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Malzahar Counters: Who Beats Malzahar

Updated for patch 26.21. Ability details come from Riot’s official game data for this patch.

Malzahar counters are mid laners who break his passive shield from range and then arrive before it comes back. He’s a 500-range mage with a silencing pair of portals, a damage-over-time curse that spreads on kill, summoned Voidlings, and a channeled suppression, so poke that pops Void Shift, untargetability against Nether Grasp, and a channel interrupt beat him.

These five come from his patch 26.21 ability text against theirs, with no tier list behind them.

Malzahar counters: Malzahar, the Prophet of the Void, splash art

Why is Malzahar hard to counter?

  • Void Shift (passive): when he hasn’t recently taken damage or been crowd controlled, he gains massive damage reduction and crowd control immunity, lingering briefly after he takes damage.
  • Call of the Void (Q): two portals that fire projectiles after a short delay, dealing magic damage and silencing champions. Cooldown 6 seconds.
  • Void Swarm (W): summons Voidlings that attack nearby enemies. Cooldown 8.
  • Malefic Visions (E): damage over time on the target, refreshed by his other spells; if the target dies it passes to a nearby enemy and he gains Mana. Voidlings chase affected units. Cooldown 11/10/9/8/7.
  • Nether Grasp (R): a channel that suppresses an enemy champion over a zone of damaging energy. Cooldown 140/110/80.

Malzahar is the safest mage in the lane, and that’s by design. Void Shift means the first spell you land does almost nothing and the first stun you land does nothing at all, so an assassin’s opener is spent breaking a shield instead of a champion. Then the portals silence, the visions tick, the Voidlings chase, and if you’re still there Nether Grasp holds you in place for the rest. What does he give up for it? Mobility, which is none, and any defence once the passive is down. Honestly, the whole matchup is a sequence: pop the shield from range, wait for the silence, then go, and the five champions below are the ones who do that sequence best.

Which champions are the best Malzahar counters?

Fizz

Playful / Trickster (E) makes Fizz untargetable on his spear, and Nether Grasp needs a target, so a Fizz who hops as the channel starts has dodged a 140 second ultimate with an ability on a far shorter cooldown. His dash is Urchin Strike (Q), straight through the target; Seastone Trident (W) leaves magic damage ticking for several seconds; Chum the Waters (R) is a fish that slows, then a shark that knocks up. Nimble Fighter (passive) shaves a flat amount off every source of damage, so Malefic Visions and the Voidlings’ bites each lose a little. The catch is Void Shift: a Fizz who jumps in without popping it first has spent his burst on a shield (we’ve all done it once).

Kassadin

Null Sphere (Q) interrupts channels. Nether Grasp is a channel. That sentence is most of the matchup (read it twice). The same spell wraps Kassadin in a shield that absorbs magic damage, Void Stone (passive) makes him take reduced magic damage in the first place, and every point of damage Malzahar deals is magic. Force Pulse (E) charges from spells cast nearby, and Riftwalk (R) teleports him onto a mage who has no way to move. 150 range means the early levels are rough, since Malzahar pokes from 500 and the silence stops Riftwalk before it starts. Survive to six and it’s his lane.

Yasuo

Wind Wall (W) blocks all enemy projectiles for 4 seconds, and Call of the Void fires projectiles from its portals, which means the silence that protects Malzahar from an all-in can be walled out of the fight. Dashes come from Sweeping Blade (E), the knock-up from Steel Tempest (Q) at 2 stacks, and the blink onto an Airborne champion from Last Breath (R). Thing is, Void Shift makes him immune to crowd control until it’s broken, so the order is Q to pop the passive, then the knock-up. Way of the Wanderer (passive) builds a shield as he moves. It soaks the first Malefic Visions tick. In practice Yasuo wins when the wall is up and loses when he dashes in without it.

Talon

Rake (W) throws daggers out and back, dealing physical damage each way and slowing on the return, and it’s the tool that pops Void Shift from outside Malzahar’s reach. Noxian Diplomacy (Q) then leaps if he’s outside melee range and stabs for critical damage if he isn’t, Blade’s End (passive) stacks Wounds with each spell and bleeds the target at 3 stacks, and Shadow Assault (R) makes Talon invisible with a ring of blades that converge when he reappears. An invisible Talon is a Talon Nether Grasp can’t be cast on. Assassin’s Path (E) vaults terrain, which on the mid lane means he arrives from a direction Malzahar wasn’t facing (there’s always one).

Zed

Razor Shuriken (Q) is thrown by Zed and by his shadows, which gives him poke that breaks Void Shift from range, and Living Shadow (W) leaves a shadow he can swap places with, which is an escape from the Nether Grasp zone if the channel hasn’t started. Death Mark (R) makes him untargetable while he dashes to a champion, marks them, and after 3 seconds repeats a portion of all the damage he dealt, so a suppression started as he dashes finds nobody to hold. Shadow Slash (E) slows anyone hit by a shadow’s slash, and Contempt for the Weak (passive) adds bonus magic damage to attacks on low targets. Funny enough, the silence is Zed’s real problem, not the ultimate; a silenced Zed is a 125-range champion standing next to a mage with Voidlings.

How do you play the lane against Malzahar?

  • Pop Void Shift from range first. The passive grants massive damage reduction and crowd control immunity until he takes damage, so the first spell is a key, not an attack.
  • Don’t stand between the portals. Call of the Void fires after a short delay, which is long enough to step sideways out of the line.
  • Kill the Voidlings or walk away from them. Void Swarm’s Voidlings chase units affected by Malefic Visions, so a cursed champion standing still is a cursed champion being eaten.
  • Don’t let Malefic Visions jump. It passes to a nearby enemy when the target dies, so don’t let a cursed minion die next to you.
  • Engage after the Q. Call of the Void is on a 6 second cooldown, and the window after a silence misses is the window where he can’t stop you.

Which items counter Malzahar?

Two problems, in order: the suppression and the magic damage. Quicksilver Sash removes all crowd control debuffs except Airborne for 1,300 gold, and suppression is a crowd control debuff, which makes it the single best purchase against a Malzahar who’s landing Nether Grasp. Mercurial Scimitar carries the same Quicksilver active with 50 Attack Damage and 35 Magic Resist for attackers. Note what doesn’t work: Mikael’s Blessing’s Purify removes crowd control from an ally but excludes Airborne and Suppression, so your support can’t cleanse the grasp for you. Banshee’s Veil blocks the next enemy ability with its Spell Shield, which is either a silence or the ultimate, and Mercury’s Treads give 30% Tenacity against the silence. For the damage, Spirit Visage’s 50 Magic Resist and 400 Health, and Force of Nature’s Steadfast, which stacks off magic damage from champions and reaches 70 Magic Resist after 8 instances. Malefic Visions supplies instances. All of them, with build paths, are in our item database; the Rabadon’s Deathcap page is for mages who’d rather win the damage race than the item one.

When is Malzahar at his weakest?

In the seconds after Void Shift breaks. The passive lingers only briefly once he takes damage, and after that he’s a 500-range mage with no mobility, no shield and a silence on a 6 second cooldown, which is the whole opening an assassin needs. Pop it with poke, not with the engage. Then go.

And after Nether Grasp. At rank 1 it’s a 140 second cooldown (well over two minutes), and a Malzahar who channeled it on the wrong target has spent his only hard crowd control for all of that time. Is the grasp down? Then the only thing keeping you off him is a silence that misses when you step sideways. He knows it.

If the mid lane is still new ground, our guide to LoL roles explains what the position wants. The Malzahar skins page has his cosmetics, and for the mode that nerfs him on both ends there’s the Malzahar ARAM guide. To be fair, the best Malzahar counters all respect the same rule: break the shield before you commit, and never be the one standing still when the portals open.

FAQ

Who counters Malzahar the most?

Mid laners who break Void Shift from range and can avoid Nether Grasp: Fizz, Kassadin, Yasuo, Talon and Zed.

Does Quicksilver Sash remove Nether Grasp?

Yes. Quicksilver removes all crowd control debuffs except Airborne, and suppression is one of them. Mikael’s Blessing’s Purify does not, since it excludes Suppression.

Does Kassadin counter Malzahar?

Yes. Null Sphere interrupts channels, and Nether Grasp is a channel; Void Stone also reduces the magic damage from his whole kit.

How do you break Void Shift?

Deal damage to him. The passive only holds while he hasn’t recently taken damage or crowd control, and it lingers briefly after the first hit, so poke him before the engage rather than with it.

Is this list based on win rates?

No. The picks come from Malzahar’s patch 26.21 ability text set against each champion’s kit, and from nothing else.