Malzahar thoughts

For the most part I like many of the changes and he seems to have retained much of his identity. With that in mind there are two factors that hurt his viability....particularly as a mid lane mage.

First is his W; Are the Voidlings fast enough to reach their target in a reasonable amount of time and still do damage? If his kit has been neutered with much of his strength imbued in the Voidlings they need to be able to reach the target consistently for Malzahar to retain any viability. Opponents can kill the Voidling. or kite it out, and then you are stuck with very little damage until W is available again.

Second is his R; It doesn't really have the impact an ultimate should, especially in comparison to the current Live version. I think you need to either focus it on being an Aoe or single target but trying to do both isn't going to achieve anything. If you really want to incorporate his old W into his ult how about the following? Have it do single target damage (Not necessarily as much as the current version but better than the PBE one) for the duration and if the target dies you get a pool in that location (Not necessarily as effective as the current W or PBE R but significant enough people don't want to stand in it). This way it encourages your team to focus down the target you have Ulted and gives you zone control if the target dies (Maybe if the target dies within a certain duration so even if they QSS out or the channel gets interrupted it can still resolve?).