The Many Styles of Morgana: A Preseason 8 Rune Guide
Just this past week on
Tuesday League of Legends got its big preseason 8 changes, and I know I just
did a guide on ranked but I couldn’t help but jump right into the theory
building for rune pages. Masteries and runes have been completely melded with a
bunch of familiar and some entirely new options. In the season 8 ranked season I plan on switching my roles to Mid and Top so I decided to spend a lot of time making
pages for my picks for those lanes and the one I've spent the most time testing
out is Morgana: The Fallen Angel.
So what didn’t
really click in my head before I gave the new runes a really good read is that
they're all "adaptive", meaning they adapt to the damage your
champion does (physical or magic) so there's tons more wiggle room for what
kind of page you can go for. What's optimal though? I'm still not sure and its
kind of a low level of play mentality to have but I enjoy thinking about what
could be.
Hungry, Hungry
Morgana
The first page I
thought of was using the mastery "Dark Harvest" because I recently
have been playing a ton of Morgana games where I've just been getting a lead
and becoming a bully for the enemy mid and jungle and then eventually the entire
team and shoving with tormented soil until I'm at the inhib tower with a really
large cs lead. So I thought utilizing "Dark Harvest" as a way to scale harder and
push harder when my mid opponent roams. It's just a page entirely centered
around being greedy and eating everything you can to get big.
So you take
"Cheap Shot" since you have two cc abilities and your full combos are
gonna mostly start with your ultimate (which slows then stuns). I took "Zombie
Ward" on this page to provide as much vision as possible because ideally
were just shoving lanes all game, so we need the vision for incoming lane
ganks. And I took "Ravenous Hunter" because I thought healing in
fights would be hard for the enemy to deal with even though at the time I
wasn't sure how much the healing would be worth it. Secondary is Sorcery and
for the sake of scaling I took "Gathering Storm" and to keep
dominance over lane I took "Absolute Focus" for being able to go onto
the enemy laner and one combo them. You could take "Scorch"
alternatively to help bully. However even though the idea of this is
entertaining because I can't guarantee this kind of situation consistently and
the very long time it takes to stack "Dark Harvest" in lane, it turns
out to be quite underwhelming and if your winning with it you would have been
winning or hard winning already with something else. Honestly it's just bad but
its my baby.
Lockdown Support
Morgana
This next page is a
page that takes the inspiration tree because the rune "Approach
Velocity" immediately sounded great on Morgana and "Kelptomancy"
seems generally good for supports and is the talk of the town right now.
So
"Kleptomancy" actually turned out to be really cool because of all
the consumables that you can get in the laning phase that are actually retired
from the shop and unavailable(mana potions, vision wards, old biscuits, and a
sly sack of gold worth 20-100 gold, ect.), but I don’t know how good it is
overall. I think this one will get talked about a lot so ill wait before I pass
any judgment it (even though I hear a lot of higher elo players speak against
the hype) seemed good when I used it but the value of the items and the gold
are unclear to me. "Perfect Timing" is actually lovely on Morgana in
general because it gives you a piece of Zhonya's Hourglass one of your core
items you almost always build especially in support and gives you a chance to
use an early version of it at level 6 or when you have an opportunity.
"Approach Velocity" is the crown jewel of this page giving you move
speed when your ulting the enemy which is big for Morg being able to stick onto
and get into enemy champions supported
by the stopwatch active from "Perfect Timing" especially on support
where you don’t mind putting yourself at risk as much. Secondary is Domination
taking "Zombie Ward" for vision control as a support and
"Relentless Hunter" for extra move speed which is generally good as
support. This one is just generally good and works as intended.
Vanilla AP Morgana
Next is the more
straightforward mid Morgana page taking the Sorcery tree. This is another one
that’s generally good and had some alternatives for secondary's that change the
dynamic. Gathering storm is just good on most mages because more damage never a
bad thing.
So first we take
"Arcane Comet" because even though they can dodge it, they wont always
and in team fights no one gonna be watching for it. It's extra damage in the
lane when they walk over your tormented soil and I promise they will. "Manaflow Band" is generally good and lets you stay in lane longer
and as Morgana your going to be getting a lot of cs with tormented soil so free
casts are nice. "Transcendence" another generally good rune for mages
that like cdr. "Gathering Storm" is good because more AP. You could
take "Scorch" Alternatively even though I don’t know if the value is
worth it. The secondary tree however could be domination where you would take
"Zombie Ward" and "Relentless Hunter" both solid runes for
Morgana and a lot of champions. Or you can take the inspiration tree
"Perfect Timing" instantly having value for its active and free 600g
on a core item for Morg, "Approach Velocity" also having instant
value for a more aggressive ult cast on an unprepared opponent(s). Also in the
inspiration tree "Magical Footwear" is a good option because as Morg
you probably wont have boots till 10 minutes anyway and saving the 300g is just
good and the extra move speed is good but not huge. "Hextech
Flashtraption" can also be good for flashing in and ulting but I don’t
like it that much. Even though this one is kind of self explanatory and obvious
its still really good. I've had the best results with this page because
everything on it just works well on Morgana.
I think from first
to last this kind of personifies how the theory crafting in competitive games
(and a bunch of other stuff) goes. The coolest ideas in our heads are usually
just sub-optimal and the easiest answer is a lot of the time the best answer. I don't
dislike that though, because results and good performances are a good thing and
even though we progress past ideas we like that kind of growth is part of the
beauty of mastery. I hope this preseason is good for all of you, and even
though we will for fact have to abide to a standard I hope you have good times
with some ideas of your own. Don't be afraid of growing because you think your
conforming. Mastering the art of being open to knowledgeable opinions for the
sake of becoming greater is part of the climb.
P.S. Good luck in solo q and
make sure you grind some good MMR for the next ranked season. Yes it matters.
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