Hey guys! My name's Sync and I've been playing league for almost 5 years now. I've gotten to know the game pretty well and in the process I've learned that Brand is my idea of a perfect champion. He brings so much AoE damage and burst along with free CC to every teamfight. If you get ahead on Brand, you can easily carry your team. Let's get into how you do this.





Also here's a tear I went on recently:

Pros

+AoE Damage
+Low CD Stun
+Strong Mid Game Power Spike
+Top Damage Charts Late Game
+Surprisingly Tanky w/ Items

Cons

-Immobile (reliant on flash)
-Mana reliant early game
-2 Skillshots

Greater Mark of Magic Penetration because flat magic penetration is really strong on Brand, and these synergize well with your early build of Sorcerer's Shoes and Haunting Guise

Greater Seal of Scaling Health are my favorite runes on Brand for sure. As you buy your core items in Liandry's Torment and Rylai's Crystal Scepter, these runes help you slowly become even tankier. By end game, you'll have a surprising amount of Max HP.

Greater Glyph of Ability Power because you're Brand and you want some early AP that you might lack in going the early flat magic penetration route.

Greater Quintessence of Ability Power for the same reasons as above.

Doran's Ring

Almost always the best early game item on Brand. It gives you some health, AP, and mana restoration. A combination of these 3 stats on Brand early on is too good.
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Dark Seal

I've been playing around with this item a little bit lately, and I like it. If you're in a really easy matchup and know that you can win early game, opt for this. If you can get a level 3 cheese kill, you'll snowball and win the game pretty easily. Upgrade to Mejai's quickly.
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Haunting Guise

This item is Brand's bread and butter. Health, AP and flat magic penetration early-mid game on Brand gives him a ridiculously big power spike, especially when combined with the next item I'm going to talk about.
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Sorcerer's Shoes

I'm usually not a big fan of rushing boots, but on Brand it's a great build path. Finish your Haunting Guise then buy this item. If you're running flat magic pen runes, you'll have 38 magic penetration, which makes your abilities (and especially your % max health burn passive) do huge damage
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Liandry's Torment

Great first item on Brand. It adds another burn to your kit, despite the fact you already have one. Also, burn resets burn. This let's your burn last 7 seconds. The burn damage of Liandry's may not seem like a lot, but it can stop recalls, give you assists long after fights are over, and occasionally finish off your opponent.

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Rylai's Crystal Scepter

This item gives Brand a whole new dynamic: the perma slow. Once you get this, all of your spells slow, including your 4 second passive burn. You can use this to kite your enemies around while waiting for your cooldowns to come up. Remember that because of the nature of this item, your Q and E provide the strongest slow.
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Rabadon's Deathcap

Pretty simple, you're a mage. This item provides a lot of just flat out damage. This will make your combos much stronger.

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Void Staff

Again, you're a mage. However, magic penetration is exceptionally strong on Brand because of his % HP damage. Your burns will hurt.

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Zhonya's Hourglass

Great item in most scenarios. The Statis active let's you avoid best burst of damage and CC. Build this early if the enemy team has multiple AD threats, but if not then wait until later in the game.

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Luden's Echo

This is another viable item on Brand if you're looking for less tank stats and more flat damage. This adds well with your burst, but it's really necessary; you should have enough damage without it.

Farming/Poking

-> ->
If you play it well, you can farm and poke simultaneously on Brand. Simply W the caster wave. If the enemy champion is standing by his caster minions, you can get both them and the minions in one Pillar of Flame. If not, W the caster wave then once they step up towards their own caster minions (usually to farm), E their back wave and the Conflagration damage will spread, hitting the enemy champion. From there, you can decide to Sear them or not, for extra damage and stun.

Trading/Dueling

-> -> -> ->
This is where Brand excels in lane. You can bet that your lane opponent will underestimate your damage output in trades. If they come out from behind their minions and you have the potential to land a Sear on them, execute this combo. The diversity Brand can bring heavily depends on the order in which you combo, due to his passive. In 1v1 situations, you don't need the extra AoE from your Conflagration, so you can afford to open with that. Follow this up with your stun, then send the cavalry. Don't be afraid to blow your cooldowns. Your combo does insane burst damage. Also, the DoT damage from Blaze, Deathfire Touch , Ignite and Liandry's Torment (once you get it) will shred your target.

1v2

One selling point about Brand is that you can easily turn ganks around. I've had too many times where the jungler looks to gank me once I'm level 6. If they make any overaggressive play and attack you under your turret, quickly E+Q them to stun one of them under turret, then unleash Pillar of Flame and [[pyroclasm].

If the two of them aren't with minions, you can get all 5 bounces on your Pyroclasm between them. After both targets are ablaze, you can usually strategically place your Pillar of Flame to hit them both (and getting the 25% bonus damage). You can burn ignite if you need it. Make sure you stun the one with turret agro by the way.

Ganking Bot Lane

This is something you should be doing post-6. Brand excels in situations with multiple enemies, and bot lane is no exception. Wait for the enemy bot lane to push, then once they do come down. Lead in with your stun combo, and whoever you stun use Pillar of Flame on. Don't be too concerned with splitting the damage up between both members of the enemy bot lane. If possible kill the ADC, but if not don't feel demoralized because you "only got the support". If they're both low health running away, don't hesitate to use Pyroclasm and watch it bounce between them as you get a double kill.

Baron/Dragon Fights

Brand is extremely proficient at taking on big objective fights. The most important thing you need to do is wait for them to clump up. If your tank forces them back into the pit, you can usually find a big clump of them. If they try to retreat, they'll clump up at the entrance. Once they're clumped, cast Pyroclasm and Pillar of Flame at the same time. As soon as either of those do an instance of damage, cast Conflagration for the increased AoE damage (and passive tagging). Hold your Sear until someone on the enemy team shifts focus to you. This becomes self-peel and it will also do a big chunk of damage. Kite back utilizing the slow from Rylai's Crystal Scepter as your cooldowns come off.

How you do early on Brand sets the pace for the rest of the game. In many cases and matchups, it's pretty easy to do well on Brand early. Remember that your Pillar of Flame has a pretty far range so if you can get some mixed poke + damage on minions, you'll be in good shape. Use the farming/poking strategy when you're above half mana in lane.

The level 3 cheese on Brand is very real. If you hit 3 before your lane opponent, watch them. If they step in the wide open, go for the -> -> combo. You can ignite them if they're almost dead. If they're not, just back off and recognize that you now have an intimidation advantage in that lane.

Also, don't burn Flash early if you don't have to. If someone tries to gank you but without the CC or mobility to kill you, just Conflagration them, then Sear them and walk away. If you're confident in the whereabouts of the enemy jungler, you might even want to Flash combo the enemy laner.

Your real damage is going to start to pick up now here. Once you start getting your core items of Liandry's Torment, Rylai's Crystal Scepter and Rabadon's Deathcap, you become a mid game menace. Make sure at this point in the game that the jungle is giving you blue buff so you can spam spells as you need.At dragon fights you can deal tons of AoE damage and turn fights with one well placed Pillar of Flame or Pyroclasm. You should expect quite a few multi-kills in these fights.

Once these more organized fights start breaking out, try to abuse the short cooldown on Sear and use it to both punish targets for bad positioning as well as to peel off someone charging your backline.

Full build Brand can do some real destruction late game. You push waves fast and if you catch out an enemy, you can either insta-give them or at the very least kite them around until they either flash or get kited to death. Have every blue buff and even look to take the enemy blue buff if it's up and no one's near it.

Strategically stay in the back line and behind your tanks during team fights. Use your AoE potential fully and watch for them to funnel into a small chokepoint, then unleash your combo. If you get jumped on quickly, save your Flash and use your Zhonya's Hourglass active instead. If they don't get off you after that 2.5 seconds, flash and reposition, although your team should come and peel for you. Keep in mind your constant slow you have from Rylai's Crystal Scepter and use that to keep yourself safe.