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Malzahar Build Guide by

Diamond Jungle Malzahar - The Void's Legion

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Runes:

Inspiration

Unsealed Spellbook

Magical Footwear

Biscuit Delivery

Cosmic Insight

Sorcery

Transcendence

Manaflow Band

Bonus:

+8 ability haste
+9 Adaptive (5.4 AD or 9 AP)
+6 Armor

Spells:

Flash

Smite

Ability Order

Malzahar Passive Ability

Threats & Synergies

Threats

Synergies

Extreme Major Even Minor Tiny

Show All

None Low Ok Strong Ideal

Extreme Threats

Ideal Synergies

Jarvan IV

Extreme

Jarvan is particularly nasty, able to throw out all of their lockdown before the Silence or Suppression can usually stop them. They also have very early gank pressure combined with enough burst to annihilate any Malz without some armor items.

Cho'Gath

Ideal

A prophet and a monster. Malz Silence -> Rupture -> Suppression -> Cho Silence is enough guaranteed CC to kill any lane opponent, not to mention easy to combo into each other.

Synergies

Ideal Strong Ok Low None

Cho'Gath

Ideal

A prophet and a monster. Malz Silence -> Rupture -> Suppression -> Cho Silence is enough guaranteed CC to kill any lane opponent, not to mention easy to combo into each other.

Champion Build Guide

Hi! I’m Aqua Dragon. I've been hovering in Diamond / Master with Malzahar Jungle for multiple seasons now! In former seasons, I was an AD Jungle Malzahar main.

I also play:

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Pros

Powerful objective taker; Voidlings tank very well
Can solo dragons and rift heralds very early
Suppression makes ganking as easy as pressing R
Amazing build versatility allows teching into any composition
2-second AOE silences on a 3 second cooldown.

Cons

Must become adept at using Unsealed Spellbook
Weak ganker until level 6
Mana issues can limit jungling speed
Susceptible to multiple divers
QSS starts limiting ult targets

Jung-ling

Malzahar's voidlings are able to tank a substantial amount of damage due to how many of them can be rapidly spawned. This makes it possible to clear very healthily, including not requiring health potions to finish the first clear!

The voidlings also make it possible to pull off some fun objective tricks including killing Herald at spawn and early Dragons.

Particularly useful is Malzahar's teamfight impact. Most junglers are melee, and the few that are ranged tend to have suboptimal teamfight impact due to revolving so heavily around assassination. Meanwhile, Malzahar provides silences, skillshot-blocks, a suppress, and AOE ranged damage to every fight.

Due to the high-utility nature of the build, Malzahar is not dependent on a high income to always stay relevant, no matter how poorly the game is going. Silences and suppresses are excellent at shutting down a solely fed enemy, providing more opportunities to get back into the match.

Customizlings

Unsealed Spellbook

Unsealed Spellbook is always versatile and impactful, befitting a high utility jungler like Malzahar. Other keystones addressed further down. Check out the Stage of the Game section for information on how to effectively swap with Spellbook!

Magical Footwear

Magical Footwear is difficult to go wrong with for a champ that doesn't buy boots super early. Hexflash is too conditionally useful, and not useful enough even then.

Biscuit Delivery

Biscuits provide more practical gold than Future Market's theoretical gold.

Cosmic Insight

Cosmic Insight provides a reliable 15% summoner spell cooldown, much more useful than the very niche Approach Velocity bonus.

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Transcendence

Transcendence matches the goals of maximizing utility, and is the largest reason for going Sorcery secondary.

Manaflow Band

Manaflow Band is necessary so Malz can even do their job without investing into Tear. If Tear was built, then Nimbus Cloak would be a good choice.

space

Ability Haste, Flat AP, and Armor

Ability Haste is a great stat for a utility Malzahar build, followed up with other basic stats.

There are, of course, a number of other very tempting runes in the other trees. so why have I opted against trying those?

I did experiment with all of these options to some degree, and the results are as follows:

space

Sorcery

All three keystones were found to be very mediocre. couldn't be activated at useful times readily, while scarcely added any more damage since Malz spent so much time in the jungle.

The slightly increased ult burst from didn't meaningfully impact any kills, and until Rylais (which you don't even want every game) it's too difficult to land the comet for improved sustained damage.

Additionally, out of the runes in Sorcery, Malz only really heavily desires and . The rest are just alright. We have a name for a rune tree that has only two desirable runes and mediocre keystones: Secondary Tree.

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Domination

seemed tempting because of the speed boost for ganks, but it conflicts with , so one of them has to be given up. Additionally, can provide similarly powerful ganking summoners (including !) such as and .

is the next best option, and along with and , shows promise for much more powerful, frequent all-in combos. However, testing revealed that while this burst was okay in the early game, it very rapidly fell off due to lacking raw AP.

Additionally, in mid-late teamfights, both of the damaging runes get spread out across too many targets to do anything meaningful since Malzahar doesn't get the luxury of only bursting down one target usually.

The Domination tree is too damage-focused to appeal to the utility-minded Malzahar.

Malzabilites

→

After this initial order, you will max:

Call of the Void is maxed first since it mathematically offers the greatest clear speed.
The silence also scales with its rank.

Malefic Visions is preferred next because Void Swarm has fairly pitiful level ups.
Malefic always adds more DPS per rank than Void Swarm per rank.
2 extra Voidling damage per level up is an insult.

Null Set

Create Item Set

You don't need any health potions to finish the first clear, though one is a nice contingency.
Oracles and a control ward will help spot early invade attempts and take early objectives.

↓

→→

↓

Core

The choice of Redemption may seem very strange, but becomes more clear when the following is understood: it's very difficult for Malzahar Jungle to get sufficient damage. So if Malzahar can't deal enough damage, what better way to maximize utility than by mitigating damage for the team?

Redemption is an efficient, cheap utility statstick that makes Malzahar Jungle immediately relevant, allowing for "pseudo-ganks" to make up for subpar early map presence. Every stat is useful (the heal applies to Redemption's active and Malzahar's jungle omnivamp) and it strongly synergizes with Malzahar's heavy utility focus mid and late game. If still not convinced, further information about the mage mythics is elaborated further on below.

Malzahar Jungle's ambient damage is very low. Even with me testing out multiple iterations of and , I wasn't able to deal respectable damage after ample testing. Hence, the need to double down on the utility of Lucidity Boots instead.

Situational Items

Helps keep further control of major objectives. Pop one in the very back of the Baron and Dragon pits to keep near-permanent vision of them. Great for vision when enemies are not pick-focused.

The mythic of choice for Malz Jungle. The natural analogue to Redemption. More heals coupled with more heals. Makes it extremely hard for enemies to win 2v2 skirmishes. Malzahar is surprisingly effective at keeping Moonstone stacked. Malefic Visions keeps it going for at least 4 seconds. Call of the Void is spammable and has a high range, making it easy to proc again. Each time a Voidling incidentally hits a target, that's another heal.

The largest source of Ability Haste in the game. A bit expensive, but generically useful, especially if ahead. A good all-around choice to further extend a lead.

Malzahar's ult is a guaranteed button to activate Zekes exactly when you want to. A good pickup to help a fed carry mince through a diving front-liner.

An excellent source of utility for the team, though it lacks the AH that makes so many of the other options so appealing. Has the most use if the enemy team is comprised of predominantly melee champions.

Dead Mans only loses the movement speed bonus if the champion autoattacks. Good thing Malz Jungle doesn't autoattack! The pseudo-permanent movement buff helps for kiting around fights, providing many more opportunities for helping teammates while surviving through dangerous damage. Great for dodging magic damage too. Choose if you need more survivability.

Straightforward. For cleansing allies against high-CC compositions.

Straightforward. Grievous Wounds, especially against one diving target.

Straightforward. Grievous Wounds, especially among several targets.

Not Recommended

Malzahar Jungle is not a damage carry.

I've tried various iterations. With Comet, with Sorcs, with Liandries, with Void Staff. There just isn't enough gold in the jungle to ramp up in damage in a meaningfully fast way, especially if trying to be objective-focused at the same time.

Additionally, the path to maximizing damage is largely mutually exclusive to maximizing utility, since the damage options don't provide much Ability Haste (and if they do, it's not that much, and it's expensive). The camp-clear difference is not that significant whether going AP or utility; the only real loss is that Liandries allows Malz to solo baron (which is really good, but also usually impractical).

This was further shown in my multitude of test matches: unless atrociously fed (which isn't that common), the damage builds reflected a relative lack of damage being dealt to enemy champions, even over the course of extended games. In many cases, the supports were dealing as much damage as a fully-damage-built Malz Jungle. These tests reflect a heavy disincentive on any of these options.

For high utility, this option sounds initially quite appealing. however, it suffers from its low range and cast time, which makes it difficult for Malz to use effectively. The active doesn't make a substantial difference in teamfights compared to the reliable heal from Moonstone.

Everfrost is also awful for catching targets because it can't be comboed after Malzahar's ult easily. Its best use-cases are too niche for Malz Jungle and Moonstone offers better teamfight utility

When the active allows for sniping a target with the ult, it feels great. Sadly, this is a fairly rare occurrence, especially because Malz Jungle cannot easily solo targets. The active most often gets used in teamfights where Moonstone excels better. Worse, when Shurelyas is on cooldown, the item itself is a pretty bad stat stick for Malz.

Silences do not count as impairment for the purposes of activating Imperial Mandate. This means to activate the damage, you need to purchase Rylais as well, which is a hefty investment for what is ultimately a meager amount of damage.

The Lings of War

Understanding all the nuances about your Voidlings is critical to maximizing their potential, and their damage should not be underestimated.

Here’s the details about their facets.

Voidlings always die in one hit to tower shots and champion autoattacks
Malefic Visions causes them to deal 300% damage to minions (not monsters)
Voidlings deal 50% damage to Epic monsters
Every rank-up, their damage increases by 2
Every two ranks, their duration increases by one second (8/8/9/9/10)

Voidlings will aggro anything close by, regardless of whether the target can see the Voidling or whether the camp has been aggroed (even when you're trying to hide in a bush...). They will chase until the target gets out of range or until another target gets closer. They also have no hard leash range, meaning they will not teleport to Malzahar no matter how far away they chase (in contrast with Leblanc's clone). However, if the Voidlings are not currently chasing or attacking a target, they will attempt to move very close to Malzahar.

But Voidlings don’t just wander aimlessly. You are able to control them by understanding what they decide to target. In order, Voidlings prioritize:

Targets hit by Nether Grasp
The nearest Malefic Vision on a Champion
The nearest Malefic Vision on a minion
The nearest enemies next to the Voidlings

Voidlings will not chase targets they cannot see or that they lose vision of, through stealth or bush.

When Voidlings attack champions, any nearby enemy minions will be aggroed toward that Voidling (not to Malz). Additionally, when you are pushing a turret and there are minions nearby, turrets will always prioritize the Voidlings over the minions. This is useful because so long as there is one minion left alive, the turret will not gain back its Reinforced Armor damage reduction; the Voidlings can tank nicely for minions. Voidlings give Malz experience upon killing anything, even if Malzahar is not nearby.

Voidlings do not work with everything.

Voidlings proc:

Moonstone Renewer's healing procs and stacks
Manaflow Band's mana bonus
Cosmic Drive's speed boost
Rylai's Crystal Scepter and Serylda's Grudge's slow
Morellonomicon and Chemtech Putrifier's Grievous Wounds
Luden's Tempest, Liandry's Anguish, and Demonic Embrace's passives
Arcane Comet itself and the cooldown reduction on target hit
Scorch's damage proc
Dark Harvest and Night Harvester procs
Ravenous Hunter's omnivamp
Taste of Blood's heal
Riftmaker's stacks and true damage
Immolate stacks ( Sunfire Aegis, etc.)
Mark of the Elder Dragon's burn damage

Voidlings give a stack once per Void Swarm, not per Voidling:

Spellthief's Edge's gold bonus passive
Imperial Mandate's bonus damage (with Rylai's Crystal Scepter)
Tear of the Goddess stacks
Phase Rush stacks
Electrocute stacks
Eclipse stacks

Voidlings do not proc:

Shurelya's Battlesong damage bonus stacks
Horizon Focus's damage amplification bonus
Ravenous Hydra's AOE effect
Conqueror stacks
Black Cleaver (Voidlings only deal magical damage)
Any On-hit effects ( Nashor's Tooth, Wit's End, Lich Bane, etc.)

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The Path is Clear

Malzahar has a few unique advantages for the first clear. They don't need any health potions to complete it, and they can do a full clear for every single camp without getting dangerously low on health. Start blue regardless of which side of the jungle you are on.

Blue

→

Gromp

→

Wolves

→

Raptors

→

Scuttle

→

Red

→

Krugs

(optional)

The biggest takeaway is that Malzahar tanks the large monster at each camp for a little while, then backs to time the monster attacks with the Voidlings' inevitable deaths. Additionally, Call of the Void is positioned to hit every monster at the camp, maximizing the raw damage output.

Scuttle is a luxury clear. If the enemy's pathing has left the scuttle free, you can consider it, but otherwise head to Red instead. Remember that Call of the Void also disables the Scuttle's bonus HP

Because Malz doesn't need health potions, a control ward is the consumable of choice instead, granting significant anti-invading power. The mere presence of it can often be enough to scare off an opposing jungler.

If the enemies are doing a Level 2 steal at Red Buff, it's often best just to let them. The time it takes for them to steal Red and escape often isn't very worthwhile for them, as you have plenty of other camps to kill anyway. It's not a travesty to lose only the Red Buff.

If it is a Level 3 steal at Red Buff, you will usually be in the area to contest. The important part is to maintain vision near the Red Buff bush using Call of the Void and to avoid starting Red Buff until you are absolutely certain they've left the jungle. Focus on taking the Raptors or Krugs instead; the longer they wait for Malz to start the red buff, the more time they are wasting.

Ganks For the Memories

Ganking before level 6 is fairly tricky. Without Red Buff, it's often not worth the effort unless the enemy is particularly extended.

The most useful things to keep in mind for the ganks:

Call of the Void's silence will disable Flash
It also provides vision inside bushes it is cast inside
and its range is way longer than you think it is
Voidlings will not chase targets they cannot see
You will need Malefic Visions to direct Voidlings toward the target
If possible, enter with Void Shift ready to go

Keep all this in mind, and it's possible to pull off an early gank. Still, be wary of spending so much time trying to gank that level 6 becomes delayed significantly.

Ganking with the becomes a lot more interesting. You still follow the above principles, but now you have a few more things to keep in mind.

Don't just suppress immediately. Silence first, suppress right after.
If an ally CC's during the suppress, let go! Then silence!
Voidlings prioritize suppressed targets above all else
Both Call of the Void and Nether Grasp will refresh Malefic Visions
However, Malefic Visions is only rank 1. Silencing takes priority.
Throw in an Unsealed Spellbook summoner to help out, like Ghost.
After a successful gank, see if a dragon, tower, or herald can be secured.
With the ult, Malzahar is a scary counterganker. Anticipate.
You have space to always have a control ward handy. Use them.

It's tempting to just gank nonstop once the ult is available, but that is not Malzahar's win condition. Their main power comes from their powerful objective control. Kills are not the end goal, they are just the method to secure objectives.

Staying Objective

Minute 5 Dragon

It is possible to solo the dragon starting as soon as at spawns! It takes about 45 seconds though, so it's often best used against junglers who won't steal the rest of your jungle (Amumu) or against unwary foes going for early ganks.

The three biggest pointers. First, keep casting Void Swarm even if it's not at max charges yet; the extra damage taken from waiting an extra second hurts much more. Second, the biscuit heals based on missing health. You must use the biscuit when you are as low as possible because its healing is dictated at the time of its usage. Third, tank the initial hit or two so the Voidlings will have their deaths timed with the dragon's attacks.

It's possible to die to the Infernal Dragon if you don't spawn the Voidlings in a position where they spread out. Pay particular attention to exactly where I spawn them in the below video to maximize the chances of the voidlings splitting up. Additionally, it's often not worthwhile to go after Mountain Drake early since it takes significantly longer than the other dragons to kill alone.

Rift Herald at Spawn

Rift Herald hits pretty hard when the jungler is alone. Thankfully, Malzahar is never alone.

The instant the Rift Herald spawns, Malzahar is able to take it. It just requires a bit of skilled dancing and proper caution (make sure there isn't a juicy scuttle nearby to tempt the enemy jungler!)

Start off by using Call of the Void a little outside the arena, so the Herald crashes into the wall. From here, keep autoattacking as much as possible (The eye opens more frequently as the Herald is autoattacked). The eye will open after every three of Malzahar's autoattacks, so keep that timing in mind. Try to keep the Herald as close to the center of the arena as you can to maximize maneuverability.

Avoid using Malefic Visions. The mana cost is too high for the low amount of damage it adds. Of course if the Herald is below the critical health range, feel free to blast away with full force.

The Stage is Set

Early

In the early game, your goals are to

Complete your first clear
Rush farm for level 6
Take a dragon and herald

Objectives are the win condition: Kills are cool and all, but the games where you get all the dragons and the herald are the games you are most likely to win. All thoughts should be focused on how to secure the objectives no matter what, often through securing a lane kill through a gank.

Avoid Using Malefic Vision on Most Camps: Until later in the game, it costs so much mana and deals such little damage that it's often better to just wait. The missing-mana regeneration from Talisman will keep Malz topped off without Malefic. Though, Krugs and Raptors are still worthwhile to Malefic due to all the potential bouncing.

Gank Wisely: Refer back to the Ganking section of the guide up above to get good tips for a successful gank.

Use Call of the Void to scout: Many unscrupulous fellows will try to kill Malz in the jungle. Since Call of the Void provides such strong vision, it can be used regularly to check around bushes or corners in case of a threat.

Rush for level 6: Malzahar doesn't have awesome pre-6 ganks, so the faster Level 6 can be reached, the faster that ganks will be more meaningful

Use Blue Buff to Solo Dragons: With blue buff, the dragon becomes very feasible to take out alone, regardless of which element it is. Particularly useful on the top right corner since it's right across the pit; kill the scuttle, throw down a control ward, and get to work!

Unsealed Spellbook has an overwhelming variety: For early summoners however, you should primarily be using if a lane gank looks likely, if a countergank or telegank seems possible, or if needing to jungle a bit more or to push a turret.

Biscuits regenerate based on missing health / mana: That means they should be used when low on either. Additionally, they restore based at the time of consumption. That means eating a biscuit, followed by spending more mana, will not increase the regeneration.

Keep a control ward handy: Malzahar is not as dependent on gold as many other junglers, so there is no excuse to be lacking a control ward at pretty much any point. They are the ultimate objective securer.

Mid

As the laning phase ends, the raw utility in the build shines

Disrupt at critical moments
Keep control wards handy
Stick with teammates

Objectives win games: this is difficult to overstate.

Focus on picks and peel: Malzahar Utility effectively plays like a second support, and every spell should be focused on maximizing disruption through silences, suppresses, and skillshot-voidling-blocking.

Silence then Suppress: It's often preferable to start with a silence instead of ulting immediately, because a silence can always be followed into an ult but not the other way around.

Preserve Void Shift Against Monsters: At this point, Voidlings can do almost all the tanking, so long as you do a little kiting. Try to avoid taking a monster hit too quickly before a gank, or you won't have Void Shift up in time for it.

Let Voidlings Finish Off Monsters: Where possible, let the Voidlings just clean up the camp while you move onto more important things. Voidlings are particularly ravenous against Scuttle. There's no need to overkill the monsters. This skill takes practice though, and you'll likely start off accidentally letting Gromp live with one hp at times. Not that I'd know.

Unsealed Spellbook continues its usefulness: Big candidates for swapping are , , and which can largely be used interchangeably. can be useful if trying to hold a tower alone. Largely avoid swapping to or outside of some very specific situations.

stops the Honeyfruit slow: Malz is one speedy fruit eater! Gorge up!

Be careful with Voidlings when giving buffs: The Voidlings are voracious and may often take it by accident if not careful.

Sold biscuits still give the permanent mana: Useful to know if you can't find a time to use them before the inventory starts getting full

Smite has no Unsealed Spellbook swapping cooldown: This means if, for example, you have Smite replaced with Heal, and you use Heal, Smite will immediately be available to use rather than having a 10-second lockout like all the other summoner spells!

Check Regularly for QSS: If you've ulted the same person at least twice, be sure to regularly check for an incoming QSS purchase. It feels awful to ult someone, only to suddenly be punched in the face anyway. However, a QSS is pretty awful against the silence since it's difficult to time, so you still have one disable on hand.

Enemies cannot use Smite while suppressed: However, you still can! This is one of the things that makes Malzahar so good at securing objectives because they are in such a strong position to win the smite duel.

Late

In the late game, it's more of the same, but better.

Peel for fed members on your team, and summon Void Swarms to tank skillshots when possible
Dance around the outskirts of teamfights and keep casting a nonstop barrage of spells
Save your flash-ult when possible for when you absolutely know that it will gain your team an inhibitor, baron, or nexus; Avoid using it just to get kills.

More of the same: However, in the late game, every pick and every death is more impactful. Be on guard and adjust itemization to stay alive.

Don't be afraid to let go of your ult: It's on a relatively short cooldown, and survival is more important than the extra damage.

More control wards: Many teammates will start having trouble fitting control wards into their inventories. However, both paths for Malz Jungle offer ample inventory space to keep purchasing more and more.

Unsealed Spellbook practically replaces Smite: Any of the summoners are good at this point besides and , which tend to be really situational.

This guide was a lot of fun to write, and I hope you all have learned everything you would have liked.