Talk:Leona/@comment-9132387-20140225170659/@comment-4591890-20140314071302

The champions that "Counter" Leona are typically those that can interrupt her Zenith Blade... Once Zenith Blade hooks on someone, Leona's going for a ride regardless of the timing of flashes, dashes, stuns, fear... basically everything except for knock ups and forced displacement... these will halt Leona's gap closer and essentialy prevent her from landing her CC Combo and score multiple passive procs.

The only ADCs that really "Counter" Leona's playstyle are Draven, Tristana, Vayne and Quinn. Draven and Tristana are something of a soft counter though. Leona can make Draven start to bleed off mana and prevent him from getting up to the dreaded Spinning Axe x2 buff if she uses her Zenith Blade to threaten him frequently. Tristana counters Leona fairly softly. She's quite vulnerable during the laning phase and only gets the occasional get out of jail free card through her ult when it's off cooldown. Rocket Jump also frequently fails to get her out of the way of Zenith Blade in time due to it's animation moving her horizontally fairly slowly at first. It's usually better to have a support that counters her alongside you. Vayne and Quinn counter her fairly hard. Vayne because she can dodge Zenith Blade for days with the short CD on Tumble even at rank 1. And because Condemn will interrupt Zenith Blade's gap close if she does manage to land it. More importantly, because she has both of these, she can tumble to dodge solarflare and use Condemn to counter the Zenith Blade still. With Quinn, as long as the Quinn player is mindful of the range of Zenith Blade, the snare component will wear off in time to allow for her to use Vault to interrupt the Gap Close component and rebuild the distance.

The majority of teams however, will put effort into countering Leona on the Support. Nami Support is tricky, her bubble does interrupt Zenith Blade, but it is tricky to land due to the significant delay. That said, she has two tools for interrupting it because of her ult. She also has great lane sustain to reverse the damage that was dealt during a trade. Passive style Sona play that focuses more on her sustain than her harass will counter Aggressive Leonas, trading only periodically rather than playing aggressively. A harass oriented Sona will only feed the Leona. She simply lacks the tools to out trade, and if either herself or her carry are repeatedly engaged upon by the Leona, that sustain simply won't matter. Alistar can counter Leona, if he stands between his carry and the enemy Leona, a well timed Pulverize will knock her up before she has the opportunity to stun you with her Q and allow you to aim her next destination with your Headbutt. She will not want to trade with you. From experience... Blitzcrank does not counter Leona in spite of his having two displacements... primarily because she's about the last champion you want to grab... ever. I have baited many a Blitzcrank into grabbing me and destroyed the lane because of it. Thresh does a decent job countering her with his flay and death sentence. Even though it's a pseudo grab, it's one you and your carry can run away from if it does manage to land.

Her hardest counters, from experience, are Morgana (Black Shield can prevent her stun combo, prevents a significant portion of her damage, and can work for either Morg or Carry, not to mention, Leona will place her in a prime location to eat a Dark Binding), and Janna (Tornado and Monsoon, her damage shield... and Monsoon's heal)