Hello again! I am Tyler "ecco" Spesick and I'm the former mid player for the LCS teams "Team MRN" and "Team VES."

Lissandra is a very strong champion that I feel doesn't receive as much attention as she should (even from myself!). She is a very strong, versatile champion who is very strong at several different aspects that make her very well rounded. I expect to see her rise to be a more popular and staple mid so this guide will help you get ahead of the curve!

Pros

1. Safe laning.
2. Strong, aggressive laning.
3. Follow-ups with ganks very well.
4. Incredible burst and 1v1 capability.
5. Very, very powerful teamfighting.
6. Has one of the best re-positioning moves in the game.
7. All abilities have good base-damage and scaling.

Cons

1. Short-range.
2. Very ult dependent.

Lissandra is a very strong team-fighting champion. Her engage and follow-up is just absurd. If the opposing team clumps the slightest bit as Lissandra engages they will evaporate to her insane burst combo.

An example composition that Lissandra would excel in it would be Rumble, Jarvan IV, Lissandra, Nami, and Graves. Everyone in this comp aoe follow-up to Jarvan's initiation and the enemy team will surely get massacred if they don't position just right.

AoE team-fight comps she works best in and she is also strong in conjunction with dive-comps. Dive-comps are very strong against split-pushing teams as they can force 4v5s very easily and win them convincingly and quickly (even if under a tower).

Use Lissandra's dive and AoE to build engage/team-fighting comps!

Ignite and Flash are the best summoners for Lissandra to help her snowball out of the early-game and become as much of a mid-game monster as possible. Her insanely strong laning and follow-up to ganks is emphasized with these summoner spells. It focuses on her laning strengths and her ability to snowball.


This is the other more uncommon choice of summoner spells you can use on Lissandra. I personally don't like using Teleport in mid but it can be used effectively. It weakens your laning greatly but can be used for map-presence and to snowball other lanes. If, for example, you had a Janna + Graves lane against a Sona + Cait lane, chances are the Janna Graves lane will be pushed to tower all the time. This would be a good opportunity to run teleport so you can tp behind Sona Cait to set up picks. Just make sure to tell your support to deep ward behind them when safe!

9x 9x 9x 3x

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greater mark of hybrid penetration Greater Seal of Armor Greater Glyph of Magic Resist Greater Quintessence of Ability Power

These are the runes that I use on practically every mid-lane champion currently. They give you everything you need for laning and with how important trading is in lane it is difficult to go anything else. The constant trading of auto-attacks and spells forces you to optimize for lane and only in certain match-ups (such as laning against a zed and against an almost all ad team) would you be able to go scaling AP blues as opposed to flat mr.

This is the standard page I've been running on almost all of my AP mids right now. Overall it gives you everything you need for the entire game. The 21 points in offense allow you to scale as hard as you can into the late game while the 9 points in offense give you added regeneration for laning as well as reduced cool-down on your summoner spells.

This is the only skill variation that I use on Lissandra in 99.9% of my games. There is really no reason to ever change it besides the one situation I can think of and that's if I get my opponent to ~250 health or below level 1 and am able to flash on them with a W + Q + ign combo. So in that situation I would rank W second instead of E but that is the /only/ niche time I can think of to change the skill sequence. Otherwise you need to max your Q first for harass/wave-clear and then your W helps with your burst (most of the time your E never hits a target when comboing).

Iceborn (Passive) Meh. This is the most mediocre thing about Lissandra in my opinion. It is a fairly underwhelming passive that really only helps her in laning and a couple niche spots past that. She does have fairly high mana costs so it /does/ help and allows her to go double dorans with no other mana items but I still am not very impressed by it.

Ice Shard This move was /extremely/ awkward for me at first. It was the main reason I didn't like Lissandra on release because it seemed soooooooooooo short. Once you get a feel for the initial range and shatter range you see how powerful it is. It's a very short cooldown that has amazing wave-clear and harass potential. You will be using this move a great deal in lane. Keep tabs on when your passive is up as early game you can't spam this ability a great-deal. Make sure to try and angle it properly to where you are not only pushing the wave but also hitting your lane opponent with it too (when possible).

Ring of Frost A fairly standard ice-mage type move that finally makes its appearance in League of Legends. It is a very strong ability that has strong base-damage and decent scaling. Most of the time you are using this ability after using your E to get into close-range of your opponent. You can also use it to quickly wave-clear lanes in conjunction with your Q. One small thing that I stress with this ability is that if you claw in and engage with your ult, DO NOT use your W immediately /unless/ you are one-shotting them. Otherwise you are chaining your ccs with a fairly long cooldown on w and it just isn't very efficient at all.

Glacial Path Glacial Path is arguably Lissandra's most unique ability and is just overall pretty awesome. A strong damaging move that scales well but also serves the purpose as an amazing re-positioning move. You can traverse throughout the jungle seamlessly as well as into teamfights. Most forget that it actually does insane damage so keep that in mind in the few opportunities where it can be used for that purpose rather than just to re-position yourself. Also, keep in mind that you don't have to wait for max distance to re-activate this ability. I've seen players waiting for their claw to reach max distance to escape a gank just to get cc'ed and have their claw fade away into the ground to not be seen again for 20 some-odd more seconds.

Frozen Tomb Lissandra's most powerful ability. It is insane how much damage this move does for the amount off cc it causes and the scaling it has. If the enemy team clumps up as you cast your ult it will completely decimate them. Look for opportunities to use your glacial path to get into range of a priority target to one-shot them with your combo of ult -> Q -> W. Also, you can always cast your ult on yourself! It is something that can be used to negate a ton of damage as it acts as a Zhonya's Hourglass while still doing the massive AoE slow + damage. I personally don't cast it on myself very often unless I am getting focused very hard because it lowers my damage output, I can't re-position, and their priority target will still be doing damage to my team during this rather than being stunned. The stun on opponent is 1 second shorter (1.5 compared to 2.5) so there are definitely times where it is better to cast it on yourself rather then an enemy. Do your best to remember that it is an option to make yourself invulnerable and you can always make a new hotkey for casting it on yourself in the keybinds section (I know some-people make it "T") but you can also press alt + r together to self-cast it (my preferred method)!

This is pretty much the only choice of starting items to go on Lissandra. In some matchups where you will be constantly trading (such as against Kassadin) you can not get a ward and get another hp pot and a mana pot. This is fairly greedy and you have to be much more careful against ganks. Overall this start gives you a lot of sustain and just enough mana to be constantly pushing the wave if you manage your mana properly. Try and recall to base ~4:15-4:25 for double dorans rings if possible. This will be right before a tank wave so you won't miss nearly as many creeps if your opponent tries to shove the lane to your tower. This will give you more sustain in lane as well as an extremely powerful lvl 6.


You can get away with no real mana items with Lissandra due to her passive so you only get two dorans rings for extra power in laning. Getting early sorcerer boots is a very strong strategy on Lissandra due to her insanely strong roaming as well as burst. Whether you get an abyssal scepter or zhonya's hourglass first depends on your lane. If you're against an ap champion then you get abyssal scepter and if you're against an ad champion you get zhonya's hourglass. Very simple but whichever you don't get first you get second. This gives Lissandra a lot of resistances which increases her survivability when diving in as well as a fair amount of AP to give her a strong mid-game and ability to assassinate efficiently.


These will be your items after reaching your core. Whether you go deathcap or void staff 3rd item depends on what the priority targets are building. If the enemy team has an aegis or the priority targets have a negatron cloak then it is best to go void staff 3rd for the extra magic penetration. Otherwise it is best to go deathcap 3rd for the huge boost in ap. Liandry's torment is what I have been getting on her last item because all of her moves except for her claw apply cc which doubles liandry's damage. Also, her Q is very low cooldown which allows her to apply the liandry's passive very consistently.

This is where I usually put and strong + weak match-ups but to be frank she really doesn't have any weak match-ups that I can think of. She is similar to Orianna where her laning is just suuuuuuuper safe and strong but she also has this giant get out of jail free card in the form of a magical claw that comes out of the ground. Feel safe picking her blind and into anything.

Although all of her lanes are very safe and skill match-up heavy, Lissandra is especially strong when picked into a squishy laner such as Twisted Fate or Ahri. Both of these champions are very susceptible to burst (which is what Lissandra does best) so it gives you a lot of presence over them in the lane.


The one thing I will say about weakness though is to watch out for champions who can silence you. Since you're lissandra you will probably play in lane confident knowing that you have a safe escape in case of a gank or anything. However when you play against champions who can silence you, you won't be able to use your escape.

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Lissandra's laning is fairly straight-forward. You will be pushing the lane a great deal with your Q and auto-attacking harassing your opponent. Since you are starting all consumables you will be wanting to be constantly trading. This doesn't mean you play ridiculously aggressive and have a bunch of bad trades but merely that playing calculatedly aggressive and constantly harassing/pushing the wave is what you want to be doing. While pushing the wave with your Q try to be hitting your opponent with the shatter-effect as much as you possibly can. Harass them under the tower and save your E as your escape. Try and use your first ward to put it on their wraiths for the greatest amount of vision possible and always stay closer to that side than the other.

Post-6 you are pretty much doing the same thing except if you wear them down enough then you can just kill them with your ult. Get deep wards on both sides, keep the lane pushed all the time, harass them under the tower as much as you can and auto-attack the turret to slowly dwindle it down.

During the mid-game with Lissandra your team should be forcing 5v5 teamfights as much as possible. Mostly this is done through objectives and diving teams who you outnumber. Lissandra isn't the best sieging champion so unless you have a champion like Caitlyn or Tristana on your team who is, then that probably isn't your best bet. Force objectives on the map and make sure to keep all the lanes pushing. Have your support deny vision in the jungle and look for picks as you can one-shot almost anyone. Deny vision and have deep vision so you can see their rotations. If only a couple people trying to protect a tower because they don't predict your rotations well enough, you're Lissandra so dive them! Force fights where you outnumber them under towers, deny vision, keep lanes pushed, and force objectives is what you should be doing as Lissandra w/ your team.

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Your job with Lissandra in teamfights is to dive their back-line and hit your combo on the most clumped part you can. Dive in with your claw and just watch them evaporate. Also be careful if you are initiating the fight that your team is close enough to follow-up. As was seen when Zac was very popular is that sometimes people get over-eager and see an opportunity that them with their giant gap closers can seize an opportunity than no one can follow-up on.

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Your job late-game is practically the same as it was in the mid-game. You and your team want to be forcing team-fights and playing aggressively. The longer the game goes the stronger you become and the more burst capability you have. Your team's overall job is also the same as mid-game where you want to be focused on denying vision and forcing 5v5s in advantageous positions or forcing fights where you gain advantages before the fight even happens through your denial of vision.

Still dive the back-line and focus priority targets over everything else. Try and have your ult hit as many people as possible but if you can 1-shot their Caitlyn but not hit anyone else it is probably a trade-off worth making. Play aggressively as a team and be as much of one cohesive, diving unit as possible!