This is the original video version of the guide. I highly recommend you watch the video version to see the gameplay footage. However, if you can't or would rather read there's also a transcribed guide below. Enjoy.

You can see in this game that even though we were really behind we could still come back. It's a normal game, but the point I want to make is even if you’re really behind you can still strike and win the game because you just snowball with the GP10. I really think that GP10 is a new meta and it's going to become very popular. A lot of people, certainly when they start and they're bronze or silver, are not so good at CSing, and GP10 is even better for people who can't CS. If you can also CS on top of it you will get fed so fast, and if you also get kills, say you get first blood or whatever, you will be fully built at 28 minutes.

Hi guys this is Athene. This is going to be a very advance Ryze guide. I also show some gameplay footage in the video guide. I'm going to tell you guys why I build certain things. Why I take certain runes and masteries. I will just give you guys a full breakdown of how I play Ryze.

The way I play Ryze is very defensive. Because Ryze is a mid to late game champ I try to do everything I can to snowball and really carry mid and late game. Early game I am very weak and that is why I will always try to play defensively.

My marks are greater mark of hybrid penetration. The reason why is because Muramana does physical damage, and also auto attacking at the start of the game allows you to do more damage. It's really very handy to have.

My quintessences are Greater Quintessence of Gold and my seals are also GP10. In total I have 5.3 GP10 from my runes, and my glyphs are all Greater Glyph of Magic Penetration. So, I have 11 magic penetration, 8.1 armor penetration, and 5.3 GP10. That's all my runes.


Why GP10?

You might wonder why I am using GP10, and a lot of people would say this lowers your advantage. The thing is that GP10 really allows you to snowball even if you’re not getting a lot of kills. It's something that's very underrated and I think it is one of the best ways to play Ryze. I've played Ryze for a very long time and this is actually the build I've been the most comfortable with since I've started playing League of Legends. It's really overpowered in my opinion and I think it's going to get nerfed because other champions also greatly benefit from it. It's mostly late game and AP champions that benefit from it.

Here you also have the summoner spells I use. I always go for Flash and Teleport. I really think these are the best summoner spells for Ryze. Flash allows you to engage and escape. Teleport is for ganks and is an advanced spell. I think it's the hardest summoner spell to master because you need to have really high map awareness. You need to know when to use it to attack and to retreat. Sometimes I actually use it to save myself when I see I'm going to get ganked and I have no time to get away. I just TP very fast because even if you get damaged you can still TP away unless it's a champ that can stun you, then it cancels it, but most of the time it allows me to get away.

I always level up my Q of course, then my W, then my E. I will always focus on Q and E except when I can level my ultimate. The reason for this leveling is because we can focus on farm. The W's not that important for this.

I also see a lot of people talking about the combo. Combo'ing, it depends, I don't always focus on combo'ing because depending on the range you sometimes have to start with W. So, don't focus too much on the combo'ing. Of course, it's always good to start with Q if you can, but sometimes you have to start with W because the Q has a little delay when you cast it.

Now to talk about itemization. The itemization of Ryze is very situational, although the start is usually the same. What I start with is Philosopher's Stone, so I start by buying the two first pieces to build it (Faerie Charm and Rejuvenation Bead) and 2 potions.

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The reason why I buy 2 Health Potions and I still have 95 gold left is because it is a way to communicate to the opponent that he doesn't have to harass you. If you go to mid lane without any potions the mid laner, if he has any clue, will harass you a lot and you will get less CS and you will have to go back early. So, if you buy 2 potions, play defensively, and stay close to your tower most of the time you will not get harassed and you will be able to sell those potions afterwards. So, it's more for psychological reasons that I buy those 2 potions, but either way I’m going to buy those items and as soon as I have enough gold to buy Kage's Lucky Pick and Philosopher's Stone I will recall.

Sometimes early game I use Teleport to go back to lane because early game I'm not going to TP gank because Ryze is very mana inefficient and weak at the start of the game. So, you will only do a TP gank if the ward is placed very well in bot or you have a perfect TP on creeps, but most of the time the best thing you can do is avoid doing any kind've gank until you’re level 9 or so; unless there is a really amazing opportunity to do so. TP ganks are very situational.

philosopher's stone kage's lucky pick $

Once you buy kage's lucky pick and philosopher's stone you will see that, from then on, you will have 100 gold per minute, which is pretty crazy. In 30 minutes that is 2000 gold you are talking about, almost 2 whole end game items, which gives you a huge, huge advantage. So basically, you’re just going to be playing defensively and try to get as much CS as possible. You're also going to be taking the jungle, but not immediately since you won't have enough mana at level 6. The 2nd time you go back and buy you can buy Tear of the Goddess or sometimes Chalice of Harmony which will let you have almost endless mana so you can grind the wolves, wraiths, mid, and also get the Blue Buff if the jungler is good. You should always try to focus and farm as much as possible.

Once you have Kage's, Phil Stone, and Tear or Chalice you will go for Rod of Ages. The exception is if you’re playing against a very physical team. If the entire team is AD you will not go for Chalice since it gives magic resist. You will instead go for Rod of Ages immediately, and after ROA you will get Glacial Shroud. So, just go for Kage's and Phil Stone, then go for Tear, ROA, Glacial Shroud, and then you will go for Boots of Speed.

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The good thing about Sorcerer's Shoes with Enchantment: Homeguard is they allow you to TP and gank very fast. If you have a good eye, when you see someone low and there's a creep close or a ward you can easily snipe a kill. I do it all the time, and it's very handy to gank.

Once you have your Sorcerer's Shoes you will see your tear is probably at 750 mana. What I mean is that if your Tear is filled up you always have to immediately upgrade it to Muramana and buy a 2nd Tear. Then you can start stacking up your 2nd Tear of the Goddess. A lot of people think you can only stack up 1 Tear but you can actually stack up 2 Tears if Manamune is upgraded to Muramana. So, that's a very big advantage you can get because the Tear allows you to get almost 2 and a half Sapphire Crystals on top of it for almost no money. It's a very cheap item yet you can upgrade it afterwards to Archangel's Staff and eventually Seraph's Embrace end game. It's not going to happen in many games but to put it in context, what’s very important is to rush the items depending on the situation. Once you have Muramana you’re going to go for Seraph's, but what I also do is, depending on the situation of course, if I have Chalice I will upgrade to Mikael's Crucible.

So if you have the Phil Stone and Chalice it only takes 920 gold to get Mikael's Blessing, which is a pretty cheap item. Even though a lot of people say it's **** I think it’s underrated because you can actually get it very early in game now because of the new Philosopher's Stone build. For a little bit of gold, 920 gold, you can have a cleanse and heal yourself. It's really crazy. Of course that's when you have an AP mid, and maybe also another AP, or if your AP mid is weak you can go for AD. You can skip Chalice, but I would always try and get Chalice even if there's not another AP on your team. If they’re all AD, the enemy team, I will rush ROA and go for armor, but most of the time I will go for Chalice because you need the mana as Ryze.


So, once you have Muramana upgraded you will rush Archangel's Staff. You may have to upgrade to Mikael’s, otherwise you don’t have enough slots, it's only then that you can buy the Tear. Then you’re going to upgrade it to Archangel's Staff. The last item is the Lucky Pick. You'll either upgrade it into Will of the Ancients if you have gone for Frozen Heart, if they are a very physical team, but if they’re not a physical team I like to go for Morellonomicon because of the 20% cooldown reduction. You really need it, but depending on the situation you might sell it and buy Athene's Unholy Grail if they are all AP. If most of them are AP you might as well sell the Kage's and buy Athene's because you can have even more magic resist. Even though both passives of Athene's and Mikael's, the 1% mana, somewhat chancel eachother out I still think it’s worth buying it. However, most of the time I just go for Morello’s.

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The reason I go for Morello's is very statistical. When you're Bronze or Silver games tend to last longer, but on Diamond league about 80% of the games last around 25 to 35 minutes. This is why the amount of gold you generate and accumulate has to be distributed in the most efficient way for those games. I know there’s better builds than what I've said just now, but in the timestamp of about 80% of the games this is by far the most powerful build you will have.

You will have the cooldown reduction and magic resist, but you won't have any armor. This is very important to keep in mind, and the reason why you don't have any armor is because most of the time you only start getting armor around the 30 minute mark. You can always sell the Morello's, for example, for a Frozen Heart if you have enough gold. If you see you’re very short on gold, and you’re going to have 1 last team fight, it’s better to just stick with the Morello's instead of a Glacial Shroud because Frozen Heart is very expensive. It's a 3k cost item instead of a 2.4k cost item, and 600 gold sometimes allows you to buy 2 potions, like the elixirs and Oracle's, which will give you a bigger advantage than just rushing Frozen Heart. With an Oracle's in teamfights, certainly in Diamond, will allow you to check out and spot the Baron ward and allows you to just have more map control.

It's important to know that it's all situational. Having a guide that works for everyone in every situation is not as simple. So, I'm just trying to explain to you guys different situations where you will build differently. That's basically the guide I wanted to make. I hope you guys enjoyed it and checked out the game footage. This game footage is a perfect example of a game where you are completely behind, but as Ryze you can literally snowball without killing champions. What I mean by that is if you have all those GP10 items, farm well, and have good CS, what actually happens is you're going to be 10 kills ahead. You know that in 30 minutes you're literally 10 kills ahead even if you don't have 1 kill.

A lot of people underestimate that. They think "oh this guy is weak he doesn't have any kills," but killing other players is actually not the best strategy as a Ryze player. The best way to play him is plain defensive. Just snowball because of the GP10 and the CS, and get really strong and strike mid and late game. Try to do those TP ganks when needed and don't try to make too many plays. I see a lot of people loving to do crazy plays, but the best thing is to play safe and play your A game. Try to farm. Try to not feed. Every time you die you give 400 or 300 gold to your opponent and that is not good. So, try to just farm and stick with a few TPs. Also, try to get the Blue Buff because it is very important. Although with Chalice it's not that important because you can still easily come back.

It's also important to know that if you go for WOTA and Frozen Heart you can solo baron at 28 minutes. I can solo it very easily. Even in Diamond games I sometimes solo it because they don't see it coming. They think "yeah 4 people mid," and they don’t see you go and solo it. It's pretty dependent on each situation since you will build him differently, but GP10 is always crucial. Sometimes you're going to sell your Phil Stone if you don’t go for Mikael's by the way, and that gives you a little more gold and allows you to buy another item.

So, I think that's it. Just play defensively, and aggressively at the end because of GP10 snowballing. Don’t try to make up for your team's mistakes because it's just going to make you be less fed. Just play your game, do your occasional well timed TP ganks, and use this build. You can actually get to Platinum League with this guide even if your map awareness is not that great if you stick to the items, CS well, and check out this video to see where to go you go. Be aware of where your opponents are. Try not to get ganked. If you do that really nicely you will be able to easily get Platinum with this guide. If you're really good at Ryze and you master him I think you can even get Diamond and Challenger if you have the patience.

I guess that's it. If you guys want to see me play you can check out athenelive.com and you can also go to twitch.tv/athenelive . I'm streaming for charity.

Keep it up. I hope you guys enjoyed the guide.