It seems that LIandry's is being built almost at random by ap mid laners in LCS and I'm not understanding why. Often it is built when the enemy team has 1 or no tanks, and if it was meant to be a defensive option, zhonias is usually a better option for most, while rylias for the rest. Can someone explain or link to an explanation please?
It has a really easy build path.
From what I can understand, liandrys has kinda become that "fill" option for characters who would normally build a rylai's 2nd item pre-nerfs (things like viktor/vlad being great examples of that). Now that it's more economically efficient and cc is more popular than ever, people are going after it instead of what would otherwise be rylai's.
i guess it´s they want the haunting guise for the spike or to snowball harder and then don´t really know what else to do with it...albout it would be smarter most of the times to stick with the haunting guise and build sth else asap instead of upgrading it first.
Liandri's gives decent ap (since ap items lost some raw ap values).
It gives decent flat magic pen - valuable vs squishy enemy teams who do not build early magic resist. Think about how "lethality" (a scaling version of flat ARMOR PEN) was so strong on physical damage champs awhile back - liandri's and sorc boots are basically the ap equivalent of lethality items.
It gives some minor %hp damage which is an added bonus.
It works great on champs that can SPAM spells (ex: orianna, syndra, etc.) or have long lasting spells like rumble q and ult because they can maximize the application of the %hp damage.
The minor amount of hp it gives is enough to escape some early game trades where other items would not allow you to survive. Abyssal vs ap champs or zhonya vs ad champs would give similar levels of survivability, but sacrifice some damage potential at the 1-2 item mark.
