I've been having a lot of sucess as Malzahar
I wouldn't be surprised if he was considered one of the very few mages not very affected by the AP item nerfs. I am enjoying playing him for a few reasons:
-
Despite the fact that he wastes a lot of mana, his E can recover mana back. With proper use, you will not go OOM during early lane phase.
-
Deathfire Touch. This mastery is just fantastic on him.
-
He doesn't need to use Zhonya that bad. Unless against Zed, but Zed has been heavily nerfed during this patch.
-
His base damages and scalings are so high that I can build AP items with utility and magic penetration. I don't build Rabadon until later, now that it is expensive. My build generally is:
- You can also use 
instead of Rod of Ages for two reasons: 1 - 
2 - ir provides CDR. -
His synergy with Rylai is insane. WIth this and movement speed quintessences, you can kite anyone, mainly using his E and his W.
However, there is something that hurt Malzahar a lot: 
buffs.
Still, I think that Malzahar is one of the few playable mages now, provided that you are experienced with him.
