Introduction x Intro x Lore x Closing x Changelog Champion x Pros / Cons x Abilities x Ability Sequence x Tips and Tricks

Pre-Game x Runes x Summoner Spells x Matchups x Synergies In-Game x Items x Gameplay x Strategy x Warding

Intro

NOTICE: Before starting to finish this guide (took me long enough) I'm slowly migrating everything and touching up the guide. If you see any mistakes please message me! I'm going to be wrestling with tables for awhile.

Hi! My name is Spice, and Welcome to my Morgana Guide. Morgana was my first champion I ever played and I got really hooked on her, and in turn have accumulated around 1.1 Million Mastery Points on her. In this guide I will show you various builds for Morgana and how to make use of her kit to the best of my ability. I'm trying my best to write this guide and it is my first, so all and any feedback would be much appreciated.

Pros and Cons

Pros + High Damage Output + Two forms of Hard Crowd Control (Root and Stun) + AoE Slow and Stun + Amazing Pick Potential + Black Shield's CC Immunity and general magic damage reduction.

Cons - Low Mobility - Semi-Reliant on Landing Dark Binding - Long Cooldowns in the Early Game - Fairly Linear Playstyle - Max-Range Dark Binding's can be fairly easy to dodge.

Abilities

PASSIVE

Soul Siphon (Passive): Morgana restores health equal to 20% of ability damage dealt to champions, large minions and large monsters. The sustain Soul Siphon provides throughout the game is much more noticeable after the changes. It rewards you for landing more Dark Binding's with more overall sustain and in teamfights the health restore can be very helpful.

Q

Dark Binding (Q): Morgana releases a sphere of dark magic that travels in a line, dealing 80/135/190/245/300 (+90% AP) magic damage to the first enemy hit,and rooting them for 2/2.25/2.5/2.75/3 seconds. This is one of the core abilities of Morgana's kit. It is used to catch people out, initiate skirmishes, disengage, and pick people out of team fights. Dark Binding's base damage is amazing as it is, and the 90% AP ratio just makes things all the better. Even if you don't build much AP, Dark Binding will hit like a truck and may catch the enemy off guard.

W

Tormented Shadow (W): Morgana infects the target area for 5 seconds, causing enemies who stand on the location to take magic damage every half second, increased by 0% − 170% (based on target's missing health). Every time Soul Siphon heals Morgana, Tormented Shadow's cooldown is reduced by 5%. Total Damage is increased by 50% for large monsters Tormented Shadow can make for some nasty extra damage and can be a good zoning tool. When using it to harass an enemy, try and place it where you think they will move, not where they are, so you can guarantee multiple ticks of damage. Mostly you will probably be comboing this into a Dark Binding for extra damage, since it also guarantee multiple ticks of damage. It also can be used very effectively as a zoning tool. Low health champions can be killed outright due to the fact that Tormented Shadow deals more damage to lower health champions. With the new changes its imperative to place your Tormented Shadow where you know it will get the most procs. Having Tormented Shadow on such a low cooldown can really ramp up your overall damage at all stages of the game.

E

Black Shield (E): ] Morgana applies a magic shield on an allied champion or herself for up to 5 seconds, absorbing magic damage and rendering her target immune to all Crowd Control while the shield is still up. 80/135/190/245/300(+70% AP). Black Shield is very useful at all stages of the game. Black Shield has no cast time and therefore can be used to intercept crowd control abilities and other spells such as Blitzcrank's Rocket Grab and Zyra's Grasping Roots. When maxed it can shield a good amount of magic damage while also acting as a spell shield. Remember Black Shield unlike other spell shields, will not negate effects of abilities that are not Crowd Control. For example, Death Sentence will negate the actual CC of the pull but it will not negate the second part of the ability, which allows Thresh to dash to whoever is hit. Remember that if your opponent does too much magic damage that isn't tied to a Crowd Control ability and breaks the shield, the person shielded will not be immune to Crowd Control.

R

Soul Shackles (R):After a 0.5 second delay, Morgana latches chains of energy onto nearby enemy champions, dealing initial magic damage 150/225/300(+70% AP). The tether grants true sight of affected enemies and slows them by 20%. Targets who did not leave the tether range after 3 seconds are stunned for 1.5 seconds and dealt the same magic damage again. Soul Shackles is an amazing ability for peeling, skirmishes, picks, and team fights. If used with Dark Binding, you can root/stun an enemy for 5 seconds. Going untargetable does not break the tethers, so if you use Zhonya's Hourglass, the second part of Soul Shackles will still stun whoever is in range.

Ability Sequence

Skill Max Order #1. Soul Shackles 6 / 11 / 16 #2. Dark Binding 1 / 4 / 5 / 7 / 9 #3. Black Shield 2 / 8 / 10 / 12 / 13 #4. Tormented Shadow 3 / 14 / 15 / 17 / 18

> > > Dark Binding is Morgana's most reliable CC ability. It has one of the longest Crowd Control durations in the game and still hits like a truck due to the 90% AP ratio. The root it provides is long enough to make picks and burst people down even with only your ADC. Maxing Black Shield second is almost always a great option because the CC immunity you gain from it always quite useful and it can shield a lot of damage when maxed. It is amazing during skirmishes, picks, and team fights where one of your teammates is going in aggressively. Maxing Tormented Shadow second has the possibility to cause problems such as stealing farm from your carry or pushing the wave too hard. In my opinion Dark Binding and Black Shield are more important abilities and in the support role, the better of the 3 basic abilities to max. Also in the early game, using Tormented Shadow can drain your mana reserves very fast, so keeping it at rank one keeps the mana cost lower and more manageable. Lastly, You always want to max Soul Shackles whenever possible. The cooldown is decreased and the damage is increased each time you upgrade it.

Runes

Summon Aery

Morgana utilizes Summon Aery very well since it gives a reliable source of harass when since it can proc on auto-attacks and on Tormented Shadow. It also gives a small shield scaling with AP on whoever you cast Black Shield which is nice to have. Arcane Comet is an option if you want to focus more on damage, but I still prefer Summon Aery.

Manaflow Band

Manaflow Band is overall the best rune out of the three on Morgana right now. The amount of sustain it brings into the laning phase is amazing and it stays relevant throughout the game. It is easy to stack in the early game with Tormented Shadow since its easy to land and you'll start benefiting from it very early in the game.

Transcendence

Getting flat Ability Haste is always helpful on champions that rely on their cooldowns so heavily such as [Morgana]. The meat of this however lies in the level 11 spike, where on champion takedown it reduces your basic abilities cooldown by 20%

Scorch

Scorch can ramp up your damage just enough that your poke in lane will be five times more likely to tilt your enemy. I'm finding myself taking Scorch over Gathering Storm, but sometimes I will switch it up. Both work.

Perfect Timing

If you're going to build Zhonya's Hourglass, Stopwatch builds into it reducing the cost by 300 gold. It also provides the one time use active for when you want to engage with Soul Shackles. Alternatively, you can go with Magical Footwear or Biscuit Delivery if you don't want to build hourglass or would prefer to have something else. If you can use Hextech Flashtraption well, then I'd recommend that over the other alternatives.

Cosmic Insight

Regardless of what you may be building, Cosmic Insight is always a good choice on Morgana. All of the CDR stats it gives can be prove to be very useful at all stages of the game.

Summoner Spells

Flash is so versatile that one should always take it, in my opinion. Flash can be used as an escape tool and also be used with Morgana's infamous engage, Flash> Soul Shackles> Zhonya's Hourglass.
The aggressive summoner spell of choice. It can be used against champions like Soraka and against ADC's early game to reduce the healing they receive from their support or their lifesteal. Likewise, it can also be use to secure kills and can make it easier to fight at early levels with the intent to gain a kill.
Exhaust can be very useful against assassins and divers to prevent them from reaching and killing your allies. It is also useful if you want to shut down an enemy carry, although it does not reduce attack speed anymore. It can still work wonders though.

Items

Starting Items

Spellthief's Edge

Relic Shield

✦ Spellthief's Edge gives more damage and mana regen, which helps a lot in the laning phase. Since you can proc a lot of your tributes with Tormented Shadow, It's not hard to get the extra gold you need to finish the Frostfang quest and start buying your items.

✦ In lanes that you have to play more passively or might have trouble poking, Relic Shield is the play. Executing minions is a whole lot safer than trying to get damage off.

Trinkets and Consumables

Warding Totem

Oracle Alteration

✦ When you start your game you aren't going to have your Frostfang quest finished, and warding is very important at all times of the game. You should have Stealth Ward until you finish the quest and can upgrade to Oracle Lens.

✦ Clearing wards is a huge part of League of Legends. Denying enemy vision whether it be to prevent counter ganks or to stop them from seeing your team taking objective. Oracle Lens summon a drone of sorts that sweeps the surrounding area detecting all units within its detection radius regardless of terrain and brush. Unseen units, as well as visible traps and wards, will be displayed as a red silhouette. And as stated on the Wiki, this does not render them targetable.

Along with wards, Oracle Lens can be used to remove traps and other wards such as Teemo's Noxious Trap and Shaco's Jack In The Box.

Oracle Lens can also be used to detect Camouflaged/Invisible units due to the fact that if an enemy champion/unit is camouflaged and under a sweeper, it will outline said champion and/or unit.

Mythic Item Options

Imperial Mandate

Locket of the Iron Solari

Liandry's Anguish

Shurelya's Battlesong

✦ Imperial Mandate is what I find myself running most often right now. Since Morgana's kit relies heavily on crowd control such as Dark Binding, you can easily activate the passive coordinated fire. Coordinated fire marks a target that is slowed/immobilized and deals damage, Allies can detonate the mark which deals more damage and gives you both increased movement speed. The cooldown is 6s per champion, which means you will definitely have it up every time you hit a bind. The raw stats all ark beneficial to Morgana, and the mythic passive AP bonus suits her playstyle well.

✦ Locket of the Iron Solari is a good defensive mythic for Morgana. It provides both armor and magic resistance so it covers both sides of the damage spectrum. The active shield is extremely good in teamfights and skirmishes, as the shield applies to EVERYONE nearby. They also added an aura back, which grants nearby allies five armor and magic resistance, but the kicker is for every legendary item you have, the aura INCREASES by 2. So at full build the aura would be providing 10 armor and magic resistance.

✦ Situational, I build it into tanky teams if I have the gold to complete it fast enough. Both of the unique passives compliment Morgana really well though. The damage over time is increased when you immobilize a champion. HOWEVER, it is extremely good on her right now. If you want to go AP I would highly recommend using this item.

✦ .

Core

Zhonya's Hourglass

Redemption

✦ Zhonya's Hourglass doesn't have to be a core item but I find myself building it almost every game no matter where I take Morgana. The active is very invaluable and as I mentioned earlier, its synergy with Soul Shackles makes it a great tool to turn the tide of skirmishes, teamfights, or picks in your favor.. I'd recommenced building as your second or third item, depending on how the game is going for you, if you are going more damage or utility, and the enemy team composition.

✦ Redemption's stats and active benefit Morgana all around and can change the tides of a teamfight with the heal. The base stats are nothing to scoff at and every single one does indeed benefit her. There isn't really much else to say about Redemption. It's an insanely useful item with invaluable utility which I'd highly recommend.

Utility

Ardent

Mikael's

Zeke's

Chemtech Putrifier

Vigilant Wardstone

✦ I see a lot of people (esp. in lower elos) rushing Ardent Censer as a second item or even a first item. I would advise you to not do this. It works far better as a 3rd or 4th item and even then I find it situational. If I ever build this item, it is usually after a Redemption since the active applies the Ardent Buff to all allies in it.

✦ If you truly want to go all out and be able to cleanse cc, you want Mikael's Blessing. In my opinion it is very situational but it is definitely viable and I've built it a decent amount. The base stats all work well on Morgana too.

✦ Zeke's Convergence's base stats and cool passive make it one of my personal favorite support items. It's synergy with your ultimate in teamfights is insanely good when you attach it to an AD carry or an auto-attack reliant champion. It gives you a healthy amount of Armor, CDR, Mana, and Magic Resistance so it's fairly gold efficient, not to mention the passive.

✦ This is the item you want if the enemy team has lots of healing or omni-vamp, since it has Grievous Wounds on it. Since Morgana's kit is riddled with CC, the increase in percentage of Grievous Wounds makes it synergize even more. The flat stats it gives are all beneficial to Morgana as well, so you aren't really losing out on anything.

✦ .

Damage

Demonic

Horizon Focus

Rabadon's

Void Staff

Banshee's

Morello

✦ [[Demonic Embrace] brings in the heavy DOT and shred, especially if you built Liandry's prior. ---

✦ Horizon Focus is an item I'm still messing around with. It seems to work okay but I'm trying to figure out where it works best with Morgana

✦ Say you're ahead and you want to hit like a truck. Grab Rabadon's Deathcap and you will make the enemy team cry. Morgana's AP scaling are already fantastic as is, and the flat AP Rabadon's gives is hard to pass up if you have the gold to spare.

✦ If you're facing a team with heavy CC and magic damage and you still want some AP, go Banshee's Veil. It gives a generous amount of magic resistance while still having enough AP to noticeably increase your damage output.

✦ If you went the damage oriented route building Void Staff will help penetrate through that pesky magic resistance that the enemy team has built. The percent magic penetration is awesome to have as well, vs other magic penetration items providing a flat amount.

✦ Morellonomicon has grievous wounds which counters champions with healing or sustain such as Soraka and Vladimir. The AP, Health, and Flat Magic Penetration are nice on Morgana. I don't usually build this unless I need to make use of the Grievous Wounds passive and I want the extra AP.

Boots

Boots of Mobility

Sorcerer's Shoes

Mercury's Treads

Lucidity Boots

✦ Mobility Boots in my opinion are the best boots for Morgana as it allows her to roam more effectively and have more map presence due to the increased movement speed when you're out of combat.

✦ When you need or want to output more raw damage, pick up Sorcerer's Shoes

✦ Buy Mercury's Treads when you are against a CC heavy team and you can live without Mobility Boots.

✦ When you need more Ability Haste and want to Flash engage more, grab Ionian Boots of Lucidity.

Synergies

Ashe Key Points ✦ Because Ashe has a slow with her Volley and a stun with her Enchanted Crystal Arrow, it set's you up for some really easy to land Dark Binding's ✦ Be passive-aggressive and help her punish the enemy when they go for minions or to hit abilities. If you can afford to be aggressive by all means do it.

Early Game

Playing with Ashe] in lane is all about oppressing your enemy. Enemy ADC want to get a canon minion? Punish them. Enemy Sona looking to abuse her [Hymn of Valor] and potentially take half of your health? Punish them. Morgana is a very oppressive as is so you just want to help Ashe poke them down and maybe pick some of them off. Although Ashe can someone peel people off her with her slows from Frost Shot, that is her only actual defense. Make sure to be on top of your Black Shield so you can continue to oppress your enemies in peace.

Mid Game

Picks, Picks, Picks! Ashe excels are single-target DPS and can take someone out of the fight if locked down fairly easily. Can you 2v1 a very overextended top laner? Go pick them off and transfer that lead to an objective or have an advantage in a teamfight. In team fights just make sure she is allowed to oppress the enemy and keep her out of harms way.

Late Game

Hit a Dark Binding? Basically a death-wish if Ashe can reliably follow up at this point in the game. If you can gain an advantage over the enemy teams in numbers by picking someone or a couple of people off, as I said for her mid game, do it! At this point in the game, you and Ashe can very easily turn around a teamfight by yourselves with all of your CC combined.

Caitlyn Key Points ✦ A well placed Dark Binding can easily guarentee Caitlyn a Headshot, her Piltover Peacemaker, and maybe even allow her to get a free Yordle Snap Trap for an additional root and damage ✦ Passive Aggressive to the max is how you can play this lane. Caitlyn's range is extremely long and you can easily win a lane by just standing back and sniping people with a Dark Binding

Early Game

Poke. Push. Poke. Push. Caitlyn can push really hard and get some nasty poke damage in so you want to usually, like in a normal passive aggressive lane, just push the wave in and then freeze it in the middle. If Caitlyn lands a 90 Caliber Net or manages to snag someone in a Yordle Snap Trap try and land a Dark Binding, it will almost always lead to a kill or at least the enemy having to back.

Mid Game

Sieging! That's what Caitlyn does and she can do it pretty damn well. She's pretty good in teamfights but since she has an extremely large auto attack range she can destroy towers fairly safely. In teamfights just look for picks with Dark Binding so Caitlyn can get her damage off.

Late Game

Keep Caitlyn alive and she'll murder towers, and maybe the enemy team aswell. Peel for her and make sure she is safe in teamfights and can siege properly without getting one-shot by an angry knife cat ( Rengar).

Draven Key Points ✦ Landing a Dark Binding will allow Draven to output a lot of damage with his Spinning Axes while they are rooted which can easily lead to a kill just pressuring them out of lane. ✦ You're allowed to play fairly aggressive in this lane as long as you understand your limits, matchups, and you don't overextend. It's a high damage bot lane with potential for greatness.

Early Game

Draven is lane bully and you really just want to abuse that in the Early Game. While trading be up and front looking for those Dark Bindings to allow Draven to achieve his maximum damage output. This can easily lead to a kill in the first three to six levels, especially if you opt to take Ignite.

Mid Game

Teamfighting is fairly normal with Draven. You just need to get peel for him and shield him as he goes in for Tyler1 style plays. If he isn't doing so well, just try to keep him out of trouble so he doesn't run it down mid.

Late Game

Similarly to the Mid Game, in the Late game supporting Draven you just want to keep him alive and land your Dark Binding. If he can keep his axes up and you block a major cc with Black Shield he can easily get a multi-kill and hopefully end the game off of that.

Ezreal Key Points ✦ Hitting that Dark Binding leads to easy Mystic Shot hits which not only guarantees a healthy amount of damage (Especially if he combo's it with Essence Flux, but procs his attack speed steroid Rising Spell Force AND reduces all his cooldowns by 1.5 seconds. ✦ Ezreal's fairly slippery already with Arcane Shift and Black Shield adds another layer of protection to make sure your enemies tear their hair out trying to kill him

Early Game

Ezreal's a poke dude, and usually just likes to play passive-aggressive, but if you can get him some kills he can pop off super hard. If he has no mana don't go in for an engage because a lot of his damage does not rely on auto-attacks but rather his abilities comboed with them. This applies to all stages of the game but it happens mostly early before he grabs a mana item. Some matchups you will be outdamaged so just be careful when you decide to try and go in with your Dark Binding or Soul Shackles.

Mid Game

Ezreal starts to hurt here. Like really hurt. Since you also hurt, you can combo spells and kill a squishy champion fairly easily. If he has a couple of items at this point, you can start playing a bit more aggressive. Also, if Ezreal picks up Iceborn Gauntlet, you will have some easy Dark Binding's because of the slow.

Late Game

Ezreal can fall off a bit here, so don't expect as much damage in quick succession. Flashing in 1v5 with Soul Shackles is not advisable. But, keeping Ezreal alive does allow him to dish out a lot of dps and can help turn teamfights and skirmishes in your favor.

Jhin Key Points ✦ Jhin hurts, so do you. A Dark Binding into a fourth shot can chunk a lot of health out of an enemy if not outright kill them. Use this to your advantage, make them afraid to step in lane. ✦ Jhin's skillshot Deadly Flourish will root the first enemy champion hit if they have been damaged by either him or his allies. Dark Binding can guarantee a Deadly Flourish root and vice versa, allowing for an extra long root.[

Early Game

Bully them. Make them regret queuing up for bot lane. Combined you and Jhin can output a lot of damage and early on can fairly easily secure kills for your team. Jhin's "poke" is straight up nasty damage. However, you have to remember Jhin is immobile, and you have to pay attention to his reload mechanic Whisper.

Mid Game

Playing with Jhin in the mid game still revolves around picking off champions and bursting them down. As long as you protect him and peel for him, he will have all he needs to create his beloved art.

Late Game

Late Game with Jhin is fairly similar to the Mid Game. Since everyone has items at this point, Jhin can be fairly susceptible to being mowed over by any enemy carry. However, Jhin also does a bonkers amount of damage late with enough items, so the name of the game is keep Jhin alive.

Jinx Key Points ✦ If Jinx procs Get Excited!, she can go HARD. Get Excited! grants her 175% bonus movement speed decaying over 6 seconds and a 15% attack speed bonus if she assisted the takedown of an objective or champion. Be ready for the added aggression that comes with it. ✦ Jinx

Early Game

...

Mid Game

...

Late Game

...

Kai'sa Key Points ✦ . ✦ .

Early Game

...

Mid Game

...

Late Game

...

Kai'sa Key Points ✦ . ✦ .

Early Game

...

Mid Game

...

Late Game

...

Kog'maw Key Points ✦ . ✦ .

Early Game

...

Mid Game

...

Late Game

...

Lucian Key Points ✦ . ✦ .

Early Game

...

Mid Game

Ezreal starts to hurt here. Like really hurt. Since you also hurt, you can combo ...

Late Game

...

Huge thanks to JhoiJhoi's guide to making a guide I originally used of a lot of her templates and modified them. I'm very thankful she has put so much time into it. It's how I really learned to code and how I learnt to make my custom Synergies and Items section.

I know my guide has a long way to go and I'm completely floored that it has as many views as it has. Any and all feedback would be much appreciated. I'm working on putting more time into this guide to truly finish it and make it the best it can possibly be. Thank you for reading!