Malzahar is a bad champion

I want to say way worse than this because playing against this champion has to be worse than Zoe or Yasuo.

Want to get near him to poke? His spell shield will block your cc and even if you want to get rid of his shield, Point and click overtime damage harass in addition to Aery + manaflow band so he can do it again very soon.

You want to engage? Unless you got your jungler is in your back pocket, he'll just press R and his voidlings will eat also eat you alive. Aery just adds icing to the cake.

Malz's only really counter play is a gank or him playing badly (and his kit doesn't leave much room to do this). I don't know if its just Manaflow band but I feel like that's thing to adjust before taking a look at this champion.