First Strike encourages you to play more passively during laning. While this isn't necessarily a bad thing, Ziggs typically prefers to be more aggressive during laning, so you should still be chipping down your opponent with abilities regardless of how First Strike encourages you to play. Despite this, you should still pay a lot of attention to the cooldown of your First Strike (and Manaflow Band) during laning, and focus on executing extended trades while it's available.




Summon Aery is best used in lanes that Ziggs can completely dominate in the early Levels, typically against assassins (such as Fizz) or mages with longer cooldowns and weaker extended trades (like Hwei).

Try to clear the wave faster than your opponent and aim to get Level 2 before them by standing in front of your minions and threatening your opponent with extended basic attack trades (which you're favoured in due to Aery and Short Fuse). Contest each minion they try to kill with basic attacks and use Bouncing Bomb in the middle of their basic attack animation as it freezes them in place for a short moment.

Keep in mind that playing this aggressively can make you extremely susceptible to jungle ganks, so avoid doing it for extended periods of time without vision or knowledge of the opposing jungler's location.




Arcane Comet is best used in lanes where Ziggs has kill pressure on the opposing laner, but can't afford getting close to them to use basic attacks due to their burst damage, like against Pantheon or Taliyah.

Typically your poke will outperform your opponent's in such matchups, so you should just stick to whittling them down with Bouncing Bombs and Satchel Charges, without engaging in trades, as even short trades will result in you losing out to their burst being greater than yours.

Keep in mind that Arcane Comet's remaining cooldown is reduced by hitting your opponent with abilities, encouraging you to poke your opponent down even more.






The main objective behind starting Amplifying Tome with First Strike is to be able to purchase Lost Chapter in the first few minutes of laning, ideally after the first 5 waves. Being able to play the lane with such an early Lost Chapter eases up a lot of the more unfavourable matchups where the innate sustain and additional combat stats provided by Doran's Ring aren't useful enough, like against manaless champions who drain your mana pool (such as Yasuo) or tank-like champions (such as Galio) who can sustain through your damage.

The lesser mana sustain you have with this set-up (due to having no Doran's Ring or Biscuit Delivery) means that you shouldn't use your spells as freely as you would with an Arcane Comet or Summon Aery set-up.

You should mainly use your spells to kill minions you would miss otherwise, trigger First Strike and Manaflow Band, or for trades that could translate into a kill in the future, especially after your first recall.



Ideally you've played the lane conservatively enough to save enough mana for the 5th wave so you can use your abilities to kill the wave as fast as possible and recall earlier. This way you can potentially save using Teleport to get back to lane until a more important situation, like being forced to recall due to a jungler's gank or lost trade.

Even with only 22 minions killed after 5 waves (and none of them being a Cannon minion), you'll earn about 660 gold, with Elixir of Avarice providing another 40, and Future's Market letting you go into debt for another 100, which is just enough to recall and purchase Lost Chapter at about 4 minutes. With that done, your primary goal is complete!





Ziggs should usually play lane quite aggressively due to him being stronger than a lot of other midlaners in the first few levels because of his Short Fuse and Bouncing Bombs having high base numbers (except against champions such as LeBlanc, Akshan, or even a Yasuo). His Bouncing Bomb should be able to secure lane priority since it has a relatively low cooldown compared to other champions and it can kill Caster Minions in two uses at Level 3, letting you get early wards and support your jungler when contesting Rift Scuttlers.

Keep in mind not to just use abilities on minions without any 'objective' to contest though, as that just ends up being wasteful to your mana while your opponent might be able to conserve theirs, forcing you to recall earlier. Aim for abilities that can damage both your opponent and their minions.

Generally if you manage to gain lane priority within the first few waves (meaning that you kill your opponent's minions faster than your opponent kills yours, having them walk into your opponent's tower), it'd be a wise move to place down a Stealth Ward within the enemy jungle to obtain information and to prepare yourself against future ganks.

The most useful wards are usually placed on the opponent's Crimson Raptor camp, by the thin walls near the river, or in the river's bushes, though, the 'best' ward varies based on the gamestate, and placing a ward in the bushes connecting to the lanes can be fine, too.




Should you gain vision of the enemy jungler this way, you should position yourself opposite to them on the map based on their jungle clear. For example, if you ward the Crimson Raptor camp and spot your opposing jungler clearing it, you can determine if they're going to stay on the side of the Red Brambleback or if they're going to move towards their Blue Sentinel based on the amount of Minion Kills they have. If they have about 8 Minion Kills, that'd mean they'd only managed to kill the Brambleback and Ancient Krug camp, and they're going to move towards the Sentinel, on the flip side, if they have about 12 or more Minion Kills, you'll be able to determine that they're going towards their Brambleback and that you should position towards the Sentinel's side.

If you have no clue where your opponent's jungler might be, it's best to hover towards the side of your own teams jungler. Keep in mind that if your jungler wants to gank you, you should slowly move towards the opposite side, so that you can create a pincer attack against your opposing laner.


Ziggs' fast waveclear after obtaining Lost Chapter gives him a lot of time to kill until the next wave of minions arrives. During this free time, it's best if you walk into the river and look to your sidelanes, checking whether or not you can help out in getting takedowns, especially with Mega Inferno Bomb.

It's also viable to use this time to place a Stealth Ward somewhere in the opponent's jungle, river, or near a Neutral Objective to secure important information.

Remember that you should only hover around the center of the river at the furthest if you're uncertain about ganking a sidelane. Going beyond that point practically forces you to commit to a roam that might end up unsuccessful, while you end up miss out on minions in your own lane.



In preparation for Neutral Objectives such as Elemental Drakes in the bottom half of the map, or the Voidborn monsters in the upper half of the map, Ziggs should aim to clear out waves as fast as possible to minimise gold and experience losses by going for an objective, as well as being able to reach the objective faster than your opposing laner.

Due to his kit, he's able to set up great zone control in the jungle with his Satchel Charge (for 4 seconds at a time) and Hexplosive Minefield (for 10 seconds at a time), blocking off chokepoints entirely, unless an opponent wants to risk getting bursted walking through a zoned off section. They also grant vision when an opponent walks over them, giving you important information of their position in their jungle where you have no Stealth Wards.


Ziggs' mid game effectively begins once the Outer Turret in midlane or botlane is taken, as by that point you should typically begin rotating to botlane and let your botlaner and support take control of midlane.

In the best case scenario, the rotation is caused by you taking down the midlane turret first, as staying in sidelanes without an enemy turret to take down is pretty rough for Ziggs, whose income spikes are mostly determined by turret takedowns at this stage of the game. If this is the case, you should aim to destroy those sidelane turrets, ideally before turret platings fall.

Note that Ziggs' kit is pretty bad at dueling, so constantly splitpushing isn't recommended. You should only aim for sidelane tower takedowns if you have enough vision to determine that no threat is close to your tower of choice, or if you have your jungler or support guarding you.




Ziggs has a very high effective range during teamfights, so he should generally stand further back than other champions might. Ideally you'd be positioned behind or near a wall close to a fight going on, as that makes it more difficult to reach you, and your Satchel Charge can let you jump over a wall in a pinch as well.

While Ziggs' kit is generally better fit for killing lower health targets like an enemy marksman (For example, a Jinx or Twitch), you should mainly focus on whoever you'll have the easiest time hitting with abilities. For example, targeting the opposing marksman might not be worth the effort if they're too far away from you, making it difficult to hit them with spells, as opposed to the enemy frontliner who's getting stunned and rooted by your teammates, making them extremely easy to barrage with Bouncing Bombs.

You should also generally use Mega Inferno Bomb as an opener to the teamfight, aiming towards multiple people at once, especially in conjunction with a teammates crowd control effect, as using it as an 'executioner' style move on fleeing targets after a teamfight has concluded is much more unreliable, especially against champions with innate mobility.

First Strike is Ziggs' most generically applicable keystone due to its ease of use, but it isn't a perfect match for Ziggs due to First Strike favouring mid-late game champions like Jayce or Karthus as opposed to Ziggs' identity as an early-mid game champion.

Regardless, the gold generation it provides is still extremely valuable to Ziggs who wants to reach 3 to 4 items as fast as possible.


Summon Aery is Ziggs' ideal lane aggression keystone, though repeated nerfs to its damage output has made it relatively niche and only optimal against champions Ziggs can continuously pummel with basic attacks during laning phase with little, or easily counterable, resistance, like an Aurelion Sol or Talon.


Arcane Comet is Ziggs' other lane aggression keystone, being more broadly applicable due to its higher base damage on abilities and being less reliant on basic attacks. Unfortunately, it is very easy to dodge, and Ziggs' crowd controlling effects having poor synergy with it, like Satchel Charge outright pushing champions out of the comet, or Hexplosive Minefield having such a pitiful slow that champions with ugpraded boots can just casually walk away from the comet in the early game, makes it somewhat underwhelming to use.


Dark Harvest is realistically the only other keystone worth thinking about, supporting a more burst mage-esque playstyle with Ziggs, however its poor scaling with each soul and ability power, as well as the Domination tree being generally underwhelming for Ziggs, makes it very difficult to justify playing.

If you are adamant enough to play it regardless, try it in botlane as opposed to midlane, as being able to trigger it several times in fights as opposed to only once can make it much easier to accrue souls and strengthen the rune.




Ziggs is taking Precision for one of two reasons: hyper-aggression in lane, or opting into anti-tank options.

Should it be for hyper-aggression, Ziggs should always be using Legend: Alacrity, as it's one of the 2 lane-focused runes in the path. His other rune should either be Coup de Grace for the other lane-focused rune, or Cut Down, based on how tanky the enemy team is.

Should it be for anti-tank purposes, Ziggs will always take Cut Down. Cut Down is an extremely powerful rune against tanks that have high health, ideally several of them (like against an Ornn top and Zac jungle), averaging over a thousand to multiple thousands of additional damage dealt each game. For the other rune, Presence of Mind will usually be the other choice, mainly if you can't use Legend: Alacrity for more aggression in lane (against someone like Akshan who out-trades you in lane, or Sion, who won't die in lane regardless of what you do.)



I do not recommend using the Domination path. These options are mainly written down if you choose to play Dark Harvest for your keystone.

Taste of Blood is practically your only option in the first row, as the true damage Cheap Shot provides is actually very unreliable with Ziggs' Satchel Charge and Hexplosive Minefield, since multiple mines triggered at once do not trigger Cheap Shot for some reason, and Ziggs' Satchel Charge should not be used so aggressively to consistently facilitate Sudden Impact.

While I noted down Eyeball Collection as the main rune to use from the second row, due to it being the most consistently usable one in an uncoordinated environment like Ranked Solo/Duo, Zombie Ward and Ghost Poro are both fine as well.

None of the Hunter runes are really all that good for Ziggs. Treasure Hunter generates up to 450 gold, which is nice, especially with the near-global pressure that Mega Inferno Bomb provides, but it's still quite underwhelming. Ultimate Hunter is cute, but only cuts off 30 seconds off a massive cooldown at best, and never reduces enough to use 2 Mega Inferno Bombs in 1 fight or anything. Ingenious Hunter reducing the passive cooldown of Luden's Companion is really impactful, but Ziggs' Bouncing Bomb will realistically never match the 2 second cooldown when maxed out.


Sorcery is effectively Ziggs' best path, just due to how useful its individual runes are for Ziggs' needs.

Manaflow Band is practically the only option you can choose in the first row, and you're fine with it, just due to it increasing your mana sustain in the early laning phase. Technically, playing Nullifying Orb against magic damage assassins like LeBlanc isn't the worstthing you could do, but the shield is generally too negligible to be worth considering.

Transcendence is arguably the best rune in the whole path for Ziggs, as it gives you just enough Ability Haste for Bouncing Bombs to match the passive cooldown of Luden's Companion, without needing to dedicate additional gold for Ability Haste in your itemisation. Absolute Focus is pretty underwhelming, but can be justified (though not making it good), if you wish to opt into starting Sapphire Crystal and Refillable Potion if you use 2 Adaptive Force shards, giving you just enough Ability Power to kill Caster Minions at Level 3 with 2 Bouncing Bombs.

Scorch is a really strong lane bullying rune for Ziggs, which is ideal for his aggressive self, but gets outperformed by Gathering Storm at roughly 20 minutes, so if you assume you won't be able to properly threaten your opponent during laning phase (like against an Anivia), then you might want to consider taking it over Manaflow Band as your secondary rune.


Resolve is Ziggs' worst path, and I wouldn't recommend taking any of these runes, even as your secondary path, but if you were adamant on using Demolish for early game tower plating-taking potential, then I would only recommend you to take it together with Second Wind against lane bullies or Overgrowth against laners that can't threaten you, as the other runes are quite useless for Ziggs.


Inspiration is easily Ziggs' second best path, just due to so many of the runes fulfilling specific niches that Ziggs benefits from heavily.

Magical Footwear's additional movement speed to your Boots are really useful for a relatively immobile champion like Ziggs, but I personally prefer Triple Tonic a lot more, providing additional gold with Elixir of Avarice for an early Lost Chapter spike, and the additionall skill point from Elixir of Skill letting you skip over putting a point in Hexplosive Minefield until Level 8.

Future's Market is just a generally amazing rune, letting you get your very important item spikes minutes earlier, and also benefits starting Amplifying Tome, making it much more forgiving in getting a very early Lost Chapter. Biscuit Delivery, on the other hand, is actually quite mediocre, but has a very specific niche in the Arcane Comet rune page, letting you stick around in lane for a few more waves to save up just enough gold for Lost Chapter on your first recall.

Cosmic Insight is a pretty impactful rune in reducing the cooldown of your Summoner Spells, but I believe the previously mentioned runes are a lot more important for your laning when using Inspiration as your secondary rune path, so I typically avoid it outside of using it when I'm playing First Strike.




While all of the shards of the offense tree are 'fine', I strongly prefer both Attack Speed and Ability Haste over Adaptive Force as Attack Speed is significantly stronger during laning than Adaptive Force, and Ability Haste is much better in the mid-to-late game.

Ideally, you'd only use the offensive Adaptive Force shard in conjunction with Absolute Focus if you wanted to start the game with Sapphire Crystal and Refillable Potion and farm for an early Lost Chapter as Ziggs requires at least 24 Ability Power to kill Caster Minions with 2 Bouncing Bombs at Level 3 after Patch 13.23, or if you choose the Movement Speed shard in the Flex slot.

Attack Speed, on the other hand, has the broadest applications due to just being a really powerful stat and synergising well with Ziggs' innate thirst for aggression in the early game.

Ability Haste is a more niche, but still very powerful, shard, best taken if you have no other Ability Haste in your runes, mainly if you're not using Transcendence either due to picking another secondary path, or due to preferring Absolute Focus, since Ziggs needs roughly 33 Ability Haste for his Bouncing Bombs to have a 3 second cooldown and match the passive cooldown of Luden's Companion.


Realistically you should only be choosing the Adaptive Force shard in this trio, though you're free to experiment with the additional movement speed into more movement reliant matchups, like Hwei or Lux, if you'd like, although it has felt underwhelming in my experience.


The health options are very matchup dependent, as outside of the Summon Aery rune page, which would always prefer the flat 65 health, you have to make a conscious decision based on how threatening you think the enemy laner will be until Level 7.

If you think your opponent is strong enough to kill you within the first few Levels, like a Katarina, then it's better to take the immediate 65 health, but if you think your opponent won't be able to kill you before Level 7, like a Kassadin, then it's better to take scaling health.

Doran's Ring is evergreen. It's your best option to exert lane pressure, sustain through your worst lanes, and it's also forgiving enough for inexperienced Ziggs players to do well in lane otherwise.

Amplifying Tome is best used in lanes where you're incapable of pressuring your opponent your opponent due to their champion, but are still able to farm freely, letting you purchase Lost Chapter 400 gold earlier. See more in the gameplay section.

While Sapphire Crystal serves a similar purpose to Amplifying Tome in getting an earlier Lost Chapter, it's practically unusable after a nerf to Bouncing Bomb's base damage in Patch 13.23, as Ziggs is incapable of killing Caster Minions at Level 3 with 2 Bouncing Bombs unless you play both Absolute Focus and 2 Adaptive Force shards, which is a very heavy toll on your rune set-up that I personally do not think is worth it.

Similarly to Sapphire Crystal, Tear of the Goddess has the same problem with Caster Minions due to being a pure mana component, but also provides less sustain as Sapphire Crystal lets you buy Refillable Potion, and also delays your Lost Chapter and Luden's Companion purchase. By buying Tear of the Goddess, you're conceding your lane pressure and your early Lost Chapter spike, netting the worst of both worlds.

If you absolutely must buy Tear of the Goddess, do it on your first or second recall, though I do not recommend buying Archangel's Staff, which I expand upon in the finished items section.





While building Luden's Companion and its components, you should be prioritising Lost Chapter, as its mana sustain is much more important to Ziggs' early game than the additional damage Hextech Alternator's passive provides.

When building Lost Chapter, you should ideally be buying the components in order of Amplifying Tome first, Sapphire Crystal second, and Glowing Mote last if you cannot afford completing the item by then, though, if you manage to get bullied out of lane early or die, and cannot afford Amplifying Tome, buying a Sapphire Crystal or Glowing Mote (based on your gold) is better than waiting for enough gold to buy the Tome.


You should typically buy Boots and Sorcerer's Shoes after finishing Luden's Companion because even though Sorcerer's Shoes are stronger in the short term, Luden's on its own outdamages its components together with Sorcerer's Shoes.

The only exception to this would be if you're playing against specific matchups where you really need the additional movement speed to evade abilities, like when playing against a Cassiopeia, Viktor, or Xerath.



While building your second item, you should be consistently checking the amount of Magic Resistance your opponents have by left-clicking on them and checking the top-left corner, or by making estimations based on their inventories, as Void Staff begins consistently outperforming Liandry's Torment against roughly 80 to 90 Magic Resistance.

Since an opponent might buy Magic Resistance while you're building your second item, it's best to buy the non-committal components, Amplifying Tome and Blasting Wand, first, as both of them build into Liandry's Torment and Void Staff.

Regardless of which item you buy second, you should complete the other third.


Due to the massive importance that your core of Luden's Companion, Liandry's Torment, and Void Staff have on your damage output, I can't recommend buying either Banshee's Veil or Zhonya's Hourglass before finishing those 3 items. At the earliest, I would buy it before Rabadon's Deathcap to conserve item component space that Verdant Barrier and Seeker's Armguard passively occupy.

The components, Verdant Barrier and Seeker's Armguard, are completely fine to buy even immediately after Luden's Companion, though, as long as the situation calls for it, like if you're facing an enemy Karthus or Rengar.

These items contest your flexible item slot with Horizon Focus, Shadowflame, and Morellonomicon.


These items are your main options for dealing damage in your flexible item slot. Shadowflame will be your best bet in most of your games, however, Horizon Focus starts outperforming Shadowflame against enemies with roughly 175 Magic Resistance and enemies with much higher Health due to it amplifying the damage dealt by Liandry's Torment.

If building Shadowflame, buy it before Rabadon's Deathcap, but if you're building Horizon Focus, buy it after Deathcap and hold Hextech Alternator over Fiendish Codex in your final inventory slot.

These items contest your flexible item slot with Banshee's Veil, Zhonya's Hourglass, and Morellonomicon.


A completed Morellonomicon is pretty mediocre, so you shouldn't upgrade it until you have all your other finished items purchased, but buying Oblivion Orb at any point after completing Luden's Companion against multiple champions with healing in their kit is completely valid.

Note that a single lifesteal item on its own usually isn't impactful enough to consider buying this item, and you should only really contemplate it if the enemy team has champions with a lot of innate healing in their kit such as Zac or Soraka, or multiple champions with healing items, for example, an Olaf with Sundered Sky with a Varus and Yasuo who have a Blade of the Ruined King each.

This item contests your flexible item slot with Banshee's Veil, Zhonya's Hourglass, Horizon Focus, and also Shadowflame.




Luden's Companion provides amazing chip damage on top of each Q. Once Ziggs has roughly 33 Ability Haste, the cooldown of Bouncing Bomb will match with Luden's Companion, being able to consistently dish out empowered bombs.

Liandry's Torment is just the best all-rounder item second. Although Shadowflame can outdamage it when it critically strikes (by roughly 50 damage in ideal circumstances), or Void Staff outdamages it against enemies with something like a Negatron Cloak in their inventory, I personally value the consistently high damage Liandry's provides much more than any other item.

Void Staff is similar to Liandry's Torment, being slightly outdamaged by Shadowflame when it critically strikes, or Rabadon's Deathcap against champions with under 55 Magic Resistance, but is generally much more consistent damage overall.

Rabadon's Deathcap is just a generally great item for mages due to how much Ability Power it provides, and you should always buy it within the later parts of the game.



Although Cryptbloom technically has the higher winrate of the two Percentage Magic Penetration items, it has very little synergy with Ziggs' kit, who has no need for excessive Ability Haste or a teamfight-focused passive as a champion that prefers chipping people down with poke and burst damage, so I strongly favour Void Staff.

Even so, if you are performing poorly and have another Magic Damage dealing champion on your team that is performing better than you in fights, like a Karthus or Diana I do recommend buying Cryptbloom instead, so your teammate has the opportunity to purchase Void Staff themselves and be a stronger teamfighter.


The Manaflow series of items, which are built using Tear of the Goddess, are the defensive options purchasable with Lost Chapter, providing raw Ability Power and a passive shield instead of a damaging passive. Despite this, the Ability Power they provide is very small, and doesn't make up for the loss of damage a Luden's Companion would do. They're also a very poor defensive item for Ziggs, who prefers to keep his distance, and has some of the best self-peel available to the Artillery mage class.

Ideally, you'd purchase Archangel's Staff together with Luden's Companion as that also benefits both of the effects Seraph's Embrace has, but Tear of the Goddess still delays your Luden's Companion purchase by 400 gold, and strongly impacts your damage as you buy Archangel's Staff before items like Liandry's Torment and Void Staff.

Whenever the lifeline passive of Seraph's Embrace triggers, it either provides nothing of value as you survive regardless of it, or you get killed through it since an assassin can easily burst through its measly shield. Even if they couldn't, physical damage assassins can also purchase Serpent's Fang to completely neutralise it. Should you ever require a defensive item against burst damage, Banshee's Veil and Zhonya's Hourglass are infinitely stronger options, though you shouldn't need those in most of your games either due to Ziggs' innate safety.