Rise Up and Improve Your Zyra Gameplay!

As most summoners know, Zyra is an extremely potent caster, dealing heavy amounts of magic damage over prolonged fights. Because of her incredible burst and sustained damage, I like to think of her as a more reliable Heimerdinger. Using her plant mechanics properly in lane can help you beat any opponent with ease! I love playing Zyra (Over 70 ranked games with ~80% win rate) and hope to spread it with you!

In this article, I'll assume you understand the basic mechanics of Zyra, and hope to reinforce these to make you a better Zyra player!

Maximizing early game potential.

First off, I like playing Zyra safely, utilizing my seeds to poke down my enemy before going in for the kill. Because of this, I almost alway start off with seeds. The likelihood of level one fights in solo queue these days warrants the need, in my opinion, of that extra safety net in the vision that they provide.

By picking up your seeds at level one, you can have two free wards that each last 30 seconds. This is often overlooked by most players, as they generally start with their E, the snare, for maximum kill potential at level one. Because of this, either skill could be taken at level one, depending on what your team wants to do: Protect or Invade. I like having a point in each skill by level 2 as explained in my next point!          

                                                                                            

Laning Phase Tricks

- Due to the recent Zyra nerfs, she now has the 2nd slowest base movespeed in the game. This coupled with her incredibly low health makes for an interesting laning phase. Because of this, it is important to assert your dominance in lane early and effectively. The moment you hit level 2, and have both your seeds and your E, it is time to bring the pain (and most likely, First blood!) An easy harass combo at this stage is E + W (E + W + W if you're feeling ballsy). Because of the slow from your plant spawned, you'll get 2-3 auto attacks in; this, along with your plant's auto attacks and ignite will allow for an easy first blood, or at the least, a free flash burned.

- When using your plants for harass it is important to use your spell uptime effectively. I see a lot of summoners placing down 2 seeds in a fairly obvious place, then casting a spell on them. While doing this gets the job done, it makes for a very easy dodge for your opponent. Not only would this summoner be wasting important uptime, they made a mistake and allowed their opponent to avoid most of the damage.

Because Zyra's spells have a delay before they go off, you can make the most of your combos by casting your spells first, then placing your seeds before the spell's damage triggers. Like in the case above, if a player puts out their seeds then proceeds to cast the spell on them, they wasted time AND made their move extremely predictable. Now for the second case: Cast Q or E, then in the time it takes for the damage to trigger, place 1 or 2 seeds out. (yes, it is possible to get 2 plants to spawn). Because you chose this combo, your plants were less predictable, and took less time to actually spawn.

- Lastly: As obvious as it seems, Zyra is an amazing pusher, and can force her opponent out of lane extremely easily. However, most summoners don't take advantage of this to push down the midlane tower. Pushing down the tower increases your effectiveness when roaming, and immediately shuts down some of the map vision of your opponents. When I play Zyra, and if my opponent is playing safe, I will try to just force them out of lane and take mid down as soon as possible.

Your role during lategame.

- Push, push push. Urge your team to group up and push down towers, or force objectives. With blue, your poking potential is unmatched by any other champion. You want to force the enemies off the turrets, so your allies can destroy them with ease.

- During teamfights, playing Zyra is a bit different than other bursty champions. Because most of her damage is over prolonged periods of time, your role is NOT to put out two plants and ult before you die. You want to stay as far away as possible while still contributing to the teamfights: This means placing down plants, ulting, and backing off while waiting for your cooldowns.

Unless explicitly building tanky, Zyra is an incredibly squishy champion, and can get chunked easily in the chaos of teamfights. Zyra is incredible at kiting when building Rylais (I generally rush this; the slow during mid-game is incredibly valuable.) Use your kiting potential to your advantage: Your ranged plants will slow, and your melee plants' slow will stack with the slow from Rylai's.

As a last note, Zyra is incredibly easy to pick up and play, and with a bit of finesse she becomes an absolute monster. If you haven't picked her up yet, you won't regret the purchase! As always, I hope you enjoyed the read.

 

~Chryxis