What Makes Morgana OP?

Darkness knows no bounds...

Good afternoon summoners, SSJSuntastic back with another post on OP Flavor of the Month champions, this time with...Morgana! First off, do I think Morgana is OP? No, she's definitely strong and a very good counterpick to the current metagame, but personally I don't feel like she's a major threat. She's got a very strong skill set and is definitely a contender in today's game though!

What makes her OP:

First off, she's got a passive lifesteal. This coupled with the low mana use of her Tormented Soil means that with some yellow mana regen levels, she can stay in the lane indefinitely. Moreover, her creep killing ability is actually even stronger than Malzahar's since she can AOE down an entire wave at once without needing one unit to die at a time. This generally results in the opposing laner losing a good amount of CS to towers. 

Black Shield: Releases an ally from CCs and also protects her from getting beat up by spellcasters. This one's especially good against casters who rely on combos like Brand, at least one on one.

AOE nuke/stun ulti - This means that a tanky morgana is no longer just a spellcaster, but also an initiating mage, especially when outfarming your allies but also endgame with zhonyas.

How to Counter Her:

Once she misses her snare, she's open game. Even spellcasters like Brand can take her down with mere auto-attacks, which go straight through her spellshield. Your pillar also does more damage than her shield, so it'll go right through.

*Hit creeps as often as possible* You want your creeps to be right in front of, but not in range of your tower. Since Morgana's clearing as fast as possible, you'll need to keep your autoattacks up to position your creepwave. Also, if Morgana's clearing creeps very fast, ask for a gank from your jungler. Even with black shield up, she might not die but will sustain some damage.

Heroes with knock-back effects such as Janna and Alistar can throw her right out of her ult range, stopping her stun effect from going through.

Sivir - Sleeper OP is a perfect counter to Morgana as well, but the chances your team will let you play Sivir in general, much less Sivir mid, is slim at the moment, almost as low as letting you play Soraka mid. (Which incidentally is also a good matchup against Morgana)

Quick Silver Sash: (QSS) Gives a healthy amount of magic resist and removes all debuffs from your hero every 90 seconds. It's preferable to just knock her away though, unless the other team is much more CC oriented than nuke oriented.

End Notes:

Naturally, any hero that farms well early game, has good survivability, and has the ability to net some early game kills will be strong later on too. Morgana's good at all 3 of these things, which makes her a very viable play. However, just treat her like any other hero, you wouldn't let Annie or Ryze farm up and get fed early game would you? Don't let Morgana either.