WIP!!

This guide is targeted at carrying yourself out of the low leagues with Zyra, please keep that in mind when reading!

Hi, I main Zyra and have for quite some time now. I know riot wants her back in mid, but honestly she is my favorite support and I hope she remains viable in that regard.

With that said, I hope at least one person finds this guide useful! Zyra is a great champ in many elo brackets, and exceptional at carrying out of the lower leagues. I found myself stuck in the Bronze/Silver leagues for quite some time with abysmal win rates, but upon learning Zyra my win rate shot up to 65%, and I worked my way into Gold! Even now I maintain over a 60% win rate and continue to climb with her. Hopefully this guide will help you do the same!

More often than not I will take ignite. I play Zyra as a kill lane, and in that regard I take ignite to make sure their heals are reduced, extra damage is done, and they either die or have to leave lane.

However, there are times when I will take Exhaust. Against team comps with Assassins exhaust is great to reduce their damage and help out all game.

It is really up to you whether you take Exhaust or Ignite, but as for myself I've found much greater success with ignite in most scenarios.

And as per the norm, take Flash. You'll need it.

I generally rune for damage over defense. At level 3 these runes will have a substantial impact on your damage output. However, against lanes where I don't feel as safe, I will replace AP Quints with Armor Quints.

We take Magic Pen because Zyra is there to kill ****. She has no shield, she has no heals. She is just there to zone and murder enemy champions, and she does it well.

As always with Zyra, make sure you have good positioning. She is extremely squishy, especially with the rune and talent setup above. If you get caught, you're dead. The idea here however is that you'll be zoning and chunking them low enough that you won't have to worry about it.

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Items are always going to be dependent on the game you are in. As of 5.16 things have shifted to the Juggernaut era.

: More often than not you will need Liandry's Torment. The burn procs non stop with Zyra and deals loads of damage while offering AP and Health (both of which Zyra needs). As well, the build path is great for lane as you get both health and magic pen. Great synergy here.

: Rylai's Crystal Scepter is amazing on Zyra as well. It offers a large amount of AP, health, and a constant slow (though it is only 15% off the ranged plants, it still helps a ton in many instances).

: Morellonomicon is great in my opinion. Much better than Frost Queen's Claim 90% of the time. The healing reduction does wonders and the CDR is invaluable. I almost always rush this after Sight Stone.

: Sorcerer's Boots are my go to as Zyra does so well off Magic Pen. Her base damage is already out the roof, and you'll often times find yourself leading the charts in damage to champions after game. Any chance you have to tack on magic pen is a good one.

: Zhonya's Hourglass: If I find myself being targeted or dying too quickly, I'll rush this in a hurry. You can make some pretty amazing plays with this in tow, but I often times find myself looking to Rylai's instead. I prefer the utility Rylai's provides the team, but again its all game dependent. Sometimes you will need Zhonya's over Rylai's.

: Void Staff: I always take Void Staff as my last item. As I said before, Zyra does extremely well with magic penetration, and this item simply raises her damage substantially.

Frost Queen's Claim: I really am not a fan of this item. I don't think it is efficient at all, and Morello's offers everything it has but better. With that said however, there are game where I feel I need the active, and so I will upgrade it in place of taking Morello's.

: Sight Stone: Don't be that support that doesn't ward. You already do a ton of damage, keep your 3 wards and Vision Ward on the map at all times. Wards win games in every league, especially the low ones. People generally don't know when about the Jungler will be arriving where, and they don't pay attention to the mini map often. WARD.

I max E over Q first because the length of the root is increased with every point in E. In the lower leagues where your ADC isn't always on points (and we aren't either), the extra time on the snare helps a lot.

Now, I don't believe there is a set rotation for Zyra's skills as they change in many instances. Mainly in which plants you're going to drop. Generally if I land a good snare on the ADC, I'll do E>W>Q>W>R>Q. This provides a melee plant to slow, and a ranged to keep hitting when he leaves range. The Ult resets your plants timer so they stay up longer. Usually at level 6 if you catch the ADC in a snare and you're ult+Ignite are up, he's dead. Whether or not your ADC follows up. This is the main reason I was able to carry myself out of Bronze/Silver with Zyra, she does ridiculous damage with nothing but a Spellthief and SS.

Sometimes if I am just poking to lower their health, like at level 3, I'll do E>Q>W>W>AA. This provides a ton of zoning and will make them miss a lot of CS. Most ADC's will be at half health or lower assuming your ADC didn't poke in the process. If you have an ADC that followed up, they'll most likely be sitting under tower for quite some time or dead.

Against melee supports like Leona, I'll poke with E>W>W>Q. The double slow is great and they'll take a lot of damage early on. The thing here however is that you need to know when you can and can't do this. Often times against hard engage champs, you'll need to save your stuff to disengage them. Consider only dropping 1 plant and keeping another in reserve. I also use this for peeling during team fights.

As stated above, you need disengage for hard engage champs like Leona/Blitz/Nautilus. Q>W while saving E and a plant for engage is a safe bet for poking. This let's you keep your ADC safe while still dishing out some moderate damage during lane.

A lot of situations will just take some time to get used to. Knowing when you can and can't do certain things is learned with experience, but this should at least get you started.

Team work makes the dream work! Top kek. But seriously, this is something you don't see just a ton of in the low leagues. Its your job to be a part of the team and help out as much as possible (actually its everyone's job, but make it a priority for youself always).

In lane, your abilities are primarily AoE. Don't keep shoving your lane into tower by throwing abilities through minions. If you have plants up re-target them as needed to push the lane as little as possible and not take CS. Keep in mind that if you are shoving lane, and they are fighting under tower, you aren't near as strong. Plants die instantly to tower aggro, so you want the lane pushed to your turret or frozen just before it preferably. I usually try to Q away from minions, same with E. However if there is a golden oppurtunity, E that ***** through the minions and secure a kill. Afterwards type "WURF" in all chat like every other idiot in silver. Also type "WURF" or similar when you do something stupid like give the ADC a kill to kill their support, or tower dive for no good reason. Everyone likes to know your feelings on every single engagement.

Always ward. You may be doing the most damage on your team, but if you can't ward, you're trash. Something crazy happen and you end up fed doing insane damage? Awesome, its still your job to ward. Keep 'em up!

During Team Fights! Use your abilities wisely. Don't get ballsy and don't just drop your **** and leave. There are times when you'll be doing amazing damage and your ADC is only doing decent. You can still peel if nobody else is. Disengage unfavorable fights with your E+Ult+Slows. There are times though where its favorable to just drop your **** (Early team fights at Drag for instance). Nobody is very tanky yet, and you can literally nuke their entire team to half health or lower by yourself. After that kite folks around and use your next rotation asap. Basically you just need to read the situation and use your kit accordingly. It'll come with time.

Ping objectives, lead your team to victory. Good time to drag? Ping it a million times and start it solo. They'll normally come. Same for barron (but don't start that solo, you'll lose a lot of health). Time to take the tower? Ping it a billion times. Spamming pings can be annoying, but sometimes its the only way to get your team's attention. Just make sure you're making the right call.

Don't be toxic. This one is obvious. Toxicity leads to poor game play from others. Are they doing bad? Just don't say ****. Everyone has bad games. This is part of the point of playing Zyra support in low leagues. There are a lot of engagements in Bronze/Silver/Gold, and tons of opurtunities to get fed. You can carry a bad ADC as Zyra, and you can get someone with a bad start back in the game. Basically, don't be the ******** that blames everyone else for their shortcomings. You can carry most games if you play very well. You need to give 0 ****s and just play your best without trying to berate others on your team!

Overall Zyra can carry you out of the low leagues very well. She has some weaknesses such as she's squish and has no solid escape, but with good positioning she will dominate. The extra damage helps a ton in lower leagues as she isn't near as reliant on others, but still a good team player.

Hopefully this has helped someone to get out of "elo hell". It is very possible, and not near as hard with Zyra! If there are any questions, tips (changes), etc please comment. I am always looking to improve, and take all advice into consideration. I know I'm not the best, but this has worked very well for me. So with that said, thanks for reading!