This is a Morgana build built around one of Morgana's main pros, the fact that she's an extremely competent second solo. She doesn't need to be close to the minions to actually farm them and has great lane survivability with black shield and her passive spell vamp and overcoming the fact that it is mana-consuming to farm by using your abilities... How to farm properly will me explained later on.
This build is all about farming your way to some items and getting some early-game kills.

For runes, I'd say standard mage runes would suffice, getting Magic Penetration Marks, Mana Regeneration Seals, Cooldown Reduction, Flat AP or AP per level Glyphs and Flat AP or Flat Health Quints.

http://www.mobafire.com/league-of-legends/rune-page-planner#&rune=351:9-268:9-254:9-319:9-309:9-303:9-267:9-338:3-266:3

The Masteries used are, again, fairly standard for a mage, just make sure to get the magic penetration in offence; and the additional experience in utility.

Here is where it may get stupid in the opinion of some people.

You start off with a Doran's Ring, for you won't be needing much more than decent mana regen and some AP early-game. Your passive can keep you alive in lane.

After that rush Ionian Boots of Lucidity, if you lack the money to purchase the boots of lucidity after you got your Boots of Speed but you have around 500 gold (if it's 670 e.g. you'd be best of waiting for the 30 remaining gold), get another Doran's Ring, just for the extra boost.

Once you have your boots, you may want to go for Rod of Ages; prioritizing the Catalyst over the Blasting Wand, it may take a while to get, but it's certainly worth it, as you can use the increase in health, mana and AP every minute. If you can't make this Item by the 19 minute mark, you can assume you are behind on farming (or killing enemy champions).

Next up get an Archangel's Staff Prioritizing the Tear of the Goddess over the Blasting Wand; This serves to increase your mana pool significantly and thus serves to give you more freedom to farm using your abilities, While not in teamfights, thereby increasing the rate at which you farm.

Next up you can either get Zhonya's Hourglass first and after that a Rabadon's Deathcap or the other way around.

Zhonya's Hourglass gives you the ability to remain invulnerable while you wait for your ult's stun to trigger; Recommended to build first if their team is not very mobile or has great amounts of crowd control.

Rabadon's Deathcap gives you an immense AP boost that increases the damage output of your abilities significantly, usually getting you over the 500 AP threshold.

Usually the game will be over after these items or maybe even well before then.
However, In the case of an extremely long game, you should get your last item focused on survivability while still adding some damage; items such as Abyssal Scepter and Banshee's Veil (Mana increase grants you some AP) can be useful if their main source of damage is magic.

In the case you feel like you have enough survivability, you can always get a Void Staff or a Morello's Tome.


Here's an overview of the items mentioned above in the right order (out of the last 3 items, 1 can be selected as last item)
http://www.mobafire.com/league-of-legends/item-purchase-planner#&item=25-1-113-39-44-58-35-106-115-13-114-34-76-98

As explained over and over in the above chapters, this build is all about getting farm, and by leveling your 'W' (Tormented Soil) first you can just do that.
However,

Your secondary skill should be Q (Dark Binding), and your last skill should be your E (Black Shield)

in the end you should just keep this in mind:
Get your W whenever you are able to unless you can get your ult.
Get your Q whenever you can't get your 'W' except at level 4
Get your E once at level 4 and after that only when you already have your Q and W maxed out.
Get your Ult whenever possible

Farming, where this build is all about.
As mentioned before you may want to use your Tormented Soil to farm minions...

HOWEVER be warned that you're still a second solo, meaning you have a jungler, So use your 'W' to farm only when:
-They are pushed within your turret range and your jungler is not around
-If your jungler is off ganking somewhere else you can push your lane if you want, but be carefull for ganks :P

As a second solo, kills or assists are also very useful to get your hands on.
You should farm as hard as you could, but do not let your farming harm your jungler by denying him opportunities to gank; So it's recommended to communicate well with your teammates regarding the matter of you pushing.

One of the most problematic lanes you'll be facing as a 2nd solo Morgana are dual lanes with huge amounts of harassment, Champions such as a Caitlin, Maokai, another Morgana, Mordekaiser and Kassadin are a big pain in the *** for any second solo. Though it may be suboptimal, the best way to counter these lanes is to stay out of their way and let them push, don't give them opportunities to harass you too much.
Once they are pushing throw in a Tormented soil to farm some minions and communicate to your team that you could use a gank whenever possible; because in this state, you won't get the farm this build is reliant on. Just keep on giving them the opportunity to push and get some kills while the minions are at (or near) your turret.

These issues shouldn't present themselves when laning against another second solo, however in that case, it will be very recommended that upon going to base for the first time, that you get a ward to make sure their jungles cannot get fed on you.

Morgana in General
+ Great lane survivability
+ Can counteract crowd control by using her Black Shield
+ Can lockdown an entire team if ult is placed well
+ Good for harassing before a teamfight
+ Has decent abilities to help allies escape ganks
+ Has great farming ability with Tormented Soil


- Low Movement speed
- Lacking damage output without ultimate
- Dark Binding requires good aim and some luck to hit

Build-Specific
+ Big mana pool with decent regeneration
+ Fairly Sturdy even without much health

- Low Cooldown Reduction

If you are that new to Morgana that you don't have a faint idea as to how or when to use her abilities, this may help out.

If you plan to attack an enemy, you should always initiate with your Dark Binding (Q) and check if it'll hit or not. as you check this more often you will learn to realize in flight whether it will hit or not.

If it will hit, throw your Tormented Soil (W) at the spot of your target and watch the health wash away slowly.

Once you've done that, you should make a rough guess as to how much damage your combo does at that time, so that if you manage to do it repeatedly, you know when you can finish the target with Ignite.


Your ultimate should most of the times be used in teambattles alone; However if you see that you can get a kill with it as soon as you hit level 6 or somewhat later during the laning phase, you should use your ultimate.
Before using it in a teamfight you must make sure you have at least a big chunk of health left to survive possible focus OR have items like Zhonya's Hourglass at the ready to save your hide. Black shield is an option too, but is better used on champions with channeling ultimates or damage sources, or Physical dps champs.

Having trouble landing your Q while in lane? you can solve that issue easily by either:
- Practicing to aim on moving/stationary targets
- Using your ultimate as an initiating skill from the brush and casting your Q right as the stun on the target is about to end
- Using your ultimate's slow to make the process of hitting easier.

Obviously the last 2 are to be used when you are sure you can kill someone with it... so yeah, it's recommended to just practice your aim with it.

Morgana is a very competent champion to go Second Solo and whether it will go alright is up to the person playing her.
I hope that with the guidelines provided with this guide you can get a feel as to how awesome Morgana is to play especially as a second solo.

Don't forget that helping and communicating with your teammates is often more valuable than farming your *** off saying nothing.

If there are any issues you have with the guide (It being vague or contradicting for example), please leave a comment so I can Improve it :)