[Gold 1] - Tips & Tricks to playing with or against Malzahar!

http://i.imgur.com/nZfvirC.png

Hello summoners, my name is Augey. I'm currently Gold 1 with over 100+ games on Malzahar with a 60% win rate on him. I will hopefully be able to teach you what you should and shouldn't do when you play with or against him. First off lets go over some of his pros and cons, then we can check out his skills and what they do, then finally going into playing with or against him during the various phases in the game.

Pros:

• Can 1v1 anyone easily after 6
• Tank Buster
• Great zoning potential
• Can stop sieges pretty easily

Cons

• Very immobile
• Can be mana hungry if not played properly
• Easily countered by Quick Silver Sash
• His ultimate can get you killed if you have bad positioning.

http://ddragon.leagueoflegends.com/cdn/5.7.2/img/passive/AlZahar_SummonVoidling.png Passive: Summon Voidling

• After casting 4 spells, Malzahar summons an uncontrollable Voidling to engage enemy units for 21 seconds. Voidlings have 200 + 50 x lvl Health and 20 + 5 x lvl Attack Damage.

• Voidlings Grow after 7 seconds (+50% Attack Damage/Armor), and Frenzy after 14 seconds (+100% Attack Speed).

http://ddragon.leagueoflegends.com/cdn/5.7.2/img/spell/AlZaharCalloftheVoid.png Q: Call of the Void

• Malzahar opens up two portals to the Void. After a short delay, they fire projectiles that deal Magic Damage and silence enemy champions. Malzahar opens two portals to the Void. After a short delay, they fire projectiles that deal 80/135/190/245/300 (+80% Ability Power) Magic Damage and silence champions for 1.4/1.8/2.2/2.6/3 seconds.

http://ddragon.leagueoflegends.com/cdn/5.7.2/img/spell/AlZaharNullZone.png W: Null Zone

• Malzahar creates a zone of negative energy which damages enemies that stand in it. Malzahar creates a zone of negative energy for 5 seconds. The zone damages nearby enemies for 4/5/6/7/8% (+[1% Ability Power]%) of their max Health each second (damage to monsters is capped at 120 damage per second).

http://ddragon.leagueoflegends.com/cdn/5.7.2/img/spell/AlZaharMaleficVisions.png E: Malefic Visions

• Malzahar infects his target's mind with cruel visions of their demise, dealing damage each second. If the target dies while afflicted by the visions, they pass on to a nearby enemy unit and Malzahar gains Mana. Malzahar's Voidlings are attracted to affected units. Malzahar infects his target's mind, dealing 80/140/200/260/320 (+80% Ability Power) Magic Damage over 4 seconds.If the target dies during this time, the visions pass to a nearby enemy and Malzahar gains 10/14/18/22/26 Mana.Malzahar's Voidlings are attracted to affected units.

http://ddragon.leagueoflegends.com/cdn/5.7.2/img/spell/AlZaharNetherGrasp.png R: Nether Grasp

• Malzahar channels the essence of the Void to suppress an enemy champion and deal damage each second. Malzahar channels the essence of the Void to suppress target champion, dealing 250/400/550 (+130% Ability Power) Magic Damage over 2.5 seconds.

Playing with Malzahar See his skills, they look pretty op right! If used correctly Malzahar is one crazy mofo. When playing Malzahar your ideal combo is Q>W>E>R making sure to land both the Q as well as positioning the W under the enemy. Why Q>W>E>R? Well I'll tell you why. Q will Silence them preventing them from immediately running or fighting. W when placed under the enemy does a massive amount of Health % damage for quick health melting. E deals tons of damage over time, while attracting your voidlings from your passive to prioritize that target. Finally your R locks them down keeping them close to you.

• Laning Phase: Pretty much like every other champion, you are going to want to farm, luckily for you Malzahar is one of the safest farmers in the game thanks to his E. Not only does it transfer to another target after the original one dies, but it gives you mana back every time it transfers too. This skill coupled with a Doran's Ring helps can really help you keep your mana up.

• ** Mid Game:** If you don't already have the enemy's tower destroyed you are behind. Unless you lost your tower first, theirs should already be destroyed by now. Malzahar pushes hard, so if their tower is destroyed just push your lane, and then go roam and help out your team.

• Late Game: When you hit late game the first thing you want to do is stick to your team. Unless you are super ahead be very cautious roaming by yourself. Yes you can solo anyone on their team the majority of the time, but once it becomes 2v1 you are less likely to win that fight. Even if your team doesn't want to group stick to your ADC, the support should always be with them when they aren't warding. Bam there you go a group of 3, and if your team isn't blind, or a top laner with teleport split pushing, they should be join you shortly.

Playing against Malzahar Depending on who you play, laning against Malzahar will either be easy, or dear god my team is raging at me because I fed Malzahar. The key to laning against Malzahar is to either pick someone that safely pushes faster than him, sustains well in lane, or can poke him from far away. Try staying away from him unless his skills are down or you have someone to back you up. Now if the person backing you up has no hard cc there is chance of you getting killed anyway if you don't kill him fast enough. One last thing, if you are a carry and need to live in team fights, get a Quicksilver Sash. This item will save your butt if Malzahar somehow gets close enough to ult you.

• Laning Phase: When playing against Malzahar in the laning phase he can be very easy to gank if he pushes out too far. Hopefully your jungler takes notice and ganks when he over extends, if not just sit under tower and farm. Its better to do that than possibly giving him kills and letting him snowball. Also for the love of all things holy, do not, I repeat, do not stand near minions that have his E on them. When they die, they will transfer to you if you are close enough, and after a couple of times you will be pretty low health if you have no pots, or sustain. This can cause you to become very behind from always having to go back to base sooner than you want just to heal. This will also enable Malzahar to push your tower, taking it down early and relieving pressure for his team mid lane. As i stated above, safely pushing faster than him, out sustaining him, or poking him from far way, along with ganks is crucial to not falling behind during the laning phase.

• ** Mid Game:** If your tower is still up, even if you are behind, you did good. Now try and destroy his tower if you haven't already and keep your lane pushed while roaming. If your tower is down, you need to ward up and keep your lane pushed past your first tower. If you don't do that, it will allow Malzahar to roam screwing up the other lanes and making it harder for your jungler.

• Late Game: During this phase you have to group and choose your battles wisely. You shouldn't fight in the jungle where he can hit the majority, or your whole team with his Q and W. The exception to that is if you have more AoE on your team than the enemy does. You do not want to engage Malzahar by yourself late game, unless you have hard cc or a way to prevent him from using his combo on your properly. Always try to keep him hard cc'd in team fights. If you see him ulting someone, stop him as soon as possible. Without his ult and if he used his combo he will be a sitting duck until his skills come off cooldown. If you can kill him first, hard cc him, or keep him from your carries, you should be fine. As long as you stay grouped, keep wards up, and playing smart you should win against a Malzahar with what I have told you. That is unless Malzahar isn't the fed one on their team that is carrying them.

Hopefully this helped you understand playing with or against Malzahar. I hope I didn't miss much, and if you have any questions about anything I didn't write about, or include in this, feel free to ask me below. Now go off with your new found knowledge, if you didn't already know this stuff, and kick butt with Malzahar, or kick Malzahar's butt.