by elite500

I’m Elite500, a Challenger midlaner who’s been coached by the legendary veigarv2 multiple times. I’ve played vlad consistently since season 5, peaked challenger every season since 7, ended it in s9 and just achieved it with 63% WR in s10 with a total of 850 lp

but Elite, Why on earth would I dehuminise myself to play Vladimir?

Well, season is gonna come to an end soon, and somebody still hasn’t managed to reach diamond yet, so who are you to deny that craving for lp.

Let’s Start:

Here are your runes and how to use them

Phaserush:

Phaserush is easily vlads best keystone, allowing you to run at your targets at high uncounterplayable speeds.

It’s easily proccable especially considering vladimir’s initial ult cast applies a stack.

The rest of the runes are nimbus cloak for speed, transendence for optimal cdr,then gathering storm for scaling

Secondary you’re gonna wanna take cosmic insight for cdr and free boots because who passes on some custom made free adidas ultraboosts.

Summonerspells:

Since Vlad is incredibly immobile flash is a must-have, depending on how you wanna play the game you can either go ignite to kill, ghost for teamfight zooms and tp for optimal scaling.

Itemisation:

The main thing that changed in season 10 is itemization. I played on the korean server for 4 months and this is the main thing I learnt, I needed to pack a punch and do it FAST since in korea games are almost always decided pre15 minutes, a time which vlad has negative agency.

This is by far the strongest spike you can get:

Starting item:

D-ring if youre too insecure to buy a girthy throbbing mejais later in the game, dseal if youre a manly gachi enjoyer, and cull if youre completely deranged and don’t want to exist for the first 12 minutes and then become a god.

Next begin phase one by buying a spellbinder, and let your fiendish codex just chill in your inventory.

If you think you need gods power to win this game, proceed with a mejais next. however if you find yourself in a game with human teammates, just buy a deathcap

Boots can be bought at any time, flat pen if you think enemies won’t buy mr early, cdr boots if you wanna cap max cdr without getting any other cdr later, and swifties if you want to embody the fast.

That’s it, you’re full-build, and should already have won the game.

If your enemies still dare to not vote green at this stage, show them the error they’ve made.

If the targets you want to nuke like adc and enemy mid buy any slight amount of mr, get a voidstaff.

If they have a lot of AP get a spirit visage and laugh at their non-existent damage.

Nearly all ap items are pretty viable at this stage and just mixing and matching and figuring out what works best is down to you.

My full six item build usually looks like -> spellbinder -> dcap -> zhonyas -> pen boots -> void -> spirit -> gg

Now the basics are out the way, how on earth do we play vlad and ascend to godhood

How to play vlad throughout the game

Early game you are probably one of the weakest, squishiest, most fragile little bitch of a champion in the game, act accordingly and just focus on farming.

Spam your q on the wave and try always have the minions near your turret so you can farm safely, your empowered q and fully charged E can deal a devistating 400 dmg as early as level 2 if your opponent gets low.

You better have practiced hitting 100 farm in 10 minutes in practice tool lest you wish to play an empowered canonminion

The easy thing about vlad is decision making. nearly always when you see something happening you must ask yourself, will this benefit me more than farming and sitting midlane? If yes, go go, take what is yours, if not, getting 10cs/min is all you care about.

Remember kills are cool and stuff, but what can you get every single game, 10 cs per minute, and you know, if you get your items, you will carry, soloq is all about consistency.

So after playing as selfish as possible, and eating your junglers farm every available oppertunity you’ve now either lost the game at 15 minutes, or lived long enough to actually become an unkillable warlord demon angel dps mage bruiser assassin, aoe dps healer lategame archmage paladin warrior knight of anal fisting destruction with no counterplay.

Now that we’ve farmed it’s time to carry, teamfights usually break loose around objectives like herald, dragon, and baron, so be there when they spawn and make your presence known.

How do I teamfight? Be patient and see if any enemies clump up, that’s your opportunity to hit a fat ult and run in, most of the time your job is to flash on the enemy adc or mid, whichever is stronger and take their lives.

If you have no flash or can’t get to the backline, just peeling for your adc is usually a good option as well.

Remember to always farm everything in site, have at very minimum 8 cs per minute every game or your champion won’t be able to keep up.

Here are some tips and tricks on how not to look like a n00b:

Don’t build kindlegem, 800g is a lot of money and you need it to invest into your powerspike

The option to not upgrade boots all game is perfectly fine.

Vladimir is actually a hard champion, don’t feel bad if you have 100 games played and still negative winrate.

After around 15 minutes, your flash becomes really valuable, never flash for one person unless it gives you an objective, let’s say you flash on the enemy adc right before dragon spawns, that would be worth it, flashing for the 300 gold certainly isn’t.

Farming all game long is essential if you wish to scale like some delicious swiss cheese, your enemies will scale like left over milk in the sun

Every game is winnable, don’t lose hope and keep the consistency up

Matchups

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1AyoJmZ0diiVYeIF4IjlO9yfc-4BijZT8hmx7ZEjX1LQ/edit?usp=drivesdk