Vladimir has been a hot topic of discussion since release. Even today, when I rarely see him picked, there are still forum threads on a near daily basis wondering when he’ll be buffed, when he’ll return to viability, why he isn’t viable now, and so on. I know CC is all the rage these days, especially when it comes to AP carries, so where is Vlad’s place?

I still occasionally see Vlad do well when his team has enough crowd control to make up for his own shortcomings. He has to be careful, though. Against a strong AP with a stun, Vlad is susceptible to ganks, despite his pool. If he can be forced to burn his Flash early, Vlad’s health costs work against him early, leaving him open for ganks.

As many Rioters have pointed out, many of the solutions to Vlad’s problems are problems in themselves. Fixing health costs may improve his early game, but give him more damage or survivability and we could be rushing back toward the old days of Vlad.

For now, it looks like Vlad fans will have to settle for a legendary skin. Honestly, I can’t say I’ll mind seeing Vlad in a few games sometime soon. Sure beats Morgana.