Support Leblanc: Just Trolling or Secret OP?

Hey everyone, Darwin here again with another unconventional support guide.  This one features Leblanc, The Deceiver.  Leblanc is a very high skill cap champion that focuses on confusing and displacing her opponents with her spells. Before I begin I'd like to offer a small disclaimer: support Leblanc is a very unconventional pick.  Although if played correctly support Leblanc is very viable just the fact that it is uncommon may cause your teammates to discourage you from selecting this.  If your entire team is adamantly against your selection, especially in ranked, then maybe it's a better idea to pick a more traditional support to save the moral of the team.  With that said let's get in to it!

Similar to Elise, Leblanc is a highly aggressive support.  If you prefer sitting back try a champion like Soraka.  The goal of playing her is to create kills in lane, at the same time protecting your carry with snares from ethereal chains and silences. She especially shines in 2v1 lanes where she can punish small missteps by the solo laner. 

Skills:

Mirror Image: When LeBlanc drops below 40% Health, she becomes invisible for 0.5 seconds. When the invisibility fades, she creates a Mirror Image that deals no damage and lasts for up to 8 seconds. Mirror Image has a 1 minute cooldown.

Leblanc's passive is just as useful or useless as when you play her in the mid lane.  Occasionally you will be able to get out of a stick situation because your clone will distract someone long enough for you to jump to safety.  More often than not it will generally just pop when you get low and your clone will just sit there and look like a purple version of you.  

Sigil of Silence: LeBlanc projects an orb towards her target, dealing magic damage and marking the target for 3.5 seconds. If the target takes damage from one of LeBlanc's abilities, the sigil will trigger, dealing damage and silencing the target.
LeBlanc projects an orb towards her target, dealing 70/110/150/190/230 (+0.6) magic damage and marking the target for 3.5 seconds. If the target takes damage from one of LeBlanc's abilities, the mark will trigger, dealing 20/40/60/80/100 (+0.3) magic damage and silencing the target for 2 seconds. Cost: 70/75/80/85/90 Mana Range: 700.

In the mid lane this skill serves as Leblanc's primary nuke.  Early on in a duo lane it can also serve this purpose as it still chunks pretty hard.  Be careful of harassing with it too often because it can be hard on your mana pool.  It's most important function for later team fights is the silence.  A timely two second silence can be devastating for a carry thatrelies on their abilities to influence a fight.  Remember you can prevent flashes with silence as well.  Use this to assist ganks.  

Distortion - LeBlanc rapidly moves to a target location, dealing magic damage to nearby units. In the following 3 seconds, she can activate Distortion again to return to her starting location. LeBlanc rapidly moves to a target location, dealing 85/125/165/205/245 (+0.6) magic damage to nearby units. In the following 3 seconds, she can activate Distortion again to return to her starting location. Cost 80/85/90/95/100 Mana. Range: 600.

This is the core skill that defines a successful Leblanc player.  It's central for her jukes, for positioning her other skill shots, for procking the mark from sigil of silence, and even for catching skills aimed at your AD carry.  One of the best examples of this is Blitzcrank's hooks.  If you purposefully deceive into a hook and then mash the W key hard enough you can return back to your original position before the knock up goes off, effectively nullifying the hook.  I have used this tactic countless times to save a carry who is otherwise dead in the water. Another neat trick with this move is if you really need vision of an area but are worried about getting too close to ward you can distortion, put a ward down, and instantly return.  This should almost always enable you to get away from those dirty bush campers.  

Ethereal Chains - LeBlanc flings illusionary chains towards a target location. If it hits an enemy unit, it will deal initial magic damage and slow their movement speed by 25%. If the target remains shackled for 2 seconds, the target takes additional magic damage and is unable to move. LeBlanc flings illusionary chains towards a target location. If it hits an enemy unit, it will deal 40/65/90/115/140 (+0.5) initial magic damage and slow their movement speed by 25%. If the target remains shackled for 2 seconds, the target takes an additional 40/65/90/115/140 (+0.5) magic damage and is unable to move for 1/1.3/1.6/1.9/2.2 second(s). Cost: 80 Mana. Range: 925.

This skill, similar to Elise's cocoon, is the skill that generates all your kills in lane.  I max it first for cooldowns and snare duration. The uses for this skill are endless.  You can use it to snare carries and make them helpless to escape your teammates or peel bruisers or assassins off your own carries.  I almost always use my ultimate with this spell in order to double cast it for snares on two targets (or two snares on one target). 

Mimic - LeBlanc can cast a more potent version of the previous spell she cast.
LeBlanc can cast the previous spell she cast. The mimicked spell deals 10/25/40% increased damage. Cost: 100/50 Mana. Range: 0. 

Leblanc's ultimate makes it so you can cast one of her spells a second time with increased effectiveness.  Like I mentioned above I most commonly use this for a second cast of Ethreal chains in team fights and even in lane. Being able to double snare the other AD carry will almost definitely ensure their death as long as your AD carry is basically on par with them.  Can also be used with distortion for extra fancy jukes or just double jump escapes. 

Items:

I almost always build basic standard support items on Leblanc. Philosopher's stone and Ruby Sight stone are essentially a must for gold generation and a bit of durability. Kage's Lucky pick is a great third choice because it increases your gold while giving you a slight pump in damage. If you get ahead early feel free to turn this into a morellonomicon and shoot for a bit more DPS oriented build - just remember warding is your primary responsibility so don't get carried away with spending gold on ability power and forget to secure vision of important spots on the map. 

General Game Play:

In lane phase focus on maintaining bush control.  If possible push your lane a bit and attempt to control the far lane bush.  That way you can position easily and land your ethereal chains when you have an opening. If you can't no fear! Use your distortion to maneuver yourself into a place where minions won't catch your snares. If possible use your distortion at minimal range so that you can use the second second activation to escape from danger but still maintain the bond until it snares. 

In team fights you can do a few things.  You can attempt to get people to blow a few cooldowns on you by baiting with your distortion.  Just be careful as you are relatively squishy.  Other than that you want to stick close to your carries and neutralize threats to them by snaring them in place.  

Thanks for reading! As always I welcome any comments, questions, or criticism!