Support Pocket Picks: Morgana

If you want to ensure that your carries are never in harms way, just pick Morgana.

With the introduction of Dynamic Queue, many people have complained that they typically are assigned support if they pick “fill” as their primary role. But most people aren’t support mains, and most people only know how to play a small handful of support champions. With her immense amounts of crowd control (CC) and the ability to block enemy crowd control, Morgana should be your go-to support champion.

Lets do a quick rundown of Morgana’s abilities so we can dive into the intricacies and combos that you should be looking for as a Morgana player. Her passive ability, Soul Siphon, grants her permanent spell vamp. Her Q, Dark Binding, shoots out a straight line skill shot that snares and deals damage to the first enemy hit, whether its a minion or champion. Morgana’s W, Tormented Soil, places a pool on the ground that does damage over time to any enemies standing inside. Her E, Black Shield, grants a magic shield that blocks damage and any crowd control, for up to five seconds. And finally her Ultimate, Soul Shackles, tethers to nearby enemy champions, dealing damage and slowing them. If they do no leave the tether range in 3 seconds, they are stunned and dealt a second round of damage.

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In most games, you will be facing against a team with sizable amounts of CC that will be going for your carries until they are dead. Morgana provides engage, disengage, peel and the ability to stop all CC from hindering your carries from dealing damage.

The Fallen Angel’s core abilities are her Dark Binding (Q) and her Black Shield (E). The combination of these two abilities make being engaged on extremely difficult. In the current meta, the most popular champions have to run at you and your team to deal any damage. Champions like Udyr, Shyvana, Master Yi and Volibear all have to run (albeit very, very fast) at your team. Morgana’s Dark Binidng can stop them in their tracks.

At max rank, Morgana’s Q can snare a speedy foe in place for 3 seconds, making them stand and contemplate why they let Morgana through the ban phase. This ability is also great for engaging and catching unsuspecting enemies in the fog of war. Snaring an enemy for 3 seconds gives plenty of time for your team to collapse and secure the kill, and can be infuriating to fleeing enemies who think that they were about to get away. Dark Binding moves rather slowly, so use bushes and the fog of war to your advantage.

Victorious Morgana /

A trick for landing your Q against enemies hiding behind minions is to wait until a minion is about to die to fire your Dark Binding. As you see the last tick of damage about to hit the minion, activate your Q. If done correctly, the snare will pass through the minion immediately after it dies, making it difficult for the cowering enemy champion to escape the path of the skill shot. Also something to remember is that Dark Binding will not interrupt any kind of dashes or jumps. If hit, the dashing target will be snared when their dash is complete, so always try to bait out the dash to ensure that they cannot escape.

Morgana’s Black Shield blocks any magic damage and makes an ally immune to any form of CC for five seconds, as long as the shield isn’t broken by enemy magic damage. This too can be used as a supplement for engaging or disengaging. Like stated previously, the most popular champions have to run at the enemy and get in their face to start dealing damage. If one of these champions are on your team, putting a Black Shield on them will allow them to run right through the enemy CC and deal damage without any hesitation. This also very effective for assassins who need to jump in, deal their burst damage and then get out. Giving Zed or LeBlanc a spell shield can frustrate the enemy team, forcing them to use some of their main magic damage just to try and break the Black Shield.

Every situation and team fight is different, so use your judgement on who and when you should use your Black Shield on.

Always think about the scenario before you use your Black Shield on an ally. Reconsider putting your Black Shield on your damage dealers instead of your engaging champions if you know that the fed mage will immediately try to eliminate your back-line carries. But at the same time, if your engaging champion can kill enemies one-on-five, then your spell shield would probably be more beneficial on the engager. Every situation and team fight is different, so use your judgement on who and when you should use your Black Shield on.

If your team has successfully engaged, or if the enemy’s counter engage is stronger, run towards the enemy team and activate your ultimate. Soul Shackles will slow all the enemies tethered, allowing your team to retreat and regroup, or allow the fight to continue. After three seconds, all enemies still tethered will be stunned for 1.5 seconds. After about one second has passed, fire your Dark Binding at an enemy, making them stand in place for a total of 4.5 seconds. Remember that Soul Shackles does damage twice, once when activated and again when the stun applies. This can lead to a large amount of damage being dealt from your ultimate and Q alone.

After three seconds, all enemies still tethered will be stunned for 1.5 seconds. After about one second has passed, fire your Dark Binding at an enemy, making them stand in place for a total of 4.5 seconds.

An essential item for Morgana to build is Zhonya’s Hourglass. Since it does not cancel her Soul Shackles, you can activate it while tethered to multiple enemies, making it impossible to kill you while your ultimate is still active. In some cases you won’t have to activate Zhonya’s at all. Being able to walk with the enemies to keep the tether on them is crucial, so only try to activate Zhonya’s when the enemy starts to focus you with their damage.

Tormented Soil and her passive are probably Morgana’s weakest abilities in the Support role. Tormented Soil does do AoE damage over time, but the damage it does at lower ranks is very low and costs just as much mana to use as a max rank Dark Binding. When you’re in laning phase, only use this if you land a Dark Binding on an enemy champion. Using it on a snared enemy will grant you all three gold-generating stacks of your Spell Thief’s Edge, and trigger Thunderlord’s Decree if you chose to take that mastery. In regards to her passive, unless you have large amounts of AP as a support, the health that you get back from the spell vamp isn’t very noticeable.

With the ability to block any form of CC and the ability to provide meaningful damage and CC herself, Morgana is a very strong pick in almost any matchup. With the popularity of many run-at-you, dive heavy champions, Morgana should be one of your top support pocket picks.

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