League of Legends - LeBlanc Guide

LeBlanc is a nuke caster, armed with a snare, silence and a strong escape ability. LeBlanc is capable of pulling off many different combos and tricks due to her ultimate being able to repeat any of her skills. LeBlanc is an extremely fun champion and while shes relatively easy to learn, she is a hard champion to master.

This LeBlanc guide aims to be a basic and simple introduction on basic strategy that should be adopted when playing LeBlanc, it is recommended for people just starting to use LeBlanc.

LeBlanc's Abilities

• 
  Mirror Image (Passive) LeBlanc's passive will save you a surprisingly number of times, it gives you that split second to either activate a summoner spell, run into a bush or use Distortion. While it won't save you from a 5 person gank squad, it will turn those 50/50 chances of survival in your favour. The clone does not deal damage but can still be moved using "ALT + Click"
• 
  Sigil of Silence A strong single target attack, especially when it is combined with Mimic (ultimate). it is great against casters and teleport based champions (Kassadin) due to its silencing ability when combined with another spell.
• 
  DistortionThis ability is LeBlanc's best ability to trigger Sigil with. It is also an an amazing escape ability and provides LeBlanc with strong tower-diving power.
• 
  Ethereal Chains LeBlanc's long range snare ability, it also has a slowing effect that takes place before the snare is activated, making it very deadly for ganks or picking off enemies that linger behind.
• 
  Mimic (Ultimate) LeBlanc's ultimate is simply amazing, not only is it a free % damage boost to any one of her skills it allows her to complete many different combinations of spells for various effects. The symbol for this skill will change based on your last spell cast.

Ability Order

Skill ordering should follow: Ult > Sigil of Silence > Ethereal Chains > Distort

Maxing Sigil first gives you powerful single target burst. while a point in Distort at level 2 gives you the silence activating ability you need. Ethereal Chains is a strong choice to max 2nd as the snare duration increases, providing you good mid-game utility. However if you need more burst power maxing Distort second can increase your damage.

LeBlanc Runes

Red (Marks) - Magic Penetration
Yellow (Seals) - Mana Regeneration Per Level
Blue (Glyphs) - Cooldown Reduction
Purple (Quintessences) - 1x Magic Penetration & 2x Health

LeBlanc uses standard caster runes, magic penetration on Marks and one Quintessences (the other ones as Health) give LeBlanc strong early game burst damage and means she will deal true damage to most enemies when she has her Sorcerer's Shoes. Mana regeneration on Seals take care of LeBlanc's mana usage and Cooldown Reduction allows LeBlanc to use her abilities more often, an important part of any mage.

Summoner Spells

 

Best Summoner Spells:
-Flash
-Ignite

Flash allows LeBlanc to pull off some incredible combos and also makes her very difficult to kill. Ignite will increase your burst potential and (hopefully) grab you lots of early kills that you would otherwise miss out on.

Other Good Summoner Spells:
-Ghost

Depending on your LeBlanc playstyle you may wish to take Ghost.

Masteries

LeBlanc is best played as a 9/0/21 mastery build like most caster champions.

The offensive tree offers some ability power, cooldown reduction and magic penetration.

While the utility tree offers all the important stats for a mage including mana regeneration, neutral buff duration, cooldown reduction and improved movement speed.

Item Build

 
Final Item Build:
-Sorcerer Shoes
-Mejai's Soulstealer
-Rod of Ages
-Rabadon's Deathcap
-Abyssal Scepter
-Rylai's Crystal Scepter

Steps/Reasoning:
-Open with a Doran's Ring, providing you with your early game survivability and mana regeneration, with a small AP boost (although LeBlanc's ratios aren't great). Alternatively you can start with Boots + 3 Health Potions
-First trip back you want to grab your Sorcerer Shoes and your Mejai's Soulstealer, LeBlanc thrives on early-mid kills and needs these to be effective late-game. If you aren't doing well grab a Catalyst instead.
-From here you'll want to grab your Rabadon's Deathcap as early as possible.
-Next turn your Catalyst into a Rod of Ages or a Banshee's Veil.
-Your next 2 items will depend on the game situation. If the enemy is giving you trouble with their AP champions you want to build an Abyssal Scepter. Or if your team needs some more crowd control (in this case a reliable slow) or you want more health consider a Rylai's Crystal Scepter

Alternatives:
-No Mejai's Soulstealer (If you have a bad early game)
-Banshee's Veil (Helps you jump in and out more freely as you can counter a stun, slow etc.)
-Void Staff (If the enemy stacks magic resistance)
-Deathfire Grasp (Cooldown reduction and mana regeneration with a nuke active).
-Zhonya's Hourglass (Armor boost and invulnerability active)

General LeBlanc Tips & Tricks

• LeBlanc has many possible combinations thanks to her ultimate, consider which skill you want to use twice depending on the opponent. If you want to nuke them down mimic Q, for chasing down you may want to mimic W and for beefy characters that you want maximum snare duration on, you want to mimic E.
• Try and keep track of what your last spell cast was so you know what you are going to mimic with your ultimate, alternatively you can look at the abilities picture in your champion toolbar.
• LeBlanc is not a strong farmer, grab as many last hits as you can early and concentrate on ganking for your gold.
• You are an assassin, your job is to destroy the enemy squishy champions and get out.
• Abuse the long range on Ethereal Chains, it can be used on people running away from you for your team to easily catch up. It is also great to cast behind you as you are running away, to slow down any chasers.
• LeBlanc is a deceiving character, my favourite trick is to activate Distort while inside a bush, only to activate it again in a few seconds returning to the bush, running off in a different direction.

Early Game (Level 1-6)

• Focus entirely on last hits until level 2 or 3, then you want to start your harassment with Sigil and Distort. Also use Chains if they are away from minions.
• Do not use your abilities on minions, conserve your mana for harrassment.
• You always want to keep your Distort up (and have mana for it) when there are enemies missing. If the enemy has a jungler you want to play cautiously when its on cooldown.
• You should always have a solo lane, you are much stronger in a solo as you can focus your strong early harassment against one target.

Mid Game (Level 7-12)

• As LeBlanc you want to focus on ganking lanes as much as possible, you are not a strong lane pusher or farmer and so you want abuse this stage of the game to generate gold through kills and assists.
• Simply using Sigil of Silence and Mimic is enough to harass your opponent while keeping your escape (Distort) up, save your full combo for when you go in for the kill.
• Try gank with your late game carry to build up their power, as LeBlanc can drop off late game.
• Similar to above, concentrate on your ganks on the enemies late game carry to shut them down early (Another reason why you are great in mid, is your ability to shut the enemies middle lane down).

Late Game (Level 13-18)

• LeBlanc does not have a powerful team fight presence especially as she lacks a good area of effect spell. As such concentrate on snaring enemies that overextend with Chains and silencing their support/AP carry.
• You can quickly kill minion waves with Distort and Mimic if you are underfarmed, be careful though as you are using your escape mechanism.
• LeBlanc drops off late game due to the large amount of team fights, but you are still amazing 1v1, stalk the jungle and try to get a 1v1 situation. If you get in trouble you can simply double flash with Distort, Mimic and Flash to escape. 

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