1. PROS AND CONS 2. RUNES AND MASTERIES 3. SUMM. SPELLS 4. BRANDS ABILITIES 5. ITEM CHOICES 6. GAMEPLAY AND MATCHUPS 7. SUMMARY AND CHANGE LOG

Hello guys and welcome to my humble Brand guide. I'll start the guide by introducing myself briefly. I'm MissMaw, an university student and casual gamer. I love RPGs and story related games and my favourites are Mass Effect, Dragon Age and perhaps the Walking Dead. In spite of this, I started playing League way back in 2011 and for some reason I keep coming back to it. I'm by no means an expert on Brand or league at all but I feel that after 4 successful guides, I'm fit to convey my knowledge on certain champions. Brand's been my main for the duration of late season 5 and season 6 and even when he stops being my main, he'll always be one of my favourites and the champion I think is the coolest. There's a lot to like about Brand; his tall stature, beautiful blue eyes, his thirst for blood and how passionately he speaks of fire and setting people on fire. He absolutely demolishes everything in his path and I think that's wonderful. . . . .

Though engulfed in flames, Brand is a cool character. He's got very few drawbacks in all honesty, and they're pretty much all related to his lack of defence. Of course, he makes up for defence in damage and when you want someone who deals loads of damage, you won't care much about how much defence they have, right? Ergo;

Like I said, he's squishy. Unusually so, like you'll be surprised. So play carefully; play like you're Sona or Zyra, because they're at about the same level I'd say. No movement speed buffs, no gap closers of his own other than flash. Coupled with the fact that he's squishy means that you need to be extra careful playing Brand, because any one accidental slip of the mouse crusor can lead to getting caught by a stun, a knock-up a slow; what have you, and then you'll be all but helpless unless you can CC them or flash out. Unreliable isn't really a good word for it, but it's the best I can come up with. Basically, imagine you're Janna. You're in danger! There's a Jax coming for you, and you have to act fast to survive. All you do is kinda charge your Q vaguely in his direction, press it twice and boom! you CC'd him and got away. Now say you're Brand, you gotta 1) hit your W, E or flat out ult his face, then 2) you also have to hit your skillshot - Q - in order to stun the guy. Doesn't have to be this scenario though, in general it can be a pain to have to go through two steps each time you want to land a stun. Things are made easier by the fact that E and R are both targeted abilities though, so fret not. Brand is easy to play.

Few champions can poke toe to toe with Brand. Pretty much his entire kit is suited for poke. His Q is a skillshot, yeah, but it's fairly easy to hit and because of his passive (and your keystone mastery) it deals a lot of damage. Coupled with the fact that it costs very little mana, it's not a bad idea to abuse your Q, as well as your W of course, to poke your enemy in lane. The poking prowress is shown after laning phase as well, especially when sieging turrets! Even before getting Rylai's Scepter, Brand has great CC. By which I mean he just has 1 stun, but hey that's still good. Now with Rylai's he's just a monster. Your W is an AoE ability which can catch all 5 enemies if they position right (or wrong that is) and then they'll all be slowed and susceptible to getting ****ing rekt. One of the main reasons as to why Brand is a beast is his teamfighting abilities, which are obviously incredible. He brings an enormous amount of magic damage and CC to teamfights and he's also pretty good at peeling the ally ADC or peeling the enemy ADC off the face of the Earth. Lastly and possibly unnecessary to mention, Brand deals major damage. The further along the game goes, the stronger you get. Even if you lose in lane, after like 30-40 minutes you'll still be an absolute monster if you can hit your abilities.

Hey MissMaw this seems kinda biased? If he's so strong, why isn't he more popular? Well, reader, if you play Brand you are automatically dirty scum and need to shower way more and, as you can imagine, that's something that the average league player isn't willing to do.

In all seriousness, although his pros are great and outnumber his cons, he's not an amazing champion. The further you climb in elo the more you'll notice this; at higher elos people know how to deal with Brand; how to dodge his poke, how to abuse his squishiness and immobility and how to build properly to defend against his magic damage. In lower elo, people tend to make more mistakes so it's easier to play him; but on the flip side, lower elo Brand players make more mistakes as well and small mistakes can be detrimental when it comes to champions as squishy as Brand. I'd say that for the past few patches, Brand has been comfortably sitting in tier 2; a respectable position.


There be several different rune setups that you can use, the one I put in the cheat sheet seems like the best setup, though there are safer ones with less AP and more defence as well.

Magic pen marks are easily the best choice. They sunder enemies' magic resistance and increase the damage you do with your abilities, keystone mastery and Blaze passive. You can perhaps take AP marks in the stead of these, but there's really no reason consider you take AP elsewhere and these marks are great.

With Seals you can go with Health or Armour. I've put Health in the cheat sheet because these are probably the best seals in the game, but armour is very good against AD oriented teams, and they help out against the enemy ADC in laning phase rather noticeably.

The big difference between this page and the other one are here; with the glyphs. Magic resist glyphs are good against AP strong teams and lanes, but in general can easily be replaced with AP to amplify your damage more.

AP quints are pretty self explanatory, they increase your damage and damage is what Brand likes to do. There are a few alternatives; for example you can take armour if you really want to play it safe, but I think it's safe to say that this is the best option.

Not much to say about this setup now considering I've explained most of the rune choices in the text above. But just generally speaking, Brand has many pages that he can utilise and this is just the one I use. You can take AP marks, magic pen quints, armour seals, CDR glyphs and other runes and still be good to go. He's not too fussy.







Brand's spells light his targets ablaze, dealing 2% of their maximum Health in magic damage over 4 seconds, stacking up to 3 times. When Blaze reaches max stacks on a Champion or monster, it becomes unstable. After 2 seconds it detonates, dealing magic damage equal to 12% - 16% (based on level) (+1% per 60 ability power) of their maximum Health to all targets in an area.

Blaze xD is Brand's passive. It's my favourite passive in the game and here's why: it's absolutely busted! Blaze is a two-part passive. All of your abilities set enemies ablaze. In doing so they 1) lose health and 2) become susceptible to your other abilities, which have bonus effects when the target is flicted by Blaze. + If your Q follows Blaze the enemy you hit becomes stunned. + Using W on enemies ablaze will cause your W to deal 25% increased damage to them. + Using E on an ablazed enemy will cause your E to expand to nearby enemies and set them ablaze as well. I'll refer to the second part of Blaze as Blazebomb. Using 3 abilities on a single target (your full combo without your ult) will trigger Blazebomb, which is what it sounds like. They'll explode within 2 seconds and take loads of damage, as well as set fire to nearby enemies.

Cooldown: 8 / 7.5 / 7 / 6.5 / 6 Cost: 50 Range: 1050

Brand launches a ball of fire forward that deals 80 / 110 / 140 / 170 / 200 (+55% of ability power) magic damage to the first enemy it hits. If the target is ablaze, the target will be stunned for 1.5 seconds.

During lane phase it's very obvious that Love Tap is a really strong passive. You're always against at least two opponents so you can easily proc your passive by coordinating shots between the enemy marksman and support. Even when both champions aren't present, there are always minions with which you can proc the passive. Outside of laning phase, especially during teamfights, is when you'll notice that the passive isn't quite as useful. During teamfights, although there are many of champions to attack, you usually won't be able to coordinate your auto-attacks, and will just be forced to hit what is closest. Thus in teamfights your passive is almost useless, unfortunately. Love tap also procs on towers! Coupled with Strut's AS boost, you'll be able take down towers very fast by taking turns shooting minions and the tower.