League of Legends : Morgana

Morgana, The Fallen Angel, has seen increased play lately in the bottom lane as a support in the NA LCS. While she is definitely good in that role, I prefer to play her in the mid lane as an AP carry. When I first started playing League of Legends, she was one of the first champions I gravitated towards. I was drawn in by her amazing imagery and backstory, as well as her kit. Morgana has some great initiation tools, a good amount of CC, as well as awesome wave-clearing abilities. What more do you need in an amazing champion like her? Through this guide, I will be showing you various aspects of Morgana’s play, as well as giving you tips on how to utilize her strengths in battle!

Pros and Cons of Morgana

Pros: Morgana has amazing crowd control abilities and can pull off some really good combos. Her Dark Binding ability can catch out and root enemies in place, that way she and the rest of the team can collapse on the team. Soul Shackles (Morgana’s ultimate ability) slows down enemies, and if Morgana stays in range for the whole duration, they are rooted for a few seconds as well. If she pulls off a well-timed combo, she can keep an opponent rooted for 4.5 seconds with a fully leveled up Dark Binding and Soul Shackles. 4.5 seconds is unheard of in the game. That is amazing power to have. Morgana is also very hard to gank due to her incredible Black Shield ability, which absorbs magic damage and blocks all CC for a short while. She can completely negate all the damage a high burst champions can put on her. Black Shield can also be cast on an ally, so she can provide even more protection. Morgana can farm really well with her Tormented Soil ability as it deals damage to enemies over a period of time. So, if there is a big minion wave coming your way, you can cast Tormented Soil and all the creeps will be whittled down to nothing in no time. Plus, when you combine Tormented Soil with her passive Morgana has pretty good sustain.

Cons: Assassins are part of the meta nowadays, especially in the mid-lane. One thing that they have that Morgana doesn’t is mobility. Morgana severely lacks it, and that could potentially come back to bite you if you happen to play her. Yes, she has Black Shield and that can negate some damage against her, but you have to have really good timing with the ability. If you are in the middle of a fight and Black Shield is on cooldown or you mess up the timing, she can go down fast. She has some good CC-ing abilities, but one (Dark Binding) is a skill shot and can be hard to land if you are used to using it often or are new to Morgana. Timing and positioning is also critical when using Soul Shackles as the root won’t be activated unless Morgana is still in range. Plus, her abilities are easy to dodge, and enemies can always flash out of range for protection, so while Morgana has a powerful kit when implemented correctly, her damage isn’t always guaranteed.

Runes

Marks: Magic Penetration x9- These help Morgana hit just a little bit harder and give her some good burst. A fairly standard pick-up for a mid-laner like Morgana.

Seals: There are actually a variety of choices for seals for a champion like Morgana. If you find yourself short on mana, you can pick up some mana regen seals, which is good if you are a bit heavy-handed on Morgana’s ability and like to spam Tormented Soil for wave clear. Health seals are coming back into the limelight and are a great pick if you want to be able to have a bit more sustain in lane. While they have been nerfed a little bit, armor seals are a decent choice too if you want to be protected against early game damage from your lane opponent and/or jungler.

Glyphs: Much like seals, there are a bunch of choices here. I usually go flat magic resist as it gives you great early game protection and security against AP mid laners who love to harass you. Come late game however, you may be inclined to pick up scaling magic resist glyphs instead. Scaling Ability Power glyphs are worth taking a look at too. They provide you with a decent amount of extra AP when you get to late game, and any AP boost you can get is quite useful.

Quintessences: For me, there are two choices here: flat AP and/or movement speed. Obviously, the extra AP gives you a lot more power early game, and sometimes that little extra AP makes all the difference, and it definitely makes an impact early game. If the enemy mid-laner doesn’t pick up flat AP quintessences, you can burst them down hard. Morgana lacks in mobility when compared to popular meta mid laners like Leblanc, Ahri, etc., so if you want to make up for that, movement speed quintessences are a great choice If you want to improve her positioning as well as mobility.

Masteries

When I play Morgana as a mid laner, I like to run 21/0/9 masteries. Sorcery is a good stat to invest points in. Cooldown reduction is so good on Morgana, especially if you like to play aggressive and pull off combos with her Soul Shackles, Dark Binding, and Tormented Soil. Like focusing on CS? Feast is quite useful in that case, since it restores health and mana every time you successfully kill a minion. Having that extra sustain can make all the difference on Morgana. Mental Force also gives you some much needed ability power. Archmage also increases your ability power output. It is a good idea to put points in stats that increase ability power or magic penetration. As for the Utility mastery tree, Meditation is an excellent pick for the mana regen it gives off, which is amazing on any ability power based champion. If you rely on summoner spells a lot, Summoner’s Insight could be a good option too. Honestly, there a lot of utility options for Morgana, so just choose what feels best for your playstyle.

Summoner Spells

Ignite and Flash are pretty much no-brainer pick-ups if you’re playing Morgana. Ignite is great for securing kills in lane and synergizes really well with Morgana’s kit. Her Tormented Soil deals damage over time, and if you need that little extra oomph to finish them off, Ignite could be great in that situation. Morgana already has high damaging abilities and lots of burst, and Ignite just builds upon that. Flash is great on any champion. If Morgana needs to get in rage for her ultimate, or alternately, get out of the fight after she uses it, Flash is a great tool and escape tactic.

Abillities

Soul Siphon (Passive)
With Soul Siphon, Morgana is granted a certain percentage of spell vamp, which increases every 6 levels. This provides her with so much sustain in lane. If you like to play a bit more aggressive and harass the enemy laner, Soul Siphon will definitely be your best friend. Come late game, the healing on Morgana due to her passive is insane.

Dark Binding (Q)

Dark Binding is such a great initiation tool and can make for some great combos. It is a skill shot, so it can be hard to land at first, but this ability has so much potential. It has a pretty long range and acts as an awesome nuke attack that deals a ton of damage. However, it can be blocked by enemy minions and travels quite slowly, so it can be easy to dodge. Work on your positioning and try to zone others out with Dark Binding. Come late game, Dark Binding has a three second snare, and if you play your cards right, you can kill an enemy in no time. When combined with Tormented Soil, your poor opponent will be trapped and rooted while taking a ton of damage over time and will not be able to do anything about it.

Tormented Soil (W)

Acts as a very good farming ability. You can kill minions very quickly. If farming tends to be your focus, I would max this right away. Tormented Soil is also great at dealing damage over time, so If the enemy team is grouped and clumped up and looking to engage, just pop Tormented Soil to deal some damage across the area they are moving around in. The damage it deals is based off of the enemy’s missing health, so if you are able to catch out a low-health fleeing enemy, it is wiser to use this instead of flashing and trying to land a Dark Binding or wasting your ignite. You can use Tormented Soil as a zoning tool to prevent enemies from collapsing onto you. It is especially good if you want to check for a bush gank.

Black Shield (E)

Easily one of the best defensive abilities in the whole game. Timing is critical on Black Shield, because if implemented correctly in a team fight, it can turn the tables on the enemy team and cause your team to have the advantage. Black Shield absorbs magic damage and prevents disables for 5 seconds. You can tell a good Morgana player from a bad Morgana player but how they utilize Black Shield. She (or an ally if you decide to use it on them) basically has full immunity from magic damage and CC while Black Shield is up. Morgana is pretty well-protected against ganks since junglers won’t be able to engage on her when she uses this ability. It is also really good in team fights. Is the enemy Leblanc getting ready to pull off another one of her usual high-damaging burst combos on one of your squishy allies? Well, she won’t be able to any more. If your team is looking to engage you can use Black Shield on your main initiator and then go in, since your front line will be protected and any magic damage or CC against them will be negated.

Soul Shackles (R)

This is a great ultimate and extremely useful if the enemy team is grouped up together. It deals a huge amount of magic damage and slows them. If Morgana stays in range of said champions for the whole duration, even more damage is dealt, plus the enemies caught out will be stunned for a short while. However, jumping into a fight and using this can be a bit risky. If you build Morgana glass cannon style with no health or defenses, she can instead be the one who gets bursted down and blown up. However, if you itemize Morgana correctly with a Zhonya’s Hourglass and build a little more tankiness, then she can absolutely devastate the enemy team with this ability. Soul Shackles is also great in a 1v1 situation. You can easily burst down an opponent and catch them off guard and get an easy kill. Morgana’s ultimate is amazing when used in a combo. When used in conjunction with Dark Binding, Morgana has 5 seconds of CC, and that is huge.

Build

This is what I typically build on Morgana. She is actually quite malleable in terms of what order you buy items and what you actually build, so you are able to play around a bit and try different stuff out. Athene’s Holy Grail is a great core item to get early on since it provides Morgana with 20% cooldown reduction, which can come in handy if you like to spam Dark Binding. If you have CDR runes in your build, you will have 30% total cooldown reduction. That shaves off about 3 seconds of the cooldown of Dark Binding, and that is huge. Plus, if you get into a lot of team fights and use Black Shield, the CDR is handy in that situation as well. Besides the cooldown reduction it provides, it has a decent amount of ability power and magic resist, which offers you a defense against ability power oriented mid laners, especially if you build Athene’s early on. The mana regen is huge as well, and if you get this as your first core item, you will have the upper hand in lane.
Liandry’s Torment is a great damaging item. Magic penetration is often hard to come by, so this is definitely a must-have item for Morgana. It allows her kit and abilities to hit even harder than they already do. It actually works really well with her abilities, since the burn passive deals double damage if the enemy’s movement is impaired. So, if one of your opponents is fleeing and has low health and you pop your Dark Binding and root them, Liandry’s Torment will help Morgana deal a ton of damage.
Zhonya’s Hourglass is an essential item on Morgana, especially when it comes to her ultimate ability. Yes, Soul Shackles allows her to deal massive amounts of AOE damage along with a slow and stun, but it leaves her quite vulnerable if her enemies are able to stop the full channel of her ultimate. Zhonya’s lets Morgana have invincibility, which gives her increased odds to have a successful ultimate along with being able to fight off her opponents and get away. Plus, the armor and huge amount of ability power isn’t anything to sneeze at either.
Rabadon’s Deathcap is pretty self-explanatory. It gives Morgana a ton of ability power and damage. If you want to go for a glass cannon/high damage build, you can rush Rabadon’s Deathcap first, but I personally like to build more defensive items like Zhonya’s first, but again, you can play around with Morgana’s build a lot, so it is ultimately up to you. Void Staff offers some ability power along with some magic penetration, and that is a valuable stat to have so you can shred through the enemy team. If they don’t build any magic resist against you, with this build, they are in deep doo-doo.

Conclusion

Morgana is one of my favorite champions. She can wreak havoc on anyone and everyone on Summoner’s Rift. She has great scaling damage, insane spell vamp and sustain, and a huge amount of CC that can stop champions in their tracks. Morgana is multi-faceted champion that can bring many tools into a fight and is definitely worth taking a second look at. Many people play her in the support role nowadays, but I think her true power really comes alive in the mid lane.

Kelly Stith