Introduction

Runes

Gameplay

Summoners

Masteries

Tips and Tricks

Abilities

Itemization

Matchups

Skill Sequence

Conclusion

Hey! I'm MJHunter and welcome to my first Mobafire guide for mid lane Zyra. I started playing League of Legends in early March 2013, since then I have climbed to Diamond on EUW. I have experience in most roles as I tend to fill in when I play with my friends but my favourite roles are both mid and support. I have played Zyra a lot during my time on league, being my most played champion in season 4 and heavily played since then has given me a lot of experience, so through out this guide I hope to shed some light on some great ways to succeed on the rift.

Zyra is an amazing mage who excels at counter engaging and team fighting with her insane amount of CC (Crowd Control) and damage that come from her combos. She is great at doing AoE damage but can still go head to head with surprising amounts of burst and pick potential. At first Zyra can be fairly hard to pick up and play to her maximum potential because of her unique kit, but once you get to play her some more you will be in a much better position to succeed in your games. Zyra is my favourite champion because I love control mages that can heavily impact teamfights. Whilst not being particularly flashy her ability to turn around a gank or a team fight is what stands out to me as a great part of her kit and is one of the reasons I like her so much!

Although Summoner Spells can be seen as the bread and butter of league of legends I think it can be really important to understand how they can help in the game, and that different summoners should be changed depending on the situation.

Flash is an essential Summoner Spell on almost every champions. On Zyra it is even more important because she has such low mobility. Flash is an incredibly important summoner to have because it can be used to both close a distance to ks secure a kill or to escape bad situations. Flash can be used to make plays and to avoid damage or incoming CC such as Thresh's Death Sentence. Flash is also great at avoiding big damage skill shots in lane that will kill you or abilities that set you opponent up for a kill such as the empowered Steel Tempest , Dark Binding or Final Spark

Ignite is a great tool that provides lane pressure and the means to win and assert dominance through its high true damage especially at early levels. Ignite is the bread and butter for an aggressive lane and can help to snowball you into mid and late game which Zyra excels at. Ignite is also great in zyras kit as it will continue to do damage with your plants while you kite or run away after a combo.

Exhaust is probably the only other option I would take in terms of Summoner Spells because it can seriously help in games when you're against Assassins that can burst you down. Most commonly I would use exhaust when laning against Zed, Talon, Yasuo and Fizz. Use exhaust pre-emptively if you anticipate high amounts of damage from someone, this is where it can be useful to know your match ups and how or when they burst. Additionally exhaust is amazing at keeping your opponent in range of your plants and inside your ultimate and will drastically help you to kite due to the slow which can be very helpful in melee matchups.

Teleport (TP) can be really good way to stay in lane and maintain an advantage or to prevent your lane opponent from getting one. Alternatively it can be used in match ups that you find difficult where your lane opponent may force you out of lane by poking with long range abilities such as Xerath where you risking dying if you stay in lane. Teleport can also be taken if you expect your laner to use teleport or they have high roaming potential such as Twisted Fate where you can immediately answering their roam and making a 3v2 bot lane a 3v3. Even in the situations above I tend not to take teleport over Ignite because Zyra with TP is not very effective due to her slow mobility and lack of engage. Finding a good place to TP is incredibly important as the enemy team can see the teleport and stack on top of it to kill you as soon as you arrive. Usually I prefer to farm and gain a lead in my lane while they are roaming, which you can then transfer into a kill with ignite.

[ Passive ]

[ Q ]

[ W ]

[ E ]

[ R ]

Zyra has a great kit that revolves around spawning plants with your abilities that attack your enemies. Zyra can execute some intense combos with her abilities to lock enemies into a fight making them loose before the fight has even started!

[ Passive ]

Garden of Thorns : Spawns seeds randomly around zyra every 11-6 seconds (depending on level) that last for 30 seconds. After 1 second of the seed spawning an enemy champion can stand on a seed and it will die. MAX SEEDS : 8 SPAWN TIME : 11 - 7 Seconds (based on level) These seeds will spawn randomly around your location so be sure to use these to your advantage in team fights by positioning your seeds between you and the enemy team so if they get close you can use Deadly Spines or Grasping Roots to bloom plants that will deal tons of damage and / or zone the enemy. During laning phase your opponent will try to stand on the seeds to kill them, I take this opportunity to hit them with Deadly Spines if you can time it right you can hit Deadly Spines and spawn a plant to attack them. Sometimes they will spawn in better positions than others, remember that the seeds spawned by your passive cost you nothing so don't over extend to defend one seed from getting stood on. Trust me loosing a chunk of your health or dying is not worth preventing the death of a seed. Saying this you don't want to miss out on opportunities where you can hit spells as someone tries to stand on a seed. NOTE: Seeds will not spawn while you are in a brush this is important because it will stop you from being seen for example when your trying to get a pick on the enemy mid laner as they come back to mid from a roam.

[ Q ]

Deadly Spines : Sprouts thorny vines at the target location after a 0.625 second delay, dealing magic damage to enemies within the area. If Deadly Spines is cast near a seed, a Thorn Spitter grows that lasts for 5 seconds. RANGE : 800 COST : 60 MANA MAGIC DAMAGE : ( 60 / 90 / 120 / 150 / 180 ) + 55% AP COOLDOWN : 7 / 6.5 / 6 / 5.5 / 5 This is the main ability that you will use to harass your lanner, be careful not to use this too much because it costs 60 mana and with such a low cooldown you can easily run out of mana. Because of its delay try to target this ability infront of where the enemy are going so that they walk into it or have to turn walk in the other direction. I will most often use this ability when they go up to cs or once I have snared the target with my Grasping Roots to get a guaranteed hit. Sometimes when seeds from your passive have grown around you itcan worth hitting no one with the ability and just focus on spawning as many thorn spitters as you can to deal deal damage to or zone the enemy.

[ W ]

Rampant Growth : Zyra spawns a seed at the target location that lasts for 60 seconds which provides a small amount of vision for 2 seconds when initially cast before that vision shrinks even more. After 1.5 seconds an enemy can stand on the seed to destroy it. RANGE : 850 COST : 1 SEED MAGIC DAMAGE : N/A RECHARGE TIME : 17 / 16 / 15 / 14 / 13 BONUS HEALTH : 0.4 / 0.8 / 1.2 / 1.6 / 2 These seeds will bloom into plants when Deadly Spines or Grasping Roots are cast nearby. Something that differentiates the better Zyra players is how you use your combo's, the best way to combo is to cast your ability and then Rampant Growth because all of your abilities have delay. Doing this will also allow you to make the decision as to weather or not you want to place a plant down, this is something I will go into more detail later on in the guide. Zyras plants will apply on hit affects such as Rylai's Crystal Scepter and Liandry's Torment. Zyras rampant growth stores seeds periodically, up to a maximum of 2 stored at once. Do not rely on your seeds for wards, sometimes you can use Rampant Growth in brushes before warding so that you don't have to face check, remember your [W] costs no mana and has a very short cool down. When placing your [W] down be careful not to place two seeds down when you only intended one to be placed, which can be easy to do because there isn't a cool down between each cast. This is important because of the damage dampener on your plants that makes plants of the same type deal 50% less damage. Make sure your Top Laner knows that he/she can Teleport to your seeds which could open up more opportunities for TP plays around the map this is also true for your seeds that spawn from your passive which can sometimes spawn right on the enemy team this can be great for many of the tanky top laners that are in meta right now.

Thorn spitter : A ranged plant with 750 range, that will attack a champion or minion last attacked by Zyra.

Vine Lasher : A plant that will attack the enemy at a small range of 400 and slows the targets it attacks.

[ E ]

Grasping Roots : Sends a surge of vines in the target direction that will deal magic damage and root enemies that are hit. If grasping roots passes a seed it will grow into a Vine Lasher. RANGE : 1100 SPEED : 1150 COST : 70 / 75 / 80 / 85 / 90 MANA MAGIC DAMAGE : ( 60 / 95 / 130 / 165 / 200 ) + 50% AP ROOT DURATION : 0.75 / 1 / 1.25 / 1.5 / 1.75 COOLDOWN : ( 12 ) Be careful Grasping Roots is one of the slowest moving skill shots in the game so it can be very hard to hit especially if the enemy is running away, learning to hit this ability when your lane opponent is cs'ing or walking up to try and harass you is a very useful skill, Grasping Roots can pass through minions which stops people hiding behind their minions and leads many into a false sense of security. As I mentioned earlier you can use Grasping Roots to snare the target to get a guaranteed Deadly Spines, you can also then follow that up with your ultimate Stranglethorns providing you have spawned some plants. Grasping Roots is treated as a projectile and can be stopped by Unbreakable and Wind Wall.

[ R ]

Stranglethorns : Zyra summons a massive area of vines at a target location that deal damage to enemies as it expands, after 2 seconds it will knock up all enemies, still in the area, for 1 second. All plants within the area get an "enraged" buff and deal 50% extra damage. RANGE : 700 COST : 100 / 120 / 140 MANA MAGIC DAMAGE : ( 60 / 95 / 130 / 165 / 200 ) + 70% AP COOLDOWN : 130 / 120 / 110 Use your Ultimate for burst after blooming some plants or to zone the enemy away from an objective or yourself, try to hit as many people as possible as this ultimate can be game changing.This ability is best used on multiple enemies in a team fight where they will be forced to split up or get knocked up. This ultimate synergizes very well with Rylai's Crystal Scepter because as the vines expand it damages enemy champions that will then get slowed by the Rylai's passive this will then make it harder for people to run out so will most likely get knocked up. Plants do not need to be active before Stranglethorns is cast to gain the bonus damage also plants grown during the 2 seconds prior to the knock-up will still become "enraged". Plants already grown before the ultimate is cast will have their duration refreshed if they are inside the area of effect.

Zyra can be quite diverse when it comes to choosing what you max first. Her options are mostly based on your preference and style of play, although there re a few scenarios where you might choose to max one ability over another which I will explain further down. Her two main options are between maxing her [E] and her [Q] maxing each will benefit you in various ways and also have some downsides.


My Typical Skill Order :



As I just said there are mainly two different skill paths that you will usually see in Zyra players maxing Q then E or E then Q. You'll never want to max W because levelling it only increases your plants bonus health and the cool down of the ability. To be honest you shouldn't need ever need a lower cool down on your W considering the amount of seeds spawned by your passive and the fact you don't want to be spamming your abilities to bloom the seeds because you'll run out of mana. Maxing W will not increase the plants damage, attack speed or length of the slow from your vine lashers. Putting points in your Q or E is much more valuable due to each of them increasing in damage per level and also giving various other bonuses to help you in lane.

In the majority of games you should put a point into Q at level one for its easy harass especially with the seeds spawned from your passive in combination with Thunderlords. There may be situations like your own or enemy invades where you'll need to get E to CC the other team. Once in lane you will always want to put a point into your W at level two because it gives you your core combo for lane harass Q, W and an auto which is incredibly strong at lower levels with Thunderlords and will deal significant damage which can prevent your laner from cs'ing. Some times it may be necessary to put a point in E as early as level 2 if you think your opponent has the ability to do significant damage to you at level 2 such as Yasuo or LeBlanc.

[ Q ]

VS

[ E ]

Now on to one of the juiciest topic in the Zyra community; do I max E or Q first? A much debated issue argued with very valid justifications. Personally I choose to always max E and I think that the decision is entirely based on preference. However my reasoning behind wanting to max E first is that with the latest changes to Zyra, maxing E will actually do more damage than if you were maxing Q, so in upfront burst combos you will come out better off. Additionally the length of the root is increased per level which allows your plants to do more damage and will also prevent the enemies from escaping your ultimate.





Runes are quite important when it comes to winning your lane and succeeding in late game team fights because each rune page will give you various advantages that can be incredibly beneficial in certain circumstances. Whilst its great to have multiple rune pages for different match ups if you don't have the IP to spend, using one standard rune page [follow cheat sheet] will do you fine.

MARKS Greater Mark of Magic Penetration is generally the best choice for AP midlaners and specifically Zyra due to her high base damage and bad AP ratios. Taking the 7.8 magic pen marks has much more value than taking flat AP marks because it will scale much better and help you so much more through out the whole game whether it be taking down tanks or bursting squishys, its great for ensuring you are dealing the most damage possible. I always use these runes and don't think they have much of a competition besides Hybrid Pen. Greater Mark of Hybrid Penetration are an interesting option because they make you deal a lot more damage from your auto attacks which means that you can lane harass a lot more effectively early game for those of you that like to auto a lot more and helps especially in melee match ups when you have a lot more opportunities to auto attack. However I don't feel these are great primarily due to the fact they fall off into the late game when you don't auto attack as much or at all. Taking these runes is probably just down to choice based on your play style.

SEALS Greater Seal of Scaling Health is great as it gives you a nice amount of health mid to late game. The health vastly out-scales armour runes and is very effective against both AD and AP match ups. Scaling HP runes are a better choice than flat HP seals in my opinion because flat HP seals only give you the edge in early trades which should be heavily in your favour anyway due to the control Zyra has over the laner opponent which prevents them from trading more and keeps them in range of your plants. The health is also alot more valuable due to Zyra having the 10th lowest HP at level 1 and the 6th lowest at level 18! Greater Seal of Armor are probably the go to choice you have if you find dealing with AD assassins in the midlane such as Zed / Talon / Yasuo a tricky task. With out these runes such champions will easily burst and win trades with you which is why it can be essential to take these. Most of the time in situations where I am confident I can control the enemy laner with Zyras CC like against Yasuo I will take Scaling Health just because the armour isn't necessary if he is going to have a hard time getting on you. I also find that these aren't as necessary because I play supper safe in the laneing phase and will usually purchase a Zhonya's Hourglass for the mid to late game if necessary by which time the armour will have been out-scaled.

GLYPHS Greater Glyph of Scaling Cooldown Reduction are the predominant choice when it comes down to runes purely down to the fact that we build very little or no CDR in our builds and down to the fact that there are very few options for CDR even if we did want to itemise into it. Morrelinomicon and Zhonya's Hourglass are probably the only items we would take that give us CDR both of which we would only take it certain match ups. I think that 15%-30% CDR does just fine and ensuring we have consistent damage and are able to burst as much as possible. Greater Glyph of Scaling Magic Resist or Greater Glyph of Magic Resist are the only other options I would consider for Glyphs and even then I feel you would be missing out too much on the CDR. Scaling and Flat Magic Resist can help a lot against Champions like Ahri, Akali, Azir and Xerath all of which can deal heavy amounts of damage on Zyra with out her being able to do much about it (excluding Akali)

QUINTESSENCES Greater Quintessence of Magic Penetration are definitely the best choice for Quints, as I have said Zyra works so well with magic penetration because her base stats are high and her AP ratios are not great so its best to focus on scaling with penetration. These runes won't just help you with bursting squishies but will help to take down the tankiest of champions. Greater Quintessence of Ability Power is the most common choice for AP mid laners and Zyra included although she has bad AP ratios. Whilst still viable AP Quits are not as good as Magic Pen so I would try to take Magic Pen Quints if you can, but don't worry if you don't have the IP Ability Power Quints will do you just fine. Greater Quintessence of Movement Speed are great runes to have against match ups where your lane opponent has very strong ranged poke like Xerath or Lux the movement speed from these runs help so much a dodging their skill shots and also help in your positioning late game in team fights. This is especially relevant because Zyra is a champion that has one of the least Base Movement Speed.

For Zyra there are several different masteries trees that you can opt for which all provide different benefits. In my opinion the main two mastery tree choices is between taking Thunderlord's Decree and Deathfire Touch which I will explain latter in the Masteries section.

CUNNING Teir 1 - Wanderer vs Savagery This is a choice between 3% movement speed out of combat or bonus damage to minions and monsters with your auto attacks and abilities. For me this was an easy choice but is highly down to preference. I think that putting points in Savagery is better than Wanderer because mid lane Zyra does roam too much as her roams are not as strong, due to her lack of engage in her kit. Unless the enemy have engaged or are pushed up really far which rarely happens you won't be making many successful roams. The 3% movement speed is only active when your out of combat which is also a rarity with constant trading and cs'ing in lane so I find it becomes fairly useless. As for the savagery, which I think is the better pick in this tier, in my opinion it helps drastically when cs'ing because Zyra auto attacks do fairly little damage it will also help with wave clear which Zyra is quite weak at with the types of builds we will most commonly build on her. Teir 2 - Runic Affinity vs Secret Stash vs Assassin This is the choice between; buffs like Blue and Baron lasting 15% longer, Potions and Elixirs lasting 10% long and giving an initial burst of heath and mana when you "pop" it or 2% increased damage when you are alone. In my opinion Runic Affinity is not necessary because I

find that Zyra is quite easy at managing her mana so more often or not I will tell my Jungler to take the blue and I don't believe that taking this for 15% increase duration on baron buff is enough to take this over the other options we have.

Secret Stash I think is the winner in this section because it gives you such great sustain especially in early game, this is great in matchups where you expect to be taking lots of poke damage or think that you will be trading a lot and you might run the risk of loosing these trades. Because you want to be getting as much farm as possible to get you items to get strong mid game you'll want to stay in lane as long as you can and this is a great way to do so.

I'll briefly explain why I don't like to take Assassin, but would like to say that I think it can be quite beneficial just for the bonus damage that you will gain during laning phase that can contribute towards solo kills. However combined with the fact you shouldn't be relying on the fact you might have kill pressure I think Zyra has enough damage with out the buff. Zyra excels in the mid and late game when you will be fighting with some or all of your team. which is where this mastery falls off.

Over all I believe Secret stash is so much better for those tricky match ups and just out sustaining your opponent in general.

Teir 3 - Merciless vs Meditation

Here we have the choice between dealing 5% more damage to champions bellow 40% health and regenerating 1.5% of your missing mana every 5 seconds. Merciless is a great mastery for anyone who can burst and provides that extra bit of damage to secure a kill which Zyra can do. As I said earlier I don't find that Zyra has any major mana problems so I don't feel that Meditation is that useful, however some players who like to poke a lot more and are not as comfortable in controlling their mana pool may find Meditation to be more beneficial for them.

Over all I find the damage amplification from Merciless to be much better at winning lane or team fights.

Teir 4 - Bandit vs Dangerous Game Choosing between gaining 1 gold for each nearby minion kill by an ally plus gaining 3 gold when you auto a champion and restoring 5% of your missing health and mana after a kill or assist is probably easier than choosing to remove Teemo from the game. As you may have guessed this tier is not much of a choice at all. Bandit is useless in a solo lanes where no one will be cs'ing near you. And the 5% restoration of your missing health and mana on kill or assist is to much of a sacrifice to make for gaining 3 gold when you auto attack a champion. Teir 5 - Precision vs Intelligence I'll start by saying this is another choice that is completely down to preference and play style. Precision that gives you 3 + 0.3 (per level) magic and armour penetration is most often the choice that I would go with, Zyra works incredibly well with magic penetration due to her naturally high base damage. Intelligence is great for people that like to continuously poke their lane opponent to force them to back and also for those who prefer to have more control over fights by being able to cast her snare more and keeping up as many plants as they can.

Over all I prefer to be able to deal more damage with my abilities than have the ability to hit my abilities more often especially due to the fact that if you do spam [Q] in lane you will defiantly run out of mana. The raw burst you will gain from Precision is great for Zyras bursty play style.


Teir 6 KEYSTONE - Stormraider's Surge vs Thunderlord's Decree vs Windspeaker's Blessing

Straight off the bat I want to completely rule out the choice of Windspeaker's Blessing that gives you 10% stronger shields and heals on allies which also increases their armour and magic resistance. If by now you are still blissfully unaware that Zyra has no heals or shields you may want to catch up on some overdue sleep or refer back to the abilities section.

Stormraider's Surge isn't an amazing keystone mastery to take on Zyra. Although she can easily deal 30% of a champions health pool (not including tanks) the 40% movement speed you are rewarded with is not as useful as some may think. The soul purpose of the 40% movement speed is so that you can reposition your self by running away from their front line or positioning more aggressively in an attempt to hit some spells on the squishy back line. As Zyra your kit is focused on the ability to disengage from or counter engage a fight with her CC. Your main combos are what would deal more than 30% of a champions health giving you the 30% movement speed, but don't forget your whole combo revolves around locking the enemy down so while your wizzing around with a movement speed buff I find it hard to see the significance of this when the enemy are being locked down. Zyra has enough CC to kite her enemies with out the boost of increased movement speed.

Thunderlord's Decree is definitely the predominant choice in this Tier. Its burst works so well with that of the bursty Zyra play style and generally any other champion that can throw out some high damage. Thunderlord's is immensely easy for Zyra to proc with her auto attacks, abilities and plant attacks. A simple trade of [Q] + [W] + [Auto] will proc thunder lords for some great damage in the early game alternatively a simple [Q] + [W] will also active Thunderlord's even if you miss the Q Zyra plants will more than likely attack 3 times before being killed or dying. In my opinion Thunderlord's is just to strong at harrassing enemy laners and all round a cherry on top to your passive burst potential. Decree synergises with Zyras kit too well to be ignored and is a go to key stone mastery!

FEROCITY

Teir 1 - Fury vs Sorcery

This is an easy choice for a Zyra to make and to be honest isn't much of a choice at all. The 2% increased ability power is basically just an over all damage boost for all of your abilities and I can't see any use for attack speed especially because your plants attack speed won't scale off your own.

Teir 2 - Double Edged Sword vs Feast vs Expose Weakness Here you have the choice between dealing and receiving 2% extra damage, healing 20 health when you kill a unit (every 30 seconds) or causing champions you have dealt damage to take an additional 3% more damage from your allies. This choice is quite situational for example Double Edged Sword is a great mastery for match ups where you will dominate the laning phase with your poke and all in but becomes slightly less good when your lane opponent is aggressive and you maybe don't have such a great time. This is where Feast become extremely useful in helping you sustain in match ups that tent to swing in you opponents favour because they can harass you with long range abilities like Azir and Xerath. Finally I want to quickly run over why exposed weakness is not good, firstly it has no benefit in lane because there wont be anyone else to deal the 3% extra damage as it doesn't include you. Additionally your top laners, junglers and supports should be taking this mastery so its not necessary for you to take as it doesn't stack. Generally you'll want to take Feast just to maintain or gain a cs lead by out sustaining your opponent. I think Zyra is squishy enough to avoid using double edged sword and I feel she does enough damage with out the 2% increase.

Teir 3 - Vampirism vs Natural Talent

Teir 3 gives you the option of 2% extra life steal and spell vamp and scaling attack damage and ability power. This is another one of those simple choices, due to Vampirisms life steal is useless on an AP champions. Also because Zyras abilities are AoE the healing received from spell vamp is 1/3 of what you'd usually heal for for so the spell vamp is just useless too. By process of elimination I think its safe to say Natural Talent is probably the best option to take.

Teir 3 - Bounty Hunter vs Oppressor

This is gain 1% increased damage per unique champion kill (max 5%) or deal 2.5% more damage to targets with impaired movement such as slows, stuns and roots. Both of these are great talents can be both down to your preference and your situation. If you think you will be in with a chance of scoring a kill on 3 or more people possibly tanks in your game then Bounty Hunter is a possibility. However you'll be missing out on a great buff to have, zyras combos, as mention previously, revolve around getting your target in CC you combos generally start with [E] which snares them right of the bat for the rest of your spell to deal the bonus damage combined with Rylai's Crystal Scepter there will be few occasions where your opponent wont be CC'ed. Long story short Bounty Hunter is just going to be so much better early and late game.






Thunderlords Omen vs Deathfire Tourch is another one of those interesting topic that people have lots of different opinions about. In this case I believe either Thunderlords or Deathfire are a viable keystone mastery to take on Zyra and neither one comes out dramatically ahead, so I'll talk a bit about how each affects your play on the rift and what I personally like to take.

[ Thunderlord's ]

VS

[ Deathfire Touch ]

Thunderlords and Deathfire help you out in different ways. Thundelords is great for trading and bursting early game and can be used to score early kills and can start you snow balling or will just force your opponent out of lane and they will consequently fall behind. Alternatively Deathfire gives you great power when it comes to the mid and late game. It works incredibly well on Zyra because her plants will apply the debuff with their auto attacks as well as your own abilities. However the down side to this mastery, which is why I don't like to take it, is that it only deals 50% of the damage it should do because all of your abilities are AoE and your plants damage is classified as damage over time so again will only deal 50% damage this is a big draw back but the mastery is still viable because of how much you can keep the debuff on the enemy with your attacking plants.

You also have to remember that the choice effects the Tier 5 Masteries you can take. Precision vs Piercing Thoughts is a topic in its self so I don't want to dive to far into it. Briefly I will say that the flat magic pen precision gives you is much more powerful early game which in conjunction Thunderlords is what we want to have with Zyras high base damage, it also gives us some flat armour pen which help greatly with cs'ing and harrassing with your auto attacks. But since we focus primarily on building magic penetration with Liandry's and Viodstaff the bonus percentage of magic pen from Piercing thoughts comes out ahead as we get to late game with out pagic pen items this help especially when you're against tanks that build alot of Magic Resist. However I don't think this is enough to give up the early game pressure and burst you gain from Precision and Thunderlords.

If you just spaced out at my text wall I'll say over all you will want to go 12/18/0 in most games and I would only take 18 in the ferocity tree in the rare case you feel your ability to burst or 1 shot their team is very slim in which case you would focus of keeping up sustained damage.

Sorcerer's Shoes are the only boots that I tend to get on Zyra they're the only ones that give you a damage increase which is what we want as an AP Carry. Magic Penetration works so well on Zyra to because of her low AP ratio as I've mention. These boots will greatly increase your damage and I will try to upgrade to these from standard boots after I have built my first item or I will buy it earlier if I'm against Champions that have alot of skill shots where we value movement speed a lot more. The boots are great at positioning in team fights and will help you get picks by getting into range for your [E]. I don't think any of the other boots are as good and rarely content with how good Sorcerer's Shoes are. Mercury's Treads can be a good item if you feel like their front line is incredibly strong and can easily lock you down and kill you fast which Zyra is incredibly prone to due to her lack of mobility and her general squishiness. The tenacity will help so much against Champtions with hard CC like Thresh, Leona, Morgana. The magic resist is a stat that also helps drastically against mid laners that can poke you down or assassins like Fizz or Diana. Ionian Boots of Lucidity are boots that I very rarely pick up. Although the CDR is great on Zyra and helps to keep up some plants. The 10% cool down reduction on your summoner spells is quite valuable but I don't think are necessary because as much as its great to have an decrease in downtime of flash and ignite the only times that you should be depending on these spells are when you get picked or are getting a pick. Zyra should not depend on flash, her great CC and disengage make her incredibly safe and hard to get onto.

Liandry's Torment is an amazing item to pick up on Zyra and should be part of your core build. Its passive works so well with Zyras kit, her plants apply the Dot with their auto attacks and the DoT's damage is increased by 50% when your targets are slowed, rooted or knocked up which is a majority of the time you are fighting. The percentage health that the DoT does is also amazing at wearing down tanks, I would advise that you build Haunting Guise as soon as possible because it gives you such a great power spike. After that I would build Ryalai's and then finish Liandry's. The health is also a nice added bonus that help with your survival against poke and burst.

Rylai's Crystal Scepter is also an amazing item on Zyra due to the intense CC it provides in team fights which is applied by all your spells and ever your plants auto attacks. It helps Zyra kit a lot and allows her plants time to get in more damage it also increases the damage done by Liadry's and gives Zyra bonus damage from the mastery Oppressor. Building Rylai's quite frankly gives you an insane amount of control in team fights that you can use to peel or to make picks. This item is especially effective against melee champions and those with poor mobility like Yasuo or Talon. Whilst the slow is amazing the health and ability power it gives is really good and makes it an item you definitely want to pick up after Haunting Guide or as soon as you can. Your ranged plants are great at applying the slow and can be used to slow an escaping champion who inst in range of any of your abilities.

Void Staff is an item you want to build almost all of the time on Zyra. The way 35% of your damage totally ignores magic resistance makes this item insanely strong when playing against tanks and will just be strong in general as the enemy team will most likely try to build magic resist. Building this item towards the end of your build is advised since that's when people will start to build Magic Resistance against you but I usually like to take it at 4th item pre-emptively when I know people are going to start or have started building resistances even if they haven't built these items yet the Void staff will still be good at negating any base magic resist or magic resist people have got in their runes.

Zhonya's Hourglass is a great item on Zyra in almost any game in particular against AD mid laners. Its most obvious benefit being the active that prevents you from taking any damage or being put into CC for 2.5 seconds. There are a multitude of reasons to buy this item, first being that you can avoid big amounts of damage such as Lux's ultimate Final Spark or Zeds ultimate Death Mark. It becomes especially effective on Zyra when you use your combo and you have plants that are actively attacking your enemies while your safe chilling in the active. Its stats are also great 45 armour helps to reduce so much damage from not just AD mid laners but any source of AD in the late game such as their AD Carry. In aaaddition to that the 10% CDR and Ability Power is very strong and some nice stats to have on Zyra. Despite the the nerfed cool down on the active I don't think this effects how strong it is we can play very safely with Zyras kit when the active is on cooldown.

Morellonomicon is a solid item to pick up on Zyra but not one that I like to build that often. Morellos is good at helping you wave clear and keep up good harass with its CDR and extra mana so is great in farming match ups like Azir or Xerath where you want to stop them from pushing into your tower, the CDR is also quite helpful when it comes to team fights at keeping your combos available more often or just keeping up your plants for sustained damage. It's also an item worth picking up when playing aginst Swain or Dr. Mundo due to the grievous wounds that reduce their healing by 40% after being hit with a spell when their health is below 35%. The main reason I don't like to build Morellonomicon is that it doesn't give you as much as a power spike or burst damage as items like Liandry's do again because of Zyras bad AP ratios, I also don't think the mana is necessary as controlling Zyras mana pool becomes quite easy after some practise and also I don't think its worth giving up pure damage for some cool down reduction.

Luden's Tempest is quite an interesting item to pick on Zyra and I have come to like using in my build as one of my late items (5th/6th). Its bonus movement speed is a great attribute for Zyra to gain and helps you position in team fights much better. Its passive is really nice to have and compliments zyra AoE burst tremendously along with giving her some better wave clear which Zyra lacks a bit. If you fit the bursty Zyra playstyle you might want to try building this for your first item as it can be incredibly strong.

[This work is still in progress and will be released as soon as possible]








[This work is still in progress and will be released as soon as possible]



> Zyras plants can be used to activate Teemo shrooms, Jhin lotuses, nidalee traps and Shaco traps.

> Zyras plants can be used to block skill shots.















Thank you all so much for taking the time to read this guide its been great fun making it!

If you liked the guide or have any questions feel free to leave a comment and up votes are highly appreciated.

By no means am I a Zyra expert and this is my first guide, so if there is anything I have missed or you think could be changed go ahead and leave a comment to correct me because it will benefit not just me but everyone else who reads this guide.

Finally I want to thank:

jhoijhoi's guide to making a guide which really helped me start off and I recommend it to anyone who wants to write one.


"Closer to the flower, closer to the thorns."
― Zyra