WELCOME! GUIDE UPDATED: August 14, 2022 for Patch 12.15. I am friendly, feel free to ask me any questions on Discord: Rime#1357 I'm Rime, A Cloud9 coach and Sylas main. I have over 2k games on Sylas and have been challenger the last 3 seasons, THIS season I managed to hit challenger with a 67% winrate on Sylas my most played champ. USING FIRST STRIKE EVERY GAME! As I transitioned to full time work in Cloud9 my accounts have decayed from 550LP to D1 but as of August I have more free time to grind back to challenger. My IGNS: Rime, C9TGRime, C9Rime. GUIDE TLDR: Runes: First Strike Magical Footwear Biscuit Delivery Cosmic Insight + Presence of Mind Legend: Tenacity or for snowballing crazy hard First Strike Magical Footwear Biscuit Delivery Cosmic Insight + Sudden Impact Treasure Hunter Build Path: Doran's Ring Health Potion Everfrost Dark Seal Sorcerer's Shoes Shadowflame Cosmic Drive Stopwatch The current META build on Sylas is Conqueror Presence of Mind Legend: Tenacity Last Stand with Biscuit Delivery + Cosmic Insight. Start Doran's Ring. Build Dark Seal Ionian Boots of Lucidity Everfrost Zhonya's Hourglass Cosmic Drive as core items Everfrostis the best mythic build it in 95% of your games. You can play the game on easy mode if you take First Strike max Chain Lash first and rush Everfrost. E1 in, use everfrost and guarantee a Q2 on them for a free 60 gold every 15 seconds. If you are the only AP on the team Shadowflame + Sorcerer's Shoes is very strong. Dark seal is 124% gold efficient with 0 stacks and is 376% efficient fully stacked. BUILD Dark Seal EVERY GAME!!!!!!!!!! even if 0/10/0 Note: In early August G2 Caps used first strike Sylas in LEC :) I do lots of stat/analysis work in League of Legends and truly believe First strike to be his strongest rune (overtuned rune in general). I am a strong believer in if it works it works, First strike works best for me and I have success with it. If you believe Conqueror to be stronger and are finding success with it keep running it! Play whatever wins you games I became a Sylas main in season 10 and have played 2000+ games of him since. Everything in this guide is how I play Sylas and is simply what I take & what works best for me. THIS GUIDE IS SOLOQ BASED, I NO LONGER PLAY IN AMATEUR SO IF YOU PLAY IN COMPETITIVE OR ARE A PRO PLAYER I OBVIOUSLY WOULDNT RECOMMEND FULL AGGRO IGNITE PLAYSTYLE. Late game bruiser builds are stronger in lower elo's (longer avg game length) and pro play because of how hard it is to play aggressive since enemy team is in 5 man comms, BUT for SOLOQ high damage works great. The guide isn't perfect, I'm just sharing my knowledge since I've learned so much playing him.

Twitch |Twitter |TikTok|Discord

Build Everfrost Dark Seal & Cosmic Drive every game if you dont know what to build. It is always strong

My current go to build is Doran's Ring Health Potion x2 Dark Seal Everfrost Sorcerer's Shoes Shadowflame Stopwatch Cosmic Drive


Everfrost
BUILD PATH Lost Chapter + Kindlegem + Amplifying Tome + 265G ⇒

MYTHIC PASSIVE: Empowers your other Legendary items with 10 ability power.

UNIQUE – GLACIATE: Unleash a fan of icy shards in a cone in the target direction, dealing 100 (+ 30% AP) magic damage to all enemies hit and slowing them by 65% for 1.5 seconds. Enemies struck in the center of the cone are rooted for the same duration instead (30 second cooldown).


SYLAS NEEDS EVERFROST! Insanely strong build path, early power spike for 2800 gold and the extra health is nice for early-mid lane phase. Dash onto a carries face, everfrost them and murder their health bar with E2 + Q1 + Q2. Getting a guaranteed Q2 will half health most carries mid - late game.

Cosmic Drive

UNIQUE - Spelldance: After damaging a champion with 3 separate basic attacks or abilities, gain 15% bonus movement speed, decaying to 5% over 2 seconds, and 40 ability power until exiting champion combat (5 seconds)

Perfect for sylas since spelldance is easy to proc in skirmishes/fights. Also if you opt into Sorc boots you will want Cosmic drive as 2nd or 3rd item since you need some CDR on sylas.


The most OP items you can build on 12.15 are Dark Seal Cosmic Drive Everfrost Shadowflame ]. Build these items whenever you can. If you do this build Sorcerer's Shoes are better than ionian boots because cosmic gives more than enough haste.

Everfrost is insanely strong, ludens is fun but doesnt win games. Everfrost is an exodia item, insane build path, powerspike, duelist item, teamfight item, disengage item and works well with sylas Q2.

FOR PATCH 12.15 Dark Seal Everfrost Cosmic Drive & Stopwatch are CORE ITEMS

Current Build I am Using is: --> Everfrost into --> Sorcerer's Shoes --> Shadowflame --> Cosmic Drive --> Zhonya's Hourglass + Mejai's Soulstealer. Other items depend on enemy team comp. Lots of mr? Void Staff Healing? Morellonomicon Are you rich? Rabadon's Deathcap Are you splitpushing? Lich Bane

If you are an experienced sylas player and are playing as the only AP on the team recommend running Sorcerer's Shoes. Build Everfrost Shadowflame Mejai's Soulstealer and Zhonya's Hourglass. The reason you want to go sorc and shadowflame is because the enemy team will not be building MR. Stacking magic pen is OP!

Morellonomicon ??
Morello has been buffed and is now 110% gold efficient however Sylas does NOT apply it well. Sylas does NOT apply Morello well because of his low range and mostly single target abilities, beg your team to build antiheal so that you can build something like cosmic or zhonya instead!

KEEP IN MIND THAT TAKING SLIGHTLY BAD TRADES ON SYLAS IS GOOD FOR SYLAS!
You can heal back with W, most mid laners cannot!

First Strike is a mid game rune not a laning phase rune. If you force trades with it early on you'll only get 10-20 gold anyway. With this rune setup you do NOT get the ionian boot rush powerspike which most pro players use. This setup is for 10-15 minute in powerspike. The goal with first strike rune setup is to make plays once you have everfrost. In lane you can proc first strike with Q1 and look to dash in and trade. OR you can bush cheese from a mid bush by dashing in everfrost root them and full combo them. They will lose half their hp and you will get +75 gold (1/3 of a kill worth of gold). Along with the 10% damage increase

Conqueror is also more of a mid-late game rune that works better with 2+ items. Highly recommend going for Cosmic Drive every game you have Conqueror. Zhonya's Hourglass is also important for playing with conqueror because your job is to dive in full combo, zhonya with conq stacks then continue fighting. Lich Bane is most likely your best 3rd item when going conqueror since you'll be perma fighting.

Electrocute Viable! Domination tree has been nerfed quite a bit though, dont go ravenous hunter go ingenious or ultimate hunter instead!
It is difficult to play an assassin playstyle vs champs with Immortal Shieldbow Sterak's Gage [[verdant barrier] etc.

Fleet Footwork sylas is outdated. There is way more damage in the game and sustain isnt worth it on Sylas since he mostly builds CDR NOT flat AP for the healing. DO NOT GO FLEET!

When choosing what rune page to go I think opportunity cost is the #1 way to help use critical thinking skills on what rune page will give the most value. Essentially its what are you losing by going for Conqueror rune setup instead of First Strike and vice versa. So let's talk about it

The only difference between these pages is one has
First Strike Magical Footwear

the other has

Conqueror Last Stand

I will use two 20 minute games in my match history with similar scores to compare the value being lost for each.

In a 20 minute winning game Last Stand will do roughly 300-400 damage.
Conqueror will be healing Sylas for roughly 150. And this only comes from fully stacked conqueror and does not include the added damage from ap being given from Conqueror. My guess is as good as yours for Conqueror so lets be generous and say its given 750 damage. With this rune setup we can GUESS 1150+ damage + 130 healing

In a 20 minute game free boots hold a gold value of 420, and do NOT count towards objective bounties since it is not gold but an item. Firs strike will be giving roughly 400 gold along with 500 additional damage. We can say that you are getting 800+ gold along with 500+ damage with First strike rune setup.

First strike setup: 800+ Gold, 500+ damage
Conqueror setup: 1150+ damage, 150 healing

This is where you have to decide what you value more, 500+ damage or 800+ gold. When you look at it on paper its an easy choice, 800 gold is insane. You can have a blasting wand or you can stack conqueror to gain that AP in fights.

This is the standard from what I've seen from games. It is a rough estimate for a 5/4/3 Sylas or whatever at 20 min and conqueror added damage is a complete mystery

Ive had Conqueror games where ive healed 750+ in 30 min and ive had first strike games where I get 3k+ gold in 30 min. Very game dependent numbers and too many variables to control .

What if I am ahead? What if I am behind in game?
If you are behind with conqueror you are screwed! You are a squishy melee that will die before fully stacking conqueror in fights.
If you are behind with first strike you still get 420 gold worth of boots, you still get 10% damage increase from hitting them first and can still get gold to climb back into the game.

TLDR: First strike > Conqueror

For early laning phase you basically lose trades vs every champ level 1,2, & 3. Just play safe, farm up, use potions, and know that your biggest power spike is level 9.

3 points in Chain Lash and an empowered auto will one-shot caster minions . Use Kingslayer at the end of trades since it's more effective the lower HP you are.

Spam Abilities when taking down turrets for more damage + attack speed

Max Kingslayer when playing vs LeBlanc you can hit her for free with it when she jumps on you to proc her mark.

When laning vs Ekko or Kayle whoever ults first LOSES the 1v1.

When playing vs Mordekaiser you want to ult second because his base stats will be inflated from stealing your base stats.

You get ranged form when you steal Jayce ult. Jayce ranged E Q combo can be good for sieging as Sylas.

You get melee form when you steal Nidalee or Elise ult. Also Elise rappel can be very useful.

If you take Samira ult you can use it instantly since you cant get S combo level.

Some ults are good to hold onto just for laning phase such as Blitzcrank and Olaf

Build Rylai's Crystal Scepter when playing vs Annie its OP with Tibbers

Build Liandry's Torment when playing vs Gangplank & Rumble it's good with their ults.

Build Mejai's Soulstealer when playing vs Ekko since you can use Chronobreak to avoid dying.

Build Spirit Visage vs Swain it is insane with Demonic Ascension

Samira Blade Whirl and Yasuo Wind Wall can block your E2 and can block you from stealing ults, play carefully.

When playing vs Yasuo you can E2 Him. During your E2 you can take and use his ult. This can catch him offguard and is necessary in high elo so they cant windwall it.

Best 3 ults in the game to steal are Swain Malphite and Fiddlesticks

Also keep in mind a lot of ults have insanely high AP ratios for no reason because Riot is a bunch of trolls. Ults like Gnar Volibear Lucian and Hecarim have 1:1 or better AP ratios lol...

Keep in mind your passive has 3 max charges so dont use 5 abilities then AA your opponent. Use E1 + Q + E2, use an AA then use W then AA 3 times. Maximize his passive in trades!

My Ultimate tier list is on a google spreadsheet linked below

I have a matchup spreadsheet on a google doc as well as an Ultimate Tier list for Sylas:

CLICK THIS
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/16lC9hutxugFT9eOFoVWKrKNpWuAhApshUSDgciphRWA/edit?usp=sharing

Apologies but I don't want to take the time to make everything pretty on Mobafire so instead Im just linking the spreadsheets. On the bottom you can look at different spreadsheets ex. top matchups and mid matchups.

Thanks for reading my guide!

I will be updating the guide throughout season 12 and may or may not make a return to streaming depending on free time

If you have any questions you wanna ask me feel free to join my server and DM me directly, I'll respond within 24 hours!

https://discord.gg/jutGVfr