Zyra Build Guide by Silverbells

Introduction

Hello, I am Silverbells, I am a BR player who plays mostly AP champions on Twisted Treeline. Some credentials for TT: My team ended up #3 during S3, #27 during S4 and #2 during S5, with all time highs of #1 in TT and #21 in SR during S3. Zyra is by far my favorite AP and the one I play the most, with a win rate of 70% over the past 200 ranked games this last season. This guide is for a specific tanky build for Zyra, not necessarily your standard build. It preys on the enemies not knowing how to deal with her in the early game to get you an advantage. It's the build I used for climbing two of our teams to ranks #2 and #9. I tried to tailor this guide to TT beginners and veterans alike. I hope you find the guide useful in some way, and I thank you for reading it.

Pros / Cons

Pros:
+Unparalleled map control using her W. Can make good use of the terrain for both vision and combat.
+Good at teamfights, and teamfights in TT tend to happen a lot during her power spike.
+Very versatile, can fit in a myriad of comps and adapt very well.
+High damage potential, both sustained and alpha.
+No one picks Zyra, no one bans Zyra. She's almost always open.

Cons:
-Not God tier like many of the other champions available.
-Although versatile, she's not the best in most scenarios.
-Not a traditional carry, especially in the current TT meta.
-No escapes, requires precise positioning to survive.
-Ridiculously small moveblock.

Even if the enemy team knows they're playing against you beforehand, Zyra is a very bad ban, and an atrocious ban if they're Purple. Banning Zyra means they're leaving either Brand or Anivia open - most likely Brand, who is a very strong, Tier 1 replacement, as they would have to ban Tahm Kench, Zyra and Anivia in the current meta. Otherwise they're opening themselves to more direct counters like a late game Swain powerhouse or Malzahar.

Items

Building Rylai's Crystal Scepter is standard now, which works really well. I believe in going for a very defensive early game as Zyra - you'll still have enough damage to poke and hurt your enemies and the utility to hold off jungle invasions, but because of the perceived traditional squishiness of Zyra you'll catch your enemies by surprise when they try to trade 1 to 1 with you, gank you or even tower dive.

In my sample pool, 50% of the First Bloods happen between 2 and 3 minutes, and 75% happen before the 4 minute mark. As with most SR data released, I found a 66% - almost exactly two thirds - correlation between FB and victory in our collected data. In general the FB happens during level 3, which makes sense since that's when people get a little too happy with their skillset. Thus I prioritize survival during levels 2, 3 and 4.

I open up with Doran's Ring + Ruby Crystal and then either save for a Needlessly Large Rod or turn the Ruby Crystal into a Giant's Belt. The idea is to have enough health early on to be able to assuredly survive lane and extended skirmishes in the jungle. Since Zyra tends to be a primary focus, the extra defensive layer tends to punish enemies extra hard in the first teamfight, giving you full access to their jungle (and start a level and gold advantage) if they retreat and possibly enough gold to kickstart your Needlessly Large Rod if they stay and die.

Why such a late Wooglet?

While Wooglet's Witchcap seems like a perfect item - lots of damage, armor and the Zhonya's active - in my experience the match almost never lasts enough for Wooglet to be viable, and since Wooglet is a particularly expensive item, you are very exposed if you try to rush the hat first.

Why no CDR Items?

If you play it right, you'll be able to unload all your mana in the teamfights. While CDR items often also increase your Mana Regen, allowing you dish out way more damage, they also make you very squishy. There's a reason why almost every Zyra rushes Rylai's Crystal Scepter - you're very, very weak. You will die, and dead Zyras can't make use of 45% CDR.

With that said there is a place and time for a CDR. It's a bit of a win more item, but if you feel like you can be extra aggressive, or if enemies aren't building any Magic Resistance, by all means feel free to buy a Morellonomicon and a pair of Ionian Boots of Lucidity for that sweet 40% CDR.


HP Runes versus Armor Runes

Some Theorycrafting. If you want a TLDR: HP runes will be better for you.

The point where the weights between HP and Armor match is the point where (Bonus Health)/(Armor Reduction) is bigger than the EHP gain from the Bonus Armor. Because the armor reduction formula is 100/(100+Armor) we can neatly obtain that value by multiplying the (Bonus Health)/(Armor Reduction) by 100, where the bonus health is budgeted to be equivalent to 1 point of armor. In the case of Yellow Seals, this is 8 HP.

Thus the HP break point where Armor > HP is 960 at Level 1, 978 at Level 2, 996 at Level 3, considering 8 HP = 1 Armor, the base Armor and Armor per Level gains for Zyra. Example calculation for Level 1:

HP = 100 * 8/(100/(100+armor) = 960
Where armor = 20 at level 1

Level 2:

HP = 100 * 8/(100/(100+22,2)) = 978

And so on. Also, do remember that armor gains (in Zyra's case, 3 per level) are not the same for every level - they begin as 2,2 and gradually grow to 3,8, averaging at 3.0 exactly.

We can see that this threshold is far above and beyond what you can normally obtain in level 1. While there are diminishing returns in Damage Reduction with each point in armor (and as such you can never hit 100% damage reduction) the increase in EHP (Effective HP) is linear - which means every armor rune at the same HP will equally increase the EHP (even though the damage reduction itself will increase less and less).

With 479 HP at level 1, it's clear that HP is vastly superior than armor in the early game, specially since you're likely to be playing against AP Champions. Even if you take into account the Health gained from a Health Potion, that value is still way below the threshold.

Against opponents with Armor Penetration Runes and Masteries, the value changes slightly - the initial breakpoint falls down from 960 to 919 as the EHP value per 8 HP drops from 9,6 to 8,55 and we account the 7% armor penetration through (8,55*100)/0,93. It's still almost twice the EHP value of Armor (4,45).

Now here's some magic - with 150 Flat HP from Runes, Doran's Ring and a Ruby Crystal, you start with 840 HP (rounded from 839) and 1007 EHP - That's 75% more than the baseline health! It's also 13% more EHP against physical than if you had armor runes instead, and indeed it stays above 100% even at level 18 - it only goes down in efficiency the moment you finish a Giant's Belt, and it's 22% more efficient than Armor runes against Magic Damage, which you're likely to be facing a lot.

If I'm playing against an enemy in the lane who deals mostly physical damage and they have low Magic damage I'll play with scaling MR runes since I won't be dealing with it until the mid/late game. If I am absolutely sure I'll not die in lane I go with Scaling HP in the Seals and Flat HP in the Quintessences. This surpasses flat HP seals in efficiency at around level 7.

Two things of note - a single Cloth Armor increases your base defenses against Physical damage by around 11-10% depending on runes/masteries/level you buy it, while a single Negatron Cloak should increase your Magic Defense by almost 20%.


Final Notes

Overall building extra tanky early on in the current meta ends up surprising enemies who are too used to squishy Zyra Supports on SR, and allows you to actually push lane more aggressively since you're less vulnerable to being ganked or getting too weak from pokes being rendered unable to defend your jungle. When enemies realize their mana is being wasted on your health bar, it becomes very easy to shove your wave and secure the 3 minutes Health to prepare for an invasion or a counter invasion.

You can end up trading favorably even against melee champions who are not expecting your tankiness, which can lead them to waste resources or overexposing themselves in an aggressive maneuver early on only to be punished hard by your minion wave.

Champion Mechanics

While the individual techniques used for teamfight and laning vary, there are some general rules you need to keep in mind when playing as Zyra, especially if you're a new player.

So let's take a look at Zyra's kit. Zyra is a very traditional Control Mage. As a Control Mage, she has multiple CCs - in fact, every single Zyra skill can be used as a form of CC. Zyra has very high teamfight utility, high group damage, high burst potential and high sustained damage. To counter this seemingly strong toolkit, she is squishy, has no heals, shields, escapes or guaranteed targeted defensive abilities, and with the exception of her unique map vision utility in TT, she is not the best at any of the things at which she's good. She's very vulnerable, her damage can be shut down easily if the enemy team focuses.

As Zyra, your playstyle should interchange smoothly between playing defensively, controlling the map, manipulating the enemy positioning and attacking aggressively. Mastering how to freely flow between these stances will put an overwhelming pressure on your opponents and give your team jungle control.

Securing Kills

When and if the choice presents itself available, I prefer to leave the kills to the Bruisers in TT and play a more traditional Control Mage from a Support perspective. This is very comp sensitive - both ours and theirs. Generally speaking I'll favor picking the kills myself over a Jungler Maokai, but never over a Jungler Tahm Kench for example. If we have a Jungler Trundle and he's countering the tanky enemies, then I'll leave the kills for him. However if he's the one being countered I'll pick the kills myself.

Chaining CCs

Properly timing your Grasping Roots with your teammates is crucial when picking off enemies even outside of teamfights. Take a look at the champions your friends play and see how you can setup a CC chain. For example, if you see that a Jax will definitely hit his Counter Strike, you can hold your E to extend the CC duration with a guaranteed Grasping Roots timed to hit as the stun ends. Conversely, if your E is guaranteed, you can setup a situation that will guarantee for the Jax to hit the stun. Time your skills properly to extend the CC duration instead of overwriting it.

Some CC chains come very naturally. Tahm Kench, being the God tier monstrosity that he is, makes it very easy to combo a CC through his Devour. Tahm Kench can enter a skirmish in the enemy jungle and if he manages to devour someone, there's more than ample time for you to time your Grasping Roots with the end of his Devour to chain CCs.


Predictive Roots

Because the map is small, it's easy to predict the movement from champions like Ezreal, Leblanc and Ekko. There are very few ins and outs.



Consider the following scenario:

If an active teamfight is ongoing and Ekko is exiting, he will almost always either follow through the Golem route to the top or follow through the Wraiths route to the bottom, then time his "escape" to ult back to the AP carry in pursuit (you), especially if he sets up a Parallel Convergence. The idea is to either kill you or stun you and leave through the bush to the Bot Lane. It is very predictable and gives you ample time to escape and root him after his invulnerability frames end.


Defensive Roots

The first thing you need to keep in mind when dealing with melee champions is that you need to use your E defensively. While you're playing in a defensive stance, your E is most dangerous when it is not used. This is especially true if you're playing against champions that have big moveblocks or champions that are all-in dependent, and you'll often be playing against champions that are both.

Because your Grasping Roots is a counter-measure to hyper-aggressive plays, keeping your E available allows you to punish melee opponents freely with auto-attacks, while escaping aggressive plays when needed.



Projectile Block

You can use your Plants to block projectiles that aren't coded to hit only champions. This is especially useful if you're low on health and need to protect yourself from a pesky Jayce or Nidalee.

Do keep in mind TT's choke points when playing against enemies with long range skillshots, you can block a lot of stuff while running away or after entering a bush, if your enemy decides to shoot blindly into it.


Animation Cancel and Aggression Bating

This is a mechanic that can be used by almost every champion, but it's good to guarantee skillshots with champions like Zyra when you don't want to afford wasting mana with missed Qs.

If your opponent is approaching to punish your auto-attack, you can initiate an auto-attack animation and cancel it in the very first frames to Deadly Bloom him back. Most of the time opponents are caught off-guard because dodging skills tend to be predictive rather than reactive and they lower their guard when you start an auto-attack. You can prime your enemies by doing this rhythmically and orbwalking - Move AA, Move AA, Move AA Cancel, Hit Back.



Generally speaking you want to make your opponent feel like he has the upper hand and lower his guard. Faker is the grandmaster of this, as he often turns his back to the enemy to give them the impression he will walk away and gain distance, only to immediately go all-in and kill his now unprepared enemy. Walking back and quickly canceling the turn animation to attack is often enough to lower your enemy's guard for a split second - Seeing your opponent turning his back is almost always an indication that he's about to move and as such will not attack you for a second or two. If he moves in to punish you for turning your back on him he's basically walking straight into an easy Q or even an E.

Map Control

Because of Twisted Treeline's size, asserting control as Zyra is extremely easy. She's one of the most powerful champions to keep your team's vision of the map open, and your teammates' map awareness in check. You're given an enormous control over the flow of what's happening and what are your enemies' activities.


When to Vilemaw

Not directly related to Zyra, but relevant because Vilemaws can more often than not lose the game to the team initiating it. Unless you have an overwhelming advantage that you can take the Vilemaw blow and still come up ahead, don't do Vilemaw while the majority of the enemy team is alive. Getting caught is very easy - the map is short, the opponents will notice your entire team going MIA, and it's very quick to check if you're up there doing Vilemaw.

Make sure there is a 100% chance that things cannot go wrong, usually in the shape of your enemy team being dead, and that it is absolutely not a better use of your time to take down towers instead. Unless you're so behind that you need a Vilemaw to have a comeback chance, it's usually not worth the risk against opponents with decent map awareness.

Also, when doing Vilemaw, make sure to tank him facing your entrance to the pit. His attacks can be seen from very far away in the Top lane even if the entire Vilemaw pit is hidden behind the fog of war.


Radio Silence

This is just a general TT tip - if you lose vision of everything and everyone, there's a very real possibility that they're setting up a trap somewhere, doing Vilemaw, or both. Because you're Zyra, you can
just check them from far away by planting seeds in the pit from within the Top lane.

You can also do this in key moments, like before gathering with your team to get your jungle altar back. Some teams like to take this opportunity to immediately rush Vilemaw if the top lane is pushed in their favor, because they know the enemy team will have all their attention focused in the mid route to prevent a counterattack and guard whoever is capturing the altar back.


Vilemaw Vision


When doing Vilemaw, you can set up some seeds outside to gain extended vision and see if there are incoming enemies. If you want to be less discrete but safer, a Rylai-enhanced Thorn Spitter (W-Q) can offer you extra time to exit.


Vilemaw Trap


This is a very infamous spot, and one you need to be very careful with. The FoW hides enemies inside this spot until you're way in, and by then it's very late for you.

As Zyra, your Rampant Growth can be used both to scout ahead and ruin the enemy trap, as well as gain extra vision by planting seeds at the entrance, thus granting your team an even greater initiative.

Be very careful, as people are often well aware of this spot. If you're playing against a team with strong AoE capabilities they can just blindly shoot everything in this spot from afar if they suspect you're setting up a trap, and completely wreck your day.


Scout Seed

When scouting ahead, setting a perimeter or chasing someone, there are several locations that can minimize your risks while granting you the vision you need. Basically:


This spot is particularly important to set up a defensive perimeter during lane phase:



As it defends you from the enemy jungler whether he's intending to go back around the Mid Route to gank you from behind, or turn down immediately if your lane is too pushed.

It also allows you to bait and waste a Kha'zix's time because they can Tunnel down to the Bottom bush from these positions:


Which allows him to avoid being seen from your jungler or from a seed positioned at the Heal Spawn. However, since you're seeing him, you can bait him by staying in the bush and going away when he moves to tunnel towards you. Be careful, however, because he can tunnel from his wolf camp and exit very close to you (be similarly carefule to Jarvan IV, Vi, etc).

When playing against champions like Bard, Kha'Zix, Lissandra and Kassadin, you might want to take the extra mile and seed the enemy bush in his jungle entrance periodically, so that you can see if Lissandra casts Glacial Path to the top.

An important seed is from the Altar - you can cast Rampant Growth from the Altar safe within the Fog of War:



Root the Heal

This isn't as easy as you'd expect - if you're setting up a trap, it's better to wait until the enemy is coming to you in the bush. If you want to defend the perimeter, it's better to set up a Thorn Spitter (W-Q) or a Vine Lasher (W-E) on the Healing spawn point.

It can work, however, if you're planning very carefully with your Jungler and you have the timing set perfectly right. A chain CC will wreck the day of anyone caught if they don't have immediate support.


Skirmish over the Heal Timers

You need to be careful about the Heal Timers. There's a chance your enemies will try to force an skirmish at around 2:40 - 2:50 - if they can trade blows with you at your jungle, their escape route through the mid will contain a Heal


Top Lane Vision

An important element of playing as Zyra is that you can effectively negate or even set ganks on top from the Mid Route, by granting vision on the Top bushes from the Mid Route using your seeds. If your Top Laner suspects a gank, you can easily grant him vision by placing a seed on a bush. Which leads us to...


Distant Seed Activation

First, you need to understand how walls work. If you're a Riven player you're probably familiar with it, otherwise -

Whenever you cast a spell that needs to land on terrain (with a few key exceptions, like Flash) and that object lands inside a wall, if that spells falls within 50% of the wall thickness to your side, then the spell will exit in front of you.

However, if that spell falls halfway to the other side, that spell is raycast forward on its own trajectory until it hits an exit.

Once an exit is found the spell is then "pushed" out perpendicular to the surface of the wall. Some walls have very weird geometry, sometimes the object exits earlier than anticipated and when pushed to the perpendicular of the nearest wall it can snap to weird exits way outside of its main trajectory (everyone remember the woes of warding the tribush). Most of the time this won't be a problem to you in TT as Zyra - What is important is knowing that you can do things like this:

Which is way outside Zyra's W range, and more importantly - you're still safe enough closer to your own jungle side. You can also Q inside walls to activate far away seeds.


Because your Deadly Bloom can land inside walls, however, it is not pushed forward, so you'll need to move closer to activate seeds on the enemy bush. Your Grasping Roots gives you a much larger range, but I don't recommend doing it if you're just scouting to gain vision because you're exposing yourself defenseless.


Lane Pushing

It's very important to be pushing the lane early on so your team can gain momentum invading the jungle. If you have to defend your jungle against a pushed minion wave you might lose a lot of cs or worse - have to engage in a teamfight with a level difference.

Due to TT's native bonus Mana Regeneration (which is active even without Altars) your base Mana Regeneration with Zyra covers almost exactly one Q per minion wave. Use this to plan your pushing accordingly, and don't neglect your Auto-Attacks - due to the tiny distance between the two towers and the importance of pushing early on, most people you face will be AAing the minions constantly instead of only AAing to CS.

You want to have at least around 320 mana for an invasion, so keep that in mind when planning your pushing. It's Ok to go overkill on spells if you're doing it to gain the lane advantage at around 2:50 to get the jungle heal. The heal spawns every 1m30s so keep that in mind. As a general rule of thumb you'll want to set up vision 20s before the spawn, if you're always taking the heal that would mean 2:40, 4:10, 5:40 for the first three spawns. Be very careful because at 2:40 there's a high chance that the enemy Jungler will be on his way to gank you.

Teamfighting

Because Teamfighting in TT will more often than not occur in the jungle, your Teamfighting skill is intimately connected to your understanding of the map itself. However, I think it deserves its own session explaining some of the mechanisms behind positioning and crowd control in a 3v3 Teamfighting.

Since Zyra is fragile, you basically need to setup yourself into situations that are risk-free. Your nemesis are champions who can ignore that or manipulate positioning in such a way that you're exposed. Still, you do need to minimize your risks and think of the routes very carefully. Remember that because of your seeds and your trinket you don't need to take as many risks when moving through the map, so use that to plan your route and your teamfights in advance.


Flanking is Bad

Most of the time you will want Teamfights wherein you have your tank in front of you and you can go back to kite your enemies if necessary. This means that being flanked is bad, but it also means that flanking can be very bad for you if the enemy team decides to focus on you aggressively. Depending on who you're fighting, you can be eliminated before the teamfight even begins.

This is especially true if you're doing a defensive flanking, and doubly true if you're on a losing position. While a board situation like this is clearly suicidal -

It's important to grasp that a board like this:


is not that great. The enemy team in this situation has the following outs:

1) They can keep going top. The top Laner will have to retreat. If they have good sieging potential they can destroy the tower and do a 3v1 siege will most likely result in you losing the inhibitor as you're in a weak defending position and missed the opportunity to do a 3v3 under the tower, even if you don't take any champion losses in this event you still most likely lost the game from losing the comeback opportunity from being in a 3v3+Tower defending position.

If the flanking players push you'll be Teamfighting outside of your tower while right next to your tower, which is a waste - The Top Laner will most likely be well under the tower and a few seconds away from the teamfight. If the enemy team takes the initiative you'll be fighting a VERY unfavorable 2v3 which will likely result in you Zyra dying almost instantaneously.

2) They can immediately turn bottom and force a 2v3. If the Top Laner is close and decides to engage in melee range they can switch to him and explode him. If he's not that close then you'll be fighting an unfavorable 2v3 which, again, will most likely result in you dying very fast as your Jungler won't be able to peel three players off you.

Of course there are many situations in which it's advantageous to force a teamfight from a flanking position, but be very careful - there's always the risk that they'll react fast and switch to you, so you need to be always prepared to run and kite.


Being Flanked is Bad

This may be unsurprising, but depending on the situation and comp, being flanked as Zyra can in itself be a great bait against melee-heavy compositions as Zyra has many anti-diving resources and can punish attackers heavily. However, consider for example this 2v2 positioning:

Scenario A:

It should be clear that it is much more advantageous than this positioning:

Scenario B (Being Flanked)

So let's analyze Scenario A:

Say, if your Jungler is a Maokai, you're setting the enemies for a very favorable teamfight as he initiates with an R+W to tank the two and you E-Q-W-R for massive AoE burst while being in an extremely advantageous positioning that is 100% risk-free for you.

Still it's important to understand that these events are situational. If your Jungler gets caught then you might lose him without having time to fight back if your enemies have high moveblock. However if your Jungler is bating the enemies inwards to your jungle without the intention of fighting back, you can keep poking them from afar until their health is low enough to allow him to engage in melee range. These situations are very delicate - if the enemies gain the advantage they'll be granted access to your jungle, so you need to be able to reduce their HP enough so that the follow-up -


- becomes favorable. If your HP differential is favorable you're mostly safe even though you're flanking, because you can E them to escape (since they'll have to follow you in a straight line) or kite them. If you do not have the tankyness to survive an all-in against high moveblock enemies, then you'll have to do this -


- which can take more time, is less favorable and gives them an out, but can be used as a bait because enemies perceive this board state as less threatening. I've seen many enemy teams losing a teamfight in this situation when they could have simply abandoned the altar and ran away.

If you do flank them, you need to be ready for the Top Laner. There are three outcomes.

A1: The enemy Top-Laner goes down before your Top-Laner.

This makes harder for your team to all-in because whoever engage first is going to be focused very hard, and most of all this is also dangerous to you. There's a chance that the Top laner will go for you instead of joining them in the altar. If that is the case you need to poke him and kite him until he decides to reunite with them. If you can't hold your position then you're giving them an escape route.

If instead he joins them in the altar you're put in a very tempting position of fully comboing them right there to deal the maximum possible damage output. You might be left vulnerable, but more often than not this kind of initiative guarantees a teamfight victory.

The worst case scenario is if they decide to instead follow your Jungler and scatter through your own Jungle taking objectives. If your Top Laner has ranged attacks (like Jayce or Gangplank) you can massively punish them with poking before going in for the kill. Otherwise you might be forced to engage in a less than favorable situation to save your jungle or cut the losses and leave it to them and go back to lane to farm.

A2: Your Top-Laner goes down first.

This exposes you even further because if you don't all-in on the 3v2 you risk having your Top-Laner being sandwiched and destroyed before you can seize the number advantage. In my experience trying to CC the incoming enemy Top-Laner and leaving your teams to 2v2 in the Altar works poorly - the enemy team will realize this and jump down on the Jungler away from you and from your Top laner, gain the initiative and precious seconds of a 2v1 which will more often than not seal the deal.

So because you all-in on a 3v2 this leaves you exposed to the enemy Top Laner, and it's very possible you die and the Top laner escapes through the enemy jungle. It's very hard to get a 3 for 0 in this scenario as a smart top laner will favor escaping, a 2 for 1 is a very good outcome.

A3: The enemy Top Laner flanks you.

This happens - not very often, but it happens. If the invasion was planned in advance to have you flanked, you can run away if you see him coming from behind in advance, otherwise you're basically dead the moment the Top Laner arrives.

If you're closer to your side of the Jungle, you can try the following Flash. Keep in mind it's easy to miss it:


Otherwise your best bet will be to do a diagonal Flash towards your Tower.



Now, onto Scenario B, things are much simpler when it comes down to your options.


If your jungler can win a 1v1 and you can also win a 1v1, you can use the positioning to break the looming teamfight into two different duels as well as having an advantage from your initiative.

Most players who are flanking perceive themselves as having the initiative because you're going towards the enemy Jungler. If they're following you (especially if they enter the Bot Bush) you can immediately turn towards them with a full combo and gain the initiative, for example.

Scenario B is far more dangerous because if you find yourself too close to your enemy Jungler, you'll simply be flanked and bursted. If they can tower dive or hit you from afar even a diagonal Flash to your tower won't save you, and you'll be likely force to escape through the following Flash:

From here you'll have to place a possibly risky root if you want to save your Jungler if he's too deep into the mid route.


Straight Lines are Good

Unless you're playing against Vel'Koz, Lux or Champions with similar Ultimates, the Mid Route is your best friend because you're almost guaranteed to be able to land your E on at least two opponents. When kiting, keep in mind that and try to herd your opponents together to a nice root to escape or even a full combo.


Altar FoW Vision

With the seeds you can open up the fog of war blocked by the altar walls, which gives you a massive vision advantage. You can see from afar if enemies are coming to interrupt you, slow them down with Rylai W-Q, and use it to locate, target and finish off targets running away trying to use the FoW as an advantage to escape.

You'll usually want to check to see what's between you and the enemy base nexus wall when playing against champions like Rek'Sai, as you can punish her really hard if she tries to tunnel or ult out of her base to the tunnel exit they usually place behind the altar.

Finishing Words

Well, that covers most things I could think. If you guys have any suggestions, ideas or questions, feel free to ask!

I hope you enjoyed the guide!