User blog comment:Jadenvalor/Zyra's viability in season 5/@comment-24420226-20150319210416

First of all, there is no substitute for a real ward. Yes, the seeds do have that nice utility, but their field of vision is very small and people can easily walk around them. It's the same with Nidalee and Caityln traps, Maokai saplings, Kalista ghosts, etc: the best way to dodge a gank is to see the jungler coming and back out before they arrive. Wards provide the most vision for the longest duration. Now that upgraded green trinkets give you up to two wards, there really is no excuse for proper warding.

As for Zyra herself, I think she's a great mage. I tried all kinds of builds on her and I've found that it doesn't really matter what you buy on her, as long as you have AP you have tons of damage. This means you have a lot of freedom to counter-build your opponents instead of trying to rush your pre-determined two or three core items. It also means falling behind isn't the end of the world: base damage is strong with your plants and she has the CC to make plays to catch up. As with other slow moving mages, not landing her CC makes it very hard to stick to her targets in fights. Remember that while the knock up is nice, the ult does lots of damage without it. She's got lots of zoning power her utlimate is very scary for fighting in closed spaces like dragon or baron pit. Try to pick fights in those places where the enemy can't move around to avoid your spells esaily. Flank whenevr possible.

And the trade off for having all this strong utility and consistant damage is low mobility. In contrast, Kassadin is a mobility oriented champion but really depends on being able to stack his RoA/Tear before he becomes a menace, so his opponents have a bit of a breather for the early game where they can pressure him hard. Azir is a champ with utility and zone comparable to Zyra while also having a fairly decent gapclose/escape. However, Azir's damage is heavily tied to having lots of CDR, not just get his Q up quickly but also to convert into attack speed for his soldiers. Plus, he is incredibly mana hungry. First item Morello or Athene is almost recquired (meaning he has to wait to get Hourglass, which should be a first against assassins like Zed or even Fizz), and really needs to wait to have 2 or 3 items before he can go crazy. Zyra has passive CDR as well as relatively low cooldowns on their own, and plants go a long way to stretching how much bang her spells have for the mana that they cost.

Regarding Zyra Top: why not? You would probs have to rush something tanky like a RoA, but like I said there is nothing that Zyra shouldn't build as long as it has AP. The concept is not that far off from Morg or Lissandra top, though it's important to note that Morg's CC is a little scarier and Liss has a pretty big escape that lets her stay safe far away from her tower. Just make sure you stay warded up and try not to over-extend.

Additionally, have you tried Zyra Jungle?