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⛓️ 67% WINRATE CHALLENGER SYLAS (12.16)

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18 Comments League of Legends Build Guide Author Rime101

Build Guide By Updated on

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Runes: Use vs Tankier Teams (Use TP)

1 2 3

Precision

Conqueror

Presence of Mind

Legend: Tenacity

Last Stand

Resolve

Second Wind

Overgrowth

Bonus:

+8 Ability Haste
+9 Adaptive (5.4 AD or 9 AP)
+65 Base Health

Spells:

1 2 3

Best

Flash

Ignite

Items

Best

Vs Viktor Cass Vex etc.

BAD!!!! DO NOT BUY

Best 1st recall

Best Mythics

First Strike Core Items

Conq Core Items

Best Legendary Items

MY STANDARD BUILD

Pro Player Standard Build (Noobs)

Ability Order BEST (3 POINT Q INTO W MAX)

1 2 3 4

Sylas Passive Ability

Threats & Synergies

Threats

Synergies

Extreme Major Even Minor Tiny

Show All

None Low Ok Strong Ideal

Extreme Threats

Ideal Synergies

Zoe

Extreme

My permaban. Full Matchup Spreadsheet linked at bottom of guide!

Synergies

Ideal Strong Ok Low None

Teamfight Tactics Guide

WELCOME! GUIDE UPDATED: August 14, 2022 for Patch 12.15. I am friendly, feel free to ask me any questions on Discord: Rime#1357

I'm Rime, A Cloud9 coach and Sylas main. I have over 2k games on Sylas and have been challenger the last 3 seasons, THIS season I managed to hit challenger with a 67% winrate on Sylas my most played champ. USING FIRST STRIKE EVERY GAME! As I transitioned to full time work in Cloud9 my accounts have decayed from 550LP to D1 but as of August I have more free time to grind back to challenger. My IGNS: Rime, C9TGRime, C9Rime.

GUIDE TLDR:

Runes: +

or for snowballing crazy hard

+

Build Path:

The current META build on Sylas is Conqueror Presence of Mind Legend: Tenacity Last Stand with Biscuit Delivery + Cosmic Insight. Start Doran's Ring. Build Dark Seal Ionian Boots of Lucidity Everfrost Zhonya's Hourglass Cosmic Drive as core items

Everfrostis the best mythic build it in 95% of your games. You can play the game on easy mode if you take First Strike max Chain Lash first and rush Everfrost. E1 in, use everfrost and guarantee a Q2 on them for a free 60 gold every 15 seconds.

If you are the only AP on the team Shadowflame + Sorcerer's Shoes is very strong.

Dark seal is 124% gold efficient with 0 stacks and is 376% efficient fully stacked. BUILD Dark Seal EVERY GAME!!!!!!!!!! even if 0/10/0

Note: In early August G2 Caps used first strike Sylas in LEC :)

I do lots of stat/analysis work in League of Legends and truly believe First strike to be his strongest rune (overtuned rune in general). I am a strong believer in if it works it works, First strike works best for me and I have success with it. If you believe Conqueror to be stronger and are finding success with it keep running it! Play whatever wins you games

I became a Sylas main in season 10 and have played 2000+ games of him since.

Everything in this guide is how I play Sylas and is simply what I take & what works best for me. THIS GUIDE IS SOLOQ BASED, I NO LONGER PLAY IN AMATEUR SO IF YOU PLAY IN COMPETITIVE OR ARE A PRO PLAYER I OBVIOUSLY WOULDNT RECOMMEND FULL AGGRO IGNITE PLAYSTYLE. Late game bruiser builds are stronger in lower elo's (longer avg game length) and pro play because of how hard it is to play aggressive since enemy team is in 5 man comms, BUT for SOLOQ high damage works great. The guide isn't perfect, I'm just sharing my knowledge since I've learned so much playing him.

Twitch |Twitter |TikTok|Discord

Build Everfrost Dark Seal & Cosmic Drive every game if you dont know what to build. It is always strong

My current go to build is Doran's Ring Health Potion x2 Dark Seal Everfrost Sorcerer's Shoes Shadowflame Stopwatch Cosmic Drive

Everfrost
BUILD PATH Lost Chapter + Kindlegem + Amplifying Tome + 265G ⇒

MYTHIC PASSIVE: Empowers your other Legendary items with 10 ability power.

UNIQUE – GLACIATE: Unleash a fan of icy shards in a cone in the target direction, dealing 100 (+ 30% AP) magic damage to all enemies hit and slowing them by 65% for 1.5 seconds. Enemies struck in the center of the cone are rooted for the same duration instead (30 second cooldown).

SYLAS NEEDS EVERFROST! Insanely strong build path, early power spike for 2800 gold and the extra health is nice for early-mid lane phase. Dash onto a carries face, everfrost them and murder their health bar with E2 + Q1 + Q2. Getting a guaranteed Q2 will half health most carries mid - late game.

Cosmic Drive

UNIQUE - Spelldance: After damaging a champion with 3 separate basic attacks or abilities, gain 15% bonus movement speed, decaying to 5% over 2 seconds, and 40 ability power until exiting champion combat (5 seconds)

Perfect for sylas since spelldance is easy to proc in skirmishes/fights. Also if you opt into Sorc boots you will want Cosmic drive as 2nd or 3rd item since you need some CDR on sylas.

The most OP items you can build on 12.15 are Dark Seal Cosmic Drive Everfrost Shadowflame ]. Build these items whenever you can. If you do this build Sorcerer's Shoes are better than ionian boots because cosmic gives more than enough haste.

Everfrost is insanely strong, ludens is fun but doesnt win games. Everfrost is an exodia item, insane build path, powerspike, duelist item, teamfight item, disengage item and works well with sylas Q2.

FOR PATCH 12.15 Dark Seal Everfrost Cosmic Drive & Stopwatch are CORE ITEMS

Current Build I am Using is: --> Everfrost into --> Sorcerer's Shoes --> Shadowflame --> Cosmic Drive --> Zhonya's Hourglass + Mejai's Soulstealer. Other items depend on enemy team comp. Lots of mr? Void Staff Healing? Morellonomicon Are you rich? Rabadon's Deathcap Are you splitpushing? Lich Bane

If you are an experienced sylas player and are playing as the only AP on the team recommend running Sorcerer's Shoes. Build Everfrost Shadowflame Mejai's Soulstealer and Zhonya's Hourglass. The reason you want to go sorc and shadowflame is because the enemy team will not be building MR. Stacking magic pen is OP!

Morellonomicon ??
Morello has been buffed and is now 110% gold efficient however Sylas does NOT apply it well. Sylas does NOT apply Morello well because of his low range and mostly single target abilities, beg your team to build antiheal so that you can build something like cosmic or zhonya instead!

2 IMPORTANT THING ON SYLAS IS TO STAY UP IN LEVELS! relies on levels to be strong because of his high base damage and base stats. He has the 8th highest base stats in the game level 18 and has the 2ND highest base HP in the game level 18 (2788 HP)which is 2nd to kled mounted.

I highly recommend building or . They are currently the best AP mythic items on Sylas Mid lane. has a much stronger build path because of and total cost of 2800 gold. Also a reminder that is 124% gold efficient with 0 stacks!

The build I go most consists of the four core items ➨ ➨

OR

➨ ➨ ➨

KEEP IN MIND THAT TAKING SLIGHTLY BAD TRADES ON SYLAS IS GOOD FOR SYLAS!
You can heal back with W, most mid laners cannot!

First Strike is a mid game rune not a laning phase rune. If you force trades with it early on you'll only get 10-20 gold anyway. With this rune setup you do NOT get the ionian boot rush powerspike which most pro players use. This setup is for 10-15 minute in powerspike. The goal with first strike rune setup is to make plays once you have everfrost. In lane you can proc first strike with Q1 and look to dash in and trade. OR you can bush cheese from a mid bush by dashing in everfrost root them and full combo them. They will lose half their hp and you will get +75 gold (1/3 of a kill worth of gold). Along with the 10% damage increase

Conqueror is also more of a mid-late game rune that works better with 2+ items. Highly recommend going for Cosmic Drive every game you have Conqueror. Zhonya's Hourglass is also important for playing with conqueror because your job is to dive in full combo, zhonya with conq stacks then continue fighting. Lich Bane is most likely your best 3rd item when going conqueror since you'll be perma fighting.

Electrocute Viable! Domination tree has been nerfed quite a bit though, dont go ravenous hunter go ingenious or ultimate hunter instead!
It is difficult to play an assassin playstyle vs champs with Immortal Shieldbow Sterak's Gage [[verdant barrier] etc.

Fleet Footwork sylas is outdated. There is way more damage in the game and sustain isnt worth it on Sylas since he mostly builds CDR NOT flat AP for the healing. DO NOT GO FLEET!

As of right now I believe to be the strongest rune page on Sylas.

has a gold value of 420 gold (1 ms = 12 gold, magical boots give 35 ms not 25 like regular boots) !!!!!! FOR FREE? RUNE IS PISSBROKEN ABUSE FAST

Helps with Sylas weak laning phase and with early skirmishes which happen in 90% of games. Dont care about scaling, sylas scales hard anyway just win lane with biscuits for lane phase/skirmishes.

+18 summoner spell haste + 10 item haste. 1 minute off of flash cooldown is INSANE. Also if you are an ignite mid vs an ignite mid your's will be up slightly faster after an all in which is huge. Item haste is also NICE for everfrost and zhonya cooldowns (sylas builds active items), also works on lich bane if you want it

Inspiration tree is the best rune tree in the game and Sylas can use every rune from it quite well. The best users for first strike are lonmg range champs like Corki Viktor and HIGH DPS melee champs such as Talon,Zed, Ekko since they get 100% and not jsut 70% for being melee so... WHY NOT SYLAS?

For benchmarks for first strike generally its: 300 gold @15, 500 gold @20-25, 1k gold @30min. And in games where you can snowball as melee vs melee 1k-1500gold @25min

I strongly believe this to be the strongest rune page on Sylas. Why First strike? The rune is simply overtuned and does way too much. The inspiration rune tree is also insanely strong and synergizes well with Sylas. In a standard 25 minute game First strike will be giving you 500-1000 gold and extra damage dealt. In games where you can snowball you can get 2000+ gold in a 30+ minute game. Sylas has always been a stat check champion with his high base damages and with him having the highest base hp at 18 second only to kled+skaarl (2480hp at 18). And this rune page is essentially a stat check rune page that helps propel sylas into late game faster. THE REASON you run first strike is for a 15 minute powerspike. You will have free boots from boots rune and will have 200-500 gold from first strike. This is everfrost + T2 boots at 15 minutes, meaning you are 500+ gold up on your opponent that has extra electrocute or comet damage whatever it is. By 20 minutes in you will essentially be up a blasting wand or a kindlegem on them

Why First strike into ranged? First strike is a mid-late game rune it is not meant for laning phase. Its the same concept as how talon/zed jungle run first strike. You cheese an opponent with 10% damage increase and get gold for it. Champions that are meant to take first strike like viktor corki are only making 10-20 gold a trade with it during laning phase, Sylas makes a little more because he is melee but its hard to proc if the opponent is smart. The rune kicks in mid game when you have everfrost + tier 2 boots. If you get in 1 full combo with it you will get +80 gold which is insane. SYLAS IDENTITY IS TO TRADE HEAVY IN LANE. he has so much healing in his kit that he is rewarded for trading aggressively unlike corki, viktor, etc. and so he naturally benefits from first strike because of all the skirmishing

Free boots are the most broken rune in the game, biscuits help Sylas weak laning phase and help him from going oom with his awful early game csing. Cosmic insight makes flash cooldown 4 minutes instead of 5 and the item haste is nice as a champ that builds everfrost + zhonya.

Sylas has extremely weak laning phase pre level 6. You need for easy laning phase if you struggle early game. Once you get better at Sylas or if you get a VERY easy matchup (, , , etc.) you can also go +

Below is your ideal rune page when running

Dealing damage or applying a Stun icon.png crowd control effect to an enemy champion within the first 0.25 seconds of champion combat, grants 5 Gold 5 and First Strike for 3 seconds, causing all of your post-mitigation damage dealt against champions to deal 10% bonus true damage. Afterwards, you are granted (Melee role.png 100% / Ranged role.png 70%) of all bonus damage dealt within the duration as gold.
First Strike will be placed on cooldown after being struck by an enemy champion before you strike them.

Cooldown25 − 15 (based on level) seconds

PASSIVE: After 12 minutes (reduced by 45 seconds whenever scoring a Damage rating.png takedown against an enemy champion), you gain Slightly Magical Boots Slightly Magical Boots for free Gold free. Slightly Magical Boots are identical and can be upgraded as if they were Boots Boots. If the inventory is full while receiving the boots, they will appear as soon as a slot in the inventory is available.

Additionally, your boots grant an additional 10 bonus Movement speed icon.png movement speed.

Receive a Total Biscuit of Everlasting Will Total Biscuit of Everlasting Will at 2:00, 4:00 and 6:00. If the inventory is full while receiving a biscuit, the biscuit(s) will appear as soon as a slot in the inventory is available.

Consuming a Biscuit will instantly grant 50 mana and permanently increase your maximum mana by 50, in addition to its effects. You will also gain the increased mana if you sell Gold sell the biscuit for 5 Gold 5.

Gain 18 summoner spell haste and 10 item haste.

Scoring a takedown against an enemy champion restores 15% of your maximum mana or 15% of your maximum energy after a 1-second delay.

Damaging an enemy champion increases your mana regeneration by (Melee 1.5 − 11 / Ranged 1.2 − 8.8) (based on level) mana per second for 4 seconds. When triggering this effect, energy users regenerate 1.5 energy per second instead.

Gain 5% (+ 2.5% per Legend stack) tenacity, up to 30% with 10 stacks.

LEGEND: Gain Legend stacks for every 100 points earned, up to 10:
100 points for champion takedowns
100 points for epic monster takedowns
25 points for large monster kills
4 points for minion kills

+ Haste
+ Adaptive Force
+ Magic Resist (matchup dependent)

is good when you prefer playing like a bruiser or are playing vs a team comp with 3+ tanks. Start when you are running and remember to buy when you recall. & work best with conqueror along with any other haste or tanky items

If you are laning vs and the enemy jungle is something like you can also opt into running DOUBLE MR stat runes. This way you wont get one shot, you wont have to build merc treads and you can build FULL DAMAGE without buying MR. Keep in mind Sylas has insanely high base hp as he gains levels so he benefits a LOT from armor/MR

If you are laning vs and the enemy jungle is something like or do NOT build seekers armguard. the item is piss and really gold inefficient. Instead finish your everfrost, then build codex or stopwatch, then finish Zhonya. Seekers bad!

CURRENT META SYLAS SETUP BELOW! This rune page is also strong~

I gave shorter explanations since I copy pasted what the runes do earlier.
The only difference between these pages is one has

the other has

Each stack of Conqueror grants bonus Attack Damage or Ability Power (based off level) for 6 seconds, stacking up to 12 times.

Scoring a takedown against an enemy champion restores 15% of your maximum mana or 15% of your maximum energy after a 1-second delay.

Damaging an enemy champion increases your mana regeneration by (Melee 1.5 − 11 / Ranged 1.2 − 8.8) (based on level) mana per second for 4 seconds. When triggering this effect, energy users regenerate 1.5 energy per second instead.

Gain Legend stacks through champion kills, epic monster kills, large monster kills and minion kills.

Deal added damage to champions below 60% hp. You will do more damage to a target the less health you are.

3 biscuits will appear in your bag, consuming these will give you a return on mana and health. Each one will increase your max mana by 50 as well.

After 12 minutes (reduced by 45 seconds whenever scoring a takedown against an enemy champion) gain free boots. Additionally, your boots grant an additional 10 bonus Movement speed icon.png movement speed.

+ Haste
+ Adaptive Force
+ Armor

FULL DAMAGE SOLOQ RUNES
I currently use this in ranked to crush noobs. Soloq is 1v9 harder than the enemy 10/0 Draven/Riven/Wukong or lose. Therefore the goal is to snowball and hit item spikes as fast as you can.

Take the runes below if you wanna have fun and 1v9, high-risk high reward. These runes are especially strong vs full squishy comps that will not be building much MR ex. , , , etc.

Also take these runes if the enemy team has ultimates with good AP ratios, ex. , , . All AP ratios are on a google spreadsheet at the bottom of this guide if you want to see.

SNOWBALLING RUNE SETUP

Gain 9 lethality and 7 magic pen for 5 seconds when using a blink or dash.
gains from using W, E1, E2, Flash.

Gain 70 Gold 70 (+20 Gold 20 per Bounty Hunter stack) per unique takedown, up to 550 Gold 550 at 5 unique takedowns

70, 90, 110, 130, 150 Gold per takedown. 550 Total gold

+ Haste
+ Adaptive Force
+ Magic Resist

First Strike vs Conqueror Comparison

When choosing what rune page to go I think opportunity cost is the #1 way to help use critical thinking skills on what rune page will give the most value. Essentially its what are you losing by going for Conqueror rune setup instead of First Strike and vice versa. So let's talk about it

The only difference between these pages is one has

the other has

I will use two 20 minute games in my match history with similar scores to compare the value being lost for each.

In a 20 minute winning game Last Stand will do roughly 300-400 damage.
Conqueror will be healing Sylas for roughly 150. And this only comes from fully stacked conqueror and does not include the added damage from ap being given from Conqueror. My guess is as good as yours for Conqueror so lets be generous and say its given 750 damage. With this rune setup we can GUESS 1150+ damage + 130 healing

In a 20 minute game free boots hold a gold value of 420, and do NOT count towards objective bounties since it is not gold but an item. Firs strike will be giving roughly 400 gold along with 500 additional damage. We can say that you are getting 800+ gold along with 500+ damage with First strike rune setup.

First strike setup: 800+ Gold, 500+ damage
Conqueror setup: 1150+ damage, 150 healing

This is where you have to decide what you value more, 500+ damage or 800+ gold. When you look at it on paper its an easy choice, 800 gold is insane. You can have a blasting wand or you can stack conqueror to gain that AP in fights.

This is the standard from what I've seen from games. It is a rough estimate for a 5/4/3 Sylas or whatever at 20 min and conqueror added damage is a complete mystery

Ive had Conqueror games where ive healed 750+ in 30 min and ive had first strike games where I get 3k+ gold in 30 min. Very game dependent numbers and too many variables to control .

What if I am ahead? What if I am behind in game?
If you are behind with conqueror you are screwed! You are a squishy melee that will die before fully stacking conqueror in fights.
If you are behind with first strike you still get 420 gold worth of boots, you still get 10% damage increase from hitting them first and can still get gold to climb back into the game.

TLDR: First strike > Conqueror

For early laning phase you basically lose trades vs every champ level 1,2, & 3. Just play safe, farm up, use potions, and know that your biggest power spike is level 9.

3 points in and an empowered auto will one-shot caster minions . Use at the end of trades since it's more effective the lower HP you are.

Spam Abilities when taking down turrets for more damage + attack speed

Max when playing vs you can hit her for free with it when she jumps on you to proc her mark.

When laning vs or whoever ults first LOSES the 1v1.

When playing vs you want to ult second because his base stats will be inflated from stealing your base stats.

You get ranged form when you steal ult. Jayce ranged E Q combo can be good for sieging as Sylas.

You get melee form when you steal or ult. Also Elise rappel can be very useful.

If you take ult you can use it instantly since you cant get S combo level.

Some ults are good to hold onto just for laning phase such as and

Build when playing vs its OP with Tibbers

Build when playing vs & it's good with their ults.

Build when playing vs since you can use to avoid dying.

Build vs it is insane with

and can block your E2 and can block you from stealing ults, play carefully.

When playing vs Yasuo you can E2 Him. During your E2 you can take and use his ult. This can catch him offguard and is necessary in high elo so they cant windwall it.

Best 3 ults in the game to steal are and

Also keep in mind a lot of ults have insanely high AP ratios for no reason because Riot is a bunch of trolls. Ults like and have 1:1 or better AP ratios lol...

Keep in mind your passive has 3 max charges so dont use 5 abilities then AA your opponent. Use E1 + Q + E2, use an AA then use W then AA 3 times. Maximize his passive in trades!

My Ultimate tier list is on a google spreadsheet linked below

I have a matchup spreadsheet on a google doc as well as an Ultimate Tier list for Sylas:

CLICK THIS
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/16lC9hutxugFT9eOFoVWKrKNpWuAhApshUSDgciphRWA/edit?usp=sharing

Apologies but I don't want to take the time to make everything pretty on Mobafire so instead Im just linking the spreadsheets. On the bottom you can look at different spreadsheets ex. top matchups and mid matchups.

Thanks for reading my guide!

I will be updating the guide throughout season 12 and may or may not make a return to streaming depending on free time

If you have any questions you wanna ask me feel free to join my server and DM me directly, I'll respond within 24 hours!

https://discord.gg/jutGVfr