Morgana Build Guide by SoulSplasher

Pros / Cons

Pros:

1) Very safe laner and farmer.
2) No one really hard counters her at all points in the game.
3) Can gank other lanes very well post 6 with lots of hard CC that can be easily aimed once in range of Soul Shackles.

Cons:

1)Laning will be hard if she gets behind.
2)Lacks damage if behind.
3)Hard to carry games alone if you are the only one ahead and everyone else on your team is behind.

Farming

Tormented Soil only has a radius of 175 units, or a diameter of 350 units, and the caster minion's range is 550 units. There is usually a gap of 300-400 units between the enemy row of melee minions and caster minions. You won't be able to hit all of the minions with the pool most of the time so don't attempt to. PRIORITISE CASTER MINIONS INSTEAD.

Place Tormented Soil ahead of the caster minion (and NOT right in the middle on top of them) so that if the enemy clears your minions first, you can have time to react and force them to stay in your pool.

Morgana gets out traded and out harassed by almost everyone early game. So, you will have to freeze the lane near your tower levels 1-4, as your soil is not enough to clear caster minions. Pushing out wastes a lot of mana (2 casts of soil needed) and also leaves you vulnerable to ganks when you walk out again to cast W a second time. Not to mention you might lose the CS altogether if your minions kills your CS first.

While freezing and farming level 1-4, take note of what the enemy can and cannot do. For example, Ahri can land easy Orb of Deceptions on you when you walk in and farm. If she doesn't, immediately make a mental note of this that she cannot take opportunities to trade, and punish her consistently through out the game for this. If she does, you will have to pay more attention to dodging skillshots and farm with Q and W instead.

Coordination with the jungler: (or juggler or jungerler)

Ask your jungler to NOT invade the enemy, as your lane is frozen near your tower, and if you go and help if something happens, you will lose LOTS of xp and CS. Your enemy laner will also be more free to roam because of this and the invade will most likely fail.

Morgana has very poor followup for ganks pre 6 if the jungler has no hard CC himself like Master Yi or if they miss their CC. Elise. However, if your jungler is someone like Xin Zhao or Rammus, every single gank from them will usually result in burning a flash or a kill.

Team compositions:

Morgana fits well into many team comps.

Soul Shackles for AOE teamfight comps,
Dark Binding for poke and siege,
Tormented Soil for fast pushes and map pressure
Black Shield for peeling.

However, she can't do much with any of these on her own as they all have heavy weaknesses. R takes 3 seconds to stun, Q travels very slowly and W has a very small radius. Ask your team in champ select what their preferences are, and if someone on your team gets ahead, shield them and follow up on their engages.

Questions about skills/abilities:

Why max Tormented Soil before Dark Binding?

Most champions ( Talon LeBlanc Anivia Swain etc.) will have some form of farming ability that can clear faster than your rank 3 Tormented Soil, which takes 8-10 ticks to clear a wave of caster minions. If you didn't clear them fast enough, the minions will move out of your pool and you will need another cast of Tormented Soil to clear it. This wastes a lot of mana and can be very problematic especially if you enemy knows this and uses it against you. A rank 5 Tormented Soil will only take 5-7 ticks (2-3 seconds) to clear caster minions and potentially melee minions as well.

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Why do you max Dark Binding and Black Shield evenly?

A rank 1 Black Shield is often not enough to block CC as most enemies will attempt to break your shield first in any elo higher than silver. This problem is more significant after her Black Shield strength was nerfed in patch 4.14. Generally,

Get more points in Dark Bindingif you/your team is ahead.
Get more points in Black Shield if you/your team is behind.

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What is the best spell combo to use?

Contrary to popular belief, the best combo in most cases is not Dark Binding > Tormented Soil > Soul Shackles. For the most damage, use Soul Shackles > Tormented Soil > Dark Binding instead.

This will force the enemy to eat 7-10 of your soil and the combo will have a 330% AP scaling, depending on the enemy's health and the rank of Dark Binding. The problem with this is that enemies with mobility may get out of your Soul Shackles if you don't position properly. However, Flash and most champions ( Ezreal Nidalee Talon Fizz LeBlanc's single jump) can't get out with a single cast of the movement ability. If you see them use those you can always flash to catch up, and they won't get out even if they flash as well. The R W Q combo is also more effective here since they cant use movement/invunlerability abilities to block/dodge your Q.

With that in mind, you can get outplayed by some like Zed LeBlanc. If that happens you are in trouble as they can counter engage on you. Against these champions you can use the Q W R combo instead if you're not confident.

Against champions with multiple movement abilities ( LeBlanc double jump, Ahri), you will have to stick to the traditional combo of Dark Binding > Tormented Soil > Soul Shackles and might have to follow up with a flash as well. There are however usually other ways to counter champions like these (farming disadvantage etc.) and you are usually not forced to land your Q in lane.

Tl:dr -- Use Q W R if you are not confident, or R W Q instead if you are sure the enemy cant get out.

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Additional details:

Soul Shackles reveals stealth and can also be used to check for enemy champions across walls. It will light up if there are stealthed/out of vision champions near you. Particularly useful if you are trying to invade and steal buffs.

Items

How to use the Zhonya's Hourglass active:

Do not flash in and engage with Soul Shackles followed immediately by this unless your team has additional AOE CC follow-up. If not, the enemy will simply disengage from your team and re-engage later.

Even if you landed your Q, this can still be risky as Soul Shackles takes 3 seconds to proc, Dark Binding only lasts for 3 seconds at max rank, and you still have to count the channel time (0.2s total) for Tormented Soil and Soul Shackles and walking time towards your target. Adding all this up means the enemy will have about 0.5-1.5 seconds to get out, and they will, if they have movement abilities and you are in your Zhonya's Hourglass. Additionally, the enemy team will probably be using their shields/heals/cleanses on your Q target, making the chance of you killing them even slimmer.

Use the Zhonya's Hourglass active only in these situations:

1) The enemy team is in a very bad position (dragon/baron pit, small jungle pathways) and can't disengage easily


2) Your team is around and they have additional AOE CC follow up, or have already engaged with theirs.

3) you find yourself taking too much damage while your ult is still chaining. The enemy will have to change between focusing you and suddenly having to move away (0.2s reaction time). For this case, don't wait for too long as well, as your stun afterwards is only 1.5 seconds and hourglass lasts for 2.5 seconds. You want to have time to follow up with additional spells, or to run out if the enemy isn't dead yet.

These 3 situations rarely occur in the early game (except 1 at the dragon pit) and therefore building hourglass can be delayed into second item. Your 1st item can be Athene's Unholy Grail to make laning easier against AP.

Conclusion

Morgana is a very safe pick at mid lane, and while there are hard matchups, they don't really hardcounter her throughout the game. She can transition well into late game and fits into a variety of team compositions.