Hello everyone. Given the release of Leona's new skin, I figured I'd resurrect my rendition of an old favorite in the realm of off meta picks. AD Leona top.

Why would you want to pick her? She can snowball quite hard, for one. And not to mention, a lot of people don't understand how to play against her, and thus might disrespect you or mess up versus you. (A good example being when fioras aim their parries completely wrong when you initiate onto them. This is extremely common.)

Another reason is that, even when you are behind, you can still be useful by providing lockdown and modifying your build. If you can't transition into a tanky bruiser, you can still transition into a tanky initiator that builds purely defensive items. You can even dip into some support items, if worse comes to worst.

However, here comes the question. "Is it really viable?" I mean, it can be, but there are a lot of better picks than this. Other champions can do what Top Lane Leona aims to do, but in an easier way. But perhaps the greatest benefit is that people will, most of the time, underestimate you because you are playing a 'support' champion. They will not see your level six burst coming, and will not expect the damage coming from conqueror.

Note: If you 'really' want to do this in ranked, at least get some practice in normals first. Even then, do consider other champions, as you are handicapping yourself by making this pick.

At any rate, off to the guide!

Let's start off with the pros.

PROS:
Some of the best CC in the game.
Good dueling.
Has a quadruple auto reset. (auto > Q > auto > Titanic)
Deceptively beefy.
Ridiculous level six burst.
Pretty good at fighting ranged champions due to gap closer and great lockdown.
Gets underestimated about 99.9% of the time.
Can still be somewhat useful even when played from behind.
Scales fairly well with bruiser items.
Permastunning possibility with essence reaver.

CONS:
Can be abused by champions that excel at controlling lane. (Darius, etc.)
Mana problems.
Can get poked out.
Abysmal waveclear before tiamat.
Can't proc passive.
Transitions into either a tank or support when behind.
Gets outscaled in the later game.
Olaf exists.