It is not healthy design to have such linear counterplays. Certain abilities shouldn't have 0 counterplay without building certain items, and those abilities shouldn't become useless simply because of the purchase of an item.
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Yeah like how counterplay to an AD champion buying 
is me hanging myself. Balance is really fucked up hard this season both ways...
And also, not everything needs counterplay.
Counterplay to a champions shouldn't only.be "buy X item"
"don't see any problem"
What if I'm at full build and still can't counter the other guy?
Why play champions who are countered with items, when you can play 
and not be countered by anything.
Unless its zed, hes just too good with 
not existing.
: 
: 
Nothing: Knockups
I agree with this, and this I think is also the problem with both items with exceptionally powerful actives, and itemization as a whole. Effects like CC cleansing, self-stasis or a self-resurrect may be healthy on certain champions, or against other champions, but when they're on items available to everyone (namely QSS, Zhonya's and GA), they get to hard-counter a whole bunch of mechanics, and thereby invalidate certain kits. This, in turn, pushes those kits to be balanced around getting hard-countered, which makes them oppressive and forces whoever's playing against them to rush their counter-item. I think part of the solution might involve taking a look at older items and evaluating their place in the game (Zhonya's is probably still relevant, even if it does hard-counter champions like Zed, but QSS is really outdated). In the case of champions like Malzahar, though, the kits themselves also need reworks, as they lack innate counterplay, and with him in particular his update kind of made him even worse in this respect.
Buy a bramble vest and he is doomed.
I hope his VGU is coming really soon.
Typically there's more ability to play around a champ or spell than JUST responding with an item, but sometimes those things are champion-specific or positioning. And no one really seems to like 'don't stand in range of X' as a form of counterplay. I do agree with you, though, that League really doesn't have any place for binary counters.
Is this topic about Malz, or just binary item counters in general?
lowkey zed qq thread?
