Morgana

Morgana is a champion that gets a lot of shit from bad players. The bizarre "Support" tag because of her one defensive ability means a lot of players who can't think for themselves write her off as being similar to Kayle as a damage-y/support-y hybrid but to be honest, this just isn't true and I think Riot were playing it fast and loose with the support tag when making Morgana - she's not a support, she's an AP and a damn good one at that.

Just on the subject of the support tag... I really think Riot use it in an odd way. Is any champion that has a buff or heal to be considered a support? If so, this is incredibly inconsistent. If Morgana is a support, why isn't Alistar? Why isn't Orianna? Hell, why isn't Gangplank? It doesn't make any sense and it shows that whatever criteria Riot use to decide what tags a champion should have is completely nonsensical and that a lot of champions need a rework on their tags.

Back on topic, Morgana is amazing - I adore the fallen angel. Despite the fact that scantily-clad, tattered-winged, evil corrupted angels are sexy to the extreme, she has some pretty cool and unique abilities to boot. There aren't a lot of champions out there who can be compared to Morgana, giving her a really unique playstyle that has great synergy with lot of other champions.

Basically, you'll be solo laning on Morgana - probably the top lane but possibly mid depending on who your team's second solo laner is - to focus on getting as much farm as possible. Morgana's W (Cursed Soil) is, in my opinion, one of the strongest farming tools early game. To make the most of it, throw it on the caster minions and let them drop down low. If you've build right, your auto-attacks should be able to finish them all off very quickly and if your timing is good, you'll be able to pick up most or all of the front lane of minions with auto-attacks while the soil is ticking. Her W is also going to be your main source of damage outside of your ultimate while you're duelling in a lane - it's not burst but combined with your snare, it can chip away at someone's health very nicely and remove a chunk of their magic resistance. You'll want to max her W first, picking up one point in her Q at level 2 and a point in her E at level 4.

Her E is another great skill and, like her W, it's easily underestimated. For one thing, it makes you immune to all debuffs - including most forms of CC - making you hard to gank early game if you can shield yourself at the right time but it also absorbs a lot of magic damage late game, scaling really well with your AP, meaning you can more-or-less avoid having to grab any magic resistance items (Except in specific circumstances, of course) - grabbing a frozen heart combined with her E is usually all I need in terms of defensive items in 90% of games.

Her Q is actually her least important skill to max out - the snare is all you really need it for early game - the damage isn't as good as that of her W but the burst it gives is nice late game. You'll basically want to time it along with her W so that you snare someone inside it, maximising your damage output. Your basic combo will be to snare someone on your cursed soil and instantly follow up with your ultimate and against most targets, this should be a kill in lane.

Her ultimate is the best thing Morgana brings to a team (Though, her E can be used to save people from AP nuke and CC and is extremely useful). You'll want to use it as early in the team fight as possible and hit as many targets as you can (obviously). If you can get it off correctly, you'll get a ton of damage and a stun on the entire enemy team, most often meaning you're guaranteed to come out on top - combined with an ultimate like Amunu's (meaning their whole team is CC'd for most of the fight) or Nunu's (Slowing the enemy while waiting for your stun and then hitting like a truck along with your damage output from your ulti), this is going to be devastating in every team fight and there's really no way you're going to lose the game unless your enemies have a really strong team or your team is filled with awful mouth-breathers (Quite possible at low-mid ELO).

In terms of itemisation, keep in mind that Morgana's abilities have very hefty cooldowns all-round, meaning you'll want to grab some CDR (I get the maximum allowed from masteries - 9% - and then try and get to at least 30% by late game) but combined with her having to get in close for her ultimate, Lich Bane is a really solid choice to maximise her damage output and avoid standing around waiting for cooldowns doing nothing. If the enemy team is populated by high health champions, Deathfire Grasp is another solid choice, giving her even more damage output outside of her basic abilities (Which, as I said, are not at all spammable, even with maxed CDR). Given that she has to get into the fray quite a lot, a great defensive choice is Frozen Heart and I think I've taken this on every single game I've played on Morgana - CDR, armour and mana (And the slowed attack speed aura) are all great on Morgana and, as I mentioned before, given the power of her E, she should be quite tanky with just a frozen heart, able to take the damage jumping in to use her ultimate is going to thrown your way. Also, Deathfire Grasp and Frozen Heart with the right mastery build should mean cooldown reduction is no longer an issue.

I just played a game on Morgana where I was able to dominate from the word go and keep that up the entire game. The enemy team all feared my presence in lane and, because they weren't great players, they were constantly asking how they were losing to Morgana and how I was so good at her. In honesty, I'm not that great of a Morgana player, I just know her abilities and have a comfortable build in mind when I start playing her and I know that most players I come up against don't understand her as a champion and have probably only seen her played badly, giving me a huge edge as they're very likely to completely underestimate what she can do (Often, people barely know what her abilities do outside of her skillshot). I have to admit, I abuse this psychological advantage throughout the game and I've carried so many games to victories as Morgana that I'm starting to think she's my favourite champion.

Edit: Also, her new artwork is amazing. So was her old one but this one is hot :D