Hi! My name is Puppitteer and I've been a day 1 Zeri enjoyer and have been playing her at her highest highs and lowest lows regardless of what rank I end up because I love this character with all my heart, from her thematics, looks to abilities everything is great about her. With that being said I like to mix and match when I can to get a feeling of old bruiser Zeri granted it was not healthy for the game at all.

Lethal Tempo - Take this rune when you know there is gonna be extended fights where you have MULITPLE targets to hit constantly or else you won't get value out of this rune. Say if an assassin jumps on you,how does lethal tempo save you there? So bring it when they have either tanks or multiple bruisers on their team.

Fleet Footwork (My Personal Favorite) - This Rune is very underated and helps so much with difficult matchups (Ex. Draven/Trist or poke EX. Jhin Xerath or Ezreal Karma) it helps you reposition with 25% Bonus MS and gives you health back so you can sustain lanes when they can't.

Overheal (What I Take Currently) - Doran's blade just got buffed so that means we go it 99.99% of the time and more ad means more dmg to omnivamp and heal off of lifesteal, overall very good.

Triumph (Good if confident and know you'll be fighting a lot and winning) - Not really much else to say but that.

Bloodline (What I Take Currently) - Doesn't give much, but! you have so much left over attack speed that just gets converted to AD in your build anyway and you don't have to build lifesteal, synergizes with Overheal earlier on.

Alacrity (Take when you know you're gonna be fighting a lot) - Again nothing much else to say.

Last Stand (What I Take Currently) - we usually take conditioning and overgrowth so we're gonna have a lot of health and our build has a lot of health built into it, so being 40% health isn't that dangerous for us.

Conditioning - Take into scaling free lanes where you need to be beefy later.

Boneplating - Saves you so many hard early game bully matchups, thier early leads will be nonexistant

Overgrowth (My Favorite) Gives tons of health, more health means I stay alive.

OK OK, hear me out I came across this one day when playing against champs like vayne or ashe wondering why trinity could be good on them, so why not Zeri again? Trinity Force is NOT, I repeat. NOT dead on Zeri, just takes a lot more mechanical skill to pull off your sheen proc. You have to weave in 2-3 Autos (4 In ult) before using Zeri's right click to start firing again with sheen procs (Think of it as reloading) This is to get the most optimal dmg out of Trinity Force. But let's look at the facts

Trinity Force - Gives Health to stay in fights longer and not get one shot, gives decent AD and Attack Speed plus some ability haste, gives speed on hit AND AD, AB and MS off of mythic passive. In theory and practice I have found this item time and time again to be useful on this champ.

It provides all the stats you want and more, only thing about the build is that if they have a super hard late game scaling comp, you will have to switch over your build to crit, but in most cases of scrappy Solo Queue you should be fine with Crit Bruiser Zeri.

Stormrazer - Combo this with Fleet Footwork and you'll be moving at around 65% bonus MS so you can reposition, run away or engage on an enemy you otherwise wouldn't be able to. This whole build makes up for Zeri getting -5 MS.

Runaan's Hurricane - This item is a classic on Zeri with your long range in ult, being able to shock and hit multiple enemies when you fire. Overall great item on Zeri.

Titanic Hydra - You build a lot of health so this item is super good and combos with runaan's well because it procs on each extra bolt.

Black Cleaver - Shreds enemy team with runaan's combo

Ok Friends! The Gameplan is to farm early and make sure your laning phase doesn't go poorly. If Zeri gets behind early at all your game is an uphill battle friends. Widdle the enemies down with your Q and right click when they step up to far and walk back right away as to not get hit by them back. Always look for wall W's early in areas where they can't see you so you're more likely to hit them, it does a hefty chunk of damage. Lastly find gold and xp wherever you can, Zeri is an item reliant Champion. If Zeri has no gold and no xp Zeri has no game because her peashooter Q can't do dmg by itself. Make the right decisions, if a fight looks bad at mid and you're already in lane, just shove and take plates you going up there won't change the outcome and in the offchance it does, you're losing out on so much free gold and XP bot.

You're looking to farm anything and everything you can while pushing out mid constantly and going with team for plays. Be sure after farming one wave mid or whichever lane your closest to at the time go to the nearest jg camp (If your jgler isn't taking it) and clear it, by the time you're you go back to lane and farm the next wave and rinse and repeat. Look for Wall W picks when you can and if you hit and your team is going, feel free to send it.

Your job is to stay alive. Position behind your team or near a wall and have your finger ready to click it as fast as possible if the enemy pops out of nowhere. Look to Stack your ult imidiately in fights, don't worry about hitting a multiple-man ult on Zeri you gotta have it ready for the fight at the very start, don't hold onto it when you don't need to. With that you should be ready to take on the SoloQ environment! Good luck Friends! I will update this whenever a new patch comes out!