Hello, I'm PH45, and this is my guide to top lane Sylas. My real name is Patrik, but you can call me either way. I am a long time League of Legends player (started back in late Season 1). I'm a top lane main, and I mostly play bruisers in top lane. I've been Diamond since Season 7. My OP.GG for anyone interested I also got multiple other accounts but right now I mainly play on my main. Check out my Twitch, I've gotten more into streaming in the past months so come and check it out while I play live!

Flash: Flash is arguably the best summoner spell in the game. Flash is really good since it gives you the capability of escaping ganks/getting over walls, or quickly getting in range to close for a kill.

Ignite: Good for lanes you want to go aggressive on. I feel Ignite is a great choice as secondary summoner spell for Sylas since the extra dueling power from this helps him to deal with strong opponents, also works wonders when you want to play aggressive in lane. Ignite works extremely well against champions with a lot of healing like Dr. Mundo, Vladimir, Fiora and even Aatrox.

Teleport: I don't think you should take this often on Sylas. Ignite fits his fighter/bruiser style more, and Teleport feels kind of lackluster atm due to all the recent nerfs. It's still a good choice for top lane though as it allows you to get back to lane in tough matchups, or do Teleport ganks, or just join your team into fights when you aren't near the fight.

Precision offers Sylas more damage and also some Tenacity which all helps him on taking down his targets.

Conqueror gives you 2-5 stacks per auto and ability hit up to 10 stacks max. Also it gives you 15% post-migitation healing at max stacks so you'll be healing more vs squishies and less vs tanks.

This rune will help you not run out of mana. It's surprising how much this rune actually helps, especially when you will be spamming your abilities in teamfights.

[icon=Legend: Tenacity size=60]

As a melee champion you don't want to get CC'd during a fight, and this rune will help you cut down your time being CC'd by a good amount. Overall it's the best choice out of the 3 for Sylas so it's an obvious choice here.

You can choose between these 2 runes. Coup de Grace will help you take down your targets quicker when you burst them, and Last Stand will be good if you are the one who is engaging first and taken to low HP quick. Your damage will be higher for a good amount but the thing is you'll need to stay below the certain HP threshold to utilize this rune so Coup de Grace will be the more consistent rune for Sylas overall.

Inspiration just offers a lot of sustain, and as a melee Sylas will utilize it nicely.

As a melee, you will get poked down in lane, especially since your early game isn't the best. This rune will help you to heal when you are down to low HP and also restore a bit of mana on the side.

Starting with Corrupting Potion is a good option On Sylas and with this rune you'll get a small instant healing for every time you use the potion and also some extra movespeed so it's pretty nice.

Pros + Can steal opponents ultimates + Has built-in sustain + Has ranged poke with Chain Lash + Has hard-CC and mobility + Has built-in waveclear + Has a shield so he can block some damage + Great itemization due to being an AP-bruiser Sylas can do many things thanks to his ultimate Hijack, which gives him the ability to steal enemies ultimates, he can also sustain in lane when trading which makes his laning easier.

Original Sylas

Cons - Can't steal the same ultimate twice in a row for a while - Pretty lackluster when behind - Handicapped if opponents have not so great ultimates (Looking at you Udyr - Can get poked out of lane due to being melee + Can have a pretty difficult time in laning phase, especially in lane bully matchups Sylas can be a bit tricky to play, especially against some popular top lane bruisers. He kind of is an all-in champion, but you use your mobility to engage, so you are left with no escape abilities after engaging a fight.

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Petricite Burst: After casting a spell, Sylas's gains a stackt of Petricite Burst, which can stack up to 3 times. While Sylas has stacks he gains 60% bonus attack speed. Each stack makes Sylas's basic attack whirl his chains around him, dealing magic damage to his main target and also some damage to targets around him. It also executes secondary target minions below 25 health.

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Chain Lash: Sylas lashes out with his chains, damaging and slightly slowing enemies. After a brief delay, the intersection of the chains detonates, damaging enemies again. The detonation does 45% less damage to minions and monsters. Chain Lash can't be cast during Abduct.

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Kingslayer: Sylas lunges at a target with a powerful strike, damaging them and healing himself. The lower HP Sylas is while casting, the more this ability heals him.

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Abscond / Abduct: Sylas dashes a short distance.

For a short time, he can recast the ability to whip out his chains, stunning, damaging, and pulling himself to the first enemy hit.

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Hijack: Sylas copies the target's ultimate, the abilities gain AP scaling. Sylas can take an enemy’s ultimate whenever Hijack is off cooldown, but can’t hijack the same enemy for a while after. Hijacked ultimates can be held for 90 seconds.

Corrupting Potion Gives you good early sustain in lane, and also allows you to deal some extra damage if you pop this during a trade.

The Dark Seal If you bought a Corrupting Potion, or a Refillable Potion, this item will benefit you even more. It already gives a good amount of mana and some AP, but also enhances the healing from potions, which means more sustain. It's also pretty gold efficient item so you don't lose much gold for selling it later on.

Doran's Ring Great starting item for any mage really, gives you some HP, AP, mana regen and also restores some mana for you when you kill an enemy unit.

Lich Bane, more burst Works well for Sylas, since it gives you CDR (which really benefits Sylas, some AP, mana and also a Sheen proc, which really goes well together with your passive Petricite Burst since you want to be viewing autos between using abilities.

Sorcerer's shoes, you are a wizard! Pretty standard boot choice. Gives you magic pen which makes you deal more damage, oh and also makes you faster.

Ninja Tabi If opponents have a lot of autoattack reliant champions, this might be a good pickup. It allows you to duel them a bit more safely. Also the armor stat from this itself is alright.

Mercury's Treads If you face a high-CC comp, this might be a worthwhile pickup. What good are you if you just get CC-locked to death? While sure this won't make you immune to CC, it will help you break free of the CC a bit faster, also the MR from this is quite nice.

Hextech Protobelt-01 Hextech Rocketbelt is a fine choice, as even a first item in top lane. Sure it has mediocre damage, but it's relatively cheap, gives 10% CDR, good amount of HP, but also a short dash which can help you close the gap to get in range with your Abscond / Abduct. It also improves your waveclear with the active so that's also a nice thing to have.

Rod of Ages This is a great item for Sylas. The component Catalyst of Aeons offers him sustain and tankiness and once completed it even offers a good amount of AP, which will help you duel down foes.

Morellonomicon, Great item as it gives you some HP now, magic pen and 80 AP and also procs a Grievous Wound onto enemies, which helps you deal with opponents who have healing capabilities.

Rabadon's deathcap, more AP! Great pickup once you have a couple AP items under your belt. It will increase your damage tremendously and helps you burst people even more.

Luden's echo Great item as it gives you a lot of mana, some CDR and a nice amount of AP. Seems like a good item to rush due to it's build path and for the stats it gives out.

Zhonya's Hourglass, the golden touch Good defensive item to pick up, since it gives you armor and a nice amount of AP + some CDR, but most importantly you can protect yourself against assassins/if you engage you can use this and potentially stall long enough for your team to collapse onto the enemy team.

Void Staff, what magic resist? If the opponents are getting some magic resist this is a extremely good item to get, or even if they aren't getting any still a really good choice.

Liandry's Torment This item works really well on Sylas due to the stats it gives to him, but also due to the passive. You can tear down tanky opponents since you can stick on them well and thanks to the max health burn this item applies.

Banshee's Veil Get this if you are facing a high AP enemy comp. Also good item for some burst matchups with its magic resist and the spell shield passive.

Iceborn Gauntlet I think this might be the better pick for top lane Sylas most of the time. It still gives you a Sheen proc which is useful, some armor and mana and thanks to the Sheen passive having a slow, some stickiness to chase people down.

Spirit Visage Spirit Visage is a great item for Sylas if you are in need of some magic resist. Gives you HP, MR and CDR, and in addition 30% more healing so your Kingslayer will heal even more, combined with Revitalize and Second Wind.

Randuin's Omen Pick this item up if the opposing team has high crit damage users. This item works extremely well vs champions like Yasuo and Tryndamere for example, but works fine vs really any auto-attack reliant champions.

Spirit Visage Spirit Visage is a great item for Sylas if you are in need of some magic resist. Gives you HP, MR and CDR, and in addition 30% more healing so your Kingslayer will heal even more, combined with Revitalize and Second Wind.

Thornmail Get this item when opponents have autoattack based healing, or just champions in general who auto a lot. This item works really well vs champions like Fiora, Irelia, Renekton and so on, since when they auto you they get Grievous Wounds, and also take some magic damage back, which makes you dueling them a bit easier.

Abyssal Mask Kind of situational item. You'll lose some gold efficiency if you build both this and Rod of Ages due to them both having the Catalyst of Aeons passive. Otherwise this item is great though, it offers some sustain, magic resist, HP, CDR and also increases the magic damage enemy champions near you take by 15%.

While laning early on as Sylas, keep in mind that most top laners, especially bruisers are probably going to beat you up in an all-in, since Sylas' weakest point is his laning phase. Your powerspike at level 6 also isn't that huge, since you don't really gain any so called ''guaranteed' damage from it. Use Grasp of the Undying or Aftershock (whichever you went for) to help you survive in these lanes and let you scale for mid/late game. You can try to poke your opponents in lane with your Chain Lash and block some damage with your Abscond / Abduct. Once you have withered them down a bit with your pokes judge for yourself if you can take them down or not. Your Kingslayer also offers some sustain while fighting which is nice. If you are on low HP it will heal you more so you can potentially clutch a fight thanks to that.

You have pretty good setup for ganks thanks to your Abscond / Abduct so make sure to know when your enemy has no wards up and secure a pretty easy kill for your team when your jungler routes for top lane.

When you are pushing in the lane (which can happen quite easily thanks to Chain Lash, remember to keep your vision up on river and tribush since you'll be a pretty easy gank. Your Abscond / Abduct has relatively short dash range and outside that you don't have much to escape with.



Your playstyle around mid and late game will depend on what kind of ultimates the enemies have. They have good teamfight ultimates? ( Tidal Wave, Crowstorm etc), or more dueling oriented? ( Grand Challenge, Blade of the Exile), your playstyle can vary because of that. Think what enemy ulti benefits your team the most, before stealing the first one that comes your way.

Thanks to Hijack, Sylas can fill multiple needs of a team during a game, of course depending on enemy comp. You can steal some engage ultimates like Kled's Chaaaaaaaarge!!! or Ashe's Enchanted Crystal Arrow.

Just keep in mind that you'll most of the time be in the middle of the fight due to how Sylas is designed, so be sure your team can follow in on fights. Zhonya's Hourglass will buy you some time in fights, or if you go the more tanky build items like Gargoyle Stoneplate also can benefit you a lot if you have to act as the frontline and engage for your team.

Cho'Gath With Cho'Gath's R, you gain Feast stacks permanently when you kill a unit with it.

Fiora With Fiora's ult, you can proc vitals around the target to create a healing area for you and your team.

Jax Stealing Jax's ultimate grants you the 3rd auto hit passive, and activating the ult gives you the usual resistances. Can't say the exact time you can have this if you don't activate it (around 2 minutes I think).

Jayce Stealing Jayce's ult gives you his cannon form for a while. While activated you can cast all of Jayce's abilities like usual. Lasts around 2 minutes I think.

Karma Stealing Karma's R gives you a choice between one of her empowered abilities.

Udyr You get to proc his Wingborne Storm once and that's it.

Fiora With Vayne's R, you get stealth every time you cast Chain Lash.

Riven Riven's ult grants you extra AD for the duration, and the Wind Slash recast.

Shyvana Shyvana's ult grants you her Dragon form and it's abilities, and it lasts until you run out of mana (mana is refunded when the effect ends).

Teemo Teemo's R gives you 3 shrooms to plant down.

LeBlanc LeBlanc's R grants you the last ability she used, if no ability has been used it gives you her Q.

Heimerdinger Heimerdinger's ultimate gives you a choice between one of his empowered abilities.

Ivern Ivern's R gives you a controllable Daisy. Same applies to Annie.

Shaco Shaco's R gives you a clone of Sylas, which when killed or timed out spawns 3 Jack In The Box's.

Mordekaiser When you kill someone while you've cast Mordekaiser's ult on them, you gain a ghost of them, you can also get a ghost of the dragon with this.

Syndra Syndra's ult let's you use an allied Syndra's balls to enhance the damage of this ability, as a standalone ult it's pretty lackluster.

There is still a ton of stuff to be added here, I'll add them as I find/come up with more stuff to add here.


Between using abilities, remember to weave autoattacks since your passive Petricite Burst will add some extra damage to your combos and trades.

You can cancel your autoattack animation with your W Kingslayer. After you see your autoattack damage go off, instantly cast Kingslayer to cancel the rest of your autoattack animation, and save a little time to make your trade more efficient.

You can que abilities while you recast your E Abscond / Abduct. As an example while you are recasting your E, you can also cast Kingslayer to animation cancel the E recast.

You can also cast Hijack while recasting Abscond / Abduct. As an example stealing Yasuo's Last Breath while recasting Abscond / Abduct and ulting right after your E finishes.

Sylas is still really new so there is a lot to uncover about him. I'll be updating this guide whenever there is new stuff about him to add here. Have fun stealing enemies ultimates and lashing them with chains as Sylas! If you enjoyed the guide upvote it and maybe check out my other guide on Jax! Link to the Jax guide And of course if you enjoyed the guide and you are interested on seeing some live gameplay toss a follow on Twitch.tv, I don't have a proper schedule atm but I stream every week a couple times! Also some of the code used in the making of this guide is from http://www.mobafire.com/league-of-legends/build/making-a-guide-101506#chapter11 @jhoijhoi - PH45