Hey I'm Zileanaire, a high Diamond Zilean one trick.
I've been playing Zilean pretty religiously for the past 5-6 years and have been the rank 1 Zilean for the Oceanic region & top 100 world several times.
With thousands of hours invested, I believe I have enough authority on Zilean to teach it to you.

I am an "OG" and have been playing league since before the first new champion was released. Yes that means I have been playing League since 2009. What a nerd.

Whether you're looking to master Zilean or want to better understand how best to beat him, there will be something for everyone here.

Appreciate you stopping by, and if you want to know, or have me elaborate on anything, feel free to ask.

Zileanaire.

Why Zilean? Great question, I don't quite remember when it went from the occasional game to one tricking, it's been too long. Minimum 5 years, probably longer.
But in all seriousness, Zilean is the first champion I ever dedicated any serious amount of time to. Luckily for me, that patience, that time spent, that learning, was rewarded. I stuck with it because I started seeing ranked results which only continued to get higher as I've played. Which I guess is how i became a OTP or "One Trick Pony".

Unless you're gods gift to League of Legends and seem to be good at everything you touch, I highly recommend commiting to one or two champions to the point where you know them inside and out. Know your limits. Know what you can and cannot win. I take Zilean into every matchup, counter or no. I am more than confident in my ability on this champion that I am not affraid of anything (except bad ADC's). Don't get me wrong, having a varied champion pool is good, but if you cant play all of those champions to a high level, what's the point? Don't worry about "counter picks". Counter picks are only good if the person playing it knows why it's a counter in the first place, not just because they read it on a website. I'll take a player that is a 10/10 on their champion than a player thats a 5/10 on 5 champions any day of the week.

My biggest word of warning for anyone looking to pick up Zilean is that you cannot carry games. You are VERY reliant on a team of good players to make the most out of your kit. You can make a good player GREAT, but you can't make a bad player good.

Being a fan of lists, lets have a list of what's good and what's not.

Pros
❄ Great Teamfighter
❅ Loads of CC
❄ Extremely Mobile
❅ Easy to pick up
❄ Versatile build options


Cons
❄ Weak early game
❅ Cannot ult while CC'd
❄ Extremely team reliant
❅ Full AP is not as good as it sounds
❄ You will be flamed for every missed ult

Zilean is a "utility/control mage" that specialises in controlling the flow of combat. The optimal positioning or way to play Zilean is preferably to be at the back of the fight where you can speed allies or slow and stun enemies attempting to take out your teams carries.
Zilean's ult is a game changing ability and using it at the right time on the right person is the key to winning fights. This is why position is paramount.
Some enemies will recognise that to win a fight, it's not your carries that need to die, it's you. While you live, so will your team, and Zilean performs poorly under extreme crowd control(cc) pressure. This brings us full circle once again to positioning.
Good positioning will allow you to have the biggest possible impact in a fight. Bad positioning will obviously end poorly or force you to burn summoner spells you may not have needed previously.
This all comes down to practice and time spent in game.

I know what you're thinking, "why on earth do you have 3 Kindlegem?". I've tried many builds over the years, most recently the Warmog's Armor rush tank build until it was nerfed, though this new build is quite possibly the most versatile build I have ever played on any champion. Lets discuss.

Solstice Sleigh - Should be picked up in 90% of games. Arguments can definitely be made for other options, but I firmly believe this is the best pick. It's extremely easy to proc and is always useful.

Ionian Boots of Lucidity - I don't ever build anything else. Like literally ever. If you coinflipped the better team and manage to kill Atakhan, yay for your new upgraded boots.

Kindlegem - Now for the main attraction, the reason I call this the "many options build". Did you know, Kindlegem is used in no less than 15 items? AD items, AP items, tank items and utility items, 70% of which are viable for Zilean. 3 Kindlegems equates to 600HP and 30 Ability Haste, which is a lot for very little gold spent. You get more Health and Ability Haste from 3 Kindlegems than you do rushing a full Item for about the same cost. The difference here is that you're ahead in stats and half way built through 3 different items.
If the enemy team has a lot of crowd control abilities, make Mikael's Blessing your first upgrade.
If you're worried about yourself or ally being burst, pick up Locket of the Iron Solari.
Enemy team has too much healing? Buy Morellonomicon.
Cosmic Drive, one of, if not my favourite Zilean items and a must have item in basically every game. Build when able.
Redemption & Knight's Vow, two more quality purchases.
You see where I'm going with this? You can build almost everything you need to suit almost any game. The versatility of this build allows you to come prepared for any and every situation.
Give it a try and see how it fits for you.

Now as I stated in the Synergy section, every champion in this game can and will benefit from Zilean's kit. This being said, I do have some personal favourites when it comes to bot lane and the teams composition in general.

Ashe is my favourite ADC to have, hands down. The synergy between these champions is just unreal. They both may lack a little in the damage department early on, but they more than make up for it in utility. Ashe's built in slows means I can speed her and she will run down absolutely anybody. Alternatively, the slows from both champions also make them very difficult to chase as well. Defence and Offence, a very versitile pairing. The CC chain is reliably easy to land with Ashe ult in to double bomb, or vice versa. Both champions have slows making it considerably easier to land regardless of which order you choose to use them in. Any jungler with half a brain should be looking to exploit this lane combo when possible.

Draven is widely considered Zilean's best pairing for bot lane. While Zilean may be one of the weakest champions early on, Draven more than makes up for that downside with his massive early game damage. He will never miss axes or fail to run someone down thanks to your speed, and he can go as hard as he wants knowing you're right there to revive him when he oversteps too far forward for a kill.

Vayne is just kind of stupid. Watching a good Vayne player kite an enemy team is truly something to behold. Now add a 99% move speed buff for them to play with and it just becomes ludicrous. She's already hard enough to pin down or escape from as it is without the buff. Even when you manage to down her and you think the threat is gone, think again, she's back to life and running at you again.

Aphelios is a an amazing ADC to have providing the player knows how to pilot it. You can stun off of his stun purple gun and you can play very aggresively when he has the red white gun combination. Having some basic Aphelios gun colour knowledge can be helpful for both playing with and against him so you know what he can do and when he can do it.
A good little saying to remember with Aphelios is:
Your team - Red White Green Light or Red White You Can Fight.
Enemy team - Red White Don't Fight.

Rammus is an absolute blast to play with, especially if you have Shurelya's Battlesong. Use the Shurelyas active and throw a 99% speed boost on top of it and you now have yourself a 1300 movespeed Rammus that puts even Sonic the Hedgehog to shame. I duo'd with a Rammus one trick at his request in high diamond and the pick potential of this combination to this day, is one of the most amusing, satisfying and unescapable pairings I have ever played.

Similarly to Rammus, Hecarim & Volibear can be used to the same effect where all 3 of these champions have built in movespeed and want to go in hard and fast while at the same time, will not die for it thanks to you.

As a few cheeky mentions, champions like Ezreal Karthus Gangplank etc that have global ults can all earn you free assists. Simply speed them while using/just after using these abilities and if they do damage or pick up a kill, congratulations you just earned yourself an assist having contributed absolutely nothing lol. Fantastic if you have Dark Seal or Mejai's Soulstealer)

Everyone loves you, but champions who bring their own crowd control abilities, or built in speed of any kind will love you just that little bit more.

There's a handful of characters I personally hate when playing bot lane and are not fun to verse. I wont list all of them but here are some of my worst match ups.

Lux Disgusting champion. Long range, high damage, low skill champion. She's very oppressive to lane against and near impossible to trade with.

Xerath Mostly for the same reasons as Lux. Long range, high damage, very oppressive.

Pyke One of Zilean's worst match ups. He hooks, he stuns, he's mobile, he's stealthed. Zilean's slow does nothing to halt his kit, and he's near impossible to Time Bomb stun because of his dash. Pyke also outroams you. Very difficult match if he's piloted well.

Rakan is another near unplayable lane opponent. If he goes all in, there's little to nothing you can do about it, and his CC will lock you down long enough to be unable to ult anyone.

Nami when paired with Lucian is an insta loss for you regardless of who your ADC is and even though Riot nerfed it ages ago, it's still unplayable. The amount of damage this pairing can dish out from level 2 is bonkers and you can be killed for the smallest step out of position.

I have a few short novels worth of information so if you don't mind reading or you really want to know how to play this champion, stick around. I will colour each tip so you can skip through any tip you're already aware of.

Once you've reached level 2 and have your Q Time Bomb and W Rewind, the basic Zilean combo is as follows:
Basic Double Bomb Combo
Q - W - Q. This is known as the "double bomb". You throw a bomb with Q, immediately use W to reset your Q ability and then Q again. Bomb Reset Bomb. Provided you landed them both on the same enemy, that enemy will now be briefly stunned and take damage from both bombs. Easy done.

Pre Loaded Double Bomb
Now there is a little known trick to double bomb even faster though it doesn't work that reliably so I personally don't find I need it, but it's there nonetheless.

To do this you press Q - Q - W. Due to the animation of Zilean's Q it is possible to press Q again while the first animation is still going before pressing W and if timed correctly, it will load up the second bomb to be thrown immediately after the animation of the first finishes. This results in the bombs being thrown out with a much smaller window in between. It is risky however because not timing this correctly will result in you ruining your combo. Use with caution.

Proper Combo With Slows
A better and more accurate way to accomplish this combination is to use your E Time Warp first to slow the enemy thus making it considerably easier to land a bomb.

The rotation will be as follows: E - Q - W - Q - E. Slow, bomb, reset, bomb, and then slow again right as the stun wears off from the second bomb to maximise Crowd Control (CC) time on the enemy. You can see how frustrating this can be for an enemy player when they are slowed for a total of 5 seconds, plus the additional 1.5 second stun at max rank. 6.5 seconds of CC from one combination.

Triple Bomb Technique
Now we enter a more advanced/late game and not as well known technique, the TRIPLE bomb.

For this to work you need to be fairly far along into your build with loads of ability haste (AH) which shouldn't be an issue because basically every item you build will have AH, and high enough level to have a few extra points in Rewind (W).

For this combo you have to time manage your spells a little differently.

First you slow them with E as before, then Q, then immediately press W to reset but DO NOT throw another bomb straight away. Just before the first bomb explodes, Q again for the stun, slow them again with E, W for another reset and Q again immediately for a second stun. It should look like this:

E - Q - W - wait - E - Q - W - Q - E. It might take a couple of tries in the practice tool to get used to this one because it's even harder to do in the middle of a 5v5 team fight when you are also trying to monitor 9 other peoples abilities and positioning. I would normally recommend using this on a single target you've managed to catch unawares.

Successfully pulling this off (if my math is mathing) means 10.5 seconds of CC. 7.5 seconds of reduced movement speed and 3 seconds of stun with 3 bombs worth of damage. Getting a pick and pulling this off is basically a guaranteed kill.

Fair warning this is a big list, but if you genuinely want to perform well as Zilean, this guide will help you. Colour coded so each section is easier to skip between. Lets get into it!

Time Bomb
Bombs Give Vision
This ability can be used for a lot more than just doing damage or stunning enemies. Did you know it can be used to grant vision in a small area such as bushes or over walls? Rather than face checking a bush and gambling your life, toss a bomb in to scout it out first. Hitting a champion will grant vision of them for the duration of the bomb (3 seconds). It can also show if there are Control Ward in that bush.

Bomb Synergy
Time Bomb can be used in amusing ways to add extra burst damage to certain champions. Some of these include champions such as Zac, Shen, Galio and Pantheon before they leap or use their ultimate abilities. Putting a bomb on stealth champions like Shaco, Rengar, Kha'Zix, Evelynn etc. A few years ago a popular combination was born and played at the World Championships and that combo was Sion Zilean. Zilean could place a bomb on a minion and Sion would kick that minion at the enemy champions. Similarly with Syndra picking up a bombed minion and tossing it at the enemy. Yorick ghouls, Malzahar voidlings, Naafiri hounds, Elise spiderlings, all of these can be bomb carriers, the list is endless.
Zilean plays well with others.

Burst Bombing
You can "double bomb" minions next to an enemy player which can one shot the minion and trigger both bomb explosions at the same time damaging and stunning everything in range. This is a good way to catch people off guard and hit them with a decent chunk of damage. It's still better to hit the player, but given the radius, this can make the explosion go a little further than you can throw. You might upset your ADC however when you inevitably one shot all his caster minions. Woops.. :)

KAMIKAZE Bomb Play
My personal favourite, albeit extremely risky and ill advised ways to engage as Zilean is something I like to call the Kamikaze play. You place a Time Bomb on yourself, press Rewind to reset Time Bomb, speed yourself up with Time Warp then start running at the enemy. Now for the unexpected part. Throw your second Time Bomb at the enemy/s and Flash into them before the bomb lands. You will catch the bomb on yourself and trigger the explosion and stun effectively stunning anyone near you. As I said this is extremely risky and you probably should never do this, but if you're looking to flex your new found skills on someone or simply to just show off, this is the way to do it.. You can also do this by flashing over a wall instead of telegraphing to the enemy team that you're a crazy person, but I digress. You can do a similar thing playing Zilean on ARAM by throwing a snowball at a low health enemy, bombing yourself and then flying in with snowball to kill them.

Bush Trap Bombs
You can use Time Bombs to set a trap in a bush that you know an enemy is going to walk in to. Simply Q - W - Q throwing both bombs on the same spot on the ground and when the enemy walks in to this bush, they pick up both bombs and are instantly damaged and stunned. This is a good way to catch someone off guard or to slow someone down that's chasing you. For this you can simply speed yourself to get some distance, run through the bush, and when you get to the other side throw both bombs back in it, speed yourself again and keep going. With a bit of luck there will be no vision and they will walk straight in to it, giving you enough time to escape.

Stasis Bombing Stratagies
Utilise your double bomb stun on targets who are effected by stasis abilities like Zhonya's Hourglass or Lissandra ultimate on herself. Once they are in stasis place both bombs on top of them and they will be immediately stunned coming out of stasis.

Adaptive Gameplay and Bombs
Something to note when throwing Time Bombs, it will heavily depend on the level of skill and game knowledge that your opponent has, but more often than not, if your throw a bomb behind them they will walk back in to it. This is especially true against higher elo players who will immediately look to counter your gameplay when making moves. They know what abilities do, they known when or how to dodge. If you can think like they do, or work out their playstyle, you can land a lot more often. Intelligent players will pick up on this though and stop doing it.
That being said, If I play with friends or strangers I've met in lower ranks, and playing in an environment I am not used to playing in, I find the players can be unpredictable. What do I mean by this? Well, a higher skill player I expect to move a certain way when I do. They react to what's coming or what they think is coming. A lower skill player typically (from my experience) does not. I will throw bombs behind them expecting them to move back from me but instead they stand still or sometimes even come forward unexpectedly and so I miss. It's embarrassing for me to miss abilities as a Diamond one trick against Bronze players. So when against players in a lobby with a lower skill level, I have to adjust accordingly and aim at someone instead of predicting, that way I have more success. This whole spiel is basically to say you need to adapt to the playstyle and skill level of your opponents. Not to rank shame if that's what anyone has taken away from this, as that is not my intention. If you're playing a certain way and it's not working, switch it up.

Area Denial Bombing
The final point I have for Bombs is you can use them as area denial. You don't have to land a bomb on someone for the ability to be useful. When the situation allows, simply throw one on the ground or in a choke point, basically in an area you do not want the enemy to go. This includes on your own minions to stop enemy melee champions from killing that minion without taking damage. You will be surprised at the lengths people will go to avoid walking in to bombs, despite the fact that unless you are building "glass cannon" (full AP) bombs actually don't do that much damage.
There are two rings for the bomb animation. The inner circle is what you need to land on someone or cross to pick up a bomb in the enemies case. The spade between the inner and outer circles (with the Roman Numerals) is the blast radius, which until the bomb detonates is actually safe to walk through and many people don't seem to know this. Some will even walk around the entire animation. So using the bomb as shown to cut off the area between the raptors and red buff can potentially stop people from even trying to come that way, or they may even burn a flash or dash trying to get past.

Time Warp
This is a pretty simple ability. Use Time Warp on yourself or ally to gain a speed boost. Use Time Warp on an enemy to slow them down. It cannot be missed because it's a point and click ability. The only 'hard' thing about this ability is knowing when to use it situationally for the greatest impact, and choosing between speeding an ally, or slowing an enemy.

Time Warp can be a fight winning, or even game winning ability if used on the right person at the right time. In the middle of a team fight, giving your ADC or appropriate carry a speed boost can give them the ability to kite enemy players more effectively or even avoid critical enemy abilities. The same can be said alternatively where you might try to slow down the enemy carry and limit their mobility, thus making them a considerably easier target for your allies.

Now I have a situation that many people question me about all the time.

A moderately hurt enemy is fleeing from you and your team, what do you do:

A) Slow the fleeing enemy down?

B) Speed up the closest ally/carry to finish them off?

Think about this briefly before you read on, come up with an answer, and I will tell you what I would do and why.

My answer is option A, if both options are viable I will ALWAYS slow the enemy down over speeding up an ally. Why? Because if I speed up an ally, one person catches up. Maybe they will finish them off, maybe they wont.
If I slow the enemy down, everybody catches up and we absolutely finish them off.

Did you have the same answer? There's no real wrong answer as long as the option you chose means the enemy dies, but obviously many hands make light work.

As stated previously, Time Warp is very situational and the above scenario is just one of those potential situations. If I was not in range to slow the enemy, my only option left would be to speed myself or an ally up and go from there.

Engaging with Flash & Time Warp
A fantastic use of of Time Warp is to engage with it by flashing at the enemy and immediately slowing them. This is an attempt to get a pick that is especially useful if your jungler has come to gank. By flashing and slowing you're severely limiting the enemies chances of getting away. Even if they flash away right after you do it, at max rank Time Warp slows by 99% for 2.5 seconds. They're not going anywhere. This can often equate to a kill if timed well with a jungle gank or a competent ADC.

Utility uses for Time Warp
Time Warp has a couple of other uses that are more utility based, but are no less important. Speed is your friend. Use it to get vision in the jungle faster. Use it to clear areas of vision faster. Use it to roam to other lanes faster. Use it to get back from base faster. Use it to speed 2 of your teammates or yourself to an objective or location faster. Never underestimate the power of increased mobility. It can be game breaking.

Chronoshift
Nothing in this game has earned me more praise or hate than this ability.

Timing this ability well has won me more fights than I can count, which in turn has won me countless games. Chronoshift is an immensely impactful ultimate ability, but miss timing it will result in mass amounts of toxicity from players that League of Legends is known for.

Chronoshift is very simple, point and click on the ally you want to save and if slain within the next 5 seconds, they will be revived with a set percentage of health scaling with your ability power.

So what's difficult about a very easy to use point and click ability? The same as Time Warp really. It's all about the timing.

When/How To Use Chronoshift
The key to using this ability correctly is once again situational. Waiting until the last dire second before an ally is about to die (so the enemy thinks they have got the kill) and then use it to save them is typically the best way. Wait too long, or misjudge the amount of damage they're about to take and your ally just dies. Get ready for the toxic chat and spam question mark pings (Trust me, they're coming).

Using it too early either results in the ability just being wasted because they didn't die, or if the enemy is a skilled player, they will simply wait out the 5 seconds and kill them when it ends. Your only bonus there is that there is a 5 second window where your ally can either try to escape, or to fight on and kill them before they kill you.

Things To Take In To Consideration
Game knowledge and good judgement play a large part of knowing how and when to use this ability. You need to know what abilities your enemies have and how they work. Abilities such as executes, for example champions such as: Garen, Darius or Evelynn ultimate's just to name a few that kill you the moment you reach a certain health percentage threshold.

How many people are attacking your ally? If all 5 enemy champions are on your teammate at once, there's a good chance they're going to die pretty quickly, so be prepared to ult sooner rather than later.

Something else important to take into consideration is items. The Collector in particular which has an execute function. High damage/crit builds when aimed at your carries or easier to kill teammates need to be accounted for, as well as just how weak your particular ally is.

This all sounds very daunting and somewhat serious and that's well.. because it is. It's an important ability with an important purpose.

Now for another scenario.

3 of your allies are very low and about to die. Which one do you save? Your tank? Your mid lane? Your ADC? it's not always an easy decision.
Typically you want to try and save your ultimate for your win condition. Your win Condition is the ally who is most likely to carry your game to victory.

Are you going to save the 0/4/2 Ahri or the 10/2/5 Jinx?
That should be an easy decision.

What about the 8/3/4 Katarina or the 12/5/4 Jhin?
Harder decision right?

You have to take in to account how many enemies are still alive, who those enemies are, and which ally is most likely to have the biggest impact on revival.

It's these decisions that sperate the mediocre players from the great players. Now don't get me wrong, people make mistakes. I have been at the top of my region and even the rank 1 Zilean in my region several times, but I still miss ults. I still miss bombs. Nobody is perfect and you wont be either. Don't beat yourself up about it.

The last 2 tips I have for using Chronoshift are for saving allies, and yourself.
How To Save Allies While Reviving
The first is when you have ulted your teammate and they have died and are now in the process of reviving. Enemies will usually swarm them like vultures on a carcass. Double bomb your teammates body. When they revive, the bombs stun will trigger instantly and catch any enemies that are too close giving your ally a momentary chance of escape. I have saved hundreds of people with this that by rights should have died.. again.
How To Save Yourself While Reviving
The second is a self preservation tip. Of all the tips and tricks I have given away in this blog, this is one of the most important I can teach you. For this you MUST have Flash and Chronoshift available. If you find yourself caught out or in a bad position while warding or anything like that, and death is imminent. Get to a wall and ult yourself. Time Warp if it's up but get to a wall. On revival, you're going to Flash straight over that wall, use Time Warp and be on your merry way.
Unless your enemies have Faker level timing or they have a Jinx/ Caitlyn for traps or Cassiopeia/ Singed to stop your from flashing with their W abilities, you're going to get away at least 60% of the time. The only thing to note is make sure the wall is one that can be flashed over or it's all for naught.

To conclude:
If you like playing the utility/supportive playstle,
If you like being a team player,
If you like making big impacts,
If you like seeing your ADC get a pentakill and getting absolutely no credit for it despite the fact that without you using absolutely everything to make it happen or it never would have,
Then Zilean is for you!

Thanks for reading. Love you all. Zilean #1