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Recommended Items
Runes: Standard
1
2
3
4
Sorcery
Domination
+10% Attack Speed
+9 Adaptive (5.4 AD or 9 AP)
+6 Armor
Spells:
1
2
Standard
Flash
Ignite
Items
Ability Order Standard
Garden of Thorns (PASSIVE)
Zyra Passive Ability
Champion Build Guide
About me and other Guides
Main account Profile: Navcan
Smurf: Navn
Twitch Stream: twitch.tv/navcan
Hi there! I've been playing Zyra for many seasons! This guide is just a very general guideline of how to play Zyra, with runes and itemization. If you'd like to ask more questions, drop a comment or drop by my stream! I stream almost everyday, and still play Zyra occasionally. Thank you for reading!
If you're interested in my other guides:
Enchanters:
Lulu -> Support Lulu
Nami -> Support Nami
Karma -> Support Karma
Sona -> Support Sona
Yuumi -> Support Yuumi
Milio -> Support Milio
Soraka -> Support Soraka
Mage/Tank/Utility:
Zyra -> Support Zyra
Ashe -> Support Ashe
Amumu -> Support Amumu
Heimerdinger -> Support Heimerdinger
Lissandra -> Support Lissandra
Off-Meta/Fun stuff
Miss Fortune -> Support Miss Fortune
Veigar -> Support Veigar
Trundle -> Support Trundle
Jarvan IV -> Support Jarvan
Pantheon -> Support Pantheon
Why Zyra? Pros/Cons
Pros:
- Easy to play
- Lots of itemization options
- A lot of self agency to carry the game.
- Still useful even if behind.
- Can be an AP threat for your team.
Cons:
- Immobile.
- A bit of a clunky ability kit.
- Easy to play
- Lots of itemization options
- A lot of self agency to carry the game.
- Still useful even if behind.
- Can be an AP threat for your team.
Cons:
- Immobile.
- A bit of a clunky ability kit.
Itemization
TLDR; Figure out what you're going to build before the game even starts, then go the appropriate build. Try to match your runes with your items too.
Reasons to get
Liandry's Anguish
- This makes your plants much more annoying to deal with, as even a single auto attack from them will burn them.
- Pretty safe option to take overall.
Reasons to get
Luden's Tempest
- If you're the only AP threat on your team, then getting this will be the move, since it's extremely unlikely your opponents will buy any magic resist or tenacity.
- Stack as much Magic Penetration with this, such as
Sorcerer's Shoes and
Shadowflame and
Morellonomicon, and you'll be hitting really hard.
Reasons to get
Locket of the Iron Solari
- This is when you go tank with
Guardian. Cheap mythic with a very good active.
Rylai's Crystal Scepter
- A great item in both mage and tank builds, it's cheap, makes your plants even more annoying to deal with, and provides a ton of health for survivability.
- It's so good that it's viable to outright rush this item, mainly if you're even or behind. If you're doing well, buy your mythic first.
Morellonomicon
- If your opponents heal excessively, then this will be a good buy. Plants will be able to apply Heal Cut very easily.
- If the Magic Penetration won't be too impactful, then sitting on just
Oblivion Orb is also fine. Usually want to stack Magic Pen with
Sorcerer's Shoes.
--Mage Legendarys--
- This is when you're doing pretty well, or your team has absolutely no AP damage on it, except you.
Shadowflame
- Stacks pretty nicely with the magic penetration from
Sorcerer's Shoes, and would not build one without the either.
Rabadon's Deathcap
- Buy this as your 3rd item as you won't have enough AP to justify it's steep price.
Void Staff
- If your opponents are stacking magic resist, then you can likely just buy this second, over
Shadowflame.
Zhonya's Hourglass
- An amazing active, especially for Zyra who is quite immobile and vulnerable without
Grasping Roots.
- If they have assassin's or abilities to easily block like
Karthus
Requiem then this will do wonders.
Mejai's Soulstealer
- If you have 10 stacks on
Dark Seal then getting
Mejai's Soulstealer for the movement speed bonus will be worth it.
- I'd also only purchase this with
Luden's Tempest as the 5 Magic Penetration will be much more useful than Ability Haste from
Liandry's Anguish
--Tank Legendarys--
Anathema's Chains
- When there's 1 fed enemy then this will be much more efficient as they'll just have reduced tenacity when you're near them, as well as making it harder that enemy to kill you.
Knight's Vow
- If there's someone who's fed on your team, then this will help keep them and yourself alive.
- Very cheap and provides a lot of ability haste.
Randuin's Omen
- They have multiple champions that crit, such as
Yasuo
Yone
Tryndamere
Kindred.
Dead Man's Plate
- They have multiple ad champions that don't crit.
Vigilant Wardstone
- Very cheap Legendary and will give a nice amount of stats.
- Would not build this with the Mage build as it won't be item slot efficient.
Mythics
Reasons to get

- This makes your plants much more annoying to deal with, as even a single auto attack from them will burn them.
- Pretty safe option to take overall.
Reasons to get

- If you're the only AP threat on your team, then getting this will be the move, since it's extremely unlikely your opponents will buy any magic resist or tenacity.
- Stack as much Magic Penetration with this, such as



Reasons to get

- This is when you go tank with

Legendarys

- A great item in both mage and tank builds, it's cheap, makes your plants even more annoying to deal with, and provides a ton of health for survivability.
- It's so good that it's viable to outright rush this item, mainly if you're even or behind. If you're doing well, buy your mythic first.

- If your opponents heal excessively, then this will be a good buy. Plants will be able to apply Heal Cut very easily.
- If the Magic Penetration won't be too impactful, then sitting on just


--Mage Legendarys--
- This is when you're doing pretty well, or your team has absolutely no AP damage on it, except you.

- Stacks pretty nicely with the magic penetration from


- Buy this as your 3rd item as you won't have enough AP to justify it's steep price.

- If your opponents are stacking magic resist, then you can likely just buy this second, over


- An amazing active, especially for Zyra who is quite immobile and vulnerable without

- If they have assassin's or abilities to easily block like



- If you have 10 stacks on


- I'd also only purchase this with


--Tank Legendarys--

- When there's 1 fed enemy then this will be much more efficient as they'll just have reduced tenacity when you're near them, as well as making it harder that enemy to kill you.

- If there's someone who's fed on your team, then this will help keep them and yourself alive.
- Very cheap and provides a lot of ability haste.

- They have multiple champions that crit, such as





- They have multiple ad champions that don't crit.

- Very cheap Legendary and will give a nice amount of stats.
- Would not build this with the Mage build as it won't be item slot efficient.
How to use your abilities
TLDR; Use your plants efficiently and wisely! You only have 2 abilities to spawn plants and they will determine everything that you can do.
- I would highly recommend turning on range indicators, as being able to know how far you can spawn a plant is a large part of Zyra's gameplay.
- A majority of where seeds spawn tend to be random, but there are a few factors to try and manipulate the spawn location. This is based on testing and what I've observed.
- 1. They spawn towards the enemy base.
- 2. They spawn towards enemy champions.
- 3. Nearby Brush. (about 300 range)
- 4. The direction you're facing.
- So for example, if you are mid lane, and you face towards the enemy base with no brush or enemy champions nearby, they will almost always spawn somewhere in front of you.
- Since this is a Support guide, you'll mostly be bot lane, and the seeds will spawn towards your enemies in lane, and occasionally in the brush if you're close enough to it. And occasionally behind you if you're facing towards your own base.
- During laning phase, if you can constantly push your lane, these seeds end up behind and/or around you very often, which makes ganking or engaging on you risky for your opponents. Always keep in mind where they are and position around them.
- If your opponents are paying attention, they'll also be trying to step on your seeds so you can't spawn plants. If they start walking towards a seed, you can also walk towards it and threaten to spawn the plant and hit them. At this point it's mind games, but its something to keep in mind.
- Outside of laning phase, you usually won't have any Mana issues, and you can just spawn plants using
Deadly Spines wherever you go, as they'll just grant free vision and sometimes enemies just walk past the plants and take free damage. This becomes much more potent once you have
Liandry's Anguish and/or
Rylai's Crystal Scepter
- Seeds tend to give away the idea that you may be in the area nearby, so if you're trying to ambush someone from brush or around a corner, your position may be compromised at times.
- If seeds are spawning while you are in a bush, that means the enemy can see you.
- This is one of the few abilities in the game with a cast perpendicular to yourself, so it tends to hit most people.
- Always spawn stray seeds from
Garden of Thorns after laning phase as the range of the plants are pretty far, and it's just free damage on whoever tries to fight the plant.
- This is your primary poke tool in lane, and try to time this with
Garden of Thorns seed spawns, and
Rampant Growth so that even if you miss
Deadly Spines, the plant will still do damage to them.
- Plants spawned from
Deadly Spines have the same attack range as you (575), and that's longer than most ranged champions in the game. So you can usually damage someone if you cast
Deadly Spines then
Rampant Growth and reach someone from over a 1000 range away. This is very useful for applying
Rylai's Crystal Scepter and
Liandry's Anguish.
- Each time you score a takedown (kill or assist), you get a seed charge, keep this in mind in extended fights to keep spawning plants.
- Placing a seed briefly grants vision, and when they're stepped on they reveal whoever steps on it. You can also cast
Deadly Spines or
Grasping Roots towards brush, with the "plant spawn" just barely into the bush you want to check, and put a seed into it during the animation cast of either ability. This makes it so that if someon IS in that brush, and you need to suddenly retreat, you won't be stuck in any cast animations while retreating. For this, most of the times, casting
Deadly Spines is better.
- The plants spawned from this have quite a crippling slow. The slows stack additively, twice, from 30% to 60%. So quite often, you can actually miss
Grasping Roots but with 2
Rampant Growth charges, you can cut off enemy escape paths with just the slow.
- This is your only basic ability that can help yourself or others with, so maxing it first is fairly common.
- Once you have
Rylai's Crystal Scepter, you won't really need to spawn
Grasping Roots anymore.
- Against champions that hook or pull you like
Blitzcrank or
Thresh, if they begin walking towards you, you can pre-emtively cast
Grasping Roots at them, and place a seed between you and them, so that even if you miss, the plant you spawn can block the incoming hook. And if they don't use it, they will need to walk through the plant that slows them.
- This does NOT spawn plants. It only buffs the plants that are already there. So try to spawn plants first.
- It takes 2 seconds for the knock-up to happen, so once you get max rank
Grasping Roots and you land it and cast
Stranglethorns, if the enemy has no tenacity, then the knock-up is guaranteed.
- This is a huge ult, and can act as a zoning tool for a few seconds in the jungle, and even in lanes.
- I would highly recommend turning on range indicators, as being able to know how far you can spawn a plant is a large part of Zyra's gameplay.
Garden of Thorns
- A majority of where seeds spawn tend to be random, but there are a few factors to try and manipulate the spawn location. This is based on testing and what I've observed.
- 1. They spawn towards the enemy base.
- 2. They spawn towards enemy champions.
- 3. Nearby Brush. (about 300 range)
- 4. The direction you're facing.
- So for example, if you are mid lane, and you face towards the enemy base with no brush or enemy champions nearby, they will almost always spawn somewhere in front of you.
- Since this is a Support guide, you'll mostly be bot lane, and the seeds will spawn towards your enemies in lane, and occasionally in the brush if you're close enough to it. And occasionally behind you if you're facing towards your own base.
- During laning phase, if you can constantly push your lane, these seeds end up behind and/or around you very often, which makes ganking or engaging on you risky for your opponents. Always keep in mind where they are and position around them.
- If your opponents are paying attention, they'll also be trying to step on your seeds so you can't spawn plants. If they start walking towards a seed, you can also walk towards it and threaten to spawn the plant and hit them. At this point it's mind games, but its something to keep in mind.
- Outside of laning phase, you usually won't have any Mana issues, and you can just spawn plants using



- Seeds tend to give away the idea that you may be in the area nearby, so if you're trying to ambush someone from brush or around a corner, your position may be compromised at times.
- If seeds are spawning while you are in a bush, that means the enemy can see you.
Deadly Spines
- This is one of the few abilities in the game with a cast perpendicular to yourself, so it tends to hit most people.
- Always spawn stray seeds from

- This is your primary poke tool in lane, and try to time this with



- Plants spawned from





Rampant Growth
- Each time you score a takedown (kill or assist), you get a seed charge, keep this in mind in extended fights to keep spawning plants.
- Placing a seed briefly grants vision, and when they're stepped on they reveal whoever steps on it. You can also cast



Grasping Roots
- The plants spawned from this have quite a crippling slow. The slows stack additively, twice, from 30% to 60%. So quite often, you can actually miss


- This is your only basic ability that can help yourself or others with, so maxing it first is fairly common.
- Once you have


- Against champions that hook or pull you like



Stranglethorns
- This does NOT spawn plants. It only buffs the plants that are already there. So try to spawn plants first.
- It takes 2 seconds for the knock-up to happen, so once you get max rank


- This is a huge ult, and can act as a zoning tool for a few seconds in the jungle, and even in lanes.
Runes
Keystones

- Overall good for poke and the whole



- Good for bursting your enemies. Would take this if your enemies have any healing abilities.

- If the enemy team composition is all squishy, this will proc very often. If they have any tanks at all, I wouldn't take this.

- If the enemy can get on you very often and easily, then you can go into a tank build and try to be as disruptive as possible while baiting enemies.
Minor Runes

- This will greatly increase your survivability as Zyra doesn't have any mobility options.

- I personally don't find this is necessary since it's rare to have mana issues with Zyra if you are using your abilities in conjunction with






- Zyra is heavily gated by her abilities, so getting ability haste is very good.

- Plant auto attacks proc this, so it's just free damage constantly.

- This is nice as it'll constantly go off during the whole game from plants auto attacking all the time.

- Zyra can scout brush fairly safely by putting plants in them while she clears wards at range, so this'll stack quickly.

- If the enemy has "run at you" junglers such as




- If you can get kills in your lane, this'll be very nice to snowball with.

- This'll also help get you from place to place sooner since Zyra has no mobility options.

- Won't do much early game, but will start really kicking in once you have



- In the case they keep jumping you, this'll increase your survivability tremendously. Don't take this against champions that can peel it off you easily, such as



- Overall just an amazing rune once it kicks in.

- If the enemy is jumping you with CC, such as


- Also scales nicely, getting that extra bit of hp.
Early/Mid/Late gane
Laning Phase/Early Game
- Zyra's level 1 is actually quite weak. At best you can hope for a seed spawn from



- Zyra's auto attack is very fast, and has a lot of range, and is best utilized to auto attack your enemies, then immediately running back into brush to drop minion aggro.
- Keep an eye on your own seeds from

- Your


- Otherwise, if you keep perma pushing your lane, you can likely hit the enemy tower and get a few tower plates. There will be a lot of seeds from

- If you can't constantly push your lane, then this is where Zyra will feel fairly weak in lane. So you'll need to have



Mid/Late game
- Look to spawn plants from


- If you're doing well, then very often you can kill a lot of squishy enemies by using your full combo of




- If you're not doing well, then look to lock down and peel threats to your carrys, and scout with your plants so that you and your team can get around the map safely.
13.23 Tier List
Grading Explanation below the lists! Check the RANK too!
- Zyra has a lot of self agency in most games since you get to build damage. She has a variety of builds and relatively simple kit that can be very rewarding as well.


Tier List Grading Points
- Winrates
- Champion Difficulty (more relevant in Emerald and below)
- Counter-play (more relevant in Emerald and below)
- Flex pick for draft (more relevant in diamond+)
- Early game (more relevant in diamond+)
- Late game/scaling (more relevant in Emerald and below)
- Anything in the (_Letter_+) row, means it's better the higher in elo you go. Anything in (_Letter_-) row, means it's better the lower in elo you go.
Overall Points:
- Games last longer the lower in elo you go. Therefore, mage supports tend to do much better since you can buy your items, and you basically become another carry threat. This leads to enchanters/engage being weaker in lower level play since you would rely on your teammtes more often.
- Champions that are fundamentally easier to execute on will have higher win rates. Since it is more unlikely players are pilot-ing their champion runes/builds/kit efficiently, the easier the champion, the more likely to maximize their kits. This is especially apparent in Platinum and below.
- I would recommend playing any of the champs in S+, S, or A. However you can climb on almost anything, provided you always look to maximize your champion kit, mechanics, and impact on the game. Winning is the result of improving.
- Zyra has a lot of self agency in most games since you get to build damage. She has a variety of builds and relatively simple kit that can be very rewarding as well.
13.23 Emerald and Below

13.23 Diamond+

Tier List Grading Points
- Winrates
- Champion Difficulty (more relevant in Emerald and below)
- Counter-play (more relevant in Emerald and below)
- Flex pick for draft (more relevant in diamond+)
- Early game (more relevant in diamond+)
- Late game/scaling (more relevant in Emerald and below)
- Anything in the (_Letter_+) row, means it's better the higher in elo you go. Anything in (_Letter_-) row, means it's better the lower in elo you go.
Overall Points:
- Games last longer the lower in elo you go. Therefore, mage supports tend to do much better since you can buy your items, and you basically become another carry threat. This leads to enchanters/engage being weaker in lower level play since you would rely on your teammtes more often.
- Champions that are fundamentally easier to execute on will have higher win rates. Since it is more unlikely players are pilot-ing their champion runes/builds/kit efficiently, the easier the champion, the more likely to maximize their kits. This is especially apparent in Platinum and below.
- I would recommend playing any of the champs in S+, S, or A. However you can climb on almost anything, provided you always look to maximize your champion kit, mechanics, and impact on the game. Winning is the result of improving.
Want to know more?
If you have any questions, leave a comment below! I'll be editing this as I go and be sure to let you know once I have more updates. Or if you'd like to ask me a question directly, you can go to my twitch stream! twitch.tv/navcan
Cheers and thank you for reading! Good luck on the rift
Cheers and thank you for reading! Good luck on the rift
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