Hello Summoners !!

I'm here to present you my very first guide, about Malzahar one of my first champions, and my first midlaner.

I wanted to write a guide about this champ because I found no guides that fit my playstyle with him ...

Thanks for reading this, and please comment if you like or dislike something about this guide so I can improve it ;)

Pros

Cons

+ Can nuke everyone in one combo + Voildlings deal good damage especially early + Inbuilt mana sustain through Malefic Visions + Good lategame thanks too Null Zone + Awesome dance moves :D

- Lack of mobility or CC making him easy to catch - Afk farm until 6 - Not super good roaming - His ult lock him too

Passive that makes you summon a voidling every 4 spells you cast. Great passive to have in lane, it will allow you to trade easier with people early due to high damage from your lil' bugs, they can block skillshots too (but you can't control their moves so it's up to luck :p)



Great Ap ratio with nice base damage and a 3 seconds mute when maxed. This skill is probably the hardest to land above any other of his kit, but the silence and the high damage from this skill makes it your engaging tool when you want to trade your opponent, to make sure he won't do anything thanks to the silence :D
Oh and you can check bush with it too ^^



Create a zone that deals damage to anyone that stand on it every second. This makes you able to eat anything (even tanks) alive with your combo in a matter of seconds. It does MaxHp% so the damage will be high the whole game, and it scale extremely well with magic penetration



Your early game farming/poking/sustaining ability Use it for farming minions easily while giving you mana back, combine it with voidlings to poke your opponent. Be careful because using it too often may push the lane fast, and leave you open to ganks, and with no escape you're pretty much doomed when ganked



The core of your combo, the nuking ability that makes you extremely dangerous to approach once 6 This skill deals very high damage thanks to nice base damage combined with an insane 130% ap ratio. You can also use it to peel your adc in teamfight.

• greater mark of hybrid penetration - Superior to flat Magic Penetration, Voidlings scale with armor penetration and they do a lot of damage with these early on.
• Greater Seal of Scaling Health - Malzahar ain't gonna make the plays in early game so I like scaling health more than flat (other options could be armor/flat hp)
• Greater Glyph of Magic Resist - Helps to mitigate your ennemy laners damage
• Greater Quintessence of Ability Power - Again, standard ap mid runes here, other options could include Magic Penetration if you want more lategame damage

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• Expose Weakness works very well with him because when you either Nether Grasp or Malefic Visions someone it will basically make your allies hit stronger on him the whole duration, same goes for a multiple target with Null Zone
• Dangerous Game , now that it has been reworked it grants you the bonus even with assists so I find it quite useful in many situations.
• Executioner is absolutely needed, it will buffs your damage by 5% which is quite something (only when the guy is below 50% hp tho)
• Devastating Strikes gives you Mpen, and we want that for Null Zone
• Phasewalker can be switched with Scout if you prefer the 15% trinket range
• Summoner's Insight is imo mandatory on Malzahar, 10% cooldown reduction on your flash is vital as it's your only escape mechanism
  
  The rest is pretty much the same as on any other AP, nothing much to say.
  
  
  

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  Summoners

  No matter what your opponent pick, if you don't have it, you don't have any escape resulting in getting camped by the enemy jungler cos you are an easy/free kill. It can help you surprise combo someone too, but do it only if you are sure you can make it alive after, meaning that none of the enemy team will come save his friend
  
  
  Good synergy with your nuking combo, can help finish people when you don't have enough damage, or cut heals on someone.
  
  
  With the recent buffs, it became a really decent summoner to take on any squishy. It will heal you, cancel the grievous wound effect on you (like the ignite's one) and give you movespeed, to either escape or catch someone. Take this (or exhaust) against heavy burst laner ( Zed, LeBlanc and such)
  
  
  Buffed too recently, it will half the damage of anyone you use it on, good against bursters too
  
  
  If you want to get back to lane faster, or gank some lanes with it, go ahead and take it. I personnaly rarely run Teleport, but it can be useful I guess.

Core Items

70 Ap, 35% Magic penetration. Core items on any ap mid, build it when the enemies begin to get some Magic Resistance. Synergise extremely well with Null Zone.



120 Ap and 30% Ap boost, this will push your damage high, very high especially with the 130% Ap ratio of Nether Grasp



If you manage to get this early, the Magic Penetration will make you deal almost true damage to your opponents (if they have no MR). Don't upgrade it until late in the game, it's not worth it as you have no slow, and you are not a poke mage.

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Situational items

120 ap, 50 armor and the passive that makes you untargetable during 2,5 seconds. Really good item to have on malzahar it gives you some survivability with nice damage. Try to get the Seeker's Armguard early if you face an ad midlaner ( Zed, Talon, Pantheon etc)


Nice item against heavy ap team, gives you 45 Magic Resistance, with 70 Ap and even more Magic Penetration, and that makes it good against tanks too.


CDR, Mana Regen, AP and Grievous wound on <40% hp target, good as a first item if you struggle in lane and want to farm up. Take this if you are against high Heal/leech/Regen team ( Dr. Mundo, Soraka, Nidalee Etc)


Gives you Ap, Cdr, Magic Resist and really high Mana Regen. Good against heavy ap team or if you really want the mana regen (if you poke a lot with Q for example)


Take this if you alreeady are a threat to the ennemy team. It will make you tankier will giving you a spell shield to avoid the first skill you take, you will be much more safe from getting caught. Works very well against poke team.

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Boots Choice

Not much to say here, do they have heavy CC ?

Yes : will protect you from CC a bit more, can save lives.

No : More Magic Penetration, more damage. Most used shoes for Malzahar

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Now you might be asking "hey !! why no Rod of Ages, why no Liandry's Torment !! Where's your Rylai's Crystal Scepter !!"

This is the main reason that motivated me to make this guide.
I really don't like the "classic Malz build" that we find everywhere.
I'm not saying it's a wrong guide, or anything bad about it ... I just don't like this way of building Malzahar

I don't feel like having 3K hp from Rod of Ages and Rylai's Crystal Scepter will help me survive if i get caught.
The slow from the Rylai's Crystal Scepter will never apply fully cos each skills you have it either an AoE or a DoT, meaning only 15% of the effect will proc.

And finally, having no natural slow, I find the Liandry's Torment not THAT great, i mean the Magic pen from Haunting Guise is really super good, but the effect of the Liandry is not that good on malz.
You are meant to erase people in few seconds, i don't see the liandry's DoT helping to do that (because it's actual hp% damage and not maximum)

Malzahar's early game is not shiny, farm your minions as much as you can, try to harass with your E, or Q. Be careful not to run out of mana, don't spam too much. Don't push too far too, you are very weak to ganks. Ward your lane everywhere you need.

If your enemy go for a roam, be sure to warn your allies, and push your lane fast to make him miss as many minions as possible.

When you hit 6, if you poked enough, you can try to combo and get the kill, Malzahar's combo is pretty simple :

• Try to land your Call of the Void, so the mute will prevent any retaliation or escape
• Get your Null Zone under his feet
• Then go for the Nether Grasp on the Null Zone to get extremely high damage
• If he's dead then GG, if not launch your Malefic Visions and Ignite if you have it
  
  
  Don't :
• Move/skill/active items during your Ult, it will cancel it
• Ult when someone around will cancel it easily

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-This is where you need to be very cautious about your positionning or you will die in a second. By now you should have some damage already, therefore in teamfights you will always want to get the high priority target (Adc/Apc], but DON'T ever go for them if they are in their team you will just run to your doom.

-If they are well positionned and you can't reach them, don't worry you can combo anything that dive on your team to kill either you or your adc (champs like Shyvana, Hecarim and many other nasty people that want your booty)

-With your high damage, and your HP damage from Null Zone you should not be afraid of ulting tanks, you will melt them super fast too, and you will protect your Adc which is extremely important. However if you can catch a squishy target, it's even better, you'll delete him, so you can continue fighting without this lil' guy.

-Try to prioritize your Call of the Void for casters, the 3 seconds mute will disable them completely.


-Be really aware about the map, ward objectives, follow your team when they move together.

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-At this point of the game you will eventually have enough damage to delete anything on the map, tanks included (except if they built only magic resistance, but if they do your adc will crush them hard), but at this point you ABSOLUTELY need to live ... if you get caught, your team will be 4V5 for a looooong time and it may cost the game.

-Try to have control of the Baron's pit, don't let enemies do it, stay behind your tanks and wait for the initiation.
You are NOT an initiator, so don't commit in the fight even if you can catch someone, there is a high chance that you'll get CC'ed and killed really fast.

Overall Malzahar is a really nice champion, while lacking of CC or mobility, his damages are really insane. One of the few mages that can actually kill tanks fast without much problems.

This was my very first guide, I hope you liked it =D
I really wanted to give another point of view on Malzahar and the way i play it.
If you have anything to say please feel free to comment, it's really appreciated as long as it's constructive.

Also, Thanks Jhoijhoi for the Making a guide Guide. Helped me out a LOT, really :3
Have a nice day everyone, see you on the Rift =)