Malzahar Build Guide by Rermo99

Mortality is weakness~Choose your Style~Malzahar Guide

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Runes: Haste/Mana Sustain

1 2 3 4

Sorcery

Summon Aery

Manaflow Band

Transcendence

Gathering Storm

Inspiration

Magical Footwear

Biscuit Delivery

Bonus:

+9 Adaptive (5.4 AD or 9 AP)
+9 Adaptive (5.4 AD or 9 AP)
+8 Magic Resist

Spells:

1 2 3 4

Standard Mid lane

Flash

Ignite

Recommended Items

Ranked #31 in
Middle Lane

Win 52%

Get More Stats

Ranked #31 in
Middle Lane

Win 52%

More Malzahar Runes

Items

Starting Items

Best Start for most

More Damage

Support? Yes

First Back

First back (goal)

First back (less than 1100g)

Core builds

Mythic Item

Core against Squish Champion

Core Against Solid Champion

Core Legendaries&Boots

Third Item (Choose 1)

Fourth(Choose depending on your opponent)

Fifth(Choosedepending on your opponent

Others

MORE DAMAGE

More sustain/CC

Examples of finished build

My personnal favourite

Kinda Tank Malzahar

Ability Order For Crowd Control

1 2 3

Malzahar Passive Ability

Threats & Synergies

Threats

Synergies

Extreme Major Even Minor Tiny

Show All

None Low Ok Strong Ideal

Extreme Threats

Ideal Synergies

Cassiopeia

Extreme

She can easily get rid of your passive and once it's done, she just deals more damage than you. So you'll never be able to win a lane against her. At least she doesn't one shot your 3 voidling at once, and if she forgets you in a teamfights, your passive can nullify her ult.

Synergies

Ideal Strong Ok Low None

Champion Build Guide

SEASON 11 NEED TO WORK

I'm planing a complete rework of my guides since I have a lot of spare time this year. With the new season, it is necessary anyway so feel free to read if you want, but for now and during the ealry patches of the season, anything here is classified as WIP (Work in progress). Don't you dare say the content is outdated for that time! Just kidding seriously I don't care really, just have fun with the new items, and if you want to help feel free to comment! You might get a mention in the guide later!

Also, the top section showing a brief look at the builds and runes is updated to the 11.2. I added some note a some place to help you while I'm still working on the rest of the guide. Don't worry everything will be there before the start of the season!

Introduction

LISTEN TO ME, VOIDLINGS AND BARONS! My summoner's name is UtsukushiiSempai and this is my second guide on Mobafire (about 3 years old now)! This guide is about my most played champion, Malzahar. Malzahar is a control mage that has his place in mid lane as, in my sight, the strongest control mage of all. This guide here will not only help you learn everything you need to know about the aids bringer but also help you create your own way to play him.

Should you trust a Malzahar main? No, not when he's on the enemy team. But hey, I'm not on the enemy team! I'm here to help! I will guide you into the depth of the void and show you how magical it can be to play Malzahar.

Ready to bring the void's madness on your enemy? Then lets get started

The only song you can listen when playing Malzahar or reading this guide

Strenght / Weakness


Strenght ... High damage to Squishies and Tanks; ... Crowd control immunity with passive; ... High pressure in laning phase; ... Good CC with ult; ... Insane scaling late game;	Weakness ... Squishy without passive; ... Very low mobility; ... Ult immobilized you too; ... High cooldown/mana cost early game; ... Can be countered by 2 item.

hello ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

Skill sequences and Explanation

Ability Sequence
1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18

Void Shift is your passive.

Tip and tricks

Call of the Void is your Q

Tip and tricks

Void Swarm is your W

Tip and tricks

Malefic Visions/Space Aids is your E.

Tip and tricks

Nether Grasp/BUUUUUUUUURRRRRRR is your R.

Tip and tricks

Gameplay (STILL NOT UP TO DATE)

About Malzahar

Malzahar is a control mage, but not the kind to hypercarry. Even if you can win every team fight and out damage anyone only by rolling your face on your keyboard, he's more the type of champion that will win with patient and safe plays.

So first let's talk about the basic. When you start as Malzahar, you have to mind yourself on one thing ; you don't need to be fed to win the game. Malzahar alone has enough CC to give your team the win. It may sounds easy to pull out like this, but there are some trick you'll have to learn before you can assure a win without being fed.

Malzahar's biggest advantage on any 1v1 is his passive . His passive create a big pressure on your opponents because it prevents them to just all in any time and kick your ***. If they are ranged, they can juste throw a basic attack at you and it's gone, but as they do that it's easy for you to attack them in return. Either it's lv1 and you got some damage ticks from your E and a basic attack on them before they start doing damage to you, or it's more late in the game and you punish them for getting in your range and you all in them to death.

Something important about Malzahar is that he can farm with his ability in a way you can just ignore the lane and focus on your positionning and poking your opponents with basic attack. Let's proceed to Malzahar's early game.

Early Game (Levels 1 to 6)

So there is litterally on important thing about your early game: Getting your as soon as possible. It is your main goal. This means that as long as you don't have it, your priority is farming. Once you get it thought, you'll have two choice:

First, you push so hard that you force your opponent to farm under tower permanently and trust me it is really easy with Malzahar. This will give you priority over your lane and open plays for your team around the dragons or rift herald. You must be careful thought, an enemy Malzahar is very easy to gank since he doesn't have much escape. So if you choose to push, you'll need control wards to watch your back

Secondly, you can try to freeze your lane and get your jungle to gank you. But I'll be honest here. If you are ready my guide, in most of the case you are probably kinda new to the game or in the same range of elo than me. This means from Iron to Silver, maybe even gold. But in those elo, you can't rely on your jungle unless you actually play in duo with him/her. Opening your lane to get a gank will most likely only give priority to their mid laner and they'll have adventage over positioning for objective fight.

I then suggest you do the first option, but keep in mind that the second option isn't bad, it's just not the best in low elo. If you happen to be in higher elos than gold well then I strongly suggest the second option.

Now, once you've choosed how you play your early game, you'll have to watch the moment your opponent makes a mistake. If he get to close to a minion affected by your E , and you know its going to spread on him, you can try to get closer to him/her. Reason is, they most of the time try to retreat when they get caught by your E. So if you want to reset it with your Q, you'll have to cast it where they are going.

Once you hit level 6, that's where your gameplay change drastically. With one right combo, you're garanteed to send your opponent back to their base, either by killing them or making them recall while crying behing their tower.
You can either put your balls on the table and cast E>Q>W>R>and ignite if you think it's necessary, all directly on your opponent and most likely they will hate you for the rest of the game. your voidling can pull out so much damage in that little time they are suppressed, they have no choice but to flee or they'll die. You can also play the mind game and wait for your E to spread to them from a minion and then hit Q>W>R(>ignite if you insist) and it will have the same effect. It's not a garanteed kill, but it hurts like hell.

Mid Game (10 to 25 minutes)

It is here that the real fun begins. At this specific point in the game, you should have your first item, and preferably also your boots. The is giving Malzahar so much damage that you most likely out damage any other champion.

(INSERT STATS HERE)

Patch 10.22

Malzahar and the Canon Winion

The Canon Minion is worth a lot of gold, everyone know that. But did you know that it could also make you win lane? Haha, well I'll explain myself a bit on that point!

EZ Tower, EZ Life

Statistically, the canon minion will always take max health damage from turret, from 14% to 8% depending on the game's timer, so they can always take 7 to 12 tower shot before getting killed. While towers have a base attack speed of 0.83 shots per second, the canon minion can tank the tower for more than 7 second if nothing else is in the way.

Now you know the basic of the plan. Getting a canon minion wave with nothing in its way to tank the tower while you hit it. "But Malzahar is still a mage, he won't get a big adventage from that canon minion." Well that's where you are wrong.
Malzahar doesn't have only 7 minion in it's wave, he can litterally get a 10 minion wave with !

Usually, Malzahar's voidling are automatically targeted by the tower if there are multiple target available for the tower. However, if they enter the tower's range while the tower is already hitting something else, they will be free until the first target die.

Now you probably get it, right? If a canon minion can tank tower shots for more than 7 to 12 seconds and malzahar's voidling can hit the tower for 5−64.5 (based on level) (+ 12 / 14 / 16 / 18 / 20) (+ 40% bonus AD) (+ 20% AP) magic damage with 0.67−0.89 attack speed (based on level), one can surely do a tons of damages to the tower, but don't forget you'll have 3 voidling at the same time hitting the tower!

How to get that OP Minion wave?

Well, to get canon minion to the tower without anything in its way, you must have no enemy champion in your lane. There's two way to do that. First, you kill him. Simple, right? you only have to syncronize your kill with the canon minion wave and bam! Free tower! However, when you are pushing a tower like this you are vulnerable to gank. You must choose a moment where you know that either the enemy jungle AND you laner won't be in the way.

It's sad, but the best moment for that is when your laner roam to another lane. Most of the time, if the enemy mid laner is ganking bot lane, the enemy jungle too will be there. This means you'll usually follow your laner to avoid the botlane to get killed. In my case, I always get first tower and once you get the first tower, it is 100% more easy and efficient to roam and kill. So I usually let my laner roam 1 time alone, I get the first tower, and then I catch him up with a lot more gold than him and all my teamates are like "YEAY MALZAHAR IS FED".

In the end, I don't suggest you never follow the enemy mid laner when he roam to get that double bot, but if you see a canon minion coming to your lane at that same time, and the enemy first tower isn't broken yet, I promise it will be more worth to get the first tower.

Runes

The runes are basically what's gonna decides if you win your lane or not. And that is for any champion, not only for Malzahar.

There is usually multiple ways to build your runes page for each champion, Malzahar is good either with , and even . That's why he can be played with a bunch of different styles.

Let's get to the point now.

First, there are 5 different path you could take :

Most of the time, the Sorcery path is going to be the one you want. I don't force you tho, if you want to be a little bit creative, I admit that malzahar is strong with a lot of different key stone. But I won't cover them all here, I'll cover the most basic one.

Keystones
	Summon Aery is the most popular Keystone on Malzahar for a reason. Malzahar's whole kit is based on dealing damage over time. This means as long as you are still doing damage with your abilities, Aery can be sent out again and again on the target, and it doesn't have a fixed cooldown. You can abuse Aery so much with Malzahar that it does outclass any other keystones in terms of damage. I strongly suggest you start with this one if you are learning the champion. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
Other runes

	Manaflow Band is definitely the best here as Malzahar's mana costs are very high even if he is casting a lot. If you play right, you'll be able to poke your opponents a lot with your Q and even your E when it spreads from a minion to them. Up to ten times you'll get 25 maximum mana from it and once at 10 stacks, you'll even get a bonus mana regeneration. It is very important you take it.
	Transcendence is another very important rune for Malzahar. First, you'll need to cast a lot. So I wouldn't say no to more Ability Haste. But the most important part is that, from level 11, every time you get a kill or assist, you'll get 20% of your remaining ability's cooldowns refunded. Since your ultimate is pretty much always a guaranteed kill for your team, I wouldn't take any other runes.
	Gathering Storm is my choice here because Malzahar is a late game champion. He has a lot of huge scaling, and is very good to make the game longer. So getting a lot more AP as the game progress is a very good advantage.

	Magical Footwear is very good as you'll put a lot of prority on getting your Lost Chapter and your Liandry's Anguish as fast as possible. You won't have to worry about getting an early boots of not, and since Malzahar is kinda slow, getting the bonus movement speed from it is also very nice.
	Biscuit Delivery is my favorite. First, who would say no to free biscuit every three minutes? Secondly, it gives you more maximum mana AND a source of mana regeneration early in the game. So why would you take anything else?

	Presence of Mind is my alternative the biscuit delivery. Although it is less amusing, it does give you bonus mana regeneration everytime you damage a champion AND it will give you back a lot of mana upon taking down a champion. I really like using it when playing a little more aggresive.
	Coup de Grace is my choice because pretty much any other runes in precision would be a waste. You don't need attack speeds, tenacity or lifesteal, and you will have a huge amount of HP with your build so even Cut Down wouldn't be great. Also, dealing more damage to low health enemies is always good.
Shards

Arcane Comet
	Arcane Comet may be a bit less efficient than Summon Aery it is still good. You'll get more efficient damage from it once in the mid to late game, since it offers a higher damage on impact, and a that point, pretty much all the kills you'll take are from your ultimate. By immobilizing someone with your ults, you are guaranteed to land the comet, while Aery still have to hit 3 or more time to deal as much damage as the comet. It is surely a less efficient keystone in terms of poking, but it does have its advantage.

Dark Harvest
	Dark Harvest is really risky and purely for fun. I've tried it many times and it is really easy with Malzahar's damage over time to get a lot of stacks. As you still take sorcery as your secondary path, you won't really have to worry about lacking mana. Also, having Ultimate Hunter will give you back your ultimate so much faster than usual that you'll be dominating the late game even more than usual.

Items (DEFINITLY NOT UPDATED)

Starting Item
	The Doran's Ring is the best starting item for Malzahar. You will get more HP from it than the others, and one of the most important thing, it gives you 6 mana from killing lane minion. This stacks with the passive on your E so well that you'll get a lot of mana back from farming with your abilities. If you are going to put a lot of pressure on your opponents, it will helps you push them under their tower easily without wasting too much resources.
	The Dark seal is a high risk high reward starting item. You won't get the advantage of farming with your abilities the Doran's Ring gives you and you'll start with lower HP. But if you manage to outplay your laner AND get some kills without dying, well the Dark Seal will be way better. You'll get a lot of AP from it and you can also build it into the Mejai's Soulstealer, which is always a good way to be unstoppable. But it's a lot of gamble to start with it.
	The Spellthief's Edge is only for Malzahar support obviously. There isn't much to say. Malzahar is an AP mage, so you take the AP mage item among the support items.
Mythic Items
	The Liandry's Anguish is pretty much the only mythic item I suggest with Malzahar. Malzahar has a lot of damage over time. So as long as you do damage to an opponent, the Liandry's damage will reset. Any champion will definitly burn if you take this item.
Core
	The Sorcerer's Shoes
	The Rylai's Crystal Scepter
	The Demonic Embrace
Important items
	The Mejai's Soulstealer
	The Horizon Focus
	The Cosmic Drive
	Rabadon's Deathcap
Counterbuilding
	The Morellonomicon
	The Zhonya's Hourglass
	The Banshee's Veil
	The Abyssal Mask

So this is where the guide ends. I hope you enjoyed it. Feel free to check the next few chapters if you want for additional info and leave a comment on what are your thoughts about it! It's not because I said something that it will be true for everyone, so feel free to experiment on your own too!

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

Nerf/Buff List & SurrenderAt20!

11.12 : Nothing affecting the void's favourite prophet on the PBE right now!

Stay informed about Malzahar and items balance changes for the next patch on SurrenderAt20!

Special Thanks

First, I want to give a SPECIAL GOLDEN CHOCOLATE BAR to JhoiJhoi, because of her guide, "Making a Guide". Without this guide, I should never have finished mine. I suggest to all new users who want to create a guide to read all her "Making a Guide" guide. It helps A LOT.

Next is a HUGE MEGA FLUFFY STRAWBERRY CAKE to both Mowen and PsiGuard for being the fastest admins I've ever seen when someone's in need and for helping writers at any moments.

Next is a OMEGA SECRET BISCUIT RECIPE FOR THE GREATER GOODS to Chromuro with his own Malzahar guide. He inspire me to take Precision as a secondary path for my full damage Malzahar. Have a look at his own guide by clicking here.

Then, I'll give an OVERPOWERED PANCAKE OF DOMINATION to Splj because he make me notice that Full Damage Malzahar could do even more damage that I though just by picking faster the . Thanks buddy.

At last, I want to give a SPECIAL PLATINUM COOKIE to my brother Fuzzy Demon. He showed me many tricks in text formatting and BBCode for making my guide better and more comprehensive.

Sources

I'm an artist in real life and I know how copyrights are important, so there is the list of the website I used for picture, the guide I read to help me and anything like this. Remember that all champion, runes, masteries, runes reforged, items and summoner spells are the propriety of Riot games.

Sources

Change log :

5th June, 2021 ()

"Runes" chapter has been updated!
"Items" chapter has been updated!
"Change log" chapter has been updated!

May 29th, 2021 (16:41)

I've adjust the whole top section to the current season/meta
"Gameplay" chapter has been updated!
"Runes" chapter has been updated!
"Nerf/Buff List & SurrenderAt20!" chapter has been updated!
"Change log" chapter has been updated! (yes I'll continu to do this)

older

December 5th, 2020 (20:09)

"Gameplay" chapter has been updated!
Item are more clear on the path way you should build
"Change log" chapter has been updated!

15th November, 2020 (16:11)

"Gameplay" chapter has been updated!
"Gameplay" is still pretty empty tho...
"Change log" chapter has been updated!

12th November, 2020 (12:27)

The top section is updated with the planned builds for preseason!
Notes added to every build options to help while the rest of the guide is getting updated!
"Change log" chapter has been updated!

12th November, 2020 (1:06)

"A Bunch of Builds, One Guide" chapter has been updated!
"Skill sequences and Explanation" chapter has been updated!
"Gameplay" chapter is going to be worked on next week I have more data to collect before saying anything. Stay tuned!
"Change log" chapter has been updated!

4th November, 2020 (19:04)

"Intruduction" chapter has been updated!
"Two Build, One Guide" chapter renamed "A Bunch of Builds, One Guide"
"A Bunch of Builds, One Guide" chapter has been updated!
"Strenght / Weakness" chapter has been updated!
Added the skill sequence in the "Skill sequences and Explanation" chapter.
"Change log" chapter has been updated!

May 17th, 2020 (12:28)

That's not the first update of 2020, I just forgot about the change log ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
Added a new line for core items at the top, and a new exemple of finished build.
I'll be adding some truly usefull knowledge *sarcasm* about all that in the future, but not too far in the future.
"Change log" chapter has been updated!

November 20th, 2019 (20:53)

Runes updated with the preseason
"Change log" chapter has been updated!

June 11th, 2019 (15:16)

Hey cuties, I'm back ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) ;
"Runes" chapter has been updated!
"Items" chapter has been updated!
"Nerf/Buff List & SurrenderAt20!" chapter has been updated!
"Change log" chapter has been updated!

March 13th, 2019 (13:34)

"Nerf/Buff List & SurrenderAt20" chapter has been updated! From a long time!
"Change log" chapter has been updated! From a long time too!
God I have a lot to do in this guide, will be working on this for the next two week. For real.

December 5th, 2018 (18:44)

"Items" chapter has been updated!
"Special thanks" chapter has been updated!
The cheat sheet has been updated!
"Change log" chapter has been updated!

November 13th, 2018 (17:54)

Huge update on the visual aspect due to MOBAfire's new guide editor!
All the chapter has been adapted to the new guide editor. Preseason update in sight!
"Change log" chapter has been updated!

October 12th, 2018 (11:00)

"Summoner's Spells" chapter has been added but no content for now
"Nerf/Buff List & SurrenderAt20!" chapter has been moved to the end of the guide, because it's less important than the other section (No I won't remove it).
"Change log" chapter has been updated!

September 30th, 2018 (11:10)

Ahri, Anivia, Annie, Aurelion, Azir, Galio, Kindred, Talon and Kai'Sa threat level and matchup descriptions are now all available!
"Items" chapter has been updated!
"Change log" chapter has been updated!

September 12th, 2018 (10:58)

"Malzahar and the Canon Winion" Added to the guide with only content. More VFX coming soon!
Akali threats tips added!
"Change Log" chapter has been updated!

August 23th, 2018 (23:25)

Added some new chapter that are going to be completed in the future.
Some typo have been sent to the dark realms.
"Change Log" chapter has been updated!

July 10th, 2018 (13:07)

added a new chapter and changed the guide name so it is now more clear that the guides is talking about two build
Guide properly updated to 8.13, Thanks to PsiGuard!
"Change Log" chapter has been updated!

May 22th, 2018 (19:39)

Since a bunch of the [/columns] had mysteriously disapear in the guide script and were causing some bugs in the guide, I updated a bunch of chapter to be sure to put them back. Spooky.
"Change Log" chapter has been updated!

May 3rd, 2018 (20:03)

"Items" chapter has been updated!
"Change Log" chapter has been updated!

April 19th, 2018 (20:25) :

"Nerf/Buff List & SurrenderAt20!" chapter has been updated!
"Gameplay" chapter has been updated!
- More specific gameplay tricks for both builds
"Runes Reforged" chapter has been updated!
"Items" chapter has been updated!
"Change Log" chapter has been updated!

Marsh 21th, 2018 (20:07)

"Runes Reforged" chapter has been updated!
"Change Log" chapter has been updated!

Marsh 19th, 2018 (22:00)

"Items"chapter has been updated!
Cheat sheet now properly adapt to the current patch, thanks to Dzopilant!
"Change Log" chapter has been updated!

Marsh 18th, 2018 (15:20)

"Items" chapter is currently receiving an updated! You can now see how it will look after the update!
"Change Log" chapter has been updated!

Febuary 23th, 2018 (8:20)

Liandry's description updated properly to 8.4 changes. Thanks to Xepherox!
"Change Log" chapter has been updated!

Febuary 19th, 2018 (23:09)

"Strenght / Weakness" chapter has been updated!
"Gameplay" chapter has been updated!
"Runes Reforged " chapter has been updated!
"Items" chapter has been updated!
"Change Log" chapter has been updated!

Febuary 8th, 2018 (22:01) :

"Nerf/Buff List & SurrenderAt20!" chapter has been updated!
"Change Log" chapter has been updated!

Febuary 7th, 2018 (16:35) :

"Nerf/Buff List & SurrenderAt20!" chapter has been updated!
Mega update for AP Itemisation change on 8.4 begins now
"Change Log" chapter has been updated!

January 21th, 2018 (13:21) :

Item pick order updated
PBE Nerfs added to "Nerf/Buff & Surrender@20" chapter
Summoner's spell changed from Flash/Ignite to Flash/Ghost
"Change Log" chapter has been updated!

December 21th, 2017 (18:37) :

Added a Standard build to the guide. Not the core build tho.
Name of the guide change from "Mortality is weakness~ Malzahar In-Depth Guide" to "Mortality is weakness~ CDR/Sustain Malzahar Guide"
"Change Log" chapter has been updated!

December 14th, 2017 (11:34) :

"Nerf/Buff List & SurrenderAt20!" chapter has been updated!
"Change Log" chapter has been updated!

December 11th, 2017 (08:06) :

"Nerf/Buff List & SurrenderAt20!" chapter has been updated!
"Change Log" chapter has been updated!

December 8th, 2017 (00:32) :

"Introduction" chapter has been updated!
Cheetsheet updated!
"Items" chapter has been updated!
The core build has been changed :
- Sorcerer's Shoes have been replaced for Ionian Boots of Lucidity
- Rabadon's Deathcap has been replaced for Abyssal Mask
- Hextech Gunblade added as a "very late game" pssobility
"Change Log" chapter has been updated!