Playing Zz'Rot Galio is all about control. You aren't looking for kills early, and mid game, the kills will come to you as you will frustrate your opponents. Once you have Zz'Rot, you will prevent your laner from leaving their lane otherwise they will easily give up their first turret. So, early on try to farm up as much as possible, using W to sustain their poke and E to wave clear and poke back. If you went Doran's, you can be more liberal with your spells but it will take you longer to get to Zz'Rot. With Doran's, you can attempt to start shoving the wave into their turret if the enemy laner has weak wave clear. If you went Null Magic Mantle, try to last hit and sustain and really push for that Zz'Rot.

Try to keep your turret at as much HP as possible so that in mid game you can hold off multiple enemy shoves.

Try to back once after shoving so that you do not have to use teleport yet; best to use teleport once you have completed a Zz'Rot and you can get back to lane and place it.

Once you have Zz'Rot, the fun n' games begin. Place it directly behind your turret so that your enemy laner cannot clear it easily. The key goal here is survival. You want to keep your turret during this laning phase while simultaneously taking their first turret, maybe even their second. Three scenarios can happen here:

1) They roam, you take their turret. You take their second turret if they do not take you serious, because a Zz'Rot behind your turret can still reach their second turret with a clear path.
2) They stay in lane but are constantly shoved, cannot roam, and may lose CS while still losing turret.
3) Their team groups mid and loses XP while you stall.

Guess what? You WIN IN ALL 3 SCENARIOS! That is why this is so great. There really is no counter play. The only time this goes bad is if it is option 1, say a Fizz or LeBlanc, and your team feeds them hard while you shove mid. It is possible then for you to follow them since Zz'Rot will naturally win your lane for you.

Option 3 is a great scenario and we will dedicate the next chapter to it alone.

You are a decent way into your game - you have Zz'Rot, a completed Rod of Ages, and your turret is still at 75% health. However, your bot lane has lost early and your top lane has broke even, and your team as a whole is slightly behind. What happens next?

Their two bot laners have come mid as has their jungle. For a simple example, let's say that you now have Ashe, Soraka, Amumu, and Twisted Fate mid. What do?

First, demand that your team does not come to your lane. Unless you die (which is highly improbable), you can hold your turret yourself. There are situations when this is harder (such as against a poke comp of Ziggs, Cait, etc) but for the most part, you can hold mid lane by yourself. Often times your jungler may be nearby and can pitch in if it gets messy.

You have enough wave clear, mana sustain, and tankiness to withstand most barrages. If your lagging-behind team comes mid, they will lose out on potential towers, XP, and may even die in the process (likely). If you can hold mid by yourself, insist your team stay away. Otherwise, have your jungler help you out while your bot lane continues to push.

With your Zz'Rot behind your turret, walk slightly in front your turret before the wave hits and spam E + Q. If the enemy team is lucky, they may get a little bit of poke off on your turret, but nothing substantial. They are now splitting one wave of XP between 4 people, meanwhile your bot lane is pushing hard and your jungler continues to farm, or even counter jungle.

Unknowingly to the enemy team, they cannot siege your turret unless they pull off a very coordinated dive on you. A Zz'Rot + ROA Galio is highly tanky and very efficient stat-wise so it is near impossible to turret dive him. Meanwhile, your team is making up lost ground in terms of gold + XP while you stall the game.

They may sit there for 3-4 waves and finally give up, backing and going back to farm their pushed lanes. This is a success. You do not need kills here, you simply need to stay alive. Most likely, the enemy team will be back within a few minutes to try again, however by this time you will have even further defenses and most likely a Banner of Command minion with you as a possibility as well.

Zz'Rot Galio is a specific way to play Galio and is very hard to counter. It takes a lot of pressure off of the rest of your team while giving you, in a sense, a 6th person on your team early game because you rush Zz'Rot so fast.

Using the Zz'Rot combined with the sustain of ROA and teleport, you can push turrets like crazy and never give up the first turret of your mid lane. Occasionally enemies will become frustrated and attempt to dive you, in which case you can ult them under your own turret and laugh as they try to flash away after and still die.

We play passively and let them come to us; meanwhile our minions will overthrow their nexus.