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 jungle monstersor enemy minions in your lane.
 * Be aware that Voidlings grant 12 Gold as bounty. If you die while having a Voidling summoned, it will not die outright but it will saty motionless and sometimes attack an opponent very close to them, they can still be killed to grant their 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.
 * If there is an enemy who needs to cast his whole combo and escape with skill try to silence him after he is in range. He will be an easy target after it.
 * 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, but be careful as this might cost you gold and exp if the vision is blocked by enemy champions or seige minions.
 * 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 50-120 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.
 * Don't underestimate the power of ; unlike many pool attacks, its damage scales off the enemy's max HP, allowing it to do potentially more damage than most other pool attacks.
 * Also, working with teammates to stun an enemy champion on  can prove to be devastating.
 * 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.
 * Unlike most burst mages can bring down fighters without much resistance, as his combo is the most powerful in-game (balanced by the entire lack of escaping abilites) and offers the highest DPS in game during the 2.5-3.5 seconds in which most of it happens.
 * Remember that is a combo mage (NOT A BURST MAGE, as it requires him to channel it), this means:
 * He has a massive power curve at level 6 and can flash-kill almost any lanning opponent.
 * He is an easy prey to anti-combo opponents, such as.
 * He is VERY ultimate dependant to kill enemy by himself, get caught without it and your best chance to kill someone is to land ,and  in the way while you run.
 * No one can safely 1v1 you without.
 * If an spell shield is in your way try to pop in down with.
 * He has long cooldowns, by extra-careful during those and abuse of your Voidlings while you have no abilities , as unleashing a full combo will always get at least a voidling.
 * excels at killing carries and mages on teamfights, as they cannot defend or attack at all because of and they are too fragile to survive, but it is dangerous to do so when the enemy frontline is present and carries are more likely to get a.
 * It is usually a better idea to use on fighters or initiators than on carries, as a full combo with QWER and assistance of your team can most likely take out one membor of the enemy team from the beginning of the teamfight.
 * 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

 * Although has no mana problem in lane if  is corrected pass through the minions, but outside of the lane  is mana hungry. So building  one of these three :an, or  early game will solve the problem.
 * 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.
 * Due to being a DoT champion, building a  and a  on  will allow him to inflict even more damage over time. The burn effect on  will deal double damage to a slowed enemy, thanks to, allowing abilities such as  to become devastating.
 * 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 (50% 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 .   is also a great item to get if enemy team composition is magic-heavy.
 * 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 great buy for because all of his spells have high ability power ratios.
 * has an unspoken potential as an AD caster due to the fact that Malzahar's benefit from his AD, and his armor penetration. This makes a spam-oriented AD Malzahar build fairly viable.
 * provides Cooldown Reduction, Armor Penetration, and Attack damage, as well as a handy passive that makes autoattacking more frequently a valuable asset.
 * To supplement the high mana costs regarding spamming spells, can synergize in particular with this build as it provides Mana and damage, which helps you deliver minions that are in turn stronger. Additionally,  also gives  strength with his autoattacks, although it is advised to use Muramana's passive sparingly, as it will drain your mana just as fast as any of your skills.
 * grants his Voidlings 15% increased damage, as well as giving AP for spell damage and armor and health regen for general survivability. This should be in most Voidling-centric builds regardless of an AD focus or not, for it's valuable stat bonuses that any kind of Malzahar can use.
 * provides CDR, built-in penetration, and attack damage, while also giving more incentive to autoattack, as your attacks will passively reduce armor for all incoming sources of physical damage, including Voidlings.
 * For this kind of build, allows you to augment physical attacks and encourage your spell-spamming while giving you light CC and and damage for your Voidlings.
 * Alternatively, has the same built in slow as well as health, but does not amplify damage as well as Trinity Force. But if you need a guaranteed and harder slow than Trinity Force or desire bonus health, then this is a valuable item.
 * For a tankier AD build, and  can provide stellar health and regen, as well as armor and bonus damage.
 * can grant a spectacular amount of damage and sustain, and is naturally good at farming minions up.
 * To make autoattacks potentially more lethal,  can grant you a potential for larger damage through critical strikes. Regardless of whether or not you're concerned with 's regular damage output, his voidlings will still benefit from the attack damage it grants.
 * For boots, consider either getting, or . Greaves will give Malzahar a greater DPS output, while the Treads help keep Malzahar fairly tanky. The Ionian Boots will give  CDR, to help with his spamming potential.
 * With CDR in mind, quick and easy ways to achieve 40% CDR include and.

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.
 * one of the (if not the) most powerful 1v1 champions in game as his combo is extremely overwhelming for almost any champion, because they can't benefit from any life steal or spell vamp during the combo, due to been disabled, in the other hand, he is pretty weak if long range crowd control or tank with long range gap-closer is present.
 * Take care when going 1v1 against an enemy as  is usually used to combo with  and . Usually this will be a kill for.
 * Keep in mind that Malzahar is essentially stunned when he uses, as it has a fairly long channel time. Take advantage of this to gang up on him if he uses it in a bad position.
 * Be carefull to gank  if your partner is low on health and playing carefully, as  will smash your friend and flee (likely using Flash).
 * 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 safe your alliles.
 * Be extremely careful about turret diving even if he has very low health, he will just deliver the combo , while you are suppresed and getting killed by the turret
 * 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 a short-ranged, devastating mage , as such ,  other mages that can outrange him have an strong advantage.
 * is 's main farming-tool and mana-sustain early game. If you stand next to a minion that has on it, so that it jumps over to you and not to another minion, you can literally deny part of his farm early game, but beware that  and voildings still do considerable damage. This tactic is better used by high sustain champions with self-heal or huge shields like  whose shield allow to catch and still get away pretty unharmed.

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