Since she was released in 2012, Syndra has been one of the most iconic mid lane mages in League of Legends. Professional players would often pick her up and hard carry their team to victory. Throughout the years, though, the champion had always been in a weird position where she was either too powerful or weak. Recently, Riot Games decided to tweak her kit slightly to bring her back into the meta, and her small rework proved successful: her gameplay feels more rewarding and allows for higher skill expression.
If you’re trying to pick her up in your solo queue games, you might struggle to find the best combinations of runes and items for the new version of Syndra. She has more scaling now, which changes how their setups are to get to her spikes.
To help you quickly master her, we will go through the most popular builds on the champion. Here are the best builds for Syndra in League.
Runes
First Strike Syndra
Inspiration
First strike: The reworked Syndra works differ slightly from the previous one in scale. She has lower damage early in the game but spikes a lot more in the later stages once she gets items and her passive stacked. For this reason, First Strike is the new rune for her since it allows her to gain extra gold during the laning phase, and it synergizes perfectly with her combos and burst.
Proccing the rune is easy since Syndra has a range advantage in most matchups, and she can quickly follow with the rest of the spells to amplify the gold earned. You will feel the difference with this rune around the mid game, when you can make 70+ gold with the rune when throwing your full combo on a target: do that a few times throughout the game, and you’ll be well ahead of the enemies. Once you reach those two and three items spikes (and stack your passive), you will nuke most squishy targets.
Magical Footwear: This is a standard rune that most players go for since it saves you the 300 gold needed to buy the Boots of Speed and allows you to focus on rushing the Mythic Item. Magical Footwear also grants an additional 10 movement speed, which is nice to have on an immobile mage like Syndra. Alternatively, you can decide to go for Perfect Timing if you’re against a lot of burst damage and the Stopwatch is needed.
Minion Dematerializer: It is an underrated rune for Syndra, but it can help her get through the laning phase. Her spammable spell, the Q, had its damage heavily reduced in the early game, so Syndra struggles to quickly clear waves compared to other mid lane mages in the meta. Having Minion Dematerializer helps her fix that weakness and guarantees her the cannon minions for the passive stacks.
Cosmic Insight: All the other runes are sub-optimal for her, so Cosmic Insight is the only one you can go for here. You always prefer to have a lower cooldown on your summoner spells, and the Item Haste is also beneficial to proc her items more often (which we will see later).
Sorcery
Manaflow Band: Like every mage champion, Syndra depends on her mana. Her spells can burn her mana pool quite quickly in the early stage, so having the extra 250, Jayce’s early damage is not high, so he usually has to use multiple spells to quickly clear waves, causing him to run out of mana. Having 250 extra mana during the game is something you always want on the champion. Thanks to the long-range Q that you can spam, it’s easy to stack and will prevent you from running out of mana in the first three minutes of the lane.
Scorch: The rune was buffed this season, and it’s a good additional poke for Syndra that allows her to increase her damage output in the early game.
Bonuses: +10 percent attack speed, +9 adaptive force, +8 Magic Resist (+6 Armor if against physical damage champions)
Items
Doran’s Ring is the usual go-to starting item for Syndra, and it’s the best one for her currently. You can decide to start with Tear of the Goddess, but you will be lacking a lot of damage early on.
For Mythics Items, you would want to build Luden’s Echo for the majority of the time, as it gives you a great spike with better wave clear, mana, damage, and ability haste. Paired with Sorcecer’s Shoes grants you enough magic penetration to kill any target in the mid game. Ionian can also be good, but you must consistently land spells to match similar damage output. The Crown of the Shattered Queen can be a good alternative against heavy burst team compositions.
After you rush the Mythic Item, Shadowflame is the best second item you can get since it amplifies your damage even further. You can build Zhonya’s Hourglass against attack damage mid laners, but it’s usually not worth doing so since it delays your spike.
If you’re well ahead of the enemies and they don’t build significant amounts of magic resistance, go for Rabadon’s Deathcap. Otherwise, Void Staff offers more value, which can be bought much earlier in the game due to its lower cost.
Most of the time, you can only choose one of these two items. Banshee’s Veil works best against magic damage compositions, and the spell shield can be a lifesaver in certain situations. Morellonomicon is strong against sustain, so build that if the enemies have multiple sources of healing. If your only goal is to burst the enemy, just try to build as much ability power as possible. Below is a typical standard build for Syndra and the one you will likely build on most occasions. It grants the best combination of ability power and magic penetration to annihilate enemies while also giving you enough defensive stats to survive.
