LeBlanc - The Deceiver (A guide by Avokazam) Patch 7.

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Introduction
Leblanc is a midlane assassin champion that excels at outplaying and decieving her
opponents and assasinating enemy carries with massive damage. Since her release she
has been reworked due to causing too many problems and having very little counter play
in the professional gaming scene. She has also recieved a number of nerfs since her
rework for the same reasons but leblanc mains have found ways around this by tweaking
their item builds and combos. Leblanc is still one of the meta midlaners in high elo but it
is in coordinated professional play where she truly shines and is almost permabanned in
LCS for this reason.

Pros and Cons

Pros:

1. Has a very safe laning phase due to her high mobility kit and doesn't have any "major"
counters in the mid lane. With only ryze and kassadin being the only truly difficult
matchups - She is a very good blind pick if you don't know what the enemy midlaner is
going to play. This only applies once you have learned leblanc and are good with her!

2. Can solo carry games to an early finish when fed by snowballing early-mid game.

3. Possesses massive amounts of damage and alot of different combos for different
situations.

4. Has great escape and you can get out of dangerous situations with ease.

5. Has the ability to outplay almost any other champion in the game with the use of her
distortion ability.

6. Leblanc is one of the best roamers from the midlane and excels at roaming to other
lanes to pick up kills and snowball the game for other lanes. Her ganks can be unplayable
due to her massive gap closing potential and CC.

7. Great waveclear with her passive and bouncing Q and can splitpush lanes very fast.
Cons:

1. Leblanc is hard to learn and even harder to master and so you must be willing to
invest hundreds of games to get the best out of the deceiver! Leblanc is a champion you
can ALWAYS get better with... her learning curve doesn't end.

2. If you fall behind and lose lane then you become useless for the rest of the game

3. She has very poor teamfighting capabilities and relies on picking off enemy carries
rather than going all in ARAM style. Very good leblanc players can still manage to get in
and out of teamfights without dieing and so it is not impossible!

4. She is very very squishy and can be killed very quickly if she makes a mistake.

5. Has moderatley high cooldowns until you get some CDR items and/or level up your
abilities and so there is no room for error in messing up your combos or wasting your
abilities.

6. Leblanc auto attack animation is very slow and clunky and so last hitting minions can
take a lot of time to get used to. Be prepared to miss alot of cs!

7. Can fall off somewhat late game and become less effective due to the enemy carries
getting some defensive items and resistances. "The bloodthirster" and it's overhealed
shield is a nightmare for a leblanc that wants to delete and ADC! However, she isn't a
pantheon, she will still do tons of damage at all stages of the game.

Itemization
Standard build

- Hextech Gunblade

- Lich Bane or Morellonomicon (Lich bane provides more burst damage and
morellonimicon provides more mana and cooldown reduction and soit is personal
preference. More recently I started to favour morellos over lich bane for the extra
cooldown reduction)

- Sorcerers shoes

- Void Staff: Always get this item! The magic pen is vital for late game when the enemy
will start have alot of magic resistance
- Rabadons deathcap :90% of the time you will get this item because it increases your
damage massivley. If you are fed and the enemy don't have alot of magic restistance you
can buy this before void staff otherwise get void staff first.

- Zhonyas Hourglass or Banshees veil: zhonyas is a good choice versus heavy AD teams
with the armour it provides and also gives your more survivability with the stasis active.
Banshees veil can be a good option vs heavy AP teams and mages with high damage
spells like syndra, brand,annie and orianna etc. If you are versus an AD midlaner such as
zed or talon then rush zhonyas hourglass first before hextech gunblade. Zhonyas
hourglass active will also counter both of their ultimates so is a good counter item for
these matchups.

Lane Matchups

NEED TO DO THIS PART!

Abilities and Combos

Abilities:

NEED TO DO THIS PART TOO!

Combos

Bread and Butter combo:

W,Auto,wait 1.5 seconds, Q passive proc + thunderlords proc, W to safety

When to use: This is leblancs main combo used for trading in lane versus your opponent.
If done correctly you can often chunk alot of your opponents health
with taking only minimal or sometime 0 damage in return. Be careful when using this if
your opponent has a stun e.g Ahri charm or lux bind. In this case it is better to wait until
your

opponent as used their main damage spell e.g ahri Q so that if they do manage to stun
you their damage output will be minimized. Also, an easy way to duke a stun is to

immediatley dodge either left or right after you use your initial W. Also, be wary of
champions that can cast spells on to the spot of your return W, e.g ziggs explosives.
Sometimes

it might be smart to not return back if you are confident you won't recieve to much
damage by sticking around. It is also important you get an auto attack off while waiting
for your passive to come up to get the thunderlords proc from you Q

for maximum damage output.

Safe Turret Dive Combo:

Q, wait 1.5 second, W in to range, R + Q passive proc, W back out of turret range

When to use: This is a very safe and deadly combo and can be used to dive enemies you
think you can kill under their turret without the risk of getting stunned under turret or
taking to much turret damage.

The reason behind this is if you was to just W to them under turret, you would have to
then wait 1.5 seconds for your passive sigil to appear before you can use Q or RQ to

shatter the sigil to deal the majority of your damage. Instead you can cast Q on to them
out of turret range then walk away as if you are not intertested in the dive and then you
can safely wait out

the 1.5 seconds out of turret range to then quickly W to gap close and then follow up
with an Immediate R+Q to deal massive damage. You also then have a safe point to W
back to, to avoid too much turret aggro.

The most important thing about this combo is to NOT SHATTER YOUR SIGIL WITH THE W.
After W nerfs it does very little damage and also your shatter orb(Q or RQ) does very
little damage unless you are shattering your sigil of malice.

So W into range but don't W directly on to the enemy. It's sometimes easier to W slightly
to the side of them.

Safe Poke Combo (pre level 6):

Q, auto, wait 1.5 seconds, W on to enemy to shatter passive proc + thunderlords proc
with immediate W away

When to use: If you are not confident in dodging skillshot stuns you can use this to get
some free damage off of your laner. It is rare that I would use this combo personally but
it can be useful against people

like ryze with point and click stuns where your bread and butter combo leaves you
vulnerable for the 1.5 seconds. This combo does way less damage than the bread and
butter combo but at least gives you a chance to trade with enemies that can

counter your main trade combo.

Invisible chain combo:

E on target and W towards target immediatley to cancel the E animation cast time.

When to use:

If you want to stun an enemy as fast as possible use this combo to cancel your initial E
cast time and instead cast W and E all at the same time, almost as if it was the same
ability.

It can also be used to avoid "minion block" i.e if a minion is blocking you from casting
your E at an enemy you can press E towards the enemy and immediatly W past the
minion and because your E cast was cancelled and then synced with your W cast time it
will not hit the minion.

This is also a very important technique used in a much more complex technique which
we will cover below "The long safe chain" combo.

It is called the invisible chain because the immediate W blocks the cast animation of the
E and the enemy won't know that you have chained them until they are stunned.

Long safe chain combo:

Q, wait 1.5 second, E with immediate W towards enemy with another immediate W
back to safety

When to use:

This is an advanced leblanc mechanic and should only be used once you have perfected
the technique in the practice tool or vs bots as it easy to mess up and end up with a
dead leblanc.

This is best used when you are low health and without your ultimate (R + ability version)
and are confident you can kill a low health melee or short ranged enemy but are at risk
of dieing if you get close to them for too long.

The initial Q will set up your passive from a safe range, you can then continue to follow
or walk away from them for 1.5 seconds depending on whether they are chasing you or
you are chasing them. Now assuming you dnt have your R+Q ultimate the only other

ways to shatter your passive is to either use W or E. Now W does way less damage than
E and requires you to W directly on to them putting you in melee range. Instead you can
use the "invisible chain combo" to take away the cast time of your E and then
immediatley W back.

The first part of your E will shatter the sigil of malice immediatly and you can W away
from any potential return damage or enemies that are coming to help the target. It is
called the "long chain" combo because when you W back immediately the chain will
look like it's been cast from a farther distance than

it's actual range i.e The chain will be longer than it's actual allowed cast range this is
because you cancelled the cast time within the range of your initial W before you casted
W again to return. So, it gives the illusion that you have cast your E from a ridiculous
range and keeps you safe.

Delayed Chain combo:

W on to enemy, wait between 0-1 seconds, E, wait out the rest of the passive timer, Q
to proc passive, E finishes with stun, W away or continue Auto attacking them

This is the second most important combo when in the laning phase and is an enhanced
version of the "bread and butter" combo that can be used level 3+ to incorporate the
use of your E(Ethereal chains) ability.

This can be very difficult to get right and takes ALOT of practice to perfect the timing of
your abilities. The important thing to note here and the whole point of this combo is
that you are

using your Q to shatter your sigil of malice passive not your E! Remember we max Q first
and it does more damage than any other ability when used to shatter your passive - So
we want to make sure we use it in that way. If we used W on to the enemy and
immediately cast E then because E provides some initial damage when it lands on an
enemy and then applies

more damage after approx 1.5 seconds at the time of the stun - It actually means that
the stun damage (second part of E) will also shatter the passive and your Q will not....
Thus the overall damage of the combo is not optimal. So, instead we wait a short period
after applying the passive with W

before casting E so that the sigil of malice passive activates before our E stuns the target
and thus we can use Q before our E finishes it's job to shatter the sigil with Q. This
provides the most damage output from using your 3 standard abilities together.
WOMBO combo (Requires Hextech Gunblade item):

W, R + W, gunblade active, wait 1.5 seconds, Q, W away to safety

When to use:

This is leblancs main assasination combo and will probably be the one you use the most
after laning phase. If you are decently fed and/or are well farmed then this should be
able to 100-0 any ADC or squishy target. It can

be cast from insane range and you can even flash inbetween the double dash (W, flash,
R+W) to gain even more range on your gap closer and thus puts you even farer away
from danger when you W back after assasinating your target. There are 2 important
things

to note about this combo:

1. If using flash use it inbetween the 2 dashes, If you cast it before i.e Flash, W, R+W -
you aren't maximizing the distance of your return W. Also, if you use it last i.e
W,R+W,Flash you won't apply the passive mark on to your enemy and your damage will
be significantly reduced.

2. Always cast R+W after W because if you are assasinating an adc that has 2 other allies
around him/her then you are open to take damage for 1.5 seconds while waiting for
your sigil of malice.

So if you use R+W last it will spawn a clone that will stick around for 2 seconds and the
enemies will not know which one to attack and thus provides abit of extra protection
while waiting for your passive.

Triple chains combo:

R + E, E, (AA, Q Optional)

When to use:

This is best used against tanks that have too much health to be killed by your
assasination combo or need to be locked down in a teamfight because they cause a big
threat to your team. You can stun them twice in a row and lock them down for your
teammates

to then try and finish them off or for low health allies to escape from them. It is a good
combo to use to save your adc if they get jumped on by a tank and can also be a great
tool to use to setup ganks for your jungler to kill your lane opponent.

It's much more safer to cast your R+E before your E because the R+E will create a double
chain with your clone alongside you and this will confuse the enemy from attacking you
until you get the initial stun off - You can then safely cast E a second time to stun them
again. You can also weave in some auto attacks and your Q and/or your gunblade active
if they are off cooldown to add extra damage while they are stunned.

Quadra chains combo:

E, R + R, R + E (AA, Q Optional)

When to use:

This is very hard because you have to press alot of buttons very fast. Just use triple
chains to get the same damage and stuns if you aren't comfortable with his combo.

Same as triple chains combo but you start with E and immediatly cast your R+R mimic
ultimate which mimics the inital E to confuse the enemy and then you follow up with
R+E ultimate. Note this still only stuns twice but 4 chains are cast overall and 2 clones
are created.

Lich bane combo (Requires lich bane item):

W, auto, Q, auto, E, auto, R + Ability, auto

The lich bane + gunblade build has become very popular since the W damage nerfs to
add some extra damage to leblanc kit to make up for the lack of W damage. Lich bane
works by empowering your auto attack after using an ability to deal bonus damage.

Also, with the extra attack damage provided from Hextech gunblade it synergizes well
with the lich bane autos. This should be incorporated into all of your combos if you
build lich bane and can really add alot of extra burst damage. It is very difficult to weave
in the autos after each ability so I advise new leblanc players to build Hextech Gunblade
+ Morellonomicon instead of Hextech Gunblade + Lich bane. I used to build Lich bane
but now prefer Morellonomicon for more mana and Cooldown reduction because early
to mid game leblanc can have very high cooldowns and if you use all of your abilities and
miss a vital chain then you could be in a very vulnerable position for quite a long time
without abilities to use.

The "lich clone" combo (Requires lich bane item):

Cast any ability on to the enemy, R+R on to your current position to spawn clone, Alt +
auto to gain a double lich bane proc from both your auto and your clones auto

When to use: When you want to show off! This is a bug exploit and could be fixed in the
future.

Fake return combo:

W away from enemy into brush or fog of war and cast R+R clone on to the return point
of your W and walk away

When to use: If you need to escape someone you can make it look like you returned
back to your W location but instead you have cast a clone there.

The Double Decieve:

W away from enemy, walk in opposite direction of your original position for 2-3
seconds, W back and walk away

When to use: You can use this to confuse enemies and escape them or to dodge
multiple skillshots. I.e You can use this to dodge 2 shots from a xerath ult
The Quadra Decieve:

W away from enemy, run away for 2-3 seconds, W back, R+W into the opposite
direction again, run for 2-3 seconds then R back and you should have lost any chasing
enemies

When to use: Same as double decieve but this time you get 4 distortions and you also
get a clone to help out with decieving the enemy and you can mess their brain up
completely!