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Malzahar is one of my favorite champions in League of Legends and one of the most fun to play. He is currently my #2 AP carry for ranked games so I use him frequently. While he won't scoop up most of the kills lategame, Malz is still a very strong AP carry in all phases of the game, and thus he is a very strong pick for solo queue. Imma share my build with you, as I feel that I should have done a long time ago :P. I've been playing him for quite a while now. This is pretty close to my standard build on all AP carries, with slightly different timing.

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Malzahar is one of my favorite champions in League of Legends and one of the most fun to play. He is currently my #2 AP carry for ranked games so I use him frequently. While he won't scoop up most of the kills lategame, Malz is still a very strong AP carry in all phases of the game, and thus he is a very strong pick for solo queue. Imma share my build with you, as I feel that I should have done a long time ago :P. I've been playing him for quite a while now. This is pretty close to my standard build on all AP carries, with slightly different timing.

I feel this is a necessary spell combination to gain kills with your ultimate. You should ignite your target THE SECOND you ult. This is so that soraka can't walk up to him, heal him and save the day. You can use ignite during your ultimate, but you need to make sure it is in range, or you will end up cancelling your ult to move closer to get the ignite off. If you are going in for a kill combo, make sure that you ult at a shorter range.

Oh, yeah, we forgot to talk about flash. In lane, you can use flash offensively. Other than that though, you want to be very cautious when using flash. Use it almost exclusively defensively, because malz has no escape abilities.


- You can elect to run ghost flash on malz because as I said, he has no escape. This is the more defensive summoner build on malz.

- Teleport is great for setting up ganks in other lanes and can be pretty lethal if used correctly. Only use this if your team knows what they are doing.

I feel this is a necessary spell combination to gain kills with your ultimate. You should ignite your target THE SECOND you ult. This is so that soraka can't walk up to him, heal him and save the day. You can use ignite during your ultimate, but you need to make sure it is in range, or you will end up cancelling your ult to move closer to get the ignite off. If you are going in for a kill combo, make sure that you ult at a shorter range.

Oh, yeah, we forgot to talk about flash. In lane, you can use flash offensively. Other than that though, you want to be very cautious when using flash. Use it almost exclusively defensively, because malz has no escape abilities.


- You can elect to run ghost flash on malz because as I said, he has no escape. This is the more defensive summoner build on malz.

- Teleport is great for setting up ganks in other lanes and can be pretty lethal if used correctly. Only use this if your team knows what they are doing.

While this runepage works best for me, it may not work best for you. Make sure you try other setups because it is likely that you don't have the same playstyle as me!

Greater Mark of Magic Penetration for magic pen that scales well both early and lategame. Obvious choice.
Greater Seal of Scaling Mana Regeneration for some mana regen for when you don't have blue buff.
Greater Glyph of Magic Resist - I have an aggressive playstyle. I am an aggressive player. Because of this, I take some defensive rune choices for early game to kinda balance this out. If you want to go full out aggressive, take flat AP glyphs and Quints.
Greater Quintessence of Health - See above.

While this runepage works best for me, it may not work best for you. Make sure you try other setups because it is likely that you don't have the same playstyle as me!

Greater Mark of Magic Penetration for magic pen that scales well both early and lategame. Obvious choice.
Greater Seal of Scaling Mana Regeneration for some mana regen for when you don't have blue buff.
Greater Glyph of Magic Resist - I have an aggressive playstyle. I am an aggressive player. Because of this, I take some defensive rune choices for early game to kinda balance this out. If you want to go full out aggressive, take flat AP glyphs and Quints.
Greater Quintessence of Health - See above.

Mouse over the abilities to see their tooltips.

The biggest mistake you can make with this passive is to write it off for being useless. When you look at Malzahar's kit, you should see one thing that is blatantly obvious. Pushing. When I was a newer Malz player, I used to hate this. Because basically, with this passive, Malz will ALWAYS push his lane whether you want to or not. However, pushing is Malzahar's biggest strength and what makes him unique to all other AP carries. You should embrace this passive, not hate it.

Believe it or not, you can exercise some form of control on the voidling. To tell your voidling to attack, face the minions. To tell your voidling to come back to you, turn your back on it. To tell your voidling to attack something specifically, use melefic visions on the target. It's a weak form of control, but it's control nonetheless.


This is your utility. It's a static silence, that, when used at the right time, can shut down things such as Warwick ults and allow you to escape to safety. This ability is super hard to land, and is a very skill demanding ability. It's gonna take practice to get the timing down. In a teamfight, you will want to use this to either silence a priority target, such as their annie, or to silence as many of the enemy team as possible.


This is your damage. Yeah, early game it won't do **** for you, but in teamfights, if you can get this on more than one target, you are going to do a load of damage. I know it doesn't seem like much, but Null Zone is an incredible ability and when synced with your ult, you should be able to combo down any champion in the game(yes, even tanks) with very fast speed.


This is your push power. Lategame, MV is outshined damage wise by NZ(don't get me wrong, it can still do damage), however early on, it's pushing power can't be matched. Once you get level 3, you want to spam this thing on creep waves and push it through them as fast as possible. This is going to result in your minions being pushed to their tower, making their last hitting very difficult, and allowing you to free roam other lanes. It's very powerful.


Ahhh, the hated malz ult. It's a 2.5 second suppression with a high amount of range. This is, basically, a ranged warwick ult with a 1.3 AP ratio. While you can use this ult to initiate teamfights, you are very squishy and will be blown up immediately. This is why I like to use it after the fight has been initiated, to combo down whoever the **** you want. Yes, you are allowed to ult tanks(if they are on your Null Zone!), you can kill them just as well. The backdrop to this ability? While you are stunning the enemy, you are also stunning yourself, making you vulnerable. This is why positioning is so important as Malzahar.

Mouse over the abilities to see their tooltips.

The biggest mistake you can make with this passive is to write it off for being useless. When you look at Malzahar's kit, you should see one thing that is blatantly obvious. Pushing. When I was a newer Malz player, I used to hate this. Because basically, with this passive, Malz will ALWAYS push his lane whether you want to or not. However, pushing is Malzahar's biggest strength and what makes him unique to all other AP carries. You should embrace this passive, not hate it.

Believe it or not, you can exercise some form of control on the voidling. To tell your voidling to attack, face the minions. To tell your voidling to come back to you, turn your back on it. To tell your voidling to attack something specifically, use melefic visions on the target. It's a weak form of control, but it's control nonetheless.


This is your utility. It's a static silence, that, when used at the right time, can shut down things such as Warwick ults and allow you to escape to safety. This ability is super hard to land, and is a very skill demanding ability. It's gonna take practice to get the timing down. In a teamfight, you will want to use this to either silence a priority target, such as their annie, or to silence as many of the enemy team as possible.


This is your damage. Yeah, early game it won't do **** for you, but in teamfights, if you can get this on more than one target, you are going to do a load of damage. I know it doesn't seem like much, but Null Zone is an incredible ability and when synced with your ult, you should be able to combo down any champion in the game(yes, even tanks) with very fast speed.


This is your push power. Lategame, MV is outshined damage wise by NZ(don't get me wrong, it can still do damage), however early on, it's pushing power can't be matched. Once you get level 3, you want to spam this thing on creep waves and push it through them as fast as possible. This is going to result in your minions being pushed to their tower, making their last hitting very difficult, and allowing you to free roam other lanes. It's very powerful.


Ahhh, the hated malz ult. It's a 2.5 second suppression with a high amount of range. This is, basically, a ranged warwick ult with a 1.3 AP ratio. While you can use this ult to initiate teamfights, you are very squishy and will be blown up immediately. This is why I like to use it after the fight has been initiated, to combo down whoever the **** you want. Yes, you are allowed to ult tanks(if they are on your Null Zone!), you can kill them just as well. The backdrop to this ability? While you are stunning the enemy, you are also stunning yourself, making you vulnerable. This is why positioning is so important as Malzahar.

I leave my abilities unskilled at level 1. If it becomes obvious we are going to have a level 1 teamfight, I skill up my Q for dat silence. If not, I grab E. Take E first because it is your early game pushing skill. Take W second because it is your mid/late game damage skill. I max Q last because one level of the silence is sufficient until late game, even though it does scale. Take your ultimate at every level, of course.

I leave my abilities unskilled at level 1. If it becomes obvious we are going to have a level 1 teamfight, I skill up my Q for dat silence. If not, I grab E. Take E first because it is your early game pushing skill. Take W second because it is your mid/late game damage skill. I max Q last because one level of the silence is sufficient until late game, even though it does scale. Take your ultimate at every level, of course.

This is, basically my build for every AP carry right now, with the Banshee's Veil built later on for some and earlier for others.

Dorans Rings I like to buy 2-3 of these early game. It's a very nice mix of damage and survivability to get you off to a good start and have good damage output early/mid game. If you rushed a catalyst, for example your damage would be significantly reduced. These will be sold later in the game. Banshee's Veil Oddly enough, I like to get a very early banshee's veil. This is so it becomes harder to pop you during your ultimate, and you become much more durable and much scarier looking. Since malz has absolutely NO escape abilities, I feel that this is necessary to buy early on for the survivability.

Sorcerer's Shoes This is another mid-game item for good magic pen. Every caster will buy sorc's at some point obviously, but I grab them relatively early for that extra magic pen in lane to really gain an advantage over my opponent. NEVER consider any other boots on Malz. Void Staff Ah, the void staff. You grab this item, and no matter how much MR the enemy has, you are going to reduce 40% of it, and do a lot of damage. This item is inexpensive, yet it is also very strong. Void Staff will give you that damage boost you need for late game teamfights.

Rabadon's Deathcap The damage on this item is so good, that you could probably get away with using only this item and building full tank for the rest of the game(not recommended). Once you have this you are pretty much set for the rest of mid game and are ready to put the hurt on your enemies. Zhonya's Hourglass This item really seals the deal for you lategame, giving you a huge damage output increase as well as a huge defensive increase. If you remember to use the active, it will save your life. Use this BEFORE a whole lot of damage goes down on you(i.e. right when you see that fiddle ult).

This is, basically my build for every AP carry right now, with the Banshee's Veil built later on for some and earlier for others.

Dorans Rings I like to buy 2-3 of these early game. It's a very nice mix of damage and survivability to get you off to a good start and have good damage output early/mid game. If you rushed a catalyst, for example your damage would be significantly reduced. These will be sold later in the game. Banshee's Veil Oddly enough, I like to get a very early banshee's veil. This is so it becomes harder to pop you during your ultimate, and you become much more durable and much scarier looking. Since malz has absolutely NO escape abilities, I feel that this is necessary to buy early on for the survivability.

Sorcerer's Shoes This is another mid-game item for good magic pen. Every caster will buy sorc's at some point obviously, but I grab them relatively early for that extra magic pen in lane to really gain an advantage over my opponent. NEVER consider any other boots on Malz. Void Staff Ah, the void staff. You grab this item, and no matter how much MR the enemy has, you are going to reduce 40% of it, and do a lot of damage. This item is inexpensive, yet it is also very strong. Void Staff will give you that damage boost you need for late game teamfights.

Rabadon's Deathcap The damage on this item is so good, that you could probably get away with using only this item and building full tank for the rest of the game(not recommended). Once you have this you are pretty much set for the rest of mid game and are ready to put the hurt on your enemies. Zhonya's Hourglass This item really seals the deal for you lategame, giving you a huge damage output increase as well as a huge defensive increase. If you remember to use the active, it will save your life. Use this BEFORE a whole lot of damage goes down on you(i.e. right when you see that fiddle ult).

Ok, so you are middle. If you are not middle as malz, you are solo top. If you are not middle or top as malz, you are an idiot. The first thing I would like to mention here, is that malz is absolute garbage against melee champions with a dash. Champions such as Irelia, Xin Zhao, and Jarvan IV should be avoided. If you lane mid vs one of these champions, call a lane switch and go top immediately.

Ok, now that that's dealt with, let's talk about the think that makes Malzahar so prevalent early game. His pushing. You want to be pushing your melefic visions through the creep waves once you hit level 3. Earlier than that, just play passive and last hit. Whenever you get a voidling, however, you are going to want to use melefic visions on the enemy champion. This aggros your voidling to that champion for the duration(if you are facing the enemy champion), and is a great form of harass. Afterwards, you go back to pushing.

So basically, you want to shove your lane as fast as possible(while last hitting) so it gets to the tower. Once it is at the tower, back off. You can be pretty vulnerable to ganks, so if you aren't pushing your lane correctly, it can spell trouble. If you succeed and push all the minions to the enemy tower, you may back off.

Now you are causing trouble for the opponent because you are MIA. You could be ganking, you could be sitting in the back of your lane. You should be looking for available ganking opportunities as malz right when you hit 6. If you see one, shove your lane out and go for it. Your combo for ganking, or 1v1, is:

Null Zone + Nether Grasp + Ignite + Call of the Void + Malefic Visions


You should ask your jungler for blue buff as early as the second respawn. There is NO ONE on your team who needs blue buff more than you, so take it! Some junglers are more dependant on blue than others, however, so if they still need it at the second respawn, let them have it. By the third respawn though, it should definitely be yours.


If, at any time, you are with your team and you spot a lone enemy out of position, flash and ult his *** for the easy kill. You'd better be careful with this, however, because if you are wrong and you just flashed into their whole team because you got baited like a fish, you are dead.


Ideally, you want to roll with your team, but slightly behind your tanks. You don't want to be the one to facecheck the bush, but you also don't want to be late to the party. In a teamfight, you want to come in after it has been initiated, on the outskirts. Here you have free reign on whoever you want to take out of the fight for 2.5 seconds, so choose wisely, but quickly.


Was pretty much covered in the proper positioning section. Basically, your role in a teamfight is to(hopefully) silence key targets, and take one target completely out of the fight for 2.5 seconds, hopefully netting the kill on said target. Yes, you are allowed to ult tanks. Essentially, if you ult the tank and kill him, the enemy squishies will have no protection and will die in a heartbeat. Ult what the enemy gives you, though. You don't want to run through the entire enemy team just to net your ult on that ashe. Play it safe, and take what the enemy gives you.

Ok, so you are middle. If you are not middle as malz, you are solo top. If you are not middle or top as malz, you are an idiot. The first thing I would like to mention here, is that malz is absolute garbage against melee champions with a dash. Champions such as Irelia, Xin Zhao, and Jarvan IV should be avoided. If you lane mid vs one of these champions, call a lane switch and go top immediately.

Ok, now that that's dealt with, let's talk about the think that makes Malzahar so prevalent early game. His pushing. You want to be pushing your melefic visions through the creep waves once you hit level 3. Earlier than that, just play passive and last hit. Whenever you get a voidling, however, you are going to want to use melefic visions on the enemy champion. This aggros your voidling to that champion for the duration(if you are facing the enemy champion), and is a great form of harass. Afterwards, you go back to pushing.

So basically, you want to shove your lane as fast as possible(while last hitting) so it gets to the tower. Once it is at the tower, back off. You can be pretty vulnerable to ganks, so if you aren't pushing your lane correctly, it can spell trouble. If you succeed and push all the minions to the enemy tower, you may back off.

Now you are causing trouble for the opponent because you are MIA. You could be ganking, you could be sitting in the back of your lane. You should be looking for available ganking opportunities as malz right when you hit 6. If you see one, shove your lane out and go for it. Your combo for ganking, or 1v1, is:

Null Zone + Nether Grasp + Ignite + Call of the Void + Malefic Visions


You should ask your jungler for blue buff as early as the second respawn. There is NO ONE on your team who needs blue buff more than you, so take it! Some junglers are more dependant on blue than others, however, so if they still need it at the second respawn, let them have it. By the third respawn though, it should definitely be yours.


If, at any time, you are with your team and you spot a lone enemy out of position, flash and ult his *** for the easy kill. You'd better be careful with this, however, because if you are wrong and you just flashed into their whole team because you got baited like a fish, you are dead.


Ideally, you want to roll with your team, but slightly behind your tanks. You don't want to be the one to facecheck the bush, but you also don't want to be late to the party. In a teamfight, you want to come in after it has been initiated, on the outskirts. Here you have free reign on whoever you want to take out of the fight for 2.5 seconds, so choose wisely, but quickly.


Was pretty much covered in the proper positioning section. Basically, your role in a teamfight is to(hopefully) silence key targets, and take one target completely out of the fight for 2.5 seconds, hopefully netting the kill on said target. Yes, you are allowed to ult tanks. Essentially, if you ult the tank and kill him, the enemy squishies will have no protection and will die in a heartbeat. Ult what the enemy gives you, though. You don't want to run through the entire enemy team just to net your ult on that ashe. Play it safe, and take what the enemy gives you.

If anyone wants to know how I did columns, check out Searz's guide template in the forums. Hope you found this guide helpful, and if you liked the build, try it out on your other AP carries as well! Thanks and keep owning.

If anyone wants to know how I did columns, check out Searz's guide template in the forums. Hope you found this guide helpful, and if you liked the build, try it out on your other AP carries as well! Thanks and keep owning.