I get asked all the time how is X matchup, why is Y matchup hard etc. I wanna make a comprehensive list of ALL the matchups you will face in S11 (bar really niche stuff). Inspired by the post by DaelinZeppeli I wanted to use the tier list graphs to show the matchups of Zilean in Challenger elo.
— BUILDS —
All of these matchups are taking into consideration the fact I run this page below and I am playing against Challengers. If you run a different page, let’s say domination/precision secondary, you will lack the mana and hp sustain to survive some earlymatchups. Example of matchups which become impossible (in my opinion) are Sylas, Lucian, Gangplank, Jax, Camille, Talon, Katarina, Yasuo. Without the correct runes these lanes (and many others) become significantly harder.
Celerity is useless in my opinion. Waterwalking is a very good rune, feel free to take it in easier matchups, but I personally find it greedy. In a lot of these lanes you can barely scrape by as it is. I find I need scorch to be able to push them low enough to be lethal to ganks/dives etc.
I tend to go Everfrost into ONE of Cosmic Drive/Banshees/Zhonyas/Frozen Heart/Morello everygame, then I start buying the other ones. I think Ludens is totally playable but I find it not very good in mega high elo, it’s good in lower elo still.
Frozen Heart is a sexy item, try it vs ad comps. You can even go it first item if you feeling crazy.
Zilean Midlane –
(Toplane Matchups are in the tier list below)
— IMPOSSIBLE —
TL;DR I cry, I int, I wish I dodged.
Trist, Qiyana and Zed all have the same problem. They outroam you, they outlane you and even late into the game are seriously problematic for you. If you lose lane to these guys generally the game is over due to snowballing issues of them ganking bot/no mid pressure. All 3 of these are my bans for midlane and if you win the matchup it’s because you got ganks or some other craziness happened which allowed you to survive early, or get a lead.
Buy loads of armour and hope that their team lacks magic damage.
Ban Tristana, Qiyana or Zed, I have no idea what else you are banning honestly. If you are banning something else, ban Tristana, Qiyana and Zed instead. Ask your team to ban all three and you can lane in peace.
— VERY DIFFICULT —
TL;DR “If I just live to level 6 I might be able to comeback”
Due to the small lane, champions like Irelia, Yasuo and Lucian are much less oppressive than they could be in Toplane. They are still nightmare champions but generally will lack the ability to straight kill you on repeat, more just force you out of lane or outroam you constantly. You actually do great lategame vs Irelia and Lucian, not so much Yasuo. If you manage to live to level 6, you are in a great spot and can impact the map as much as they can, but it’s very difficult to get there.
Ryze, Zoe, Ekko and Viktor all are very difficult to lane against. They generally just outshove/outperform you in lane. They can have kill pressure with junglers and lane prio with superior pushing power. Viktor E spam is very oppressive, Ryze waveclear is hard to play against. All 3 of these champions outscale you in damage massively, which in many games makes the enemy lategame superior.
Fizz and Leblanc have a lot of kill pressure. It’s as simple as that. This is hard because if you die once your lane is done forever. Don’t die and it’s pretty chill, but that is not always easy.
TF just teleports away and you cannot kill him. 2 second stun is pretty rough to play against for Zilean. Not super easy to kill 1v1 meaning his scaling is problematic for you
— COMPLICATED BUT PLAYABLE —
TL;DR Please respect my pings, please understand ‘insert champion’ is roaming bot, please
A lot of the champions here many people might be “What?! How is this not higher”. That is the point in this tier. These champions are super difficult to play against, unless you understand the matchup properly.
Akali, Aurelion Sol, Katarina, Talon and Sylas are all very scary, but generally in a 1v1 scenario pose little threat to Zilean pre 6. With Jungle pressure it can be very hard but in a normal lane you should not die to these guys. Sylas lacks the HP/Sustain/Range to trade properly against you. Katarina and Talon are straight up Melee champions, they will have to engage with Flash, in which case you just Flash away. A Flashless Katarina/Talon are often just instantly dead to a gank. However, if you mess up, it’s gonna be very difficult. Also sometimes they just roam and get a quadrakill botlane and the game is over.
Syndra, Orianna and Azir all fit into the same catagory of long range CC and poke. Not great for Zilean to lane against. You just need to bring your A game here there is no special counter to this. Play the lane well, CS best you can and try to out pressure them. Azir poke is a nightmare for Zilean. Buying Mercs is not terrible vs Syndra, sometimes you just need it.
— PLAYABLE —
TL;DR An actually playable lane for once, awesome
Most of these champions fit into the catagory of it’s a balanced lane, they don’t just automatically win vs you or they lack one thing which puts them over the edge. Ziggs and Xerath have the poke problem, but lack CC. Cassio has the damage and CC but lacks the range. Lee Sin, Viego and Renekton just lack the reach to get to and stick on Zilean due to the short lane of midlane. Only weird ones here are Gragas and Galio. Galio and Gragas are just large and in the way, don’t get CC’d and you good, get CC’d and you die. Yone is a little scary at times, but given proper respect of the champion should be totally playable.
— FAIRLY EASY / USUALLY FREE —
TL;DR Why did they pick this into me, lmao
Kassadin is super easy with a good jungler. With any competent Jungler/Support Kassadin and Kayle should never hit level 6.
You really shouldn’t have issues with these matchups. It doesn’t make them literally auto wins, there is no such thing in League as who knows what happens during the game. But on average, you should be totally happy with these champions and most of them have really limited tools, or no tools at all to deal with your champion. Low ranged like Vlad, Annie and Sett or useless earlygame like Kassadin, Kayle and Veigar. Not much to talk about here, smack them around in lane, gank them to death and roam about!
Zilean Toplane –
(Midlane Matchups are in the tier list above)
— IMPOSSIBLE —
TL;DR Dodge or you are just flipping coins, maybe my botlane gets fed and carries
Irelia, Yasuo both have insane power within a long lane against a ranged champion. You cannot hit your Q on them, you cannot out damage them, you cannot survive a dive vs them. You cannot break a freeze against them. Hopefully you just get a million ganks.
Urgot my highest banned champion this season in toplane. A straight up fully unplayable matchup in all senses of the meaning. He oneshots you level 1 under your tower. You cannot get EXP. If you walk up to the wave, you die. Enjoy being 10 cs and down 2 levels when he has 100 cs. Not even joking it’s that bad. Jayce and Tristana have the same issues. You cannot really walk up to the wave you just die instantly. Trist presses W, Jayce presses Q. Buy a cloth armour and 4 pots and hope they are bad.
Tryndamere is impossible. Unkillable, scales really well, dives you with no issues and generally has kill pressure all the time if he has a freeze. Not much you can do. You are pretty good vs him lategame but you will probably be down 2 items when you get to that point as he straight free farms in this lane.
Wukong idk go next. Nothing to do here at all. Point and click dash, no skillshots to dodge, heavy burst with aoe. Buy a frozen heart first item and still get oneshot no gameplay here.
— VERY DIFFICULT —
TL;DR Ohhhhhhhhhhhh boy what a mess these lanes will be.
You will be ATMOST half their CS (except for Akali, who causes the lane to be really problematic post 6).
Lee Sin, Renekton, Pantheon and Fiora make approaching the wave extremely dangerous and difficult. They lack the range to straight up force you out of lane but it’s gonna be a struggle. Given a gank or two, or a TP bot this matchup can start looking good. Fiora is eventually gonna just ignore you and hit towers unfortunately.
Lucian, Gnar and Quinn are ranged characters with a dash. They are 1% off being in unplayable except for the fact that they struggle to freeze properly against Zilean without dying to ganks. If they spam shove they can die to ganks, if they freeze you can just walk mid. Atleast you have some options here as they cannot really dive you. If you misstep even once you lost 80% of your hp. Given perfect play… it’s still bad and you will be down 100cs at 20 minutes.
— Complicated but Playable —
TL;DR I really hope they don’t start Dorans Shield so I can kill them
Camille is my personal favourite matchup to play against. It’s so exciting, interesting and fun! Very high skilled matchup and you can seriously punish her for mistakes. If she goes Dorans blade you can just kill her with auto attacks. But you MUST respect her E, one bad E on you and you explode. If you fall behind you are kinda screwed though, and she outscales you hardcore on the split. Jax is very similar to Camille in this matchup.
Gangplank keeps shooting you. If you get shot too much you die. If you play around his ranges you don’t die. It’s that simple. Not much else to say here, don’t get shot.
Darius can ghost at you and instantly kill you. You can’t “just E him lol” because he really is just too fast with ghost. He goes first item swiftness boots and staying alive is really hard. Your R does nothing because he insta kills you after. HOWEVER you outscale him so hard if it’s an even lane so generally I am happy with this matchup.
Yorick and Sion hit towers. You need towers.
Rengar hits you. Your team needs you. In all seriousness this matchup is can be incredibly difficult based on a lot of factors. Just rush armour and stay away from bushes. Zilean is a complete nightmare champion for Rengar lategame (if hes not 20/0 and in that case then goodluck using R in 0.01 seconds on someone).
— Playable —
TL;DR Wow, a good matchup in Toplane, unbelievable.
Isn’t Riven impossible? You may be thinking. I think this lane is fine, you can definitely int a Riven but in general if you place safe and respect her CC then you both will farm and ignore each other. You scale pretty well against Riven. Rumble, Viego, Aatrox, Yone and Sylas all fit into the same catagory here. Champions which just do not really excel vs Zilean, but still put up a decent fight. All killable solo, all very gankable, and all pretty good to play against lategame.
The other guys are just annoying. Good gank assist like Maokai or Ornn or scary tower dive potential like Volibear and Malphite. 1v1s against these guys are fine, with Jungle pressure it can be challenging.
Kennen lol
— Fairly Easy / Usually Free —
TL;DR Why would they pick this into Zilean, what are they doing
None of these champions are good at interacting with Zilean, maybe Gragas can be annoying but in general just lacks the range to get to you.
Illaoi, Garen, Vlad, Singed, Mundo Morde, Nocturne, Tahm, Sett, Gwen and Nasus all get the 99% slow treatment. Low range or zero mobility is not good against Zilean at all. Naturally some of them scale well like Gwen and Vlad, but Zilean scales great too, so it’s generally not a huge issue.
CONCLUSION
I love Zilean, if you wanna come watch me play some Zilean, even if it is just out of spite because you hate me and want to see me fail, feel free to check out my Twitch or my Youtube. Hope you guys enjoyed and I will probably transfer a lot of this to Mobafire to keep it relevant. Top/Mid Zilean is legit as hell, stop playing support you NOOBS, jk (not jk ur all noobs, play toplane).
https://www.twitch.tv/thedisconnect
https://www.youtube.com/c/DisconnectLoL
It ‘s time, for the matchups discussion. So while I do have the threats separate, this is a much more in-depth and more accurate explanation of the matchups. Quite a draw of data here sol find free to just read the separate which relates to the champion wan sodium know about ! I get asked all the clock time how is ten match-up, why is Y match-up hard etc. I wan sodium make a comprehensive list of ALL the match-up you will face in S11 ( bar actually recess gorge ). Inspired by the post by DaelinZeppeli I wanted to use the tier list graph to show the matchups of Zilean in Challenger elo. — BUILDS — All of these matchups are taking into consideration the fact I run this page below and I am playing against Challengers. If you run a different page, let ‘s say domination/precision secondary, you will lack the mana and horsepower nourish to survive some earlymatchups. example of matchups which become impossible ( in my opinion ) are Sylas, Lucian, Gangplank, Jax, Camille, Talon, Katarina, Yasuo. Without the decline runes these lanes ( and many others ) become significantly harder.Celerity is useless in my opinion. Waterwalking is a very adept rune, feel dislodge to take it in easier matchups, but I personally find it avid. In a set of these lanes you can barely scrape by as it is. I find I need scorch to be able to push them low adequate to be deadly to ganks/dives etc.I tend to go Everfrost into ONE of Cosmic Drive/Banshees/Zhonyas/Frozen Heart/Morello everygame, then I start buying the other ones. I think Ludens is wholly playable but I find it not identical good in mega senior high school elo, it ‘s good in lower elo still.Frozen Heart is a sexy item, try it v ad comps. You can even go it first item if you feeling crazy.Zilean Midlane – ( Toplane Matchups are in the tier tilt below ) — IMPOSSIBLE — TL ; DR I cry, I int, I wish I dodged.Trist, Qiyana and Zed all have the lapp problem. They outroam you, they outlane you and even recently into the plot are badly baffling for you. If you lose lane to these guys generally the game is over due to snowballing issues of them ganking bot/no mid pressure. All 3 of these are my bans for midlane and if you win the match-up it ‘s because you got ganks or some early craziness happened which allowed you to survive early, or get a lead.Buy loads of armor and hope that their team lacks magic trick damage.Ban Tristana, Qiyana or Zed, I have no mind what else you are banning honestly. If you are banning something else, ban Tristana, Qiyana and Zed rather. Ask your team to ban all three and you can lane in peace. — very DIFFICULT — TL ; DR “ If I just live to level 6 I might be able to comeback ” Due to the belittled lane, champions like Irelia, Yasuo and Lucian are much less oppressive than they could be in Toplane. They are still nightmare champions but by and large will lack the ability to straight kill you on repeat, more barely force out you out of lane or outroam you constantly. You actually do great lategame volt Irelia and Lucian, not indeed much Yasuo. If you manage to live to level 6, you are in a great spot and can impact the map angstrom much as they can, but it ‘s very difficult to get there.Ryze, Zoe, Ekko and Viktor all are very unmanageable to lane against. They broadly barely outshove/outperform you in lane. They can have kill coerce with junglers and lane prio with ranking pushing power. Viktor E spam is very oppressive, Ryze waveclear is difficult to play against. All 3 of these champions outscale you in damage massively, which in many games makes the enemy lategame superior.Fizz and Leblanc have a set of kill pressure. It ‘s angstrom simple as that. This is intemperate because if you die once your lane is done constantly. Do n’t die and it ‘s pretty cool, but that is not always easy.TF precisely teleports away and you can not kill him. 2 second stun is pretty rough to play against for Zilean. not ace easy to kill 1v1 meaning his scaling is debatable for you — COMPLICATED BUT PLAYABLE — TL ; DR Please respect my pings, please understand ‘insert supporter ‘ is roaming bot, pleaseA set of the champions here many people might be “ What ? ! How is this not higher ”. That is the indicate in this tier. These champions are ace difficult to play against, unless you understand the match-up properly.Akali, Aurelion Sol, Katarina, Talon and Sylas are all identical chilling, but by and large in a 1v1 scenario airs little terror to Zilean pre 6. With Jungle press it can be very hard but in a normal lane you should not die to these guys. Sylas lacks the HP/Sustain/Range to trade by rights against you. Katarina and Talon are straight up Melee champions, they will have to engage with Flash, in which case you just Flash aside. A Flashless Katarina/Talon are frequently good instantaneously dead to a gank. however, if you mess up, it ‘s gon sodium be very difficult. besides sometimes they good roll and get a quadrakill botlane and the game is over.Syndra, Orianna and Azir all fit into the lapp catagory of long range CC and sack. not big for Zilean to lane against. You merely need to bring your A game here there is no limited counter to this. Play the lane well, CS best you can and try to out pressure them. Azir dawdler is a nightmare for Zilean. Buying Mercs is not severe five Syndra, sometimes you precisely need it. — PLAYABLE — TL ; DR An actually playable lane for once, awesomeMost of these champions fit into the catagory of it ‘s a poise lane, they do n’t just automatically win v you or they lack one thing which puts them over the edge. Ziggs and Xerath have the punch problem, but lack CC. Cassio has the damage and CC but lacks the stove. Lee Sin, Viego and Renekton equitable lack the reach to get to and stick on Zilean due to the short lane of midlane. only wyrd ones here are Gragas and Galio. Galio and Gragas are just boastfully and in the way, do n’t get CC ‘d and you good, get CC ‘d and you die. Yone is a little chilling at times, but given proper respect of the ace should be wholly playable. — FAIRLY EASY / USUALLY FREE — TL ; DR Why did they pick this into me, lmaoKassadin is super easy with a adept jungler. With any competent Jungler/Support Kassadin and Kayle should never hit level 6.You truly should n’t have issues with these matchups. It does n’t make them literally car wins, there is no such thing in League as who knows what happens during the game. But on average, you should be wholly happy with these champions and most of them have very circumscribed tools, or no tools at all to deal with your champion. depleted ranged like Vlad, Annie and Sett or useless earlygame like Kassadin, Kayle and Veigar. not much to talk about here, smack them around in lane, gank them to death and roll about ! Zilean Toplane – ( Midlane Matchups are in the tier number above ) — IMPOSSIBLE — TL ; DR Dodge or you are equitable flipping coins, possibly my botlane gets fed and carriesIrelia, Yasuo both have harebrained power within a long lane against a range champion. You can not hit your Q on them, you can not out damage them, you can not survive a dive five them. You can not break a freeze against them. Hopefully you good get a million ganks.Urgot my highest banned champion this season in toplane. A straight up fully unplayable match-up in all senses of the meaning. He oneshots you level 1 under your column. You can not get EXP. If you walk up to the wave, you die. Enjoy being 10 coulomb and down 2 levels when he has 100 speed of light. not even joking it ‘s that regretful. Jayce and Tristana have the lapp issues. You can not in truth walk up to the wave you barely die immediately. Trist presses W, Jayce presses Q. Buy a fabric armor and 4 pots and hope they are bad.Tryndamere is impossible. Unkillable, scales very well, dives you with no issues and by and large has kill imperativeness all the prison term if he has a freeze. not much you can do. You are pretty good vanadium him lategame but you will credibly be down 2 items when you get to that orient as he straight loose farms in this lane.Wukong idk go future. nothing to do here at all. Point and snap daunt, no skillshots to dodge, heavy burst with aoe. Buy a freeze heart first detail and hush get oneshot no gameplay here. — very DIFFICULT — TL ; DR Ohhhhhhhhhhhh boy what a mess these lanes will be.You will be ATMOST half their CS ( except for Akali, who causes the lane to be actually baffling post 6 ) .Lee Sin, Renekton, Pantheon and Fiora make approaching the wave highly dangerous and difficult. They lack the range to straight up wedge you out of lane but it ‘s gon sodium be a fight. Given a gank or two, or a TP bot this match-up can start looking good. Fiora is finally gon na good ignore you and hit towers unfortunately.Lucian, Gnar and Quinn are ranged characters with a smash. They are 1 % off being in unplayable except for the fact that they struggle to freeze properly against Zilean without dying to ganks. If they spam shove they can die to ganks, if they freeze you can just walk mid. Atleast you have some options here as they can not actually dive you. If you misstep even once you lost 80 % of your horsepower. Given arrant play … it ‘s however badly and you will be down 100cs at 20 minutes. — Complicated but Playable — TL ; DR I in truth hope they do n’t start Dorans Shield so I can kill themCamille is my personal favorite match-up to play against. It ‘s then stimulate, matter to and fun ! identical senior high school skilled match-up and you can seriously punish her for mistakes. If she goes Dorans blade you can just kill her with car attacks. But you MUST respect her E, one bad e on you and you explode. If you fall behind you are rather screwed though, and she outscales you hardcore on the split. Jax is very similar to Camille in this matchup.Gangplank keeps shooting you. If you get shot excessively much you die. If you play around his ranges you do n’t die. It ‘s that simple. not a lot else to say here, do n’t get shot.Darius can ghost at you and immediately kill you. You ca n’t “ barely E him lol ” because he very is just besides fast with ghost. He goes first token speed boots and staying alive is truly hard. Your roentgen does nothing because he insta kills you after. HOWEVER you outscale him indeed hard if it ‘s an even lane so generally I am happy with this matchup.Yorick and Sion hit towers. You need towers.Rengar hits you. Your team needs you. In all seriousness this match-up is can be incredibly difficult based on a batch of factors. Just rush armor and stay off from bushes. Zilean is a arrant nightmare champion for Rengar lategame ( if hes not 20/0 and in that lawsuit then goodluck using R in 0.01 seconds on person ). — playable — TL ; DR Wow, a commodity match-up in Toplane, unbelievable.Is n’t Riven impossible ? You may be thinking. I think this lane is fine, you can decidedly int a Riven but in general if you place safe and respect her CC then you both will farm and ignore each other. You scale pretty well against Riven. Rumble, Viego, Aatrox, Yone and Sylas all fit into the lapp catagory here. Champions which just do not very excel v Zilean, but even put up a decent contend. All killable solo, all identical gankable, and all reasonably beneficial to play against lategame.The other guys are equitable annoying. adept gank help like Maokai or Ornn or chilling column dive electric potential like Volibear and Malphite. 1v1s against these guys are fine, with Jungle pressure it can be challenging.Kennen lol — Fairly Easy / Usually Free — TL ; DR Why would they pick this into Zilean, what are they doingNone of these champions are full at interacting with Zilean, possibly Gragas can be annoying but in general just lacks the rate to get to you.Illaoi, Garen, Vlad, Singed, Mundo Morde, Nocturne, Tahm, Sett, Gwen and Nasus all get the 99 % dense treatment. broken rate or zero mobility is not dependable against Zilean at all. naturally some of them scale well like Gwen and Vlad, but Zilean scales great excessively, so it ‘s generally not a huge issue.CONCLUSIONI love Zilean, if you wan sodium come watch me play some Zilean, even if it is just out of hurt because you hate me and want to see me fail, feel free to check out my flip or my Youtube. Hope you guys enjoyed and I will credibly transfer a lot of this to Mobafire to keep it relevant. Top/Mid Zilean is legit as hell, stop playing corroborate you NOOBS, jk ( not jk ur all noobs, play toplane ).
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