An in-depth guide on how to counter Morgana the fallen angel
She is often described as “difficult to play against” and “impossible to play with if she can’t hit her dark bindings” and her kit is fairly simple which makes her one of the most important champions for bot lane supports.
A surprising amount of people can’t play against her but thankfully I’m a Morgana main and can help you out!
Her Q ( Dark binding) is one of the two most notable things about her, it snares you for up to three seconds (basically a year in League of Llegends time) and not only that but you have to worry about it’s damage too. I mean seriously take a full ap Morgana’s Q if you want to, you’ll be wishing you hadn’t trust and believe.
Moving onto her E (Black Shield) which is the second most notable part of her kit because it is a spell shield. When she uses it used on a champion they are shielded for 5 seconds against ANY form of crowd control (hard or soft) until it is penetrated or wears off. My gosh this champion already seems ridiculous whatever will you do against something so powerful? who can you play? What can you buy? Will you always be a toy for an insane Morgana player’s sick twisted games?
I could let you suffer but I’ll be nice and tell you five champions you can play to counter her in all phases of the game! The champions listed below will be support champions as that is the role I am most familiar with. So let’s dive right in!
Champions Morgana is weak against
1. Zyra
Haunted Zyra- this is her halloween skin
Zyra is currently the most obnoxious poke support champion in the game.
Using her Q: Deadly Spines, her E: Grasping Roots and her W: Rampant Growth, coupled with her long range and overall kit versatility; you as a player can create a hostile laning phase for an enemy Morgana without ever having to get close to her. Morgana’s short range and lack of sustain early game creates the perfect condition for Zyra to keep her health low.
Needless to say she’ll be less inclined to walk up to harass. As Zyra you want to be positioned between your minions or behind your ranged minions to avoid taking poke from Morgana’s W (Tormented soil). As mentioned above Morgana lacks sustain so you need to be playing aggressively with your poke, making sure to hit her with your Q (Deadly Spines) and dropping a W (rampant growth) seed down on top of the Q to spawn a plant that will continue to auto attack her until it’s timer runs out or she kills it.
Keep an eye on the cooldown of Morgana’s E (Black shield, time 18 seconds after the active 5 seconds is up) and her Q ( Dark binding, time 11 seconds after she uses it.) as this makes hitting your E (Grasping Roots) difficult to land because of the shield and to follow up on because you’d be snared out of range.
- Aggressively poke morgana when you see her between, in front of, or directly beside her minion wave
- Punish Morgana for missing Q’s and misusing her spell shield, remember you have an 18 second window for her shield and an 11 second window for her snare
- Use your poke potential to zone Morgana away from the wave to deny her exp
Morgana Counter Rating: 80/100
2. Taric
he looks like legolas
Taric is rather underwhelming compared to the other supportive tanks because his cc is hard to hit, he requires a lot of coordination with your ADC and he lacks gap closers and pull abilities, however he is one of the most annoying champions for a Morgana player to deal with both in lane and out.
This is due to his ultimate: Cosmic Radiance, after 2.5 seconds every ally in the range of him and the person who has his W (Bastion) on, will become invulnerable for another 2.5 seconds. As mentioned earlier Morgana’s ultimate (soul shackles) takes 3 seconds to stun you, so as Taric if you ult as soon as you hear the gasp sound you can potentially negate it entirely.
Taric’s E (dazzle) is a stun that lasts for 1.25 seconds after a 1 second delay, because every other ability in Taric’s kit revolves around his W (bastion) and the connection to other players it provides, it is very easy to get the spell shield from Morgana and still kill her or her adc.
- Use your W( bastion) to shield you and the adc when you think the Q (dark binding) will hit.
- Play up on morgana at level 1 and 2 because most Morgana players don’t take spell shield until level 3 if she takes spell shield at level 2. you cannot play aggressively, it becomes a game of baiting that cooldown at that point.
- Use your R (Cosmic radiance) when morgana flashes foreword to ult, or if you hear the gasp sound before the shackles go out to negate the stun
- Rremember : you’re Taric, run at Morgana with that naked chest blowing in the wind, get your stun down and reset your cooldowns with his passive (Bravado which grants bonus magic damage, and two quick succession autos that reduces the cooldown of your other abilities)
Morgana Counter Rating: 67/100
3. Soraka
Star Guardian Soraka, the best splash in my opinion
This champion does it all, she pokes with her Q (Starcall) which grants her 10 percent movement speed when not moving towards enemy champions as well as healing for a set amount over 4 seconds.
If you’ve taken a lot of Q’s (Dark bindings) and a lot of harass from a saucy Morgana’s W (tormented soil), use your Q to heal back that damage and empower your W (Astral infusion, your heal) to heal your ADC who may also be taking a lot of harass.
These two abilities alone are enough to make impatient Morg players overextend to land a snare on you. You cannot, I repeat you cannot take a Morgana’s Q (dark binding) you will get focused,ulted and savagely killed like the unicorn you are. But if it should happen that you have been snared use your E (E is for Equinox) to silence both Morgana and whoever else is running at you.
Important note: your E has a snare that happens after 1.5 seconds, use your Q to slow Morgana while she runs through the silence to land this.
Now, when Morgana goes to ult in the middle of your team you can ult the cast damage or the stun damage, this depends purely on you it’s the same damage on both ticks. Make sure that you are healing whenever you can because you want to exhaust Morgana’s mana pool while keeping the health in your lane high to reduce her kill pressure.
- Aggressively poke Morgana down in lane using your Q (Starcall)
- Use your silence to keep Morgana from flashing in or away
- Heal your adc to make you and your laning partner less juicy (engageable)
- Stay beside your ranged creeps at all time, if you walk up too far against a good morgana you will be punished (not the pleasurable kind)
Morgana Counter Rating: 90/100
4. Fiddlesticks
Default Fiddlesticks, spoopy
Why’s he fiddling with those sticks? Because he knows if he fiddles his sticks long enough against Morgana she’ll eventually ragequit. His E (Dark wind also known as flappy bird of silence and irritation) is a silence that bounces up to 6 times and silences stuck targets by 1.25 seconds per cast. Use this ability to harass both Morgana and her adc whilst also baiting the E (black shield) from a beginner Morgana player. If you’re able to bait her spell shield this way the next step would be to terrify (Q) her by screaming violently in her general direction; this ability will make her flee for a maximum of 2.5 seconds at max rank. Next give her the succ by using your W (Drain) to deal damage over time to her and heal yourself if you’re low, you’ll need to be making sure that you’re warding and clearing Morgana’s vision because a dark lane makes for an extremely successful Fiddlesticks ultimate. Fiddlesticks channels his R (Crowstorm) for 1.5 seconds before blinking to a target location and dealing damage per second to enemies within the area for 5 seconds. Use your ultimate off cooldown to snowball your lane if you’re already ahead, doing this from an un warded bush, or behind their tower works just as well because Morgana will most likely be startled.
- Use your E (Dark wind) on morgana to cause it to bounce between her and her adc.
- If Mmorgana lands a Q fight her by E’ing her so she can’t spell shield, fearing her with your Q (terrify) and then using your W(Drain) to win the trade
- Clear Morgana’s vision and drop a control ward to ensure that your ult will be a Surprise attack
Morgana Counter Rating: 75/100
5. Sona
Heartseeker Sona, released on valentines day
Last but not least, we have League of Legends’ poster support running down the bot lane with her etwal;cocky Morgana players better watch out! Sona is another champion who like Zyra is very good at abusing the fact that Morgana’s got short stick range because her Q (Hymn of Valor) reaches incredibly far. Sona’s passive Power chord gives her an empowered auto after casting 3 spells, that have differing effects based on the last color spell you used. Versus Morgana you want to be Q’ing her when you see her between her melee and ranged minions or beside her melee minions, stack up that power chord and your Q and make sure to auto attack her as you Q too. Use Sona’s E (Song of celerity) to gain a movement speed buff and yeet out of the way of those Q’s; you are extremely squishy *less hp than a ranged minion at level 1 rip* so you’re position in this lane will be behind your own ranged minions. Hitting the ultimate (R-Crescendo) on Morgana is tricky because of the spellshield so your best bet is to try landing it on both Morgana and her adc, you will catch one.
- Poke Morgana as hard as you can, as safely as you can with your Q (hymn of valor) and your passive autos from power cord (passive)
- Aim to catch both Morgana and other people in your R (crescendo) because you’ll most likely net a kill off the non spell shielded one
- Position behind your minions to avoid being snared
Morgana Counter Rating: 95/100
Champions Morgana is strong against
Oh come now dear reader, you didn’t think I’d only teach you half of her matchups did you? Here’s 5 more champions that she’s strong against and now the tables have turned. I will tell you how to destroy these champions as my favorite dark lady
Leona -> Quit spellshielding her kit!
Default Leona, sunny disposition
Because of the nature of Leona, she is easily shut down by that 5 second spellshield.
- You want to anticipate the engage ok. A good Leona player will use her E to try baiting your spell shield. Emote in her face and spell shield the Q and ult that will always follow.
- If Leona leads with her ult, spell shield it because it can be used as a bait as well. If you aren’t feeling too confident you can get your spell shield up to level 3, this will give it more up time which means more spell blocking time.
- When Leona does land and e on you and your spell shield is down, try to bind her and then flash out of her range (this is only in a imminent death situation)
2. Alistar -> You can't milk those
Infernal Alistar? yeah Infernal Alistar
Alistar’s three cc abilities all take place within 5 seconds and can all be shielded at once
- Watch the alistar headbutt into knock up combo because it’s deadly and very difficult to actually see coming,
- His E (trample) is an empowered auto attack and a stun so you really need to be careful with your shield here. If an alistar engages on you:ult immediately. Alistar is right on top of you so you can self peel with your ult in this manner
3. Veigar -> Morgana is way more evil
Baron von Veigar, this skin is old
He is an off-meta hyper aggressive support pick that can poke you down, and 100 to 0 you real quick but don’t despair.
- When he uses event horizon (E) you can safely ult him, this isn’t something I do without boots though because you also need to dodge his Q and his W.
- If you worry that you’re in execute range hp wise to die to his ult, spell shield it. This tip depends heavily on what phase of the game you’re in so this one only applies to laning phase
- Build a locket of the iron solari to help you withstand his magic damage and the initial burst from his ultimate.
- In lane don’t let him hit you with his Q because it gives him ap whenever he hits a champion, and you don’t want to be that guy.
4. Rakan -> this poor guy just gets bodied
solar rakan beside his lover xayah
Rakan is a get in and get out champion, which is why morgana is probably one of his hardest counters as far as bot lane goes. Your Q disables his ability to E to a teammate and flash.
- Rakan’s knockup is a dash ability and he can be Q’d in it, try to aim your q as he’s coming down because he’ll be trapped in place until it wears off.
- Spell shield rakan’s ultimate because it is a charm, if your spell shield is on cooldown you can alternatively snare him and watch him run in place for 3 seconds
- Use your ult to counter engage rakan ult because the charm will not stop your ult’s slow or stun
- In lane spell shield rakan’s knock up and then snare him to basically cut off his arms and legs and watch him roll around like a sausage
5. Thresh-> his head is green
Championship Thresh
Thresh versus Morgana is actually a skill matchup since each champion is exceptionally good at punishing each other’s mechanical mistakes. Thresh has both engage and disengage so the key to beating a Thresh player is to do the opposite of what he does. If he engages use your Spell Shield (E) to disegage as he'll be right in front of or beside you so a Dark Binding (Q) in this position is easier to hit. Remember: sometimes you can't always catch his ally after he engages, so it's okay to just take him instead!
- If Thresh’s Q (his hook) hits you he will reactivate it and pulls himself to you, at which point he will attempt to E (flay) you in whatever direction he feels. You need to spell shield that hook because once you are hooked if he reactivates and flays it is very difficult to hit your spell shield because you’ll be cc’d for that entire time.
- Spell shield his ultimate when you run through it, otherwise you’ll be slowed into oblivion
- Use your W (tormented soil) to whittle away at his health as during fights because he’s tanky and you won’t be able to burst him.
How To Outsmart a Morgana Player
Alas dear reader our time is coming to a close, and it is time I give you more general advice on beating Morgana players themselves. Ooooh Oh you’re about to see into my head when I play Morgana, are you excited? Cause I am. As Morgana my job is to Pick you off, disable you long enough for my team to kill you, and peel for my carries by using my spell shield to stop you from cc’ing them. So how can you stop a Morgana player like me from achieving these goals? well :
- Deny them vision control- Morgana players want to ward your jungle, your bushes, the river, the dragon, and any entrances to bot lane or mid lane if they’re roaming. Clear their vision and then punish them for replacing these wards. *Popular ward locations are tri bush, bot lane river bush, and dragon pit.*
- Dodge the snare, it is an extremely large and slow moving projectile and it contrasts heavily with the colors of the map itself so it’s easy to see. Note *it is a linear skill shot so you should dodge diagonally and more towards the skill shot*
- Punish them for using their spell shields incorrectly- if your jungler is botlane ping them to help you, call out her spell shield timer and try to get a gank off. If you keep them scared they’ll respect your power in lane if they’re good players
- Kill her - the best counter to any champion is death
With that I bid you farewell my dear readers, thank you for reading this thing all the way through! You made it champ, now get out on that rift and punish some Morgana players! and as always good luck summoners and happy climbing!
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