Hello there. This is my first attempt at a guide so I figured I'd try my had at writing up something for one of my favorite champions, Morgana. She was the first character I picked up and is really what hooked me to this game. Morgana, if built correctly, can be an incredibly durable combatant and can dish out large amounts of magic damage all the while not having to leave her lane often.

Mmmm... Passive spell vamp. This is what makes Morgana so awesome in the laning phase. 15% of your damage returned as healing at level 1? Yeah, that works. Combine this with taking clarity and you should never have to go back before you want to.

Dark Binding is one of Morgana's two spells that make or break the player, the other being Black Shield. It's a skill shot nuke that snares the enemy for what feels like forever to them. The sphere moves kinda slow so you will need to lead most of your shots unless your enemies don't have half a brain and stay still for you.

A great AoE farming ability and awesome harass. A friend of mine believes that Dark Binding is a better first choice for level 1 spell but I say nay. Tormented soil gives you the ability to harass, heal, and farm all at the same time with proper positioning, AND it causes more damage each tick that the enemy stands on it due to it lowering their magic resistance. Do not underestimate the magic resistance reduction. It has been the cause of many first bloods for me in mid lane because someone thought they could take me without my magic pen.

As stated before, this ability can be the bane of a bad Morgana's existence. Improper placement and timing can completely screw over yourself and your team. It's not just the damage shield that makes it so great(and because of the great ratio you shouldn't need more levels in it until later), but the complete immunity to any CC at all. Frost Arrow coming right toward your team's face? Black Shield. Blitzcrank lining up for a rocket grab? Blocked. This thing has saved my *** more times than I'd like to count. If you plan to play Morgana, get used to self casting this thing.

This ultimate makes me happy any time I hear it go off. It means someone is now dead or will be soon. When triggered, it latches on to all nearby enemy champions hitting for a large burst of damage. Tack on a slowing tether, and a couple seconds later those same champions are now rooted in place and taking a massive beating from you and your team. Not only that, it can be used to detect those sneaky rats and blue strippers that like to stealth around the map. If you don't see any enemy champs, but your ultimate is castable, be on serious guard and call for help if you think they aren't alone.

Greater Mark of Magic Penetration
Gives a decent amount of magic pen until you can get your Sorcerer's Shoes.

Greater Seal of Replenishment
Morgana is pretty mana hungry so the more mana regen you have until you can finish your Rod of Ages the better. This allows you to use up your clarity less so you can save it for a crucial moment.

Greater Glyph of Scaling Ability Power
Now, some say flat AP is better since runes are mostly just for early levels anyway. I tend to look at it this way. Most of the time I don't head back to base until I can get my Catalyst and boots. This is around level 6. At level 6 AP/lvl runes have already matched AND surpassed flat AP. This might just be personal preference and flat AP may work the same, but AP/lvl is what I use.

Greater Quintessence of Health
Pretty solid quints. Gives a great early game health boost in combination with your Doran's Ring, and with Morgana's passive you shouldn't have health problems at all even through early game harass.

Mana at the touch of a button. Helps so much early and even mid game, plus it's nothing but a boon to your team late game. There's always that one guy low on mana before a big team fight and look who's there to give him presents. You with a big blue swirly button.

Burning an enemy down with Ignite is so satisfying when they're stuck helplessly on top of soil that's eating away at their feet.

Also viable:

Good spell that helps you move around the map, clearing up waves that were pushed into your tower.

Helpful since Morgana's only escape mechanisms rely on either timing or aim. If you're bad at either, flash may help out.

Same as flash. Ghost will help get out of trouble and combine with Black Shield you probably won't need to worry about being stopped while you're fleeing.

While this is much more a support spell, if you must have it then go for it.

I'll slap you if I see these.

You are not a jungler. No.

It only increases AD with this masteries. You should be ashamed.

Need I mention your passive? Useless.

Nope.

This is for tanks and supports, not for you. Focus on damage.

Alright here's the order my items are almost always bought in. Some optional items will also be mentioned.

1: Always always always start with Doran's Ring. This thing is an amazing starting item for Morgana. The health, mana regen, and ability power are all perfect and provide a great early game starting point to help you keep in the lane.

2:Catalyst the Protector On the first trip back you should've farmed up enough gold to buy a Catalyst. It's not terribly expensive and by this time you should have three points in Tormented Shadow so gold shouldn't be a problem.

2.5: Here's where a lot of your early game damage comes from. The little boost that comes from this elixir can cause your Q to W combo to go from tickling to searing pain in just 250 gold. This will get you first blood if you've got some good aim, or just make up for it's cost by making your farming go even faster. Buy it if you have extra after the catalyst. Any time you come back from here on, if you've got the cash buy an elixir. It's cooldown reduction and AP boost will make times much easier for you.

3: Tier one boots. Nothing special, you should be able to get them on your second trip back, maybe first if you were really raking in the gold.

4: Now the real AP items start coming in. I generally have enough gold to actually complete my Rod of Ages by the time I grab this, but you might not be able to yourself. If the farm is bad, or you've been having a tough time with ganks, get just the wand and the go for your upgraded boots.

4.5: Right about here is where you should be gauging your performance and judging whether or not you should have a soulstealer. Because it will be replacing Rylai's, you need to know if you are doing well enough to forgo the extra health in the end game.

5: Morgana's "kiss my ***" boots. With these boots and your runes combines with Tormented Soil's magic resistance reduction, your damage will be damn near full strength baring the enemy actually buying magic resist early game.

6: Health, mana, AND the fuel for your devastating attacks? Sign me up. I feel Rod of Ages is an amazing item for Morgana adding to her already impressive survivability, and giving a good amount of mana so she won't be starved. Once this is built, you should never ever have mana problems, and that's before the ten minute charge-up period.

7: Damage, damage, and more damage. This hat is a nuke that you can place on your head. A spike in AP like the one this gives quickly shows itself with Morgana's passive and the AoE farming ability that she possesses. You'll go from almost empty health back up to almost full in one or two creep waves, especially if you can land a Dark Binding or two in the process. Spell Vamp is a beautiful thing.

8: Now we start to add some damage reduction. The old active from Zhonya's Ring was ripped off and shoved onto her hourglass. Apparently this glorified clock gives armor somehow, but I'm not complaining. Not only is the armor great for negating physical damage, the active is perfect for Soul Shackles. In a team fight, you can start off by nuking down with your Q W combo and popping your Ult in the chaos. If you start taking too much damage, activate Zhonya's and your tethers stay intact. Anyone stupid enough to stay nearby will now be sitting ducks for everyone to nom on.

9: The magic damage version of the newer Zhonya's item. However instead of a more defensive ability, the unique passive on the scepter is much more offensive and much more devastating. An AoE magic resistance reduction is probably the closest thing to perfect for a champion whose magic damage largely relies on her being within practically spitting distance from the target. Getting it later in the build is only justified by Black Shield being so damn awesome at what it does.

10: Health, AP, and a slow that stacks with your ultimate's tether. A fine late game item to finish off the rest of your nuke processing plant.


Other possible options:

While I haven't tried it too often, I can see this being perfectly viable instead of Rylai's or maybe Abyssal Scepter. The heavy AP boost is great, and the cooldown reduction is nice since all of Morgana's abilities have ten second or longer waits.

Laning Phase:

Try and grab mid or a solo lane at the beginning. This will maximize your gold and level input and help you reach your incredibly expensive items fast. With your Doran's Ring and Tormented Shadow you should have a good amount of survivability to keep steady until you're ready to come back. Once Tormented Shadow is at rank three it'll be able to wipe out the back caster minions in each wave, giving you guaranteed gold. With proper positioning you'll be able to take out a melee minion or two as well.

All throughout laning phase make sure to harass with both Dark Binding and Tormented Shadow. The damage adds up fast and you'll be keeping the enemy from getting precious gold by forcing them away from the areas you infect. This works especially well if you're in a side lane against melee champs since they have to either choose to get burned and get gold or flee and lose some money. By the end of this phase you should have at least your catalyst and some boots. If you were fed a bit or are just a beast farmer you might have a blasting wand or mejai's too.

Mid Game:

Once team fights start to break out and towers are being pushed is when Morgana really starts to shine. In addition to the damage you've been dealing this whole time, you now have the ability to save teammates from the inevitable. Start team-fights when your team is ready and not the other by denying them their initiation with Black Shield. Place it on whoever is getting targeted and get your *** in with your team. Soul Shackles decimates team-fights. The enemy can stay to fight or suffer a stun with massive damage. After you add in the damage from Tormented Shadow and Dark Binding, you have one dead team.

Late Game:

You are now a very durable walking nuclear bomb. With easily 450-600 AP if a fight starts and you hit your ultimate, you've already done close to 800 damage. That's without the MR reduction of Tormented Soil. Your goal should be to keep whoever is being CC'd the hardest from being CC'd at all, snare people trying to escape, nuke down people as they enter, and most importantly stay alive. Don't be afraid to pop Zhonya's active. The majority of your damage happens instantly with tethers and DoTs so channels and aiming won't be much of an issue for two seconds.

1. You will need practice. Morgana is not a pickup-and-go character. Two of her skills require perfect timing to be of any use at all, and this is not something that most people will be able to achieve instantly. If you can't quite get the hang of dropping her shield to save people from that stun on the way, just keep at it. Eventually your whole team will be able to depend on you keeping them alive while destroying the enemy.
2. I repeat, do NOT underestimate the MR reduction from Tormented Shadow. If you are good at skill shots, try to land your Dark Binding after dropping the soil. The reduction will cause your sphere of doom to do an increased amount of damage so you can laugh at their stupidity for standing still.
3. Elixirs are your friends. 250 gold is enough to spare if you have the extra farm income. Those things pay for themselves.
4. Getting good at selfcasting your shield will save you from many a gank. Alt+E so you don't die.
5. Even though you look pretty in a big blue ball, don't be stingy with the shield. If someone is more likely to get focused than you, give it to them. You should be beefy enough to take a little bit of punishment and if you get your ultimate off before the CC hits, you don't need to worry about a large amount of your damage output. The tether will stay regardless.
6. Improved Clarity is in the masteries for a reason. Share the love, Clarity works at its best if the whole team gets the benefits.

Pros:

• Incredible damage output if played properly
• Great team asset to have with good Shield placement
• AoE magic resistance reduction helps more than just yourself
• Hard to kill due to passive spell vamp
• Is purple

Cons:

• Largely reliant on player skill
• Longer cooldowns than a lot of casters
• Mana hungry early on

I'll start posting some of my games I have with Morgana here. I tend to play a lot of different champions so I don't have many games with her in my history currently. Will be updated as time passes.
---