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Flash is pretty basic for almost every champion in league, there's only a few who don't use it. It's good for escapes, engages, etc. Honestly, with just how numerous the uses for it are, it's just too good to pass up. There's also of course how well it pair's with your R, as the Flash+R combo leave's very little time to react for anyone on the enemy team.
Teleport Is my personal favorite secondary spell for Malzahar. It help's you get back to lane faster, open's up potential ganks into other lane's, get's you in position to help your team much faster whenever you're away, etc. The biggest downside to this spell is just the length cooldown, and even then i still feel like that isn't enough by itself to not take it.
Ignite is the bread and butter ability of any aggressive laner. It add's a lot of kill pressure to you're lane and all in's, and is also unique in that you can use it while in Nether Grasp (Just be careful to make sure you're actually in your ignite range). It won't be quite as useful as some other spell's later in the game, but if you're looking to win lane and snowball out from it, you can't get much better then this.
Ghost can be extremely helpful as a discount Flash+R combo for when flash is on cooldown. Just activate ghost, let it charge up, and then run down your choice of target and R them into place. it isn't quite as effective as Flash, but it work's in a pinch and mean's you have two possible spell options to use for R combo's instead of one.

Cleanse is the best defensive choice against high CC lane's or teams. It isn't a "must take" on malz, since you already have a shield passive that blocks CC as well, but if you're super worried about a LOT of CC on the enemy team, or worried about your shield getting constantly poked down by a Lux or something, you can justify it. If you're someone who's careful and you already play around your passive a lot though, it may just be a waste of a summoner spell.

Want to play it safe, but the enemy team has little to no CC, and/or your fine with just using Void Shift instead of taking Cleanse? then Barrier is your best bet. A shield on demand for any damage coming at you, can be clutch in helping you tank big bursts or winning to-close-to-call trade's with enemy champs. It's versatile in it's uses, so it's extremely helpful for more defensive player's.






Exhaust and Heal are both uncommon, but useful spells. I never personally use them, but if you like them enough or feel like you need one for some reason, neither of them are "bad" choices, either.

SORCERY

When most players first join league and compare Summon Aery to Arcane Comet in game, they tend to find Aery underwhelming. It's an understandable feeling, but doesn't change the fact that it's easily the most popular, common, and easy-to-use keystone for Malzahar, as well as being HIGHLY effective with a bit of practice. While it doesn't do quite as much damage as Arcane Comet, it can be procced multiple times thanks to Malz's DOT heavy playstyle. It's reliable and also works great at low levels too for poking down the enemy laner with auto attacks. It take's some practice to get use to, since you have to wait for Aery to come back to you before you can proc it again, but with some practice and experience it's a highly reliable and effective rune. Arcane Comet Now, while I did say it wasn't as reliable as Aery, that doesn't change the fact that Arcane Comet just flat out does more damage. In higher elo as of late, some Malz player's have been picking up Comet more for sheer damage potential, and the fact that it also can do AOE damage rather then single target. While it's good for these reason's, keep in mind that unlike Aery, Comet can also miss it's target, Aery cannot. Rylai's Crystal Scepter can help with this by slowing down target's so they can't escape it as easy, And I do still recommend Aery for most players (especially new ones), but Comet can easily be swapped in if it's your preference. -

Manaflow Band is a simple rune which can help out with early mana issues once it's fully stacked. Malzahar burns through mana fast with his spammy spell style, so the sooner you stack up the 250 Bonus mana on this and start getting the bonus mana regen from it, the better. Other then that there isn't much else too it, it's very much one of those "slap it on, forget about it, and reap the benefits" style runes. Nullifying Orb While not as overall as useful for Malz as Manaflow Band, Nullifying Orb is a better defensive option for you if you feel like you can work around the early mana problems. While it's nice as a defensive option in the early game, it does have the issue of being highly situational. It's only activated when you're taken to low health by magic damage, and it's only effective against magic damage. In AP matchups in early laning phase, this rune can be a potential life saver. However, it's useful tend's to decline the later the game goes on, and is pretty much pointless against AD heavy teams. Nimbus Cloak A little situational, but also great for added defensive and even offensive potential. The added burst of speed after summoner spells can be a tiny bit redundant for Teleport since that spell already has a speed boost on it now, but if you need to get away from danger, the added speed after you Flash can get you to safety. Or, offensively, the speed boost used with a Ghost means you get a speed boost from Nimbus Cloak during the time your Ghost is charging up, basically meaning you get an instant speed boost from Ghost without the need to let it wind up. it's an interesting rune, and into AD teams if you want the added defensive potential, it's much more useful as a defense rune against AD teams then Nullifying Orb would be. -

Between this rune and Luden's Tempest (your first item buy]], you're already at 30% CDR the moment you hit level 10. A lot like Manaflow Band, it's a "slap it on, forget about it, and reap the benefits" rune, so while it doesn't seem all that impressive on it's own, its extremely helpful for getting you more of that sweet sweet CDR a spammy champ like Malzahar needs, especially since most of your main core item's (mainly Liandry's Torment and Rylai's Crystal Scepter) will take up a lot of your early gold and don't provide any CDR themselves. Absolute Focus While not a rune i personally like a lot, more careful and overly cautious player's will get a lot of use out of Absolute Focus. In general, Malzahar doesnt benefit as much from straight AP as other mages. This is due to the DOT nature of his kit, which is why much of his core is focused around adding utility to his DOT rather then sheer raw damage. For those reason's, Absolute Focus isn't as powerful on Malzahar as it is on more bursty mages. However, while straight AP isnt as powerful on him as it is on other's, it isnt "bad" on him either. It provides quite a decent chunk more damage to his kit anytime he's above 70% health, and since you rarely wanna be closer to the fighting then you can manage, you can maintain that threshold easily if you're careful. It's also great early game since the added damage will enhance your early trading and poking in lane. The only downfall to it in itself is just how situational it is, since all it takes is one bad trade to fall below 70% health. -

Gathering Storm is pretty straight forward. Simply just gives you more AP the longer the game goes on. It's simple but effective, especially since on malzahar you've usually gotta get 2-3 item's to be full build anyway. So by the time you have them all, you'll be into a game enough to be getting a decent amount of power from this as well. Not really much to it past that. Scorch The best alternative to Gathering Storm for Malzahar. The choice between the two come's down preference and a few other things. Scorch makes the first ability you hit burn the enemy, on a 10 second cooldown. This is really good in early laning phase and in game's you don't expect to last long enough to truly give Gathering Storm time to ramp up. It increases your poke damage immensly, especially since it's on a decently low cooldown. It does, however, fall off hard the longer the game goes on. As a general rule, if you wanna win lane hard and snowball out from that, then Scorch is your best option. It's also really good in the current meta, since game's tend to not last as long and end pretty early. However... if you take scorch over Gathering Storm you have to be CERTAIN you're gonna try to use it to win lane. While it's not a bad rune on malz, Gathering Storm is just arguably better. He needs time to get his item's, which give's GS time to stack up. He's not a terribly strong laner (he's not bad, he's just not the best in term's of poke and such). And also, GS start's to outscale Scorch as early as 20 minutes into a game, so the moment 20 minutes hit's, GS is better on you for the entire rest of the game over Scorch. in the end, runes are meant to help you play the game your way, so it's your call. But, general rule: early game damage, scorch. late game, Gathering Storm.

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DOMINATION

Dark Harvest Is an amazing option for malzahar if you're in an option where you can get a few early stacks of it. It stacks forever, increasing in damage every time you proc it. On top of that, it reset's if you get a kill on the target it procs on. So, in theory, you kill someone, causing your E to jump to the next nearest enemy. This then reset's Dark Harvest, which then proc's again, killing that target, causing E to bounce again, etc etc etc. Does it always work like that? no of course not. But it's still an incredibly strong rune, adding a decent amount of burst to low health target's to make up for the otherwise lack of burst in your kit. The only major issue here is stacking it early. Into ranged matchups, like let's say, Xerath, getting early stack's of this rune can be really tricky, making it very underwhelming in fight's after laning phase ends. This is pretty much the only reason this rune isnt the standard rune for malzahar. So, take this rune into matchup's where you can potentially stack it early. This usually mean's melee matchups ( Akali- Talon- Sylas, etc etc), or into matchup's where they're gonna come into your range often and make it easy for you to farm stacks. Electrocute Electrocute is VERY effective for single target nuking, and is super easy to proc on malz since you have a DOT E, voidling's that'll smack the enemy around, and an ultimate that locks them down. It's super strong early on, making it a great choice for someone looking to play an EXTREMELY aggressive early game. The biggest downside here is it's not as useful in big teamfight's as Dark Harvest. Predator Predator is a good option for you as just another potential way to get a good R off, as well as making roaming to top or bot lane to gank in laning phase a much more viable option. It open's up roam potential, and give's you basically a Ghost active on your boot's to help get in quick and lock someone down with R. Biggest issue here is the how situationally useful it becomes once teamfight's roll around later, as it isnt as useful in those as Dark Harvest, and is maybe even less useful then Electrocute as well. Great for early roam's, and for helping get in range for R, but less useful then other runes if you don't get early kills from ganks to snowball off of. -

Cheap Shot Add's a bit of true damage to any damage you do on an enemy champion with impaired movement's. works SUPER great with your R, and after you buy Rylai's Crystal Scepter, it'll then proc on ALL your abilities. Useful in pretty much all situations, never a bad choice. Taste of Blood Taste of Blood Work's great in lane as a form of early sustain, giving you a bit of health back anytime you damage an enemy champion. This can proc on your E bouncing onto them off of minions, if any of your voidlings damage them, a Q hit, etc. It's great for helping you get through early laning phase a bit easier, but not quite as useful as Cheap Shot past laning phase. If you need the healing or are just worried, go ahead and take it. -

Eyeball Collection Is simple but useful. Anytime you get a kill or assist, you get a stack of Eyeball Collection. for every stack, you get 2 ability power. this stack's up to 10 time for a total of 20 bonus ability power. However, once it's fully stacked, you get an additional reward of 10 more AP, meaning once fully stacked Eyeball Collection will give you a grand total of 30 AP for free. It's simple, since pretty much all you have to do for it is play as you normally would, it can just be tricky to stack if you aren't getting kills and assists early on. Still, it's easy, and isn't something you have to consciously think about to use, so it's great in a pinch. Ghost Poro While Ghost Poro require's more effort on your part to stack over Eyeball Collection, it's effort with benefits. Ghost poro leave's behind a mini poro wherever you have a ward that expire's. The Poro stick's around for 60 second's and grant's you vision. You also gain 2 AP for every single ghost poro spawned, as well as 2 more AP if your poro spot's an enemy. This stack's the same as Eyeball Collection, and same as Eyeball it give's you 10 bonus AP once fully stacked. The benefit to this over Eyeball Collection is that it effectively lengthen's the time your ward's stick around, and reward's you with AP for actively warding. the DOWN side to this is if you forget to ward, and/or are not able to ward because of enemies. Also, if enemies are actively clearing ward's, you won't get stack's if the ward is destroyed before it can turn into a poro. -

Arguably the best rune for Malzahar in the last branch of Domination. Since malzahar's ultimate is so strong and is the single biggest playmaker in your kit, Ultimate Hunter will help you have that up as often as possible, giving you more freedom of use and more uses of it. Stacking it is the hardest part, and even that isn't something you need to actively go out to do all the time, since you'll naturally get the stack's throughout fight's as long as you participate in kills. Ravenous Hunter While a ton of sustain isn't really something malzahar needs, it's also never a bad thing. I'd personally say it's not as good on you as Ultimate Hunter, but Ravenous Hunter is nice for getting you healing in some of those bigger fights. It's not gonna be a big lifesaver if someone get's on top of you, but it is nice if you take some poke damage and don't want to back to heal up again. Biggest issue is just the fact that if someone get's on top of you, no amount of healing is really gonna help you since you have very little CC or movement options to help you get away.

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- Token 1 Adaptive Force is easily the best token for Malzahar, as neither the Attack Speed one nor the Cooldown Reduction one are particularly helpful for him. You could make the argument that the CDR one would be useful, but in general you'll build 30% CDR right away on malz, and some game's you'll even build Ionian Boots of Lucidity right after, so the slow build up of the CDR token is super lackluster when compared to how quickly you'll be building max or close to max CDR anyway. Adaptive Force just gives you more damage early for trading, as well as more damage overall. Token 2 Token two should almost always be the Adaptive Force one. the ONLY situation where i would suggest changing it out for one of the defensive tokens is in those rare games where the enemy team is STACKED with either all AD or all AP. in these cases, taking 2 defensive tokens of the appropriate type can just help so much throughout the entire game that it'd be silly not to. These types of games are rare though, so 99% of the time you'll be taking a Adaptive Force token. Token 3 Token 3 should always be swapped to best suit your lane opponent. The Health token is attractive to new players, but is overall way to situational most of the time, and it's better to take either the armor token or the magic resist one, depending on if your lane opponent is AD or AP.

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COMING SOON

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In the end, Runes are meant to be experimented with, so if you find something totally out of Meta, but it works and you life it, try it out.

Doran's ring+health pot's This is a pretty basic start for almost all midlane mages. It give's you a bit of everything you'll need for laning phase, and you still have enough afterwords to take 2 health potions as well, adding to your sustain in the early laning. Just try not to chug them down super early, cause ideally you don't wanna back for the first time until you have 1300 gold.

Alternate Start A more sustain focused and snowball heavy start. The extra healing from the Dark Seal will help you out, and with this start you can get a refillable right off the bat which is super nice. The biggest downside to this start compared to a basic one is just the lack of mana regen you'd be losing by not taking Doran's Ring. This start is also nice if you're in a matchup you're confident you can win, cause then you can snowball hard off stacking you're Dark Seal. If you get enough stack, you may even consider upgrading it to a Mejai's Soulstealer.

Lost Chapter The sooner you can buy a Lost Chapter, the easier your lane will be. It'll help sustain your mana, making it much more forgiving to use your abilities to farm. It also gives a bit of AP and 10% CDR, which will both help you a bit too. The biggest use for it is just the bonus mana and the mana regen you get when you level up. This will allow you to stay in lane a lot longer, and should help a lot in both trading and farming. This is even more forgiving on Malzahar then most mages, since not only will you get mana back on leveling up, but you also still get mana back whenever your E kills a minion as well. The refillable is a personal purchase, and is not necessary, especially if you have close to or exactly 1300 gold. in that case, just buy the Lost Chapter. However if you have a bit of extra gold, a refillable is just nice so you have a little extra sustain that will refill whenever you go back to your fountain.

Luden's Echo The standard mana item for Malzahar. It give's a decent amount of AP, Mana, CDR, and it's passive Echo. The passive charge's up as you move around, and when fully charged your next spell will deal bonus damage to both the target you hit and a small amount of damage to nearby targetable enemies. This add's a bit of burst to your damage, and also strengthen's your already significant waveclear. It's a pretty standard item for malzahar, and give's you a decent amount of pretty much all the stat's you could need. While Luden's Tempest is pretty standard and work's well, there are a couple other mana items you could choose between depending on the situation, listed below. also, while it's totally optional, if you did pick up a Refillable Potion at some point, you could upgrade it to a Corrupting Potion if you'd like as well.

Archangel's staff Archangel's Staff is a situational item on Malzahar. 9 times out of 10, you'll want Luden's, as it gives a bit more burst to your kit that Archangel's does not give. However, if the enemy team has a bunch of tanky people (like if 3+ of their team build's on the tanky side), then instead of building Luden's Tempest you'll build this instead. the idea here is that while Luden's give's you a bit more burst, burst isnt gonna help you if the enemy team is tanky enough to just soak it up. So instead you'll build Archangel's Staff, which will give you more mana and more mana refund so that you can spam your spells more. This will help you deal with the tanky champs more then Luden's would, so as a general rule when you first start the game... - if most of the enemy team is squishy, build Luden's Tempest. - if most of the enemy team is tanky, build Archangel's Staff. Tip's If you know in advance that you're going to build this item, you'll need to get a Tear of the Goddess either before or shortly after your Lost Chapter. It need's to stack up before you can turn your Archangel's Staff into a Seraph's Embrace, so buying the tear first instead of Lost Chapter means you can start stacking it earlier. on the other hand, it also mean's you'll be weaker in lane then you would be if you bought a Lost Chapter instead. weigh the options and choose yourself, there's no "correct" answer for which to buy over the other, just personal preference

The Rod of Ages The Rod of Ages isn't especially common currently, but it's not a bad item on malzahar or anything, just not the best in the current meta. It gives decent AP, health and mana, but it take's time to stack those stats up, making it a very late game oriented item. The current meta is very "fast game" focused, so a late game item like Rod is currently not popular. while you won't be building it a ton, if you have a game you expect to last awhile for any reason (maybe you have a late game team or something like that), Rod will be a great item for you to build for the added beefiness and damage it gives. It also has a tiny bit of built in sustain, since you'll heal off all the mana you spend. A very rare item for you to build, but one to keep on the back shelf for those few game's where it can be used to it's full utility.

Rylai's Crystal Scepter This item fit's very well with Malzahar's Kit. It gives a decent chunk of AP and some health, but what make's it so good for you is it's passive. While a slow for 1 second doesnt sound impressive, it's important to put that in the context that that slow will keep resetting as long as the enemy champ in question is affected by a spell. So, instead of a 1 second slow, anyone hit by your E will be slowed the entire time the E is on them. Same goes for your Voidlings, the slow will affect the target every single time a Voidling hit's them, making it great for giving you a tiny bit more suitability while you're on the run, or easier to keep up with target's if someone tries to run away from you.

Liandry's torment One of my personal favorite item's in the game, and an AMAZING item on Malzahar. Liandry's Torment has a few part's to it, and while many people don't care for the specifics ill go over them anyway just so it's easier to fully understand the item. 1. The unique passive Madness increases the damage you deal in combat the longer you're in combat with champions. it goes up by 2% for every second you're fighting a champion, up to 10%. this is great for big teamfight's, and will add some serious hurt to all your abilities as long as you don't disengage for too long. 2. the second unique passive on Liandry's, Torment, burn's enemy chamions whenever you hit them with a spell. This burn last's for 3 seconds, and deal's 1.5% max health damage for the duration. This mean's you'll cut down people with lot's of bonus health much easier, and the burn will affect target's the entire time they have your E on them, the entire duration of your R, or every single time a voidling hit's them, giving a LOT of potential to keep reseting the burn endlessly. 3. The max health damage dealt by Torment is increased to 2.5% against any enemy champion who is movement impaired. This obviously mean's it'll work well with your R, but what's really worth noting here is that that mean's this affect proc's of off the slow you get from Rylai's Crystal Scepter. this is a large part of the reason these two item's are built together, as you'll constantly be burning down 2.5% of a champion's max health as long as you have both of them on ALL of your spells. overall it's an AMAZING item, and the burn will seriously hurt pretty much anyone. it just work's so well with malzahar's DOT playstyle, and essentially just make's every single spell you have hit that much harder for that much longer.

Boot options Malzhar has two standard options for boots. Sorcerer's Shoes are standard for most mages, and are never a bad choice. magic pen will help you cut down enemy champs easier, and is never a bad thing to have for pretty much any mage. Ionian Boots of Lucidity are a bit less helpful for mages in particular, but are a decent option for malz depending on your team. If your team already has a lot of AP, then you're small amount of AP over time damage won't significantly help your team. So Lucidity boots will help instead by increasing the up time of both your Summoner Spells and your R with the cooldown reduction. your R is your big playmaking ability, and having it up more by building the extra CDR will mean more opportunities to make plays. Same goes for the cooldown on summoner spells, since Flash+R is such a formidable combo, the extra cooldown on your flash will be a big help. so, in general... - if you are the only AP and/or the main source of AP damage on your team, build Sorcerer's Shoes - if your team has multiple AP threat's and/or you are the weakest source of AP damage on your team, build Ionian Boots of Lucidity.

Morellonomicon Not part of Malzahar's core, but a definite item you should keep in your back pocket. Morello is extrmley useful for it's Grievous Wounds passive. This passive cut's down the healing affect's of all healing on an enemy champion by 40%. this make's it a item you should definitely build against any champion who either has a lot of sustain built into their kit, or is building a lot of sustain item's. This can include (but is not limited to) Aatrox, Dr. Mundo, Soraka, Maokai, Vladimir, and many more. Pretty much any champion that self heals, heal's other's, or has a lot of life steal will be seriously hurt if you build this item.

Void Staff A must buy item anytime the enemy team is building a lot of Magic Resist. Void Staff will help you cut through the protection's of people stacking MR. You should build it pretty much anytime... 1. Someone on the enemy team has multiple MR item's. 2. Multiple people on the enemy team have an MR item or two. 3. If someone on the enemy team has MR built into their kit and is also building an MR item ( Dr. Mundo is a good example of this). % magic pen VS Flat MR pen Some people will try to argue that since Morellonomicon and Sorcerer's Shoes both give flat MR penetration, void staff isn't worth building if you have both. while this is SOMETIMES true, it's not always true. the flat MR pen of both Morello and Sorc Shoes is really good for cutting through MR of champs with low or base MR stats. together the two item's give +33 Magic Pen. this is a decent amount, and will easily help you cut down squishy target's who have built very little MR or no MR at all. it's important to remember that all champs have some MR in their base stats, so even if you do build both of these, that will only get you through the base MR stats most champs have, and will not help as much the moment that champ start's building MR items. there's a bit of math and the like behind it that i will plug in here for those interested, but in general, the two item's are only good against champs with very little MR or no MR item's at all. Void Staff is still a necessary item the moment someone start's stacking MR against you. Void Staff does 40% Magic penetration, meaning you will always be penetrating 40% of the enemy champs TOTAL Magic resist. Like stated above, Morellonomicon does have a +15 magic penetration, but that mean's you'll only do 15 magic penetration, total. so, let's say an enemy has 20 magic resist. 20-15=5, simple. that mean's if you have Morellonomicon, they only have 5 MR left. Now, 20-40%=12. 40% of 20 is 8, so you're only taking 8 off of someone who has 20 Magic Resist. Not really worth. But what about someone building magic resist item's? maybe even a few magic resist item's? let's say someone built.... Adaptive Helm and Spirit Visage Together, these two item's give 110 magic resist. So, from the top, if you have Morellonomicon 110-15=95. Barely made a dent in their MR. But what about Void Staff? 110-40%=66. 40% of 110 is 44, which is a a lot bigger difference. And this isn't even including the base Magic Resist of the champ, any MR built into their kit, or even if they built even MORE MR item's. And not to mention you still get a flat +18 Magic Penetration from the Sorcerer's Shoes if you built those as well. So while Sorcerer's Shoes plus Morellonomicon is fine for people with little to no MR, the more and more MR enemies start to build, the less and less effective those two item's alone are. However Void Staff will always do 40% even if they keep adding more and more MR to their builds.

Rabadon's Deathcap While building straight up AP doesnt help Malzahar as much as it does some other champs (since he's less bursty), it's not inherently bad for him either. Rabadon's deliver's on this in a BIG way. it give's 120 AP straight out the gate, on top of increasing your total AP by 40% of however much AP you have. Strictly damage wise, it's the single strongest AP damage item in the game, hand's down. The only issue with that is, as i said, flat out building bucket's of AP doesn't benefit Malzahar in the same way it benefit's more bursty mages. That's why most of his core damage item's are built more for the passive's on them that enhance his DOT (like Liandry's Torment) rather then the amount of AP they give. None of that is to say it isnt a good item on malzahar. it give's your damage a noticeable amount more punch, and more damage is hardly ever a bad thing. it's just an item that's so expensive that you really need to be hard stomping a game to justify buying it on Malzhar. if you're ahead, hell yeah. if you're behind or even? not so much.

Spellbinder A bit of an unusual item pick, but an effective one if you play around it. it give's a lot of AP, and also give's an active that increases your move speed and AP briefly after you activate it. This can be great as an option to get a burst of speed to catch someone with R, and the added damage from the active can catch people by surprise. there's only a couple downsides to this item. as discussed above with Rabadon's, pure AP doesn't benefit Malzahar as well as it benefits some other mages due to the nature of his kit. so a breif burst of damage is, ok, especially if combined with your powerful ult and full combo, but other then that it's just "eh". on top of that, stacking item to get the full use out of the active isn't hard, but it can be easily forgotten, causing you to activate it early and not get the full possible use out of it. Not a fan personally, but something you can try out and decide if you like it for yourself.

Zhonya's Hourglass The standard go to item for mages when you need Armor. it give's you armor while still also giving you a bit of damage. More important then that though, it give's you one of the strongest item active's in the game. Stasis make's you completely invulnerable for 2.5 seconds. you can't be hurt or touched by anything for the duration, but also can't move, cast spells or use summoner spells. It's a highly useful active, with a lot of potential uses defensively, and can completely change the tide of a fight. It's easily the best armor item for a mage if you need to build armor.

Banshee's Veil the MR item of choice for mages. Give's you a decent chunk of MR, as well as still giving you a bit of damage. it's also nice for the passive on it Spell Shield creates a bubble around you that blocks the next ability that hit's you. On top of blocking the ability damage, it also make's you unaffected by any CC or impairment caused by that ability. It's a nice passive which can be extremely useful usually, however since malzahar basically has this passive for free, and it's easy for certain champs and runes to pop both of them one after another if you stack them, it isn't always as useful as it could be. it's not bad, just not worth building for the passive alone on malzahar.

Other boot options Normally you wanna stick to the two boot options above for either the magic pen of the CDR. however in the extreme situations where you seriously need the defensive stats, you can build either Ninja Tabi or Mercury's Treads. Ninja Tabi give only a little armor, however they also give a passive where auto's hurt you less overall. This can be very helpful against enemy team's with lot's of auto attacked based champs. Mercury's Treads only give a tiny bit of MR, and a lot less MR then Banshee's Veil, but they also give a nice passive that decreases the duration of most CC affect's on you. very useful if you're against a team where CC is a serious issue, although also not as useful on you as it could be on other champs wince your passive blocks CC affect's that hit you altogether.