Introduction Introduction General tips Vladimir Info Abilities Combos Skin tierlist

Setups Explained Setup 1: The Gigalord Setup 2: Consistency Gameplay Early Game Mid Game Late Game

Welcome to Elite500's Vladimir Guide!

Well hello there wonderful people. My name is Calvin and I stream under the name Elite500, I have been challenger for the last 7 seasons on EU playing pretty much only Vlad, I have peaked 2 wins off Korea Chall end of season 12, and currently as of writing this I am 70% rank 179 in KOREA.

But why play Vladimir? Doesn’t he actually suck? Isn’t he a noob champ?

Well do you wish to experience the pleasure of entering team fights and leaving them higher hp?
Do you want to dehumanise yourself and not even recognise your fellow teammates as sentient meat lumps?
Can you handle the responsibility to take every game post 20 minutes as your responsibility?

Of course, you do.

General Tips

To start the guide off, here are some of the basic tips that you will need to keep in mind when you are playing Vladimir.

	The minute you forget to farm is the minute you’re out of the game, always farm.
	Don’t be scared to use ult enemy leniently, if it means your opponent doesn't roam.
	Don’t be scared to use ghost generously, if it means your opponent runs out of pots they’re ****ED since you can just trade 50 hp for 300 of yours and you’ll eventually out sustain. absolutely same goes or ghost, often times you'll see me ghost JUST for an empowered Q in the early. When else would you use ghost, right?
	If you want fast results NEVER blame your team, even if they ****ed up, what good does it do you to just move on? Try to figure out what YOU could’ve done to prevent X from happening.
	If you’re extremely strong and baron is already up, just tell your team to start it with you, you don’t have to finish it but it’s a for sure way of starting a teamfight and making enemies fight you when you want it. Worst case scenario you keep hitting baron, they steal it, you end their lives, gg.
	The period of where you have crimson rush gets extended by E, Zhonyas, and Pool.
	For some reason, if you have enough Ability Haste and pool as soon as your E ends and start a new channel in pool that E will have no animation and be invisible, not very usable though.

	If you have any questions, ask me anything I’m always happy to spread light on things I didn’t elaborate on. I also stream on Twitch, so if I didn’t cover something feel free to join and ask me :D

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Abilities

Crimson Pact Passively Vladimir gains 2.5% of his Bonus Health as Ability Power and 140% of his Ability Power as Bonus Health. Note that these bonuses do not stack with each other.

Transfusion Vladimir drains blood from the target enemy, dealing magic damage and healing himself. Each cast of Transfusion generates a stack of Bloodthirst (your Bloodthirst stacks are displayed as your resource bar). At 2 stacks of Bloodthirst, Vladimir gains 10% bonus movement speed for half a second, and the Crimson Rush buff lasting until the Bloodthirst is depleted over 2.5 seconds. While under the effect of Crimson Rush, your next Transfusion will deal more damage and heal you more.

Sanguine Pool Vladimir sinks into a pool of blood, gaining bonus movement speed which decays over one second and becoming untargetable and ghosted for 2 seconds. Enemies who stand on you while in Sanguine Pool are slowed and take magic damage every half second. Vladimir heals himself for 15% of the damage dealt by Sanguine Pool.

Tides of Blood Vladimir charges for up to 1.5 seconds, slowing himself by 20% when he charges for more than 1 second. Tides of Blood can be recast at any time within its duration. If Vladimir finishes charging or is interrupted, he automatically initiates the recast. Upon recast Vladimir unleashes a nova of 15 blood bolts, each of which collide with the first enemy they hit, dealing them magic damage that is increased based on how long Tides of Blood was charged. If the charge lasted for at least 1 second, then enemies hit are slowed.

Hemoplague Vladimir infects all enemies in the target area, increasing the damage they take from all sources by 10% for 4 seconds, after those 4 seconds all infected enemies take magic damage. After dealing damage it brings the blood from enemy champions hit, to Vladimir after 0.4 seconds, healing him for the pre-mitigation damage dealt against them once the blood reaches him, reduced to 50% after the first instance of healing.

Combos


There aren’t really many “combos” and it’s mostly just generic efficiency and logical thinking, you make up a lot of things on the fly. However, for those who want to learn at least some combos, you can keep these in mind.


All-Round Combo

➙ ➙ ➙ ➙ ➙

Smartcast all abilities, make sure that you have used Q before the combo so you have Crimson Rush ready before starting the combo. Then Charge your E. Flash onto the enemy and release your E. Ult them, then use the empowered Q and Ignite.

Some people like to ult first as it releases E automatically upon pressing R however I feel like it’s a tiny bit clunky and if you release E manually it’s literally impossible to react to unless predicted.


Late-Game Phase Rush Combo

➙ ➙ ➙

In the late game, whenever you see a bunch of enemies together while using the Phase Rush setup, you can use this combo to quickly make them all go back to the fountain for a short break. Flash into range, use your ult then use your E and W together.
Since you flash you’ll instantly be able to ult and have Nimbus Cloak movement speed to make sure your E and W connect with someone, if they do you get Phase Rush and are able to chase everyone down once you come out of your W. Pooling instantly doesn’t matter as much as well since if you hit a fat R it’ll heal you like crazy, this catches enemies off guard a LOT even in high challenger.

Skin Tierlist


Of course the most important part of the guide, the skin tierlist!

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Marquis Vladimir is a 9 out of 10! Extremely small model, feels amazing to play with, cheap asf, regular ult is sometimes invis vs bigger targets like cho’gath.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Blood lord Vladimir is an 8.5 out of 10. A timeless classic with the absolutely insane taunting game, instantaneous laugh. Absolute badass voicelines, sounds, and animations that make you feel all-powerful, but at 1850rp? Idk...

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Nightbringer Vladimir is an 8 out of 10. It is probably my most played skin. It has a shortish cape, nice sounds and animations, literally invisible ultimate, that is beyond pay to win, if you’re looking for the most pay to win its probably this one.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Dark Waters Vladimir is a 7.5 out of 10. Basically a budget Nightbringer with a giga big nasty looking cape. Also has an invisible ult, arguably more invis than Nightbringer.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Cosmic Devourer Vladimir is a 7 out of 10. I like the stars aesthetic but imagine making a new skin without pay to win ult, what are you doing right??

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Academy Vladimir is a 6 out of 10. Kinda slick, not having a cape and being in a weird suit looks good, but his hands look enormously big.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Soulstealer Vladimir is a 5 out of 10. WTF are these sounds, legit sound like it’s windy outside and has the most ugliest cape in the game.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Default Vladimir is a 4 out of 10. Bloodlord Vladimir should be the default and this should be removed, legit so beyond ugly.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Count Vladimir is a 1 out of 10. Scuffed *** default vladimir chroma so bad it should be against the Geneva convention.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Vandal Vladimir is a ?? out of 10. You have to say no **** before using this skin, never touch another man’s skin.

? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?

Nosferatu is a ? out of ? Absolute power, but at what price?

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What Setup Do I Take?


I am of the opinion that you can go either setup 100% of the time and not need to switch things up to find success, however, there are scenarios where one is better than the other.
For beginners, I recommend learning just one setup first or your opinion might get clouded by low sample size.

	If you’re more of the assassin player, wanting to oneshot specific targets and having ridiculously high kill pressure in lane I recommend going Setup 1 - Electrocute.
	If you more feel like playing an actual control mage and maintaining 10cs/min and unleashing unholy wrath late game with zero counterplay then go Setup 2 - Phase Rush.

In a realistic scenario if you’re laning vs melee champions Electrocute is much better for lane and the minor runes will have a lot of effect versus them. You can go both setups in both types of matchups and it’s perfectly viable you just have to be aware of your weaknesses and play around them.

Currently, I think the meta favours the electrocute setup a tiny bit more since there is a lot of early fighting and lane priority is important to help your jungler. That being said having Ghost, Ignite, and Phase Rush means you can join any fight you want since your summoner spells are super low cooldown.

In conclusion, try both and see which one you like more!

In the Korean server there are a lot of fist fights happenign for not much reason, conqueror gives you the most damage in these extended fist fights and lets you dance around with your health.

Runes

CONQUEROR Of course, you’ll be taking Conqueror

TRIUMPH Triumph let's you generate 20 extra gold on kill, fueling your crippling blue pot addiction, and more importantly letting you drop even lower on vladimir, get ready to rely on this rune to survive fights

LEGEND: TENACITY this rune is somewhat wasted as you shouldn't really be getting hit by heavy CC unless they have unavoidable things like rakan R and fiddle fear, however best out of the legend runes.

LAST STAND Last Stand is an insanely good rune, amplifiying your damage dealt multiplicatively with your R damage amp yielding you power beyond power

TRANSCENDENCE Transcendence got such a nice change in season 11, 5 ability haste at level 5? Sign me the hell up. The ability cd refund is also amazing on Vladimir's W since it’s base cooldown is like 30 seconds, allowing you sometimes to pool twice in fights.

NIMBUS CLOAK Nimbus Cloak makes up for the lack of mobility before Hextech Rocketbelt. Nimbus Cloak helps out so much allowing you to kite and rundown pesky season 10 dashy champs with ease. Optionally Gathering Storm is also nice but with this rune setup you mostly play for early-mid domination and nimbus is also great lategame. My games have been decided 1000x more by having more mobility in clutch scenarios than having 40 extra ap at 30 minutes.

Items



Starting Items

I prefer not to overcomplecate things and just start dring, faster push, better sustain, more ap, just very reliable, the early game is the most important part of the game so let's not cheap out here.

potion

Mythic Item

Hextech Rocketbelt is by far the best mythic you can go in every game currently, amazing active, amazing components, amazing mythic passive, it’s just THAT good. The dash and MS is a great engage tool, Hextech Alternator synergises perfectly with your ridiculous Ignite Electrocute damage, the passive giving you 5 flat magic penetration is amazing since you can get 18 from Sorcerer's Shoes and another 5 from Mejai's Soulstealer since it counts as a legendary, the more flat pen you stack the more efficient it gets.

Second Item

Mejai's Soulstealer allows you to single-handedly decide whether you wish to win the game or lose it, it’s a must buy and goes hand in hand with this playstyle, one-two kills with a Mejai's, over 10 stacks? Literally, the game is a done deal at this stage. Rocket belt mythic passive giving you 5 pen for a 1250g purchase makes it even good to buy at 0 stacks. I have completely 1v9’d too many games to count in the highest of elos because enemies make literally one mistake and die once.

Third Item

Void Staff third? WTF what if enemies have no MR Elite? Well let me tell you about this stupidly broken item that straight up out damages a ******** DEATHCAP even at 30 MR!? Void Staff is 131% gold efficient, let alone when you pile up the 28 flat magic penetration that you get from completing it. Remember, flat pen reduces enemy MR AFTER the percentage, so let’s say someone has 50 magic resistance when you buy your void staff, what MR? 28|40% stats on 50 MR leaves enemies with a whole 2 MR. 2 MR!

Fourth Item

Rabadon's Deathcap while not nearly as good as it was last season still will round up your build, if you have just a few Mejai's Soulstealer stacks and you get these 4 holy items, the game is literally already over. Few champions can experience the delightful feel of going in 1v5 and returning at higher hp than before.

Boots

Unless you’re rocking Cosmic Insight and want türbo low summoner spell cooldowns (if so then Ionian Boots of Lucidity are there for you), Sorcerer's Shoes are the must-go 100% of the time. Why would you need damage reduction from Plated Steelcaps if you one-shot enemies, why would you need Mercury's Treads's tenacity if you can just dodge with your W 4Head. Sorcerer's shoes penetration just perfectly synergises with the Hextech Rocketbelt mythic passive since the more flat magic pen you stack the more potent it becomes.

Last Item

At this stage your power is so strong the final item won’t make a big difference. Need DPS? Cosmic Drive is there for you giving you speed and a lot of Ability Haste. Need a second Sanguine Pool? Zhonya's Hourglass is there to give you 2,5 more second of invulnerability to play with. Need a spell shield vs Evelynn and Zoe? [[Banshee's veil] will give you a get out of jail free card against spells that could otherwise kill you in an instant. The item shop is your oyster, get whatever you want last, I usually like to top it off with Zhonya's Hourglass myself.

Summoner spells

This setup is more scaling but sacrifices your early even more, I personally mostly go phase when i'm in a turbo hard matchup like ori azir viktor and need resolve runes secondary but dont want to give up on sorcery tree.

Runes

PHASE RUSH Phase Rush has been Vladimir’s most consistent rune since seasons now. It offers a lot of versatility in the sense that it can be used to slide in an extra auto in trades, chase people down, escape ganks easier and of course mainly to slide into the backline like Michael Jackson moonwalking on the rift. Just like Electrocute it’s really easy to proc. Even your initial ult cast counts as one of the strikes, so you could Ignite > R > Q and boom you’re already zooming.

NIMBUS CLOAK Nimbus Cloak is an insanely good rune for Vladimir since the main thing you lack is mobility, and the more you have the easier it gets to get even more. Combine this with Phase Rush and Ghost and you will be travelling at Mach 10 around the rift.

TRANSCENDENCE Transcendence helps your laning phase, giving you cdr as early as level 5, and a cooldown reset later in the game. If you stack enough Ability Haste with Zhonya's Hourglass or even the legendary double stopwatch you can always do some funky game-winning **** like Sanguine Pool –> Zhonya's Hourglass –> get assist so Transcendence ticks in –> Stopwatch –> Sanguine Pool again. It’s like 10 seconds of immunity winning you uber clutch games.

GATHERING STORM What better rune suited for the late-game king himself than Gathering Storm. All other options like Waterwalking and Scorch are completely outclassed by this free stats rune. I’d say Vladimir is the most efficient champion in the game when it comes to flat AP considering you have AP to HP conversion, absolutely massive AP scalings with damage and healing, and a damage amplification on all abilities with your ult.

MAGICAL FOOTWEAR Do you like free stuff? Well you should! [magical footwear]] is just free gold for you. This allows you to buy your items earlier and not waste any gold but get right into the items that are going to get you fed.

COSMIC INSIGHT Do you want more free stats? Well Cosmic Insight has got you covered! Cosmic insight outright just gives you 18 summoner spell haste and 10 item haste. This means more Ghosting, more Igniteing, and more uses out of your other items. Since the change to item haste, it doesn't even just affect active items either, but just any cooldown on any item.

Items



Starting Items

Just like with Setup 1, Dark Seal Refillable Potion is a beyond bonkers good item to start with, however, since we get free boots from Magical Footwear with this Setup going Doran's Ring is a more affordable purchase as well into a more difficult matchup like Orianna or Syndra. My logic is if you back with ~ 350g you’ll be having to choose either between Dark Seal or Boots, but since boots are out of the equation you don’t even need to think about them so Doran's ring is a lot more affordable. At the same time, this Setup focuses mostly on reaching unholy power as fast as possible.

Mythic Item?

Previously double fiendish codex rush was optimal, however now since rocketbelt got buffed again and again it is BY far better to rush it. Going one fiendish codex before rocketbelt is a LEGAL move you can consider if you are trying to farm up OR need a lot of sustain, like vs azir ori zoe Getting pure AP and AH allows you to do this faster and ultimately accelerating yourself to a point of having 300 cs at 25 minutes and being able to completely devour anyone in sight.

Second Item

Since I’m addicted to Mejai's Soulstealer I like to buy it second, however, with this setup, you can skip it, if you fall behind even slightly Mejai's won’t get the free 5 penetration that you would’ve gotten with a regular Hextech Rocketbelt build and it becomes really hard to get back into the game. Just remember if you need the power of GOD to win this game, don’t hesitate to buy the holy bible.

The Real Second Item

Now that you have around ~ 100 AP Rabadon's Deathcap becomes efficient, even in its pathetic nerfed state it’ll still transform you into an omnipotent being. Deathcap is 92% item efficient with just it’s own AP and gets increased by 20% for every 100 ap so making it at MINIMUM 112% gold efficient of RAW pure AP power which Vladimir makes such enthusiastic work with. Now imagine if you had a Mejai's Soulstealer with some lucky 10 stacks on it, 136% gold efficient pure AP item combined with this? Oh Lord. Full Mejai's and Deathcap = 357 AP = 500 HP more for FREE due to Crimson Pact.

Third Item

Most sane enemies when pressing TAB and seeing there is a 200 cs Vlad at 16 minutes with a Rabadon's Deathcap completed and double Fiendish Codex eagerly wanting to devour their feeble ADC souls will attempt to purchase some magic resistance. Falter their plans by buying an early Void Staff, just like the logic we applied earlier with Setup 1, Void Staff's 131% gold efficiency combined with Sorcerer's Shoes allows you to deal near true damage to low MR targets and to those with more than room temperature IQ who’ve built MR? Well, you have a Void Staff, what good does it do them.

Fourth Item

Woo! It’s mythic time yayyy! This is the most satisfying thing ever, building a mythic item when you have 3 legendaries all giving you instant mythic passive. At this stage, you can choose pretty much all of the mythics. Need more haste? Go Night Harvester for unrivalled DPS. Playing against a lot of squishies? Unleash unholy burst with the Hextech Rocketbelt. Did the enemies stack gig nitro mega amounts of MR and you’re having a tough time penetrating through it? Literally, buy a Liandry's Torment, it shreds enemy MR making your Void Staff and Sorcerer's Shoes deal hyper amounts of damage. Since you have 2 Fiendish Codex, Liandry’s is giga cheap at only 2500g and doesn’t eat up another inventory slot. You can even decide to buy something else if you’re in desperate need for it like a Zhonya's Hourglass or Morellonomicon, it’s not essential to have a mythic but I highly recommend it leaving it no later than this.

Boots

Unless you’re rocking Cosmic Insight and want türbo low summoner spell cooldowns (if so then Ionian Boots of Lucidity are there for you), Sorcerer's Shoes are the must-go 100% of the time. Why would you need damage reduction from Plated Steelcaps if you one-shot enemies, why would you need Mercury's Treads's tenacity if you can just dodge with your W 4Head. Sorcerer's shoes penetration just perfectly synergises with the Hextech Rocketbelt mythic passive since the more flat magic pen you stack the more potent it becomes.

Last Item

At this stage your power is so strong the final item won’t make a big difference. Need DPS? Cosmic Drive is there for you giving you speed and a lot of Ability Haste. Need a second Sanguine Pool? Zhonya's Hourglass is there to give you 2,5 more second of invulnerability to play with. Need a spellshield vs Evelynn and Zoe? Banshee's Veil will give you a get out of jail free card against spells that could otherwise kill you in an instant. The itemshop is your oyster, get whatever you want last, I usually like to top it off with Zhonya's Hourglass myself.

Summoner spells Ever thought how if everyone does just one thing the same way people would become insecure to try anything else but that specific way? That’s my opinion on using Ghost over Flash.

With this setup, I prefer taking Ghost over Flash and take Ignite secondary. Why? Now that Ghost’s duration gets refreshed on kills or assists and gives tremendous move-speed, all while only being on a 182-second cooldown with cosmic insight (163 seconds with lucidity boots). This allows you to have it up at literally every possible random teamfight, the mobility is insane for laningphase as well. If you can kill your opponent with Flash in a certain scenario Ghost will do the job and more, what do you do versus a Vladimir that has kill pressure on you and pressed his nitro boost button? Flash away? Jokes on you this **** lasts 10000 years and he’ll just inevitably catch up.

Ghost in teamfights is also ridiculous, pop it right before someone dies and you have like 15 seconds of speed duration. You can catchup to literally anyone even foolish Galeforce buyers who think they are cool with their mini dash. Ignite secondary lets you have some decent kill pressure even with this setup

You can, of course, go whatever you please, struggling with bully mages? Go Flash Teleport
Feel like you can’t catch up to that Ezreal in the backline? Flash Ghost is the answer, etc, it’s all viable and just needs playing around.

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Early Game



Level 1 to 5


With both play-styles, you want to play as safe as humanly possible with Vladimir pre level 6, try to manage the wave so it’s always near your tower so you can’t get ganked and are easily able to last hit. It is ESSENTIAL to have on point last-hitting skills, if you do not, go practice tool right now and get 100cs in 10 mins only using auto attacks. These early auto attacks really dictate the pace of the rest of the game, same theory with raptors, how much money you have dictates how much money you’ll be able to generate.

If your lane opponent doesn’t have Teleport (mostly melees) you can play a little aggro and sneak in a quick succ every now and then onto your lane opponent and eventually either deplete their HP so they have to recall or their mana so they become obsolete.

Don’t use your E early much as it mostly hurts yourself more than it hurts anything else, the self-damage is always the same percentage so it really feels bad using it early to sprinkle tiny 60 damage blood bolts at the cost of like 100 hp.

You may spam Q on the minions as long as you don’t end up pushing the wave to the enemy, what makes Vladimir really hard to play in high elo is players will freeze the wave as soon as it starts to push towards them and it’s impossible to unfreeze unless you call your jungler to help.

If you’re playing vs someone with Teleport it’s extremely ballsy to trade with them as if you do they’ll empty their mana on you and hp and just recall and come back leaving you with low hp and unable to buy items and locked in the lane, going Teleport yourself with Phase Rush of course halfway counters this awful spot to be in.


Early Electrocute Cheese


This strategy is really really easy to pull off!
This video shows exactly how to pull this off, it’s incredibly easy to do with Electrocute since you also have Taste of Blood and Ignite if your lane opponent dares to contest this you can just punish them.

Basically, you want to create a slow push early, how do we do this?
Try to fish for auto-attacks or a Q on your opponent, aggroing the minions onto you, since they will chase you let them be pulled into your wave, while you drag them they will not be attacking your minions meaning the wave will push in opponent direction.

If you pull this off and just gently last hit the next 2 waves and then push in really hard when canon wave comes you’ll have stacked a MASSIVE ally wave under enemy turret while you have tempo to do whatever you like, recall get an Amplifying Tome / ward for jungler / invade with jungler / anything you desire.

And what about my enemy mid, won’t he follow me and stop me? But how? He’s got 3 waves stacked under his turret trying to last hit them, he can’t just leave that or he’ll instantly lose the game.

This concept is very very important to Vladimir players as your all-ins are often able to 100-0 opponents, so if we do this strategy of stacking big waves at level 6 to 9 and dive the lane opponent and they die they lose like 3 waves worth of cs, this is literally unbearably game losing for them and it’s SO easy to pull off especially in low elo. What on earth do you do vs a Vladimir who stacked a wave, has an alternator, electro ult and ignite up and is furiously waiting to one shot you? Literally no counterplay other than going Barrier or buying HP / MR.


Managing the Wave


It’s very simple, most people will hit the wave level 1 like the utter troglodytes they are, just match their auto-attacks and leave one out every few, once it slow pushes into your direction all you have to do is not kill the minions and let them be near your turret. The wave will ALWAYS freeze if 3 full hp caster minions are left alive and the next wave’s melee minions don’t go under the tower.
Like this, we can freely scale up to the late-game terror that Vladimir is.

My lane opponent has also read this guide and isn’t hitting the first wave? Wtf? If you can, push push push like your pregnant and try to get your minions under the enemy tower, if this happens the wave will simply bounce and start pushing towards you.

These 2 concepts are the simplest and most essential thing to know when playing Vladimir.


First Recall


You’ve got around 1000g? You should start to look to set up a recall so you can either buy a Hextech Alternator if you are going Setup 1 or a Fiendish Codex if you are going Setup 2.

How do we do this?

We already know how to stack waves and crash them under the enemy tower, so we simply perform just that, we push the wave out and once it’s under tower run away quickly and recall, the bigger the wave the better since it traps your lane opponent in the lane while you get to recall and only lose 1-2 melees.

If you don’t want to lock your lane opponent in the lane or they have Teleport or just don’t care didn’t ask, just push the wave out before or during cannon wave since cannon minions can tank like 8 or more turret shots meaning you have tonnes of time to walk back to lane without missing anything.

Not missing any cs during your recalls is really essential as Vladimir especially because you can’t afford to fall behind.

Against mages who like to buy Lost Chapter it’s extremely important you figure out a way to force a recall before they get that 1300g because if they do somehow get that you’re in for a fun **** and ball torture session, especially with Orianna. That’s why if you can recall with 1000g you can get a Fiendish Codex and they’ll just feel awful buying a ******** Sapphire Crystal.


Post Recall


You’ve just walked back to lane, you’re level 6 and have your 1000g item and haven’t lost more than 1 minions worth of exp. What do you do now?

Since you have some AP you finally get to have more than cannon minion levels of wave-clear.

If you’ve got an easy matchup and are not afraid to push out the wave start pushing and looking for things to do on the map. It’s important to ask yourself these questions WHILE pushing so you don’t waste time making a decision when you already have tempo.

	Can you kill your lane opponent? Dive him.
	Can you help your jungler invade? Go for it, just remember you’re on a tight time limit if things don’t go well and you’ll lose farm mid with no gain.
	Can you gank / dive bot / top? If there is a guaranteed pay off, (know all summs, ults etc) then go for it! Just don’t risk anything, remember if both teams are equal you are likely to win because of Vladimir's inevitable lategame scaling.

If you don’t have any options, simply ward or clear wards, going out of enemy vision forces your lane opponent to **** their pants and ping where did he go? Which takes the focus from other players and makes them play accordingly.

Mid Game



It’s VERY important to go to sidelines IF your botlane’s tower died and now enemy ADC and sup go mid and try to take yours since you have **** all waveclear you can’t hold them away from the tower and end up losing more and more. It’s very important to also not share exp since the support will probably try to defend midlane with you, you want to soak up that juicy solo lane exp and start exerting pressure in a side lane.

If you see lots of champs in one spot be ready to move asap because a teamfight might break out, although as Vlad maintaining 10cs/min is above everything, you can’t have any less if you want to carry games so some teamfights are just lost causes and don’t hurt yourself more by trying to get there in time.

You can generally tell when a fight will happen when either:

	Rift Herald is up, but Dragon isn't.
	Dragon is up.

If ally mid-tower is still up and the dragon is down and herald is up what do we do?

Of course sidelane top and tell your teleport toplaner to go bot and your ADC and support to go mid, it’s very likely that a Rift Herald fight will start and you wanna be there.

If Dragon spawns and your team wants to contest that? Sidelane botlane and rotate mid at least ~20 seconds before Dragon spawn so your ADC can walk up reliably.

The only fights you REALLY need to be a part of are for objectives especially dragon, ESPECIALLY ESPECIALLY if you don’t have any Dragons at all and enemies are stacking them.

Even the most terrible scaling champions like pantheon will be REALLY obnoxious lategame if they get something like an infernal dragon soul.

Just taking one or two dragons means the enemy team won’t receive the Dragon win-condition at like 20 mins which means the game will go on for longer, what happens if the game goes on for super long? Uh oh, stinky poo poo lategame Vladimir arrived and you just take what you please at that stage of the game anyways.

Late Game


This part of the game is much easier with Phase Rush and Ghost especially with Ghost since it also has built-in scaling with level, duration and speed.

If you have the potential to reach the backline and kill them then that should be your priority above everything, in 99% of the scenarios, this is easily achieved with Ghost and Phase Rush since you literally can’t run away from a ghosted Vlad. Not even Ezreal with his double flash can run, not even Kassadin with 4k mana can blink away in a straight line, and god have mercy if Vlad gets his ghost extended with an assist or kill.

If you’re playing with Electrocute and your Hextech Rocketbelt isn’t enough to get you into the backline then try your best to hit as big of an ult as possible and peel for your next strongest member which is usually the ADC. A full build Vlad demolishes anything that dares approach.

Most fights are extremely obvious when they happen late into the game, they’re either around sieging or around objectives like dragon and baron, you should always be around those when they spawn and farming nearby camps and minions.

Even late into the game you want to be farming farming farming, Vlad is a super high resource champion, I’d honestly say the highest resource hog in the entire game, not even Kassadin needs this much money, but not even Kassadin can just engage 1v5 and demolish everyone.

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If you enjoyed this guide you may consider my reddit version I made that is not updated like this one however it goes over mindset and concepts while playing Vladimir if you truly wish to be the best of the best. https://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/comments/wxeji3/illegal_65_wr_grandmaster_korea_vladimir_guide/