Can we talk about Malzahar yet?

Edit: Please read the post before commenting...

Hi All,

So a couple of months ago there was a LOT of talk on the boards about my main Malzahar. There were posts with Polls, posts with rework ideas, posts requesting reverts, and even one poor guy who came back to the game after 2 years and was in shock lol.

Anywho the whole thing went on for a few weeks, with multiple people questioning potential changes in Dev corner to no avail. In fact over this period the only thing riot actually did say was by maple saying "AD malzahar is a possibility in the next few months."

Well here we are after mana changes, jungle changes and adc changes, with support and fighter changes just around the corner. The meta has gone from about 15-20 champions being played midlane regularly to just 8-9 holding 80% of the total pickrate, and Malzahar has dropped to below 2% pick rate on champion.gg as i write this post. Even as a Malzahar main I've seen my winrate from from 62% to 53% in the last few months to the point I've just stopped playing ranked, and I know I'm not the only one (This is a similar story for a lot of Mage mains).

Over this time we've had a guy posting in dev corner looking for some response from Meddler, and hes been ignored. That's 2 months, with 3 posts ish a week from meddler, every time he's given no response.

So I'd like to put forward the following for anyone that does OR doesn't play malz, but doesn't like the current "hyper carry" midlane meta, to consider. I'm ready to be downvoted for saying this, but the current meta in midlane is due to Malz and his type needing work. I know, sounds pretty narrow minded yeah? But think about it for a second.

Who was the counter for midlane Yasuo last season? Who was the counter for Zed? Who countered LB pre and post rework? Who countered Zoe when she came out? Who countered Kat? Who countered Ahri?

Malzahar was the "go to" counter for every hypermobile hypercarry in the game (minus Fizz because of his ult >.<). So who countered Malz? Most mages actually, especially "poke" mages like Xereth, Vel'koz, Syndra (god I hated them). So who countered them? Control/Spam Mages like Anivia, Taliyah, Cassiopia.

Also remember Galio and Kassadin? These two were AP champions designed to counter AP champions. Kassadin has dropped to a 1.3% playrate, to a 0.8% playrate.

Now I'm not saying "Buff Malz and all will be well", but when you take away the main counters to an entire champion group, all of which snowball, leaving them only to counter each other, then naturally the will rise to dominate, and the counters of the counter, and their counters and so on will barely get played.

So how could we "fix" malzahar? Well his W would need to revert/change. This "spam voidlings" thing removed all the skill from timing this ability right, and effectively nerfed his burst. This for me and MOST Malz mains is his biggest problem and the first thing to be changed.

His passive is both OP to some and underwhelming to others. It can be broken with an AA and doesn't actually block all the damage (so can't be used with banshees). However it does stop the CC effects of any spell, and is on a relatively good CD. Far better to remove this and give him a passive that is less pointless/safe. I like the idea of an Kennen/annie style stun.

His ult. Oh god his ult... That suppression that costs him so much, yet is hated by his enemies almost as much as by those that main him. Kill it, give him old Null Zone with a grounding effect and a larger/growing area to lock down those he is meant to counter. With the passive being a stun he doesn't really need the suppression anyway, and he'll be able to move after he casts it.

All of this will allow his other abilities to have their effects/damage/duration changed back again (moderately of course, 2 second q silence was a little silly xD).

Final thoughts. Malzahar isn't the ONLY one. Lissandra is another that used to work this way, and would need little to no effort to fix. And there are no doubt a few more. But in reality riot need to aim at bringing champions like these back into the meta as counters, not as wave clearing monkey's with a flash ult that costs people 1300 gold to counter. This is the fastest, easiest and most productive way they can balance the midlane pool.

So yeah, I think it's time to start talking about him again. Constructive comments welcome, trolls never really are but when you build a bridge they always come. Also think about how to get a response from Riot.

Lord Loki