Champion description	The build	How to use	Conclusion
Introduction	Summoner spells	Farming	Conclusion
Pros and cons	Runes	Combos	pretty
Skills and skill sequence	Item description	Plants	self-explanatory
		In the game	:thonk:

Welcome everyone to the greeniest guide in all League of Legends! Every view of this guide will help to plant a new tree somewhere in the world! ...That would be cool though Anyway, Chromuro's talking and today I will guide you through the mysterious world of midlane Zyra! Take your seat (if you haven't already done so), take your glasses (...if you need them), take your carnivorous plant (don't feed the plant during the ride please, we are exempt from any liability in case of pentakill) and enjoy the guide! I'll see you at the end :^

+ Plant bullying + + Tons of damage (even when you don't expect it) + + CC's (root and knockup) + + A new meaning to "green thumb" +

- All skillshots - - More squishy than a soap bar - - Really awkward to farm with - - Weak if she can't set up properly - - No escape tools -

When Zyra is on the battlefield, her role is to disrupt the enemy team and start to damage every living being from every possible angle. The root from Grasping Roots and the knockup from Stranglethorns let your team take advantage of everyone trapped while your plants go rampage on everything you are hitting. But beware, the flowers aren't always nice: you could find yourself without your vegetable friends and it's easy to wither under the enemy fire. Remember that Tahm Kench eats everything, you won't be spared.

Passive: Garden of thorns Zyra plants a seed (occasionally 2) every 8 seconds at all levels in her vicinity, each of which lasts for 30 seconds and briefly grants sight of the spot Zyra planted them in. Enemy champions can destroy seeds planted by Garden of Thorns by stepping on them after 1 second of them having been planted. Zyra can only have a total of 8 seeds planted at any given time, and planting an additional seed destroys the oldest one. Explanation: Zyra's bread and butter, the crucial point of her gameplay: every 8 second a seed spawns on a semi-rng position (it will be explained here) and they can't be destroyed before 1 second after they were planted. They give sight in a decreasing area around where they have been placed (the starting area is roughly 375 units) and there can be only 8 at all times (including the seeds from Rampant Growth), but they will die before you can reach this limit (normally you'll have 4/5 seeds from the passive alone, if you get to it obviously the oldest seed is replaced). If you use your Q or your E on them, they become respectively a thorn spitter or a vine lasher that will help you for 8 seconds (explained here).

Q: Deadly Spines ACTIVE: Zyra sprouts thorny spines at the target location that appear after a 0.625-seconds delay, dealing magic damage to all enemies they hit. Garden of Thorns: If Deadly Spines hits a Seed, it sprouts into a thorn spitter, which remains on the battlefield for 8 seconds. Explanation: Easy to explain: a rectangular skillshot that does damage after... a really strange time. The spawn area for the plants it's bigger than the hitbox, so even if you don't hit your ability, you will spawn them anyway. It does a lot of damage even early, so try your best to land it.

W: Rampant Growth PASSIVE: Zyra stores a seed periodically, up to a maximum of 2 stored at once. Killing an enemy grants 20% charge toward a seed. This is increased to 100% for enemy champion takedowns, large monster and large minion kills. ACTIVE: Zyra plants a seed at the target location, which lasts for 60 seconds and briefly grants sight of the spot Zyra planted it in. Enemy champions can destroy seeds planted by Rampant Growth by stepping on them after 1.5 seconds of them having been planted, but doing so grants true sight of them for 2 seconds. Explanation: Portable partial-resetting seeds. They last double the passive seeds, they have a slightly bigger invincibility window (+0.5 seconds) and they give true sight (you can see the enemy when they destroy it wherever they are). The biggest part of this skill is the partial reset: a cannon minion, a large monster and an entire wave of minions give you a seed (+1/5 of seed in case of the wave). What does this mean? This boosts a lot Zyra's waveclear (since you'll have always a seed with you) and it helps her to clear the jungle much more quickly. Let's fill the world with flowers!

E: Grasping Roots ACTIVE: Zyra sends a surge of vines in the target direction, dealing magic damage to all enemies hit and rooting them for a short duration. Garden of Thorns: If Grasping Roots hits a seed, it sprouts into a vine lasher, which remains on the battlefield for 8 seconds. Explanation: A slow projectile-based linear skillshot (similar to Ivern's Rootcaller) that roots all the targets that it hits. It's the skill you need to train with the most since it's really slow and it can miss easily. Like Deadly Spines the spawn area for the plants is bigger than its hitbox so, even if you don't hit the ability, you will spawn them anyway. The root is level-based, it goes from 1 second (lvl 1) to 2 seconds (lvl 5). Oh, and the enemy is literally rooted, riot's irony.

R: Stranglethorns ACTIVE: Zyra summons a monstrous thicket at the target location, dealing magic damage to all enemies in the area as it expands. After 2 seconds, the vines snap upward, knocking up all enemies caught in the thicket for 1 second. Garden of Thorns: Plants hit by the thicket are enraged, restoring 50% of their current health, increasing their maximum health by 50%, and resetting their duration for the full duration of the ticket, for a maximum bonus duration of 2 seconds. Additionally, they attack in a flurry, increasing their total damage by 50% - 100% (based on bonus seconds). Explanation: And at the end the ultimate ability: a big thorny vine that knock-ups everything in its radius. Let's break the ability down: first of all, the damage is applied only when it's cast; this means that if someone enters inside your ulti after it has been cast he won't be damaged (and that's a real pity because it does really too much damage). The second part of this skill is the knock-up: after a time that seems an eternity, everything inside it is knocked up; a simple CC, nothing to dwell on. The last (and the most important part) is that it interacts with all the plants inside its radius: the spawned plants become bigger and angrier, resetting their life timer, restoring and increasing their health and making them deal additional damage (with a boost to their AS too); if the ultimate won't kill your enemy, your plants will make sure to do it.

And with this, the explanation is completed. Two words about the skill order:



You take Deadly Spines first for the damage and free poke and max it first for the same reason; you can change a little bit the build and at level 5 put a point in your Grasping Roots to root your enemy for a little longer, but this should be in any case your second maxed skill. Obviously, you won't take Rampant Growth as your first skill because you lose too much in terms of power (and because you don't have anything to trigger them) and maxed last because the other two abilities are significantly better.

Flash The standard summoner's spell, it helps you to get closer to your enemy or to get away from him. There isn't a reason to not always have Flash since it's perfect in every aspect.

And now let's see some choices for your second summoner's spell!

Ignite This spell helps you to finish really low enemies while your plants go berserk against him, maybe after a Stranglethorns. Ignite does true damage, so you don't have to worry if your enemy is really tanky or not.

Barrier Barrier is helpful vs. some really bursty characters ( LeBlanc, Xerath ecc.) or with some difficult match-ups since it helps you to survive any kind of all-in that could eradicate you from Earth's face.

Teleport Teleport is perfect if you want to maintain wave pressure in your lane. It can be even useful if you are losing lane and you have to get back there fast.

Cleanse Cleanse is nearly necessary vs. some heavy-CC champs (like Veigar), even worse when they are CC burst champs (like Ahri). You don't have a lot of hp, so before you exit the CC, the better is for you.

❀ Electrocute ❀ Do you want damage? Do you like lightning? Then Electrocute is for you. Zyra can proc it really easy, you have 6 different ways to "stack" it: your AA, Deadly Spines, Grasping Roots, Stranglethorns, thorn spitter AA and vine lasher AA. Since 5 out of 6 are ranged attacks, Electrocute is good to burst down enemies from distance and you'll find yourself doing a ton of damage even in early game. You need to have good dexterity with the abilities since they are pretty difficult to use, but once you get the hang of it, lightnings will pour out of the sky like nothing.

❀ Cheap Shot ❀ You have a root (with Grasping Roots) and a slow (with the vine lasher AA) that are both counted as movement impairement, you need to make the most out of them. Cheap Shot adds true damage to the next AA/ability/when you hit again your enemy with something. It procs even with the thorn spitter, so you are pretty sure to always land the true damage to your enemy.

❀ Eyeball Collection ❀ Do you want more AP? Then start to carve out the eyes of your enemy! It gives a new meaning to "carnivorous plant" (please don't eat your enemies's eyes, it could make them angry). Your plants can hit everything without you even noticing it, that means ton of of kills and assists (mostly the last one) stacking this passive quickly and easily. Every source of AP is welcome in this game.

❀ Ravenous Hunter ❀ Since we're already talking about "carnivorous plants", Ravenous Hunter helps you to get back some health in case your too low. Since the plants proc this rune, the healing you get is pretty consistent. Sure, you have to stack it first, this is the only downside, but it's worth the pain.

❀ Presence of Mind ❀ I love this rune, it's my "when in doubt, use this" rune. It synergizes really well with champs that already have a partial ult reset (like Lux), but even better with champs that have ults that can scrape up assist without too much effort and Zyra, in my opinion, is one of them. The fact that returns mana too with a takedown can help you during your laning phase with a successful gank, making this rune an all-around good rune.

❀ Coup de Grace/ Cut Down ❀ We don't want to stack another rune (because there aren't good ones here for Zyra too), so we look at the last row. Last Stand as now is good only with a really restricted champion pool, Cut Down works only against few enemies (like Galio) so the best one here is Coup de Grace: plants can snipe enemies from afar thanks to this rune and helps your bursting potential. This doesn't mean that you have to take always this rune, as said before against tanks is better Cut Down.

+10 Adaptive (6 AD or 10 AP)

You'll start the game with 20 more AP with a double shard. The early damage will hurt like crazy.

+10 Adaptive (6 AD or 10 AP)

You'll start the game with 20 more AP with a double shard. The early damage will hurt like crazy. (eheh did you see what I did here? double stat, double description. If you really want you can change this to A/MR if you want to be sure to not die in one AA)

+15-90 HP (lvls 1-18)

Some more health lets Zyra tank one or two more hits than normal, it's some needed survivability.

Cheap Shot vs. Taste of Blood
Taste of Blood lets you have some sustain in lane. Since it's pretty easy to poke your enemy laner with your plants, it's just as easy to proc it; the only problem is that you have to damage a champion with it and it has a cooldown. Moreover this builds runs already Ravenous Hunter, that's a lot better since it doesn't have cooldown and it's percentual instead of a flat amount. This makes this rune pretty weak compared to his brothers, but take it if you want some more sustain in lane.

Eyeball Collection vs. Ghost Poro
This entire row could be an alternative since they give all the same amount of AP when fully stacked (30), the only difference is in how you stack it. Zombie Ward gives a stack when a zombie ward spawns (so when you kill a ward) and Ghost Poro gives you a stack when you spawn a ghost poro (so when your ward expire, but first you have to put down that ward!!), while we have already talked about Eyeball Collection. It all comes down to a personal preference, but imho the two better runes for Zyra are Eyeball Collection and Ghost Poro.

❀ Arcane Comet ❀ Arcane Comet (and the sorcery path in general) is the right choice when you want to go less about instant burst and more about poke and constant damage. Arcane Comet is procced by the plants too and since Rylai's Crystal Scepter is one of the first items that you build you can hit it more reliably. The damage and the cooldown are good enough, so it's a nice alternative.

❀ Manaflow Band/ Nullifying Orb ❀ This row became nearly useless after they removed The Ultimate Hat, leaving us with a rune that has no use for Zyra ( Nimbus Cloak) and two runes that are equals in terms of stength. Manaflow Band gives Zyra a bit more mana sustain, but unfortunately it won't never be enough; Nullifying Orb is good if you vs. an AP laner (or an AP stacked team), but nearly useless in every other case. If you get one of the two situations listed before, take always Nullifying Orb, in every other case Manaflow Band.

❀ Transcendence ❀ Since you can find yourself at 30% CDR a lot of times, Transcendence gives you the last inch to get to the cap. It's even better when combined with Cosmic Insight, this way you'll have 45% CDR, enough to spam seeds and plants everywhere!

❀ Scorch ❀ Plants can proc on-hit effects, this means Scorch too. Like Arcane Comet, you'll continuously proc the rune, meaning that there won't be a moment where Scorch isn't on cooldown. It's a Liandry's Torment, but with a cooldown (and a bit weaker of course).

❀ Biscuit Delivery ❀ Biscuit Delivery gives you a biscuit every 4 minutes that regenerates 15% of your health and 15% of your mana, boosting your sustain in lane. If you want to have a safer laning phase, this gives your this possibility, saving up maybe 100 gold for the two starting health pots. And then they are biscuits, everyone loves biscuit!

❀ Cosmic Insight ❀ Paired with Transcendence, it helps when you want to go full CDR build. The CDR on the active items is the cherry on top of it since you'll will surely build at least one of them.[/rigth]

+1-10% CDR (lvls 1-18)

CDR is immensely valuable on Zyra, spamming seeds is your duty. It synergizes with Transcendence too, so at level 18 you get +20 AP.

+6 Magic Resist

If you are using the poke page, this means that you are vs. a hard matchup or someone with really longe range. This should help you survive (change with armor when you are obviously vs. an AD matchup)

+15-90 HP (lvls 1-18)

Some more health lets Zyra tank one or two more hits than normal, it's some needed survivability.

Biscuit Delivery vs. Future's Market
It depends if you want an helping hand inside or outside the base: Future's Market helps you get a bit earlier the already cheap items that you need, while Biscuit Delivery helps you survive in lane. It's a personal choice, choose what you want.

❀ Glacial Augment ❀ The Glacial Augment build revolves around its active items, mainly Everfrost and Twin Shadows, and it's heavily centered around soft CC (aka A LOT of slows). This enchant your AA too, so autoing your opponent can actually help you hit him more with your spells or plants AA. But there is a problem: you lose a great amount of damage, you literally constraint yourself to the role of offrole support. Anyway Glacial Augment can setup ganks easily, so you won't find yourself without kills or assist (if your jungler wants to help, please don't insult him).

❀ Magical Footwear ❀ So... your build isn't that much expensive (with your first three items you spend less than 8k+ gold), so why not spend even less? :D Zyra could benefit from some early boots, but compared to other immobile mages like Malzahar you have some kind of self peel, so we can afford to not buy them and let the rune take them for us. The additional movement speed is just an additional blessing.

❀ Minion Dematerializer ❀ Since you're going to be focusing more on CCs, your damage will suffer a lot and this means that you'll have a bit more difficult time to farm. Minion Dematerializer will help you with this problem since it will give more damage vs. a certain type of minion (it depends on which one you take) and can help you clear the wake much easier. Taking the cannon minion all the times can be a good idea since it gives a lot of gold.

❀ Cosmic Insight ❀ CDR is pretty important too in this build and even more active items CDR since they are the core of the permaslow build. Unfortunately you won't get to CDR cap easily (the normal build provides only 20%), so every inch is helpful. The more you spam your items, the more effective you are.

❀ Cheap Shot ❀ Zyra needs some kind of magic penetration (half of her damage relies on magic pen) and without Morellonomicon her damage would be ridiculous. With Cheap Shot we can overcome a bit this problem since, as I said before, Zyra can proc it reliably. The amount of penetration is really little, but better than nothing.

❀ Ultimate Hunter ❀ You have an AoE knockup, the best CC ever. You want it to have the least amount of CD possible, so you can Everfrost+ Stranglethorns as much as possible. Solution: Ultimate Hunter. Now you are Rengar. And a plant. A sexy plant. A sexy Rengar plant.

+1-10% CDR (lvls 1-18)

With the Glacial Augment build you want to spam a lot your skills, more than anything else your Grasping Roots, so CDR is the optimal choice.

+10 Adaptive (6 AD or 10 AP)

You will have the least amount of damage with the permaslow item build, we have to compensate this a little bit.

+15-90 HP (lvls 1-18)

Some more health lets Zyra tank one or two more hits than normal, it's some needed survivability.

Cosmic Insight vs. Approach Velocity
You could benefit even more from Glacial Augment with Approach Velocity since it's procced by the slow. This gives you more maneuverability around the enemies when positioning your skills or even yourself, but since you'll proc the slows with your active items (so not that many times), you won't use it a lot; for this reason I prefer the additional CDR.

Ultimate Hunter vs. Ingenious Hunter
It's a personal preference here, both are valid choices: one lets you use your ulti more frequently, the other lets you use more your active items. For the build, it would make more sense taking more item CDR, but your ultimate is really important too, so that's why I take Ultimate Hunter




The first important piece for every mage is Lost Chapter. Lost Chapter is like Zeal for crit ADC, it permits you to get a nearly infinite source of mana to spam your skills with and then in can branch into 3 powerful items. Between the three, only two are good for Zyra, Luden's Tempest and Everfrost. There is never a reason to go into Archangel's Staff, Zyra doesn't consume that much mana like a Ryze or Cassiopeia, but at least the good thing about it is that once it finish stacking you have a nice shield to protect yourself with. Let's take a look to the two alternatives:

Luden's Tempest is a more offensive item, it gives a bit more AP and it has more virtual range than Everfrost since it can be procced by the plants too; it's a good choice when your only focus is damage.

Everfrost is good against high mobility targets and it synergizes with a permaslow build ( Everfrost+ Rylai's Crystal Scepter+ Twin Shadows), but obviously you need to be a bit more near to your enemy to have the best results, putting you in some possible dangerous situations.

Oblivion Orb/ Morellonomicon Zyra capitalizes on magic penetration since her main font of damage are her plants, she needs to do the most amount of damage before the enemies get out of their range. Buying an early Oblivion Orb let's you have some more flat magic penetration othe that the Sorcerer's Shoes, latting you do more damage early. You can then complete it into a Morellonomicon when there are healers ( Soraka, Nami) or heavy self-sustaining ( Vladimir, Illaoi) champ on the enemy team. It gives you some more health too, so at least you won't explode in a thousand seeds immediatly.

Rylai's Crystal Scepter Zyra loves this item, since slowing your opponent lets your plant to hit him more; the only downside is that it doesn't stack with the vine lasher slow unfortunately. The slow is helpful to hit your other spells since they are pretty difficult to use and it lets you and your teammates get more quickly to your opponent(s). As said before, it's procced by your plants too and it is very cheap, so normally it's my second or third item.

Liandry's Torment With Rylai's Crystal Scepter it come naturally Liandry's Torment. Since its burn effect doubles when the enemy is under the effect of a movement impairement, pairing it with Rylai's Crystal Scepter is an excellent choice. For Zyra Liandry's Torment is good even when you get it as second item since you already have a built-in slow in your vine lasher and a root with Grasping Roots, so you can have the double damage pretty easily; the burn effect is procced by the plants attacks too and it gives sustain with some bonus health, so it's normally my third bought item (or in some cases, when I have a lead, even before Rylai's Crystal Scepter)

Twin Shadows The last piece of the holy slow trinity (no, not Trinity Force), the old Frost Queen's Claim but available for every mage. This item can help you close distance with your enemy, it's cheap and it gives a good amount of mana and CDR. If you want to build full slow build, this item is a must since it starts your slow chain (first Twin Shadows, close distance, Everfrost and then go crazy with your abilities for the Rylai's Crystal Scepter proc). If you don't have the intention to go full slow, it's a good choice as fifth or last item.

Let's be quicker with the last items:

Rabadon's Deathcap A ton more AP equals a ton more damage, pretty simple. If you have Ornn in your team even better, you can ugrade it later.

Void Staff Take it when the enemy team is building too much MR, this way your abilities and plants can still do enough damage.

Zhonya's Hourglass Do you need some kind of protection? Are you focused too much? Zhonya's Hourglass is the item you need. It gives some armour too if you are against an AD laner or an heavy AD-stacked team.

Spellbinder It's not the perfect item for Zyra since she can't spam her abilities like a Cassiopeia or Ryze, but it's worth buying it anyway for the movement speed and AP boost.

Shurelya's Battlesong A more reliable Spellbinder, but it has only the movement speed. At least it has some mana regen to compensate.

Banshee's Veil The counterpart to Zhonya's Hourglass for AP laners, it has MR, AP and a spellshield; if you are vs. some bursty AP laner, you need to take it if you don't want to become Gangplank's secret Powder Keg.

Sorcerer's Shoes The standard shoes for a mage. It gives some easily accessible magic penetration, useful to ignore the already low enemy MR (or, at least, low at early levels).

Ionian Boots of Lucidity If you value CDR more than damage, then you can take this pair of shoes. You can take first Sorcerer's Shoes and then swap it for this, it depends if you choose a build that takes you already to 40% CDR. Even better if you chose to take Transcendence as a rune.

Mobility Boots I take it mostly when I'm going support, but you can take it mid too. Some additional movement speed never hurt anyone, you can get to lane faster and get to your enemy easily. Obviously, you sacrifice the additional damage or the additional CDR.

The midlane role is important since it dictates the tempo of the game. Whenever you destroy turrets or roam to other lanes, you can have a great impact on other lanes too. Do you get the first tier turret? Now the jungler can pass between the two halves of the enemy jungle safely, without being damaged or seen (minions vision excluded), making his invasions more impactful; your opponent is occupied with minions and you can roam? The other lanes will be happy to receive your help, making them snowball faster and harder. How can we manage to have an impact on the game? With wave's management. "Just farm your minions" isn't the only option here, there are 3 kinds of wave management and, for all of them, I'll list the possible ways for Zyra to achieve these perfect waves.


Freezing a wave means that, instead of you pushing the wave towards your enemy, you make sure that the wave is slowly pushing towards you. This way you can control the amount of gold and exp that your enemy laner can get since he'll have to overextend to last-hit minions. This situation permits you to farm more safely (maybe when you are a little behind) nearly without the worry of the jungler ganking you. Freezing a wave is helpful to your jungler too, since he has the possibility to gank you or other lanes, and can stop possible roamer champions to... roam since they would lose too much experience and gold. You can freeze the lane even when you are backing and the wave is pushing towards you, this way you won't lose too much exp/gold when you get back to lane because of the turret.

The easiest way to freeze a lane is to only last-hit minions (so no skills or more than 1 AA), this way you ensure that the enemy minions can live as long as they can. Zyra luckily has a couple of little helpers in form of her plants, even if it's not a complete freeze, but a sort of. Your plants (when instructed to do so) will continuously attack the minions, so the wave will always be pushing towards your enemy if you use them. This isn't a good reason to auto the minions with them: you still need to last hit them, so at least the wave will try to freeze in place. In return this is a good way to farm since the plants do the most of the work, if you are already used to someone like Heimerdinger it will be pretty much the same.

The only negative side of this is that, if you can't last-hit really well minions and at the right time (your plants could **** up your wave pretty badly), you'll end up getting behind in gold, thing that is the exact opposite of what it should happen. You need to get accustomed to Zyra's AS and AA damage and to the plants' AS, a thing that happens after a lot of experience. My suggestion is to go into a training room and start to last-hit minions until you get the hang of it, with and without plants active. It isn't immediate, but after some training you'll understand when it's the time to AA something.


Slow pushing a lane means that the wave is... slowly pushing toward the tower. You didn't expect that right? This tactic is a bit more complicated of only "it's slow". The main way to achieve a slow push is by clearing only the caster minions of the enemy wave; since melee minions have a good amount of health, but low damage, your minions will take a while to clear them. This way the wave will get bigger and bigger over time, making an unstoppable siege force (or, at least, unstoppable for the enemy minions). It's a good time to slow push when you or your team want to rotate toward an objective at the opposite side of the map; this means that a slow push is effective mostly on the side lanes (since you are a midlaner, think about slow pushing in late game) and only when your team succedes to take an objective (it could be baron, drake or even a tower thanks to the minions), else you just gave for free a ton of gold to the enemy team.

The easiest way to setup a slow push is, as I said, to kill only the caster minions. Zyra can dispose of them quickly with Deadly Spines+one thorn spitter; you'll need a couple of points in the skills before dealing a considerate amount of damage, you can use this little combo early to harass your enemy, then, when he exits the plant's vision, you can use it to hit the caster minions. This way you'll start a semi-freeze, while poking your enemy, that is the ideal situation for you. The more you poke, the more your enemy will be behind; other than this early game situation, setting up a slow push in a side lane can result in some free damage too if one of the opponents tries to stop you. You are a carnivorous plant, you need his meat to survive (aka if while setting up the slow push you can ambush an enemy you get a kill and more pressure on the map/objective).



In the end we have fast pushing, the most "natural" way of pushing a wave. A fast push works pretty much the same as a slow push, your goal is still to build a good wave to crash into the tower, but this time your main objective is to siege the tower and to deny exp and gold to your laner. Obviously it's a good time to fast push when your enemy isn't in lane (maybe roaming or backing) or when your team is grouped up and you want to push toward the nexus (maybe after baron).

We could distinguish two ways of fast pushing: clearing only the melee minions and clearing the entire wave. In the second case, we can normally refer to it as just "pushing" the wave. Zyra excels at this kind of push, since her plants do damage continuously; take advantage of Garden of Thorns and start to spawn 3, 4 or even 5 plants at once and redirect them to one minion. The damage that the plants can dish out is immense, but you need good positioning of the flowers or of the wave: if the seed is too far away from the minion wave don't bother going out of your way to activate it, you'll lose time and minions. When only fast pushing, rely a bit more on Rampant Growth's flowers to hit the melee minions, this way you can control better the positioning and the possible damage.

Level 1-2 /

Level 3+ /

Early harass combo that lets you get free damage on your opponent or help you push the lane. Zyra capitalize on every source of free damage she has, so doing that the most times possible is a good way to start having an advantage on the enemy. If possible, try to use more the Deadly Spines version since casting Grasping Roots only for spawning a plant is a waste of mana and the CD early is really high. With the Deadly Spines version you have more manuvearability around the wave, it's instant and the thorn spitter can do more damage thanks to its range. Most of the time, when you use the Grasping Roots version is because you missed the skill, so you had to interrupt one of the combos you'll read later.

Why the seed from Rampant Growth is after Deadly Spines/ Grasping Roots?
It's pretty easy, let's make an example.
You are vs. a Veigar, you don't have seeds anywhere around, your wave has been evaporated and you need to kill the enemy wave. You put down your last seed, you are ready with Deadly Spines to clean the wave. But, oh no, Veigar stepped on it and killed it! And because the butterfly effect is a thing that exists, you just lost the game.
Obviously, this is a dramatization since the seed invincibility window is pretty big, but this serves to make understand why you should put the seed after the skill has been cast. This way you are even less predictable and you can position better your plants.

Pros of this tecnique: + very low mana cost + + free poking + + helps pushing the wave +

Cons of this tecnique: - the seeds are random for the first 2 levels - - plants need managing -

Deadly Spines

Grasping Roots

This will be your standard combos, one more focused on the damage, the other one more focused on CC your enemy. Both procs Electrocute, but the difference stands in the type of plant spawned: the thorn spitter with the first combo will have more time to hit your enemy (or because he has been hit with Grasping Roots or because he had to take another direction to evade the skill), while the vile lasher will keep slowed your enemy until he exits her sight range (making this version the most gank friendly). Both of these combos require obviously that you have at least one charge in Rampant Growth, but if you can use a seed from Garden of Thorns it's better since this way you can use Rampant Growth in another occasion (where maybe you don't have any seed spawned). A quick note on the Grasping Roots version: if you fail to get someone with the skills, don't waste mana on using Deadly Spines since it will probably miss too (this way you fall into the first combo listed).

Pros of this tecnique: + that's a lot of D A M A G E + + Easy to do + + CC machine + + Mana friendly +

Cons of this tecnique: - Grasping Roots needs a lot of practice to use efficiently - - Vine lashers are short-sighted - - Plants can get distracted easily -

Deadly Spines

Grasping Roots

We can consider this combo a redux from the all-in (that you'll se in a moment), as the previous one the Deadly Spines version are more centered about damage, while the Grasping Roots version literally unleash every CC you have in your kit. All of these can be used when you see that your enemy doesn't have too many hp left, so you can goo in with a lesser burst of damage (that will guarantee you anyway the kill). The enraged plants will do their dirty work since the thorn spitter will be literally a machine gun, while the vile lasher will permaslow the enemy (so you can finish him if you have Ignite or if the jungler decides to stop powerfarming). There is a "The fast" version, what this means? The plants get enraged only when the vine is retiring, so you have 2 seconds to spawn every plant you want, it could be a thorn spitter or a vine lasher, but only if you are fast enough to spawn them. This obviously isn't a great deal for Deadly Spines, even if its 0.625 seconds cast time could deceive you (lul), but for Grasping Roots it's a bit more difficult to pull of since it's a really slow projectile, so you need to be somewhat near your target before using it.

Pros of this tecnique: + finisher combo + + angry plants are angry + + gank setup +

Cons of this tecnique: - Timing of the skills ( Grasping Roots over anything) - - You have to use your ultimate -

It's time to explain how to make the big plays with this sweet little bud. So, the key here is speed: if you can do everything quickly you won't give your opponent the time to react; the main point of the combo is having (at least) one thorn spitter and (at least) one vine lasher, this way when Stranglethorns activates, you'll have a semi-constant slow on your enemy and a fast ranged damage source. The problem here is the timing of the skills: you need to be quick, but not too much or else you'll find yourself with only one type of plant on the battlefield and this cut severely your damage output. Unfortunately, the unusual timing of Deadly Spines and the slowness of Grasping Roots doesn't help at all, so you need to train a lot with this combo. When you'll do it perfectly, you can steal from Ryze his pianist title.

Why there are two versions of the same combo?
I'll explain why: Grasping Roots lets you hit 100% the next ability in the chain; in the first case it is Stranglethorns (there is more chance to hit the knock up), in the second case it is Deadly Spines. When to use it is up to you and it depends on the situation: if you need to hit the knock up (maybe in the middle of a teamfight), then use Grasping Roots third, if you want just to damage maybe an isolated opponent use it first. Obviously, you need to hit Grasping Roots too, but let's imagine that we're pros that can hit everything :D

Pros of this tecnique: + biggest output damage + + adaptive + + CCs +

Cons of this tecnique: - to have really big numbers, you need prior seed setup - - needs a lot of practice - - timing of skills

This constitutes the basis for your gameplay. They are spawned both from your Garden of Thorns and Rampant Growth, but the two seeds have differenecs. Let's take a look at them: Garden of Thorns Seed The seed that spawns with Garden of Thorns is a small pink bud that generates every 8 seconds in a semi-random position (see "Zyra Mythbusting" under here). It lasts for 30 seconds and, when it spawns, it has a 1 invicibility second, where it can't be trampled. Rampant Growth Seed The seed that spawns with Rampant Growth is a bigger, purple bud that can be placed from every 20 seconds to every 12 seconds (it depends on the skill level) where the cursor is (it doesn't have cast time). It last for 60 seconds and, when it spawns, it has a 1.5 invicibility seconds, where it can't be trampled. If trampled, it gives true sight of the enemy for 2 seconds. There is no difference between the plants born from the seed of Garden of Thorns and the seed from Rampant Growth, the differences are only in how they behave on the battlefield.

You can summon two types of plants: the thorn spitter and the vine lasher. The thorn spitter is summoned when there is a seed in the summon area of Deadly Spines and the vine lasher is summoned when there is a seed in the summon area of Grasping Roots. Both of this plants have 4 life units, they lose 2 units with a ranged attack and 4 units with a melee attack; they get 2 more life units when enraged by Stranglethorns and they gain 100% bonus damage. They can't attack structures and towers one-shot them, giving priority to them as every pet. The thorn spitter is a ranged pet that has an AA range bigger than Zyra (+175 units, 750 units total), while the vine lasher is a melee pet with an AA range smaller than Zyra (-175 units, 400 units total), but every attack slows the enemy by 30% for 2 seconds.

The plants are controlled by a marking system, where we can distinguish 3 different types of marks: Zyra's mark, the thorn spitter's mark and the vine lasher's mark; while Zyra's mark is stronger than both of them, the two plants marks instead have the same "priority". What does this mean? When Zyra targets something (that isn't a structure), she'll apply her mark to the target and every plant in range will start attacking him. Once the target gets out of their sight, plants will start to apply their own mark to the nearest target, making the same type of plants attack the marked target, until Zyra attacks something else. This makes possible for the two different kinds of plants to attack two different targets, diminishing the possible damage output; try to apply your mark with your AAs as many times as you can, so you are sure that the plants will hit only champions too. For when they apply their own mark, the rule "champions before minions" is valid as for every pet.

Early Game
In your early game you can have two different playstyles: be passive and just farm or try to be aggressive and kick your laner out. Your first 2 levels are Garden of Thorns-dependent, that means that you have to play around the seeds that your passive spawns. These two are the most difficult levels for this reason, but once you get Rampant Growth it should be easier. So, your playstyle is decided by where you place your seeds: a passive play require you to put down your seeds near the melee minions and then using Deadly Spines on them (unfortunately you have to use both of your seeds since melee minions have more hp, thus having only one plant active could make farming them difficult), instead a more aggressive play requires only one seed placed inside the caster minions and then using Deadly Spines. With the first one you are pretty sure to at least freeze lane and push it really slowly, while the second one can poke down your enemy pretty fast (just remember to mark your enemy with an AA, so the plants won't be distracted). Anyway, you don't have the mana problems that a lot of mages have, so don't be stingy with it.

Mid Game
Zyra doesn't have a clear indicator of when she enters her mid game, but we could pinpoint it when you buy Lost Chapter. The playstyle doesn't change too much, now you're just sure you won't be OOM at the worst time and you have your ult. Here you can constantly switch between an aggressive style (poking and trading with your enemy) and a passive playstyle (thinking more about controlling and pushing the wave while your opponent isn't in lane); Zyra can't roam too much, since she needs some prior seed placement, but this doesn't stop you to do it: she has a lot of CCs and ganking bot could easily get a kill or two. Even when in a lane, you can't destroy towers too quickly since your plants will never target them, but destroying your first tier enemy tower opens the enemy jungle to your jungler, keep that in mind.

Late Game
Everyone is starting to rotate for objectives or the game is becoming an ARAM? Welcome to the late game, my friend. At this point you should have enough power to contribute to teamfights, but even if you are behind, you won't be useless: there is a reason why Zyra is played support and this reason is (as said a lot of times before this) your CCs. If you are behind, you just become secondary support and everything will be ok. Your role now is:

1. root everything in sight: locking down enemies with Grasping Roots lets your teammates focus on the unlucky enemies that got caught by the ability. With the help of the vine lasher, after they got out of the root they'll take a bit more time to effectively have the possibility to get out.
2. spawn as many plants as you can: you can zone your enemies with only their presence (since they will do too much damage in late game) and some free damage/slows can set up some easy kill for you or for your team.
3. be active during teamfights: you have a game-changing ultimate that, if it hits with the knock up, it will give a great advantage to your team. The plants have the ability to get kills even if you are not in range, so a plant party is not a bad idea.

Now that the game ended, /dance your heart out and start a new game!




And here we are at the end of the guide. I hope it was helpful and I'll try to keep it updated with all the new stuff that will roll out in the future. Every kind of feedback is always appreciated (even about grammar/syntax mistakes!) and I'll try to answer every type of question you have, don't be shy!
But for now, I'll see you in the rift!



Sources:

• Thanks to miss jhoijhoi (here is her signature shop) for letting us, mere mortals, "borrow" her dividers :^
• Green arrows were taken here
• Thanks to miss Jovy (here is her signature shop) for the banners!