Hey everyone ! My name is jerebwic and i'm currently Platinum 2 on the EUW ladder. I've been playing League of Legends for some time time now (about 3 years 1/2) and I main mid, support and AD carry.
I have started playing Brand at the end of season 3 and I always thought it was a rather underestimated champion, especially now in the tank meta, where Brand can crush tanks thanks to the amazing damage his passive deals !

He is my favorite champion on midlane, and I have some experience with him with over 300 ranked games and about 57% winrate when I'm able to play him.

I will try to be as precise as possible and will try to cover all aspects of his gameplay through this guide. I also felt that detailing every possible matchups mid could help players that hesitate picking Brand in certain situations.


This is my first guide so forgive me for any presentation mistakes and feel free to comment if you liked it / disliked it !



UPDATE 14/08
Thanks all for your feedback, more than 3K Views in 1 week that's amazing ! I updated some matchups details and will keep updating this guide, completing / adding some new parts.
Some people don't agree that much with my masteries choices, like some people prefer picking the CDR (cooldown reduction) for summoners ( Flash and Ignite ). Those are your own choices and like I said this guide represents my global vision of the gameplay of Brand but you can add your own twists and make your own choices depending on what you prefer / your gamestyle.

New parts planned:
- Early / mid / late game specific details
- Brand positionning
- Warding midlane
- Gameplay guide with voice commentary

These features will be added over time since I'm trying to manage my time between studies and this. Thanks again for your feedback and support

Pros:
+ Great early game, strong mid game
+ Good passive damage
+ Can adapt to many situations thanks to different combos you can do
+ 2 seconds stun at level 3
+ Nice AOE damage
+ Rewarding champion

Cons:
+ No escape => Vulnerable to ganks
+ Decent Late game
+ Needs a good positioning
+ Skillshots
+ Ultimate can be countered

-IMPORTANT-
I HIGHLY recommend to play with these runes on Brand, you can be very vulnerable early game with the lack of escape you have and the magic pen is VERY important for your early game. (Passive damage)


Alternative runes if you have a full AP team:


If you face a full AD team:

The good thing about Brand is that you can adapt to many situations depending on your build.

Some people will prefer building flat AP but this has some pro's and con's of course while some other people will prefer going for some safer items (etc...)

Like i said previously I don't see why you would not start by Doran's Ring, it has become the classic start on all AP carries since some time now and I don't see any reason why this would change.

Rylai's Crystal Scepter seems to be in my opinion one of the strongest items on Brand at the moment. It synergizes so well with your combo's that it has become a MUST HAVE item on Brand right now.

At first back you should buy Giant's Belt if you feel like the lane is not that easy, otherwise if you grabbed a kill i'd recommend taking Needlessly Large Rod. But careful, if you get suddenly ganked by the ennemy jungler, you have more chances to succeed in a 2v1 (or escape/ live) if you bought a Giant's Belt.


Zhonya's Hourglass can also be an interesting starting item if you are facing a full AD team or perhaps some champion like Talon, Zed or Yasuo.
But as I said earlier these champions are not that much of a threat to Brand, so except if you're facing a guy that seems to play them very well, you can stay with your Rylai's Crystal Scepter to start with



Luden's Tempest is an amazing item on Brand, it works amazingly well with your Pillar of Flame and with Rylai's Crystal Scepter.

If you're facing a tanky team, of course it can be interesting to do Liandry's Torment before Luden's Tempest . Gives you a decent amount of HP as well !

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Situationnal items

In some games you will have to be smart and not follow this build to be more efficient for your team. In some games you will be heavily focused, and in some others people could just ignore you.

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OFFENSE

Rabadon's Deathcap TOP snowballing item, gives A LOT of AP and scales more than your usual items on Brand

When should you do Rabadon's Deathcap ?

When your team lacks damage, when opponents don't have enough damage or simply can't kill you, when they are not building Magic resist.
Works well at low elo ( Low bronze - Low silver )


Morellonomicon Nice item if you're facing some sustain heavy champions like Swain (etc...) or maybe your team lacks an Ignite, or maybe perhaps your team is a little brainless (this can happen, even in Gold elo) and wants to ignite the support...

DEFENSE

Banshee's Veil Very important item if you are facing heavy CC teams or midlaners ( Annie for example). If you are laging a little this item can be important to save your life in late game and give you time to do something useful for your team.

Warmog's Armor] If you really need some HP, if you're facing a [[veigar, or if the ennemy team has loads of Magic penetration, well, Health can be a solution.

Guardian Angel I don't personnaly like doing this item in soloq, because it's useless if your team doesn't follow. Decent mid game item though . Note too that Brand has no escape and that you have no chance to live if people gather around you (except if you have an unexpected lucky Flash )

I will explain spells first then the different type of combo's you can do:

Let's talk about his passive first: Blaze deals 2% of targetted champion's maximum Health in magic damage per second for 4 seconds.


When brand hits a target, he light his targets ablaze and this is the most important part of Brand's gameplay



Amazing passive that can crush tanks and surprise opponents at any stage of the game. It synergyses in an awesome way with Liandry's Torment

Sear is Brand's Q spell, you will max it last and it does a decent amount of damage. The hitbox is not that small so it's not that hard to hit. The 2 second stun is your only way of defense against people that put you in danger, better not miss it ! You have to trigger it with another spell first, like Pillar of Flame or Conflagration
Scales decently with AP (0.65) , Eats less mana than other Brand spells

Pillar of Flame Basicly your most important early damage spell, deals a good amount of damage and scales less than Sear but still decently. Can deal 25% of extra damage to a "burning" target"
Max it first

Conflagration The only "non skillshot" ability of Brand, his lowest damage spell and uses a little more mana than Sear
It can spread if the target is "burning"


COMBO'S


DEPUSH COMBO


Sear => Conflagration => Pillar of Flame


SINGLE TARGET DAMAGE COMBO


Conflagration => Sear => Pillar of Flame

QUICK STUN COMBO

Conflagration => Sear or Pillar of Flame => Sear



IMPORTANT TO KNOW:
You have to play Brand in smartcast, because you have to be quick, and therefore you need to learn the range of your spells, if you want to become better, quicker, climb elo, it's the only way.


Conflagration is the spell that has the lowest range
Sear is the spell that has the highest range
Pillar of Flame and Pyroclasm have the same range


Pyroclasm is Brand's ultimate and it's pretty much THE amazing spell of Brand, your opponents definitly rage due to that!
It can bounce up to 4 times + the initial hit, scales okay with AP (+0.5 AP dmg).
So it can do up to 350(+0.5 AP) *5 and let's suppose you have 500 AP, means you will deal 3000 dmg with ONE spell in the fight (Without considering Blaze or Liandry's Torment damage ... )

Interesting thing is that it bounces QUICKER if your targets are burning, and towards ennemy champs in priority.
(For example I killed a Diamond 4 main viktor not so long ago by doing Conflagration on a minion then using Pyroclasm on that minion. I was not in range with my other spells so that surprised him.
I snowballed that kill and carried the game, with very frustrated oppponents flaming viktor !


OPTIONNAL COMBOS

If Conflagration is on cooldown and you need to stun someone:

Pyroclasm => Sear

Sear => Pillar of Flame (Extra damage on Pillar of Flame)

From my personnal experience, Brand is very viable champion in SOLO QUEUE at the moment, his only weakness would be of course the lack of escape Brand has if the ennemy jungler decides to camp you.
I have detailed every matchups and said what I thought about them. If you feel like first picking Brand in a ranked game you have to be sure that you are good enough with him, as there are some very powerful champions like Diana, Fizz or Viktor that can make your game become hell.

Play Video

Even if the Champion spotlight is very outdated it shows many interesting things and I think you should definitly watch it if you didn't visualise everything I said in this Brand guide.

If I'm motivated and this guide has good feedback I could do a video guide of my own but I think it's a little early for that.



Give me feedback and burn your opponents summoners ! :)