Hey there, I'm Zianni. I'm a challenger mid laner and Orianna is one of my favorite champions. Compared to Syndra I think her macro gameplay and match ups are extremely enjoyable. I pick Orianna into any team where I need a scaling win condition or large amounts of utility. She's a beast for team fighting and has some really good solo lane potential. S10 was reasonably ok for Orianna, but with the recent nerfs to mid through preseason items she might be a bit difficult. It is however extremely rewarding to play Orianna to fruition. If you enjoy technical gameplay, Orianna is the champ for you! Check out my livestream at https://www.twitch.tv/zianni so you can become a challenger Orianna too!

While Orianna isn't considered a great early game champion, she has a really good kit for bullying enemy champions while being a strong scaling champion. This means you get to enjoy both styles of mid!

She's ideal for competitive 5s or group play due to her overwhelming team fight presence, but is equally as capable in Solo Q due to the lack of communication making it very easy to catch people off guard in team fights.

Versatility is her biggest strength, offensive and defensive come naturally to Orianna.

Phase Rush is the ultimate utility tool for Orianna as it's extremely versatile allowing her to be aggressive or defensive in lane. Her biggest short coming as a champion is a lack of mobility in the form of dashes, while her W offers movespeed its difficult to use to full effect. This will make your laning phase extremely consistent and offer protection from front line carries in the mid game.

This is why Phase Rush is currently the number one rune for Orianna, there are some variations where Aery is taken or Spellbook but are ultimately unpopular.

Phase Rush

Phase Rush is a fantastic tool for trading defensively or aggressively making it the optimal selection for Orianna. A scaling champion needs to safely farm to hit their power spike and this is what allows us to do so. Activating Phase Rush allows Orianna to extend trades and continuously use Command: Attack to rack up damage.

Manaflow Band is a great selection for Orianna because it helps supplement her mana pool making it easier to wave clear for priority. Her Command: Attack is one of the lowest mana costs making it extremely easy to spam in lane and picking up early stacks.

Transcendence rewards us for scaling by giving us haste and making it easier to reposition our ball. This is a great tool for versatility.

Scorch offers us additional bullying power to go with our low mana costs and makes it easier to control easier match ups. If you plan on scaling regardless of match up, Gathering Storm is a more optimal choice.

Biscuit Delivery is a great rune for lane staying power making it less punishing to take bad trades and ensuring optimal back timings. Worst case scenario, you can just use it for mana to continue oppressing a laner or sell it for a quick buck :)

Time Warp Tonic is the new BiS rune due to the removal of Haste from Cosmic Insight, which means we'll now be getting additional movespeed in lane and bigger sustain from our potions. This makes a Corrupting Potion start plausible or serves as a general improvement for our Health Potions. ( buff is huge!)

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AP/AP and Armor/Magic Resist shards based on match up.

Alternatively -

If you don't see a need for additional lane power from the inspiration tree, it's also acceptable to run:

Taste of Blood for aggressive sustain, making trading more rewarding.

Ravenous Hunter for omnivamp making all of our spells heal us, this is ideal for the mid-game as it makes poke less punishing. Not having to worry about poke damage makes it easier to commit to positioning that might otherwise be inaccessible.

If you're in a melee match up, Attack Speed is beneficial for your passive and last hitting efficiency. Otherwise double AP is the most optimal for early control. Haste is also a good option if you're committing to a scaling match up where you're outranged.

Items are always going to be situational and based on the game state.


As of right now, if you're hoping to have an immediate impact on the game then Luden's Tempest will be your first item. This allows you to bully easy match ups and immediately influence early game team fights.

If you're hoping to scale as opposed to having an early impact, then Liandry's Anguish will be more useful to you. While the components are the same making the two items nearly identical, the difference is in the bonus stats from each Mythic. Ability haste vs Flat Magic Penetration. It's important to note that you can still run Luden's Tempest while opting for a scaling game, but Liandry's Anguish is also better against tanky compositions. This is something that would not be reversible making Liandry's Anguish the only anti-tank option for scaling.

Flat Magic Pen is more valuable earlier in the game for snowballing while Ability Haste picks up steam the more items you have. Orianna is inherently a champion that excels in the mid to late game making Liandry's Anguish a strong item even after the 10.23 nerf, it also gives you room to tech into a Tear of the Goddess for maximum AP later in the game. (Tear being less rewarding on a more aggressive playstyle since your goal is earlier than later)

Boot choice is usually dependent on the game as Mercury's Treads is a necessity into a few assassins match ups, otherwise Sorcerer's Shoes is extremely important to the build because it reduces the enemy's magic resistance increasing our base damage by a hefty amount for 800g. It's also important to recognize that purchasing Luden's Tempest will bring your total magic penetration up to 24, most carries have a base magic resist of 30 meaning you'll be doing nearly 100% tool-tip damage if the enemy doesn't buy a Null-Magic Mantle. (It's pretty nice to just add up the numbers in your skill descriptions and know when you can one-shot someone.)

Once you finish a Legendary item, the Mythic bonus will put you up to 29.

Most low elo players even up until masters will ego and refuse to buy early magic resist making double Magic Pen an extremely strong combination. (Due to the magic pen formula, flat pen can never bring MR below 0.)

Once our core is completed, we're essentially purchasing items based on the situation. If the enemy is building MR you can instead opt to build % Magic pen in a Void Staff, a survivability item ( Banshee's Veil/ Zhonya's Hourglass) for bad match ups or to counter specific champions, or raw damage ( Rabadon's Deathcap).

To be impactful, you need a strong foundation.

Nothing in history has been achieved without the necessary conditions, League of Legends is no different. To carry a game, you need to make an impact. There are many ways you can do this, but it all begins in the same spot. Everything in the game can be traced back to the beginning, every decision you make will change the course of the game. This can be described as the flow, the flow can be influenced by every player and controlling the flow is your objective.

Before you worry about things outside your sphere of influence, your primary focus should be setting yourself up for success. Before anything else, we must identify our match up, our composition, and finally our win condition. While the game starts with champion select, the reality is that you’re only capable of defining your own actions. There is no value in putting emphasis on variables we can’t control; therefore, we must also pursue a playstyle that enables any possibility.

There are a lot of factors that contribute to the match up, this can be broken down into three categories.

The Champion

Keystone + Runes

Summoner Spells

While the champion is self-explanatory, we must ask ourselves what contributes to the champion. It’s strengths and it’s weaknesses. The most common things we take notice of are the difference between ranged and melee. This is valuable information that will change the way you trade depending on your champion. A ranged champion will always have the advantage over melee in the early levels, often this will be your only window to create an advantage vs an assassin.

The next step is their keystone, players will typically enhance their champions strengths or make up for weaknesses with their keystone. This can drastically change a lane as there is a big difference between Arcane Comet and Electrocute. Your goal is to identify what their plan is and play around it.

A burst mage will often take Electrocute; the benefit is larger trades at the cost of being infrequent. You can choose to either avoid trading in small skirmishes, poke, or extend trades to take advantage of their cooldowns.

While keystones have less variety for mid than other roles like Press the Attack, Lethal Tempo or Conqueror, it’s still something to keep in mind. The second portion of keystones are the supporting runes that accompany it.

The secondary tree is used to augment your strength or to cover your weaknesses. An example would be the difference between taking domination second to improve your damage potential or taking insight for extra lane sustain. While most champions are locked into some keystones, secondary trees are extremely flexible and should be changed depending on the match up. Identify where you struggle and take precautions to solve it. Biscuit Delivery is a popular rune because it can help with difficult match ups, whereas Eyeball Collection will give you a stronger spike. Make a decision based on your match up.

Remember to check armor/mr to see if they're weaker than usual, not taking the right defensive stats can change a match up!

Summoner spells are often disregarded until they **** us over. I’m sure we’ve all had that moment where we tower dive someone and we didn’t realize they had barrier.
Mid lane has three dominant summoner spells.

SUMMONER SPELLS All three are extremely valuable and can change the flow of a game. - FLASH is a must include because it’s both a playmaking tool and a defensive tool. The cooldown should always be tracked so you can take advantage of its absence or play around its availability. (I.E Flash ult) IGNITE at this given moment Ignite is one of the most powerful game changing tools, it can single handedly win lanes or secure kills you’d otherwise miss out on. There is almost no situation where you wouldn’t want to play around or take advantage of this spell. TELEPORT while typically inferior in lane for Solo Q has incredible application and a lot more variety to it. You can use it to avoid an unwinnable match up, join team fights, or simply get back to lane faster. While the application of this spell is more difficult than Ignite, it has a lot more influence than Ignite if you can control the flow. Teleport can be considered your second safety-net, if you get poked out of lane you have another try or you can use it to force an enemy out of lane with the unexpected item advantage. While it isn’t as straight forward as Ignite, you’re creating a situation where the enemy must fight you with an item disadvantage or resource disadvantage (Mana usually.) A common scenario is poking the enemy out of lane only for them to Teleport back and zone you off the wave because your mana bar is low. If the enemy has Ignite, there is no way for them to play around this outside of resetting at the cost of their minion wave crashing. In this scenario, we directly controlled the flow of the game by giving them only two options to respond to; both bad options.

Consider the summoner spells of your enemy and consider where you have an advantage. Do you benefit from trading to look for a kill opportunity with Ignite, or do you benefit more from scaling with the safety of Teleport?
To properly identify the conditions of our victory, is to identify our win condition. While this term is often used on a larger scope (I.E Winning the game) we can apply this to both the laning phase and the macro phase.

We’ve considered the aspects of our lane and our win condition. All that remains is ensuring our ability to have an impact on the game. There are core tenets that I advise for any mid lane player.

Build your domain

If you want to control the game, you always start from the middle lane. Your sphere of influence will expand as you grow stronger and enable more opportunities around the map. To grow stronger, we must ensure our survival and that our gold generation is adequate.

Survival

The middle lane is your base of operations, your Fortress. You must properly defend your Fortress by setting up Ward Control to prevent enemy ganks and gain vision of your lands. Your wards will act as a spy network keeping you, The General, informed. This will allow you to keep your Fortress safe and use its strategic positioning to punish troops trespassing in your lands. Acting without vision puts you at the mercy of your enemies.

While dying is acceptable, each death comes at the cost of valuable resources. (Gold and experience) No matter the match up or circumstances, your primary objective is to be consistent. To be undying is to exert pressure on the entire map.

Gold Generation

To carry, you need resources. The most important building block of your game starts with last hitting, games are won by item advantages and the easiest way to build a lead without putting yourself at risk is by this basic mechanic. A gold lead translates to an item lead, and an item lead translates to presence on the map. This basic interaction is overlooked by many players but is the core of gameplay. For newer players, your goal is 7-8 cs per minute and for experienced players leaning towards 9 in solo Q.

Lane phase is a battle for resources.

Once you have secured your foundation in the middle lane, you can begin to extend your influence. Your wards that were originally defensive will begin to move into enemy lines and feed you information. Objective control and jungle skirmishes are yours to decide. While you can continue to stay mid lane and farm up safely, if you can’t translate your early game pressure into a lead it has no value.


Orianna's Laning Phase is based around the utilization of her Command: Attack for poke damage and wave control. Utilizing Manaflow Band will make trading more efficient and easier to play around. The ideal situation is to use your ball to contest each last hit making it extremely difficult for the enemy to trade back. Eventually this damage will accumulate and give you control over the enemy due to your advantage in resources. (Health/Mana/Potions)

While her mana pool is relatively stronger than other champions, it's extremely important to prioritize last hitting to keep it topped off with the Doran's Ring's drain passive. Once you hit Lost Chapter, you'll have minimal mana issues but it'll still be important to be conservatives to avoid losing priority.

Post level 4, depending on the match up you'll need to be more respectful as your range advantage diminishes or junglers come into play. If you were playing optimally, you'll be able to control the wave to prevent yourself being ganked easily while making it easier to punish the enemy. Orianna has very few options to deal with junglers because of the use of the ball and the delay on pulling it back after using it aggressively. (If you're Command: Attack/ Command: Dissonanceing on cooldown, you'll have no tools to disengage)

This is where Phase Rush comes into play, if you're poking minimally without proccing your keystone it'll make it extremely difficult for the enemy to close the distance. All it takes is a simple combination Q/W/E or Q/W/AA to proc the movespeed portion taking you to freedom. If there's an abundance of Crowd Control there is nothing you can do after the distance has been closed making wave control and positioning extremely important to Orianna laning.

Once you're level 6, you unlock your ultimate Command: Shockwave making extended trades a possibility. Trading is extremely easy on Orianna making it possible to lower the enemy's health pool before comitting to a max range initiation with the pull back effect on Orianna's ultimate. Her short cooldowns make it possible to use a full combination twice which is a surprising amount of damage over time.

Once you hit level 9, your Command: Attack will be maxed allowing you to reposition the ball consistently and at a fast pace. This is where the zone control comes into play as enemies will need to rapidly adapt to the ever changing position of your ball and its assumed threat.

Mid Game is where Orianna truly prospers as your range denies a lot of champions the ability to play while also dominating team fights in chokes or enemies over commiting. Your utility enables you to play offensively and defensively in a front to back play style, or augmenting your team's initiation with well timed Command: Dissonance or adding an ultimate on top of the engaging champion's combo.

Depending on your build or the enemy composition, Orianna also has very good lane side potential because of this utility. If you're in a favorable mid match up, it's nearly unplayable for the opposing mid if you're ahead in the side lane unless their shadowing jungle is strong.

You want to contest every objective while ahead or even to make use of your champion's kit, otherwise absorbing resources is your job to continue scaling. Teleport allows you to commit to farming without putting your team at a disadvantage and pressuring the enemy if they're unable to deal with your presence on the map.

It's important to recognize that Orianna is vulnerable despite her utility to hard engage making positioning important, playing front to back is the most consistent playstyle since it forces them to deal with the ball's position. (Casting while moving!) If you're initiating or creating plays with Orianna you have to remember that your ball has to consistently move forward making it harder to land than on an enemy running into your team.

You'll be playing nearly identical with the caveat of having some of the strongest teamfight potential and utility available in the game. Command: Shockwave will decide whether plays go in your favor or not making it one of the most important keys to the game.

Its important to use ultimate while denying outplay potential. This means casting your ultimate on stunned targets, taking advantage of Flash cooldowns or mobility spells to ensure landing the spell.

There is one thing that every Orianna should know and that is the power of fear.

The longer you hold your ultimate, the more pressure it generates. If you immediately cast Command: Shockwave and miss you'll lose control over a fight completely. If you opt to hold onto it, the enemy won't be able to move through your ball without being at risk of dying. This creates dead zones that the enemy can't move through, if they forget about it they die. I'd like to note that timing is a valuable skill set for Orianna since not ulting has the potential of losing your team a fight as well. Teammates will love to spam ping your ultimate if they feel like you using it on a singular target with Flash up is more valuable.