What makes assassins overbearing in low elo (explained)

Over my time on boards I've seen an extreme hatred for assassins, to the point where if I said right now, "Fizz and Zed suck" people would give me a perplexed look and probably downvote me. But in most cases, that's probably true.

I get it, Talon got a Duskblade and you felt like there wasn't much you could do. That's frustrating, I understand. But if you look at the power picks for every lane, the data just doesn't add up.

The power picks for high elo solo queue (mid lane) are: (and other supports besides Lulu but I don't know what supports all function at an S tier with gold funneling)

That's 4 mages, 1 assassin, 1 support. At the best level, a mage is going to outperform an assassin. Even at a Diamond level, the difference can be felt. The reasons can pretty easily be boiled down to macro and lane control.

Mages have far superior lane control. Lane control is super important because how you handle the lane determines if it goes up to their tower, back to yours, or meets in the middle. By controlling how the lane pushes, you can establish priority, freeze so their assassin cannot engage you, set up for ganks, punish the opponent for roaming, etc. Assassins thrive on punishing mistakes. With the changes to mana, low elos not knowing how to properly manage waves to the desired effect, and generally not respecting the opponent's items compared to yours (you can't all in the get with Hexdrinker if you have Lost Chapter), mistakes abound and they're very easy to punish. Also, in low elo the strategy is almost always step 1; shove as hard as you can. Step 2; don't lose any cs while shoving. This makes them very vulnerable targets to assassin players because now they don't have the mana reserves to bully as hard as they used to (LC costing 1300 gold, Morello not giving mana restore passive), and Assassins generally have direct tools to deal with them. Talon is strong at the moment because he has enough shoving power as well as trading power to establish priority so that he can do what he does best (roam).

Until Diamond 3, macro is next to nonexistent. I'm sorry if this hurts someone's feelings but I climb to Diamond on a new account every season and the cs, mechanics, and aggression just get more refined with each patch but there's never any nuance. I could (and did) play AP Ezreal multiple times and my simple strategy to snowball was get a few cheeky W's off on my opponent and once they played back and I had control of the lane, I'd camp my opposing jungler's big buffs, come in for an R steal -> EQW auto ignite. It's the same with assassins. You learn one good macro trick and assassins overtake mages by a mile. But the more macro you learn the more mages become a better option.

Here's what you can do as a mage to deal with assassins.

Trading Patterns - Skill for skill you probably cannot trade with an assassin for most of the game. In the late-game, your options are generally to burst or bait them, and early you need to harass them before they can engage you. For example, I'm playing against Fizz as Twisted Fate. At level 1, to push the wave and get priority and help my jungler before Fizz's level 3 spike, I'm going to cycle cards and autoattack Fizz while cycling cards. If Fizz poles and dodges my W, he can come in for an E auto trade that makes me hesitant to get close to the wave, but by holding my trading tool, and then backing off for 6 seconds when it's used means I can get free autos on him before he can respond. Holding trading tools, forcing them to engage in minions, or punishing their CDs is a great way to make good trades.

Spacing - Okay so that assassin got to his powerspike level. What next? Set up the lane so that you don't go in his "threat range" to cs. We'll look at Fizz again. Fizz's threat range is his Q range or his E range. Remember if he maxes E, he has to land it on you to trade positively. By staying out of that range, he's forced to focus on the wave. If his kit is down, his threat range is drastically reduced for ~10 seconds early. Times you can get in his threat range are when you're protected by your tower, when you're baiting for a jungler (try not to get 100-0'd with this one), and when he doesn't have important CDs up.

Roaming/Lane Pressure - Fizz hit 6 now, can waveclear at a decent level, and can roam on your team. What do you do now? The best thing to do is go from keeping the wave near my tower after 3 and before 6 to shoving a wave or two and getting vision control. having a pink ward in your jungle next to dragon is a good option because you're able to easily defend it if you and your jungler want to collapse. Either way, it's a better option than putting it in the river, where Fizz is simply stronger than you. That's where you place your trinket ward. If you see Fizz with this ward, you're able to position yourself to gank first (assuming you're TF) or run down the safe way (behind dragon where you've got that pink ward) and help fight the 3v3. If you know where he is but can't respond, you can hard shove and force him to get kills off this roam or fall behind.

Defensive Itemization - Maybe Fizz got a double kill bot, maybe you lost lane. It's important to spec into defense if the matchup is just bad for you, and especially important if the opponent has a gold lead. Post-6 assassins have very strong gank assist so if you're not shoving you're very likely to eat shit because their jungler ganked. Odds are your kit innately outscales theirs in fights so it's okay to buy an item or two that help you survive their burst. 3 of the 4 top tier mages like being tanky and in the middle of fights so it's not a problem. 1 will just put you to sleep and then burst you down first because #gooddesign. Lulu has enough tools in her kit to defend everyone.

TL;DR Levels 1, 2, and/or 3 (depending on the assassin. Respect Kat and Talon's level 2, jump Fizz till 3) hold your trading tools until they commit and overstep, then trade relentlessly. Levels 2 or 3 or 4 to 5 get the wave near your tower and poke if they try step up. 6 onward shove and get vision for your team. Assassins are frustrating in low elo but these are ways to beat them and not make bad mistakes. They punish mistakes and if you don't know where you made mistakes Zed will always feel overbearing. That being said if Riot keeps nerfing mages and/or buffing assassins there will finally be a tipping point where assassins are blatantly broken and overpower champions on brute strength but we're not there quite yet.