Hi! Welcome to my Zed guide for season 7! In this guide my goal is not only to teach you how to build zed, but how to actually PLAY Zed. Zed is an AD assassin who excels in killing squishy/priority targets. Not only is he a fun and interesting champion, he is very rewarding due to his outplay potential. Zed is a champion who you HAVE to put time into due to his high mechanical skillcap. If you can pull off all of his mechanics though, he is very rewarding.

Pros:
High burst damage
Insane mobility
Has a lot of outplay potential
Fun to play
Easy to last hit under tower due to his passive
Good 1v1 potential
Snowballs INCREDIBLY hard

Cons:
Weak levels 1-3
Reliant on hitting Shurikens
High skillcap
Can have a steep learning curve
Falls off a little late game.
Useless if behind

LVL 1:
In the very early game Zed has a really bad time in lane. Lvl 1 you should try to stand in the front-line so that the enemy autos you once. Then, throw a shuriken at him to make the trade even. This will get your minions to aggro on the enemy, doing damage and pushing the wave to your side. This will let you get lvl 3 safer. Remember to spam q's to last hit and hit the enemy champion at the same time.

LVL 2:
Take E unless you think you'll either be ganked or are receiving one yourself and need to engage on the enemy. Try your best to last hit without being poked down too much. Keep a freeze at your tower, just make sure it never actually goes under tower.

LVL 3:
This is the point in the game where you can actually do something in your lane. Landing a
W-E-Q combo can chunk the enemy for a good portion of their health. If you've poked them out enough, you can swap to your shadow for and auto-ignite to go for a kill. If not, continue to poke the enemy champion out of lane when your combo is off CD.

LVL 6:
This is where your kit becomes the assassinating monster we all know and love as Zed. If the enemy is around half hp you should look to all in them with your lvl 6 power-spike. If you don't get to ult them you can look to roam or just base.

This is where Zed truly shines! Your job is to look to split and apply pressure around the map, picking up 1v1 kills in the process. You are a killing monster, and should be able to 1v1 most champions in the game. Get blue trinket so you can ward and have vision across the entire map. Depending on your team comp and how strong you are you can decide whether you want to group up with your team or simply apply pressure in the side lanes. One thing to remember is that you don't have tp, so if you think a fight might breakout it is your job to be with your team while it happens.

In this point of the game, Zed starts to fall off a little because the tanks have become truly tanky to the point where you cant one shot them. Your job is to assassinate key targets in team fights such as the ADC, or any other carries that are really fed/strong. While not teamfighting you should be looking to apply pressure in sidelanes and get 1v1 kills. Getting picks can mean the difference of your team winning or losing a game. Killing the enemy ADC and half healthing the enemy mid-laner is usually worth.

Considering you can just go on the client and read up on what Zed's abilities do, I'm not going to add much to this section. The only thing I'm going to mention is that when Zed switches to a shadow (using W or R), the shadow will switch places with him. This means that if you are on top of the enemy, when you switch shadows your shadow will be on top of them too. This is useful to know if you want to throw out shurikens and swap to a shadow at the same time because it will have the same effect as throwing out the shurikens and THEN swapping to a shadow (hopefully that made sense). Another thing to note is that when Zed ults, he becomes completely invulnerable to all incoming damage. You can use his ult vs someone like Syndra to completely dodge the damage coming from her.

Starting Items

Starting off, you should buy a long sword with 3 potions or a refillable. I always go this start in every matchup. If you think you need to survive in lane longer due to poke, go three pots. Otherwise just pick up a refillable.

First Back

If you're vs an AP heavy team or feel threatened by any AP damage they might have, go a hexdrinker. Starting into your Youmuu's Ghostblade is preferable, but if you need it, buy it. When going into Youmuu's, I prefer buying lethality item first, but that is just preference. If you can buy boots, go for it. If your being ganked a lot boots and two longswords is a good buy too.

Core Items

Zed's main core items are Youmuu's Ghostblade and Black Cleaver. I buy Youmuu's every game, but not necessarily Black Cleaver. The main reason I buy this item is that it has some nice stats, but mostly because it has 20% CDR. The cooldown reduction on Zed is really nice because of how powerful your ultimate is. You don't have to buy Black Cleaver, but having 40% on Zed feels amazing.

Situational Items

Some situational items on Zed are Edge of Night, Duskblade, Blade of the Ruined King, Mercurial Scimitar, Maw of Malmortious, and Guardian Angel. These are the main items I usually switch between in my builds, building whatever is the most useful. These items can be swapped around and are usually always a decent buy. Just make sure you itemize according with the game. Do you need more burst, but are getting bursted? Go Edge of Night. Do you need more 1v1 potential? Go BORK. Are you dying a lot? Go GA or Maw.

Potential Items

Some potential items include Phantom Dancer, Tri-Force, Hydra (Titanic or Ravenous), Steraks Gage, and Last Whisper/Mortal Reminder. These items aren't built too often, and only in certain scenarios. Do they have a lot of healing so you can't oneshot people? Go mortal reminder. Did you not need Maw (Maw and Steraks DO NOT STACK), yet still need survivability from heavy burst? Go Steraks. These are just some examples, but unless you've already tried them out and know how they feel on Zed don't buy them in ranked. I do sometimes, but only in a scenario where I know they are strong.

Trinkets

Get blue ASAP. That's it... Just do it...

Boots

For boots I like to go Ninja Tabi because they are OP, but if they have a lot of CC go Merc's. If you need to get to the 40% CDR cap Ionian boots are a great option as well.

This is the point in the guide where things get exciting! Zed combos can be very difficult and take time to master, but when you do it is completely worth it.

First, lets take a look at Zed's WEQ combo.
NOTE: These videos are not mine, they are just good examples I found on the internet xD!
Play Video
To pull off this combo, you want to throw your W out at the target, use your E to slow, and throw out your shurikens so that they both hit. Then, you can decide if you want to all in or be happy with the poke. For all ins, you want to swap to your W shadow and give them an auto-ignite to try and go for a kill. NOTE that when you throw out your W shadow, you want it to be directly to the side of the target, left or right. This allows you to land your Q's easier than throwing your shadow directly on top of the enemy champion. It also makes it potentially harder for the enemy to cc you in a potential all in because they don,t have to land a skill shot to hit you, they just throw it out while you're on top of them.

The next combo is the INSTANT DEATH COMBO. This combo is instant death. Lets take a look.
Play Video
As you can see this combo is very effective. You can Q-auto-E to cancel the q and auto animation, activating thunderlords. This combo does high amounts of damage and can be used to one shot someone pre lvl 3. Keep in mind this takes practice to pull off, and that any combo that requires this move is incredible hard to pull off. Alone, however, it isn't too difficult and can give you some serious damage in the early game.

The next combo is the standard Zed combo that you will use when you are the aggressor. Most of the other ones require someone to be on top of you, but this one is for when you want to kill someone from far away. Difficulty: Easy. SKIP TO 1:50 IN THE VIDEO
Play Video
This combo is great for chasing someone down and doing damage while far away. The best way to learn these combos is to go into a practice mode and learn them on dummies. Just an fyi XD.

This next combo is WEQ and then a follow up with R/whatever is off cd after that.Difficulty: Easy.

COULDN'T FIND A VIDEO, SO JUST PICTURE IT. WEQ THEN TAKE THE W, R AUTO TAKE R SHADOW. 'D

This combo is really useful because it hides you intentions when you do it. In lane you should constantly be poking your opponent with WEQ's. Since this combo starts with that, it gives you more options to maneuver with. Say you decided not to all in, or the jungler appears, with other combos you would be screwed. This combo allows you have choices and less chances to mess up.

The next combo is the line combo. To do it you press RE, W in any direction (other than where your r shadow already is), take that W, and throw shurikens at the enemy from behind. Difficulty: Easy
Play Video
This combo looks confusing, so lets break it down. You basically just R the target, use E as soon as you get out of your ult animation, W behind them to form a line (or W in a direction they flashed/used a mobility spell), take that W, and throw your shurikens so that your opponent gets hit by at least 2. This combo is useful for when you want to follow your target, or simply get away from them and do dmg.

The last combo we'll take a look at is the triangle combo. REW(to the side)auto-Q, W, R. Skip to 2:40
Play Video
This combo is extremely useful when someone is right up on you or trying to engage on you. You can use this combo to outplay your opponents, or to simply do a lot of dmg. You can either Take your W as soon as you set it out, or wait to take it to juke people after you kill your target (or juke your target).

Zed is a fun AD assassin with high burst dmg and high outplay potential. Even though he is fun, he is very hard to play due to his intensive mechanical requirements. I put a lot of time into this guide, and I believe it can really help some of you elevate your Zed gameplay to the next level, so up-votes are appreciated. I didn't cover everything in this guide (obviously), so if you have any questions ask away in the comments and I will do my best to answer. I'll continue to update the guide and try to add more cool stuff to it in the future, as well as keep you guys up to date on all of the latest Zed changes. I hope you enjoyed my comprehensive Zed guide!