Zilean Mid Counter Ideas

I've been building lists for counters on most champions I play a lot. For Zilean, there are actually a lot of lane counters but he isn't the kind of champion that really wins many lanes anyway. He is picked for what he brings to a team comp. and his excellent teamfighting.

Still, I've struggled the most with these so far:

TF (needs Cleanse on Zilean)

• he pushes very well and until Zilean is level 5 to be able to double bomb casters, farming under turret is extremely hard
• can stun me before I can pop ult. (a clever TF can stun me right before someone on my team is about to die)
• makes more map plays than I can and I can't get there in time to save targets he goes for
• I can't exploit his weak early laning

Diana

• her shields negates most of my poke in lane and she also waveclears well with it
• can't exploit her weak early laning and she scales quite well
• the biggest issue is she can burst very fast and with a low CD on her ult. - she can force me to ult. myself only to have her ult. back up before I can defend myself (often killing me with her ult. combo even if she doesn't land Q first)

GP

• he heals my poke and eats oranges if stunned (I think this ignores the damage on my ticking bomb too)
• has excellent waveclear and I can't punish him early
• fantastic scaling I can't punish
• his Q poke is hard to avoid and his barrels are deadly

LB ^^^it's notable that her waveclear isn't great and she's only a counter if her mobility is used to its full extent

• can poke me down and also burst me hard (baiting out my ult. and then comboing me again soon after)
• very mobile and can dodge bombs easily while damaging me without retaliation
• can make better roams than I can
• sometimes pops from the side and kills off stragglers before I can even reach them to ult. and generally tends to lead to spread out fights where it's harder to double bomb or save people Syndra
• I only faced this once and it was a Diamond Syndra so I'm not sure whether it's the champion being a counter or him being so much better. I also think Cleanse was much better than taking TP like I did.
• her lane poke and damage is very high and if she stuns me I'm dead sometimes before even having the option to ult. ^^^if I did save myself with the ult., her ult. CD is lower than mine and I can still die

There are a number of other annoying matchups such as Xerath due to his waveclear and range but at least you can dodge his skills easily with E. Anivia was also quite frustrating due to her waveclear and insane damage if she lands the stun. However, the general trend is clear. Champions who are weak early but scale very well, have mobilty to dodge bombs and have very fast low CD burst tend to pose the most problems. For example, Zed, while not easy is certainly easy to anticipate. There won't be situations where you're CCd and then just insta-die before ulting like with Syndra. Back when AP Kog was viable as a poke champion, he would destroy ZIlean.

Anyway, with that out of the way, I'm theorycrafting some new counters. One of them is Sivir but I've never played the matchup. Here's the idea though:

• she can spellshield your bombs and always avoid the double stun, removing much of Zilean's surprise burst
• because the bombs are skillshots with a timer, she can always use the shield for mana regain while you're trying to push
• she can mess up your waveclear by picking up the bombs you're trying to waveclear with and just running away while using her spellshield to gain mana and block the damage
• she has very strong waveclear with her Q and W, more than enough to push ZiIean under turret pre level 5 when he can double bomb casters for waveclear
• as an ADC, she scales pretty well and also brings utility to the team - although they probably need a magic damage jungler or top such as Nidalee and Malphite
• her damage is bursty but also sustained. Unlike vs something like Zed where he lacks kill pressure without his ult., Sivir can continue to be a threat.
• Zilean wants to group and map plays much more than he wants to "outplay" someone mid. Sivir has extremely good turret taking ability and she can escape with R + spellshield +her passive when collapsed so it kind of forces you to lane longer.