This will be the first installment of a new series, where we take an in-depth look at some of League of Legends' most famous - or infamous - champions. LeBlanc had seen a few appearances at big tournaments, most notably Champions Winter 2012-2013, but it wasn't until the NALCS Season 3 Spring Season started that she really began to pick up steam afterwards. With a significant drop in playrate after her lack of counterplay was slapped on the wrist, the pros decided that with the silence gone her damage was still left intact and unscathed, and picked her up again.

Right now, she fulfills a number of roles. She's well known for her insane bullying potential, especially against squishy midlane mages and assassins where her laning prowess allows her to accrue a significant lead over her direct opponent and snowball from there. Additionally, she has the opportunity to remain relatively safe and farm effectively with her abilities, and probably what she is best known for: blowing up squishies in team fights within the blink of an eye. The combination of slows, snares, mobility and insane bursting potential is what drove her to the top of the charts, and until she receives some significant nerfs to either her damage output or her mobility, LeBlanc's going to be there to stay.

Ability Overview

So let's get more in-depth starting with her abilities. Her innate ability, Mirror Image, triggers whenever she is brought below 40% HP. She enters stealth briefly, and summons a clone of herself with slightly altered stats that deals no damage but fully functions as a champion for all intents and purposes. While the clone doesn't do anything useful on its own, utilizing it properly can lead to some very mind-boggling moments for your enemies. Because it takes a bit to realize that the clone itself doesn't carry any items, and you don't generally have enough speed to notice that the clone has some significantly lower HP than LeBlanc herself. The clone lasts for up to 8 seconds or until death, where it provides the killer 25g. The downside on the passive, however, is that you'll generally want to keep yourself above 40% HP if you're not planning on going back to base anytime soon. This is because the passive will trigger whenever you are below 40% HP, not 'as soon as you take damage', putting it on cooldown again. And sometimes, just sometimes, it can actually be a life saver.

Her Q ability is Sigil of Malice. A single target nuke that deals some magic damage upon collision with the targeted enemy, as well as placing a mark on them. If LeBlanc hits a marked target with any other damaging ability, the mark is comsumed, dealing the same damage again. With the removal of its silence component, it's become a pretty straight-forward damaging tool. However, it has a few uses in lane other than damage as well. First off, since it's a single target ability with a high missile speed, it can function very well as a last hitting tool. This can be used in the middle of the lane where you're caught last having to last hit just a bit too many creeps, but it's just as good when farming under tower when creeps screw you over just one too many times. Aside from farming, however, knowing LeBlanc's skillset, you can use your Sigil as a zoning tool, to strike fear in the heart of the enemy, if you will. There's no fooling around with a Sigil into Distortion combo, as it's one of the strongest and least counterable harassing tools in the game.

Speaking of low counterplay, Distortion is LeBlanc's W ability. It's a ground targeted dash that deals magic damage to all units in the target area. After arriving, for 4 seconds, LeBlanc may re-activate the ability to return to her starting location. Unlike Zed's similar ability in Living Shadow, LeBlanc's Distortion is not inhibited by range, which makes her even more slippery than Kassadin. Distortion basically serves three main functions. Its primary function should be repositioning/damage in fights and farming in lane. Its huge AoE makes it so that with proper creep management, you are able to damage the entirety of the creep wave in one go, leaving it up to basic attacks to finish them off. In team fights, your damage is in part reliant on your positioning. Ethereal Chains, the next ability we'll take a look at, is really dependant on the angle in which you fire it, meaning that you'll need to reposition yourself repeatedly in fights to get the most out of your crowd control. Another big thing is her mobility. LeBlanc has 4 seconds to reactivate the ability, and for as long as you have vision over the return pad, it's all about mind games whether you make it out or not. And it gets even worse with your ultimate - worse for them, that is.

LeBlanc's last basic ability is Ethereal Chains, a line skillshot that deals damage to the first enemy unit it hits, and slows them by 25% for as long as the chains latch onto that target. Enemy units can move out of range to break the chains. If they don't, and they remain in range for the full 1.5s, they are snared for an additional 1.5s and take the same damage again. This is that one-point-wonder ability that pretty much every champion has. Its crowd control doesn't increase by level, and the AP scaling on it is insane whereas the damage scaling itself is pretty mediocre, so skilling it repeatedly isn't worth it in the long run - especially not when looking at LeBlanc's other scalings. Ethereal Chains has two main uses. It's great as a setup ability, latching onto an enemy unit and marking them with Q as soon as the chains connect, which ensures a pretty good burst of damage if the chains pop, since that damage procs the Sigil mark. Secondly, it's an amazing deterrent. The 25% slow is nothing to scoff at, only allowing really speedy enemies to get to you through said chains, and if they don't do so within 1.5s, they're snared and won't get to you in the end anyways.

LeBlanc's 'ultimate' is Mimic, which, as the name suggests, mimics the last used ability with altered damage figures. Q and E Mimics deal the same damage on both instances of the damage, whereas the Distortion Mimic deals a separate damage figure from the other two. Since this doesn't have a mana cost, nor an ultimate-like cooldown, it's really hard to actually see this ability as an ultimate, and you should think of it more a a combo enabler. We'll get a bit more in-depth on Mimic in just a bit.

Mimic Combos

As stated before, Mimic mimics the last used ability with the same spell effects but separately scaling damage. With as versatile yet surprisingly stale a moveset as LeBlanc's, there's a number of different uses for Mimic that you might want to take note of.
- First off, WQR/QRW mimics Sigil of Malice for the least counterable burst damage. You Distortion in range, land two single target abilities and Distortion back out. Zero risk, tons of damage. The latter deals more damage than the first because you actually proc the mimicked Sigil's mark as well as the first, whereas the first combination doesn't do so.
- QWR mimics Distortion, and it's the only Mimic that deals more damage than its counterpart right from the get-go. Not only does this combo deal a hefty chunck of damage, the multiple return pads mean you have a number of options that allow you to reposition yourself for a new entry into a damage rotation - one along the lines of EQ, for example.
- ERQ or QER are the two go-to Mimic combos when you want to lock someone down for a longer period of time. With Ethereal Chains having as much crowd control as it does (1.5s slow, 1.5s snare), they combo into each other really well. Just wait out the slow of the first chain, and as the snare is about to proc, put out your next chain through Mimic. This nearly ensures a 3s snare, which is more than enough for basically any champion to die. Don't forget, however, that with enough practice and a not-neglectable amount of luck, you can actually pull off a double bind. Feel like a Morgana, without playing Morgana!

Last but definitely not least, using WR in a tight situation is bound to create some hectic scenarios. Whereas most champions usually have a gap closer (or creator) that covers about 600 range, LeBlanc has two of these if she chooses to Mimic Distortion, which allows her to cross up to 2 walls, creating a ruckus like that, and then porting back over said two walls to the return pad and then moving back along the first again by porting back again. Sound hectic enough? Good, because that's what LeBlanc is all about. Deceiving and messing with the minds of the enemies.

Damage Output

As stated before, what LeBlanc does best, is blowing up squishies, and it goes without saying that without big damage figures, that's hard to accomplish... right? Not entirely. If we take a quick gander at some of League's most renowned mages and assassins, we can see a big discrepancy in the numbers alone.

The above graph shows four different mages and the base damage figures on their respective abilities in a best-case scenario. Two of these have been rarely touched with regards to their damage output, two of these have been heavily slapped by the Nerf Hammer. Can you guess which is which? I'll tell you. LeBlanc and Xerath (the latter of which I'll refer to as 'after his rework') have both hardly to never been touched, whereas both Lissandra and Ahri have both undergone significant changes to their kit to mold them into a certain playstyle. And while admittedly, the 900 base damage from Xerath's ultimate does top the charts, keep in mind that that's only after hitting three skillshots with a significant travel time.

But base damage doesn't show everything. This second chart shows the AP ratios of the same mages on their abilities, and while Xerath's ultimate does again top the chart, there's no denying that LeBlanc has some ridiculous power up in her kit. Going 1st/2nd/1st/2nd in both charts whereas the other assassin (Ahri) goes 2nd/4th/4th/4th in the base damage chart alone - after significant damage nerfs, mind you - and 2nd/3rd/4th/3rd in the ratios chart, it raises some questions as to what would be the drawback to picking LeBlanc, if we have access to such immense damage output. On a side note, LeBlanc has one skillshot in a best case scenario. Ahri and Lissandra have two, and Xerath has six. Ahem.

Playstyle

In lane, when you don't yet have access to Mimic and you want to assess your dominance in lane, there's a number of ways you can do so. First is your primary harassing tool at Lv1, because there's literally no better alternative to take at Lv1 unless your team is invading, and that is Distortion. Q mark can't be procced at Lv1, and with a collision skillshot and an equal manacost to Distortion, Ethereal Chains just isn't good enough. Lv2 is generally Sigil of Silence, which allows the QW harassing tool, which in and of itself deals over 250 damage. Ridiculous. You'll want to try getting in a basic attack when you're there, as reactivating Distortion and returning to the return pad doesn't cancel out basic attack commands issued before returning. Lv3 means Ethereal Chains as that allows you to do more damage than any other rank-up you could do at that point. Not to mention it allows you to set up ganks for your jungler, or coordinate a gank with a high CC jungler like Nautilus or Zac that has the CC for you to reposition and get that Ethereal Chains in that locks your enemy down long enough for a kill. Even without jungle pressure, you can use Distortion to clear the way - or move yourself into a better position, then land Ethereal Chains and Sigil of Malice and stay in range long enough to see the Chains pop, then return to the return pad and feel smug.

Fun stuff aside, there are some things you have to be careful about. Especially in lane, where LeBlanc is as dominant as she asserts herself to be. If you face a champion that doesn't have a hard time trading blows with you, and does better in trades than you do, your transitioning is inhibited to say the least. And while Distortion is an easy way to get yourself ahead due to a previously mentioned shortage of counterplay, hard CC will knock her out of the dash and prevent her from dealing any damage. This is why a good Ahri player will have a good chance at winning lane if she can repeatedly catch a LeBlanc out of her Distortion, and we all know how well an Ahri can take over a game if she gets ahead.

The same goes for risk taking. Granted that LeBlanc has some really strong AoE damage at her disposal with Distortion and Mimic: Distortion, if she gets CC'd during said dash or while she's there, she's in a lot of trouble. Moreover, if her assassination fails due to inherent tankiness or itemized defenses, she's going to have a bad time. Assassins either need to make it work in one go, or bail from the fight, and if LeBlanc doesn't kill something in one go and said target gets an advantage in positioning - such as when they position themselves between LeBlanc and her Distortion return pad - there's next to no way for LeBlanc to make it out against continuous damage dealers like Graves or Kalista.

Lastly, probably one of the most important things when you're trying to master LeBlanc is when to use which Mimic. Mimic has no mana cost and a relatively short cooldown for an ultimate, but as soon as your target has anything Magic Resist-wise, you're dealing a hefty chunk less damage, and it's up to you to make the best of such a situation. Putting youself at risk with a Distortion-Mimic combo and mauling the enemy team can be a good idea, but if your team isn't willing (or able) to follow up, you'll have wasted both your Mimic in this situation, and probably your life while you were at it. On the same token, a QRW combo for some good burst damage on a single target is all fine and well, but if the opportunity should arise where a QWR combo would be more effective - say, a dragon fight right after - you'll have lost out on some good potential AoE damage. And with a LeBlanc pick, the chances of going for an AoE combo in team fights is one that rarely arises but should be taken advantage of when it does. Practice makes perfect.

Coballz out~