Pre-Game

┌──────────┐ Introduction └──────────┘

┌──────────┐ Abilities └──────────┘

┌──────────┐ Runes └──────────┘

┌──────────┐ Summoner Spells └──────────┘

┌──────────┐ Itemization └──────────┘

Gameplay

Finale

┌──────────┐ Matchups └──────────┘

┌──────────┐ Summary └──────────┘

┌──────────┐ Credits └──────────┘

Hi, I'm Evandabank and welcome to my Mel guide. I've been playing LoL for 13 years now, since I was 7 years old. I started in Season 3 & have successfully hit Masters on every role. I'm currently GM on Bot and Mid. When it comes to Mel, since she was released, she quickly became one of my favorite champions due to her long range and oppressive agency. This guide will detail EVERYTHING for Mel including ALL of her matchups. This took countless hours and if you find it helpful, check out my other links for additional content.

E + Q Combo

E + Q combo. This combo is the bread and butter for Mel. We first use our E for the slow/root to ensure that we can hit more missiles from our Q.

E + Flash + Q Combo

E + Flash + Q Combo. Expanding on the previous combo, we can add a flash to surprise the enemy or extend the range of our E. This works similar to the Ahri E + Flash combo. Flash during the cast-time of your E spell to cause Mel to flash while casting.

E + Auto + Q + Auto + R Combo

E + Auto + Q + Auto + Ultimate: This combo is for maximum DPS. Weaving in auto attacks between spells is more effective against Melee champions that cannot trade back if we get within our auto attack range. Against other mages, this combo may bring us into range of their spells.

Game Phases

The bulk of the gameplay will be separated into different sections, with the primary focus being on the laning Phase. The phases of the game are as follows: Early-Game/Laning Phase > Mid-Game > Late-Game.

The early-game is characterized by laning and often ends around 14-15 minutes with the first towers following. During this phase, the game is very structured and there is almost a science to how it is played. Everything from warding, jungle tracking, trading, and roaming can be followed down to a T by advanced players.

After this phase, the game gets a lot trickier as turrets begin to fall. This enables champions to roam around the map and cause chaos. To make matters more complicated, burst champions, especially those with stealth are active with their first items, making life very hard for mages.

The mid-game is characterized by botlane and midlane swapping (often toplane will swap as well), with lane assignments becoming more fluid. Our playstyle will switch from being an long-range mage to playing for survival in the much longer sidelanes.

From this point in the game onwards, objectives will define the flow of the game, as everyone is attempting to farm for items, reset on proper timers, and generally be as strong as possible for each objective that spawns. Most higher elo games will end during this phase.

If the game makes it out of mid-game, this is characterized by champions having 4-6 items, towers being fallen, and death timers being so long that losing a teamfight will likely result in losing the entire game.

Why Roam?

Roaming is the best way to climb when playing midlane. Obtaining a 40cs lead by staying in lane and bullying your opponent IS effective, but what is even better, is killing the enemy laners/jungler and preventing them from threatening your carry potential.

Wave Management for Roaming

In order to roam, we need to shove waves. By shoving waves (clearing them as fast as possible), we are setting us up for a timer to move. The enemy laner, if they cannot keep up with our waveclear, will be forced to farm the wave under their tower. Now, utilizing this timer, we can move around the map freely, only returning once we need to clear/push the next wave.

Jungle Coordination

When we roam around the map, we want to look for opportunities to kill the opponent and invade the enemy jungle. As Mel though, we cannot invade a jungler by ourselves. This will require coordination with our own jungler, ensuring that we are moving at the same time to contest the opponents camps.

Ganking Strategy

In the event that we look to gank another lane with our roaming timer, we're trying to find any laners that are overextended in the lane, pushing for plates or generally far away from their tower/teammates. The general thought process behind a midlaner ganking is similar to ganking as a jungler, except we don't need to farm jungle camps on the way, and are free to gank whichever lane is most likely to result in a kill.

Early game waveclear as Mel can be tough. This is true for most mages, though some champions like Ahri and Syndra can do a better job than we can. The aim of the game is to push as fast as possible. When the enemy is not in our range, constantly auto the wave - do not stop.

What we want to avoid however, is wasting our spells and mana on the wave. If we have the opportunity, it is ideal to hit both the enemy and the minion wave with our abilities, but do not be spamming your spells on the wave before you have Lost Chapter.

Lastly, ensure that you focus caster minions first if you can. They do more damage and killing them before melee minions will cause your wave to push faster.

Ward Placement Philosophy

Warding can be a very confusing concept for most people, and at the most advanced forms of play, can require a lot of coordination. Let's try to keep it simple. We always place a ward that we think can keep us alive if we see the enemy jungler.

Stealth Champion Warding

For example, warding the river bushes against Shaco doesn't do anything. He is just going to use his Q over the wall. Instead, we want to ward his jungle camps (usually raptors). The same is true for champions like Evelynn and Twitch.

Standard Jungler Warding

Against more typical junglers, we want to ward the river bush that the enemy jungler is expected to come from. If we believe that the enemy is clearing from top to bot (80% of games this is true), then we can place a ward on the bottom river bush at 3:00. Why 3:00? Most junglers will fullclear or take 5 camps before ganking, this typically happens around the 3:00-3:30 mark.

Early Game Gankers

Lastly, if we are against an enemy jungler that loves to level 3 gank (Ex. Rek'Sai, Elise) then we want to place an early ward on the side that the enemy jungler begins clearing on (place a ward in top river bush if they start topside).

Why Jungle Tracking Matters for Mid

Since midlane is in the center of the map, we are TWICE as likely to be ganked as any other lane. The enemy jungler will always be close to us, within a 20 second walk, and will sacrifice very little in order to gank us.

Understanding the Difference

As a bot laner, knowing that the enemy jungler is taking Krugs on the opposite side of the map, allows you to play aggressive, pushing your lead without fear of overextending and being punished. As a midlaner, we don't have this luxury.

Champion-Specific Patterns

In order to track the enemy jungler, it requires a certain amount of game knowledge and understanding of how certain champions want to play. Some champions want to gank at Level 3, some want to fullclear into a gank. Some players will even do a unique clear on each champion. A good example of this is Shaco, where some players prefer to fullclear and others prefer to Level 3 gank in every game.

Timing Expectations

Generally speaking, if someone is clearing from top to bot, we can expect that they will either gank us from the topside before 3:00 or from the bottom side after 3:00. We know this because of how long it takes for them to clear camps and which camps they are likely to be clearing at specific points in the game.

Practical Application

There are two things to note here. We can place a ward on their raptors at the start of the game, giving us an idea of what side of the map they are starting on (most junglers either start raptors or take this camp 3rd before ganking). Once we find the enemy jungler, we want to hover on the opposite side of the lane. I.E, if we know the enemy jungler is topside, standing closer to the bot river will give us safer positioning. As a side note, it is also better to place a ward on the side of the map that we know the enemy jungler will be coming from OR an area that the enemy jungler must cross through to get to the other side of the map.

Lane Assignments

During the mid-game, our botlane/support duo will typically be farming the midwaves as we farm either the bot or top waves. Regardless of which sidelane we are farming, our playstyle is going to remain similar but will change slightly depending on the champions we are playing against.

Global Ultimate Threats

First thing to note, does the enemy have a global ultimate that can catch us extended. Example of this are Twisted Fate, Nocturne, Ashe, etc. If this is the case, we need to be extremely cautious, ensuring that we never overstep if these abilities are off cooldown.

Matchup Assessment

Second, we need to examine how threatening the enemy champion we are laning against is. First, are we laning against the enemy toplaner or midlaner? If we are laning against the enemy midlaner, you should have an idea of how strong they are and accordingly, how aggressively you can trade against them.

Toplaner Matchups - High Danger

If you are laning against the enemy toplaner, this can become much trickier and very dangerous in the sidelanes. The majority of toplaners will be melee champions that can kill us quickly in melee range. Examples include Fiora, Renekton, Riven, Ambessa, etc. We absolutely MUST respect their damage, and sadly, Mel doesn't have the damage unless she is very far ahead, to kill these tanky bruisers.

Safe Sidelane Strategy

In this case, we want to clear waves and stay safe under our tower, landing poke, and seldom playing aggressive unless we are positive we can land a kill OR someone else on our team is present to protect us.

Assessing Threats

Usually in the midgame, someone on each team will have A LOT of gold and be a clear threat. Whether its the enemy toplaner or ADC with 10 kills, we always need to be aware of who is the largest priority for us. In the same vein, some enemy champions may be useless after the laning phase, struggling to complete these first items. Stay aware of the gamestate and the first rule of mid-game teamfighting is this: Do I need/should I fight?

The Golden Rule: Should I Fight?

The answer will often be yes, but sometimes the answer will be no. It is too often that games are thrown in a dragon fight that is CLEARLY not winnable. If an enemy Ezreal has a full 2-items and nobody on your team has the damage to kill him, you will lose the fight unless the Ezreal does something horribly wrong. Do not be afraid to give objectives in conditions like this.

Mage Positioning & Targeting

If you do decide to fight the objective, our job as a mage is to stand far back, using our spells from range, and only targeting enemy squishy targets who find themselves overextended. With proper positioning, we stand back and allow our frontline to engage and tank damage for us. Ensure that you use spells on the highest priority target in range (a fed enemy or an enemy carry is of high priority), or that we target the same enemy as our teammates.

Situational Awareness

While mage team-fighting seems simple, just stand far back and target enemies in your range, it requires situational awareness and understanding of where the enemy champions are- standing far back is useless if the enemy Qiyana comes from behind and oneshots you.

Communication & Flexibility

Always remain aware of the conditions of the fight, communicating with your teammates, and willing to give the objective should conditions become unplayable for your team.

At this point in the game, most towers have fallen and the game will be over in 1-2 teamfights. Sidelaning is no more. Our biggest concern, especially in soloqueue is that your ADC will randomly run into midlane and immediately get killed. This happens ALL THE TIME. Do not leave your team alone, and only defend/ catch sidewaves when necessary. We should have 4-5 items at this point, and getting more gold/items from farming is great, but protecting our team from dieing is the highest priority. Teamfighting in the late-game is the same as mid-game, but with more extremes. Tanky champions will be nearly unkillable while mages, assassins, and ADCs do CRAZY damage to each other. One mistake can lose the game, so we need to minimize our own, while capitalizing on the enemies.

Stealth Ward will be swapped for Farsight Alteration. With this trinket, we want to have it off cooldown for each objective that is spawning. With the trinket off cooldown, we can use it on bushes where the enemy might be camping, or to give vision for our jungler to smite-steal the low-hp objective. In the event that no objective will be spawning for over 2 minutes and our blue trinket is off-cooldown, we can place it similarly to a yellow ward, in any area around the map where the vision might save a teammate from a gank, or will give us a pick if we find an enemy overextended and shown on our blue ward.

Champions Table of Contents Champions Ahri | Akali | Akshan | Anivia | Annie | Aurelion Sol | Aurora | Azir | Cassiopeia | Corki | Diana | Ekko | Ezreal | Fizz | Galio | Garen | Gragas | Heimerdinger | Hwei | Irelia | Jayce | Kai'Sa | Karma | Kassadin | Katarina | Kayle | LeBlanc | Lissandra | Lucian | Lux | Malzahar | Naafiri | Orianna | Pantheon | Qiyana | Ryze | Sylas | Syndra | Taliyah | Talon | Tristana | Twisted Fate | Veigar | Vel'koz | Viktor | Vladimir | Xerath | Yasuo | Yone | Ziggs

Ahri

Strategy Mel and Ahri have an even laning phase. Similar to most mage-matchups, whoever gets priority and dodges more spells is winning. Sadly, Ahri's Fox Fire orbs are not dodgeable and she can proc electrocute with them. As such, we need to stand further back and poke her out with our range. In the event that Ahri comes into close quarters to attempt to trade, ensure that she is far enough forward that she ends up tanking your minion wave. Use your W to block her charm. If you have high-ping and she is very close, it can be very difficult to react to her charm in time. Essentially, you have the range advantage here, use it to poke out the Ahri, though she will be able to obtain priority in this lane. This is a skill-matchup.

Akali

Strategy Akali is one of my personal least favorite champions to play against. Akali's Q is nearly the range of our auto attack and will require us to have some pixel-perfect spacing if we want to avoid taking damage. Just lack all assassins though, we have excellent range her and can play from behind our minion wave, using our spells to bully the Akali out of lane. If she purchases magic-penetration, invest in a null-magic mantle to avoid getting one-shot. At level-6, we can never win a fight if manages to get on-top of us. Poke her out, play from range, DO NOT DIE. This is an Akali favored lane and we need to scale into the mid-game without dieing.

Akshan

Strategy This lane is definitely not Mel-favored. Akshan wins almost every lane in the game but he is completely useless in teamfights later into the game. Once again, play from range and try to land your free poke from distance. DO NOT go too far aware from your tower. All it takes is one good swing off the wall and Akshan will claim half of your HP instantly. Twice and you are dead. We need to shove waves, ping his roams and follow when possible, and pray that our team will respect his strength. The sad reality of this lane is that we have minimal impact to do anything. We need to wait for our jungler to gank or for Akshan to make a mistake before we can capitalize.

Anivia

Strategy I love playing this lane. This is a super-fun skill matchup. We are stronger than Anivia in the first couple of levels. Be careful though, her Q is deceptively long range. Wait for Anivia to cast her Q on the wave level 1 and take a strong trade into her, skilling E for the root, or skilling Q if we are confident that we can hit a large number of missiles. If anivia never casts a spell on the wave, we can skill our Q here and poke her from distance. At level 2, she is temporarily stronger then us, and we need to respect her Q+E combo. After this however, we are stronger for the rest of the game with the assistance of our W making it impossible for her to land her combo while this spell is off-cooldown. Keep in mind however, that we cannot "pop" the Anivia Q after reflecting it. The snow circle thingy is always going to pop at the end of its travel distance. After level-6, Anivia will perma shove waves with her ultimate. Do the exact same and shove waves and match Anivia's roaming throughout the map.

Annie

Strategy Annie is really good into Mel. Nobody on the planet has the reaction time to use your W in response to Annie's flash Tibbers. As such, we need to change our build path into Annie to avoid getting exploded on-cooldown. Look to abuse the Annie levels 1-5, she is super weak and lacks range. Take an early reset, investing into a null-magic mantle. This will prevent the Annie from being able to one-shot you for the majority of the game. After finishing your core 2-items, OR once the Annie gets fed/ has too much damage, turn your null-magic mantle into a verdant barrier. Annie is a simple champion and outside from her Flash one-shot combos, you will be able to survive, shove waves, and poke her out of the game.

Aurora

Strategy Aurora has crazy early game damage, and we cannot afford to be trading auto attacks with her, giving her passive process. Most auroras will use their Q+E together, when they do this, we can look to reflect back the projectile. Stay back and use your Q for poke. When aurora goes invisible, wait for her to reveal herself before we start using spells. This matchup is Mel favored due to our far range and ability to abuse her without Counterplay. Aurora does have stronger wave clear though, and you need to ensure that you aren't constantly getting shoved under tower. Max E in this lane.

Azir

Strategy One of the hardest matchups in the game for us. We have nothing to reflect against Azir as none of his damage is from projectiles. We're also a sitting duck against his Shiruma Shuffle (where he ults you into his team). Shove waves as much as possible. Short-trading is all we can manage here. Trading auto-attacks for extended fights is always losing against Azir. Look to shove-waves, roaming around the map to make a greater impact. You are stronger in skirmishes than Azir and you NEED to use this to your advantage or you will get outscaled.

Cassiopeia

Strategy Cassiopeia struggles from a lack of range with her spells. Be careful though as her Noxious Blast, while unreliable, is slightly shorter range than our spells and can do some serious damage if we are spacing poorly. If we play well, Cassiopeia has a terrible time in the early game and won't be able to touch us. Keep in mind, once she hits the first Q, she gains a burst of movespeed that will enable her to chase us down- it only takes 1 for Cassiopeia to claim our whole health bar. Poke Cassiopeiea from far, respecting the slightly shorter range of her Q. Priority (shoving the wave) is not the most important in this matchup, as if Cass wants to shove, she has to use A TON of mana. Max Q in this lane.

Corki

Strategy Corki does a lot of damage, especially early-game, but similarly to Draven, is not much of a threat outside of his high-damage and falls off in the lategame. Our win condition against Corki is our superior range and ability to outscale him. To play the lane, we have to abuse our range. A good Corki can zone us off of some CS, but will have to tank our abilities in order to do so, losing his HP in the process. It's likely that you will go down some CS in the lane phase, and that's totally okay. Not dieing in this lane is a massive win for us. Sadly though, we will struggle to win skirmishes against corki unless our jungler is significantly stronger. Play safe and use your W to reflect his Q (phosphorus bomb) whenever possible.

Diana

Strategy Similarly to most assasins, Diana is a champ that we can outscale. Unlike other assassins though, she has some scary range with her Crescent Strike. After level 6, if she can hit her Q and get a full combo on us, we are dead. We have to dodge Qs, either be playing for out of her range (very hard), sidestepping (better), and playing on our W cooldown to reflect it back (optimal). We have good waveclear into Diana. If she decides to E into you without hitting her Q, she can't dash again for 20ish seconds and we can abuse this timer to lay down heavy poke. Most of the time, this lane is a wash (nobody will get kills), if both sides are playing properly. If you fail to reflect her Q, block the damage of her ultimate (do not use it on the initial pull) with your W. Max E in this lane.

Ekko

Strategy Ekko cannot kill you in one combo. If an Ekko tries to Phase Dive onto you, immediately use your W and trade back into him. You will always win the trade if you reflect any of his spells and prevent him from proccing his passive. However, if he ever hits his Parallel Convergence, you won't die, but you will be forced to recall. If an Ekko steps out of vision, you can expect he is casting his Parallel Convergence and plans to enage on you. Be ready for this and backup when you cannot see him. Poke him out of lane and you can easily get a CS lead here and even a solokill if he overstays on low HP. Very very good lane for Mel. Max E in the lane.

Ezreal

Strategy Ezreal mid hasn't seen play in the last couple of patches, but he is still an effective midlaner. Our W against Ezreal is best used when if he lands his W on us and uses another spell/attack to proc the explosion damage. He is not a very strong champion, but don't be over aggressive, throwing your E out and giving him an opportunity to dash on top of you. Play from range, use your superior waveclear, roam to get a lead around the map, and poke him out of lane with only your Q. Max Q in this lane.

Fizz

Strategy I hate Fizz with a passion. Not that Fizz is actually a good champion, because he definitely isn't, I just personally struggle here. Anyways, Fizz has super predictable damage that can easily be blocked with our W. For the first 3 levels, we want to start with our E. WE NEVER use it if Fizz has his Playful/Trickster off cooldown to dodge it. If we do miss our E and he manages to get on top of us, we will take way too much damage and be forced to reset. Instead, always use your Q first, hoping to bait out his E. If he never uses he E, that is just fine, we take our free poke in the lane and force him to reset on bad timers. We have superior waveclear too and can easiy shove him under tower and roam. After level 6 though, we only use our W to reflect his ultimate. If we ever find that our W is on cooldown and his ultimate is offcooldown, backoff and wait. Max Q in this lane.

Galio

Strategy Galio can only ever do damage to us if we overextend. Play from the end of your auto attack range and he won't be able to hit a justice punch. If he uses justice punch, immediately run backwards and use your E to root him in place, preventing him from landing a taunt afterwards. This is another lane that we can abuse as a result of our long range. This lane is very easy and we can only use if Galio uses his ultimate to swing fights for his teammates. Keep him shoved under tower and use your prio to roam and affect the map. Max E in this lane.

Garen

Strategy Likely, he will run second wind + Doran's shield making him almost impossible to kill. Clear the wave and roam. Interacting in this lane is almost pointless after he gets some health/MR. Keep in mind that any damage will reset his passive timer, preventing him from gaining. After level 9, his passive healing becomes even stronger. This lane is won by affecting the map and outscaling. You have too much range to take damage from him, even if he tries to flash on you. You get outscaled here though and NEED to gain a lead somewhere else on the map. Max E in this lane.

Gragas

Strategy Not played mid very much, and for good reason. Gragas can use his Q to do some poke to you and has some sustain with his passive. Besides this, he cannot his you with the rest of his spells. Even his ultimate is too close range to knock you into him if you play from the max-range of your spells. HOWEVER, he can E+Flash combo you to catch you offguard. If he does this, press your W while he is mid animation. This will allow you to block the inital damage and you can usually just walk away afterwards. Max E in this lane.

Heimerdinger

Strategy This champion is very annoying. You can't really kill his turrets unlike other mages (Syndra especially). Kill his turrest if they are focused on your minions and he is far away from you. Focus on clearing the waves and getting CS. Using spells on him is a lost cause, you will lose CS due to his fast waveclear if you don't push as hard as possible. You will go down CS against a good Heimer. Ping for your Jungler to come if it possible to kill him. Some jungle champs are simply not strong enough and will get oneshot by Heimer (Elise, Brand, Zyra, Kha'Zix). In this case, just scale and hope to win through superior teamfighting.

Hwei

Strategy Hwei has been hit with nerfs so many times and is now just a bad champion. He does very little damage. When he uses his lava river, be cautious of him using his E+E(jaws) to pull you into the river and proccing his passive. You have more range and your Q can be cast from behind minions unlike his best poking spell Q+Q (fireball). Free lane here, poke him out and look to kill once he is low. This lane is super winnable and you can look to win the game through annihilating him in lane and carrying teamfights.

Irelia

Strategy Irelia does a lot of damage with max passive stacks but is relatively weak otherwise. We need to respect her range and ability to engage on us after Qing onto a low ranged-minion. Do not be afraid to give CS in exchange for suriving the lane. Irelia is not very strong late-game and we are more than happy to scale safely. Only use your E after she has dashed ontop of you. Do not use it while she is dashing to a minion, its too easy for her to dodge in response. We can use our W on her E or on her Ultimate. Both are excellent uses and we should reflect whichever spell she casts first. Max E in this lane, take W level 3.

Jayce

Strategy Typically played in the toplane, Jayce has historically seen some play in mid. His Q is very long range, but cannot go through minions. Stand behind the wave. He may look to use his To The Skies, hammer form Q on the back caster minions. If he does this, he will slow you and you will take some damage from the spell. That's totally fine. He will tank your entire minion wave and you are free to root him. He cannot dodge while he is in the air from his hammer Q. If he never decides to use his Q on you, you can poke him down from range very easily. He does have stronger skirmishing if he manages to get a full combo off on your jungler. Use your W to block damage from his Empowered Q or from his To The Skies. Very easy lane, max Q.

Karma

Strategy Very strong lane bully and we need to be very careful. If we overstep, she can use her Inner Binding to land a free root on us. If she uses her empowered Q, we CAN block it, but only if it lands directly on us. If it explodes on the ground nearby or hits a minion, it won't reflect from our W. As always, we play from range here. Save your E until he is in closer quarters (it's too easy to dodge if she is far away). Do not use your W on her root. Only use it on her Q. We outscale in his lane. We will lose lane prio most likely but can oustcale.

Kassadin

Strategy This is the same for all mages. We get outscaled hard but can get prio and abuse him early. Mel can abuse Kassadin better then most due to her deceptively high execute threshold and high early game damage. We abuse him when he goes for CS, especially when he is under tower. After he hits level 6, he can win trades but only if his ultimate damage hits us. Space properly to ensure that he cannot use it for damage. At level 11, he becomes a real threat and can easily solo kill us if we are far from our tower in the sidelane. Abuse your superior early game to get dragons, invade with your jungler, and gank other lanes. This lane is won by playing the map. Doing nothing and staying in lane (without getting solo kills) will almost certainly lose you the game. Max E in this lane.

Katarina

Strategy Katarina is not a hard champion in lane. For some reason, it always seems like Katarina will randomly roam bot and get a double kill. Ever. Single. Game. Shove waves and poke Katarina out. If she uses her Bouncing Dagger, run forward such that she cannot get her passive damage from the blade. Continue to trade and you can almost always in the trades, especially if you W any of her damage. Keep in mind that when you use your W, it will reflect many of the daggers from her ultimate over the 0.75 seconds that your reflection is active. Always keep track of her movement and ping her roam timers to your team. If she does not start Doran's Shield this lane is super free. She should be going down 50cs by 14 minutes with several plates lost.

Kayle

Strategy Easy lane. Abuse her from range. She is only a threat after 6. If we dodge her Q she is very weak. Don't use your E from max range, only when she attempts to get closer. Abuse her before she gets her range at level 6. You get outscaled against a good Kayle.

LeBlanc

Strategy This is the champion that I personally ban every game. I don't think she's unwinnable or anything, I just don't like playing against her. Mel is one of the best mages against LeBlanc though. Since LeBlanc's distortion is linear (she moves in a straight line), it is super easy for us to root her while she is flying. We can always use our W to reflect her chains. Invest in a null-magic mantle after finishing lost chapter but do not buy mercury treads (ever). Those boots are a bait on mages. Sit on your null-magic and then upgrade to a verdant barrier when LeBlanc becomes stronger in the sidelane. Save your W for her chains OR if she attempts to do a Q + W + R combo, you can use your W to avoid all of the damage. This can be a mental warfare to read what spells/combo she plans on using. Max E in this lane.

Lissandra

Strategy Lissandra suffers from a lack of range but her gank setup can be lethal. Focus on tracking the enemy jungle to ensure she doesn't use her glacial path into a root. If everything goes correctly, you can use your W to reflect her Q poke occasionally and use your longer ranger to poke her out of lane. If she chooses to engage on you without her jungler present, you will easily win the trades pre-6. After 6, she cannot one-shot you with her ultimate but will usually win trades if she combos properly so we need to play a little safer.

Lucian

Strategy Probably the hardest ADC for us to play against in midlane. His Q is not reflectable and we don't have any great reflections here, outside of his ultimate if he uses it poorly or reflecting 3 of his auto attacks. I recommend playing safe in this lane. We need to avoid him poking us with his Q through minion I.E, do not let him line it up properly. Do not use your E carelessly as he can easily dash out of the way. Use your Q for poke and focus on shoving the wave/suriving. This is a very skill-dependent matchup.

Lux

Strategy Lux has longer range, just like you. Luckily, we have two spells that can poke her out while she only has her lucent singularity. Bad news though, Lux Lucent Singularity is unmissable if the Lux player has decent aim. Focus on clearing waves. If you do get hit by her binding without reflecting it, you can always use your W to avoid the damage from her ult that will follow. If you reflect Lux E, you have no way to pop it. It will just form a slowing circle that automatically pops after 2.5 seconds. Ideally, we reflect the bindings here and only reflect the E from Lux when needed.

Malphite

Strategy Malphite has a short-range poking spells that is very easy for us to avoid if we play from our range. We can poke him out of lane. If Malphite runs Doran's ring, we can kill him before level 6. If he hits 6 and tries to ult onto you CAST YOUR REFLECTION. This will allow you to avoid the burst from his ult, otherwise, you might die and he can cast his seismic rock while you are stunned, preventing us from being able to reflect it. Shove and roam if he goes tank and you are unable to kill him. Max E in this lane.

Malzahar

Strategy Malz is very abusable but his some excellent gank setup for his jungler with his flash + R combo. Just like Lissandra, we need to keep strong jungle tracking to ensure that we don't get caught off-guard. His passive shield lasts for 0.25 seconds after he is hit with a spell. This means that he will block almost all of our Q missiles, but will not block the damage from scorch+comet. Poke his shield with your Q missiles. Use your E when the shield is down and combo with your Q for some bigger damage. We can get a strong cs lead her. Your autos will one-shot his voidlings. Kill these the moment that he spawns them to avoid letting him push the wave. Ensure that you do not stand next to a minion that is dieing with Malzahar E on it. It will bounce to you after it dies. Max Q in this lane.

Morgana

Strategy Morgana has strong waveclear with her W. She can avoid your E cc with her blackshield. Poke her down with Q, and focus on clearing the wave such that you aren't forced to spend time CSing under tower. Reflect her Q when needed. Very easy lane though we probably can't solo kill her.

Naafiri

Strategy Naafiri suffers from a lack of range. Do not use your E unless she engages and uses her invulnerability spell first. Poke her with your Q from range and focus on dodging her daggers. She is a much stronger skirmisher than us but we will heavility outscale. Max E in this lane and ping her roams around the map.

Neeko

Strategy If we play poorly and tank all of her spells without reflection, we will get massively outraded in short-trades. When Neeko uses her W in lane, do not panic, just wait for her to use her root and quickly reflect it. Do not use a max range E against neeko. Poke her down with your Q. Often times, Neeko players will use their full combo on the wave. In this case, we can walk forward and take strong trades into her. Not a common lane. Count minions to avoid dying to her ult unexpectedly. Max E in this lane.

Orianna

Strategy This lane sucks because we have nothing to reflect. While we do have longer range, it's not by much. Orianna has more damage, stronger waveclear, a better ultimate, and more DPS. play from range and focus on dodging her ball Q+W combo. Call for your jungler when you are really struggling. Often times, if you are both low and the Orianna looks to Q her ball onto you, you can Flash+E combo, dodging her spells and if you do it quick enough, she doesn't have time to react. The whole lane revolves around her ball. If it is not on top of you, she cannot cast her spells. Sadly, she can move it every 3ish seconds with Q and we need to play around this timer. Consider banning her.

Pantheon

Strategy Pantheon is horrible into Mel. Spam your spells on him. Do not use your W when he engages with his W onto you. He can hold his auto attacks and wait out your W in this case. Instead, if he does W on you (he shouldn't you have too much range), wait out the stun, root him after, and reflect one of the Qs that come later. Super easy lane and ping out his movements/roams since he use his ultimate to kill your teammates. We outscale here.

Qiyana

Strategy This is one of the hardest assassin matchups. Two key things: We CAN reflect her Qs and DO NOT stand near walls. If she ever gets a full combo on us we are dead. Stand back and use your spells to clear the wave. Use your reflection if she dashes on top of you. In teamifghts, you can reflect her ultimate with your W. This is absolutely massive and can be used to turn fights completely, especially in the river. Do not throw out your E until she is too close to you to react. She will just dash to dodge it. Max E in this lane.

Rumble

Strategy Rumble has no high-range spells to touch you. Poke from range and stand behind minions to avoid his electro harpoon. Do not let him shove the wave for free. Max E in this lane.

Ryze

Strategy Swain is dangerous if he can manage to stick ontop of us in melee range. We have better range and can lay down good poke. Avoid getting hit by his E, which we can reflect with our W. We cannot reflect his Q. Very simple lane, keep distance, dodge spells, and you should be just fine. Max E in this lane.

Sylas

Strategy After level 3, Sylas full combo will take us down to about 150 HP if he gets all of his passive auto procs (without ignite). We CANNOT afford to make mistakes and tank his full combo. Poke him with Q, saving your E for when he attempts to dash forward and use his combo. If he is Q maxing, we can using our W to block his Q, but its really difficult since the animation where he puts the circle on the ground is very short. We can also reflect his Abduct, which can be dangerous since the reflection will pull us to the Sylas. As such, when we reflect his E back at him, we can immediately press our E after the stun expires to avoid Sylas immediately casting Kingslayer on us. The lane is tough due to Sylas damage. Don't use E until after he dashes. Max E in this lane.

Smolder

Strategy Smolder sucks as a midlaner now. He is very squishy and will lose every trade if you land spells. Poke him out with your Q and E. Max Q in this lane.

Swain

Strategy Swain is dangerous if he can manage to stick ontop of us in melee range. We have better range and can lay down good poke. Avoid getting hit by his E, which we can reflect with our W. We cannot reflect his Q. Very simple lane, keep distance, dodge spells, and you should be just fine. Max E in this lane.

Sylas

Strategy After level 3, Sylas full combo will take us down to about 150 HP if he gets all of his passive auto procs (without ignite). We CANNOT afford to make mistakes and tank his full combo. Poke him with Q, saving your E for when he attempts to dash forward and use his combo. If he is Q maxing, we can using our W to block his Q, but its really difficult since the animation where he puts the circle on the ground is very short. We can also reflect his Abduct, which can be dangerous since the reflection will pull us to the Sylas. As such, when we reflect his E back at him, we can immediately press our E after the stun expires to avoid Sylas immediately casting Kingslayer on us. The lane is tough due to Sylas damage. Don't use E until after he dashes. Max E in this lane.

Syndra

Strategy Syndra is equally as hard as Orianna and the lanes are very similar. We can use our W to reflect Syndra W and R, but we cannot reflect her other spells (including her E scatter). This is a skill matchup but we need to be slightly better and hit slightly more spells than the Syndra since we do less damage. Dodge as many of her Qs as you can. Consider purchasing boots early for easier dodging of her spells. If she guys magic pen items (shadowflame, stormsurge), invest in a null-magic mantle, only upgrading to a Banshee's Veil later in the game. The mage with the better movement will win in this lane.