Nobody wants to solo lane against the man who hands out second chances.
Zilean is a support. He's been a support for as long as most of us have been playing, and the few people who take him anywhere else usually take him mid. Top lane is the one place almost nobody tries him, and it turns out to be the lane where his ultimate is worth the most.
So how does this work anyway?
Weird Pick #173
Top Lane Zilean
How to Play Top Lane Zilean
- Abilities
- Q, W, E then prioritize R > Q > E > W
- Summoner Spells
-
Flash 
Teleport - Starting Items
-
Doran's Shield 
Health Potion - Strategy
- Survive the first six levels, hold the wave near your own tower, then start showing up to every fight on the map with a slow, a speed boost and a revive nobody drafted for
- Core Items
-
Rod of Ages 
Ionian Boots of Lucidity 
Rylai's Crystal Scepter 
Cosmic Drive 
Zhonya's Hourglass
Top Lane Zilean Runes Setup
Sorcery
Resolve
When to Pick This
Look at who's diving. If the enemy jungler is a champion whose whole game is arriving at your tower at level three and killing you, Chronoshift [R] turns that plan into a gamble they only get to make once. The gank that would have ended your lane instead ends with two enemies standing in your tower range while you walk away at full move speed.
The other green light is a draft where your team already has the damage and nothing that keeps it alive. Zilean won't out-scale anyone in a side lane. Rod of Ages and Rylai's Crystal Scepter do make him hard to remove from a fight he isn't the target of, and the build spends every gold piece on ability haste and slows rather than on burst.
Don't take it into a lane bully who can walk at you from level one and doesn't care about a bomb. That's the version where you spend fifteen minutes under tower and your team plays four against five.
How It Works
Top Lane Is Where Dives Happen
Every other lane has a second body in it or a tower it can hide behind and still farm. Top is the long, isolated one (and the one the enemy jungler visits when they want a free kill). A revive is worth more in the lane that gets collapsed on most, and this is that lane.
He Solves The Lane With Range
Zilean never wants to be near the melee champion he's facing, and top lane gives him a long stretch of ground to keep him away with. Bomb the wave, bomb the space in front of the bruiser, walk backward. It's a dull way to spend ten minutes. It's also a survivable one, and surviving is the entire ask.
The Speed Buff Is A Teleport That Never Runs Out
Time Warp [E] on yourself is a movement speed swing large enough to cross the map, and (unlike Teleport) it comes back every few seconds. Top lane Zilean gets to a dragon fight faster than the top laner who won lane against him, and once he's there he can hand that same buff to whoever's diving in.
Nobody Itemizes For Him
Enemy top laners buy armor. They buy it early, they buy a lot of it, and against a champion dealing magic damage from outside their range it does nothing at all. That's a free advantage for the first fifteen minutes and it costs you nothing to take.
Potential Pitfalls
He Cannot Take The Wave Away From Anyone
Zilean shoves slowly and pushes badly until he has real items, which means the enemy top laner decides where the wave sits for most of the laning phase. Accept it. Hold near your own tower, take the safe minions, and give up the ones that would put you past the river entrance without vision.
The Ultimate Makes You Feel Braver Than You Are
Chronoshift [R] is a second chance, not a second health bar, and there's a specific way this pick loses games: you use it on yourself in a fight you should never have taken, and now you're a Zilean with no ultimate for the next two minutes (which is a Zilean with almost nothing). Save it for a teammate who's already doing damage.
Point-And-Click Range Beats Everything Here
A top laner who can reach you without walking into your bomb takes this matchup away from you outright. There's no rune page or item that fixes a champion pressing a button and being on top of you, and Zilean has no dash, no shield and no escape beyond the speed boost. Check the enemy pick before you lock this in, not after.
Top Lane Zilean Conclusions
This is an insurance policy that happens to farm. You're not going to win lane, and the post isn't going to pretend otherwise. What you're buying is a top laner who cannot be permanently removed by a level three dive, who arrives at every objective fight before anyone expects him, and who makes the enemy team's best all-in target unkillable for four seconds at a time.
Teams that fight a lot around dragons love having him. Teams that want their top laner to split push and win a side lane one against one will hate every minute of it. Draft accordingly, and if you're going to try it, try it on a night when your jungler is the sort who answers pings.
Suggested Tier: Tier 3
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