Please verify that you are not a bot to cast your vote.
Not Updated For Current Season
This guide has not yet been updated for the current season. Please keep this in mind while reading. You can see the most recently updated guides on the browse guides page
Level 1 to 3 you bully him hard, level 4 to 6 dont overextend he can allin you and you will lose. After level 6, you bully him. If he QSS first item look to chapter into zhonya imediately. Finish your ludens later. Can start corrupt pot.
Yasuo
A good yasuo is a 10, a bad yasuo is a 1. This champion can be so good at shoving and poking you early. It can also be really good at tanking easy turret shots in the hands of a noob. You ult him in teamfights and you should lock him down. Farm lane if you are allowed, else try to get your jungles help. Can start corrupt pot.
Heimerdinger
Level 1 to 4 is the hardest part as he pushes you undertower. Try to shove the lane the most at level 1 to 4 but I doubt you will be able to. Use E and W on towers. Ult him on ganks or when no towers. Hes very squishy. Ludens into Zhonya will make the lane easy. He will stay at his towers but you will E+Q them and then hell run to his tower and youll get to nexus. Start sapphire or corrupt.
Katarina
You gotta keep control of her roams. Follow her early or with tps. Dont stand next to her knives or E her when she takes them. Bully her early with your abilities and farm with your AAs. She is kinda busted right now so be careful to not overextend against her at any level pre 9. Start corrupt pot.
Vel'Koz
in laning phase try to ult his ult to cancel it. You can also Q his ult. In teamfights you gotta find a way to get to him. try zhonya and mercs. If he doesnt harass you level 1 to level 3, work towards poking him and killing him. A passive velkoz early is a bad velkoz. Start corrupt pot.
Fizz
It really depends of the early game and the roams. level 1 to 3 you can poke him hard with your abilities. after that he does decent damage. At level 6 it is kind of tricky depending on who ults first.
Start corrupt pot.
Xerath
He pokes a lot but he never really kills you unless he gets you with his E. He will try to get fed from roams so try to catch him there. Start corrupt pot.
Ahri
dodge her charms and that is pretty much it. Your ult cancel any movement advantage she can get in laning phase. Try to ult her when you are pretty certain shes gonna die or else she will walk away. Start sapphire or corrupt pot.
Annie
Your wave clear is faster then hers. Wave management is key to destroy her. Start sapphire.
Gangplank
his oranges cancel your ult, pretty much you gotta get ganks to kill him or poke him to death. He is weak early so if he overextends just poke him. It really is a battle of who is gonna orange (him) or ultimate (you). The first one to do it, the other one wins. Start sapphire.
Diana
she pretty much pokes you all game, level 2 to 6, her damage burst is really hard to contain. Pretty much farm till you have ganks/ults. She can also cancel your ult so be careful. You ult her in teamfights. Start corrupt pot.
Kennen
He pokes you a lot and his ult his difficult to counter as a low mobility champ. Although when you allin him first you are usually better off. Zonhya and banshee can be useful. Start sapphire or corrupt pot.
Brand
You should be fine into him. He will try to poke you a lot. Farm when your shield is up. He is one of the hardest champion at level 1 and 2. You just have to accept that you farm under tower if he lands his abilities on you. He can allin you at level 2 if you take too much damage. If the brand in front of you doesnt harass you level 1 to 3, work towards killing him, he is a bad brand. Start corrupt pot or sapphire if hes not a good brand (low amount of games on the champ)
Anivia
She is very weak before her ult. Try to get a great farm and shove her under tower.After level 6 if she misses her stun you can look to try to allin.
start sapphire.
Kassadin
Kassadin is pretty easy to play against. If he Q a minion, you E+W+Q him. This should allow with corrupt pot to make him back first and have TP advantage. If he R into you in a teamfight you R him. You should outshove him at level 6 and look for roams or to pressure the jungle. Start corrupt pot.
Ekko
laning phase can cause some problems although you usually trade him decent. Teamfights are all yours. ult him when hes close to half hp so he cant use his ult. He will outshove you level 1 to 3. Use your W after he has used his Q, this will allow you to have a better shove. Try to ult him when hes half health or lower with a teamate close so he cant ult and just die. You can also predict his ult and ult after he used his. Do not overpush. A good ekko is a 10, a bad ekko is a 1. Start corrupt pot.
Viktor
E him when he comes to Q you. Engage on missed W and E. Dont ult if his W is up or if you have his R on you. Zhonya is useful as second item to deny his ult. Start sapphire.
Swain
Pokes your shield and is annoying as a whole. Morello second. Start corrupt pot.
Taliyah
You clear faster than she does. Ping her ults and follow up with TP. Start sapphire.
Galio
he roams a ton but you poke him hard early and he famrs under tower. Their comp also usually lack damage. Start sapphire.
Gragas
you poke him too hard to be a good champ to lane against you. Do not let him walk to the minions and he is done for. Start dark seal.
Morgana
her w is obnoxious, she just w you to remove the shield at all times. her e at last second will cancel your supress and her q + ult will melt you. zonhya is very useful as second. You outshove her so push the lane all game. Start sapphire.
Azir
you both shove lane a lot and you are both hard to get caught. usually you wait ganks, catch him with the bushes or wait for him to make a mistake. You should be able to shove faster than him. Start corrupt pot or sapphire.
LeBlanc
you poke her a lot and since she is squishy you pretty much allin her at half hp on level 6 - 11 and shes dead. try to roam with her or inniate the roams since thats how she will try to get fed. She will try to allin you at level 2 or 3. Deny that by managing the wave and not shoving it to her tower. Be smart about it.
Start corrupt pot.
Ryze
you both poke eachothers a lot but your ult is more powerful than his in laning phase. he will try to roam into you. You clear faster than him so play on that to roam. Do not try to 1v1 if he hits his abilities first, he will one shot you with his stun. Start sapphire or dark seal.
Veigar
You outpush him, he is squishy. Do not let him pop your shield and allin him as much as you want. Pre 6, he cant do anything to you, bully him and take control of the lane. Make it hard for him to farm and use your E Q to aggro him. Start sapphire or dark seal.
Talon
his allins pre6 hurt you a lot, he can roam and he runaway easily. you usually outmatch him in teamfights. so be careful early. Deny him when he walks up to take farm. Do not push him level 1 to 3. Lets him push you or match his push. He will allin you at all cost level 1 to 3. If he QSS first item look to chapter into zhonya imediately. Finish your ludens later. Start corrupt pot.
Aurelion Sol
he pokes you a lot and its hard to get in range to ult him. ganks are usually needed to fight him. You shove faster than him. Start sapphire.
Ziggs
pokes you a lot, you usually have to flash ult to kill him and he can runaway with his bombs. you gonna make every flashes worth it. You have to pop your W after he used his E in order to push the wave, else he will just kill all your voidlings. If he doesnt E your minions when you farm, you are facing a bad Ziggs, work towards trading with him anytimes. Start corrupt pot or sapphire.
Karthus
Do not fight him level 1, Disengage the fight. Karthus is busted as of patch 8.24, Farm, shove and pressure the other lanes. Roam a lot, ward their jungle, contest buffs, etc.. Zhonya second is your best friend.
start sapphire or seal.
Akali
Do not out shove or do not go far in lane when both of you are full hp. She will 1 shot you if you overextend. Use wards to not get ganked. Wave management is key. Your ult denies her being a hoe in her clouds so have fun countering her.
start corrupt.
Vladimir
dont ever get close to him and ult him with help. farm lane. Morrelo is important, 2nd item. Zhonya is useful. You should be able to deny him a lot and E poke. start sapphire.
Syndra
frustating lane, you will usually kill her than die to her ult. try to farm and dodge her abilities. Zonhyas very useful. Move a lot and avoid her W early, get to level 3 ASAP and shove lane. start corrupt or sapphire.
Corki
he has a lot of poke, you will usually have to flash ult to end him since he will stay out of range. start sapphire.
Lux
she will poke a lot early. dont get caught by her q as much as possible, zonhya is important. You will usually get 2x her farm by level 10 so she is not a problem as a whole. start sapphire or corrupt.
Orianna
she pokes you a lot but so do you. she is very useful in teamfights. she is a decent opponent so try to beat her in lane. You should shove faster than she does. She will outshove you level 1 to 3 and will try to deny your from even getting close to CS. Just wait it up and outshove smartly at level 4+. start corrupt.
Twisted Fate
He outshoves you early. You are pretty even after that. To win this lane you gotta put your whole combo on him everytimes he uses W on a minion. You should out trade him this way and have lane priority. Use your Teleport to match his ults and win game.
Cassiopeia
she pokes a lot. dont overextend against her or she will melt you. farmlane till level 6-9. start sapphire or corrupt.
Teemo
You counter him hard at mid and at toplane. You farm with e+w until you reach level 6. At level 6, your allins pretty much ends him and he cant do much til the end of the game. Pantheon counters him early, you counter him the whole game. Your ULT stops him from running arround and poking you. start seal.
Lucian
He is really hard to lane early against since he pokes you really hard and shoves your lane harder than you do at level 1-2. Play very passive and try to get the most CS possible. Your ult cancels his ult so you should initiate on that. Try to shove him the most past level 3.
start corrupt.
Udyr
At the toplane when you face an udyr its pretty easy but it can get weird with a gank. He will try to allin you pre 6 so try to stay close to your tower. Farm with e+w or under tower. At level 6 you deny mostly all he can do to you, so just poke him, poke him then when hes close enough to you to try to stun you, you just e+q+ult him. Do not overextend or over push the wave before you are sure you can fight him and kill him. start seal.
Singed
You counter him in teamfights. If you play versus a singed you should usually ult him unless hes behind. start corrupt.
Zilean
pokes, high mobility and resurection; the things that pretty much counter you. Try to win lane pre6 with ganks. start corrupt.
Zoe
You are one of her main counters but she is still very busted right now. You have to poke her when she tries to poke you. Ulting her might be very difficult when you play in higher elo. Banshe and going stopwatch in your masteries could help. Roaming or catching her making a mistake is the best way to win vs her. Be careful of her insane damage. start sapphire.
Lissandra
Difficult lane. She does a lot of damage and cant seem to get harassed enough by your damage. Getting a stopwatch from your masteries and farming is prolly the best way to play vs her. If she E into you to start a teamfight you should R her. Shell be irrelevent. start corrupt.
Malphite
a good malphite player could beat you at level 6 but you can most certainly poke him and then finish him with ult if you poked enough. its a decent lane for you since you can abuse him early. start seal.
Sion
Sion is one of your main counters in the toplane. Although if you poke him hard and kill him or force an early level 1 or 2 back on him, you will win lane and have more push power. If you get behind against him and hes going int or he gets jungle pressure, you are absolutely irrelevent. Start corrupt.
Wukong
He is one of your counters in teamfights and when laning against him. He is squishy early but his ult with a gank will snowball him easily. You really need to stay far from him and far with your shield up. He can one shot you without even having time to ult if you get too close. How to win? Farm and ult before he ults in teamfights. start corrupt.
Tryndamere
Like sion, this lane is how difficult you make it. You counter him hard early so farm using your AA and use your E on him. Do not try to engage him level 1 or 2 because he will beat you in a AA matchup. Disengage as much as you can and poke with your E+Q. Go Lost chapter into Zonhya and finish ludens later. Try to get level 6 first and kill. Start corrupt pot. Build morello third.
Master Yi
I know a lot of you do not like Yi as a jungler, well you are in luck, you counter Master yi with your ult. If he builds QSS, still go for him, hell die in a second anyways. Hes as skillless as you so he wont have time to QSS anyways. start seal.
Renekton
He can tower dive you at level 3. He will kill you and live. This is the worst lane top. You should ban renekton if you play top. If you do not ban him and get to play versus him, stay under tower get level 6 ASAP and hope you dont get tower dove by their jungle. Start corrupt pot, into lost chapter, into zonhya and finish ludens later. Build morello third.
Irelia
Like any assassins, irelia is really strong against you in the laning phase but you are extremely strong against her in teamfights. Keep the wave at even or closer to your tower. Try to farm with your AA in order not to shove. Try to freeze if she allows it. If shes pushed your way, poke her with ease. If you are pushed her way, farm from far and be ready to flash out. She will burst you easily. Start corrupt pot, into lost chapter. If shes not aggressive towards you, you can finish ludens, if shes really aggressive and winning, go zonhya and finish ludens later. Build morello third.
Pantheon
You are one of his counters in the midlane and in the toplane. Pantheon pokes overtime. With your shield, farming from far, poking with AAs when he farms, not getting in his range at all and E+R at level6, you should have no problem. Corrupt pot start.
Darius
Put a circle around darius. Do not go in that circle. Press E on him when he tries to farm or to hit you. You gotta respect his early power spike and not fight him. You should never lose your shield. If you lose your shield stay the furthest from him you can. Build ludens into zhonya and snowball hard. If he flashes on you to hook you, flash out before he hooks you. If he ever catches you on full hp and equal money, you are probably dead. This lane should be really easy. Start corrupt.
Sylas
Hes really good in lane against you. Play this lane like you would versus Zed. You counter him in late game and teamfights if you use your ult for him and he doesnt ult you with your own ult first.
Pyke
same as a zed and sylas lane, really hard matchup with a lot of damage but you counter him in teamfights and late game.
I am a North American player that used to play Counter-Strike but recently turned into League of Legends. I have been maining jungle for my first season and now I turned into the middle lane/top lane.
I hope you guys enjoy this guide. It is mostly all of my knowledge that I have gained through experience from gameplay to guides to videos.
If you have any questions or comments please leave them here or join the reddit subreddit at /r/Malzaharmains
About me
About me
My name is Kilgta. I have played Malzahar from season 7 to season 8 and still enjoy playing it once in a while. I am currently Plat 1 with 65% winrate in the North America server.
About Malzahar
About Malzahar
As of right now, Malzahar is the mid laner with the best winrate. It was also under the spotlight at the last Worlds in 2017 where it was picked three times in a row by SSG Crown to beat SKT in finals. Because of that, it gave Malzahar a lot of publicity making it a meta champion at the moment.
Malzahar is an utility mage. His best place is at the middle lane. He is a very simple champion with very little skills to be able to be good with it. He is also pretty decent at top lane but this will not be the focus for this guide.
He is a very good pick as a main for your second class or just for free elo as a middle lane main. He is also a good pick if you want to learn playing middle lane and understand other champions as he has very little hard counters.
Teleport really is the best way to go for me. I used to only play with ghost as it would help me get out of ganks and roam but I think teleport is the best because it allows you to farm a lot more. It allows you to shove your lane into their tower, go back and buy lost chapter or roam which is existential for me.
Some people love to go ignite into high mobility champions to get the final blow when you ult them but I think it is not as good since these fights will usually imply a lot of your health and you will have to back anyways. Teleport will allow you to fight him, back and then teleport in lane and push wave and deny him a lot of experience and money.
Your Passive: Your passive is called Void shift. It is a shield that surrounds your champion until you are hit by another champion or dragon or baron. It goes on a 30/24/18/12 seconds cooldown when you are hit by one of those and is not affected by minions. The timer will reset if you are hit by a crowdcontrol.
Your Q: Your Q is called Call of the void. It is a skillshot that does damage to the ennemies and minions between the two orbs perpendicular to where you are facing. Also, if you have put your E on a minion or an ennemy and you hit a Q on them, the timer of the E will reset. Another important thing about your Q is that it silences the people between the Q for 1/1.25/1.5/1.75/2 seconds. You usually max this attack in second as it does damage but not as much as your E.
Your W: Your W is called Void swam. It has an active and a passive. Its active is that it summons a voidling next to Malzahar and it will attack the nearest target or it will attack the target that has your E on them. It does more damage if they are affected by your E. Its passive is that everytimes you use an ability you gain stacks of voidlings up to 2 stacks. When you use your W after you have the maximum of stacks, you will summon more voidlings. In the past your voidlings use to have a lot of health but with the recent nerfs and reworks to Malzahar, they are one shot by any abilities of a champions but will last longer against minions. Because of that, you no longer max your W in second instead you finish with this ability.
Your E: Your E is called Malefic visions. It is a point and click ability and it does damage over time (DoT). It does damage every .5 seconds on the target you choose. When you kill the target and your E is still on them, the ability will spread to the nearest target. If you use Q or R on a target with your E on them, the timer of 4 seconds will reset and it will keep doing DoT. You usually max this attack in first since it is your bread and butter. It does a huge amount of damage is used as a poke early.
Your R: Your R is called Nether grasp. It is a point and click ability and it supresses the target for 2.5 seconds dealing a certain amount of damage. A supress means that the ennemy champion will not be able to move for the whole duration of the ability.
It also means thatCleanse will not stop the supress but Quicksilver sash will. When you use your R, you also refresh the duration of your E.
Teamfights
Teamfights
Your R is usually hated amongst the community so this is the main reason why you should use it on haters and collect all the tears. Jokes aside, your R is an insanely good ability and since it is a point and click, it is very difficult to miss. You should usually use it on high priority target. As a Malzahar, when you use your ultimate on a champion it has a lot of power and will usually mean that your whole team will engage on you so choose wisely.
Your R can also be used to peel your carries. In lower elos, Malzahar mains will use their ultimate to save themselves when it is usually too late or will use it to flash ult. If you want to become a better player, you have to choose the best opportunity to use your ultimate as you become insanely vulnerable when you use it as you supress an ennemy but it also means that you are not moving for this period of time. For example, if the blitzcrank on your team hooks an ashe player, using your ultimate at this point is usually a waste of ult since you know that ashe has basically no escape and she is dead.
Another important use for your ultimate is that you can use it to peel your carries. As a Malzahar main you have to understand that you will not always be the carry and that at some point in the game, past the 30 minutes mark, the AD carries will take over the game. Even if you are fed as hell before that, there is a point where the AD carries deal a lot of damage and peeling them from the tanks or the ennemies high priority targets is a really good idea.
Chosing your masteries/runes in Season 8
Chosing your masteries/runes in Season 8
I prefer arcane comet over Aery/Electrocute/Predator as my main mastery.
Arcane comet allows me a good bunch of damage using my Q and a really good shove.
Predator is for roamers and makes you a second support player which I do not like.
Aery lacks damage in my view with ludens.
Electrocute is for people who use ignite and want to all-in and their build is completely different than this one.
The rest if pretty typical in the primary tree as you only Manaband is good in the second row for your mana, only Transcendence is good for the CDR in the third row and apparently scorch got nerfed so gathering storm is the meta.
For the secondary tree, you have many choices but with comet I prefer either biscuit delivery + stopwatch or Minion dematerializer + stopwatch. Recently I have been using dematerializer because it allows me to delete the siege minion and shove.
YOU SHOULD get used to using because if you get used to using it properly, you can shove lanes by dematerializing the cannons and shoving lanes harder. You can also use it to refresh your E when its about to expire and save a lot of mana in lane.
In lower elo you will get through laning phase by just farming and not getting poked and being chill. Once you start playing versus plats+, you will get to see what people that know how to play their champions properly have to do against you. Dematerializing will really help you counter their poke and shove.
You can chose to use that as it will give you some good substain. I still would tell you to learn to lane and last until dematerializer.
As of Season 9, some players take presence of mind and coup de grace as a second tree which is a decent build. You can do this if you are feeling good about your laning phase and want more damage/mana.
Other items worth building depending of the situation
Other items worth building depending of the situation
Other items that can be built:
A. Swap Rilays for Void Staff when they have heavy tanks
B. Banshees if you need the MR for your AP matchup like Syndra, Annie, etc.
C. You have to build morello early into champions like Swain, Vladimir and other heavy healing champions.
D. You can swap your sorcerers for ionians if you lost lane too hard, it will allow you to have decent tools in teamfights at the cost of damage. At this point you are in reconstruction and are only building to peel and engage.
E. You can swap sorcerers for mercurys or tabis if they have heavy AP or heavy AD.
F. You can build rabadon as last item if you feel like you are not treaten by anybody in teamfights and only want to deal straight up good damage.
Do not build these items
Do not build these items
Arcangels is for people who use Malzahar as a second support. You are not a support and you do not use Predator either so you build Ludens like a man.
Spellbinder is just not worth it, you wont need it at the time you build it anyways. There are far superior items to build. People will recomend it at a late stage where a Morello, Zhonya, Rilays, Void staff are going to be far more important.
Ionian boots. If you use this guide, you build Zhonya second or third, you wont need the 10% CDR from the Ionian boots, build sorcerers. UNLESS you are behind your laner and you need to catchup in money. If you buy those you will lack damage but will have ult more often.
Twin Shadows, I do not see any reasons to build this if you have Rilays and Liandrys.
Rod of ages will just make you deal less damage in the longrun.
Seraphs is just not worth it, you do not lack mana as a Malzahar because of your E nor do you need a shield. If you get caught on Malzahar, chances are you are dead anyways. Work your champion placement do not gut your damage to build some mana shield item.
Lich Bane, if someone tells you to build Lich bane on Malzahar, do not read further into that guide. You spam E W and Q on Malzahar in teamfights. You do not AA a lot so Lich Bane is just useless. Why? Because you stop moving for a moment to ult and you do not AA during that time.
Eye of frost, why would you go support when you can get farm in the midlane and carry your games.
Conclusion
Conclusion
In conclusion, Malzahar is a strong mid laner for the current season and patch. It has barely any hard counters and it has a lot of pressure over the map but also a strong ultimate that allows you to supress the hard carries of the other team without any problems.
I hope you liked my guide and leave me any feedbacks or ask questions if something was not clear enough or not metionned.
Thanks for your support and I hope you enjoy playing Malzahar as much as I do.
Bibliography
Bibliography
Here are the videos that I have used when I was learning to play the champion that really helped me become better at the champion.
First of all, this coaching video by Neace really helped me to understand what mistakes Malzahar mains usually do. I became really aware of the importance of my first tower being up at all time and also the importance of never losing any farm.
Second of all, this video by Evul games really helped me understand the basics of
Malzahar when I was beginning. It pointed out some things that I was not aware and helped me grow. The majority of the things he said should be present in this guide in more details but it is a really good summary.
Finally, this video highlighting the strength of the best
Malzahar in the world as he recently won the Worlds. It is a good review by Midbeast who also plays quite a lot of Malzahar in the middle lane.
You must be logged in to comment. Please login or register.