Mages

Mages

Mages aren't as easy as Ranged AD when it comes to items. For the most part, if a champion doesn't have severe mana constraints Rabadons Deathcap is a great first purchase. Otherwise Rod of Ages is completely viable as an early game purchase. Some champions want more utility and bulk and can benefit from Rylais, such as Vlad and Kennen, before picking up a Rabadons.

Mages always want to start boots 3x health pots, subbing in one mana potion instead of a health potion is also acceptable but not suggested. After that it's the general priority of Needlessly (if you can afford it)> 2x Dorans Rings > A third Doran's Ring (losing lane) > Sorceror's Shoes > Blasting Wand. Having two Doran's Rings on any champion with a mana pool is important because it adds much needed bulk as well as MP5. In some cases, Chalice works as a better item pick instead of one Doran's Ring, and most champions that use no Mana Pool will want a Hextech Revolver and Will of the Ancients in place of the Dorans Rings.

For runes, it varies from champion to champion. The only rune that is set in stone is the Marks for Magic Penetration. There's absolutely no stronger rune for Mages. Seals are either going to be flat MP5 (per level sucks) or HP per level if you don't need MP5 and then either flat magic resistance (if facing another mage, since most mages don't get mr per level) or ap per level (if you're crazy, which I'm sure you are). Finally your quints should almost always be flat ability power to start with 15, the same as a Doran's Ring, it adds a good amount of early lane dominance.

Masteries for Mages vary, but 21/0/9 tends to be best, so they get the increased buff duration and 3mp5 in the utility tree without sacrificing all of the offensive stats in the offense tree. It's viable to do 9/0/21, but I suggest against it, you lose too much potential.

As a final note, just about every mage gets Sorceror's Shoes, while in early game the exception to that rule is Boots of Mobility if you intend to roam and gank lanes predominantly. Otherwise you get Sorceror's Shoes and replace them with Mercury Tread when you buy your Void Staff, otherwise pick up Abyssal and Haunting guise for a stupid powerful early game lead.

* Ahri
Dmg: ***
CC : ***
Utl: **
Dif: **
Pot: ***

Core: Rabadons, preference for AP stacking thereafter.

Personal Opinions: Ahri was quickly nicknamed the pubstomper champion because honestly she's stupid powerful. She was built as a low damage champion with burst potential, but what came out was true damage dealing, long range taunt and high lane sustain.

Skill Advice: Her Q is her biggest damage output with the true damage. Try to take advantage with her charm shot. When you land her taunt and Q on an enemy, pop your ultimate towards them and activate fox fire while chasing them down and they die. Pretty simple, right?

Countered by: Cassio is one example of a hard counter for Ahri, she has more sustained harass available from behind her minion wave and can zone her without being in harm's way. Kassadin is another counter, but he's almost always banned so it's less important. Effectively shutting down Ahri early and preventing her from roaming is key.

* Anivia
Dmg: **
CC : ***
Utl: ***
Dif: ***
Pot: **

Core: Chalice, Tear of the Goddess, 2x Dorans Rins and pieces for Rabadons.

Personal Opinions: Anivia is a late game champion. She has severe dependance on Blue buff, Tear of the Goddess helps offset that need but can otherwise be skipped. It's not suggested to skip chalice however.

Skill Advice: Master the placement of her wall and you win! The delay on her Q is kind of hard to get used to, but when you learn how to properly aim it you have a better chance at destroying your lane.

Countered by: Champions with more up front burst potential. Anivia is a late game champion so if you can shut her down or ignore her attacks she's at a huge disadvantage. She requires her ultimate to farm effectively, so if you cut that out of the equation she'll be in a position to lose.

* Annie
Dmg: ***
CC : ***
Utl: ***
Dif: *
Pot: ***

Core: Rabadons and/or Rod of Ages, AP stacking thereafter.

Personal Opinions: Annie is freaking amazing. She's super easy to play and rains down punishment on enemies with her incredibly high AP scaling. Playing her is simple, wait til you get a stun then stun the enemy and unleash your rotation on them.

Skill Advice: Stun Tibbers > Stuncinerate, only use her passive charge on incinerate if Tibbers is still on CD and you don't need to save your CC for your enemy's channel, such as with Katarina's ultimate or Fiddle's Q. Stacking AP should be her foremost priority because of the 80% scaling with Incinerate.

Countered by: Longer poke, Orianna and Twisted Fate destroy Annie because they can farm from such a safe distance. If you stay away from her while she has a charge, she'll often be tempted to not waste the charge on last hitting with her Q and potentially make her lose farm.

* Brand
Dmg: ***
CC : **
Utl: *
Dif: **
Pot: *

Core: Rabadons or Rod of Ages, preference thereafter.

Personal Opinions: I don't really care for Brand. He had his time and that's when Annie and Brand were pretty much the only mages ever used because of their stun reliability. Brand is very easy to master and the reason you bring along Brand is for his Stun and AoE potential.

Skill Advice: Place his AoE pillar, stun them with his Q, then nuke everything with his E. Throw your Ultimate earlier if there's lots of enemies around or you're hugging the enemy. He's incredibly simple to play and his only limitation is his own mana constraints.

Countered by: Stronger burst or durability. Galio is one such champion that completely shuts down Brand by taking all of his harass and chunking him back. Steal his blue and he falls off like most mages.

* Cassiopeia
Dmg: ***
CC : ***
Utl: **
Dif: *
Pot: ***

Core: Rabadons, 3x Dorans Rings then preference between health and ap after.

Personal Opinions: Cassio is mai waifu. Well, at least one of them. She's absolutely amazing, has stellar damage output and she coils up and bounces around, so adorable. Her poke distance isn't super long range and she's extremely easy to play.

Skill Advice: R>Q>E>W, while that's the priority try to take at least two points in everything by level 9. W is her general slow effect and is still great for farming (With blue) and her Q is amazing harass even at level 1. Her twin fangs can be used twice per Noxious blast debuff, and it's cooldown is reduced by allied poisonous DoTs as well, especially Singed and Teemo's. Her ultimate is kind of hard to use because you can't necessarily aim it, but it can be the deciding factor in a team fight.

Countered by: Earlier dominance and a lack of blue buff. While she can solo your blue buff at level 4 if left unattended she'll typically wait for a meat shield to hold it for her. Once she gets blue buff she'll push you to tower and roam and gank other lanes. Place many wards and play cautiously if she's off screen and you'll have a chance at victory. The real imbalance behind Cassiopeia is that with just Rabadons and Rylai's she has enough nuke potential that she can build tanky. She's one of the few mages that can greatly profit from Warmog's armor, and for that matter two.

* Fiddlesticks
Dmg: ***
CC : ***
Utl: ***
Dif: **
Pot: **

Core: Rabadons, preference thereafter.

Personal Opinions: He's a hard counter to Vlad, not many other champions is he useful against. He has great damage output with his ultimate and self sustain with his drain. His fear is also the strongest version of fear in the game.

Skill Advice: Silence them, approach, fear then drain. Fiddles is very simple to play as. His ultimate has a flash component, so flash over walls to surprise enemies and you win group fights. Fiddles is extremely squishy, so consider building as an AP Tank. In the jungle he needs an early Oracles to be of effect or else all of his ganks will fail.

Countered by: Burst with CC. Get mercury treads and anything that can disrupt his channel and you break his only real means of damage output. Champions with bulk also tend to outplay Fiddlesticks, where Yorick would seem like he's easily countered with proper use of his Ghouls he hard counters Fiddles. The tether of his drain is slightly longer than the default cast range of 475, which is shorter than just about every ranged AD carry, wink nudge.

* Fizz
Dmg: **
CC : **
Utl: **
Dif: *
Pot: **

Core: Rabadons or Rod of Ages based on personal preference. Standard mage gear thereafter.

Personal Opinions: I want to like Fizz.. it's just hard. He doesn't have great potential, he's just a slippery bugger. He stacks a bleeding DoT and applies Grievous Wounds, his biggest asset is that he tosses a god damned shark which knocks up all enemies hit and slows them before hand.

Skill Advice: Master playful trickster and you master Fizz. Simple as that. It's a wall hop and has decent damage potential. He has built in damage reduction and the collision ignoring aspect of ghost, so it's easy for him to harass enemies since minion agro is to be scoffed at. His urchin strike applies on hit effects, so an early Lichbane is also a great purchase, but typically is worthless until you get Rabadons.

Countered by: Stronger early game poke. He has low to no sustain so if you force him to go oom you force him out of lane. He doesn't have great durability and while he can build as a bruiser, tank or mage, he tends to have the most effectiveness as a mage that hops out of corners with a shark.

* Galio
Dmg: **
CC : ***
Utl: ***
Dif: *
Pot: ***

Core: Chalice, Mercury Treads, Abyssal Sceptre and pieces for Rabadons after.

Personal Opinions: Galio is awesome, but in most situations he's outplayed by Maokai. He adds a lot of group utility through his slow, his zone speed buff and his defensive steroid he can place on anything. He's a great anti-mage pick and that's primarily how he functions. Where Maokai is definitely tankier with focus on tanky stats, Galio gets the three great MR items to start with then focuses on building AP.

Skill Advice: Use his Smite to harass champions and his Gust to clear minion waves, or a combination of both to ultra farm. His ultimate should be used in conjunction with flash to it's fullest potential, much like Amumu and especially when paired with, it has amazing potential as long as the enemy team doesn't have Irelia. Place his defensive steroid on allies that are in trouble or on yourself with a minion wave at your heels to offer yourself sustain in lane.

Countered by: Irelia is one such counter, she can typically break his ultimate right after he pops it late game. If your enemies ever pick Galio before you've picked an AP carry then go with double AD in middle and top, it completely shuts down Galio as long as you can keep some form of CC out of his ultimate range.

* Gragas
Dmg: ***
CC : ***
Utl: ***
Dif: ***
Pot: ***

Core: Rabadons, piecs for Deathfire Grasp, 2~3x Dorans Rings.

Personal Opinions: Gragas is not only sexy, he's also super powerful. He was added to the game with the intent of being a Tank, and thus he had amazingly high AP scaling. So people started playing him as a mage and he just destroys opposition.

Skill Advice: His Keg and Bodyslam are ultra farm potential so be sure to farm and leave your lane to gank or steal jungle. Also, his bodyslam goes through walls like a pseudo flash so he has amazing mobility and it has decent damage to boot. Using his drunken rage effectively is also important, he scales so well with CDR that he can keep it up permanently, which is a huge AD and defensive boost reducing all damage by up to 18%. Placement of his ultimate takes some getting used to, but it's amazingly simple when you get the hang of it. Use it to bring back fleeing foes after a squabble but focus on using it to seperate enemies. If you single out a champion that wasn't out and is now very far out you'll win.

Countered by: Early range dominance, he's a melee champion and doesn't have the luxury to farm with his Keg without blue or multiple Dorans Rings. If you zone him out early you can potentially snowball on him and make him a passive farmer until late game and a passive Gragas is a Gragas that isn't ganking nearby lanes.

* Heimerdinger
Dmg: ***
CC : ***
Utl: ***
Dif: **
Pot: **

Core: Rabadons or Rod of Ages, preference on AP stacking, pieces for Void Staff or the alternate first item.

Personal Opinions: Heimer is awesome. He can safely farm with proper use of his sit and forget turrets. He pushes hard and has amazing spike damage potential. He can solo Blue as soon as he gets double turrets, but he'll take it from you without your permission if you leave him alone, it takes him about 20 seconds to clear the camp with double turrets and a rocket.

Skill Advice: Turrets are your priority. They farm for you and zone your opponents. They're worth a little bit of gold so make sure you don't place them in a place where they can easily be killed together and focus on creating defensive walls with them. If you leave lane with some turrets farming you'll get EXP and Gold for their kills. Using his stun grenade properly is the hardest part, and sometimes his micro-missiles feel buggy. Pop his ultimate in gank scenarios and victory ensues.

Countered by: No real champions hard counter Heimer. Heavy CC pressure from junglers make him more passive and the lack of blue severely limits his damage potential. If his turrets ever just shut down in lane while he's still alive, he's planning a gank or helping with dragon, be sure to alert team mates.

* Karthus
Dmg: ***
CC : ***
Utl: ***
Dif: **
Pot: ***

Core: Rabadons, pieces for Void Staff, standard Dorans Rings ensemble.

Personal Opinions: Karthus is an amazing champion. It doesn't take long to learn how to farm with his Q, which leaves him mana capped at all times. He still has reliance on Blue, but his passive allows him to be suicidal and sometimes encourages it to activate his ultimate safely.

Skill Advice: Lay Waste is important. Place it in either a group of three or wait to place it in range of only one enemy to last hit them. Use his AoE effect only to clear minion waves at your tower that you can't farm with delicacy and always save your wall for ganks and team fight situations. It's not worth using otherwise. His damage potential is great very early and falls off in mid game and comes back again once he has enough AP and requiem at rank 3, where it'll do between 600~1000 damage to all enemy champions.

Countered by: Banshee's Veil is one "meh" counter to Karthus. Get a Negatron cloak in lane and he can't touch you without heavy intervention from Junglers and whatnot. If you can zone him then you'll win your lane, but be cautious about killing him if he hasn't used Requiem recently and is low on mana, and always remember to never stand by Karthus after he dies. He'll plant bombs, activate his AoE then requiem when everybody gets away. It hurts. Lots.

* Kassadin
Dmg: ***
CC : **
Utl: **
Dif: **
Pot: ***

Core: Rod of Ages and pieces for Rabadons.

Personal Opinions: Permanently banned champion for a reason, he's a great counter pick to just about any mage. He has huge damage potential and the ability to escape from anything. Want to play him? Yeah, you do.

Skill Advice: Netherblades apply Rylai's proc, so it's a great item choice for him. Otherwise poke with your silence and farm with your slowing cone. For getting kills you rift walk to their heels, silence them, activate nether blades then slow and chase them. If they try to fight back you'll generally win because of his passive reducing all magic damage and converting the reduced amount into attack speed.

Countered by: Stealing his blue and destroying his early game. Gank him often and he tends to fall off. If the group doesn't fight well as a team he loses most of his potential as well. Otherwise I can't think of a champion that's a hard counter. Deny his early game farm and you win since he is a melee unit.

* Katarina
Dmg: ***
CC : **
Utl: **
Dif: *
Pot: **

Core: Will of the Ancients, Rylais, Rabadons or pieces.

Personal Opinions: I like her but I'm not in like with her. Wait, that came out wrong. She has great potential as an AP mid because she absolutely needs to get kills to continually feed herself. She has great group utility with her damage output and of course the only reason why she got a decent CC score is because she has access to grievous wounds on a short cooldown.

Skill Advice: You can use Shunpo to close gaps or escape, this is the most important factor to Katarina and also why you should consider always be carrying at least one ward to hop to. Most of the time you just poke with her throwing knives and then hop in to lotus if they're within kill range. She has no resource bar so she should build an early Rylai's to synchronize with Shunpo to force flashes.

Countered by: Heavier burst, if you force her to stay in lane then you'll eventually win it. The other big counter is any form of hard CC that will stop the channeling on her ultimate.

* Kennen
Dmg: **
CC : ***
Utl: **
Dif: *
Pot: ***

Core: Will of the Ancients, Rylai's, Zhonyas or pieces.

Personal Opinions: Kennen can be played as an AD carry or a Bruiser, but I prefer to make him a mage. He has vast damage potential and people expect you to be suicidal on Kennen, score. He has amazing late game utility and it's hard to win against him in lane without stacking defensive items.

Skill Advice: Depending on how you're playing and more importantly who you're laning against, Q is probably going to be your priority. It's a long range poke that helps him zone champions and allows him to even farm with it. His E is an escape mechanism and his W is a great way for ensuring stuns. Using his ultimate on one enemy is often a bad idea unless you're in a bad spot and absolutely need that passive proc for energy or a stun.

Countered by: Not much, if you can zone him out of his CS by being bulky enough then he tends to be at a huge disadvantage. This however is hard because of how much those shurikens hit for. If you counter him early game he'll have to go passive and potentially become worthless, so gank often if problems arise.

* Leblanc
Dmg: ***
CC : ***
Utl: *
Dif: *
Pot: **

Core: Rabadons, 3x Dorans Ring, Sorceror's Shoes and parts for Void Staff or Deathfire Grasp based on personal preference.

Personal Opinions: Nuke champion through and through. She's an amazing counter pick to most mages, her only flaw is that her damage potential greatly falls off late game. Once she has her ultimate she dominates her lane if she has any type of advantage.

Skill Advice: Mimic is her ultimate and her spike potential is simple. Q, R, W and E them after, it kills just about any mage that doesn't already stack MR. Once you know how much damage you do to the enemy champion with your spike, harass them to that level and win.

Countered by: Late game and Magic Resistance. Galio and Maokai are great counter picks to LeBlanc just because they can shrug off her harass and typically counter harass her. She falls off in late game when champions have more HP and defensive items, otherwise she's the golden child.

* Lux
Dmg: ***
CC : ***
Utl: ***
Dif: ***
Pot: ***

Core: Rod of Ages or Rabadons Deathcap and Boots of Mobility.

Personal Opinions: Lux is the epitome of a good middle lane mage. Her skillshots have ridiculous range and she has great damage potential. If you can secure Blue for yourself (gracious jungler or solo it) then go with Rabadons as a first big buy to melt off face. Otherwise RoA will help with her mana constraints.

Skill Advice: Poke and farm with Lucent Singularity. It's easy to get all of the minion wave with it as they approach, you just need to get the feel for it. If you ever land your snare, be sure to hit them at least once to punish them to proc your passive. You can't go wrong with her ultimate, it has such a massive width and depth range (that's what she said). If you ever kill your laning opponent and aren't completely crippled, go gank another lane. She's a lot like Sion in that boots of mobility make her a force to be reckoned with.

Countered by: Galio and Maokai, or just MR in general, unfortunately. If you stack MR before she stacks AP then she falls off and becomes a group fight utility. She's a lot like Cassio and Ahri where if you come back to lane with Negatron Cloak you'll start to dominate your lane. Steal her blue and she'll be in trouble.

* Malzahar
Dmg: **
CC : ***
Utl: **
Dif: **
Pot: *

Core: Rod of Ages or Rabadons, I find RoA works best as a first buy because of his ridiculous mana constraints.

Personal Opinions: Sub par mage, he has great potential, and tends to roflstomp low level play where people don't know what defensive items are. I'll sum it up in one acronym though, QSS.

Skill Advice: His DoT is his farming utility and he pushes extremely hard with it. His AoE damage field is best used in conjunction with his ultimate, which is a warwick lite suppression that is ranged and most importantly locks champions on all of your damage. He's one such champion that can only perform well with smartcasting. DoT to trigger Voidling, plant your zone, place your Silence nuke and then channel them and cast summoner ignite mid channel if they look like they'll die otherwise get ready to chase for a few seconds.

Countered by: Quicksilver Sash. 1440 gold and it completely shuts down Malzahar. I love Malz but huge mana constraints, QSS availability and somewhat uncontrollable voidlings make him a sub par mage. He's not bad, but it's hard to profit on him.

* Mordekaiser
Dmg: **
CC : *
Utl: ***
Dif: **
Pot: **

Core: Will of the Ancients, Rylai's, preference between tanky and offensive after.

Personal Opinions: Mordekaiser is great, but easily shut down by a smart player. He revolves around keeping his passive (hp shield) capped by continually clearing minion waves. What this means is that he's only a very viable middle lane pick if he has access to both teams wraiths. If you counter jungle yourself and leave only one baby wraith after he plows through a lane, he'll be in a position to lose his advantage.

Skill Advice: It's a lot of priority. His cone is the best for farming and his on-next-hit ability is great for tower diving because of it's high damage on a single target. His AoE shield is awesome to place on a front line minion to add some aggravation if your enemy is a melee opponent. Finally proper use of his ultimate can mean a free tower or not. While taking towers with the clone works best on AD carries, he's not always in the advantage to pick them up, they do make great tanks though.

Countered by: Constant poke, if you keep that shield down, especially in the early phases of the game he'll start losing health. It's as simple as that, keep his shield off, force him to use his potions then force him out of lane through an early burial or pill.

* Morgana
Dmg: **
CC : ***
Utl: ***
Dif: *
Pot: ***

Core: Rod of Ages, pieces for Rabadons, 3x Dorans Rings.

Personal Opinions: Morgana is great, she was my first AP carry and I have very fond memories of crybabies playing against her. She offers amazing group utility and if she gets fed she snowballs. She's not quite Veigar, but she has a hidden passive of making your enemies inclined to buy Mercury Treads.

Skill Advice: Learn to place her tormented soil to farm effectively. When you learn when and how champions use their skills, proper use of her barrier becomes less and less difficult. Her snare is stupid strong because of it's massive range and long duration of the snare. Her ultimate is great for a flash/ultimate since not many champions can out run her, so you've got to scatter like cockroaches or else.

Countered by: Ryze is one hard counter, otherwise just burst, shut her down in lane and you'll snowball on her. Otherwise, deny her blue and you'll be at the clear advantage. She has powerful initiation while still making people stave off their CC until her shield goes down which requires delicate timing or missed opportunities. There's a reason why Morgana is almost always perma-banned.

* Orianna
Dmg: ***
CC : **
Utl: ***
Dif: **
Pot: ***

Core: Rabadons, Chalice, 2x Dorans Ring, situational after that.

Personal Opinions: The history behind Orianna is a jaded one. When she was released, nobody played her, then she completely destroyed some tournament, I don't even know, and she was subsequently nerfed. In her current state, she's still very powerful as long as you think outside the box. Her ball's placement is key and when you get used to it, you can dominate with her. She's a late game power house.

Skill Advice: All of her skills are essentially attack skills, she has the general ball movement with her Q, she has the AoE farm with her speed buff/debuff and a defensive buff to whatever she attaches her ball to, as well as a nifty barrier. Keep your ball out at all times, use it to check brush and you're at a clear advantage. Attach it to allies when they tower dive because this gives you a better chance to hit them with dissonance. Just find your best method for maintaining her ball's placement and you'll come out on top. Also her auto attacks are powerful, never forget.

Countered by: A lack of blue buff is the biggest counter to Orianna. If you snowball on her in lane she tends to fall off without proper farm, but still doesn't have a problem coming back in late game. She's heavily team fight oriented, while she can win duels fairly easily, she shines the brightest when that ultimate chunks off the entire enemy team's health.

* Rumble
Dmg: ***
CC : **
Utl: **
Dif: **
Pot: ***

Core: Will of the Ancients, Rylais, preference for defensive or offensive.

Personal Opinions: I love Rumble, he's an amazing champion. He has a very weak 1-6, but after that he dominates his lane. He doesn't take much to master, just learn how to last hit with his harpoon and push enemies away from creep score.

Skill Advice: Taking a couple points in his harpoon help at level 1 and potentially level 4, but his flame spitter is sheer priority because of it's pushing power and harass capabilities. His shield should be leveled evenly or just behind his harpoons. Harass in lane and then destroy an opponent with your ult once you have it then snowball, Rumble in a nut shell. Destroy your first turret then roam. Remember, his passive doesn't do bonus damage to structures.

Countered by: Irelia, Vlad, Yorick. Champions with strong sustain completely destroy Rumble and force him to build defensively before offensively, while he doesn't fall off in late game it's still problematic for the enemy team.

* Ryze
Dmg: **
CC : **
Utl: **
Dif: *
Pot: ***

Core: Tear of the Goddess, Glacial Shroud, Catalyst the Protector.

Personal Opinions: Ryze is so broken, especially for a 450ip champion. He's a mage that builds with a focus on tanky stats, with his end game kit generally being Frozen Heart, Archangel Staff, Banshee's Veil, Rod of Ages, Rabadon's Deathcap and then preference on boots. He's an extremely powerful mage because he spams spells faster than any other champion and he gains a massive benefit from stacking Mana.

Skill Advice: Start with runic prison for help with a level 2 gank, otherwise start with and follow the priority of getting one rank in each spell but R>Q>W>E. Proper use of his skills is prioritizing Overload, one such example is; Q, R, E, Q, W, ,Q, where each comma placement is a second lapse in time.

Counter picks: Veigar, burstier champions that can shut him down early on. Once he gets his Tear of the Goddess he's hard to stop, but possible. Once he gets his Banshee's Veil and Glacial shroud he becomes top priority in a team fight essentially since, while he's very defensive, he deals more damage than it's worth to just ignore him, with some very obvious exceptions (ranged ad carries, those guys die first in all cases).

* Sion
Dmg: ***
CC : **
Utl: **
Dif: **
Pot: ***

Core: Rabadons, personal preference after that. Boots of mobility are great as well as the standard 2~3 dorans rings.

Personal Opinions: Super bulky mage? Yes please. Very early you'll farm with your shield, which means that you have lots of down time to gank enemy lanes, don't let it go to waste and you'll master the way of Sion.

Skill Advice: Super explosive shield, long range stun, maximum health after every kill and a large amount of spell vamp and life steal through his ultimate. His kit is stupid strong. Prioritize shield>stun>adpassive and you'll win. Rabadons first is the best potential pick with Deathfire Grasp and Void staff being great secondary picks because of their itemization. Lichbane is also great to increase his speed and his massive chunks with melee attacks. You go in with your bubble ready to burst, don't waste his amazing potential by staying out of fights.

Countered by: Denying his early game farm, if you snowball on him he can't snowball on you. In fact, it's hard to deal with him otherwise because he has such amazing potential in late game. Just about his only counter is pushing a fight to late, late game, building tanky and suggesting a Madred's Bloodrazor, which depending on how much he's farmed can be his ultimate bane or not.

* Swain
Dmg: ***
CC : ***
Utl: *
Dif: **
Pot: **

Core: Rod of Ages or Rabadon's Deathcap, latter prefered. Pieces for Void staff and 3x Dorans Rings. He can also use Will of the Ancients, but only build it if you're trading with an ally.

Personal Opinions: Swain is great. He has a severe blue buff dependency, but he's really great none the less. He's mostly a spike damage champion and has a lot of unbelievable sustain through his ultimate.

Skill Advice: Place Nevermove at their heels when fleeing or seeking to initiate if you're on even grounds, people tend to flee back to their turret with threats. Otherwise use your crow tether to help land Nevermove by placing it at the center of their character. Just remember to use your DoT before popping Ignite and your ultimate, hell even before tether and nevermove is great.

Countered by: Burstier champions. Shut him down pre-6 and prevent him from getting his blue buff and he goes passive in lane and loses a lot of effectiveness. Keep him zoned away from his minions and he does fine. He used to be a common pick in the Bruiser lane, but that's generally because he was a counter pick to Vlad. He doesn't stand much of a chance there anymore in my humble opinion.

* Twisted Fate
Dmg: ***
CC : ***
Utl: ***
Dif: *
Pot: ***

Core: Rabadon's Deathcap, pieces for Lichbane, 2~3x Dorans Ring, Void staff after.

Personal Opinions: Twisted Fate is often misconcieved as a ranged AD carry, but the fact of the matter is that he's too strong to not be a mage. his Q is ultra-farm and he can essentially keep himself in lane indefinitely with Pick a Card, even without blue buff. He's so simple to master that it's retarded. Did I mention his passive justifies buying at least one ward per ward cycle, make sure your team mates are playing to their best potential.

Skill Advice: Q is used to farm, just shoot it straight down the lane. You'll notice it start to kill off the casters and leave the melee half dead, so what you do to farm once every 30 seconds is to select red card, hit the middle melee coming in and then shoot your Q straight down. His ultimate allows him to roam, so select gold card and move towards any over extending lanes and teleport into bushes and get a proper gank done.

Countered by: Nothing, you just have to shut him down early so he doesn't gain his potential. When enemies start building into defensive items he loses most of his effectiveness, but he feeds himself with the use of his ultimate so it doesn't matter as much.

* Veigar
Dmg: ***
CC : ***
Utl: ***
Dif: **
Pot: ***

Core: Deathfire Grasp, Rabadon's Deathcap or pieces, 3x Dorans Rings.

Personal Opinions: Veigar is sleeper champion supreme. He has a very low learning curve, which is essentially just removing his stunning zone from smartcast so you can cast it with the barriers on opponents feet. Veigar also has a hidden passive, much like Teemo's global taunt, Veigar is a Global Mercury Tread purchase. If you don't have Merc treads with Veigar on the enemy team you just cost your team the game. Not all exaggeration.

Skill Advice: Farm with Baleful strike, this is the caster version of Nasus essentially except that he scales better with enemies doing stupid stuff, ala building into high AP instead of defensive AP picks. Place his stun field on enemies feet and instantly place Dark Matter's landing radius on their heels in hopes of them running backwards like natural human instinct. Save his ult for the biggest AP target on the enemy team and victory.

Countered by: Bruisers that just happen to wander into his lane. He loses a lot of damage potential if enemies have Mercury Treads since it's less likely that he'll hit with Dark Matter instead of just farm with it. Also bulky enemies that don't build into AP give him a run for his money. Ryze and Veigar essentially counter each other in all phases of the game.

* Viktor
Dmg: *
CC : **
Utl: *
Dif: *
Pot: *

Core: His passive upgraded with his E in mind. Rabadons or Rod of Ages, it doesn't matter since his damage isn't impressive late game anyways.

Personal Opinions: Viktor sucks, he's definitely the worst champion in the game. He doesn't even have potential. His only saving grace is that his death lazor can poke through turret range and that's it. His ultimate is also kinda strong.

Skill Advice: Death laser is just about your only reliable damage. You can't trade effectively with his Q, and W is best used in conjunction with his ultimate to start a team fight. Just shoot off your laser to farm the back row of creeps and sit in your lane while you can't effectively farm your melee minions.

Countered by: Soraka. Okay, not biting? Evelyn. No, really, Evelyn completely shuts Viktor down. Okay, okay, fine, just about every lane matchup is in favor of Viktor's opponent.

* Vladimir
Dmg: ***
CC : **
Utl: ***
Dif: *
Pot: ***

Core: Rylai's, Will of the Ancients, preference between bulk or offense after.

Personal Opinions: Vlad is stupid strong. He's my general go to bad mood AP carry. I picked him up on a whim and I've been actively playing him through his pointless buffs and upcoming nerfs. My favorite part are his cheesy catch phrases, though. He's not a vampire, shut up.

Skill Advice: Start with Transfusion, take a point in Crimson Pool for his escape mechanism then focus on a R>Q>E>W skilling order. Tides of blood is amazing for farming to the point where he can make a come back even if he's completely denied in early game due to his innate bulk. If an enemy champion is ever in range, poke with Transfusion. If you're being zoned, last hit with Transfusion. Play aggressively, focus on getting your WotA up before anything else and you'll win.

Countered by: Fiddlesticks, the bane of Vlad's existence. Yorick is also an amazing counter, essentially any champion with better lane sustain shuts Vlad down since his sustain is based on pokes for the most part.

* Warwick
Dmg: **
CC : ***
Utl: ***
Dif: *
Pot: **

Core: Rod of Ages or Rabadons, preference after between Defensive or Offensive.

Personal Opinions: Warwick is pretty trashy. He feels like an AD carry, but he scales so much better with AP while playing in lane. When he's in the jungle he can justify AD/AS because his potential is through ganking with his ult and disappearing again.

Skill Advice: In lane, max Q, it's a huge nuke. Justification behind RoA is to give him near infinite lane sustain without needing Blue buff to be effective, which makes him a great pick to synchronize with junglers that like to keep blue buff. Other than that, focus on AP/AS for laning to keep his Q at it's highest potential, remember that hitting structures is based off of 40% of your AP or your AD, so his W isn't completely lost.

Counters: Not many regular mages can counter him effectively because of his innate bulk. Even if he's put at a disadvantage if he has his ult he can typically restore up to 30% of his life if he's not ignited, but it's like Mundo tier, grab an executioner's calling or ignite for dire situations. Not all mages have access to reliable grievous wounds so suggest a lane trade if it's giving you a problem.

* Xerath
Dmg: **
CC : **
Utl: *
Dif: **
Pot: **

Core: Rabadon's Deathcap, 3x Doran's Ring, pieces for Abyssal or Void staff depending on preference.

Personal Opinions: He's "Meh" tier. He has very long poke and exerts pressure when he can farm an entire minion wave with just his Locus and Q straight down the center, then he wanders and ganks other lanes. That's about his potential outside of team fights, and even then he's not that great.

Skill Advice: R>Q>E>W, not much leeway with Xerath. There's a slight time delay to get used to with his Q, but not much above that. Take his E at level 1 to poke with it, otherwise play to your own strong suits. His ultimate is best aimed at the current center of the enemy character and not in their escape path since it's easier to dodge that way. You've got three charges so pop it to get an emergency stun off if you missed your Q or save it for your second stun.

Countered by: Heavy burst. LeBlanc is one such champion that completely shuts down Xerath. He has potential because of his late game poke, but his Q isn't wide enough to justify the lucky shots that get him kills, simple as that. Lux completely outplays Xerath in every aspect, the only justification for Xerath is adding stun potential.

* Ziggs
Dmg: ***
CC : ***
Utl: *
Dif: *
Pot: **

Core: Rod of Ages or Rabadons, 3x Dorans Ring. If you skipped RoA for Rabadons, build towards DFG instead.

Personal Opinions: Ziggs is stupid strong. It's not because of his second chance poke, his massive AoE that can travel a quarter of the map, hell it's not even his escape/anti escape mine. It's his slowing minefield. It can change the outcome of a team fight with just one cast, and that's why Ziggs is stupid. Otherwise he's a fairly balanced champion, even with blue buff he has mana constraints, so Rod of Ages is a good first big buy.

Skill Advice: R>Q>E>W, no real room for leeway. In lane his strongest damage output is his Q, but starting at level 1 if you're expecting a level 2 jungle Gank take E first so you have the slow field to force a flash or get a first blood. Focus on using his passive charges on champions and never throw a bomb unless it's going to hit a champion. Long and short of it. His ultimate also has potential to steal blue buff, so when that time comes and your enemy laning opponent leaves, just toss your ult if available.

Countered by: His own mana constraints. I can't really think of any hard counter to Ziggs off the top of my head. He doesn't have the durability for the bruiser lane so not being in solo mid can be problematic without intelligent gameplay. If he snowballs he's a force to be reckoned with, otherwise he's trash.

* Zilean
Dmg: **
CC : **
Utl: ***
Dif: *
Pot: **

Core: Rabadons, 3x Doran's Rings.

Personal Opinions: Zilean is great. He has a lot of damage, his only flaw is that he falls off in late game. His passive is a buff that the entire team feels, an 8% experience bonus which doesn't seem like much, but it's a lot. He dominates his lane early and zones enemies just by being in range. I like to play him as support, but he doesn't offer as much.

Skill Advice: Those bombs, they're his priority. After that evenly distribute points between his rewind and speed de/buff or focus on one or the either, it doesn't matter as much in the end but maximizing his speed altering spell can mean the difference between kills and escapes earlier on. His ult should be used on your Ranged AD primarily, it gives them a lot of leeway, but don't pre-emptively cast it, pop it on them when something goes for them so they can sit in and recycle their life.

Counters: I can't really think of many champions that counter Zilean other than Heimerdinger, who has sit and forget it poke which can help counter zone Zilean if you space them out well enough. So, as a general rule, late game counters Zilean.