Malzahar/Strategy

Skill usage

 * can by spamming abilities at spawn. This can be useful at beginning of game by using an ability to quickly decimate the enemy minions in your lane.
 * Be aware that Voidlings grant 12 Gold as bounty. If you die while having a Voidling summoned, the Voidling will die as well and also grant its bounty.
 * Never underestimate . It is extremely effective at turning team fights, both damaging, and silencing as many enemies as possible.
 * can turn a disadvantageous push from enemy team into a stalemate by spamming it on incoming enemy champions. Enemies who were damaged and silenced will think twice, or even retreat from the front due to the momentary vulnerability while the silence debuff is in place.
 * Casting on an enemy minion that is about to die is a good way to farm minion kills or harass safely because of its chain reaction.
 * At rank 5, with about 100 ability power, it can completely kill both melee and caster minions at full health.
 * will still gain gold and xp from anywhere on the map if finishes off the minions. This is useful both to avoid being denied and to continue to farm aggressively all game long.
 * Leveling up early in the game is a great way to harass enemy champions without using any mana. Simply cast it on a wave of minions near the enemy champion and auto-attack the infected minion until it spreads to the champion. This results in around 50 gold, almost no mana lost (you might have gained mana), and the enemy champion being out of 100-200 health. At rank 1 it takes 6 minion kills to fully refund the mana cost. At all other ranks it takes 5 minion kills to fully refund the mana cost.
 * Against a single target (champion), is  most mana-efficient damage ability even if it doesn't jump, and is his only harassment method that won't push his lane.
 * There is a bug where two nearby will not both propagate. Try to avoid casting a second copy in big minion waves.
 * is very good at harassing enemies under a turret. and  both have excellent range, and can be used to harass or finish off enemies under a turret.  and  both take a second before they deal their damage, allowing you to get back out of turret range.
 * has a suppression effect; it disables the use of summoner spells and is not affected by tenacity like . However, the suppression effect of his ultimate can be canceled by, , or.
 * During a team fight use to disable any high DPS or healers for your team to pick off quick. When carefully aimed it can be used through some walls in Summoner's Rift and Twisted Treeline.
 * A combo of, , , , and will kill all but the toughest champions, which makes  a great 1v1 champion.
 * deals a percentage of the target's maximum health, meaning that late game can deal tons of damage when multiple enemies stand on his.
 * does not have to be used to kill an enemy, but can disable an enemy instead.
 * is a great way of zoning enemies as they realize it takes away a percentage of their health.
 * is a great pusher with his and either with his  or his . This allows  to help lanes in trouble by pushing his own and with his combo at lvl 6 can ensure a kill.
 * At level 6 while pushing with your and your enemy laner gets caught you can then lay down your  and then  for an easy kill.

Build usage

 * is a great item for considering he has no real escape mechanism or crowd control other than  and . However, since all of his abilities are AoE or DoT, only the 15% slow applies, making this item less effective.
 * Using a is another good idea for more survivability and prevents your ultimate  from being interrupted by an enemy with a stun or silence.
 * is a good item as it will keep you alive with the spell vamp while you are using . However, on his AoE spells, the spell vamp is diminished (33% rate).
 * offers both spell vamp and ability power, which benefits.
 * will also give spell vamp, but also would drastically increase the power of his voidlings, as they scale with his bonus damage.
 * Farming minions waves with and  can restore a lot of mana and restore health.
 * is a useful item, giving you a lot of magic penetration, allowing all your abilities to deal more damage. Also use items such as, , and.
 * You cannot use the active in conjunction with  - it will interrupt the spell.
 * can be built as a pusher as well. With his Voidling, he is able to put out a considerable amount of damage on turrets. Don't be afraid to buy if you are feeling confident enough to push.
 * is a must for because all of his spells have high ability power ratios.

Countering

 * suppression can be removed by, , and
 * and might give an enemy  second thoughts about trying to suppress you with.
 * abilities deal magic damage so getting more than 100 magic resist can severely hinder the amount of damage he puts out.
 * Take care when going 1v1 against an enemy as  is usually used to combo with  and . Usually this will be a kill for.
 * Save a disable for when uses his.
 * If you see one of your allies under the effect of, you can stun or silence the enemy out of the channeling and turn it into a 2v1 fight.
 * If you play as a tank, take care not to stand above for too long or else the spell will devastate your health and can sometimes kill you if you're not too careful as it deals a percentage of your health.
 * is 's main farming-tool and mana-sustain early game. If you purchase a source of health replenishment early and then always move next to a minion that has on it, so that it jumps over to you and not to another minion, you can literally obliterate his entire early game, as he will gain significantly less farm.
 * When you manage to catch  early and prevent it from passing on to other units, this will also greatly reduce the mana-refund of that spell and he will find himself to be out of mana quickly. This hurts especially much since all his spells have high mana cost, and investing in Mana-Regeneration while having very low farm will diminish his damage-output midgame.
 * 's only way to punish that before level 6 are Voidlings who will attack you if you have . In that case, try to run to your own tower and let it kill the Voidling.
 * Keep in mind that you can only use this technique if you have some source of health sustain. Due to the low farm Malzahar gets, he will not be able to purchase much additional ability power; 's damage is still not neglectible.

Champion spotlight
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PC5ScnEH-Rc