Welcome to my first guide on one of my favorite champions: Zilean. I have mained him mostly in the mid lane for a very long time. He is a very fun champion to play because many summoners don't even know he exists. This puts you at an immediate advantage and makes it a bi more fun to hear the rage from the enemy team in all-chat when they learn of your ultimate for the first time. If you do decide to play him mid you may be given a hard time by your team, but they will love you in the end for your passive and ultimate (this keeps popping up).

Zilean is a champion that was made to be a support champion that I found could blossom into a killer mid laner. He is a very fun champ to play and you can absolutley stomp some people. I once kept a person from getting more than 10 cs for several minutes by putting bombs on him whenever he came to hit minions. Zilean players, if able to manage their mana well, can be the biggest lane bullies since teemo mid versus a melee champion (its horrible). Zilean, like any champion, has his pros and cons.

Pros!

Chronoshift (his ultimate)
Bombs
Easy to learn, but hard to master
Very fun to play
Versatile
Powerful if ahead
Bombs
CD reducing ability
Passive is really good for the team
Bombs
Troll *****es get money

Cons...

Horribly slow auto-attack
Squishy
Mana hungry
He'd almost be better afk if behind
1 damaging ability

All in all, Zilean's positives outweigh the negatives. He can burst down squishy enemies in the late-game and is a bully early. His roams can either be really good or really bad. He can give a quick burst, but then he is mostly useless apart from his speed buff/debuff, so avoid long fights

Passive: Heightened Learning

Zilean's passive is something that your team will love you for. It gives AN 8% INCREASED EXPERIENCE GAIN!!!!! This will help your bot lane hit 2 before the enemy bot lane, help your top lane outscale the enemy top lane, and your jungler will get more out of farming and ganks. Be careful, though, as it is only in effect when you are alive.

Q: Time Bomb

This ability places a bomb on any thing, be it enemy champ, allied champ, minions, and neutral monsters, that explodes after 4 seconds. This bomb will also explode if the holder dies or has another bomb placed on them (important to remember). This is your only damage spell, but it also is insanely powerful. It has huge AP scaling and is an AoE spell. You can be an ******* to melee champs (Fizz, Zed) by placing a bomb on a minion they are about to last hit so they either take the damage or miss the CS.

W: Rewind

What the f**k, Riot. Can you give Zilean anymore OP spells? This spell is absolutely ridiculous. When cast it reduces all CD's of abilities by 10 seconds. This is like Ryze's passive on steroids. It reduces the CD on your Ult, making it easier to spam it out. This only affects you, however, and not your allies.

E: Time Warp

This spell is an amazing speed buff/debuff. When cast on yourself or an ally it increases their speed by 55% for a few seconds. When cast on an enemy it slows them 55%. HOLY S**T A 55% SLOW! WTF RIOT! This basically cripples the enemy, making any chase a rather brief one. it can get you across the map quickly for ganks or out of fights if things turn sour. It will also let your team converge on an enemy who barely has time to plead for mercy before their life is extinguished like a match tossed in a puddle.

R: Chronoshift

Christ, Riot. You done f**ked up making this a thing. This ultimate is what will win games. You can't say it any other way. This what you have been stacking ability power for. Right before you or your teammate dies, cast your ulti on them and when their HP reaches 0, they don't die. Move the f**k over Trynadqueer, there is a new life-saving ulti in the house. THIS THING RAISES THE DEAD. Your ADC is being focused? No problem, just bring them back to life and everyone on the other team will be too weak to fight back since you have been laying bombs on them while they were attacking your ADC. Run into a simple 5v5 team fight? Well now its 6v5 because now someone gets to live twice. The amount of health the person who gets this ult receives when they get revived is scales off of AP. This means all the AP you have been stacking is going to essentially put your ally BACK TO FULL HEALTH OMFG RIOT WHY IS THIS IN THE GAME?!?!?!?!?!?!

For a huge poke (with a huge mana cost early) place a bomb, then use your rewind to reset the cooldown, then place another bomb. This detonates the first and gives "tons of damage".

Place a bomb on a minion that a melee champ is going to last hit so they either take damage or miss CS.

Stack AP. Your Ult is SOSOSOSOSOSOSO much more effective with it. and your bombs will practically be as powerful as a Ziggs ult.

Try to use your abilities sparingly early game, especially your W, so your high mana costs won't be sending you back to base to recharge constantly.

This build isn't set in stone. Building for AP is fun, but also try building in mana more if you want, so you can buy Ionian boots of Lucidity to plant more bombs in less time.

Have fun. That's the only reason to play Zilean. He's my favorite personality in Lol (besides DRAAAAAVEN!) and has one of the best skins (Groovy Zilean OP).

If you are here because Zilean is the new FLOTM then get out. In my opinion, Zilean isn't supposed to be played to hyper-carry your team. I play him for fun. League is supposed to be fun. Zilean is also fun. Therefore League is Zilean. Zilean is an underplayed and fun champion. And him being underplayed is what makes him fun, as people don't build to counter you because they most likely didn't know you existed before that match. This outro sucks. Zilean is a champ like no other, so you will have to be willing to adjust for his unique skills.

I'm not Scarra or Bjergsen or anyone that is an authority on how to build stuff. I'm just a person that is new to the Fields of Justice this season and has played Zilean for most of his level. Zilean is a champ I have studied and enjoyed for a long time. I only made this guide because I noticed no one made any for playing Zilean mid. If you have any suggestions then comment them and I will test them and probably throw them in this guide. I'm going to add more sections, such as runes when I have then chance to unlock and use them, but I already have a general idea of how they will work. I'm not putting to setup I have in this guide, because I don't know how good they are and I don't want to screw someone up and make them waste their IP on runes for Zilean that turn out to be bad. My summoner name is samtherudolph and I am on the NA server.

Thank You.