Notice of discontinuation and a very short mini-guide
5/12 - 2016:
I am sad to announce that i will no longer be able to keep this guide updated. Starting almost a month ago, i have only been playing League rarely, and LeBlanc even less so. Between that and the fact that Preseason 7 has turned more things and mechanics on their head for LeBlanc and League than ever before, I am no longer able to provide a thorough understanding of LeBlanc and explaining why one should build and play a specific way.
If any other MOBAFIRE author wishes to use parts of this guide to create a new and improved one for the future, feel free to contact me.
That being said, here are my thoughts on the new LeBlanc after a few games on her:
LeBlanc now seems able to dance around more in a fight while having an impact, but on the other hand she is also now forced to do so through the new passive, which delays a major part of her burst.
Thus, i feel like LeBlanc needs a bit more tankiness and CDR than before to survive and maximise her potential in fights.
Additionally, her new and massively improved waveclear means that she can roam better than ever before, meaning Sorcerer's Shoes as 2nd item is now almost a must.
An item build for Leblanc now might thus look like the following: Morellonomicon, Sorcerer's Shoes, Abyssal Mask or Zhonya's Hourglass depending on matchup now that both grant CDR. Remember that Rabadon's Deathcap and Void Staff are still must-haves somewhere around 4th-5th item, the order depending on the opposing team MR. Haunting Guise can be purchased as 3rd item if you wish to have more damage and the enemy botlane has ~45 MR instead of the usual 37 or lower.
Her AP/Damage ratio has fallen dramatically in the early game due to Sigil of Malice, while it rises to higher numbers than previously late in the game. This means that flat Magic Penetration will be even weaker Early and even stronger Late compared to flat AP. To account for this, i have changed the recommended cheat sheet setup to 3 flat AP quints to ensure a strong early game.
Introduction / Rules of deception
Hello, and welcome to my Leblanc guide.
I go by the Summoner Name "Baekstra" on EUW, and have been playing League of Legends for four years.
Back when I started playing LoL in season 2, I quickly found LB to be my main champion due to her fun playstyle, mobility and damage. During that season I learned the game and managed to get a silver ranking before the season ended.
During season 3 I evolved as a ranked player, and mastered LeBlanc in-depth. She was by far my most played champion during season 3 and 4, and I climbed to the top of Diamond mainly because of her.
In my opinion, Leblanc is a strong champion who excels at catching the enemy off-guard and make seemingly impossible plays due to her massive mobility and damage. Her playstyle is definitely high risk-high reward.
In this guide, I will share my experiences as LeBlanc with you, dear reader.
I will first go through her setup and general playstyle, and then go into specific matchups and when to pick her.
I will not go into most general concepts such as smartcasting, ward placement, baron traps, ect. There are plenty of guides out there explaining that already, links to those things will be included in the bottom of this guide.
Before this guide takes off for real, I have two things to say:
1. LeBlanc requires more awareness and faster reflexes than most champions in order to master her completely. If you can't pull combos and jukes off fast enough, your potential skill level is greatly crippled, and it is probably a good idea to play another champion.
By extension, it is also crucial to master smartcasting if you wish to become good with LB, and your Ping should be low.
2. The contents of this guide applies both to toplane, midlane and support LeBlanc, as all lanes are viable for her. The deception of your enemies start already here.
Rules of deception
I do not claim that this guide is the only good way of playing the Deceiver.
I will write about alternative setups and playstyles I've tried during my time with LB.
There will be scary math some places to explain my choices. Read at your own risk.
A true deceiver bends the rules to her will.
Pros / Cons
Pros
+ Strong lane bully. + Blows things up. + Massive mobility & utility. + Uses mobility for defense. + Enemy ADC fed? Make him disappear. + Good AA animation. + Can do magic tricks. + Win games @20 by making the enemy team flame and/or AFK if you stomp mid and roam to stomp side lanes as well. Even happens in diamond.
Cons
- Can be outpushed early. - Is squishy as hell. - CC or chain CC = dead. - Lacks some AoE or sustained damage for teamfights before super-late game. - Enemy tanky bruiser fed? Good luck taking that one down. - If you fail in lane, you will fall harder than most other champions in the game. - You failed and got stomped in lane with LeBlanc? You may lose game @ 20 because your team flames and surrenders, since you "Lost lane with an Early game Champ." Even happens in diamond.
Masteries
LeBlanc wants damage from her masteries, and after the introduction of Season 6 masteries, you'd definitely want to go for Thunderlord's Decree .
12/18/0 Tons of damage
In midlane, defensive masteries are neither taken nor recommended, since the early defensive tree in season 6 is weak for non-tanks, and the damage options in the other trees are way too good to pass.
If you play toplane Leblanc, you have the option of going for 18/0/12 instead for burning down tanks and splitpushing - refer to the cheat sheet for toplane Leblanc for this.
Runes
Over and over again, I have been tweaking my rune setup on LeBlanc to maximize her potential. Because her main strength lies in her damage, it is crucial to have the best possible setup to boost her damage so she can be truly terrifying. By now, I have come to the general conclusion that Magic Penetration is superior to Ability power in terms of killing potential for the most part, with the exception of Quintessences, where the breakpoint between the two is around level 8.
TL;DR: No alternatives to Magic Pen. It is simply too strong.
Nostalgia alert: R.I.P. Hybrid Pen runes patch 4.20. You were much loved.
Seals: Greater Seal of Scaling Health
Seals are made to be defensive, and although some extra damage from AP or scaling AP seals might be tempting, it is simply not gold efficient enough compared to the extra HP you can get. Best choice of seals if you fight AP or hybrid enemies. Also, the scaling Health will make you more tanky against burst damage lategame than any other seals, including flat or scaling armor.
Alternatives: Greater Seal of Scaling Armor
Armor runes can be good against heavy AD teams and AD lanes, which you might face if you play LB top or into the likes of Zed or Talon mid. However, after the nerfs to flat armor seals, there isn't really a good option for early game power against AD lanes anymore.
Usually, scaling armor seals only make you more durable against burst damage when compared to scaling health when the enemy team has more than ~80% Physical damage, so they should only be taken for the added sustain in lane, NOT because you wish to be less squishy lategame.
Glyphs: Greater Glyph of Magic Penetration
Probably the most controversial choice in my rune page, Penetration glyphs actually outclass scaling AP at ALL stages of the game except for waveclearing. More math incoming at the end of this chapter.
Alternatives:
Not really anyone, you usually lose out on too much damage if you don't take penetration glyphs. On the other hand, maybe that's just my agressive playstyle talking. Greater Glyph of Magic Resist could be useful in some lanes where damage is abundant or undodgeable, such as against Annie or Lissandra, but that should not happen often. Look at the matchups section to see where they might be viable.
If you don't have Magic Pen Glyphs, get them ASAP. Period.
Quintessences: Greater Quintessence of Ability Power OR Greater Quintessence of Magic Penetration
As I stated earlier, the choice of quints is all about early/late tradeoff. Magic penetration generally beats Ability Power if you want to deal damage, and the same goes for the Quints, but with one exception. Flat AP Quints gives you more damage levels 1-7 and about the same damage levels 8-9 compared to Magic Pen Quints.
Magic penetration "scales" with both your AP and level (ability base damage), so it will end up adding ~75 damage to your combo late game, while you lose out on 8 damage with your average level 2 combo and 6.5 damage with your average level 3 combo. Also, your level 6 all in will deal about 16 damage less if you opt for Magic pen quints instead of AP quints. The reason you lose so much damage level 6 is because of the low base damage and ridiculous AP scaling on your ult, which makes AP even better early on.
Since you probably combo the enemy a lot early on, all of this damage adds up in lane, and the prospect of landing a killing blow where you might otherwise fail leads me to recommend Flat AP quints because of the importance of early game.
If you instead prefer going for late game dominance, you can opt for Magic Pen Quints because of the ridiculously strong scaling they have later on in the game, which gets really noticeable starting at level 11.
PS:
Since early kill pressure in lanes got reduced in the 4.20 patch that buffed everyone's health, Magic Pen Quints are looking more tempting than ever for a more "late" focus. Go with whatever you please, just remember the breakpoint is around level 8.
More detailed explanation in the lovely math section at the end of this chapter.
I personally use the following rune page for LeBlanc:
All of the following three maths sections contain a TL;DR at the end if you wish to see and compare the results without any calculations.
Maths section, Penetration Quints versus flat AP Quints
In order to explain the effectiveness of Magic Penetration versus Ability Power, an explanation of how the two mechanics work is needed.
Ability Power increases your damage straightforward by increasing the stated damage on your skills by multiplying your AP with the AP ratio of your skills. AP thus only scales with the AP ratios on your skills.
Magic Penetration, however, increases your damage by increasing the damage multiplier. Thus, Magic Penetration scales with both your base ability damage and your Ability Power, since your damage multiplier affects it all.
This means that the more AP you get, the more efficient is Magic Penetration. That is why Magic Penetration scales better into late game than flat AP, since you will get more AP, and thus more scaling, during the game.
To find out exactly how well your damage scales with Magic Penetration compared to Ability Power during the game, I will coin a new term used in this guide, called:
Damage/AP scaling ratio.
Finding this ratio is done by taking the Stated damage of your ability (195 for Q-W at level 2 with no AP), and dividing it by the ability's AP scaling (1.4 for Q-W combo).
Thus, we get that the damage/AP ratio of Q-W at level 2 with no AP is 195/1.4 = 139.3.
For each point of AP you get, this ratio will always increase by 1, since the stated damage on the skill increases by multiplying with the AP ratio, and you find the damage/AP ratio by dividing by your AP ratio. This goes for all skills.
To clarify, if you had 30 AP at level 2, the damage would be 195+30*1.4 = 237.
And the ratio would be
237/1.4 = 169.3, exactly 30 higher then the ratio with no AP.
We will need this number to determine the cost effectiveness of each point of Magic Penetration, since your penetration scales linearly with it.
If we assume that you have 30 AP at level 2, I will now calculate the damage dealt with Q-W after resistances:
Which gives 1.56 more damage. To get the same 1.56 damage by purchasing AP, we must divide it by the damage multiplier (0.8137) and the AP ratio (1.4), thus giving:
AP needed = 1.56/(0.8137*1.4) = 1.37
This means that 1 point of magpen with a Damage/AP ratio of 169.3 is equal to 1.37 AP. Since the value of magpen scales linearly with the ratio, we can find the Magpen/AP value per 1 point of Damage/AP ratio:
1.37/169.3 = 0.008089 Magpen/AP/Ratio.
Now, since flat AP Quints gives 4.95 AP and magpen Quints grants 2.01 magpen, you gain around 2.46 points of AP per point of Magpen.
Each point of magpen is worth 2.46 points of AP at a Damage/AP ratio of roughly 300, since
300*0.008089 ~ 2.46.
So when do you reach this magical breakpoint during a game? Assuming you are level 5, your Q-W combo combined will deal 210+85=275 damage with a combined AP ratio of 1.4. This equals a Damage/AP ratio of
275/1.4 = 196.4
So if you got at least 110 AP at this point, the ratio on your main combo will pass the magical 300. However, you will probably have less than 110 AP at this point, so the breakpoint for this specific combo is a little further into the game.
The thing is, once you reach level 6, you will be interested in your Q-R-W burst damage. For that combo, the total base damage of your skills divided by the total AP ratio of your skills is:
(110+165+200)/(0.8+0.6+1.2)= 475/2.6 = 182.7.
Meaning you should have at least 120 AP at this point in order to hit the damage breakpoint between Magic Pen and Flat AP Quints for your full combo.
The reason for the lower damage/AP scaling ratio on your full combo is because R has a somewhat low base damage @ rank 1 and a ridiculously strong AP scaling. Both of these characteristics serve to lower the ratio.
By extension, this also leads to the conclusion that higher ranked skills benefit more from penetration than lower ranked skills. Thus, Distortion is the only ability so far that benefits a lot from your magic pen - at least that's also the skill you spam most.
When considering the average between your stronger Q-W combos and weaker Q-R-W-E combos around this time, the breakpoint between AP and Magpen Quints lies around levels 7-8.
To put the scaling in perspective, you will lose damage equals to around 5 AP (~6 damage with Q-W)at level 3 with Magpen Quints.
However, if you got 500 AP later on, the Damage/AP ratio will be at a whopping 800-900, thus granting you damage equals to about 24 bonus AP, calculated like this:
(the AP worth subtracted the AP granted from plat AP quints)
6.03 Pen * 900 damage/AP ratio * 0.008355 scaling = 45 AP worth - 14.85*1.35 (rabadon) = 25.3 bonus AP worth (~75 damage on full Q-R-W-E combo after resistances).
TL;DR:
Flap AP Quints deals about 8 more damage after resistances per Q-W combo than Magic Pen Quints at level 2, and 6 more damage at level 3. Flat AP quints deal 16 more damage with a full spell rotation at level 6 compared to magic pen quints.
The breakpoint between the two choices is around level 7-8.
Magic Pen Quints deals 75 more damage after resistances with a full burst rotation that Flat AP Quints at level 18.
Either Quint or a mix of both is viable.
Maths section, Penetration Glyphs versus Scaling AP Glyphs
In order to prove that Magic Penetration Glyphs are superior to Scaling AP Glyphs, I will compare the damage boost using the Damage/AP Scaling Ratio mentioned in the prior spoiler at level 3 and at level 18. (I chose level 3 because your Q-W is most potent by then).
With Magic Pen Glyphs, you gain 5.67 bonus magpen.
The base damage on Q-W is 235, so the Damage/AP scaling ratio is 235/1.4 = 167.
At level 3, you will have 27 AP ( Doran's Ring+ Natural Talent +AP Quints), so we add these in and get a total ratio of 194.
We multiply that by the efficiency of Magpen per ratio point and get:
194 Ratio * 0.008089 Efficiency * 5.67 Magpen = 8.898 AP equivalent.
In comparison, you only gain 4.59 AP at level 3 from the scaling AP glyphs.
Thus, Magic Pen marks are roughly twice as efficient as Scaling AP early game (and even more at levels 1 and 2).
While Scaling AP runes gives a grand total of only 27.54 AP at level 18. This is to be multiplied by 1.35 ( Rabadon's Deathcap, so the final bonus adds up to 37 AP, still somewhat less than the Magpen Glyphs.
This means that Magic Pen Glyphs are also about 30% more effective with full build than Scaling AP Glyphs. In terms of damage output, your full combo will deal around 20 damage more after resistances at this point.
The efficiency breakpoint between those runes are at around 410 total AP at level 18. 410 AP at level 18 should be your worst case scenario at this time (haven't bought Zhonya or any components of it, and Haunting Guise hasn't been upgraded yet.) Thus, Scaling AP will never beat Magic Pen unless you've really screwed yourself over during the game.
TL;DR: Magic Penetration Glyphs is 50% stronger early game and 30% stronger late game, when compared to Scaling AP Glyphs.
Items
Most champions often have to build accordingly to the game and matchup, but LeBlanc only has to do so to a lesser extent. Her main build usually only has few variations, mostly regarding considerations about Zhonya's Hourglass, Abyssal Mask or the roaming potential of certain items. I will soon add some more maths at the end of this chapter.
So without further ado, let's get to the items and why the heck I say they're the best purchases available. I show the items in order of purchase, and there is a TL;DR at the end if you can't be bothered to read it all:
Starting items, and natural 1st backs:
Doran's ring provides great stat efficiency and a massive amount of mana for the money. The 50% mana regen increase combined with the mana restore on kill makes this little ring give you around 6 mp5 early, thus outclassing the 100 bonus mana from The Dark Seal after only 90 seconds of laning. On your first back you can choose to go for another ring along with potions, or spend 500 g for the The Dark Seal + Refillable Potion combo now, since it is still very cost efficient and you will no longer be likely to run out of mana.
If you feel manly and much better than your opponent, the combination of The Dark Seal with Refillable Potion gives you an insane amount of gold efficiency along with the potential of a fast snowball. Bear in mind, however, that you will VERY quickly run out of mana in lane, and you will quickly be outsustained and forced back with a weak buy if you do not manage to kill your opponent early. After your first back it is a good idea to buy a Doran's Ring to grant you mana regen before going for the Morellonomicon.
You have the option to go for cloth armor + refillable potion against heavy AD lanes. Sometimes you can choose quite freely between Doran’s ring and cloth armor (Against the likes of Lee Sin and Renekton depending on how aggressive and confident you are that you can dodge them), at other times cloth + 5 is a MUST (Against the likes of Wukong and Pantheon). If you start cloth + 5, you should go for Corrupting Potion along with The Dark Seal on your first back because they stack so nicely together, and the burn passive will help you a lot in sustained trades. Then you should aim for Seeker's Armguard as your first item afterwards before you start going for the standard build.
Remember that Pink Wards are extremely useful when placed strategically, and those 75g can potentially save your life. Even better, it might also net you a kill you wouldn’t have spotted otherwise. An in-depth explanation of this can be found in the next section, "Vision, Wards, Warding & their jungler".
After your basic starting items, you should be going for Morellonomicon or Abyssal Mask depending on your lane and playstyle.
A comparison of the two items can be found in the maths spoiler in the end of this section.
Option 1: utility/roaming optimized
Morellonomicon outclasses any other item in terms of mobility and mana, and you only miss 10 % damage per combo compared to damage alternatives such as Luden's Echo or Void Staff. This little extra damage boost is in no way comparable to the benefits of 100 % mana regen bonus and 20 % CDR, not to forget the Grievous Wounds. Morellonomicon has a cheap build path, and enables you to roam more effectively with the low cooldown on Distortion, making it a prime choice if you wish to waveclear fast with W while applying pressure in the jungle and side lanes.
If you are against a naturally tanky enemy in toplane, you should still go for Morellonomicon instead of Void Staff as your first item because even @ 88 MR, your burst damage will only be 20 % lower by going for Morellonomicon. | |
Abyssal Mask brings a massive amount of stats packed into one single criminally cheap item, and anyone who buys this might as well just be stealing gold in the shop.
This item gives comparable AP to Morellonomicon, but the Magic Resistance Reduction aura makes your potential damage output with just one item go through the roof! Against a 43 MR opponent you will deal 17 % more damage compared to Morellonomicon, and against an 88 MR opponent (thinking Annie or Ahri who will also build Abyssal), it will still translate into a 10% damage increase.
Because it reduces the MR of minions as well, it will quickly make your W oneshot minions so you can safely waveclear early in tough lanes.
You will benefit from the aura in most lanes where you use Q-W combos and the like. Just keep in mind that in cases where you stay at range or do very quick Q-R assassinations of high-value targets and then pop out of range, your damage will actually be slightly lower than with Morellonomicon.
You should not just pick this item for the damage output though, seeing as the 10-17 % damage increase alone is not better than the utility of the Morellonomicon.
Instead, this item is extremely useful in lanes where you simply can’t be guaranteed to survive the burst of your opponent – as is the case with Annie, Ahri and Lissandra, to name a few. The 45 MR from this item is absolutely massive and helps you survive against hard AP lanes or even throughout the game against AP team comps.
If you chose to buy Abyssal Scepter first, you now have the choice of going directly for Rabadon's Deathcap for massive damage, or Morellonomicon to catch up on your missing utility. Boots are not worth it after abyssal, since you will not be able to benefit from a total of 56 magic penetration at this stage of the game, especially considering you’d buy boots to roam botlane or jungle, where the opponents almost always have 43 MR or less. Luden's Echo after Abyssal is a suboptimal choice compared to Morellonomicon since the damage is only increased by 5%, and that, combined with the 10% MS boost, is not worth as much as the 20% CDR, mana regen, and cheaper build path of Morellonomicon.
If you instead chose to buy Morellonomicon as your first item, you should now choose between Rabadon's Deathcap for maximum damage and waveclearing, or buy Sorcerer's Shoes to go all in on the roaming playstyle and hit that sweet 36.5 magic pen, pretty much enough to deal true damage against the enemy botlane at this point of the game. Although boots won’t give you extra AP to help waveclearing, they will actually provide just as much bonus damage against low MR targets as you would get from just building extra AP. Add in the extra 45 MS gained, and you got a strong threat against all enemies on the map.
OR OR in case you started with
Rabadon's Deathcap is a super strong item, and always will be. Massive AP boost gives massive damage, and that is the best logic ever in this game. If the enemy team neglects MR and stacks HP to counter you instead, this is also the way to go. The combined AP from Raba + <Your choice of first item> will also allow you to farm easier with a W that instantly kills caster minions, speeding up your gold income.
Also, because the AP from Rabadon's scales with your other AP purchases, the damage from this particular item scales better than magic penetration when combined with 1-2 other major AP purchase. Sorcerer's Shoes help you roam a lot, and is a great and cheap pickup if you seek to find and eliminate squishy targets around the map, instead of betting all your chips on dominating your lane. By extension, it is also more attractive to buy boots early if you end up in a bad matchup, such as against Kassadin.
If you choose to go for boots first, you should immediately go for Rabadon’s Deathcap after to get that sweet, sweet AP.
After purchasing a very healthy amount of AP (not so healthy for your opponents), you obviously need a ton of magic penetration to scale with it. Void staff gives you a great amount of %-based magic penetration, perfect for scaling coming into the early late game.
At this point, the first 58 MR of your opponents will effectively be reduced to zero, and who doesn’t like true damage?
Bear in mind that if you started your build with Abyssal Mask, you will only benefit fully from Void Staff against 78 MR+ targets. This should not be a problem, however, since most of the cases where you build Abyssal Scepter will be in response to the enemy laner also building it, guaranteeing they will have 80-something MR.
By now, your greatest goal is to maximise your Magic Penetration to boost your damage significantly, since Penetration is even more effective the closer the enemy MR gets to 0. Haunting guise is a super cheap and cost efficient item for this that also grants you some more survivability. This in conjunction with the rest of your setup will make the first 82 enemy MR give 0 effective protection against your spells, and being able to keep dealing true damage at this late stage of the game is a huge deal.
AN IMPORTANT NOTE:
Since you cannot penetrate MR past 0, you won't get the full advantage of Haunting Guise if the target enemy champion has less than 82 MR, and you should not buy this item at all if the enemy team in general has below 70 MR. In that case, just skip this item and go to the next item in line.
The possibility of over-penetrating is a real thing, and it is bad. Just as it would be in real life. Imagine that? Yeah, that's a nasty picture. Over-penetrating in LoL is just like that. Real bad. Try to avoid it, yeah?
You were loved by many. You were hated by your targets. You will be missed by everyone. Or not. Once I would have purchased you at this point of the game. Now I can't anymore.
Aw, who am I kidding with this speech? I never really liked this item much anyways. I know it was popular and many people used it early on LB, but Riot definitely made the right call to remove it for the sake of game balance.
Your last item (or next-to-last if they have so low MR that Haunting Guise isn't needed), should top your build off with a ton of AP combined with whatever goodies we can get. That was once DFG. Now, we must turn our eyes towards multiple strong options, depending on your playstyle preference for the late game. Let us take a look at the four contenders!
- - -
Zhonya's Hourglass grants you a decent increase in damage, but the only important selling point of this item must be the extra armor and a big fat PANIC BUTTON against teams where you just feel like surviving 2.5 seconds faster and don’t feel confident that you can juke the enemy damage ( Zed.
This item allows for some better survivability to carry prolonged late teamfights and strong damage. It comes at a high cost, but money shouldn't matter much at this point of the game.
A notable use for the aggressive use Zhonya in the late game is to engage on the enemy team by jumping in with Distortion -> Mimic, then immediately using Zhonya's. The enemy team will take a lot of AoE damage (talking 1,75k AoE damage with full build vs. 82 MR).
IF the enemy team should survive and choose to stay around for your Zhonya to wear off, you might still be able to blink instantly back to the original Distortion before they can hit you.
Also, don't bother trying to get off Q or E during this combo. This move is about the big picture and landing some big AoE dommages on 2 or more priority targets, not some measly single target assassination. Also, time is of the essence during this move and you want to get into that Zhonya ASAP before you get CC'd and die.
If such a move doesn't win instantly or at least allow your team to initiate a winning fight, then you should just go blame your team. That's a joke. Never blame anyone, even if they might be to blame. Blame never helps.
That being said, it is an extremely risky move. EXTREMELY. If you get CC'd during mid-flight Distortion or before you can fire your Zhonya, it is pretty much suicide, so only do this move if the enemy team has no hard CC, or you can come from an angle where they have no vision. If you try to do this move and get rekt, then you are the one at fault, even though no one should blame anyways. ;)
Buying a second Morellonomicon as your last item actually makes a huge difference in the game, as it is the most effective AP item to bring your total Cooldown Reduction up to the 40 % cap. This will allow you to be extremely useful and utilize Distortion to kite around a big, scattered or prolonged teamfight for ages while applying pressure and picking of opponents as their defence cracks against your extreme mobility.
If you are unsure what to buy and not certain to be getting Blue Buff in the late game, I’d recommend this as a safe, good all-round last purchase, and it is also the cheapest if the items by far, allowing you to reach full build just a few minutes earlier and strike while you have the advantage. Athene's Unholy Grail is a viable alternative instead, granting you a bit of MR if needed and much more mana in case you need to juke around for minutes at a time, although coming at a higher cost and with 20 less AP.
Lich Bane is an extremely strong and versatile item for lategame LeBlanc, providing the highest damage potential possible through the Spellblade passive while also granting you 10 % CDR, allowing you to hit the 40 % CDR cap with the help of a blue buff. Combine that with a greater mana pool to stay in the field longer and 7 % Movement Speed boost for a massive splitpush threat that can demolish towers in seconds and roam the map fast enough that you don’t even need teleport in order to be there in time if a teamfight breaks out.
The Spellblade passive will add roughly 400 extra magic damage to your autoattack, making your combo much more lethal compared to what 20 extra AP or 160 extra damage from a Luden’s proc can provide. The only drawback to this is that you need an extra 0.1 seconds during your combo to get an autoattack off, which might not be possible if you dive the carries in a teamfight.
I would recommend buying this Item in most situations, especially if you are feeling bold and wish to be a massive threat and/or you are likely to have the Blue Buff at key moments during late game since it grants you the overall most amount of power, although at a slightly greater risk.
After buying this item, you are able to actively seek opportunities to splitpush enemy towers against any enemy team comp, except maybe against Master Yi. The speed at which you take down towers will match the likes of Fiora and Rammus using Tremors, and you have the mobility and damage to outduel ANY enemy at this point of the game if you have the skill to back it up.
Also, remember to upgrade your boots with the Enchantment – Alacrity OR Enchantment – Distortion for maximum movement speed while splitting or more frequent Teleports.
Being a much more situational pick than either of the three other items, Luden's Echo is outclassed in terms of damage, sustain and mobility by Lich Bane. The only advantage provided by Luden’s is in teamfight scenarios where time is of the essence more than usual.
This will almost always be when you need to pick off a single, extremely high priority target that is being protected by supports and a huge, beefy CC frontline, as would be the case against a team like Kog'Maw protected by Gragas, Nautilus, Lulu and Braum.
The advantage of Luden’s is that you do not need to weave an autoattack into your W-Q-R-W combo to get the extra damage proc. This will save you a slight amount of time that might make the difference between life and death, both for you and Kog’maw. In addition, you will be able to do the combo from a little bit further away, since your Sigil of Malice has 700 range while your attack range is only 525, and this extra range might mean everything in the game.
Now you have your full build, it is time for the last item on the list. Also, whenever you get the gold for it after reaching full build, upgrade Haunting Guise to Liandry's Torment to top off you build with the last 55 AP.
This little fella tops off your damage with 50 AP and 25 True Damage, it adds 145 damage just to that simple W-R burst mentioned just above. It is really useful for nuking... stuff. It is always a good idea to get this lovely thing before anticipated teamfights, and it's only priced at 500! That's a bargain, if it can even give you the slightest extra chance to win a teamfight. The mana regen granted by this is also roughly equivalent to that of a blue buff, so it is great for managing mana during longer late game skirmishes. I usually start getting it at key moments after my 3rd or 4th item.
Final lategame build
Alternative build paths, mostly for toplane
For many toplane matchups, especially against melee opponents, it is a good idea to start the game with Corrupting Potion along with Teleport as your summoner spell. The potion brings you a ton of sustain to get through early trades, and the burn passive enhances your autoattack harassment tremendously. This way you will run out of juice faster than usual though, and that is why you should bring Teleport to assert your dominance in lane early, and go back fast to buy the The Dark Seal to enhance the potion effect while also giving you more fighting power.
After that you can opt into a Seeker's Armguard on your 2nd back if you’re against an AD opponent to gain the more tanky stats you will inevitably need, before returning to the normal build starting with Morellonomicon.
Against AD lanes I would recommend if you just get an early Seeker's Armguard and leave it at that for the cost efficient AP and armor. However, you may sometimes want to buy Zhonya's earlier in the game against some matchups or team comps. If, for example, Zed is fed, you may need an early Zhonya to survive. Other examples could include a ninja stealth Wukong who ults you out of nowhere, etc. In those cases you can go for Zhonya as early as you'd like, just remember that your damage will be much lower until you get your big damage items.
The most notable opponents where you would need some early armor are:
I would not recommend any other items than the build I've listed above. However, I do understand the need to explain why I left out some items.
Athene's Unholy Grail - The direct contender to Morellonomicon, and it loses in my opinion. Athene's cost 200g more and gives 20 less AP, which are the main points for LB.
Will of the Ancients - Spell vamp? Not really. There are so many better options for you to get out there and DEAL DAMAGE instead.
This item deserves a heading for itself because it is so much fun. I would NEVER recommend it in high ranked games, not even if you're 10/0/10 or 20/0/0 or whatever. It is too risky to get, because you will become so much weaker IF you are caught (you still explode easily if you get CC'd).
However, it is the single most fun item to get in normals or ranked games below your real skill level because it makes you snowball harder than a Ryze with 10,000 mana and gives the enemy team more nightmares than Nocturne. Also, bear in mind, that a LeBlanc with Mejai's is THE most taunting thing in the game, beating Teemo's taunt by a wide margin. It literally yells "YOU ALL SUCK AND I WILL FEAST UPON YOUR SOULS AND I CAN 1V5 YOU ALL AND YOU ARE DAMN NOOBS L2P!" to the enemy team. Did it hurt your eyes? It should, because you cause soul-crushing damage to the enemy team times infinity if you stomp them with this item. Taunt them in all chat when you buy this item for maximum effect. Tell them you buy it and let the hunt commence, because you are going to get focused like a target dummy at a shooting range.
Feel free to upgrade The Dark Seal after reaching 10 stacks if you feel like being hunted is fun.
TL;DR
Item sequence of major purchases, purchase order from left to right. Remember two doran’s first or substitute one ring for The Dark Seal. Follow one of the tracks, and go for the Morellonomicon track by default unless you need the raw tankiness and burst damage in lane provided by Abyssal Mask:
MATHS SECTION, Abyssal Scepter v Morellonomicon comparison
Depending on your playstyle and how much you need to survive against AP opponents, you should go for either Abyssal Mask or Morellonomicon. Even though the defence stat should be the deciding factor in what item to get, I will here show the damage difference between the two items @ an enemy MR of 45, so you can see the damage difference.
You will get either of those items at roughly level 7-8, so I will here assume a level 7 LeBlanc. I will show the damage for a Q-W combo and for a full Q-R-E-W rotation:
Q-W combo, Abyssal first item, enemy MR of 45:
AP = 30+9.9+5.8+70 = 115.73 (items: Doran x2, Abyssal.)
Enemy MR = 45
Your Magpen = 15.51 + 5.1 + 20 = 40.61
Effective MR = 45 – 40.11 = 4.39
Multiplier = 100/104.39 = 0.957946
Base dmg = 110+205+70+1.5*115.73 = 558.6 Total dmg = 0.957946*558.6 = 535.11
Q-R-E-W rotation, Abyssal first item, enemy MR of 45:
AP = 30+9.9+5.8+70 = 115.73 (items: Doran x2, Abyssal.)
Enemy MR = 45
Your Magpen = 15.51 + 5.1 + 20 = 40.61
Effective MR = 45 – 40.11 = 4.39
Multiplier = 100/104.39 = 0.957946
Base dmg = 110+205+200+80+70+3.7*115.73 = 1093.21 Total dmg = 0.957946*1093.21= 1047.24
Now, let's compare that to the Morellonomicon damage. The two items are priced close to each other, with morellonomicon being 150g more expensive, but offering a cheaper build path on the other hand, so I’ll compare them evenly.
Q-W combo, Morellonomicon first item, enemy MR of 45:
AP = 30+9.9+5.8+80 = 125.73 (items: Doran x2, Abyssal.)
Enemy MR = 45
Your Magpen = 20.61
Effective MR = 45 – 20.61 = 24.39
Multiplier = 100/124.39 = 0.803923
Base dmg = 110+205+70+1.5*125.73 = 573.6 Total dmg = 0.803923*573.6 = 461.13
Q-R-E-W rotation, Morellonomicon first item, enemy MR of 45:
AP = 30+9.9+5.8+80 = 125.73 (items: Doran x2, Abyssal.)
Enemy MR = 45
Your Magpen = 20.61
Effective MR = 45 – 20.61 = 24.39
Multiplier = 100/124.39 = 0.803923
Base dmg = 110+205+70+80+200+1.5*125.73 = 1130.2 Total dmg = 0.803923*1130.2 = 908.6
So, the percentual damage increase @ 45 MR with the same combo is:
Q-W: (535/461 - 1)*100 = 16 % more damage with Abyssal Scepter. Full rotation: (1 - 1047/908)*100 = 15 % more damage with Abyssal Scepter
For each extra point of MR the opponent has, the damage advantage of Abyssal Mask decreases slowly, since you benefit more from penetration the close their effective MR gets to 0. At 80 enemy MR (if they also purchase abyssal scepter), the damage increase will be hovering at 10 %.
Now, let’s look at the damage/utility tradeoff between Abyssal Mask and Morellonomicon. (Warning: it is hard to quantify the usefulness of utility, so expect more text and less conclusions in the following.)
For the lower damage output of Morellonomicon, you get 20% CDR, 100% base mana regen (~10 mana/5 during midgame) and a passive that is useful sometimes. But what is the exact value of these attributes for LeBlanc around levels 7-10? (After level 10 you should be able to afford both items anyways.)
The first way of looking at the effectiveness is to compare the possible DPS with these items, a fairly simple way. Since you can fire your spells 20% faster, your potential DPS with Morellonomicon will increase by 25% (since the amount of spells fired equals 1/(1-CDR)). This means that the potential DPS with Morellonomicon is actually higher than with Abyssal Scepter IF you fire your spells constantly.
However, if you hang around to fire your spells (or just Q) twice during a trade, you will endanger yourself more since the enemy has more time to retaliate on you (and you’re pretty squish). Also, this will also expend 25% more mana, so we must look at mana efficiency as well.
Since you deal 15 % less damage with spells, it is natural to assume that you will spend (1/0.85=17.6) % more mana to deal the same amount of damage. If I am to quantify this number on to your mana pool and mana regen in comparison to the damage dealt, it would look like this (assuming 2 Doran's Ring and an average of 4 lasthits per wave):
LeBlanc mana pool @ 9 (with Abyssal): 671
Mana regen/5 (with Abyssal): 20.4 + 8 per creep = 20.4 + 8*4/6 = 25.7 mp5 LeBlanc mana pool @ 9 (with Morellonomicon): 671/1.176 = 570
Mana regen/5 (with Abyssal): 31.8/1.176 + 8/1.176 per creep = 31,58 mp5
The added mana regen will give you a bigger “mana for damage reserve” after ~80 seconds of fighting, so mana-wise Morellonomicon is still decent despite the lower mana/damage efficiency.
The last thing to mention in this comparison is of course the lower cooldown on Distortion. It might just save your life from time to time.
TL;DR: Utility is sooo hard to quantify. Go for Abyssal Mask if you die too easily, or favor dealing a ton of damage per combo, since it deals between 10-15 % more damage than Morellnomicon, depending on enemy MR. For other cases where you need utility and aren’t super threatened by your lane opponent, Morellonomicon is a great choice.
Y U NO LUDEN'S!?!?
Riot has managed to give Luden's Echo a clearly defined role in the game. It is an item designed for poking and kiting, preferably long range at that. While making it a strong item when used properly, it is a weak item when a champion cannot utilize it efficiently - specifically the AP of this item is low as to make room for strong usage of the passive proc.
The item is good for poking since the damage proc will be triggered on the first spell hit - making it very strong for long range and 1 spell champions, like Xerath.
On the other hand, Luden's is the least effective as LeBlanc when you rely on a fast 4 skill combo to kill enemies, since it still only triggers once (and thus the passive is only 25 % as effective relative to a single Xerath Arcanopulse.)
The movement speed is good for making otherwise low mobility champions good at kiting. Even though our dear deceiver likes the extra MS it provides, it is simply too cost inefficient to get. Also, LeBlanc’s kiting ability is tied to her use of Distortion as well - and thus your kiting ability, as well as damage, scales with CDR as well as extra movement speed.
To look at it damage-wise, Luden's gives 100 AP and a passive proc for 3k gold, while going for strong AP items will yield 150 AP for 3k gold (AP valued at 20g each).
Since Leblanc has a total AP scaling of 360%, these extra AP will equals 180 damage - and if we consider the Rabadon effect, this extra damage will be increased by 35% to 243.
To reach the same numbers with the proc, you would need to have 1430 AP on the side - quite unlikely. Additionally, the proc is not always available - the AP is.
Yes. That's what i'm saying, except in very rare cases as 6th item because you cannot make use of the alternatives.
Vision, Wards, Warding & their jungler.
So, in the last section I mentioned that I don't really buy wards that often. That is because I am dumb, and wards are quintessential for top-notch, highly skilled competitive plays, so do not make the same mistake as me.
You should use your trinket wards defensively and close to lane, or save them for deep warding primarily in the enemy jungle when you are roaming. The defensive wards will obviously be to protect you from jungler ganks, while the deep warding can also potentially protect you by giving info on the enemy jungler movements, but more importantly, they have a chance of setting up easy kills in the enemy jungle, and you got the mobility and damage to do it.
You would be surprised how many games the opposing jungler will be at 30 % health while doing their gromp, and that could be 300g in your pockets!
Being able to buy a pink ward with potentially unlimited lifespan for only 75 gold is a bargain, and clever use of pinks can grant you great zone control of the map. Pinks should be used in one of the following ways:
The most normal use of pink wards is to place them in bushes relatively close to your lane so you can move out and defend them in case someone tries to take it down. In those places, they will give you info if your lane is about to be ganked, and deny the vision of your opponent at the same time.
Another use is to go to deep, sneaky places in the enemy jungle and place the pink ward in a bush that is unlikely to be checked by the opposing jungler, as you can also see them do in LCS. This can give you vital information on when to roam and when to play safe.
Funny gameplay video time
This game is from my Diamond 2 to Diamond 1 promo in season 3.
I think I said all there is to say on my voice-over on this vid. I baited Lee nicely just as described, but it's also a good example that you shouldn't get too reckless with LB, and you will get punished by any decent opponent if you fail. Also, it sucks to miss Ethereal Chains and know that those chains might have been what made the game.
We ended up losing the game because that kill made Xerath snowball against me, while AD Thresh toplane somehow completely destroyed our Zac and Wukong top. The game might have been won if I landed those chains and got that kill as well, who knows?
Late game vision
In the late game, vision and knowledge of your enemies' vision is extremely important. You probably won't end up warding much now because of a nearing full inventory, but it is very important to be aware of where the enemy team places wards, where your team has cleared them, etc.
By now, the choice of warding trinket between Warding Totem and Oracle Alteration is a toss-up. It basically boils down to a choice between making sure that the enemy can’t see you, or making sure that you can see your enemy, assuming you cannot rely on your team as well to obtain full vision control. Seeing your opponent is crucial since it is rarely possible for you to kill an unseen enemy, but not being seen yourself can also make the difference between outplaying and ambushing your opponents, or getting instantly caught by CC and killed.
Summoner Spells
Recommended Summoner Spells:
Flash is a good spell, has always been and always will be. It has insane synergy with your W and R and makes you blink all over the place, gives you massive assassination range, clutch escapes, ect. The same as any other LB guide would tell you.
Ignite is also a ridiculously strong no-brainer for extreme lane dominance and kill securing throughout the game. Don't be overly afraid of using your ignite if you are unsure whether they will die. As a rule of thumb, just throw it at them whenever you go all in and would like a kill.
The alternative
The only real other option on LeBlanc is to replace either flash or ignite with Teleport, because it allows you to do some sick ganks bot, mid and top, both which can easily win the game if you make them snowball.
TP will mostly be useful in toplane matchups because of the longer distance to lane and the more sustain-trade oriented focus in the lane as opposed to the flashier instant-kill plays in midlane where the 200 damage from Ignite makes all the difference in the world. Furthermore, the increase in map pressure gained by bringing teleport to toplane is greater than if you do it in midlane. In addition, Teleport synergizes well if you mainly play roam-heavy LB, or wish to splitpush like a god during late game. TP + Lichbane = Splitpushing nerdgasm.
Just keep in mind that you have to sacrifice some of your insane damage to get this.
Champion Abilities / Skill Sequence
At level 1, you should level up Distortion, almost no matter what.
If a level 1 fight/ambush/FB opportunity breaks out and you are part of it, you should always go for Distortion. It gives you mobility to flee OR stay in range of your target even if they Flash and quick damage. If nothing interesting happens in jungle, the skill choice depends on your opponent.
Distortion gives you more mobility, wave pushing power and burst @ level 1 than Sigil of Malice, so you should go for it because it enables you to control the fight and do things as fast as possible or stay in range to AA your opponent to death.
If you are in a strong matchup, Distortion can be used as a higher risk/reward spell if you use it offensively at level 1. This will put you in close range of your opponent to dish out as many AA as possible if you are stronger than they are, but you will take minion aggro and most likely more damage as well. You can punish weak laners early this way and perhaps get the coveted First Blood at level 2.
After that, let's get the usual level 2-5 skill sequence clear on LB:
This skill sequence is usually best on LB. I would never recommend Chains lv 1 even if you're invading jungle, because it is delayed CC that they can flash out of, and the mobility and damage from distortion is still very strong for invades. The early 2nd rank in Distortion will help you push the wave faster and keep the lane even against aggressive pushers like Corki or Ahri
You will sometimes want to get Ethereal Chains at level 3 in order to give a higher potential all-in damage and root. It is useful if you have the advantage in lane and potential to kill them, or your jungler is coming for a gank.
After level 5, maxing priorities are Mimic> Distortion> Sigil of Malice> Ethereal Chains
Now, let's taker a closer look at the skills of the Deceiver:
mirror image
Mirror Image is perhaps the most deceptive passive in the game after they changed it so that it starts walking automatically when it triggers. I am not even aware of my passive most of the time, but it can be really strong now and is a life-saver in many clutch situations. All the way back since the 3.9 patch, people have often begun to ignite, CC, and even chase my clone. Just remember that any DoTs on you give you away from your clone, so don't try to juke the enemy midlane after being marked in any way. ;) Important: The clone will start running a set distance towards where you are facing when your passive triggers, so you can use this to your advantage if you are prepared by making your clone run back to turret and run another way to safety yourself. The LeBlanc who runs directly back to turret is usually the most believable in the eyes of your opponent.
Some enemies with AoE damage do not give a f*ck, though. As in the video where I failed against Xerath, he just nukes me AND my clone with his massive AoE damage. While laughing in his chair, I bet. Cheeky wanka.
Clone movement pattern when Mirror Image triggers.
When your passive triggers, the clone will automatically run as if she clicked to move a set distance away in the direction you are facing, that distance might be 2000 units or something like that. This means that she will also change direction in order to pass obstacles, which also makes the clone more believable.
The picture below shows an example of the movement.
The red dot and arrow in the toplane is where LeBlanc is standing and the direction she is facing when the passive triggers. The blue flag is where the clone is set to go. The orange line is the actual pathing the clone will follow.
A thing to remember with your passive is that you are invisible for a short time, so if you can manage to flash over a wall during that time, it will look like you simply vanished to the enemy team. Also, if you're getting caught by the enemy team and your Mirror Image pops, use Flash BEFORE W-R to escape, because you REALLY need to blink out of stuff like that as soon as possible. Those 0.2 seconds can make the difference between life and death.
Sigil of Malice is your main damage source entering the later stages of the game. There is not much to say about this skill, except that after a few ranks in it, you REALLY want to proc the 2nd half of the damage whenever you cast it. Unless it is too dangerous of course. It is a superb nuking skill, and can be chained with a slow Mimic for some Q-R-Q procs for even more damage.
Distortion is my personal favorite skill on LeBlanc. The mobility and endless juking potential it offers is unparalleled by any other skill in the game, and it has been repeatedly buffed to be at a ridiculously low CD at max level now. Obviously you can use this skill to jump on top of an enemy for great damage, but the many different uses of this skill is best learned through playing loads of games as LB.
I'll name some here:
- Coming back to lane 1 second faster after going back by using it when you leave the fountain. Your mana will regenerate by the time you hit lane.
- Freezing an oncoming minion wave by aggroing the minions and the Distorting over the minions. Then run as far as you can away from your turret before reactivating the return part of the skill. Especially useful in toplane, where freezing lane is most useful.
- Juking enemies by jumping walls and return back when they flash/jump after you. Use in conjunction with Mimic over the exact same wall if the enemy got more dashes to make them rage. Hard.
- Escape ganks with W or W-R, it creates a massive gap between you and your enemies.
- Catch low HP enemies who *think* they are safe with W-possibly Flash-R-Q-E-W(return). It is a good idea when chasing to land on them with R (W) if you can because it deals decent damage, and makes Q-E easy to land. If you used R to mimic Q instead, you will not be able to land your chains, and the enemy is then more likely to escape.
- Make your enemies batsh*t confused in general.
Ethereal Chains is a good skill that allows you to kite/damage/control your enemies and save fleeing allies. It can be hard to land, especially when there are minions in lane, but can be useful if it hits. Some uses of Chains are:
- If possible, landing Chains on your enemy in lane before using any other skills gives you a huge advantage. You got the ball (his balls, metaphorically), and can decide if you wish to burst/harras/disengage if ganked, etc. By hitting the chain, you are in range to walk up to your opponent and smack a Q-R-W in his face, leaving him dead, rooted and crying on the inside. If you are about to get ganked, you could just walk up on the enemy and do a Q-W on him, use the return part on W and then save R(W) to escape their jungler, thus dominating your lane AND stalling their jungler.
- E-(1 sec wait)-R-Q can be used against fleeing enemies you want to lock down for your team to kill, or enemy mobile melee champions who are chasing you to keep them continuously rooted while you work your magic at their life bar. (I'm looking at you, Lee Sin, Renekton, Jarvan IV, Riven, ect.)
- Remember that it is not possible to use a dash when Rooted, so a procced E-R combo can prevent gap closers and escapes like Resonating Strike, or Lissandra's Glacial Path, even after the 1st part of the skill is activated.
Lastly, learn to hit those damn chains consistently. LeBlanc is nothing if she cannot land those.
Mimic is truly a lovely skill. It adds loads of depth and damage to LeBlanc, while being on a low cooldown. Many of the uses for R is already described along with the other skills, and the rest is really a matter of trying it out for yourself. Just try playing around with it at first and get the flow of your combos when using R. Of course, the standard Q-R-W-E combo works for killing people, but there is much more to it.
Skill combo videos
I will soon add (more) videos to this chapter. For now, you can look at SIV HD being fancy.
In this chapter I will show some video examples LeBlanc's generic skill combos and when they're most useful. The return part of Distortion is not shown in the combos except the brushie brushie, since it varies from situation to situation whether it is good to use or not.
The W-Q-R mana inefficient lane harass combo
This combo is super safe to do and deals a good amount of damage. However, you spend quite a bit of mana for nothing when you use Distortion purely to get in range, and you don't get to proc your mimicked Sigil of Malice damage. This combo is great for guaranteed opening harass when you return to lane with full mana, or when you get blue buff.
You might ask why I don't include Ethereal Chains in this combo in order to proc the Sigil.
This is because your Chains are mana intensive early, deals little damage, and are probably hard to land. Feel free to use your chains if you are confident that you will land them and got a clear shot, but otherwise they will often miss and waste valuable mana.
This is explained deeper in the following spoiler.
Why chains are inefficient for basic harass early
Let's assume that you are level 7 and goes in to do your W-Q-R combo. This combo costs 160 mana.
At level 7 your Q and R will deal roughly the same damage. Thus you will deal 3 parts damage with Q-R. Now, if you land your chains, you will deal 1 part more damage since you proc R, and ½ extra part damage from level 1 chains, estimated.
This means you will deal 4½ parts damage as opposed to 3 parts, a 50% damage increase.
However, your chains cost 80 mana, so your mana expenditure will go up from 160 to 240, also a 50% cost increase.
So, even if you land your chains, your damage will not be more mana efficient than otherwise. And if you miss chains, it is just a waste of mana.
Note, however, that you should of course fire your chains if you go for the kill this way. At that point killing your opponent quickly takes priority, and mana efficiency is irrelevant.
The Q-(R)-W-E quick lane/gank kill combo
The Q-E-R-Q-W lockdown kill combo
The E-Q-(R)-W initiative combo
The W-R-W Brushie Brushie
Generic gameplay
Before going into the gameplay of specific lanes, I would like to tell about my way of contributing to the team as LeBlanc. Leblanc is extremely useful at roaming and creating pressure around the map, but can also focus on shutting down her lane opponent completely. This is also why I believe LB toplane is much better than most people think.
When deciding to shut down the enemy laner, you pretty much force the opposing jungler to come to your lane. Otherwise, you can keep raping your lane opponent under turret until you finally destroy the turret, and with it, his morale, CS and level.
If you succeed in this, congratulations! The game is now 5v4 for a long time, and you should be able to win.
However, more often than not, I now end up roaming a lot during the game. The Meta has shifted to a much faster game pace, and you will need to help your team make an impact early in the game in order to push your lead.
It is prudent to gank botlane rather early if the enemy botlane are super aggressive/getting fed or if your mid is impossible to kill. (Although you should not have picked LB into that Morgana anyways). It is important to note that shoving lane with W in order to roam with LB is a very strong tactic and you should do so as much as possible without losing significant farm on it.
In both midlane and toplane, you want to use your Autoattacks as much as possible to harass your opponent early on. The lower level you are, the more your AA counts. Keep in mind that whenever you autoattack an enemy champion, you will draw nearby minion aggro. This makes it extremely dangerous to perform extended AA trades with your opponent, so keep trades to one or two autos at a time and then back off to reset minion targeting.
Careful mana management is important especially in the early laning phase. You will want to harass your opponent and shove lane as much as possible with the mana you use, and should mostly aim for hitting full minion waves with W. In strong matchups, you can target your lane opponent with all abilities and go for the kill pressure instead.
Remember, farming is important for every champion, and LeBlanc is no exception. Her AA has an excellent animation for faming, and you need that gold to kill your enemies late on. Unless you are ridiculously fed on kills, of course. Playing 12/0/3 LeBlanc is so much fun.
Some other general tips for laning are to monitor the mana levels of your opponent to see how much they can do in a fight. For example, an enemy Ryze with around 100 mana can only use 1-2 spells on you, so you can safely engage him even if he's at full hp and you're at 50%.
Another important thing is to know the Summoner Spells of your opponent, Tab is your friend. If the enemy Orianna has barrier instead of Ignite, you may wish to reconsider when you can and can't burst her.
Lastly, it can also be important to monitor the cooldowns of your opponent. Enemy Fizz used Playful / Trickster 5 seconds ago? You still have some time to harass him before it is back up. Ahri used Spirit Rush to escape last time you used your ulti, around 40 secs ago? You still have almost a full minute to abuse her in lane.
If you do not know the cooldowns of your opponent, look the enemy champion up on http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/
during the loading screen. You might as well use the waiting time to become better at the game.
Gameplay - Toplane
First of all, if you happen to fight a standard AP mid in toplane like Ryze, Orianna or AP Nidalee, read the midlane chapter as well.
So, you're interested as to how LeBlanc could possibly work toplane when she is super squishy and got no sustain? The question is understandable, and the reason is the same as why LB is strong mid: her massive damage and mobility.
Let us take a closer look at the balance of power between LeBlanc toplane and generic bruiser opponents:
LeBlanc
+Safe farming/harassing range. +High mobility. +High damage. +Decent single-target CC. -Weak at pushing. -Squishy as f*ck. -The safety of turret can be so far away.
Enemy Generic Bruiser
+Good damage. +Somewhat tanky naturally. +Usually has 1 gap closer or some other mobility. + Hexdrinker +May have CC. +May have shield/sustain. +Can usually push easily. -May push inadvertently. -Needs to get in melee range. -Easy to gank if in melee range. -Immobile, and usually can't stick on to a target with escapes.
These lists can be summarized in the following sentences: If LeBlanc can stay at a range and destroy her opponents, she wins. If the enemy bruiser can get on top of LB and she doesn't escape, they win. In short, abuse your range to harass and win lane, starting at level 1.
Get as many free autoattacks in as you can, and use your Distortion to harass them level 1 unless they ranked a gapcloser level 1. You can do this because you can retreat behind minions using the second part of W, and the enemy cannot survive to be on top of you with minion aggro on him at levels 1-2.
After that, the lane is generally about whittling down the lifebar of your enemy and then going all in for the kill at the right time. It is CRUCIAL that you can kill your enemy instantly or in 1 extra AA if you go all in, because they can pop you from 100-0 in a few seconds if you stay on top of them.
When going all in, it is extremely important to be aware of your enemy's shielding opportunities.
Are you fighting a Riven, who has 10 hp after your burst, then goes on to pop a shield, a CC, and then chunks your whole lifebar away in 3 attacks and ult? That's not luck. That is you being unaware of how much damage your burst deals and the opponent's shielding options.
On the same note, Maw of Malmortius is the item I hate the most when playing LB top. The shield and stats it offers are extremely cost efficient and can bait you into going all in at the wrong moment, causing you to DIE!
Try to get your opponent down to ~30% hp if they got Hexdrinker or Maw, and then pop a lone Sigil of Malice on them to activate the shield and wait until it dissipates.
And of course, if the enemy got a shielding Valor ability Golden Aegis+ Hexdrinker+ Barrier, you have to be really aware of their CD, shield amount, ect. If you're fast, you may be able to go for the kill before they can activate their shields.
You will roam much less from toplane than you will from midlane, and the transition from laning to roaming/teamfighting will be much clearer than when playing mid.
Gameplay - Midlane
First, if you happen to fight a standard toplane bruiser in midlane like Riven, Jarvan or even Rumble, read the toplane chapter as well.
In midlane, you must find a balance between smacking their face continually, and counter-pushing the lane enough that you don’t find yourself stuck under turret with no chance to farm.
Use your Autoattack -> Distortion on enemy and/or minions -> AA (maybe x2) -> return to chunk away at their health early, possibly setting your opponent up for FB at level 2. Although I advise to use Ignite often, you will usually want to save it until level 2 or 3, since it gains 20 true damage per level which is massive from levels 1-3.
Other than that, it is important that you play aggressively, while being mindful of the enemy jungler explained in the previous sections. The jungler is especially likely to gank when it is time for that lethal lv 3 gank. The level 3 gank may also happen within a few seconds after you have the opportunity to all in your opponent at level 2, so be aware of the map, and get the heck back to your turret after you try to get FB level 2.
Try to keep their jungler around your lane, help out on dragon calls, and gank if you see an opportunity without losing too many minions in mid.
If your botlane is getting crushed by an enemy Draven (such a lane bully), it may be worthwhile setting up an ambush down there and pop in and remove that mean ADC when the enemy engages the next time. Keep in mind, that no matter how fed their ADC are, they are still just as squishy as any 0/0/0 ADC, since they only build damage early with the extra gold.
Do not fear the fed ADC, regard him as a trophy.
Remember, League of Legends is a team game, and communication is the key to success. Ping or write if you are going to make plays, and an "OMW" ping into botlane makes a huge difference when compared to just walking down there, because your teammates are suddenly aware of the play about to happen and should be able to react on it. I say should, because they don't always react. The lower rank you are, the less likely it is.
Lack of communication is the #1 problem people face in lower ranks, and I believe most silver players could rise noticeably in the tiers if they (and the teams they get) would communicate clearly and consistently.
Slightly unrelated comparison: Communicating well >>> Warding well
Also, your attitude and the morale of the team is an extremely important factor in deciding the outcome of a game. Try to stay positive in team chat, and if people flame, it is often more effective to mute them rather than trying to convince them not to be negative. Don't play ranked while in a bad mood. Take a break if you get in a bad mood after losing a game or a few games in a row.
A link to an article about teamwork and its importance in LoL is included in the end of this guide, as well as a guide on emotions and their importance.
Gameplay - Late game & team fights
Parts of this chapter is taken from Albableat's LeBlanc guide back in season 2-3, which was the first and best guide I ever read on LB when I started playing her. It is a sad thing that his guide is now outdated and archived. Used with permission, thank you, Albableat. :D
So, let's get to those lovely teamfights, shall we?
Pre-20 Teamfights
This is what you will absolutely LOVE, since you will probably be sitting on starting items + Morellonomicon and Sorcerer's Shoes!
This usually happens if both teams contest the dragon, or the roaming game starts early for some reason.
If your opponents are really stupid enough to start team-fights at this point, it works only to your advantage. At this point: A.You don't care whom to kill. Their tanks are not truly tanks yet and their carries are not that fed to really carry yet. B. Turrets are still a huge damage-factor. You may be well assured that there is not going to be a lot of tower diving. And this gives you so much more safety. If you failed to kill someone, just run to safety, no one will follow you.
And if they do tower-dive you, you have a really nice kit to fight under turrets. Remember, you have a double dash and snare in your arsenal to duel them. C.You will be able to hold and waveclear a 2v1 lane with Distortion, maybe even a 3v1 lane if you're ahead and can instagib whomever is camping in front of your turret. Use the safety of your turret and unleash your fury on the sieging enemies whenever you get the chance.
Meanwhile your team will probably wreck their bot and top.
30'ish minute teamfights
Here, you have to be more careful with picking your target.
Usually, the best idea would be to kill the carry or an off-tank that deals a lot of damage to your team or a support that literally sustains his team ( Soraka). Your burst should be high enough to kill them (carry or support) within a single spell rotation. If you cannot grab an instakill on an opponent, you shouldn't just wait around until you can't.
Instead you must use your spells to grant your team some control of the battle while dealing some damage. An example would be to lock down their approaching off-tank with your Q-E to deal significant damage while allowing your team to pummel him.
It is risky to jump in with Distortion to proc your Sigil at this point, so analyze the situation before you decide to do it. CC can be extremely dangerous to you at this point if you don't get back in time, and you will blow your escape mechanism by doing this. That also means that you suddenly won't be able to jump away when Jarvan IV chooses to drop his mansack Cataclysm on you. That stuff really hurts a lot.
Post 40 minute teamfights
So, now is the time where LB requires the most skill to stay effective, but your damage will also be absolutely disgusting by now. If the game has gone on for this long, your lane opponent in early game will probably be back in the game even if you were dominating early game.
I have already gone through some of the late game teamfight tactics in the items section after Zhonya's, but here it goes again:
In the perfect world, you still want to kill the enemy ADC or APC quickly right before or in the beginning of the fight.
However, you must value your life dearly now. You are a huge damage factor, and your team is crippled without you. So, if you can't go in and get someone safely (that is, they got strong CC and are prepared for you, etc.), you must stay back a bit and unload your damage on easier-to-reach targets whom are harder to burst (eg. their initiators). You can usually take down one enemy frontliner with a full combo including Ignite together with your ADC, thus relieving some of pressure on your team.
This is turn, will make it safer when you go for the enemy backline. Remember, your combo is on a short 6 second CD now except for your ult, which ticks back in after 14.4 seconds. This means you will be able to root and damage the enemy squishies pretty fast and hard after your initial takedown.
Obviously, you also have the more risky option to linger on the edge of the battle until an opportune moment shows itself. Then, as said earlier, if you can land a 3-5 man Distortion-> Mimic onto the enemy team without getting CC’d, you can pretty much instantly win the teamfight for your team. Just bear in mind the massive risk associated against enemy teams with strong CC.
Another approach to the late game as LeBlanc is splitpushing, especially as toplaner - this will be covered in the following chapter.
Gameplay - Splitpushing as LeBlanc
This chapter has been edited after being shamelessly stolen from Albableat's guide on Leblanc, with permission.
Split pushing during late game may very well be one of the most efficient strategies to employ as LeBlanc, assuming you have a team composition capable of disengaging any potential 4v5. Although it might seem awkward at first, it's actually very effective if you put a little thought in it.
Below, I will explain why I think so, how to properly split push as LeBlanc and when to choose to split push.
•First and foremost, you have to be understanding LeBlanc's lategame capabilities correctly. Yes, she is still great at picking off people and instagibbing the squishies if you've not been stomped throughout early and mid-game. However, on top of that, at the later stages of the game Distortion and Mimic provide a fast waveclear and juke/mobility on a short cooldown, especially since the cooldown on W has been buffed repeatedly. Alternatively both of those and Ethereal Chains can serve as an escape mechanism.
•When do you split push?
It's a very important question. Even in lategame, LeBlanc's prime role is assassination/massive damage and creation of threat for opponents. If they can see you on the map, they are not scared of you killing them. Generally, that is bad. However, there are cases where they wouldn't be all that scared anyways. Prime example: a tower push. While LeBlanc is decent at picking off enemies during tower sieges or baron dances, she really excels at splitpushing. Therefore if you can't see the opening to pick anyone off, you should splitpush the closest lane.
•What if they get engaged on and lose a 4v5 a fight?
Ideally, that should not be happening. Every team should have some sort of disengage and you absolutely have to make sure that they can disengage if you leave them 4v5.
If the fight starts, evaluate the situation and either go there and pick a couple of people off (your mobility and damage at that point is great, so you can be there relatively quickly) or just continue pushing and take the objectives/their whole base. ;)
•Now the good part, why is LeBlanc so damn good at split pushing?
If your team is any good at sieging, the enemies will eventually have to send someone to defend against your push. But wait... Who the hell would go 1v1 vs. a LeBlanc with Lich Bane and all her spells up??
This is the crucial point. They simply cannot send a single person to defend against your split push. Even if it's a tank, you are able to take him down in 2 rotations.
If they send 2 people, then they will surely lose the siege, because now it's 4v3 and eventually your team will take down the tower.
Also, you can't really kill the LeBlanc unless you catch her off guard completely, due to her Movement speed and massive mobility and utility. So the chances of you dying to 1 or 2 people are almost non-existent. And if it's more then 2, their team is definitely losing inhibitor/baron/nexus/whatever the objective is.
•Why would I even push as LeBlanc? She has no DPS.
Remember Lich Bane, dear friend? You absolutely love this item for pushing/skirmishing/juking.
By the time you have it, you will have at least 500 AP, which will do some heavy DPS to towers and inhibitors.
Your damage to turret also scales off your AP passively, so turrets actually fall very fast against you.
In fact, you Autoattacks will each deal around 400 damage to the turret late-game, and 800 whenever they are empowered by the Lich Bane Proc. If this is combined with the 2nd dragon buff and/or Elixir of Sorcery, you can take down a turret in about 5 seconds.
With a spammable Sigil of Malice and Ethereal Chains, you can keep getting the Lich Bane procs and take towers down at a pace comparable to Fiora or Tryndamere.
•Additionally, since you will be leaving lanes a lot when setting up or rotating during splitpushing, it will threaten your opponents because a fed LeBlanc that's constantly missing creates a lot of tension.
If you want to ensure this effect, make sure to ward up and clear the jungle of enemy vision, unless you can rely on someone else to clear the enemy wards, as also mentioned in the warding section.
•If you are carrying a summoner Teleport, it makes your job even easier. You can splitpush like an absolute biiiiitch (pictured: *****es - Shen, Twisted Fate). Keep pushing all the way until a fight actually breaks out. Then TP in there and clean-up.
Alternatively, if two lanes are pushing hard, you can draw your opponents' attention towards one of them and then TP to the other one and free-push it.
If, by chance, you have a Shen on your team, you can also double split push. Abuse both Teleport and Stand United by creating possibilities for pushing all three lanes at the same time and then focusing attention on 1 or 2 of them for massive rage on the enemy team.
Ranked games - When to pick LB?
TL;DR: Pretty often if you like playing her.
Most, if not all other LeBlanc guides out there use a great deal of time in pointing out that LeBlanc is a COUNTERPICK, not a blind pick or regular AP carry.
While it is true that LeBlanc can't be an AP carry in the traditional AoE teamfight nuking sense, she is still a strong pick against many team comps and she can easily manage being the only source of AP damage on the team.
Contrary to many other guides, I believe that LeBlanc is a strong PICK who doesn't rely on countering specific champions in order to excel, and I often blind pick LeBlanc into an empty enemy mid and/or top. If the enemy should happen to pick a strong counter to LeBlanc (looking at you, Kassadin), then you must make sure to communicate with your team so that you can go toplane (or mid if you got countered top), and have your team counter-counter their lane.
That being said, LeBlanc does struggle against specific types of team comps. If she if faced with an enemy team consisting almost purely of bruisers who can build MR early in their normal build (like Nautilus, Volibear, Cho'Gath, Ezreal, Braum), it is almost impossible to get ahead early, and a hypercarry like Cassiopeia would be a much greater asset to your team during late-game. Add in that the enemy Ezreal got a blink to escape from you, and you’re screwed.
A team bringing multiple shields and support abilities with only 1 or 2 hypercarries can also screw you over, because they can suddenly become deceptively tanky on command. A Lulu mid (whom also counters you in lane), combined with Janna support for a Vayne building Maw of Malmortius will be able to shred your whole team, and it is almost impossible for an assassin like you to pick off the enemy carry before getting peeled away and killed.
In order to blind pick LeBlanc, you should preferably be very skilled both at mid and top, and know the matchup against whatever enemy you happen to be against. After the introduction of Dynamic Queue, you must communicate very clearly with your team if you intend to flex pick Leblanc, and make sure your other solo laner is ok with lane swapping, depending on the matchups.
If you are new to LB or still don't feel like you master her well, it is safer to avoid blind picking her and keep using her as a counterpick against lanes you know are easy or matches your current skill level.
After having said all that, it is still important to look at your Team Composition. In short, every team needs someone who can deal damage (minimum of 1 AP and AD, unless it’s a hypercarry with true damage). Other than that teams almost always need someone who can initiate, someone who can tank and someone who can help the others excel at their roles (support). Initiators can be swapped out if you have a good siege composition or assassins if you are likely to get good picks against the enemy team. Leblanc brings damage and assassination to the team, but she can't initiate, tank, or help her teammates much except with her Ethereal Chains.
Thus, it would be unwise to pick Leblanc into a team which already has loads of damage, but lacks CC and tanks. If that is the case, you are probably better off with someone who can initiate well (Kennen with ult, Orianna with ult, Galio with ult), or take some hits (Ryze, Diana, Mordekaiser).
There are, of course, exceptions to this standard setup, as a super-mobile poke team (example LeBlanc, Nidalee, Lee Sin, Caitlyn, Janna) can win against low-mobility, all-in teams (Amumu, Darius, Draven, Leona, Anivia), as it is possible to outmaneuver, split push and pick off the enemies one by one if played well. That, however, is a completely different topic, and for the most time, you will be better off with a balanced team. ;)
A reference is included in the end of this guide to another article which explains team compositions more in-depth.
Support chapter - Introduction and general gameplay
Support LeBlanc is a fun and rewarding position if you are good at her, but she can only generally fill a niche role in the botlane since its effectiveness especially depends a lot on the enemy picks.
LeBlanc is pretty weak early in the botlane if the enemy support is able to poke hard, sustain hard or engage reliably, since she only brings single-target damage and CC, with the damage being kinda lacking early. A support such as Annie has comparable burst, but it is AoE and combined with an AoE stun. However, Annie is limited by low mobility and range, which LeBlanc isn’t.
However, as the game progresses, support LeBlanc gets really strong, mostly marked by the purchase of Rabadon's Deathcap, since it enables her to instagib the enemy ADC and get away with it.
Try to prioritize harassing the enemy ADC whenever it is safe, but you should definitely put some damage and perhaps even burst down on the enemy support if (s)he is exposed and/or squishy.
Feeding off the enemy Sona will get you your DCap just as fast as feeding off the enemy ADC. Supports also don’t have Heal, and the enemy ADC might not have the reflexes to heal in time.
In the early levels (1-4), your damage is low and the enemy duo can ususally outdamage you if the trade lasts more than half a second. At this stage, it is important to play safe and only poke when you can do so with little retaliation. At the same time, you have to show your presence in lane so your ADC doesn’t feel all alone.
You should try to push with your ADC for level 2, since an early level 2 is decently effective on you. You will have a lot of damage if you reach level 2 first, but no hard CC to lock them down for the kill.
Even though you are weak early in lane, you have a great selling point since you can safely pick off the enemy ADC at 35% HP at a massive range with Distortion- Flash- Sigil of Malice- Ethereal Chains- Ignite- Distortion.
After level 6, you have some decent burst and should focus on bursting the enemies together with your ADC if ahead/able to, otherwise you should mainly focus on keeping your ult on cooldown (use it often) while staying healthy/juke if the enemy tries to tower dive. If you can manage to survive the lane until you get your Haunting Guise or even win the lane before that, then congratulations. The game is now pretty much yours (no guarantees, stated or implied, are given though).
After you purchase HG, you should build towards Rabadon's Deathcap and otherwise keep dominating the enemy ADC and deny him totally from the lane. Go mid if he tries to go mid to farm. Dunk him with no mercy. More explanation given in the items chapter.
As late game approaches, you will have a choice (also depending on how fed you are):
If you are not that strong/your team is strong, you can do an all in kamikaze and sacrifice yourself to assassinate the enemy ADC. 4v4 with ADC against support usually results in a victory to your team (unless it’s a fed Annie i guess...)
If you are pretty fed/your ADC is far behind/you care a lot about your KDA, your playstyle will resemble that of mid/top LeBlanc a lot: you will start to play as an APC (or second APC), should care for your life, nuke easy-to-reach targets and try to carry your team. You can also choose to have your other APC go aggressively on the enemy while you use your burst you peel for your own ADC.
Support - Masteries, Runes & items
Support skill sequence
As LeBlanc support, you should still start off with Distortion at level 1 for mobility and a chance for AoE harass. However, you are not required to waveclear well as support. Instead, you wish to focus all your power on damage and trading, which is why from level 2 onward, you should max Sigil of Malice to reach maximum burst for popping the enemy ADC. Grabbing Ethereal Chains at level 3 is useful only if you are winning early trades in lane and can actually survive staying in range of the opponent for long enough to proc the root.
12/18/0 Support Masteries
For support masteries, you should go standard 12/18/0 masteries for tons of damage. Grab Bandit instead of Dangerous Game because it provides you a massive gold income as support. Secret Stash is a good choice instead of Assassin since you will not be walking around solo for much of the game.
Support Runes
Runes are the same as for top/mid Leblanc, except you should choose between Greater Seal of Armor or Greater Seal of Scaling Health. The armor will obviously help you sustain better in lane, but won’t be effective against hybrid damage ADC’s. The health seals will be more gold efficient in time and help you survive burst later in the game.
Afterwards, you should definitely go for Frostfang because of the massive gold generation, AP and completely massive 100% mana regeneration. I do not upgrade it into Frost Queen's Claim because most of the cold cost goes into the Spooky Ghosts active. The ghosts are balanced in my opinion, but they are made to be good on dedicated supports rather than Champions like LeBlanc who scales immensely well with AP. Instead, you should leave it for now and upgrade it to Eye of the Watchers later in the game so you don’t have to dedicate two item slots for supporting items.
By now, it is time for you to become truly useful. You are truly useful if you can kill the enemy ADC fast. The enemy ADC won’t build MR before the 25 minute mark. (if he does, he will lose trades with your ADC unless he's far ahead. You didn't feed, did you?). Since you don’t need Void Staff against 37 MR and don’t need the MR from Abyssal Mask, you should get Morellonomicon now.
That evil book is just as good for Leblanc support as it is for her midlane, and you are able to utilise all of the stats for both lane fighting and roaming into the bottom side jungle for skirmishes.
Afterwards you should get Sorcerer's Shoes in order to get that sweet mobility and Magic Penetration. The added penetration from this item will reduce the effective MR of squishy targets like the ADC to only 2! You remember me saying that magic pen is more effective the close their effective gets to 0, yes? This is very close indeed, and you damage will rise a lot.
Maths section about your burst damage against the enemy ADC when you have boots and Morellonomicon will follow at the end of this chapter.
Get Morellonomicon and boots, kill enemy ADC, get your ADC fed on farm or assists, profit, win game. Then you can do it again, until you can afford Rabadon's Deathcap, then kill enemies solo!
After getting DCap, you should pretty much follow the standard build for LeBlanc, except you should get a Sightstone and upgrade into Eye of the Watchers for vision at some point. You know, the usual support item stuff.
Thus, the final build order should be something along the lines of this:
Maths Chapter, Burst against ADC with Morellonomicon + Sorcerer's Shoes
I will assume level 90 on you and the enemy ADC. I will only count 1 proc on your E, since the enemy will have 1,5 seconds to life steal off you if he isn’t dead already. The extra 45 damage comes from the 3 Tribute procs, and the Thunderlord's Decree adds the extra 90 dmg + 0.1 AP scaling.
As you see, you can just barely kill her if you try to burst a full HP enemy. Keep the enemy Heal in mind, though. If they should survive your burst, you can keep the damage coming with, Ignite, autoattacks or follow-up damage from your allied ADC.
This is also a great example why Caitlyn synergizes well with LeBlanc support, since Ace in the Hole combined with your combo will result in a sure kill. It is good bait if the opposing ADC only has vision of you and think it's a clean 1v1 and his Heal is enough to survive.
Support - Matchups & synergy
LeBlanc is very good at snowballing even as support, and she usually works best with aggressive, long-range, bursty or lane dominating AD carries.
Examples of good carries:
Varus. His ranged damage is strong, combined with the lockdown he can provide with ult. He does, however, easily suffer if no one can peel for him. Caitlyn. Her Piltover Peacemaker, long range and self-peel makes her a really strong pick with you. Especially with Ace in the Hole at level 6 - she doesn't even need to be near you) Graves. His burst is massive, but he will be pretty weak if you fall behind due to his lack of range. Lucian. He is a massive lane bully and all-round strong with damage, mobility and range.
Some examples of bad pairings are:
Vayne. She needs more peel than you can bring and doesn’t synergize with your damage patterns at all. Kog'Maw. He is a baby early who need tons of support. You cannot do that. Quinn.
The enemy choice of ADC doesn’t matter too much for LeBlanc. Of course, some AD Carries will be stronger in lane than others, such as Lucian, but they don’t pose any champion-specific problems against LB.
The only thing to keep in mind is Graves with his True Grit and Ezreal with his Arcane Shift. Those two guys have the potential to mess with your combos, but the impact of those dashes is much lower than the choice of support you are facing.
LeBlanc performs best against some specific picks and it is especially dependent on the enemy support. Here is a list of favorable, skill matchup and unfavorable supports to come up against.
Favorable
Note, that the common trait across those 4 champions is that they are slow and tanky, and that they can't engage on you like they need to in order to be useful.
Leona, Difficulty: 2/5
Leona: You can dodge her engages easily and just keep the gold flowing by poking her and her ADC repeatedly. Ignore her in all ins and burst the enemy ADC together with yours, or just do it by yourself when you get some AP. If she manages to all in your ADC early, you will probably lose the fight, so try to root her preemtively if she tries to close the gap on your ADC.
Alistar, Difficulty: 1.75/5
Alistar: You should be able to dodge his CC and win through poke, his heal is weak. Win just like against Leona. Even if he lands a W-Q combo on you, you should be able to escape afterwards with Distortion since most botlanes don't have a strong burst early.
Taric, Difficulty: 1/5
Taric: He isn’t strong anymore and his stun is slow, so just Distortion back to safety when he uses it. That glittering blue gem will follow slowly after and stun you for ~20 damage long after you escaped. Win like against ali/leo.
Blitzcrank, Difficulty: 2.5/5
Blitzcrank: This is probably the funniest lane to troll with LeBlanc due to the lovely game mechanics. Harass him or his ADC primarily with Q-E and be a bit more cautious with your W.
The only thing roboboy can do is to grab prople and follow up with CC, but you stop him already at the grab.
Of course, you can avoid his Rocket Grab with your Distortion to leave him useless. However, even if you are 100% sure to be grabbed, just make sure to cast W before he grabs you in. Then you can simply press W again and return to your original spot in the blink of an eye, faster than Blitzcrank can even follow up with Power Fist or Static Field.
So now it should be adequately established that you should never get locked down by a Blitzcrank unless you are bad or has W on cooldown (which you shouldn't have).
You can also use this mechanic to save your ADC from grabs if you are quick. If you see a grab going for your ADC, simply use W into the grab to save your ADC. Afterwards press W again to pop back to your original position and troll Blitz. :)
Whittle down Blitzcrank and his carry in order to win the lane through constant pressure.
Even though you got quite an advantage in this lane, you must still be vigilant. If you should happen to get too close to Blitzy for one reason or another, he has two strong CC skills that disables your escapes, and a Static Field-> Rocket Grab-> Power Fist combo deals decent damage and can lock you down for 2 seconds, more than enough for the enemy ADC to secure a kill.
Here is a video captured by Albableat who demonstrates a very clean execution of the ADC save.
Skill matchup
Janna, Difficulty: 3/5
Janna: She has decent poke, CC and sustain, but she is squishy and can’t snowball her ADC as hard as other supports. Take great care for her Howling Gale when you try to use Distortion, since the knockup can negate the damage part on your W, and the CC leaves you vulnerable for a few hits of the enemy ADC.
Her Eye Of The Storm makes it hard for you to trade or burst the enemy ADC, so try to combo when it is on cooldown, and avoid AA trades while her shield is up.
Never expect to be able to burst the enemy ADC when Janna is near, since Monsoon knocks you away while also outhealing the damage you deal.
Be intelligent with your trades, try to strike when her abilities are on cooldown, and most importantly, do NOT blow all your escape mechanisms while trying to nuke her or her teammates. If you fail to kill your target, you can easily be chased down and killed afterwards.
Sona, Difficulty: 3.25/5
Sona: She is very squishy and low-range, but has strong poke, heal and CC on her ultimate. If you get hit by her ult, they will often be able to burst you down. Focus Sona more aggressively in this lane so she has to play passively.
While she can whittle you down quickly in small lane trades, she is still very squishy with the lowest base HP of all champions, so you have good burst potential against her. Just make sure that whenever you go in, you finish the job so she can't heal it back up.
Karma, Difficulty: 3.75/5
Karma: She has the upper hand early, and her shields, damage and CC is strong if you get caught. It is probably a death sentence if she can proc her Focused Resolve on you, but she cannot force engages hard. Play passively/poke until you get enough damage to force trades onto her ADC unless you get an early advantage.
Nami, Difficulty: 2.75/5
Nami: She has strong utility, poke, heals and CC, but she is relatively easy to dodge and harass, so she shouldn’t be too tough if you are on your toes. It is important to avoid her Aqua Prison, but it is fortunately slow to land, so you should be able to predict and dodge it. Focus her if she is exposed, since she turns out to be really good as sushi.
Zyra, Difficulty: 3/5
Zyra: Her plants and Grasping Roots can be fatal with her burst potential if she catches you out, but otherwise she isn’t too tough after her Stranglethorns got nerfed. She's squishy, but be mindful of her passive if you burst her.
Annie, Difficulty: 3.75/5
Annie: This matchup is on the verge of being unfavorable to you. It can snowball hard both ways, but should be manageable if you avoid making mistakes. Annie has an advantage early, since she has similar base damage, but also an on-demand stun. He is stronger than you in direct trades, so you should be careful of her and only try to poke with Q-W-W or Q-E to keep trades short, and avoid her passive stun procs.
In this specific lane, you can also choose to purchase Abyssal Mask immediately after Frostfang in order to flat out win burst duels.
Later in the game, both of you will be roughly equally useful, but in different situations. (As in, remove the enemy ADC from the game vs. Flash Summon: Tibbers stunlocking 1-5 enemies with decent damage).
Unfavorable Matchups
Thresh, Difficulty: 4.25/5
Thresh: He is tanky, has a ranged AA with damage boost, a hook and tons of CC. Unlike against Blitzcrank, you must avoid his hooks at all cost: instead of pulling you in quickly, Thresh will CC you for more than a second while reeling you in slowly, and then he jumps to melee range of you while laying down additional CC from Flay and perhaps The Box, all while the enemy ADC pummels you.
You will take a lot of hits in this lane and must endure the pain while whittling the enemy carry down until you get the opportunity to burst his carry, but even then Thresh has Dark Passage to make your job hard.
Try to avoid pointless trades against Thresh since he has better sustain than you.
Soraka, Difficulty: 4/5
Soraka: She got two strong heals combined with strong DoT and a frigging instant silence. You will go about, trying to do your thing, and she will just troll you every time with a silence followed by Astral Blessing, and you will be screwed. Whenever you can, you should definitely try to burst Soraka instead of the enemy ADC, and if you can get her too low to lane safely, you will force her back or kill her.
Lulu, Difficulty: 4.75/5
Lulu: This little yordle is a pain in your ***, possibly the toughest opponent you can face. She has a long range poke combined with good CC and utility. However, the thing that makes her your nemesis is her Wild Growth (and, to a lesser extent, Help, Pix!. She can pop that thing on herself or the enemy ADC any time you try to burst them, and she will troll you so hard with it, also in teamfights later on. This is the only lane where tons of damage isn’t your complete salvation, because she has so many more tons of peel. To boot, the knockup part of her ult can even negate the damage proc on Distortion if she uses it on your target while you are mid-jump, resulting in her double trolling you! She only snowballs bot moderately hard, but she will almost definitely win it. Avoid the matchup if at all possible.
Lane Matchups - Mid
The big three
Don't fight these guys. Go to toplane if you are against any one of these or i'm 90% sure you'll lose the match single-handedly. While you might not die in lane to them, they will win the game later on because they outfarm you, outscale you, and rape your team. If you die to them in lane it will be the same, but worse.
The exception to this is Anivia, where you might win lane with your early damage and her being squishy, but it is a big gamble and it usually turns out bad because of her egg. Feel free to fight Anivia if you wish to play the game in hard-mode, but don't say I didn't warn you.
I will rate each opponent on a difficulty scale from 1 to 5, where 1 is easiest and 5 is certain defeat if your opponent is halfway decent. Personally I would fight any enemy who is rated 4 or lower. Remember, just because an enemy is rated low, they can still become a threat later in the game if you don't dunk them early. Conversely, an enemy rated 4 can easily be rendered useless for 40 minutes if you manage to get ahead and leave a little dump on them in lane. Also, if you're still not confident with LB, it might be a wise choice to only go for enemies rated 3 or possibly even lower.
If the difficulty of an enemy is given in a parenthesis (example, difficulty: (3/5)), it means that I rarely play that matchup and I am not quite sure if it is correct. It is still a qualified guess/distinct memory of the matchup, however.
Matchups
Ahri, Difficulty 2.5/5
Important notice on difficulty: The matchup is favorable towards LeBlanc, but if the enemy Ahri buys sustain early and rushes negatron cloak for abyssal, it is a more demanding matchup since you can't force her back in 1 combo. This experience of mine might also be because Ahri players in Diamond are pretty good.
Ahri is a rather strong middle lane pick with a good laning skillset that enables her acting as a pushing/ganking AP Carry. She has only 1 type of CC (her Charm) though an amazing damage output with her other 3 abilities. Ahri is built mostly as a mage, making her somewhat durable. LeBlanc is favorably matched against Ahri, since the latter is based on linear skillshots, and you have the kit to dodge them, outdamage her and punish her hard in lane. However, this matchup depends a lot on the relative skill of you and the enemy Ahri, since she is a force to be reckoned with and she can be a terrifying opponent if she gets strong. Both champions are very mobile, both are great at ganking, both are deadly if let out of control and can do their thing.
Things to be aware of:
Essence Theft. The little things like this adds up, mounting to some pretty strong healing over time. Generally, Ahri has more sustain then you in lane and can build up an advantage just by being at much higher HP then you. Thus, you don't really want "Even trades" because they're not really even - Ahri will have more health.
Charm
Okay, this is a big one. The ONLY thing you REALLY need to learn vs. Ahri to be successful is predicting and being able to avoid the skillshots. Her whole essence is linear skillshots. If she doesn't hit them, she doesn't deal damage, period. Special warning goes out to Charm. It's the one skillshot that enables her to land other ones since you are CC'ed. And her damage is high. Therefore, don't get hit by it.
Important to know is that Charm hits only 1 enemy in a line, so covering yourself up with your minions is an easy way to avoid it.
For example, let's say you are planning to Distortion into range and then Sigil of Malice- Mimic her. A good Ahri can easily see it coming and will throw a Charm at you. So, instead of Q-R'ing her, you just use W again.
It requires skill, yes. But the odds are, if you time it perfectly, Ahri will be already sure that she got you and will follow up with Orb of Deception and Fox-Fire... into nothing. Therefore, she just wasted 150-180 mana and all of her spells are on cooldown while you just used W. Technically, YOU WON the trade in terms of mana.
Yes, this is just a specific example, but what the purpose of this is, is to show you that sometimes the obvious decision isn't the best.
Since Charm no longer stops the damage part on Distortion, you can now go for aggressive Q-R-W unto the enemy Ahri if you are confident it will deal enough damage to kill her and she can’t do anything about it.
Spirit Rush.
Take extreme care when fighting her with that spell being up, because she WILL kill you if you don't have Distortion ready and/or tower nearby. Unless you are already fed, of course.
While it is mostly used for damage, it is, in fact, Ahri's only mobility spell. Without it, she becomes a Mordekaiser, gankable like no other. Therefore, learn the approximate cooldown on that thing and call for ganks.
Forcing Spirit Rush is always a good idea. You don't get the kill? It's fine. You neutralize her for 1.5 minutes early. After all, remember, your cooldowns are so much shorter than most other mid laners' cooldowns.
Say she has to ult away from you after you use jump on her. Your ultimate is up in 30 seconds again AND then it's up in 30 seconds again. You have at least two chances to repeat your assault at her or to go gank. And then it's up again as Ahri's ult is up too, so you force another Spirit Rush. Rinse and repeat.
Nonetheless, never forget that Ahri's strong damage is a great complement to strong CC junglers. Therefore if they have a strong ganking jungler who can actually lock you down, watch out for him and play careful to prevent serious pain.
Distortion is great in avoiding ganks, but if you're not smart it's very easy to get caught with no abilities ready.
One advantage that Ahri has over you is her pushing power. Your best play is to make her choose between the lane harass and pushing the lane. Don't just stay in your minion wave, unless you're getting hit by every Charm, but then you should also practice your positioning.
If you can't beat her on your own, call for pre-6 ganks, NO MATTER WHO YOUR JUNGLER IS. You can easily CC her to death, so ganking your lane should be easy.
Post 6 ganks are possible, but you have to get her ultimate down beforehand.
Another option is to double root her with E-R, and having the E proc happen just as your jungler enters lane. Technically, it's still good 3 seconds of her not being able to Spirit Rush, but it's not as guaranteed to succeed.
Of course if you are able to 3 shot her, do it. But I doubt this scenario happening against a competent opponent and if it is, then why are we talking jungle ganks?
Monitor Ahri's map movement and react accordingly. If you get her caught on her way to blue or side lane with all of your spells up, you pretty much get a free kill! :D
Finally, stealing Ahri's blue buff will prove very valuable to you and your team. Her pushing power with blue becomes absolutely ridiculous. As soon as you see her get blue, you need to stay extra attentive. And try to force Spirit Rush to prevent her from roaming.
Post-lane:
After the laning phase you should realize, if you didn't shut her down, she is slightly in the favour just because she is really a much easier champion to teamfight with rather than LeBlanc. Ahri has strong teamfight presence and if she didn't get crippled in lane, she will capitalize on this advantage. You will have to kill her in teamfights before she brings destruction to your team, unless killing the AD carry is much more important.
IF you did shut her down, she won't be so much of a threat, so switch your focus to the most fed/dangerous enemy.
Keep trying to prevent her from having blue.
Akali, Difficulty 2/5
Akali is really easy to abuse in lane as long as her Twilight Shroud is on cooldown. Since she usually gets that at level 2, you will want to harass her as much as you can with autos and W or Q level 1. She is melee, abuse it. She can't touch you until level 6 (unless you run into her Shroud, duh), so smack her face and destroy her Creep Score during this time.
You can still outburst her at level 6 if she doesn't have any tanky items like Negatron Cloak + Ruby Crystal or Spectre's Cowl, but be prepared to keep your distance and retreat under tower if she jumps on you multiple times. Even when she is built as Tank Akali, she can hurt your squishy little *** in melee.
If you face Akali in toplane she becomes slightly more difficult at level 6 because your "safe zone" (turret) is farther away. You should, however, still be able to juke her 3 Shadow Dance with your W-R and their return parts. She also can't hit you if she's dead.
In an equal lane, you will be more useful in teamfights since she is easily focused and burst down in bigger fights. Her splitpushing is quite dangerous, however.
Anivia, Difficulty 4.5/5
Anivia is stupid, don't meet her in lane if you can avoid it. She will AFK farm until 20 minutes and then kill your whole team while you might as well just activate spectator mode. /Rant over.
That being said, she is a low-mobility champion who is very mana hungry early, so you shouldn't die to her in lane. If you try to trade autos with her, she will probably come out on top, since her range is greater than yours. Avoid her Flash Frost early on, because it deals ridiculous damage together with Frostbite throughout the game. Also, be aware of her "hidden Q", where she will walk out of your vision and launch her Q at you, because it then shows with a delay and is harder to dodge. Try to stay out of her Q range to avoid this if you know where she is.
It should be relatively easy to make her first health bar disappear due to your strong burst and her low health pool, but if she's halfway decent she will play safe so that you can't touch her egg because your skills are on CD and she's lying under her own turret.
IF you manage to get her into egg in the middle of the lane, be mindful that you don’t expose yourself to an opposing jungle gank while you try to autoattack her egg down. It is likely that she has communicated the aggression with her jungler, and the egg is merely a bait.
Try to steal her blue at level 6 together with your jungler, as this is the single most important part of your lane against Anivia. With blue, it's gg. If she doesn't have blue, you have a decent chance at winning if you manage to use it to harass her continually and deny her CS. Her Glacial Storm - Frostbite still deals massive damage, so be careful still. You can't dodge that sh*t.
She is really tough. The odds are kinda against you in lane, and later on in the game she is MUCH more useful than you are if you're just kinda even.
Annie, Difficulty 3/5
Build for the Abyssal Mask path against Annie in order to win all-in burst trades.
I don't know why, but Annie is rarely played in the high ranks, so it is some time since I fought her last. She has high damage in trades, but you are more mobile and your skills outrange her slightly, so use that to dictate where and when you trade.
Still try to harass her early with Q-W since it will deny her retaliation, but care for her stun.
You both have the damage to make each other go 100-0 at level 6, so it mostly depends on who gets their combo off first. If you catch her with a combo when she has stun on cooldown, you win. If she opens up with a stun before you can react, she wins. Be careful, monitor her stun, and nuke her as$.
In an equal lane, you are roughly equally useful in teamfights, but with different strengths.
Azir, Difficulty 4/5
Even though he has been slapped by the nerfstick repeatedly, Azir is still a demanding matchup. You are stronger than him in the early laning phase, and should use that to punish him and deny CS.
If you are careless with your combos, he can dodge your Distortion with Shifting Sands, but he cannot interrupt your damage by dashing into you, so don't fear that.
You can trade while pushing evenly against him by aiming your Distortion on the minion wave, then land AA-Q-(E) on Azir before popping back.
His soldiers deal a massive amount of damage.
Be mindful of his soldier positioning, and know that you can NOT dash through his Emperor's Divide, so you should try to come at him from surprising angles once he hits 6.
He's massive in teamfights if you cannot dodge his Divide and assassinate him early.
Brand, Difficulty (3/5)
Brand outranges you on his skills, but both his stun and main damage output are skillshots. Thus, you can win the lane by harassing him while dodging his skillshots by utilising your mobility - Morellonomicon is a very good choice here.
His Pyroclasm only hurts if it jumps to you multiple times, so avoid your minions and allies if he uses it. It has a hidden superpower though: If your clone is near you, or Pyroclasmitself triggers your clone passive, it will do a super-fast triple bounce to kill you instantly. Also, you can't counterplay it unless you're lucky that the fire bounces to an allied minion off your clone, so avoid giving him opportunities to ult you while near your passive treshold.
In an equal lane, you are roughly equally useful in teamfights, but with different strengths.
Cassiopeia, Difficulty 4/5
Cassiopeia has low poison damage early, but you should still focus on dodging them of course. Her Twin Fang is another story though, since its DPS even at rank 1 or 2 is insane provided she has landed a poison and can stay in range of you. Outmaneuver her with Distortion and abuse her low mobility to win lane, do not get caught in trades without W to escape since you will then be dead.
After level 6 she is able to quickly kill you with Twin Fang if she stuns you first with her Petrifying Gaze. Her ultimate has a fairly long windup, so you can react to it by aborting your own combo and going back with W immediately - Getting her ultimate for a single W cooldown is an extremely good trade.
She will become moderately tanky in time, but you should be able to keep her down with your damage if you stay even or ahead of her.
In an equal lane, she will be of more use to her team due to her massive DPS, tankiness and AoE CC – she is after all a lategame hypercarry.
Diana, Difficulty 3.25/5
Facing Diana in lane is favorable early, but not for the faint of heart after level 6, as she is somewhat tanky for an AP mid and she has multiple gapclosers at this point. It is a good idea to read the chapter "Gameplay - Toplane" if you face her, because you playstyle will resemble that a lot.
Abuse her low range pre-6 with autos and Q-W-(E). At level 6 you will want to be ready to Distortion to your turret if she engages on you. Diana is kind of like Akali with more CC and tankyness, but with no invisibility. You can't 100-0 her, but you can definitely 50-0 her.
In an equal lane, she will be more useful in teamfights unless you can burst her by then or your team is godlike at focusing.
She can be punished
This video should illustrate how you want to harass Diana while keeping your distance. I also happen to waste some of their jungler's time as an added bonus after I get my FB.
Ekko, Difficulty (2/5)
Ekko is rarely played as an AP mid, but don't be afraid should you encounter him. He has sub-par mobility compared to you, and his skills - even Timewinder - are easy to dodge as long as you don't use Distortion recklessly - try to rely mostly on Sigil of Malice and Ethereal Chains for safe lane harass, then he should never be able to proc his 3-stack Z-Drive Resonance on you.
He's melee, so you can harass him hard if he tries to CS, and if he uses abilities to last hit, you can jump on him with no fear of retaliation.
After reaching 6, you can just keep bursting him, but you must NOT try to finish him off at low health if the burst alone isn't enough. His Chronobreak is almost useless if you only go for short bursts, but if you linger and try to kill him, he can use ultimate and end up killing you instead.
Ezreal, Difficulty 2.25/5
Enemy picked AP or AD Ezreal in midlane, huh? Avoid trading autos with him, since he has loads of AA timer resets and linear skillshots. Harass him only when your abilities are up and focus on dodging his skills, since it can really hurt a lot. He has some mobility, so don't stay and try to get a clutch kill if your Q-R-E only got him down to 15% hp. He can avoid you and punish you meanwhile.
Be careful of his Trueshot Barrage, it deals 350 +100% bonus AD + 90% AP damage, so he can easily finish you off at 30% hp if you don't dodge it. You are not safe until you have more than 30-50% health, that is the single most important thing to keep in mind against him. Ezreal is squishy and doesn’t have any good build paths including MR, so you will kill him easily once your damage ramps up. Even a simple Q-R combo which he cannot dodge with Arcane Shift will chunk him out quickly.
In an equal lane, you are more useful than him in teamfights, since you are both high-mobility damage dealers, but you have more damage and can pick him off easily.
Fiddlesticks, Difficulty (3/5)
Fiddlesticks can harass you from afar with his Dark Wind, and you should avoid getting feared/silenced and then drained by him. He is squishy, so get some damage off on him if you can avoid his CC. He will drain his health back off minions, so get in with some free harass if he uses Drain on a minion
Avoid his ult at level 6, he might try to hide in the bush and then ult into lane followed by his fear and CERTAIN DEATH!
His usefulness in teamfights entirely depend on his ult. If he lands ult->Zhonya's on top of your whole team, you are useless compared to him. If your team avoids his ult or he is popped quickly, he is useless compared to you.
Fizz, Difficulty 4/5
Building Abyssal Mask is a good idea against Fizz in lane.
Facing Fizz requires a great understanding of both LeBlanc and Fizz in order to win the lane. His Playful / Trickster is his strongest defense and offense against you, as he can engage and juke/avoid your burst with it, and it has a 2 sec lower CD than your W. He has an additional dash, so you will have to choose between using R for fleeing or fighting if he engages.
Avoid his Fish Chum the Waters, and immediately use W-R to get away if it hits you, or you are DEAD!
In order to win, you will have to poke him defensively, meaning land free autos, Q's and proc them with either W or E. If you proc the damage with W, immediately return and run away from him so that he can't retaliate. Remember, he now has 2 dashes while you have 0.
After level 6, the best way to beat him in lane is actually to be somewhat defensive if he is aggressive, because he is a free kill after using his Playful / Trickster.
You generally know a second or two in advance when you are going to die against him if you make a mistake.
The worst part about Fizz is his massive ability to roam and nuke people fast. While you might be able to hold your own in lane, he can easily snowball off a few ganks top or bot after he hits 6, and then he just dunks your whole team.
In an equal lane, he is more useful in roaming the map and teamfights before late game. He can dodge and assassinate stuff just like you, but he just gets there faster. His damage is higher and he has to go all-in when fighting, but you usually can't really punish him for it fast enough before late game.
Galio, Difficulty 4/5
What, isn't Galio like, a hard counter to LB, you might ask? I mean he's a tanky AP mid who scales with MR and brings strong CC to a teamfight, everything LeBlanc hates!
The above points are actually true, and Galio isn't an easy opponent. However, he isn't too great of a problem to you, since he is not tanky early game.
He is melee, so you can abuse him with AA and your abilities since you still deal decent damage. In this one specific matchup, you can choose to rush frigging Void Staff if you wish to win lane instead of roaming. If Galio goes pure MR to deal with you in lane, your lovely Darius top will cleave him in 4 hits later on in the game, so it's a win-win.
To get back on track, Galio can only deal damage with his skillshots, which you should be able to dodge. If he uses his Bulwark, stop hitting him until it is gone.
Try to land a lone Q on him and proc it a few seconds later since he will then be unable to predict when to shield against your damage. It takes some time to take him down, but that's no big deal for you. You also get used to that if you play LB toplane anyways.
His usefulness in teamfights entirely depend on his ult. If he lands ult on top of your whole team, you are less useful than him. However, if your team avoids his ult, he is useless compared to you.
Gragas, Difficulty 3/5
Gragas is extremely rarely seen in midlane now, but he is a tough fattie, and it is really hard to bully an opponent who is 3 times your size. His Happy Hour and Drunken Rage grants him some sustain against you, and he has high base health for an AP mid, so you must work on him a lot to get the kill. He is melee and is somewhat predictable in his movement patterns, so you can harass him well with especially Q-E.
He can get away and chase well with Body Slam and is actually a pretty mobile champ. Keep in mind that the short knockback from that skill will stop your Distortion and deny your damage, so try not to get denied by it.
That being said, he doesn't have the direct damage to kill you, and even his level 6 burst isn't enough to kill you, unless if you get knocked into him/his turret/his jungler by Explosive Cask, so be mindful of your positioning.
Heimerdinger, Difficulty 3/5
Heimerdinger should never be picked in ranked games. That being said, he is actually not easily countered by LeBlanc early. This is not only because of his H-28G Evolution Turret that will push you out of lane in no time, but also because of his Hextech Micro-Rockets and their massive 1000 range.
With those, he is able to harass you from a somewhat safe distance. They do not prioritize champions, however, so you can avoid them completely if you have 3 minions between you and him.
If you wish to kill him, you must jump at him and unleash your combo like usual, but go back immediately after your first auto, don't try to hit a few more on him. His turrets hurt a lot.
A much safer alternative in lane is to use Distortion to clear minions along with his turrets for extra gold and then harass him with low level Q's and E's.
In an even lane he is lulz in teamfights.
Karthus, Difficulty 1.75/5
Karthus will be the Deathsinger of his own death in this lane. Be on your guard at all times to avoid his Lay Waste, other than that you can go to house on him in lane.
Don't get too close to him without any dashes ready, because his Wall of Pain combined with Defile and Lay Waste will kill you if you don't have any mobility.
Also be wary, he might try to set you up for a jungle gank by farming from far away. Then when you jump in, you will be too deep to avoid their jungler.
A ward might be a good idea for this matchup.
Other than that, Karthus is way too immobile to avoid your damage, and you can stop his ultimate channel simply by outright killing him if he tries to use it in vision of you while alive.
In an even lane, you must aim for assassinating him in a bad position away from your teammates, otherwise his passive can easily decimate a team.
Ka***adin, Difficulty 4.25/5
You should start out lane with Corrupting Potion to for extra harass and long-term sustain. Abyssal Mask is also a good choice here. Kassadin is a tough opponent, and it is a very risky matchup for you. His Void Stone makes him naturally tanky against your combo, and Null Sphere grants him superb trading power.
You have two advantages in lane which you must capitalize on hard and early:
* Kassadin can't harass you with ranged autos and doesn't reduce any damage from your autos. AA him as much as you can pre-6, his only retaliation will be a single lonely Null Sphere.
* Kassadin has no blink until level 6, so you decide when and where to fight in lane. You are able to cast both your Sigil of Malice and Distortion before he can attack with Nether Blade, so you can still harass him with that combo, followed by AA.
In an even lane, Kassadin will be somewhat more useful than you at roaming, laning and teamfighting after reaching lategame, but his 11 and 16 are more dangerous than level 6. You do have a chance to beat him hard enough pre-6 to become more useful than him, and it is very rewarding later on if you win lane and outroam him. Even a moderate lead early in lane is enough as long as you don't make mistakes later on. It is, however, far from certain that it will work out this well.
Katarina, Difficulty 2.5/5
You can harass Katarina in lane freely with your AA since she only has Bouncing Blades to use at a range, and it doesn't deal much damage unless it is procced. However, starting at level 2, she is able to jump on you with Shunpo in order to deal proc her blades and AA you.
She is resourceless and a decent Katarina will probably try to win lane by being MORE aggressive than you, since you are squishy. In order to win lane, you will have to keep the pressure on her.
The only real trick to this matchup is to NOT use your standard Q-W harass combo after she hits level 2. She can Dodge that combo by blinking to you with Shunpo while you are IN-FLIGHT with W, meaning you won't land the damage and thus lose the trade hard. Save your Distortion until her Shunpo is on cooldown, so you know you can hit her.
Hard pushing the lane early is really effective against her, since the waveclear from her Bouncing Blades is inferior to your W, and the rest of her skills bring her in melee range.
Harass her with unprocced Q's ( Ethereal Chains if you can land them) and AA's meanwhile.
After she hits level 6, it is a good idea to save Distortion in case she jumps on you and goes all Death Lotus mode.
In an even lane, you MUST shut Katarina down in teamfights. She will wait a bit before going in, so you also have to wait a bit before unleashing your combo. If you pop her, you are most useful. If she gets a kill, your whole team will die. I guess that makes her more useful in that case.
Kayle, Difficulty 2.5/5
Fighting Kayle in lane is a thing I'm quite fond of personally. She has some great lane harass in prolonged trades, but if you use the range of your skills and try to AA her while her E is on cooldown, you can come decently out on top.
At level 6 you will enter a psychology game against Kayle. Your burst is definitely strong enough to finish her off if she's at anything less than 100% hp, but her ult can render you useless. You must do your best to trick her into activating it prematurely - or kill her before she can even react to you.
A pretty reliable way to do this is to throw some "random" unprocced Q's at her in lane. This will give you a 3.5 second window to damage her hard with your next spell, should you decide to go in on her. To take it one step further, try proccing your Q with R after a few seconds - but don't burst her all in. If she ults, you can burst her after it wears off. If she doesn't, you have another 3.5 sec to proc R.
If you get caught without a dash ready, she can kill you. This is why you must save Distortion for as long as possible until you know you can burst her, because you are vulnerable if she survives after you use W.
In an even lane, you are equally useful - but remember to still juke her ulti in teamfights. Be unpredictable with your targets when you know she has ult, and don't always go all in on bursts in order to confuse her.
Lissandra, Difficulty 3/5
Facing Lissandra can be a tricky matchup. You have the advantage pre-6, since you can dodge her Ice Shard and do your standard harass. She does, however, have a somewhat safe farming range, and her mobility and CC can be a slight problem for you if her jungler decides to show up, so be prepared for anything against her.
After reaching level 6, you will quickly know if you have won the lane or lost it hard. She can then close the gap with Glacial Path, and her Frozen Tomb is a surefire spell that will deal tons of damage and force you to eat her whole combo. Her base ratios aren't that great, however, and you should be able to survive the burst unless she is already ahead. You can nuke her down if she does not have ultimate to save herself.
To help you make it through this critical stage, it can be a good idea to purchase Abyssal Mask, especially if she also purchases that item.
In an even lane, timing around Lissandra’s Frozen Tomb is the major deciding factor as to which of you is more useful in teamfights, although you can still go do your thing to the enemy carries.
Lux, Difficulty 3/5
Fighing Lux is all about dodging and aiming skillshots and landing your damage when her Prismatic Barrier is down. It is a standoff of reflexes & mechanical skill, as you both have the ability to burst each other into oblivion.
Avoid her Light Binding because it deals decent damage and allows her to hit her Lucent Singularity and Final Spark after level 6, which WILL kill you if you're not at 100% hp.
It is especially important not to make obvious jumps directly at Lux, because any decent Lux will root you instantly and dodge your chains, so that you are vulnerable for 2 seconds.
If you manage to stay clear of her root, however, you can deal great damage to her.
Just avoid getting baited by her shield, and many Lux players also pack Barrier to boot, so don't get too greedy.
In an even lane, you are roughly equally useful to your team. It depends on your ability to be a threat as LeBlanc as well as Lux' ability to land roots and your teams ability to dodge them.
Malzahar, Difficulty 3.75/5
A decent Malzahar can be a pain in your butt, because his kit is excellent at farming at a range. If he maxes Malefic Visions first, he will quickly be able to farm a whole wave with that skill only (around level 7) and then AFK @ turret, clear wraiths, take blue, roam, ect. Until then, he can also clear waves fast if he uses all his skills at them.
Your best bet is to go super aggressive on him in the early levels, where he still needs to AA minions to farm. After 6, you still want to combo him if you can come near him, but his Nether Grasp can quickly kill you if he lands his other skills on you before channeling it.
If he tries to use his whole combo, you must either burst him first with Q-R-W, or dodge out of his Null Zone and Call of the Void so you don't die during his suppression.
If he chooses to AFK push lane instead of fighting, however, you have no choice but to roam a lot. Luckily, LeBlanc excels at this, and you should be able to win the side lanes with your team.
In an even lane, he will probably save his ult for you in teamfights, which in turn makes you a very dead Leblanc. Guess what, a live Malzahar without ult is still more useful than a dead LeBlanc who never got to use her ult, so try to stay in a safer position when teamfighting with Malzahar on the enemy team.
If you can get him to use his ultimate on one of your teammates, it is a prime opportunity for you to jump in with Distortion and nuke him to death in order to stop the channel.
Mordekaiser, Difficulty 3.5/5
Facing Mordekaiser in lane can be a tough challenge, but also very rewarding. His Iron Man can quickly become an impenetrable shield if you allow him to stack it, so you must be super aggressive at all times in this lane, starting at level 1.
He is melee with only a single skill to deal targeted damage at a range, so keep him away from minions and abuse him with AA and Q-W procs, ect. If you do this, you will eventually end up making his shield and lifebar show "0".
It gets truly dangerous if you get ganked, however, as it at the very least gives Mordekaiser room to stack his shield. If you also die by bring ganked, the lane will become almost unsalvageable because he is then able to sustain through your continued harass, and he will eventually kill you in turn.
On the other hand, he is also very immobile, and thus easy to gank for your jungler; Coordinate ganks on him for ez game, ez life.
If everything goes according to plan and you get ahead in lane, this is a very fun lane. Morde will have no choice other than going close to minions to get his farm, but you can whip him with your combo and make him cry "mommy" every time he tries to do so.
Don't get baited by his Children of the Grave, it steals around 10% of your Health up-front after resistances.
It is hard to say which one of you will be more useful in an even lane. It all comes down whether he is able to snowball off you or your teammates with some kills, since he isn't a big threat until then. Keep him shut down throughout the game, don't allow him to become fed.
Morgana, Difficulty 4.5/5
For the sake of your team, don't face Morgana. Her Black Shield will quickly make it impossible for you to kill her, she can clear waves quickly with Tormented Soil, and her Dark Binding lasts a minimum of 2 seconds, long enough to get you killed if you tank turret/get ganked/are ulted by her as well.
If you do happen to lane against her, try to be aggressive and get a kill or two on her together with your jungler early, since you may then be able to kill her every time she comes back in lane. If you can't get her after a few tries, however, you are doomed to a game of passive waveclearing in mid. Try to roam as much as possible without losing too many minions in mid, and pray that she can't land a good Soul Shackles later on.
Oh, she is so much more useful than you later on with her massively frustrating bindings.
Nidalee, Difficulty 2/5
Description:
AP Nidalee is most renowned for her long range high damage poke with Javelin Toss and strong lane sustain with heal from Primal Surge. AP Nidalee has a considerably weak early laning phase (especially pre-level 6), and her spear damage has been reduced long ago so she can't oneshot people in lategame.
You are much more useful than Nidalee in lategame, and she should truly have jungle for the enemy team instead of mid.
Things to be aware of:
Javelin Toss Nidalee's bread and butter ability. Short cooldown, 1500 range, huge damage at maximum distance. Often, getting hit by one spear will mean having to go back to heal or staying at a huge risk. This is what makes Nidalee a strong mid lane champion. After getting levels and farm fast enough, she can begin sniping out your team members and getting free objectives for her team since your team will be down in numbers due to one of the memebers having to return to base or being very low on HP.
It is worth mentioning that Javelin Toss has a rather low travel speed and should not be hard to dodge if thrown in plain sight (Problem is, it usually will not be)
Hidden Spear
As you can see, if thrown from the fog of war, Nidalee's spear can travel half the distance before you can even see the animation which leaves you with half the time to react to it.
Bushwhack reduces the armor and magic resistance of all the units affected by it. Whenever you are affected by the debuff, don't get hit by spears, as they will deal even more damage with to lowered resistance targets.
Traps are hard to see, but are visible from outside of the bush, even if they are placed within the bush. Additionally, they are shown as red dots on the minimap.
Primal Surge is a quite annoying form of strong sustain, especially midgame once Nidalee maxes the ability out and can spam it all the time. It heals for a lot, but also costs a lot of mana at later ranks. It also gives the target a significant attack speed buff, but this is not very important in a 1v1.
Nidalee's early game is quite weak, especially before she gains access to her ultimate. Make sure to capitalize on that. Force early trades and try to get a kill before 6. Keep in mind that if she has Barrier, you should only go for a kill when you can guarantee it, aka. don't get baited.
Watch your positioning in lane. Nidalee can only apply pressure to you through hitting long ranged spears for a lot of damage. And spears can be blocked by minions. If you don't get hit by spears, she cannot do damage to you, simple as that.
Also, it's best to force trades once she throws her javelin. It has a short cooldown, but nevertheless it's always better to go for a trade when it's down rather than trading with her only to eat a spear with your back away.
Force Nidalee to spam her heal early to sustain, and shove the wave with Distortion. She will either run out of mana trying to stay in lane and last hit from distance or will inevitably have to enter your range in cougar form to clear minions faster, which is the danger zone for her.
Denying blue buff to Nidalee can be quite helpful, but it's not as important as in Anivia case. She can lane just fine without blue, so don't tunnel vision on trying to take it from her.
Orianna, Difficulty 3/5
Orianna is a strong AP carry with a little scent of a support. She has great AoE damage, hard AoE displacement CC and a huge late-game shield on a short cooldown. Additionally, she has strong DPS due to her passive and short cooldowns on basic abilities and increased defense stats from her E, all of which make her into a potent duelist.
She is a respectable pick against LeBlanc due to her strong utility, AA trading, ability to absorb damage with her shield and late game performance. However, you have a slight advantage in lane, which you can capitalize on.
Orianna is stronger than you at level 1, so only go for the opening W-AA-W combo against her and then stay at a safe range since both her Command: Attack and AA (with Clockwork Windup) deal significant damage. Try to keep your distance to the ball as much as possible.
From level 2 onwards, you wish to harass her whenever your main combo is up; she can't take too many hits from you.
Things to be aware of:
Clockwork Windup makes Orianna's auto-attacks a powerful source of damage. Be very careful with staying in her AA range as subsequent hits deal increased damage. Especially level 1.
Command: Protect is her main tool against you. It gives her more MR, it shields her in trades. Sometimes Orianna will start with this ability and look for an early auto-attack trade. This is bait you usually do not want to take. Since she is stronger than you at level 1 simply due to her passive you should only trade with AA-W-AA.
Command: Protect is often used to initiate ganks by attaching the ball to a highly mobile jungler (such as Jarvan IV or Lee Sin) quickly followed up by her ultimate. Always keep that in mind.
Command: Protect's Armor and MR bonuses are not active if the ball is detached from Orianna and the shield does not pop up until the ball comes to the target champion. This means that if you catch her with the ball being far away, you can deal your full damage and back out before the shield arrives to her.
Command: Attack deals less damage to subsequent targets hit by it. So trading with her while you are in the middle of your creepwave is the best idea. It will also cause her to take minion aggro if she decides to whittle you down with Clockwork Windup auto attacks.
Command: Dissonance damages and slows all enemy units inside the AoE while speeding up her allies. Q into immediate W is the usual harass/waveclear combo that Orianna will use.
Command: Shockwave pulls all enemies short distance towards (sometimes over) and deals magic damage. It is mostly used in conjunction with her W (usually right before it) for maximum damage.
Orianna's ball provides vision within short range of it. The range isn't very big (around 500), so she will not be able to see you if you stand at your Sigil of Malice range away from the ball (even if the ball and you are in the same bush.) This can prove useful in some situations, where you can bait her into thinking a bush is clear, and then pop out of it to take her life.
Her spells are all skillshot based and all revolve around using her ball. Although they can come from weird angles due to ball positioning in lane, you can generally anticipate her moves and get used to dodging them by simple side-stepping.
Never engage into an extended auto-attack trade with her if you can't follow it up with anything. It's just dumb. She will outdamage you due to Clockwork Windup.
Dodge Command: Attack sideways. She will likely target the area behind you to ensure a hit if you back away. Dodging it sideways is the best option since it will likely put you out of the range of following Command: Dissonance as well.
If you trade in lane, position yourself inside your creepwave to minimize damage from Command: Attack.
Her shield is great, however it does have a decent cooldown of 9 seconds (around 7-8 with whatever early CDR she will get), therefore bait it out with your Q or simply walking up to her (if she's scared enough) and then engage fully while the shield is down. Whenever her E is down, it's a window of opportunity for you to trade/zone her.
Never forget that the shield is capable of blocking few ticks of Ignite at the very least (or even fully negating its damage if she puts additional points into her E). Therefore be careful with not wasting your Ignite.
Many Oriannas will prefer taking Barrier against you. Remember that factor as well and don't get baited by it.
Although she has the MS buff/debuff, other than that Orianna doesn't have any mobility. If, during a gank, you can bait her into using W offensively, you can easily jump her and force Flash or even kill her.
Help your jungler steal her blue buff. Orianna is very mana hungry and she really needs blue to shine.
Post-lane:
Orianna is really a force to be reckoned with lategame. Her teamfight utility is really great, assuming appropriate team composition. Command: Shockwave can disrupt your whole team and line you up for a cascade of AoE attacks. Orianna is also a great champion for roaming as a team due to her Command: Dissonance. As LeBlanc, you are stronger in mid-game unless the Orianna player is able to set up perfect ultimates. Considering you get ahead in lane, you should be able to kill her at any point of the game.
Swain, Difficulty (4.1/5)
I haven't had many chances at fighting Swain in ranked, but it usually ends bad when i meet him, thus the difficulty is just above 4.
Avoid his Nevermove since it allows him to land all of his damage, but otherwise you should be able to win trades early. Take care, however, since all of his skills are Damage-Over-Time, and can be deceptively strong (just like you.)
The real problem arises after level 6 if you are not able to 100-0 him by then, because of his Ravenous Flock that can literally heal it all back in roughly 10 seconds, thus making him unkillable. If this happens, he will probably farm up to become a huge monster and kill EVERYTHAAAAANG (just like a 300 CS Anivia).
If you are ahead and thus able to 100-0 him, rejoice. He is now no more than another troply to be added to your immense kill count, and you can feast on his teammates afterwards.
Lategame, Swain >>>>> you and your whole team, unless you and your team can focus and 100-0 him instantly.
Syndra, Difficulty 3.5/5
You should purchase Abyssal Mask in order to survive her Unleashed Power. Syndra starts out as an easy matchup, where you should harass and deny her farm a lot since her early Q base damage is laughable. More care should be taken after she gets a few levels, because her Scatter the Weak can completely negate the damage AND mobility of your Distortion if you use it offensively - you will be pushed back pretty much to your starting point, possibly stunned, so you have no juke opportunities, and she can easily follow up with Dark Sphere and Force of Will. Thus, be very careful not to jump on her unless her W is on cooldown, or you jump from an ambush.
After Syndra hits level 6, her threat level rises significantly due to her high single target burst. At this point, you do NOT want to be hit by a stun, or you can quickly lose lane.
It will be a very squishy lane with very high kill potential both ways, so be careful not to let her snowball. Keep in mind that no matter how the lane is going, she will be quite squishy.
Talon, Difficulty 3/5
Talon is a standard mage counter so it should come as no surprise that he is an opponent you must be on your toes against. That being said, I have played a few games against him recently, and you can win if you play decently against him and don't fall behind. Buy Corrupting Potion into The Dark Seal and Seeker's Armguard, then use your AA to harass him hard early.
His only ranged poke comes from Rake which isn't too dangerous compared to your AA, so you should outtrade and outsustain him early. Later on, he can jump to you instantly, so you must be able to survive some hits with your lovely armor.
As with Katarina, he can jump to you while you are mid-flight with Distortion, so don't use your standard Q-W harass unless his Cutthroat is on cooldown. He should max it last and it has an 18 second cooldown at level 1, so you have quite some time to punish him after he has used his jump on you.
If this lane gets out of hand one way or another, it is easy for you to snowball and easy for him to snowball, so don't take too big risks early game. If you should happen to get dunked hard, you can get Zhonya's Hourglass earlier.
In teamfights, you have similar roles. He has an instant jump, more AoE damage and invisibility, but you have more mobility and range. He has to go all in to be useful while you don't, so your usefulness depends on the nature of the team fights.
Twisted Fate, Difficulty 2.5/5
Twisted Fate is an interesting matchup for you.
In lane, you beat Twisted Fate hands down, harass him as much as possible but avoid getting caught off guard by his Pick A Card Gold Card. He will probably choose to keep a safe distance and only lasthit with Wild Cards or while standing under turret, so you will get ahead in CS.
The problem arises when he reaches level 6, which he eventually will.
By then, he might gank your botlane with Destiny, and you must ping MIA at all times.
In an even lane, he can use Destiny to gank lanes and get kills, so you must pressure him hard to avoid this. If you fail to pressure him hard enough, you can only pray that your teammates can survive a few ganks. Your best bet is to force him to stay within your vision of you through immense lane pressure so you can flat out nuke him while he goes for it.
You will be much more useful than him in teamfights, but take care of his splitpushing potential. You may not be able to countersplit against him because his ultimate can also be used as an instant 5v4 engage tool in conjunction with Zhonya's Hourglass.
Veigar, Difficulty (2.5/5)
Veigar is a squishy, low-mobility champ whom you can harass at all times, so smack him in the mouth.
Avoid getting stunned by his Event Horizon, since he can the follow up with Dark Matter which really hurts a lot later on.
Also be careful of his Primordial Burst at level 6, his Q-R combo can easily deal 600 damage. You should also never let him get a clear shot at you later in the game. His damage can delete you instantly. Abyssal Mask is optional in this matchup if you are concerned that he will delete you too fast.
You can still abuse him after hitting 6, just keep your HP somewhat high to be safe.
In an even lane, he can dunk you OR any other APC on your team. He's not as mobile as you, so you still bring more to the team than he does. Just focus him first, if possible.
Viktor, Difficulty (3/5)
Avoid Viktors Death Ray and you should do just fine. Don't stand still in his Gravity Field either (duh).
Harass him like you would any other champion, and keep his head down, but be careful of his Siphon Power which also grants him a shield, making it good for trades.
At level 6 you may wish to save a dash or stay at a range as long as W is on CD to avoid his Chaos Storm. The damage it deals over 7 seconds adds up.
Viktor can be quite hard to outtrade or outpush in lane with his playstyle of sitting back and farming. Your should waveclear quickly with Distortion and roam around the map in order to abuse Viktors low cross-map mobility.
Viktor is better at dealing tons of AoE damage in teamfights, but you are still able to make plays later, assuming you came out even in lane.
Xerath, Difficulty 2.5/5
Xerath can be a tough opponent if you don't get the upper hand somewhat early. He has a safe farming range (His Q has 900/1300 range versus your 700 range Q), but is a low-mobility champ.
Dodge his Arcanopulse and you are safe pre-6. He can't fight you well, but due to his range you will often have to use Distortion to get in range of him, and then follow it up with Sigil of Malice and land your Ethereal Chains to proc it. You may or may not have to jump under turret range to land this, but you shouldn't get hit by any more than a single turret shot.
After 6, he will be able to punish you hard if you make a false movie, as it is shown in the video earlier in this guide. His full combo including Arcane Barrage can deal around 900 dmg lv 6, and he doesn't care if your Mirror Image triggers, he just pops both of you with his AoE.
He is squishy and you can still kill him if you get in on him first, however, so you have to play passive-aggressively this lane.
Late game he will be more useful than you and can deal massive damage in a well-organized teamfight, but you have better splitpush and mobility, which can be better if you avoid the full-on, clustered 5v5 fight.
Zed, Difficulty 3.75/5
Zed is an interesting opponent for LeBlanc. You both have the damage to kill each other, but you have the innate range advantage in lane. He can punish you if you make a mistake, but then you will be punished hard. Avoid his Razor Shuriken, and use your range to harass him as much as his position and minion aggro allows.
Be careful when using your Distortion offensively, he can blink in ANY direction to avoid it, not just towards you. It is a good idea to play unpredictably and throw Q-R with some time in between, and not following up with W unless his shadow AND Death Mark is on cooldown, otherwise he can easily kite it.
Grabbing an early Seeker's Armguard is crucial against Zed.
After you reach level 6, you both have a ton of damage, and fights can be broken into two main possibilities:
1. You try to land your Q-R-W-E combo, but he jukes it with his shadows. He then proceeds to ult you, and you die.
2. He opens up on you aggressively with ult, and you must use Distortion to get away AFTER his dash is completed. Otherwise he will just follow you. Then you can either disengage if you're not in fighting condition OR harass him back with Q-R-E. Death Mark has a 120/100/80 sec cooldown, so you got the initiative for some time after he has used it.
In an even lane, your usefulness is purely a skill matchup. Zed can be a nightmare for your team if he's good/your team is bad, the same goes for LeBlanc
Ziggs, Difficulty (3.25/5)
Ziggs Has a decent harass/farm range with his Bouncing Bomb (up to 1400). Avoid his bombs and harass him like any other enemy. Your ability to dodge these bombs mostly dictates how difficult this matchup will be for you.
His Short Fuse enhances his first AA greatly, so either trade quite a few AA at a time or avoid trading AAs altogether.
At level 6, you must avoid his Mega Inferno Bomb. You are not safe unless you are at base or his bomb is on cooldown, so be ready with your dash if you are low.
Also a general note, you got to have good reflexes all the time in this lane to dodge his stuff.
In an even lane, he is slightly more useful in teamfights due to his long range poke and nukes.
Zilean, Difficulty (2.5/5)
Zilean is a somewhat rare matchup. His Time Bomb deals decent damage and can be cast twice in a row to trade or waveclear due to his Rewind, so only trade with him while it is on cooldown or if your combo is ready. He is quite mana hungry, and you should outsustain him on mana in lane.
Otherwise you must harass him whenever you get the chance, but don't get caught by ganks without your W ready, since his Time Warp slows you A LOT.
At level 6 you don't wish to burst him if he has used Chronoshift on himself, instead you must wait until it wears off.
In teamfights you are stronger, UNLESS Zilean manages to save their ADC or target you're focusing with his ult. An enemy Vayne with Guardian Angel + Chronoshift sucks.
Zyra, Difficulty (2.5/5)
Even though Zyra is listed by Riot as a mage (midlane), she is usually played as a support. She is very rare in midlane, but if you face her, you must avoid getting rooted by Grasping Roots and avoid getting attacked by her plants.
Other than that, you can harass her like any other opponent, and she has no escapes.
After killing her, take care of her Rise of the Thorns if you're low. There's no need to make it a 1 for 1 trade.
In an even lane, she brings decent CC and damage to her team. Your mobility and utility makes up for that, so you are more useful in teamfights unless she lands her ult on 4-5 people.
Lane Matchups - Top
The big five
Doran's shield is a big problem for you in lane, since it negates TONS of damage from your autoattacks and provides strong hp/5 and hp at a low cost.
Any toplaner who is tanky and can benefit from Spirit Visage ( Malphite, Shen, Cho'Gath, Nautilus and so on) is very hard to beat as LeBlanc because of the massive stat combinations they can get from MR items. The Hp and MR these items give makes it much harder to burst through the enemy at all stages of the game. Additionally, the massive hp/5 it grants makes it almost impossible for you to outsustain tanks after 1st item.
Matchups
Aatrox, Difficulty (3/5)
Aatrox is a decent lane for LB, but not to be trifled with. Your AA's harass him nicely in lane starting at level 1, and your skills can take him down quickly throughout the game. However, be careful of his sustain from Blood Thirst, it triples when he is below 50% hp. if he has Doran's Shield, your harass will become noticeably weaker, perhaps too weak, and if he starts Doran's Blade he will regen a lot when hitting minions, so you must harass him every time he closes in to attack minions.
If you manage to harass him away from minions and get ahead, the lane is a no-brainer. Use your W to avoid his Dark Flight, then he cannot threaten you at all.
Aatrox is a weak champion currently, and he should not be very useful in teamfights unless you have fed him.
Cho'gath, Difficulty 4.25/5
Cho'Gath is naturally tanky, has innate sustain, and benefits from both Doran's Shield and Spirit Visage. You should avoid this lane, since you can't kill or outfarm him later, and he is naturally good against you in the lategame.
Should you end up in this lane, you can go for super aggressive early harass, since he is killable before the first back.
Build towards Abyssal Mask in order to survive the damage from his Feral Scream – if Cho just begins the skill animation while you are in range of it, you will be hit no matter what – even if you are at 2000 distance when the skill fires.
Because of this and the risk of a Flash- Feast, you must play then he can't kill you either.
You should max W and get some AP fast in order to waveclear the lane and come out even in CS.
You MUST be vary of his undodgeable silence at all stages of the game, since it is a death sentence for you if you are silenced in the middle of a teamfight.
Darius, Difficulty 3.5/5
Darius is DANGEROUS in melee. Don't let him close the gap, even for ½ a sec. Other than that, harass as much as you safely can with autos and combos. If he goes all damage or only a bit tanky (maybe a Hexdrinker+mercs), you can burst him down somewhat easily in 1-2 cycles as the game progresses.
If he goes full tank, he will still be able to kill you, and you have to permakite him and poke him for ages.
You are able to passively waveclear against him with Distortion in case he reaches a point where you can’t kill him.
In an even lane, you both contribute decently to your teams.
Elise, Difficulty 2.5/5
Elise has been nerfed a few times by now, and she's fairly easy to fight. Dodge her Cocoon and be aware that she can Rappel away from your burst every 24 sec or so, but otherwise she is no real threat. You only need to take care of jungle ganks because of her CC.
In an even lane, you are more useful to your team since she is best at getting strong and zone/assassinate important team members in fights, but she can't do that as well as you.
Fiora, Difficulty (2.5/5)
Using Teleport instead of Ignite in this lane is a good option, but not a must.
I have only fought Fiora once as LeBlanc, and I reckon it is fairly easy. Keep some distance when your skills are on cooldown so she can’t dash to you and harass her 24/7. She will not have enough power to engage on you through minion waves early in the game, so you got some leeway here.
Spread out your harass and burst patterns in clever ways so she can’t Riposte major parts of your burst. Abuse the 24 second cooldown on her Riposte to hit her with your full burst after she uses it.
Fiora is a strong splitpusher, and you must be very wary of her throughout the game as she is fast and can take you down quickly in melee. Later in the game, you must be prepared to use Distortion to keep distance between you and her while you harass her primarily with Ethereal Chains and maybe even the Mimicked version of it. The most important thing is NOT to burst her quickly, but instead to always stay at a safe range of her while dealing sustained damage.
Gangplank, Difficulty (3/5)
Using Teleport instead of Ignite in this lane is a must, since he will be able to harass you quite a bit with Parrrley.
Start Corrupting Potion against Gangplank. This is a high-intensity lane, and just a question of his mana pool versus your health pool and vice-versa. Harass freely, but be mindful of his Remove Scurvy if you were planning to CC-lock him, or only just have enough damage to kill him.
Do not go in range of his Parrrley unless you also have some skills up to trade against him.
He will probably be hiding barrels in the side bushes, so check them regularly or keep your distance from the barrel chain range into the bush.
You are both strong glass cannons later in the game, but he will be able to quickly pressure across the map with his AFK Cannon Barrage ganks, so apply constant pressure after hitting level 6 in this lane.
Garen, Difficulty 3/5
Garen is tanky and benefits from Doran's shield + Visage. He is hard to kill, but if you harass him persistently, he will get low and/or you will deny him some minions while he regenerates his life back. Be satisfied with pure waveclearing in this lane after his first tanky item, don't expect to kill him after that.
Be ready to kite for your life with Distortion since he has a speed boost + silence ( Decisive Strike), followed up by Spin2Win & DUNKINATOR! ( Judgment+ Demacian Justice).
That combo has the potential to kill you. Then again, it is pretty easy to anticipate and jump away from.
Garen is somewhat easy to lockdown and shouldn’t be able to run away with the teamfights.
Gnar, Difficulty 3/5
Gnar is a personal favorite matchup of mine, because the enemy Gnar player usually isn't aware that LeBlanc has a huge advantage in early lane. Gnar has low AA damage and only 425 – 500 attack range, and should never be able to stick enough to you to proc Hyper, thus leaving him with only a puny Boomerang Throw to poke you.
You should keep up the pressure on the actually very squishy Gnar with loads of harass and clever use of your Distortion - try to time it around his Hop so he can't use it to dodge the damage and/or stick to you after. A way to force his Hop would be to first land Ethereal Chains on him - he should be easy to hit unless he burns his Hop, so it's a win-win.
When he nears Mega Gnar, you MUST save your W and make sure to keep your distance; do not allow him to Crunch - GNAR! you, because that way he can win lane very fast. Other than that, you can now abuse his lower mobility and melee range to shower him with Q, E and autos.
Gnar will probably build tanky and be harder to kill with time, but he will never be just as tough as a true tank. Be patient and whittle him down.
Irelia, Difficulty 3.75/5
Using Teleport instead of Ignite in this lane is a very good option, but not a must if you believe you can wreck her fast with Ignite.
If you start with Teleport, you should also start with Corrupting Potion.
Irelia is a very tough opponent, but can be rewarding to play against. Harass her with autos at all times, and be ready to chain her or Distortion away when she uses Bladesurge to close the gap. She can jump often, so you must be on your toes, but she is killable before she gains levels and tanky items. You must not play too safe, since freefarm Irelia equals GG at 35 minutes. It is a very snowbally lane to both sides, so there is no room for mistakes against her.
If you get behind in lane or she is allowed to farm too much, Irelia will be able to outpressure you hard.
Jarvan IV has a ranged poke ( Demacian Standard), a very long-range gap-close+CC ( Dragon Strike), coupled with sustain ( Golden Aegis) and another gap-close+nuke at level 6, just in case you dashed away from the first one. He WILL be able to hit you in lane, and it will hurt. A lot.
Harass him as much as possible when his shield is down and don't waste your W cooldown by trying to Distortion away when he uses flag & drag, since it will still hit you for knockup and damage. Jump away after the knockup wears off to ensure your escape. You must make sure he cannot outplay you with flag&drag if you try to jump on him aggressively, since your damage will be denied if you are knocked up.
In an even lane, you are equally useful to your teams.
Jax, Difficulty (3.5/5)
Using Teleport instead of Ignite in this lane is a good option, but not a must.
Honestly, I have only fought Jax once or twice, and it is a long time ago. He can Leap Strike to you, but you can easily dodge his Counter Strike, since it has a 0.5 or 1 sec cooldown between first and second cast. This means if he uses his Counter Strike after Leap Strike, you can jump away and only take slight damage. If he uses Counter Strike before Leap Strike, you must simply keep your distance until it wears off.
Other than that, you can harass him easily, since he has no real sustain in lane, needs long trades and is weak early. As the game progresses, you should still be able to deal heavy damage to him and make him back off or kite him, but his up front burst can be deceptively strong, so stay on your toes.
In an even lane, your usefulness depends on the nature of the teamfight. Jax can easily be CC'd and killed, but can also be a beast if left unchecked in the fight.
Jayce, Difficulty 3.5/5
Using Teleport instead of Ignite in this lane is a good option, but not a must. Seeker's Armguard is a good option if you are not able to kite most of his damage.
Jayce is tough, and you don't have much room for mistakes here, especially early-game. His early game power is high with the ability to swap weapons, Shock Blast deals high damage, and he can go all in on you both in melee and ranged form.
You should be able to kite harass him down if you manage to avoid some damage, since he doesn't have much sustain. Always make sure he can't engage on you, or have your Distortion ready if he does.
He doesn't build much tanky, so you will gain a greater edge on him later on, especially after hitting level 6. Be wary at all times and think of your own safety, since he can also drop you very fast.
In an even lane, you are equally useful.
Kennen, Difficulty (2.5/5)
Kennen can be a tough yordle to kill in lane. He has decent range and can use it to farm somewhat safely against you. However, you should win trades with your setup, and he has to get close and personal with Lightning Rush or hit his Thundering Shuriken in order to harass you for real, which makes it easy for you to nuke his ***. Do not jump on him with no way of escaping past level 6, you don't want to be close to him with your W on cooldown - his Slicing MaelstromWILL kill you quickly if you can't get away (or nuke him instantly).
In an even lane, your relative usefulness can vary greatly. You win if it is a poke/assassination/scattered war. He wins if he ults your whole team.
kha'zix, Difficulty 2.25/5
Kha'Zix is a quite easy enemy to beat in early lane, and is pretty much not a viable laner anymore. His Void Spike is easily dodged, and he cannot deal any real damage outside melee range, so harass freely. As you gain levels, he will be able to jump on you just like Katarina, Talon, ect, so be careful as to when you use Distortion. If you miss it and he ends up in melee range without being dead, he hurts.
In an even lane, you both have the potential to be strong team assets. If he gets resets, he wins teamfights big time, maybe by doing penta. He is still squishy though, so if you nuke him fast or kill his teammates while denying him the reset, you win.
Lee Sin, Difficulty 3/5
Facing Lee Sin in lane is an entertaining and very skill-based matchup due to the sheer amount of dashes you both bring to lane. He can hurt you fast and furiously if he lands his Resonating Strike on you, but you can take him down bit by bit as long as he doesn't land it. His Safeguard is excellent for sustaining through your damage, but you will outdamage it if you keep up the pressure.
Take care when using your Distortion since he has two dashes to juke it/retaliate on you. If he builds tanky, he cannot 100-0 you instantly if he closes the gap, but you will also need to do a lot of Q-(R)-W or E harass before you can kill him. If he builds damage, he can instagib you if he lands his Resonating Strike and you can’t dash away from it. Then again, you will also be able to 100-0 him if you land a full Q-R-W-E- Ignite combo, but remember it can be tricky to land W against him.
In an even lane, the fun will just continue through team fights where you are both approximately equals, except you can be safer than him while being just as threatening.
You best chance at winning lane is to go for some level 2 cheese against him with your jungler, but don't bet on it. If you get ahead early in lane, you can probably deny him, otherwise you should do your best to keep up in farm, and make sure to keep your health high. He CAN burst you for around 600 damage with Ult+Q+E, so don't bait yourself.
In an even lane, he is more useful to his team. Unstoppable Force + Ground Slam shuts down your team. In reality, he will usually get more farm top than you due to his better sustain, so you will be even worse off. Try to win lane and you will do decently, or keep up with him on farm.
Nasus, Difficulty 2/5
Nasus is a somewhat easy lane for LeBlanc, but his innate sustain and potions can be quite a hassle to burn through. Autoattack him constantly, use your spells efficiently and you will zone him after he has consumed all of his pots. You should get ahead on gold this way, so it will be gradually easier to take him down. Even if he tries to rush Spirit Visage, you should be able to get enough damage and zone him enough early to nullify that problem.
Don't get caught without mana by Wither, since he can chase you and hit you quite hard, especially with Fury of the Sands active. As long as you have mana for a simple Distortion or Ethereal Chains, that shouldn't be a problem. Building the high mana route of double Doran's Ring into Morellonomicon should give you enough juice to keep him down at all times.
In an even lane, Nasus has the potential to be more useful than you, but it is not often so. He has a huge presence in teamfights, but is prone to kiting, which you excel at, and you can lock him down with E-R if he is all over your team. It depends on the team setups really.
However, if you get ahead in lane as you should, it will be a piece of cake later in the game. A Nasus who is behind is easily dunked, and a fed LB can take out anything she wants.
Olaf, Difficulty (4/5)
Using Corrupting Potion in this lane is necessary and Teleport instead of Ignite is optional.
Ugh. Olaf is tanky, benefits a lot from Spirit Visage and still deals badass damage. You can't stop his charge when he uses Ragnarok, so you are not safe unless you stay near tower when he uses it. He is tough to bring down and can get you down over time with his Undertow, faster if he gets in melee.
In team fights, he sucks. He has a 41% winrate ranked, and 34% winrate @ Diamond. It's hard to be less useful than that. If you manage to get evenly out of laning phase, you thus win. But if you get behind, he will be a real pain in the a$$ for your ADC, since he can't be stopped.
Pantheon, Difficulty 4.25/5
Using Corrupting Potion and Teleport instead of Ignite in this lane is mandatory. Pantheon is a very tough opponent since he has decent base stats and can poke back with his Spear Shot when you try to AA him. At level 1, you can try to AA him for extended periods while his spear is on cooldown, since it does not hurt you too much yet. At level 2 onwards, he will try to zone you from minions with his spears and the threat of his Aegis of Zeonia, and you must harass him while grabbing as much CS as possible without letting him get in melee range.
Try to trade with him in short bursts, and retreat to a safe distance from his spears while your Distortion is on cooldown. Be careful with your Distortion, since he can jump to you and possibly dodge it, same as with Katarina, ect.
Pantheon has a great advantage level 2-5, so you must focus on surviving. After you hit level 6, you can go for a normal combo and then back off until it is ready again. With some luck, 2 full combos will be enough to kill him or send him back to base.
In an even lane, you are more useful late-game, but he will have massive roaming potential midgame, possibly snowballing his team.
Renekton, Difficulty 3/5
Renekton is a very strong opponent in melee, but he has no reliable gapcloser against you, so it all comes down to your ability to keep your distance. Anticipate his Slice and Dice, and use your Distortion to stay out of his range. Harass him with autos and your other skills if he tries to sustain on minions, since you can easily outdamage the sustain from his Cull the Meek if you keep the pressure on him.
He has a tanky steroid at level 6, so don't ever expect to burst him 100-0 at any time. You will need 2-3 full cycles or quite a few Q-W or E combos to take him down, but it is doable and rewarding if you manage it.
Late game, you are more useful in an even lane. If he wins lane, he will be a beast to take down.
I am personally fond of fighting Renekton in lane because it is a rewarding matchup, fighting him is a good lesson in learning to balance aggression and safety, and he is a very good opponent to kite and juke against.
Rengar, Difficulty (3/5)
I have not fought Rengar toplane, but you should stay clear of the side bushes so he can't jump on you. Play somewhat safe and go for the guaranteed harass against him. He cannot sustain through much. He deals a ton of damage in melee as the game progresses, so be careful when he has Thrill of the Hunt.
You should build Seeker's Armguard against him to survive any ambush that might happen.
Riven, Difficulty 3/5
Riven is mobile and deals a ton of damage in melee range combines with a stun. She can't dash far with any one skill though, so stay safe and harass her, and ALWAYS keep your distance if you don't have instant burst potential, even if you are at full hp and she's at 20 %. If you go for an all-in combo on her, you MUST kill her instantly or you're dead. She can be deceptively tanky with Valor and Hexdrinker.
In an even lane, you are more useful in late game, but it depends on the nature of the team fights. If she gets to stay alive in melee, she is still very strong.
Rumble, Difficulty (3/5)
I haven't fought Rumble much, but you can harass him hard with AA and skills during his weak early game. He can be somewhat tanky, but don't lose your patience against him. You can easily whittle him down, but if you go all in too early, you die. After he reaches level 6-7, you must change harass pattern, so you only go in to throw a combo at him and then back off. You will not AA much at this point, because his Flamespitter is very strong in mid/short-range.
In an even lane, The Equalizer will be more useful than you midgame if he's decent at landing it. Lategame you're roughly even.
Ryze, Difficulty (2.5/5)
Ryze is a champion with clearly defined strong and weak moments - he is a true beast when Arcane Mastery is fully stacked, but weak and somewhat immobile when it's down.
As LeBlanc you should be able to dictate when you fight - stay away from Ryze while is passive is at 3 or more stacks, since he can spam spells extremely fast when he gets it up, and they pack a decent punch, especially against your fine, delicate, squishy face.
Go in and use your whole skill combo to punish him whenever his passive goes on cooldown or only has few stacks, and use your Distortion if needed to close the gap and trade with Q-R-E during this time.
Ryze is a somewhat easy lane unless you get too cocky and engage on him while his passive is active. He will be quite easty to pick off during later stages of the game, since he rarely builds tanky anymore aside from Rod of Ages and Seraph's Embrace.
Shen, Difficulty (3.5/5)
Using Teleport instead of Ignite in this lane is almost mandatory.
Shen is one tough bastard, so you usually cannot pressure him out of lane. His Ki Barrier blocks a ton of damage from your harass, and the standard Doran's Shield+ Spirit Visage will make him very resilient. His Stand United will probably make him a huge asset to the enemy team in dragon fights while you are left staring in toplane.
You can follow him with Teleport if you believe you can turn the fight for your team. However, he will be able to quickly return to toplane with his own Teleport after the fight, so you will lose a great deal of lane pressure whenever you teleport out of lane.
Shen is useless out of melee, so you only have to avoid his Shadow Dash in order to stay safe in lane. Harass him as much as possible while pushing lane in so he will lose more if he tries to leave lane. If he tries to ult a teammate within your vision, quickly dash to him and use your skills to damage him a lot - a 30% hp Shen is much easier for your botlane to kill than a 100% hp shen is.
If you get ahead in lane due to good plays, a successful gank or massive global gold gain, you should be able to harass him out of lane or kill him.
In an even lane, Shen is more useful to his team than you are to yours until late game due to his global pressure since you can't bully him.
You must make sure to ward your jungle entrance at the start of the game and patrol your jungle to catch him if he tries to proxy farm between your inhibitor and tier 2 turrets at level 1.
Singed is an opponent many generic toplaners fear - they can never catch him and he will always proxy farm turret and carry his team through immense lane pressure, but fear not! Singed is your *****! (Although no guarantees, implied or stated, are given.)
He is completely limited to melee range and his only gapcloser is a decent-ish movement speed which you can easily dash away from. He will start with Doran's Shield and build very tanky, but you must not despair. Just throw a ton of AA and skill at him and his health bar will drop in time. Avoid his poison and minion aggro while doing this. When you both get some levels and he becomes more tanky with items and his Insanity Potion, you must still throw your complete arsenal of harassment at him, and he still can't outrun your dashes. Two or three combos should be enough to kill him.
Other than that, he is pretty easy to fight. Just don't run in his poison too much or let him Fling you into it.
Later in the game, you will be more useful than him if you win lane moderately like you should. In an even lane, his usefulness will entirely depend on his ability to pressure lanes.
Teemo, Difficulty 2/5
Using Corrupting Potion and Teleport instead of Ignite in this lane is optional.
It is very advisable to build Abyssal Mask in this lane in order to burst harder and survive all of his poison damage.
Teemo is squishy, so pop him regularly to avoid a Noxious Trap field in your backyard.
His damage with autoattacks is high, so don't trade autos with him. Avoid him while your skills are on cooldown, and smack his *** ONLY when your skills are ready.
After he starts planting mushrooms all over the place, the safest way to close the gap on Teemo in lane is to walk behind your minions. Don't be afraid to dash into a mushroom if you are confident that you can kill him quickly - 1 mushroom cannot deal nearly enough damage to kill you.
In an even lane, you are more useful than him. Just get an early oracle or tell your support to. Those shrooms are toxic.
I have never faced Trundle in lane. He has decent sustain, tankyness, damage and speed, so I guess he is a tough matchup. Play against him like you would against Riven or Garen, harass while avoiding melee range. Your best bet in this lane is probably to farm well.
His pillar slows, blocks your retreat and interrupts your Distortion, and his Frozen Domain speeds him up immensely. Stay at roughly max range of him as much as possible so he can’t catch you and slow you even more with Chomp.
Tryndamere, Difficulty 4/5
Tryndamere is ******ed. Ban him from the game pl0x.
You have a clear advantage in lane pre-6, since he is vulnerable to your autoattacks and doesn't build tanky. He may get a Doran's Shield at level 1, but that's about as tanky as he'll ever get. However, his sustain with life steal quints + Bloodlust+ Warlord's Bloodlust is immensely strong, so you will have a hard time keeping him away from minions.
He deals a MEGATON of damage in melee, and his Spinning Slash can make for a hasty escape or quickly close the gap on you, so be scared of melee even before he reaches level 6. He only needs a few seconds to take you down. Also, if you try to burst him, but he catches it with Undying Rage and spins towards you, you are dead.
Try to fight Tryndamere like you would fight Kayle - bait his ult or get him so low that you can finish him before he has time to cast his ult. That is a ton of fun. You must at all times be prepared that he might dive you under turret, so you must be ready to CC lock and kite him until his ult is over.
At lower levels of play, people are probably not playing Tryndamere like they should (super aggressive and master of escapes/chases/dives), so he might be substantially easier there.
In an even lane, Tryndamere will just keep on AFK splitpushing top, and your team will probably crumble to the pressure. You kinda need to shut him down early and/or stay toplane with him indefinitely in order to keep him from your precious turrets, which is REALLY boring.
Udyr is a rock; He is quite tanky. His Turtle Stance will be able to absorb much harass while his Tiger Stance will punish you hard IF he can get in melee range of you. You must pressure him a lot if you are to take him down in lane.
Focus on keeping the wave pushed away from your turret or he will probably outsustain you and just keep pushing the lane so you can't do anything but hug your turret 24/7.
In an even lane, you are more useful in teamfights.
Vayne, Difficulty (2.5/5)
Vayne is an AD carry, and LeBlanc is designed to kill AD carries. Sounds good on paper, eh?
Thing is, you don't have a ton of instant damage in the early lane which is the only real way to beat an AD carry easily. Vayne will win early trades with AA- Tumble-AA, so you must actually be somewhat defensive early until you get a grip on the balance of the matchup. During this time, it is ok that she gets good farm.
As you reach levels 5,6 and 7, your combos should be able to outtrade or flat out nuke her into oblivion, but keep all trades short. The longer the lane progresses, the more you will be at an advantage.
Be careful of her Final Hour since it grants her invisibility on her Tumble, and it can mess up your combo badly, resulting in your untimely death. Try to nuke her while her Tumble is on cooldown (you only got a few seconds in between), or when you can do a simple, easy-to-hit Q-W combo.
In the same way, her Condemn can be used to either stun you against a wall and kill you, or interrupt your Distortion and stop the damage it would have dealt.
In an even lane, you both have great potential late game. You just have to pop her or the other enemy ADC, and they shouldn't be able to CC you much since they swapped their potential toplane CC for another ADC.
Vladimir, Difficulty 2/5
Building Abyssal Mask is a good option in this lane, but not mandatory. Vladimir is squishy and weak early - everything you love. His Transfusion has a cooldown of 10 second at level 1, so harass him freely early.
As he gains levels the cooldown decreases, so you must rely mostly on your Q-W or longer combos to harass him later on. His Sanguine Pool doesn't break your Ethereal Chains if they already connected, so try to land those first if possible when you go for the kill. Avoid his moderately strong "semi-burst" at level 6, and just keep smacking his face. He sustains decently later on, so keep harassing him if you want the kill.
In an even lane, you are more useful than him.
Volibear, Difficulty (3.5/5)
I haven't fought Volibear in toplane, but I'd guess that his innate tankyness combined with his HP scaling, Doran's Shield and Chosen of the Storm makes him a very tough guy to kill. He is melee and got no fast gapclose, so keep your distance and do your standard harass. Don't let him get close and use his Frenzy on you, it HURTS!
I'm not sure if you can kill him, but you should have no problem in surviving and farming the lane.
Make sure that his Thunder Claws doesn't bounce to you when he attacks minions.
Wukong, Difficulty 4.75/5
Using Corrupting Potion and Teleport instead of Ignite in this lane is Mandatory.
Building towards Seeker's Armguard is a must as well. That being said, your best bet is to swap with your midlaner if he can handle the lane instead.
Wukong is extremely dangerous to you in lane. His Decoy - Nimbus Strike - Crushing Blow deals a ton of damage, is ready every 8 seconds, and is nigh impossible to avoid. He has no sustain and can take damage when you hit him, but he will hit you hard at all stages of the laning phase, especially after his Hexdrinker. His level 6 all in with Cyclone will easily kill you if you have no escape ready.
IF you have to face this lane, you may be able to lane if your jungler camps him for some time. Otherwise, you must focus on farming well, turtle a lot and try not to let Wukong become a huge monster by snowballing your lane. You will be able to fight later in the game.
In an even lane, his Cyclone is more useful than you in team fights unless you can keep it scattered. If he wins lane, he is a monster in teamfights, and you are just his little *****.
Warwick, Difficulty (2.5/5)
I haven't fought Warwick in lane, but I guess he is somewhat easy to beat. He has no good gapclose pre-6, and his sustain is moderate. Harass him like a boss early. After he gets his Infinite Duress, he is able to jump on you, but he doesn't have nearly enough damage on his own to kill you. Keep dominating him in lane, but be careful of ganks, since you are dead for sure if you get suppressed during a gank.
In an even lane, you are more useful in teamfights.
Xin Zhao, Difficulty 3/5
Xin Zhao has decent DPS in melee and a single gapclose on a relatively low cooldown. Don't let him run up to you, and use Distortion to get away fast if he uses Audacious Charge on you. His Three Talon Strike doesn't deal much damage if he only hits you with one talon.
Be somewhat careful about using your Distortion offensively, since he can jump to you like Katarina, Talon, ect., thus denying the damage.
His Battle Cry provides weak sustain, so harass him whenever you are out of melee range and you should win lane.
In an even lane, you are equally useful in team fights.
I haven't fought Yorick in lane, so I'm not really sure how this matchup turns out. His ghouls provide decent sustain and harass at the same time, only limited by his mana. Thus, I think you want to outsustain his mana pool early in the lane with AA harass ect, and go for quick bursts later on in the lane when he gets his Tear of the Goddess and you get more damage.
In an even lane, you are roughly equally useful later on.
Zac, Difficulty 3.75/5, ******ed champ
Zac is a ******ed champ, ban him for being so ******ed. He's mostly ******ed in the jungle with his massive 1550 range jumping ganks, so you should be happy if you meet him in lane instead of jungle.
In lane, Zac has relatively weak sustain unless he can collect his blobs, and you can harass him more if he tries to pick them up. He has low range, and you can snare/escape him when you see him charging his Elastic Slingshot, depending on which is most preferable in the situation.
Harass and kill him, but don't overextend for the kill, since you must also be able to finish off his bloblets. Distortion is great for that job.
In an even lane, his Let's Bounce! is ******ed in teamfights in conjunction with his slingshot and Cell Division. He is probably more useful than you mid/early late, but it's not too much. Late game you will be more useful with your insane full build damage.
Misc maths chapter
If you like numbers, you should definitely read this chapter. If you don’t, just skip it. In this chapter you will learn nothing new about playing LB, but there will be some more comparisons and crazy numbers.
Yes, this chapter does indeed prove that I am way too much into numbers <.<
LeBlanc has the most massive burst in the game, and late game she is capable of instagibbing most everyone, except big tanks. The question is, of course, how much damage is this?
Maths section, total domination combo to pop people, full items
I will assume that LeBlanc has full build at this point + Elixir of Brilliance but not yet Lich Bane. Then I will insert a generic balanced tank to nuke, perhaps someone like Jarvan IV who just used his Cataclysm on your ADC, Ashe to initiate a fight. Poor Ashe, let’s help her! NUKE THAT JARMAN!
BOOM, HE SURVIVED!
Oh wait, it's not so good that he survived now, is it..?
You managed to nuke their tank for 85% of his health though, and your ADC, top or jungler should be able to finish him off pretty fast.
Also by doing this, you stay safe behind your own lines as described in the other chapters.
FAQ
"Baekstra! Now i've read the whole guide of yours, and I still got questions! Y u no answer?!?!
This section will be filled as new questions from season 6 are answered in the comments.
External resources to become a better player / rise in rank
I have one comment to the above article, however. While the article recommends playing while in a neutral or happy state of mind, I would warn against playing ranked games while being too happy. This is because the brain doesn't weigh risks and analyze situations properly if you are happy, and thus may end up taking reckless decisions.
An example: You are getting slightly ahead in lane and thinks "oh, I can 100-0 my opponent easily". You forget the fact that they have barrier, and only end up getting him down to 350 Health. You have blown all of your skills and taken a turret hit meanwhile, and now their jungler comes into your lane, because you sent a party invitation in all chat a minute earlier since you wanted to draw him away from your other lanes. He takes part in the party by killing you and then uses that advantage to snowball the enemy botlane as well, and you end up losing the game since your enemy in mid also got an extra Null-Magic Mantle purchased with the gold he got from aiding in killing you.
Of course the misjudgments can vary and be both smaller and greater than this example, but the general concept is that you can't make the best decisions if you're too happy, since you might become a bit reckless because of it.
Therefore, I recommend a neutral or "only" somewhat happy state of mind if you wish to play ranked games to the best of your ability.
That being said, it can be tons of fun to play normal games with your friends if you are all happy and start doing awesome (and awesomely bad) moves. Even feeding can be fun if your whole team is having a laugh at it together and do it while making SICK plays.
I highly recommend having such games with your friends every once in a while. It's hilarious.
Special thanks
I'd like to thank Albableat for his fantastic contribution to the making of this guide. His work on banners, formatting and general support and feedback is the reason I managed to get it done, and especially why the matchups section is so stylish.
And a thanks to JhoiJhoi for the lovely guide on making a guide, it gave me the tools to start making my guide.
Changelog
21/9-2013: Published guide!
14/4-2016: Guide completely reworked for season 6. Items, matchups, playstyle and more has been changed significantly. Minor changes remain pending.
Ferocity
Sorcerer's Shoes as 2nd item is now almost a must.
Morellonomicon, 
Abyssal Mask or 
Zhonya's Hourglass depending on matchup now that both grant CDR. Remember that 
Rabadon's Deathcap and 
Void Staff are still must-haves somewhere around 4th-5th item, the order depending on the opposing team MR. 
Haunting Guise can be purchased as 3rd item if you wish to have more damage and the enemy botlane has ~45 MR instead of the usual 37 or lower.
Greater Mark of Magic Penetration.
Greater Seal of Scaling Health
Greater Seal of Scaling Armor
Zed or 
Talon mid. However, after the nerfs to flat armor seals, there isn't really a good option for early game power against AD lanes anymore.
Greater Glyph of Magic Penetration
Greater Glyph of Magic Resist could be useful in some lanes where damage is abundant or undodgeable, such as against 
Annie or 
Lissandra, but that should not happen often. Look at the matchups section to see where they might be viable.
Greater Quintessence of Ability Power OR 
Greater Quintessence of Magic Penetration
Maths section, Penetration Quints versus flat AP Quints
The Dark Seal after only 90 seconds of laning. On your first back you can choose to go for another ring along with potions, or spend 500 g for the 
Refillable Potion combo now, since it is still very cost efficient and you will no longer be likely to run out of mana.
Cloth Armor + 
Corrupting Potion
Lee Sin and 
Renekton depending on how aggressive and confident you are that you can dodge them), at other times cloth + 5 is a MUST (Against the likes of 
Wukong and 
Pantheon). If you start cloth + 5, you should go for 
Seeker's Armguard as your first item afterwards before you start going for the standard build.
Luden's Echo or 
Ahri who will also build Abyssal), it will still translate into a 10% damage increase.
Kassadin.
-
Blue Buff
in the late game, I’d recommend this as a safe, good all-round last purchase, and it is also the cheapest if the items by far, allowing you to reach full build just a few minutes earlier and strike while you have the advantage.
Athene's Unholy Grail is a viable alternative instead, granting you a bit of MR if needed and much more mana in case you need to juke around for minutes at a time, although coming at a higher cost and with 20 less AP.
LeBlanc, providing the highest damage potential possible through the Spellblade passive while also granting you 10 % CDR, allowing you to hit the 40 % CDR cap with the help of a blue buff. Combine that with a greater mana pool to stay in the field longer and 7 % Movement Speed boost for a massive splitpush threat that can demolish towers in seconds and roam the map fast enough that you don’t even need teleport in order to be there in time if a teamfight breaks out.
Master Yi. The speed at which you take down towers will match the likes of 
Fiora and 
Rammus using 
Tremors, and you have the mobility and damage to outduel ANY enemy at this point of the game if you have the skill to back it up.
Teleports.
Kog'Maw protected by 
Gragas, 
Nautilus, 
Lulu and 
Braum.
Liandry's Torment to top off you build with the last 55 AP.
Will of the Ancients - Spell vamp? Not really. There are so many better options for you to get out there and DEAL DAMAGE instead.
Rod of Ages - Delayed stats? no.
Ryze with 10,000 mana and gives the enemy team more nightmares than 
Nocturne. Also, bear in mind, that a LeBlanc with Mejai's is THE most taunting thing in the game, beating Teemo's taunt by a wide margin. It literally yells "YOU ALL SUCK AND I WILL FEAST UPON YOUR SOULS AND I CAN 1V5 YOU ALL AND YOU ARE DAMN NOOBS L2P!" to the enemy team. Did it hurt your eyes? It should, because you cause soul-crushing damage to the enemy team times infinity if you stomp them with this item. Taunt them in all chat when you buy this item for maximum effect. Tell them you buy it and let the hunt commence, because you are going to get focused like a target dummy at a shooting range.
Xerath.
Arcanopulse.)
Thresh toplane somehow completely destroyed our 
Zac and 
Warding Totem and 
Oracle Alteration is a toss-up. It basically boils down to a choice between making sure that the enemy can’t see you, or making sure that you can see your enemy, assuming you cannot rely on your team as well to obtain full vision control. Seeing your opponent is crucial since it is rarely possible for you to kill an unseen enemy, but not being seen yourself can also make the difference between outplaying and ambushing your opponents, or getting instantly caught by CC and killed.
Corki or 
Jarvan IV, 
Riven, ect.)
Resonating Strike, or 
Glacial Path, even after the 1st part of the skill is activated.
Morgana anyways).
Orianna has barrier instead of 
Fizz used 
Playful / Trickster 5 seconds ago? You still have some time to harass him before it is back up.
Spirit Rush to escape last time you used your ulti, around 40 secs ago? You still have almost a full minute to abuse her in lane.
Nidalee, read the midlane chapter as well.
Hexdrinker
Maw of Malmortius is the item I hate the most when playing LB top. The shield and stats it offers are extremely cost efficient and can bait you into going all in at the wrong moment, causing you to DIE!
Valor ability
Golden Aegis+
Barrier, you have to be really aware of their CD, shield amount, ect. If you're fast, you may be able to go for the kill before they can activate their shields.
Draven (such a lane bully), it may be worthwhile setting up an ambush down there and pop in and remove that mean ADC when the enemy engages the next time. Keep in mind, that no matter how fed their ADC are, they are still just as squishy as any 0/0/0 ADC, since they only build damage early with the extra gold.
Soraka). Your burst should be high enough to kill them (carry or support) within a single spell rotation. If you cannot grab an instakill on an opponent, you shouldn't just wait around until you can't.
Cataclysm on you. That stuff really hurts a lot.
Tryndamere.
Shen, 
Twisted Fate). Keep pushing all the way until a fight actually breaks out. Then TP in there and clean-up.
Stand United by creating possibilities for pushing all three lanes at the same time and then focusing attention on 1 or 2 of them for massive rage on the enemy team.
Volibear, 
Cho'Gath, 
Ezreal, 
Cassiopeia would be a much greater asset to your team during late-game. Add in that the enemy 
Janna support for a 
Vayne building 
Sona will get you your DCap just as fast as feeding off the enemy ADC. Supports also don’t have 
Heal, and the enemy ADC might not have the reflexes to heal in time.
Greater Seal of Armor or 
Spellthief's Edge and 3 pots OR 
Frostfang because of the massive gold generation, AP and completely massive 100% mana regeneration. I do not upgrade it into 
Frost Queen's Claim because most of the cold cost goes into the Spooky Ghosts active. The ghosts are balanced in my opinion, but they are made to be good on dedicated supports rather than Champions like 
Eye of the Watchers later in the game so you don’t have to dedicate two item slots for supporting items.
Sightstone and upgrade into 
Doran's Blade
Executioner 
Double-Edged Sword 
Varus. His ranged damage is strong, combined with the lockdown he can provide with ult. He does, however, easily suffer if no one can peel for him.
Caitlyn. Her 
Piltover Peacemaker, long range and self-peel makes her a really strong pick with you. Especially with 
Ace in the Hole at level 6 - she doesn't even need to be near you)
Graves. His burst is massive, but he will be pretty weak if you fall behind due to his lack of range.
Lucian. He is a massive lane bully and all-round strong with damage, mobility and range.
Quinn.
True Grit and 
Arcane Shift. Those two guys have the potential to mess with your combos, but the impact of those dashes is much lower than the choice of support you are facing.
Leona
Alistar
Taric
Blitzcrank
Rocket Grab
Power Fist
Static Field
Howling Gale
Eye Of The Storm
Monsoon
Karma
Focused Resolve
Nami
Aqua Prison
Zyra
Grasping Roots
Stranglethorns
Summon: Tibbers
Flay
The Box
Dark Passage
Astral Blessing
Wild Growth
Help, Pix!
Anivia, where you might win lane with your early damage and her being squishy, but it is a big gamble and it usually turns out bad because of her egg. Feel free to fight 
Charm
Essence Theft
Orb of Deception
Fox-Fire
Mordekaiser
Akali
Twilight Shroud
Negatron Cloak
Ruby Crystal
Spectre's Cowl
Shadow Dance
Flash Frost
Frostbite
Glacial Storm
Azir
Shifting Sands
Emperor's Divide
Brand
Pyroclasm
Twin Fang
Petrifying Gaze
Diana
Ekko
Timewinder
Z-Drive Resonance
Chronobreak
Trueshot Barrage
Fiddlesticks
Dark Wind
Drain
Chum the Waters
Galio
Darius
Bulwark
Happy Hour
Drunken Rage
Body Slam
Explosive Cask
Heimerdinger
H-28G Evolution Turret
Hextech Micro-Rockets
Karthus
Lay Waste
Wall of Pain
Defile
Void Stone
Null Sphere
Nether Blade
Katarina
Bouncing Blades
Shunpo
Death Lotus
Kayle
Ice Shard
Frozen Tomb
Lux
Prismatic Barrier
Light Binding
Lucent Singularity
Final Spark
Malzahar
Malefic Visions
Nether Grasp
Null Zone
Call of the Void
Iron Man
Children of the Grave
Black Shield
Tormented Soil
Dark Binding
Soul Shackles
Javelin Toss
Primal Surge
As you can see, if thrown from the fog of war, 
Bushwhack
Command: Attack
Clockwork Windup
Command: Protect
Command: Dissonance
Command: Shockwave
Chalice of Harmony
Mercury's Treads
Swain
Nevermove
Ravenous Flock
Unleashed Power
Syndra
Scatter the Weak
Dark Sphere
Force of Will
Rake
Pick A Card
Wild Cards
Destiny
Veigar
Event Horizon
Dark Matter
Primordial Burst
Viktor
Death Ray
Gravity Field
Siphon Power
Chaos Storm
Arcane Barrage
Razor Shuriken
Death Mark
Ziggs
Bouncing Bomb
Short Fuse
Mega Inferno Bomb
Zilean
Time Bomb
Rewind
Time Warp
Chronoshift
Guardian Angel
Rise of the Thorns
Malphite, 
Aatrox
Blood Thirst
Dark Flight
Feral Scream
Feast
Elise
Cocoon
Rappel
Riposte
Parrrley
Gangplank
Remove Scurvy
Cannon Barrage
Garen
Decisive Strike
Judgment
Demacian Justice
Gnar
Hyper
Boomerang Throw
Hop
Crunch
GNAR!
Irelia
Bladesurge
Demacian Standard
Dragon Strike
Jax
Leap Strike
Counter Strike
Jayce
Shock Blast
Kennen
Lightning Rush
Thundering Shuriken
Slicing Maelstrom
Kha'Zix
Void Spike
Safeguard
Seismic Shard
Unstoppable Force
Ground Slam
Nasus
Wither
Fury of the Sands
Olaf
Ragnarok
Undertow
Spear Shot
Aegis of Zeonia
Slice and Dice
Cull the Meek
Rengar
Thrill of the Hunt
Rumble
Flamespitter
The Equalizer
Arcane Mastery
Seraph's Embrace
Ki Barrier
Shadow Dash
Singed
Insanity Potion
Fling
Teemo
Noxious Trap
Trundle
Frozen Domain
Chomp
Bloodlust
Spinning Slash
Undying Rage
Udyr
Turtle Stance
Tiger Stance
Tumble
Final Hour
Condemn
Vladimir
Transfusion
Sanguine Pool
Chosen of the Storm
Frenzy
Thunder Claws
Decoy
Nimbus Strike
Crushing Blow
Cyclone
Warwick
Infinite Duress
Xin Zhao
Audacious Charge
Three Talon Strike
Battle Cry
Yorick
Tear of the Goddess
Elastic Slingshot
Let's Bounce!
Cell Division
Elixir of Brilliance
Ashe
Locket of the Iron Solari
Enchanted Armor 
Juggernaut 
Randuin's Omen
Havoc 
Spell Weaving 
Null-Magic Mantle purchased with the gold he got from aiding in killing you.
Guide Discussion (138)
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