Talk:Karma/Strategy/@comment-24055932-20131015232755

For the specific matchup Karma vs. Malzahar it could be a possible strategy to spend an extra focuss on shielding minions infected by malzahars visions, leading to stop the spell and therefore empty his mana pool, effectively preventing him to farm.

Additionally you can do a quite long range poke by using your ultimate + shield on a minion. Could be usefull if somebody is running away after a dive, or if you want to shield an allied champion you can't reach in time anymore (not tested yet, only deducted out of the Ability/Detail).

Though q is your main damage source, against tough matchups maxing w first can be sensible, too. You a) lower your ultimates cooldown each time you cast it, and b) get great sustain because you will be able to use your ultimate a lot more frequently. You basically trade your enemy to death. I only recommend this to champs who (!)almost burst you down and whose combo can just hardly be dodged. An example for that would be Veigar. As another bonus can be said, that you do not really push your lane and additionally regularly stun your opponent, giving your jungler just godlike ganks.