half while burning them
Exhaust is always a good spell, great for 1v1 or team battles, and amazing against strong melee or ranged DPS
Flash is amazing for several reasons, you can blink through walls, or away from team fights, or right in the middle of them.
Teleport can be useful if you want to buy items and jump to other lanes, Teleport is always great for holding towers

Not so good Summoner abilities
Nothing to say about this
This is also useless
Rally isn't any good since you aren't AD
Improved Fortify is good but i would not recommend this on vlad
This can always be helpful to stop ganks or see for baron but its not important as Ignite or Ghost
Having sanguine pool is pretty much all you need, you can dodge anything before it hits you if you respond fast enough, so i dont find this very useful
Transfusion is smite for vlad, with 2 AP items you can be hitting almost for 400 each time
again transfusion for vlad is his heal, so this is useless

Vlad is an amazing support hero and hard carry, he can (if strong enough) run into a group of 4-5 Heroes and come out alive and if not you can bring them all down to 20-30% health easily. The most important thing is that you have a strong team, with a Tanks like Galio, amumu,Malphite or rammus who can pull heroes from you or stun them. CC is very important because it compliments Vlad to Bring people down with and

As vlad you normally should not intiate a team fight, but instead let the tank intiate which is what the tanks purpose is there for, Having the opposite team focus the tank makes it easy for you to jump into the middle of a group and begin your process of owning there faces.

lead into the fight with targeting at least 3 people at the minimum, the extra increased % damage will really wreck them for the next 5 seconds, but also make SURE that your team is going to back you.

***On a side note, if you know you are going to have a team fight, or think you are, its good to get to Stack level 2 at the minimum, and keep watching the Time of its duration before it drops stacks, you always want to refresh it when its almost about to drop off, Just be aware that it takes health and you will hit Half health if you just spam Tides.***

Next cast as quickly as possible (Tides should be at 2-4 Charges)and Then go into going underneath the enemy team but staying close to your team, When you come out you should immediately hit and

Like i said, its very important you have a team that will back you and go all in with you, otherwise you are going straight into a suicide mission which i have had happen many times. Vlad can really shine at bringing enemy groups down to little or no health but CC and damage and no team mates helping you can really mess things up.

This section is very important, some champions can be a real pain and require you to stay alert at all times.

I will go over the champions i personally have had problems with in the past played by an extremely good player with full Rune pages. This does not mean that you can not take them mid, personally i think vlad can handle any hero Mid lane, but it means you have to play less aggressive and more of a Smart and defensive vlad
Facing your twin wont always be easy, mainly i dont face vlad mid cause they side lane for some odd reason, but when you do fight your twin, first thing is to check the things that seperate you two (items, health, AP,) The most important thing to give you the upper hand is to him without him hitting you, and also if you two are going to each other, theres a trick i use, right when you hit tranfuse right click him then run away, you will get an auto attack in plus your transfusion meaning you would be the one doing the most damage, Lastly its very important you try and dodge his if you can do that while getting yours off, its surely an advantage. Honestly it comes down to who has more magic pen,ap, and health and who can play smarter and respond faster.



With anivia, i have found that attacking her before six really gives you the advantage of the creeps and creep denying, you can deny her if you feel confident enough to dodge her The whole goal before level 6 is to get her to crack her Once she gets her ulti she has a better control over mid better than you do but you can still own her face. If by chance you do get hit by her or and you have the frozen effect on you, you need to see when she comes toward you and casts so you can sanguine pool, and she does no damage to you. you really just have to dodge as much as you can all the while trying to pop her egg, backing up getting health from transfusion and doing it all over.

Annie is a huge pain in the ***, normally you want to kill annie before she gets , her stun combo will blow you up outright before you can do anything, not to mention will dodge her stun, but it wont waste it and it will just act as if she never casted it( and smart Annie uses her stun for ) Honestly the solution is to harass and kill her before 6, or wait till 9 and work her down.
Fiddles can be a real pain for early game, a good fiddles runs around the map like vlad ganking, but he can do it much earlier than vlad most of the time, Starting out fighting fiddles, you have to play defensively just like the rest, he can run up to you and open up with then he can . The problem with Drain is that its a channeled spell and as soon as you his drain is still hitting you in the ground. Honestly you need ignite so his drain gets cut in half at any level. Fiddles can also open up with or end on . The good thing about fiddles is that he more than likely wont waste his on you 1v1 and would rather gank bottom or top with it, not to mention it takes a bit to channel and he needs the advantage of a bush to utilize its "suprise" attack.
Veigar is the best hard counter to any AP caster, his Blows you up so hard, the best counter honestly is to try and get someone to gank him mid and give you the upperhand, if you cant pull that off then you need to do your damn best to get him before he hits 6. if you end up in his be sure to not his the borders and just wait in the middle, go to the opposite side if he casts on you or if its in the middle just before its about to drop, Honestly if you can survive his combo then you can destroy him with yours.

Karthus requires you to be attentive, and to always be alert. You need to bait him to try and use and in the process of you doing this you need to dodge 90% of them, when hes out of mana you can successfully deny him. Its always smart to run toward him like you are going to and then when you see him about to cast you take a hard left or right, or even back up, and of course you dont need any magic resist against karthus cause his ultimate is what really hurts and honestly you just need to get out of that.


Kassadin can be a pain if he is full AP against you mid, his range on Is 700 and silences for 1-3 seconds depending on the level, Is only at a 550 Range, that is a huge gap for him to hit you with it before you can transfuse him, Granted you can before his Sphere hits you, but sanguine pool is on a 20 second cool down to begin with, Null Sphere is 9. The second most annoying part about kassadin is he can on top of you and get his sphere off right away. Playing defensively always works for me against kass, and dodging his sphere and transfusing when you come out of Pool. Just stay alive until you hit 9

Miss fortune is only a pain half of the time, she can shoot her and really take chunks of health from you, the best way to fight her is to literally move all the way to the bottom right or top left of your creep wave. She wont Double up most of the time without hitting two targets or else its a waste. keep your distance from creeps but also transfuse her from the side. Her ulti is a joke, save your pool until she casts it and when she does all you have to do is go under her and behind her ( or to the side ) Again once you hit level 9 you can easily harass her and kill her since all miss fortunes are overly aggressive

mordekaiser can be a hard mid But its very rare that i have seen a morde mid anymore, his and can be very annoying, just like miss fortune you want to stay to the side and harass him from there, using sanguine pool and transfuse to work around him. The most important thing is that you catch him when he has no shield and before he casts it, so you can hurt his actual health and not his shield, the best way to do that is to auto attack him and then quicklyTransfuse Him.


Normally Malzahar is not a problem, but lately i have ran into some very very amazing players playing mal, they will know just when to throw To silence you, once they have you silenced they can throw and hold you with
Its best to try and kill him before 6, once six rolls around you need to make sure you do not get hit with his silence, even then his hold could be enough to get you killed if he times it correctly. The best thing about mal though is that he can be destroyed very easily mid-to late game against vlad, not to mention if you rush or some Magic resist items as your third or fourth item. Abyssal scepter will really make his AP seems lower. Again play defensively or have a team mate gank him mid and get that Jump of two levels on him.

Urgot is a very challenging hero at early levels and if played by a very experienced player. The good thing about urgot is, is that he is useless late game. He has two spells that can really destroy you, its extremely important that you pay attention to when he moves forward to shoot his and that you bait him to try and shoot it, if he sees you running forward and you move back quickly you can catch an urgot shooting it and hitting nothing. The problem with him mid is you are pretty helpless until you hit 6, at that point you can destroy him as long as he doesnt hit you with his corrosive charge. If he does happen to hit you with and you need to pool/run back immediately going the opposite direction from him until it wears off, then go back and start transfusing health back.

To summarize all of it, Vlad is a very good carry and high damage AP hybrid, his passive gives him health to stay alive while getting AP at the same time.

Here are a few Key points that are the most important to me as vlad
-Last hit and gold is so very important
-Ganking is just as important
-Team fights are to your advantage, you get 14% increased damage while Hemoplague is on, its the perfect aoe if you have a team to back you.
-Full Rune page and correct masteries is what utilizes vlad to his full potential
-If you cant handle mid, play it defensively and wait till you get level six, or at least level nine




You can take on any hero with vlad and should not have any problems after reading this guide, if you do contact me on League of legends and ill show you first hand(with a good team)
lets play!!!

Summoner name- Summerskin