I'm tired of keeping zed on permaban when I play mid
Any tips on how to counterplay him as Ahri or Veigar?
What champions should I learn to counterpick 
?
26 Comments
I usually chillax under my tower and turn the lane into a farm lane.
There are 3 possible outcomes for this. In order of what happens for me
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zed tilts off the face of the earth because the lane is actually the definition of cancerous passive tower hugging he attempts to tower dive me. I stun him and kill him under tower.
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He roams. I ping. my lanes back off.
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The zed actually is fine with being in a farm lane. Its a miracle. a zed actually has patience.
Counterplay with Ahri is pretty straightforward, you hold your ult and use it in awkward / unpredictable angles to escape his burst if he ever gets in on you. An early seekers armguard is also perfectly fine, though I would suggest hourglass as a 2nd or 3rd item not to be immediately rushed or anything. (You don't need hourglass at all if you are very experienced with her, though to begin with its a nice safety net.)
Typically he'll win trades due to his mobility and the fact he can continue it for longer than you can, and can buy hexdrinker to make it even more in his favor... So the answer to this is pretty simple - Push and roam, follow his roams -safely- if possible, and scale up. The nice thing about Ahri is she can go even and still scale into the murder machine she becomes.
As for Veigar, become an expert at using his cage defensively. (You can predict where he will be when he ults onto you)
Don't get baited into using your cage early, and if you -do- use the cage and it whiffs, you need to back out immediately because he'll be looking for an all in.
If you just want to counterpick him though I find great success with Malzahar, Akali, and Orianna. In Orianna's case it's more about survival and scaling, but Malz and Akali have considerable kill pressure on him if you play the matchup correctly.
As terrifying as Zed is and as insane as his burst can be, he doesn't provide any sort of utility later on, and his scaling isn't as good as a lot of other picks, so ultimately I think the real 'counterplay' to Zed is to stay alive, and punish his roams with heavy pushing, good communication with your team (lol solo queue pls), and ultimately lock his ass down in teamfights.
Build an anti-ad mid specific rune page. I use flat hp, scaling mr glyphs, armor marks, and AP quints. The armor marks give about 8 armor and with the flat hp I avoid being bursted before 6 by either Zed or Talon.
With Ahri you shouldn't have problems as long as you keep mana for your ult, you can postion far away from his shadows so we won't land his full combo. With Veigar is harder, you have to hold to hold your stun until he ults, then place a wall right behind you. Farm until you can farm him.
His Q does 60% dmg through minions. Stand behind them mainly. If he tries approaching zap him. His level 1 Q you will basically health regen it if thrown through a minion.
He is only threatening when his 22 freagin second cooldown shadow is up. Keep your hp near max so he can't use passive and bully him in between that W cd but keep to using minions as a shield. Of course you're still dodging but if you don't it'll do less dmg. I am aggressive enough I can make him worry I'm about to run at him when he has no shadow, but bait his Q again as I fake leave them minions but then zone/poke him. Or just outright outtrade the shadowless Zed.
I'm good about making him miss some of his shadow combo. I have practice playing vs. him when he was actually good and popular without items tailored for him it used to be his kit in lane that was strong. Not so much anymore.
These are all great answers. What I'm wondering now is which side can I expect zed to appear on when he ults veigar?
From behind?
Thanks.
He always appears on the opposite side he ulted from, you can just time cc and immediately kill him off his ult or disengage.
ahris ok, you are ranged and have lock on w/ult and hard cc
learn malz