League of Legends launch guide: Syndra the Dark Sovereign

Every two weeks, Riot Games adds a new champion to League of Legends roster. The first few days of a champion's release are a crazy, wonderful time of mayhem and mass-deaths. We make sure you have the advantage with our launch guides, tested on the field of battle, that break down strengths and weaknesses and give you our veteran tips for the new champ.

Syndra the Dark Sovereign, releasing this week, is kind of crazy. According to her official lore, she's a magical prodigy that craves power and will do anything to get it. She also murdered her loving mentor who was an old monk, which is pretty messed up. That's only the beginning of her madness.

With the obligatory lore mentiong out of the way, are you ready to get into the real meat? Syndra is a ranged AP mage champion with a lot of damage spells, location manipulation for non-champions, and a hefty utility belt stuffed with four AoE CCs: a slow, knock back, knock up, and stun.

Syndra's clearly got a lot going on, so let's take it piece by piece and see how you can get the most out of her tricks.

What's she got?

(Passive) Transcendent: Boosts her three core abilities (Q,W,E) when they hit max rank.

It's usually a good idea to level one ability to max ASAP, but with Syndra it's absolutely essential.
I prefer to level W first, and the passive dramatically increases its slowing effect.

There's a one-second activation delay before damage (like Karthus' and Veigar's Q abilities), so be sure to lead your target
It's only on a four second cooldown. With cooldown-reduction items, you should be able to keep three orbs on the field at all times. Always keep at least one orb near you.
The AP ratio is a bit weak on this ability (0.5 per ability power), meaning that it won't scale as well as most mages' main abilities. Think twice before going toe-to-toe spamming attacks vs. another mage and cycle in W whenever you can for more damage.

This is the reason to play Syndra. No other champion in LoL can use and abuse minions like this.
Anything you grab will be locked in an invulnerable stasis until you release it. It's helpful when trying to manage last hits, and it'll stop the minion from attacking.
Your leash only last six seconds, and the minion will break out if you don't throw it.
It's not readily apparent what you can and can't pick up with this ability, but the rule of thumb is that if it's a minion, pet, or player-made turret, you can pick it up.
The grab radius is incredibly forgiving, even though it doesn't look like it. If you click anywhere near something that you're allowed to pick up, it'll work.
No, you can't change where an enemy player will appear by throwing the minion they're teleporting to (they'll appear where the minion was before). But I like your style.
Think big-picture when making these pulls. Try to adjust the flow of the lane in your favor. A well-placed tank minion can either push or retract the lane, depending on whichever helps you more at the time.

This is your catch-all utility spell. It's your one reliable escape tool but also your best aggressive move in teamfights.
It should be obvious, but make sure you have the maximum number of orbs on the field before you use this ability in a teamfight, if you can. Ideally, you'll use your ultimate right before and have 3 others placed from Q, for a total of 6 orbs flying out in a huge cone pattern to stun and knock-up their entire team.
You can achieve some pretty crazy long range hits by tapping an orb with the edge of this spell and sending it flying forward.
This one's on a long cooldown (14-18 seconds), so recognize your vulnerability after using it and keep a safe distance from enemy melee.

At the very minimum, Syndra will chuck the three dark orbs always floating around her, but make sure you have at least one or two orbs from Q nearby when activating this.
The orbs all fall down around your target, so make sure you're within range to launch your E immediately if you need to lock the group down before they can run out of the way.

What can she do?

Syndra is a strong AP mid, although the AP ratio problems I mentioned above slightly limit her carrying potential. She's capable of working her dark mojo in any lane, but there's not much hope of jungling with her. I personally prefer playing her in mid lane, as her long-range harass and location control allowed me to force rival players to move where I wanted them to, much like Lux. Her ability to control the flow of the lane by picking up and moving minions is also incredibly useful and fun.

I've seen some theorycrafting about playing her as a support on bottom lane, focused on grabbing minions to set up last-hits for your partner and throwing out stuns like they're month-old tuna salad. It's a tempting idea, but I've yet to see it executed well and you'd lose so much damage potential by letting sideline like that. Syndra is definitely a headline kinda gal, and she'll pick you up and toss you off a cliff if you say otherwise.

That said, I would love to see someone with incredible micro skills and awareness focus on constantly making those odd-angling stun shots to keep an enemy shut down from range.

Next page: Build advice, combos for every situation, counters to watch out for, a secret perk, and our screw-with-the-other-team achievement list