LeBlanc Lane

I’m hoping this can be a running account of who I’ve managed to beat in mid lane as LeBlanc.  Although I feel that every champion has their counter in lane, LeBlanc has such an unbalanced kit that I feel if played correctly she should match up well against almost anyone.  In some cases a skilled player may be able to win the lane.  In other cases a skilled player should be able to crush their lane so hard that they force an uninstall.  These are their stories.

Kat is highly mobile, manaless, and is a generally strong laner.  This was a blind pick game that I went in solo queue, so no bonus jungle pressure or help from people that I know.  Kat showed up in lane after we traded for first blood with a Negatron Cloak.  I felt this was EXTREMELY rude, so I took out my frustration on her.  I was surprised at how effective their Nidalee and Jayce bot lane was.  Managed to hold our bot lane to a combined 1/5, and Riven was having her way with top, putting him at a lowly 2/4.

I’ve never been a fan of Ahri.  She left a bitter taste in my mouth when she was released.  She came out the same week that Riot refunded the dodge runes, so everyone who had been playing the game had enough IP to buy her.  Every game I got into would be Ahri vs Ahri in mid, and my Ahri would lose every time.  This was the lowest point in my League of Legends career.  I normally solo mid.  That’s my role in life.  Judging aggro, damage, ratios, distances, I love it.  Ahri would take mid.  Every.  Game.  I lost ten games straight.  Ten in a row.  I had to play bot games to get my first win of the day bonus!  I have been bitter towards Ahri ever since.  I know it’s not her fault (or is it?!) but I can still blame the crap out of her.  So here’s what happens.

I’ve never felt like Ahri brings anything to the table aside from a mage with a triple blink ult.  If you want to blink around with your ultimate, pick Kassadin.  If you want a line snare, take Morgana.  If you want someone with AP ratios as low as Ahri’s then you’d need to pick Swain.  Ahri can be out-classed in so many ways.  LeBlanc out-classes Ahri with flat damage.  LeBlanc’s AP ratio’s are higher than Ahri’s (despite Ahri’s ultimate having a 1.05 AP ratio if it hits the same target with all three jumps) so if you are building for late game you can get more burst.  However, LeBlanc allows you to have multiple dashes (on a much shorter cooldown) and multiple snares (if cloned with the ult).  That snare is also a 1.0 AP ratio, as opposed to Ahri’s single charm that is a 0.35 AP ratio.  If you use LeBlanc’s ultimate to clone her chain then it actually becomes a hypothetical 1.4 AP ratio, but that’s not nice to think about.  That makes the 1.3 AP ratio on Malzahar ult feel weak, doesn’t it?

It has been a good amount of time since I played LeBlanc, but it turns out I can still do it.

This wasn’t really a fair match-up, and probably one you won’t see very often.  I played versus an AP Tristana.  With the Nunu pick I thought for sure we would see an AP Ezreal, but such wasn’t the case.  Tristana’s burst comes from being able to jump in (W), hit me with her DOT (E), and then blow me away (R).  If some extra damage is needed, use ignite.  However, LeBlanc silences when she trades.  She also disappears when dropped below 40% health.  So instead of running, if I just fight I would win.  I actually go caught at one point in the jungle, Trist DFG’d mid-air and cut me down to less than 1/5.  I promptly stealthed, and pressed QRW and watched her melt.

The team still wouldn’t surrender until I bought a Soul Stealer just so I could pass Fiddle’s four stacks.  I didn’t notice that they had a 1-25 bot lane.  Even though my score isn’t anything spectacular I did have about 12 of our first 20 kills to really get the ball moving.

Just two short games later Joe and Ginger tempted me to try starting Soul Stealer and see what happens.  I have always been scared to start that item because if you don’t perform then you just look bad.  I hate seeing Lux finish 0-6-2 with a Soul Stealer.  I didn’t want to be that Lux.

This was by far the luckiest lane opponent I had ever played against.  Twice I had him dead with my ignite ticking on him.  Both times his jungle Yi showed up and Viktor went up a level before my ignite could finish him off.  Once, that’s lucky.  Twice in one game?!  That’s the luckiest.  I went Kage’s first, then got Soul Stealer.  I only made it to about 11 stacks before the other team gave up the ghost.  Two players without Flash really lets LeBlanc do what she pleases.  It was my first time playing versus a Viktor in mid lane as well.  I hate the laser bug!