LeBlanc has just been updated, bringing attention to an older champion that used to be a proplay staple and one of Faker's top picks. With a sharp increase in pick rate due to her updated look, there's a new wave of new LeBlanc players eager to try her out.

If you want to know how to play her and what you should do to be able to stomp her, you're in the right place! This guide will go down her latest changes, when you should play her, how you should play her, and what you should do when facing one at the other end of mid lane.

LeBlanc ASU Changes

The recent LeBlanc ASU (Art and Sustainability Update) brought her visually up to par with the rest of champions released in 2024-2025, giving her a new model, animation kit and look. Her lore is deeply tied to the current seasonal event focused on Noxus and the Black Rose, and having one of the biggest characters representing the Black Rose be represented by a 13 year old 3D model just doesn't paint a great look for the season, let alone that most of her voicelines are just puns and gags. ...oh, right. Vladimir exists too. Tough luck, buddy. Maybe next time.

Unlike most other champions to get ASUs in recent memory (such as Viktor and Ahri), she received no new mechanics or buffs with her ASU. Her new lore isn't too different from her existing lore, and most of her changes are to her visuals and voicelines. If it ain't broken, don't fix it. Most LeBlanc skins also have had a much-deserved touch-up and some attention.

Any ASU is fated to drive a higher pick rate to the champion, regardless of if they were changed mechanically or not. Here are some tips to help you dip your toes into some of the oldest and most time-tried proplay picks in the history of League of Legends.

How to Play LeBlanc

Picking LeBlanc

The first step to playing any champion is picking them in the champion select screen. This may seem like an obvious and easy thing to do, but this is actually where many beginners find their first problems with the champion. LeBlanc is not a flexible or safe blind pick. In fact, she has some of the most polarizing matchups in the entire game.

If the enemy team has a lot of tanks, strong crowd control, or midlane champs that can trade safely, LeBlanc will struggle to establish any sort of lead.

Tanky champions and champions with strong CC are easy to identify in champion select, but strong midlane trade picks are less obvious. There's a small subset of champions that excel in short but extremely safe and consistent trading patterns, with very little room for LeBlanc to outplay them. Since she depends on harassing on diving, depriving her of safe harass stops her gameplan entirely.

These problematic picks include Lissandra, Galio, Gragas, Vex, Akshan and, to a degree, Sylas.

The biggest reason to pick LeBlanc is backline access. Seeing a tankier comp that still has a soft backline is still a valid game to pick LeBlanc in. She plays at her strongest when the enemy comp wishes to play front-to-back, where she plays around the enemy ADC, or whoever else is the most consistent source of damage. This obviously includes every marksman, but artillery mages such as Xerath and Zoe, or scaling enchanters such as Sona and Soraka, are also prime targets.

Early Game

LeBlanc's early game is defined by short trades that abuse Electrocute. Against picks that can't trade back very well in early levels, she likes to start W at level 1 to proc Electrocute with AA+W+AA for a massive chunk of damage. It's not hard for her to poke down an opponent to kill range before level 3, and this is, in fact, her most consistent wincon. As soon as level 3 hits, she uses her accumulated HP and experience advantage to dive onto you and ignite you, often shoving the wave immediately after for a humongous loss in gold for her opponent.

Against safer picks that can play against her harass patterns, though, she often picks Q at level 1 and attempts to farm without committing too much. If she doesn't have a favorable trading pattern early on, she's got better luck playing as a carrion feeder, skirmishing with her jungler into the midgame to accumulate kills and farm. If her level 3 powerspike isn't a guaranteed kill, she can try it all over again at level 6, where she gets another very sharp increase in damage. Since all of her abilities do little more than deal damage, she's very likely to simply outdamage the competition at every one of her powerspikes. Not getting a kill by the time you hit first item is a big missed opportunity.

Mid Game and Itemization

LeBlanc starts to shine and hit her peak in the game between 1 and 3 items. Your build can vary depending on when you're reading this guide, but the general rule of thumb is that damage is king. Whatever option puts the most damage into your combo will always be the right choice—mana, ability haste, health, none of that matters. Her job is to kill squishies quickly and safely, and if she can't do that, she's simply not in the game. Exceptions can be made of items that help both your waveclear and your burst at the same time, such as Luden’s Companion. Outside of that, getting 2-3 out of the highest AP items is essentially your full build. Luden’s, Rabadon’s, Shadowflame, Stormsurge, Mejai’s, etc. When itemizing, your sole purpose is to keep up your damage with your targets' resistances. Waveclear and mana aren't a priority. If you cannot 100-0 the enemy carry, you are behind. In 2025, most champions in the midgame sit on atleast 2.7k HP and 100 MR naturally, so Void Staff has become less of an anti-tank item and more of a necessity as a 4th item.

In skirmishes, consciously tracking enemy cooldowns should be a big part of your gameplan. You outdamage every other burst mage at any point of the game, but mages can close this gap by using their CC to stop your W, and assassins can use their cooldowns to dodge it. Be selfish and wait for your team to tank the important cooldowns.

After you've secured an early lead comes the hardest part of playing LeBlanc, that being spreading your lead. LeBlanc has great damage and backline access, but this isn't necessarily conducive to solo carrying. She cannot siege towers, splitpush very well, and she does not have consistent DPS for objectives. She's great at killing champions, but she lacks anything that helps her make progress in the map.

LeBlanc can spread her lead mostly through roaming, ganking and skirmishing in the jungle. However, just like you'll run out of mana quickly if you spam abilities when bored, you'll quickly run your lead out of gold if you roam every time you're bored. Shove your wave with W without losing too much health from harass, and only roam after setting up vision or on the side of the map where your jungler is.

Ping your roams. Spam ping, if necessary. Botlane is often focused on farming, harassing and wave management. Your jungler can be busy clearing efficiently, or tracking the enemy jungler.

If you don't see a valid opportunity to roam, then simply back up to your lane and establish a favorable position for a roam once again. Think of your wave as a resource, a bar full of gold that you'll spend every time you roam. Each roam should be contributing more gold to your team than you are losing to the enemy midlaner. And, obviously, keep yourself in the game and don't entirely forget about farming.

Late Game

This is where things get tricky for LeBlanc. She doesn't generally want to stretch the game until everybody has a full build, since by now mages have outscaled her, and AD assassin items generally have more utility than burst mage items. The enemy carries often have at least decent MR at this point, along with self-peel items like Immortal Shieldbow, Guardian Angel or Zhonya's Hourglass.

She's not really meant to walk with the team. She's meant to use her mobility to find flanks, and invalidate large frontlines by simply gapclosing to the carries. Preferably, she likes to stay in fog of war or bushes. With that said, she can sometimes play neutral with her team and poking by W'ing over a wall for a quick Q-R-E combo. Her relatively low cooldowns let her play as pre-teamfight poke, but this gets more and more dangerous in higher elo.

Your gameplan remains the same. Stay attentive for a gap into the backline, but keep in mind that your biggest strength is not having to commit. Don't tunnel, be patient, and play slow. You may feel enticed to spend the CC on your E to lock down tanks, or peel carries. If you are forced to play from behind, your best bet is trying to poke and kill targets who approach your carries, rather than trying to root them. Simply focus whoever your ADC is targeting, help them get their kills quicker, and add magic damage to their DPS.

If you're interested in learning LeBlanc and one-tricking her, it's entirely possible. Her troublesome matchups can be worked around and learned, giving you a rich and competitive experience. However, be warned—she's not meant to 1v9. This is why she's a pro-play staple and not a low elo stomper. Consider starting out on a fresh LoL account if you want to tackle a ranked journey with her.

How to Play Against LeBlanc

In a summary, LeBlanc's gameplan is relatively simple. She wants to use her early damage and safety to bully her enemy laner, get kills, get a lead, then use that lead to control the map in the midgame. If she can’t carry out one of these steps, then she can’t do the rest. Classic feast-or-famine playstyle.

As such, level 1-3 is the most important part of the game against her. Don't eat up early poke for CS, simply play it safe. Oppressive and consistent trade patterns will nullify this advantage, though, forcing her to try and find a lead somewhere else if she cannot establish an HP advantage over you. Early MR will also dampen her harass, since she has virtually no options for higher magic pen in her build. Even against a Galio, building Void Staff as second or third item sets back her damage curve irreparably for the rest of the game.

If you ever want to engage on her, you have to push the wave first. Her best time to engage on you is when the wave is pushing away from her, so her W return covers more distance and gives you even less room to retaliate against her trades.

The best time to engage on her is also right after she's used her entire kit to harass. Much like Galio, she's weakest after trading, so that's the perfect time for an assassin to dive in or force a longer trade.

You survive laning phase against LeBlanc by simply surviving and not giving her any kills, playing around her level 3 and 6 powerspikes, and by spam-pinging her roams. In the mid-game, she becomes incredibly weak against teams that group and ward instead of splitting and facechecking, and offers little value if she cannot control the map.

That's all we have to say on LeBlanc on the moment! Whether you're playing as or against her, these tips should help you understand her gameplan and win conditions a little better.