Hello everyone, this is my mid lane mage/assassin guide for Lissandra, I feel like I main her for a long time now and would like to share my way of playing her and carrying the solo queue. As this is my first guide on Mobafire please tell me in the comments what you think about it and what I can improve. I'm currently Platinum 1 on Europe West carrying the solo queue rankeds with most games played as Lissandra and Talon, with an overall pretty good winrate of 73% on 53 games as Lissandra this season so far. Last Season I finished up with 127 ranked games with her on a 60% winrate. My LoLKing Profile

Pros:

+ Good early Poking and laning Phase
+ Good CC and Kiting (still usefull, even when behind)
+ Unique Gapcloser/Escape
+ High Damage
+ Great late Game and Teamfight (good initiator)
+ Awesome at assassinating enemy Carries
+ Can beat anyone in Lane if played well
+ Farming is really easy due to all Spells being AOE
+ 5 Seconds of Invulnurablitity with Ultimate and Zhonyas

Cons:

- Takes Time to master
- Pretty squishy early with my Build
- Escape is predictable
- Easy to shut her down with CC
- If Team does not follow up in Teamfights it can be hard (Team reliant)

Flash: This is the most important summoner spell in the game, I would not reommend you swapping it out for any other summoner spell on Lissandra.

Ignite: It's really helpful in lane because you won't have enough damage early on to secure kills without this summoner spell, will help you to snowball faster.

Heal/ Barrier: If you aren't planning on killing the enemy mid laner early and having a poor matchup for example against Anivia, this can be a very helpful summoner spell for you to survive and also to help your teammates out in sticky situations. I personally take neither of these summoners because as I already mentioned you can outplay any enemy in lane as long as you play it well enough.

Teleport: This is a great summoner spell for roaming and getting kills in other lanes, it's also really good if you are splitpushing and helping your team to snowball. I usually don't take this summoner spell, because you don't have enough damage to kill the enemy early in lane and the mid lane is in the center of the map so you can get to the other lanes and dragon easily without teleport.

Exhaust: Exhaust is helpfull against strong assassins that can instantly kill you, you normally don't need this spell because you got a lot of CC to counter assassins like that. Also this is more of a late game summoner spell, it helps you a lot in teamfights and small skirmishes in the mid game, too. You can take this if you think you need to protect your adc by exhausting the enemy assassin when your ultimate in on cooldown.

Lissandra masteries:

AP vs AP runes:

I usually run these against any AP. Quintessences are pretty clear I guess, not much to choose. For Marks I use magic penetration because I like to have more damage overall, it's also easier for farming and nuking someone. I look scaling health Seals because armor isn't really effective if you're laning against an AD mid and flat HP is just worth it pre 6, after level 6 any kind of scaling runes is stronger and better than just flat runes. Glyphs I take flat magic resistance because as I said I want to poke the enemy laner early game and not take too much damage from them.

AP vs AD runes:

If you are up against an AD opponent in lane but there still is an AP top or jungler in the enemy team you can go for these runes, I take scaling magic resistance because it will help you a lot later on if the enemy team's AP carry got fed. If the enemy team is full AD you can take full scaling armor seals and full AP glyphs, but that most likely won't happen.

Starting Items
The start is pretty simple, depending on the situation and the enemy laner.

Boots
	Sorcerer's Shoes	Ionian Boots of Lucidity
Later on you buy Sorcerer's Shoes or even Cooldown Reduction Boots( Ionian Boots of Lucidity) if you feel like you don't need the magic penetration and rather want to spam your abilities.

Laning Phase and Core Items
Morellonomicon	I always buy Morellonomicon as my first core item as it is overall a very cost efficient early game item for AP mages, it's almost the same as Athene's Unholy Grail but the advantage over athenes is that it provides more ability power and costs less gold. But there are also disadvantages, they are that you have no magic resistance and less mana regeneration. In my opinion Morellonomicon gives you enough mana regeneration and it's way cheaper and very cost efficient for the amount of stats it gives you.
Zhonya's Hourglass	After a Morellonomicon I would strongly recommend building a Zhonya's Hourglass because teamfights will break out soon and it's the best item you can build on Lissandra due to the diversity of uses. Eihter you can use the Zhonya's Hourglass to provide you a 5 second invulnurablitity including the use of your ult on yourself in unexpected situations or when you are fed you can engage a teamfight with your E( Glacial Path) and assassinate the enemy carry with your full rotation combo, after that the use of your Zhonya's Hourglass gives you time for your team to follow up and win the fight with you.
Rabadon's Deathcap	Rabadon's Deathcap is just for damage as the AP scalings on Lissandras abilities are pretty good, also you get a 30% amplification on all AP you build, this also includes the AP from runes and masteries, all that makes Rabadon's Deathcap nessessary and essencial for every AP mage.
Liandry's Torment	For the next item I get Liandry's Torment, this is a personal preference. In my opinion Liandry's Torment is made for Lissandras kit, due to the AP, HP, magic penetration and the most important it's passive. The point in the game now where you get all these items would be between mid and late game, this is also the point where everybody is starting to get tanky. Liandry's passive gives you % health damage, that means that it's dealing more damage the more tanky the enemy is, the passive also says that the amount of % health damage is doubled if the enemy gets hit by a CC spell. 3 out of 4 of Lissandras abilities are applying a sort of crowd control(CC), that means that you almost always deal double % health damage with this item.

Last Item Choice
	Void Staff	Abyssal Scepter	Banshee's Veil	Guardian Angel	Elixir of Sorcery	Luden's Echo

As my last item I usually look at the enemy team and decide which item I should buy to get the most out of my gold, if they are building magic resistance I go Void Staff, if the enemy AP mid/carry is fed I go Abyssal Mask, if the enemy team got some sort of initial CC like a malphite ultimate( Unstoppable Force) I go Banshee's Veil and if I get focused really hard in teamfight I go Guardian Angel. Remember to always buy Elixir of Sorcery when you are full build and ward (also deny vision) a lot because in the late game one catch or fight can decide the game due to the death timer being really high. I've been experimenting with the new item Luden's Tempest introduced in the patch 5.5 and found out that it doesn't help you a lot in the early or mid game because you dont really rely on movement speed nor the passive as you already have enough waveclear. I like to buy it in the late game if you feel like there are a lot of tanks on the enemy team or you need more burst for the enemy adc because there are no other items besides Rabadon's Deathcap, Zhonya's Hourglass and Luden's Tempest that give you 120 AP.

My way of playing Lissandra is really early game based and set up on winning my lane, I always try to kill my opponent laner and roam a lot.

Early game:
As I already mentioned, I always try to poke my enemy laner with Q( Ice Shard) and go in when he is at a third of his health or less. The damage of Lissandra's Q( Ice Shard) got nerfed in patch 5.5, therefore lanebullying isn't as effective as it was before. The damage nerf isn't so crutial though and her Q( Ice Shard) is still dealing a lot of damage in the early ranks, later ranks have been nerfed a lot more but you have a pretty nice scaling on it and you can spam it really often. Always try to push him to his tower at levels 1-5 and deny him early CS (creeps slain). At level 6 you get even more kill potential on your enemy because you got your ult( Frozen Tomb) now, if your ignite is up and he is half life go for it! Roaming is also a big part of being a good midlaner and Lissandra player, with Lissandra you have one of the best ganks of all mid laners. If you pushed your opponent to his tower and he doesnt have a great waveclear you can go roaming either bot or top lane, depending on the matchups and champions. For example if you have a snowballing top lane champion like riven I would rather gank top than bot, but if it's just a full tank champion a fed adc is way better. Of course it's also depending on the enemy champions and if the lane is pushed or not.

Mid game:
In the mid game you should try to gank bot lane and secure that free dragon every time it's up, also you should farm a lot as your waveclear is extremly good, due to Q( Ice Shard), W( Ring of Frost) and E( Glacial Path) being all AOE abilities. It's also very important to keep the jungle warded, you should buy pink wards and upgrade your warding totem to a Greater Stealth Totem, it allows you to permanently keep 3 Stealth Ward's on the map for only a small amount of money and extreme cost effinciency.
Use opportunities to catch one or multiple enemys before teamfights break out to get more kills and set your enemys behind.

Late game
Late game is not really hard for Lissandra at all, you have good AP-scaling on your abilities, good wave clear and a good kit for teamfighting with your ulitmate. In Teamfights your ulitmate goal is to assassinate the enemy ADC or mid laner as soon as possible, if you notice them focusing you hard you should use your ult( Frozen Tomb) to protect yourself (Selfcast: alt + R) instead of wasting it on for example the enemy tank. If the enemies are waiting for you to get vulnerable again you can use your Zhonya's Hourglass for a great amount of five seconds of invulnurability, they should lose the focus on you now because they will get destroyed by your ADC or top laner if they wait 5 seconds in the middle of a teamfight.

Teamranked

In my opinion Lissandra is a very strong solo queue champion, she has everything you need to carry ranked games in any elo, but I have to say she's a better champion for teamranked and competitive play because you need to rely on your team a lot. In teamrankeds and competitive games you got a very good influence in teamfights, as your ultimate can hit up to 5 people and does a lot of damage, although you have to rely on your team to follow up, what is sometimes not the case in solo queue especially in lower tiers. Also in competitive play you can tell your jungler to countergank and get a double kill as Lissandra excells very well in scirmishes and fights with her CC, damage and kiting potential.

Solo Queue

In solo queue on the other hand you have to make plays on your own as you can't rely on your team that much, try to win your lane as hard as possible and keep the jungle and bushes near your lane warded to avoid getting caught by the enemy jungler. If the enemy laner is not a pusher champion you can also roam to help your sidelanes to get fed too or even get more kills for yourself. Catching enemies is also a big part of carrying, because in solo queue people forget to ward and that's a great opportunity for you to catch them off guard, after a catch try to get as much as possible for the time you got a number advantage, focus on objectives and think about what's the best you can get out of this situation. In the late game a simple catch can decide the game, so be careful and look on the map if an enemy is out of position.

I really enjoyed making this guide and I'm trying to improve it as much as I can, so please tell me in the comments what you think about it and what I can improve/add. Also English is not my native language so please tell me spelling and grammar mistakes, too.
I'm looking forward to another guide for Talon or Fiddlesticks but first I will optimize this one. I would really appreciate an upvote :)