AP Cast Sona is all about, you guessed it, casting. The trick is to optimize what Sona does best: spamming her no-skill abilities as frequently and effectively as possible. Don't be ashamed of this. Spam away.

Thus we need to prioritize Cooldown Reduction, Mana Regeneration, AP and then finally other supporting role characteristics such as gold production and movement speed.

And always remember the three most important things about support: warding, wards and more wards.

The early game is the toughest for Sona. You need to poke the other teams bot lane early to assert your dominance but until you hit level 2 you won't be able to take much poke back.

Therefore you need to obtain vision control of the brush right away. Ward their-side brush the first time they dip into it and clear any wards they place in your brush. A good time to attempt to clear their ward is when the cannon minion is dying, so they have to choose between poking you and last hitting the minion. If your adc doesn't help clear a ward gently remind him during a break, saying something like "if I reveal a ward pls take a shot at it". They don't usually mind.

If you're against Thresh, Blitz, Morgana or any other support that has a long range pull or CC ability then you will have to stay out of the brush and hide behind minions. In this case you will want to get some pots instead of a second ward and you will have to do your best to avoid the CC. They will aggressively target you and a single grab/hit can end up killing you if the ADC fully engages. Thus you will need to attempt to just survive the early phase by avoiding their CC and attempting to maximize your ADC's sustain.

Get your Sightstone as early as possible, be sure to ward near dragon so you can see the ganks coming from a long way off. Always play with one eye on the minimap.

Just remember, you will dominate the lane the longer you stay in it. Your sustain will outlast the enemy as long as you continue to poke and dodge the long range CC abilities.

Don't lose hope if you die a couple of times early on without a reply! Try to avoid it at all costs but don't give up. Just remember that Sona really shines in the mid and late game, you just need to stay as close as possible until you can get enough gold for your core build.

Never surrender, always vote no. Losing is a state of mind and only losers truly lose. Half the games I've seen surrender votes we end up winning anyway, your team mates will not usually understand how powerful Sona is late game and how essential it is for your team to be in a group to maximize her power.

Sona brings more to the table than most people realize. Most of the time the enemy team will "focus on the adc" and ignore Sona until the end of a team fight. This is a mistake. If you ever play against a team with Sona, you must always kill her first. She's easy to burst usually and the rest of their team will be surprised at how fast they melt without her. With Sona in play all of her team mates are made stronger by her aura's and her constant spamming heals will be a decisive factor in any close fight. She also does a deceptive amount of damage herself and will have 3 sources of CC (passive+E, Ult and the Frost Queens Claim).

Like all champions understanding Sona's passive ability is key to winning. After at least 3 spells, her next auto-attack will do a little something extra. This is why we are making a build that attempts to maximize her ability to cast as often as possible. Chasing enemies while spamming your E will provide an extra source of CC. Poking enemies in lane while using your Q will provide a surprising amount of burst. Hitting an enemy with a W will reduce their damage dramatically and they will be surprised when the ADC they were going toe-to-toe with suddenly destroys them.

Additionally, the power of her aura's are not to be underestimated. Stick close to the center of your team to maximize all of their powers during team fights and try not to get caught during an engage. Also when fighting the dragon, baron or a tower be sure to maximze your Q aura. By this I mean do not cast your W until the Q is also cooled down so that you can immediately follow up a W with a Q and thus keeping your Q's aura on for the maximum amount of time. You will be amazed at how much faster turrets melt with Sona's Q affecting her allies.

Warding
Everyone knows you need to ward a lot as a support. Try to make it a goal to drop every ward you have every time you go out. Space them out and try to get 2 on each side of the mid lane.

Buy a pink ward and drop it in a main cooridoor near a team mate who intends to do some farming. Or place the pink in a place where you beleive an enemy ward might be lurking. Or if you're facing invisible champions like Twitch, Rengar, Kha'zix, Evelyn, Shaco, Teemo drop a pink ward right on them or in the middle of the lane so your adc can still see them. That will be the difference between getting ganked and surviving, finishing off twitch or letting him get away.

Rotating
Press the bot tower as hard as you can. Try to take it out before rotating mid. If you see some action in your bot jungle, go help as fast as possible. Make sure you ward the bot channels before leaving your adc to farm. Once mid game is engaged simply pick an ally and stick with them. Usually you will want to pick the ally who is doing the best so they can fully dominate and carry your team. Sona can be the difference maker between a close fight or a close escape. Her cc and speed boosts will frustrate the enemy.

Always remember this with Sona: If you haven't had a 5v5 team fight yet then you can't know if the game is hopeless yet. Even down by 15 kills, if you can group up you may be surprised at how powerful you are together. Never give up.

Communication
Always stay positive. When in reality you may be cussing like a sailor and raving about how bad your allies are, never convey that attitude in game. Most of the losses I've had were largely due to inter-team fighting causing someone to rage quit or spend too much typing angry retorts about **** that doesn't even matter. Yeah, people will make mistakes. Sometimes they even suck. Who cares? You're in it together and if you demotivate them then its a Loss on your record. The fact is, a positive attitude helps win games. So stay positive.

Which means that whenever someone wins a 1v1 say "gj" or "nice" or something like that. When someone gets killed over and over drop a "don't worry, we got this". Simple things like that go a long way.

Beyond words of encouragement keep high valued pings coming and keep calling objectives. If you notice a particular champ is carrying your opponents call for them to focus on that champ. If you notice that the other team is heavy AD or AP remind your team to buy an appropriate piece of armor, that can make a big difference in fights.

Whatever you do, don't blame things on your team mates. If you get ganked don't say "Why didn't you call mia?!?!". If you get ganked and die, its your own fault. Say sorry. Don't accuse your team mates of being bad because you pinged 100 times and they didn't listen. If they're not listening its your fault.

Pinging
Speaking of pinging... always keep one eye on the minimap. Don't get tunnel vision watching your lane. This is a little bit easier to do with Sona since her abilities don't require skill shots. If you see an enemy enter the field of view of a ward ping once. Don't go crazy with the pining people will faze you out if you ping to much. But a gentle ping every now and then, on an approaching enemy will train your allies to pay attention to your pings. This may require you to drop one or two deep wards early game so you can establish this association.

Eventually you will be able to single ping objectives and watch your teammates rotate together. This is not always possible in solo-queue so when it happens it's quite powerful. When several allies appear to be splitting up or going B, and you single ping the dragon and see them all suddenly change course you know you are gaining cohesion. They will subsequently listen to warning pings to flee dangerous areas or single pings to group up for a fight.

Backing
Drop those wards. With Sona, if you don't get killed your sustain will make you want to stay out far longer than you should. If you get above 1000gp, drop those wards then go B. Make sure you communicate your intentions to your team mates or they will push to far alone, not realizing you left them. They will pull back usually if you say "care" or give them a warning ping.

KS-ing
Always KS. Go 100%, 100% of the time. Because when you decide to let up on someone so your team mate gets the kill and then the opponent flashes away or drops an ult and kills your teammate, you just ****ed up 10x worse than if you had KS'd. You will need to get probably 3 or 4 kills at least to keep up with gold anyay, so don't hold back.

Also, bizarrely it's totally possible for Sona to carry. My record is 18 kills. Sometimes the other team will see that everyone else on your team is AD and so they will load up on armor and not fully comprehend that Sona can actually tear them up if they decide such folly.

Sometimes a teammate will not understand this and they will say "wtf?!" and they will blame their lack of power on the KS'ing support and the non-mia calling mid's. Ignore this, say "sorry" if you think it will help but in reality, they are just failing to understand that you are playing 100% and it's them who has to keep up with you.