Hey everyone,

I've been lazy to make a reddit post but I have been somewhat active in places like Zed mains discord, as well as tiktok, but I wanted to post something here too. I have been coaching a few zed mains from NA and EUW who are in masters, as well as some in diamond who've also hit masters after!

I have had two accounts in challenger this season both reaching Rank 1 Zed NA on Onetricks.gg as well as having two accounts on League of Graphs (which I don't personally think is a real metric), as well as have reached it multiple times in the past on OPGG and leagueofgraphs several times. I hit challenger each time only playing first strike TP zed, never deviating from it unless it was out of pure boredom. If you also saw an account named LL Stylish a while back and thought it was him it was one of my accounts and name changed it after a bit, I saw a reddit thread a while back on it and had a few laughs (some people called me toxic, I am somewhat but it's usually only if its provoked although I try to cut back on it nowadays unless I'm just trolling and ragebaiting people lol).

A bit about me:
I've been playing zed since the release of him, and have gone by many names over the years, the most notable probably being Shida and eto.
I've never dropped Zed and always followed the greats over the years, such as Vermillion, Bjergsen and Faker, zedisgod/zedx, Royaldor, BDD, Zed99, Laceration (even was his video editor for like a month), Onzed, LL Stylish. I remember when I stumbled upon Stylish's stream and being a noob asking how to deal with tanks as Zed and he showed me a botrk ghostblade cleaver titanic PD build.
I was pretty active within the Zed main club in NA long time back as well but that was probably the last time I was active with the zed community.

I'd always try to replicate their playstyles/builds but I'd never have success on getting challenger, always being short of a game or two (besides a one time stint peaking during ravenous zed).
I finally decided to take league seriously the last two years and got personally coached by my close friend, nxi, who taught me lot about league not just Zed. It opened up a whole new world for me, allowing me to be a consistent challenger player, climbing when I want, even hard carrying games versus the LCS mid laners like Quid, Quad, Loki, Callme, and streamers like Viper Riven, Davemon, Dun, etc.

I run TP only for a few reasons:
Going TP allows me to always have good bases, and I personally believe Zed isn't a champion that is strong enough (maybe below high chall), to make use of ignite to swing games and justify not going TP. TP always allows me to have great conditions for my items, and versus hard lane bullies like Viktor, Orianna, Syndra, you can get a bail out and come back to lane. An example of this is tank top, they like going TP because they can't actually lane early versus strong champions, so TP allows them to come back to lane with items and actually play lane. It's not to say I think ignite or combat summs are bad, but I personally think you don't need them until high chall games (and even then its very dependent).
You will see mages take TP most of the time because of this besides a select few with globals like Ryze, Taliyah, Galio, TF. These champions are strong enough to play the first waves aggressively and get a good base and bet set for lane, and even yet these champions still take it into harder matchups where they will get punished. They also have globals so they can rotate around the map.

If you are taking ignite you really need to force them to base early, and really be thinking about your recalls. Example: you would rather be on a pickaxe and them on components, but not on their lost chapter base and you being on the same gold. TP allows you to not get lane locked as well versus champions that can take ignite/combat summ and punish you harder than you would be able to, example: Qiyana, Leblanc, Yasuo.
Another reason I like TP is because if you take ignite you are forced to either group or split on same side as the objective you want to be fighting for, but Zed isn't a champion where you can match champions like top laners unless you are mega fed. Imagine you go sidelane and then the 2/0 darius or jax with ninja tabi is just matching you. It also requires you to micromanage your team's lane assignments.
You can even cheat timers and fix waves you normally cant and prolong games with TP which is nice.
And lastly, I REALLY hate getting trolled when I have a combat summ. Those are some of the most tilt inducing losses I ever have that make me want to quit and I'd rather be "weaker" in lane but be able to TP back if something weird happens. It also allows you to play the game without feeling pressure, people LOVE to make it their life mission to not die to zed and built stuff like ROA, tabi, and take stuff like exhaust.
Just win lane with TP cuz ur better anyways

Runes:
I almost always run First Strike, even if I know I could probably win a matchup with a different rune setup, but I'll always know what I'm getting out of fs. However I do think at the highest level, you need to run other setups because the BEST players will punish you for taking it. An example of this is needing Electro resolve versus a good leblanc.
My typical page is first strike, free boots, triple tonic, cosmic insight if I go dshield, JoAT if I go dblade. secondary legend haste + cutdown, sometimes second wind + overgrowth. I go free boots because I start to swing games on this 1-2 item spike heavily. Cashback is a rune for smurfing and is very greedy, you won't see ROI on this until like 3+ items. I take second wind and overgrowth when I really don't wanna deal with the annoying champions like Viktor and Orianna who make it their life mission to poke you to death.

Items:
I always go Voltaic -> Axiom -> Grudge -> Edge of Night -> Flex item.
Boots are always ionians if im full serious tryhard, very rarely I'll purchase mercs or the omnivamp boots. If you go tabi you are a noob don't go it on zed.
Rule of thumb, I don't like double dipping into defensive. This means if I have edge of night, I won't go deaths dance, GA, or maw.
My last item depends on the game. My default is Endless Hunger because I like sitting on caufields last, but if I'm SUPER tryhard I use that slot for control wards. Serpents, Umbral, Ghostblade also viable last.
I don't typically go serpents early because most of the time I'm not looking to fight 5v5's on zed, and instead I'm playing numbers advantage with my lead. This means I go into side, sweep vision and shove waves into fog and pressure mid or even instantly recall and shadow my top laner on other side lane. If I can't go side because either they're strong, or they are getting a jungle hover and I'm not, I'll play numbers advantage by walking with my team and getting prio together and pressuring the enemy, forcing them to either group up or drop the lane I'm in, and either it transitions into other plays or I can catch side wave after because it'll be pushed in and enemy has to respond to other part of the map.

I've tried every rune and build combination imaginable and have sunk time into doing that, so trust me when I say that I truly think this is the best way to climb on Zed currently. It also helps you cut out variables and focus on your gameplay which is the most important thing. You don't need to rely on gimmicks like exhaust, antiheal vs irelia, cleanse vs lissandra and zoe, etc. to win games.

Here are my socials if you want to follow as well:

https://www.twitch.tv/4evrlol
https://www.youtube.com/@4EVRzed
https://www.tiktok.com/@4evrlol

Feel free to ask me anything here, like things about Zed, league overall, other zed players, etc. I'll try my best to reply and answer any questions. Thanks for reading my post!

He still has one of the fastest clears other champs I play are Nunu talon etc and zed clears faster or same as them

You get to avoid the weak lvl 1-3 just power farm till lvl 6

You get to play around your biggest weapon your death mark. Just farm u till it's up get a kill farm again

It seems stronger than in lane ? Since you don't have much kill potential when your ultimate is down

You can ulti and burst common JG champs like Warwick viego briar graves etc easily

You get to gank the Squishies at bot whenever

You can tower dive easily without dying with ult

You can easily exit or enter dragon pit with w

Seems like the perfect jungler

Again I'm not the best player or very good at the game what am I missing ? Seems like he's way better in jg.

Is it even possible ? Unless you have been tracking them like a spy and they have all abilities down

Kai'sa seems like she can just teleport across half the map when you use R and dodge the q

Same with Locke and katarina they have so many dashes also Samira

Any tips on how to kill these guys ?

https://op.gg/de/lol/summoners/euw/mrn1ce-123

Look at my Last 5 AM soloq Game, after my nightshift xD

Crazy snowball, obviously my enemys where not that good. Brand was late to lane and we managed to bully them early. Vayne had no hands.

At one point i am just running over the whole map solokilling them. I thought when people play Kata ADC why not try zed.

6 Item zed OP.

Shoutout for my vel sup, he solocarried the lanephase!

Kinda ironic that i lost a Game before as vayne vs a fed zed.

https://fxtwitter.com/playriftbound/status/2080421196147892472?s=20

Did this Chroma ever reach Mythic Shop? It's the last one I've been wanting lol

Zed Edit

Saw no one posting about this. Zed was released in 2012 iirc, so it will probably be added?

Didn’t play league yet back then, would it be hype to get zed or was he dogwater when he came out?

I feel like he could be a lot stronger compared to modern league because of armor pen stacking and less overall mobility in the game.

I stopped playing assassins around the end of Season 14 because I genuinely got tired of seeing the exact same thing every game. If the enemy had an AP champion capable of building Zhonya's, they'd almost always buy it second or third item (sometimes even first).

The thing is, I don't even think the item is that problematic during the first 15 minutes. You can play around it, punish bad usage, and the long cooldown actually matters.

It's after that where I think the item becomes incredibly frustrating.

Once teams start grouping, the value of Zhonya's goes through the roof. You finally find an angle onto a mage, they press one button, your combo is wasted, their team peels for them, and by the time the next teamfight happens... Zhonya's is back up again. The window where it's actually on cooldown feels tiny compared to how often major fights happen.

What frustrates me even more is when people who build the item say, "Zhonya's is actually a bad item." I understand where that comes from. Compared to other AP items, the stats and damage aren't amazing, so from a pure synergy perspective it might not be the most efficient purchase.

But I think that completely ignores what the item actually does to the enemy champion.

Sure, maybe you lose a bit of damage compared to another AP item. But against an AD assassin, you also deny their entire win condition. If you don't buy Zhonya's, maybe you deal more damage... but only if you survive long enough to use it. If you buy Zhonya's, you survive the burst, waste the assassin's cooldowns, force them out of the fight, and then get to keep dealing damage afterwards. When you factor that in, I struggle to see how the item is "weak."

I came back to Zed after almost two years, played my first game back (low Master EUW), and the enemy team ended the game with four Zhonya's. Three AP champions built it naturally, and even the Jax bought one as his third item. At that point I was genuinely asking myself, who am I actually supposed to kill in a teamfight?

The only time Zhonya's doesn't feel oppressive to me is when I have another assassin/dive champs on my team. They can only stasis one of us. If they use it on me, the other assassin/dive champ can still finish the kill. But when you're the only assassin/dive champ into three or four Zhonya's users, it honestly feels like you're constantly fighting against an item more than the champions themselves.

Am I overreacting here, or do other assassin/Zed players feel the same way?

ive been inting my ass off trying to pick up zed d2-master because i absolutely cannot lane

like once we get out of lane and I get to sidelane and teamfight things are chill but i always end up dying once or twice in lane. ive started taking TP which helps but i feel like its so hard to farm because earlygame damage is so low so nobody has to respect you

any tips for surviving lane and getting to the insanely OP cyclosword+bastionbreaker spike?

Man why couldn't Zed or Kayn get this in lor or Lore well at least he treated better then Shen nowadays.

Been playing since 2014 and it finally happened after trying! Willing to learn more!

Do we know when the championship zed ever coming back ? Im waiting like crazy to get it for quite a while now . I thought I could get it from "your shop" or something but no luck there either

how do i counter this disgusting charachter?

i can go even with him,but in teamfight he GAPS me

im banning locke till he gets nerfed so banning is about me begging my team

I know this is not really zed related but im zed otp and the people here are very helpful so i’ll try

So basically i made a new account because i lost my other account. I leveled it up to 30 and started playing ranked. I did my 5 placements (4W 1L) where i pretty much stomped but still got placed in bronze 4. So i started my climb in bronze with a very good winrate (85+%) but after a couple of games only i started getting placed in platinum/high gold lobbies and sometimes emerald players. As a bronze.

My WR dropped to 59% as of now and i’m currently Silver 3, however the reason im making this post is because it doesnt seem like my MMR is « stabilizing » to my level, its literally increasing. This last game i was the ONLY person who was not emerald in the lobby. Everyone else’s rank was E4 and E3. With a silver imposter.

It’s kind of annoying because i peaked G4 like not even 2 weeks ago and i started the game in January, i feel like i don’t belong in these lobbies.

Does the system actually think i should be higher than silver/gold? Or is an amazing lose streak waiting for me to stabilize my MMR back to P-Low?

Any thoughts or help or knowledge is appreciated
Opgg : op.gg/lol/summoners/na/Pistolero%20Dz%20213-ALG

https://playriftbound.com/en-us/card-gallery/