How to beat Zed

Seeing a lot of QQ threads about Zed lately. That's silly. Wanted to share some knowledge regarding how to play against him since he's a champion with specific strengths and weaknesses like any other champ in the game. Here's a quick knowledge dump for beating him:

Summoner School Advice 1 Summoner School Advice 2 Champion Select How Faker Does It

My thoughts:

1. Don't get wrecked in champion select. Certain champs are naturally good and bad against Zed due to how their kits work. Champs like do well since they have abilities that allow them to become immune to Zed's all in potential. Champs with sustain like will never get low enough to worry about an all in (if they play correctly). Champs with suppression or crowd control abilities like can negate Zed's combo with their cc and not take his full damage. Even can work since his E lets him dodge autos + stun Zed and his ult gives extra resistances. Pick a champ with a kit that can break up Zed's combo and mitigate his damage.

2. Take the right summoners. You're probably not going to kill a Zed early in lane. His laning phase is pretty safe and he probably has more damage than your champ. Don't take . You want to reduce his damage when he tries to all in, or to pop right before his ult goes off or sustain through the last ticks of his . You don't bring a knife to the gun show. Make sure you have the right summoners for your champ.

3. Dodge his skillshots. This seems obvious, but if you don't get hit by his skillshots, then you won't take damage. Don't stand on top of his shadows and give him free harass. Stand in your minions so that he shoves the lane towards your tower when he tries to hit you (Makes your jungler's life WAY easier gankwise). Don't even give him the opportunity to hit you. If you go even in lane with a Zed (give him no kills), he has an extremely hard time since he won't have extra kill gold once team fighting starts. Play safe during lane and he won't have 5 kills worth of gold to murder the rest of your team with. If he's freezing the lane at his tower (Why'd you let him do that? Don't let him do that!), then roam and snowball another lane. Get his team raging at him so he's too busy typing apologies instead of focusing on a mechanically difficult champion (which makes him very easy to gank by the way, most Zed's will tunnel and have terrible map awareness when fighting). Play safe in lane, dodge his damage, bide your time until mid-late game when your team can dump on Zed together.

4. Itemize Correctly. Zed is an AD champion. He scales with AD. He's going to build AD as well as items like and that will amplify his ult's damage. You're going to want some armor. Start . Build an early . Grab a and use the active right before his ult pops. Building a is completely fine if it means you survive his burst and don't die instantly in a fight. Your team can help too! When I play support, I'm always ready with an or active or active or active to help out whoever he's focusing in team fights. If he's split pushing, have your tank go stop him. You know, the one that built to shut him down. Don't send your squishy adc to hold the lane (unless their is up and they're feeling cocky). Even items like (dat shield) can mitigate at least one of his abilities and help a little.

**EDIT: **AD champs can build into since the active removes debuffs like Zed's Death Mark.

5. Zed hates teamwork. Use your team to stop him. Zed loves 1v1s. You know what he hates? 1v5s. When he jumps in on your poor adc or fragile mid laner, STOP HIM. I main tanky junglers and supports with a lot of cc. I don't lose very often to Zed in solo queue (Hi, Diamond Sejuani main here). I don't lose because I know that if I can land my CC and peel whenever a jumps on my carry, that I will win the fight. If you are a carry, stand next to your tankline. Ask them to peel for you. If you are a tank, stand next to your carries. If Zed doesn't get a window to jump on them, you've done your job and won the fight. Crowd Control Zed when he jumps on your carries so he doesn't get his full combo and full damage off. He's not as scary without his ult up.

So there you go. A Diamond player's $0.02 on how to beat Zed combined with links to Faker strategies and other smart players telling you how to beat him. Now go wreck some mains!