River lane is not a thing in League, but this build and the champion that uses it take advantage of certain elements of the game that I like to sum up as being RIVER LANE. Essentially, Malzahar picks MID LANE, and farms mid early. Using the increased speed and healing gained by the muild, and abusing his speedy creep farm times, Malzahar can be in three places at once (well, not literally). Becoming almost a backup Jungler, Malzahar disturbes gameplay on all lanes, providing slows and silences to ADC and TOP Champions. He is also able to help the JUNGLER ward and take key OBJECTIVES. The other advantage to the method of play, is that Malzahar will usually have the element of supprise in combat encounters. By keeping careful check of where the enemy jungler is, Malzahar can keep to the shadows, causing the enemy MID LANE player to be unsure of when to say Malzahar is missing from MID LANE. The key thing to note about this way of playing Malzahar is that he is essentially playing as an assassin once more. He does not need CDR, but benefits greatly from MPEN. Any CDR in the build should be incidental, as it is very low priority for RIVER LANE MALZAHAR.