Counter Guide

How to Beat Fizz

Matchup Guide · Evergreen · 3 Counter Picks

Fizz spends one second untargetable and the whole rest of the fight deciding exactly when that second happens.

Playful and Trickster [E] is the reason this matchup feels unfair. You land the ability you've been holding, he hops onto a spear, and it didn't happen. Then the shark lands and the sequence that kills you isn't one you get to interact with. Being annoyed about that is completely reasonable, and it's a different problem from where he shows up on the solo queue tier list. The way through it is to stop trying to out-play a one second window and start making that window cost him something.

Matchup Snapshot Fizz, the Tidal Trickster

Where You Meet HimMid Lane

Damage TypeMagic

Why He Is FrustratingHe can erase your best ability by hopping

MobilityA dash, a pole hop and a 1300 range ultimate

Biggest ThreatChum the Waters [R]

Hardest CounterSylas

What a Counter Needs

Crowd control that doesn't have to be aimed, or enough of it that one dodge doesn't end the fight
Damage that arrives over time rather than in a single button he can hop over
Magic resist bought earlier than feels comfortable

Patch 26.18 Matchup Data

Who Beats Fizz on Patch 26.18

Best Picks Into Fizz

Sylas3,162 games52.6%
Nasus1,305 games52.3%
Vladimir1,302 games51.7%
Kassadin1,181 games51.6%
Diana1,972 games51.6%

Picks Fizz Beats

Mel1,845 games40.8%
Syndra3,322 games42.2%
Aurelion Sol931 games43.9%
Aurora840 games45.5%

Win rates are for the champion listed, in the mid lane against Fizz. They come from Nerfplz's own ranked solo queue games on Patch 26.18, Silver and above, 83,647 Fizz games in all. Only matchups that show up in at least 1% of those games are listed.

Fizz Overview

Strengths: What Makes Him Dangerous

Playful / Trickster [E] makes him untargetable on demand, and the cooldown drops to eight seconds. Every single target ability you own is negotiable while it's up.
Chum the Waters [R] travels 1300 units, sticks to the first champion it touches, and knocks that champion up after a delay. Once it's attached the rest of the combo is a formality.
He closes and deals damage with the same button, because Urchin Strike [Q] is a dash through you that carries his on-hit effects with it.
Chip damage and minion blocks are both worse than they look. He takes a flat cut off every source of damage and he walks straight through units.
Trades don't end when his abilities do. The damage keeps ticking after he has stopped casting, which is why the exchange you thought you won turns out not to be one.

Weaknesses: Where You Get In

He's short range and he's squishy. A missed Playful and Trickster [E] costs him the fight.
Every ability he owns brings him closer to you. Both his dash and his ultimate commit him to a position, and that's why area crowd control is so good against him.
The pole hop is on a sixteen second cooldown at rank one. Before he has levels in it he's only occasionally untargetable, and the early game is where you should be taking your lead.
Chum the Waters [R] attaches to the first champion it touches. Anyone standing between you and him takes it instead (so positioning is a real defense).
His entire kit is single target. Against a team standing together he gets one person and then has to survive everyone else.

Countering Fizz

Based on the strengths and weaknesses above, beating Fizz comes down to champions who can accomplish at least one of the following:

Bring crowd control that doesn't need aiming. A point and click stun, root or suppression can't be dodged by becoming untargetable at the right moment.
Buy magic resist before the item feels justified. All of his damage is magic and it all arrives in one window.
Don't stand alone. His kit is built to delete one person, so make the person he can reach the wrong one.
Bait the pole hop, then start the fight. Once E is on cooldown he's a melee assassin standing in front of you with no escape.

If you're already locked into the matchup without any of those tools, these strategies still work:

Playing a Bad Fizz Matchup

Track his E cooldown rather than his ultimate. The ultimate decides when the fight starts, but E decides whether you get to answer it.

Put a body between you and him. Chum the Waters [R] sticks to the first champion it touches, so a frontliner standing in the lane is a real answer to it.

Hold stasis for after the shark connects rather than before. Zhonya's used early just tells him to wait.

Push the wave and stand behind it when his ultimate is up. He can walk through units but the shark still has to cross the distance, and distance is time.

Best Fizz Counters

The three answers here are crowd control that doesn't need aiming, a champion who steals the shark for himself, and one who simply doesn't take enough magic damage to die.

Diana Never Has to Aim

Moonfall [R] pulls every enemy near Diana toward her and slows them for two seconds (it reveals them during the pull, too). Fizz has to come into melee range to do his damage, so the moment he lands on top of her is the moment the ult has something to grab.

Playful / Trickster [E] keeps him untargetable for about a second. She waits it out. Pale Cascade [W] shields her while she does, and Lunar Rush [E] follows him wherever he hops afterward. He's built to dodge a single skillshot, and she doesn't need to land one.

Sylas Steals the Shark

Hijack [R] copies Fizz's ultimate, so Sylas can throw Chum the Waters [R] straight back at him. Whoever the lure lands on gets slowed and then knocked up, and Fizz hates being slowed next to someone who wants to keep fighting.

Sylas doesn't have to find him first, either. Abscond / Abduct [E] closes the gap and stuns the first enemy the chain hits, and Kingslayer [W] heals for more the lower Sylas is (which is exactly when Fizz tends to throw the rest of his combo).

Kassadin Blunts the Burst

Void Stone [Passive] means Kassadin takes 10% less magic damage all game, and almost everything Fizz does is magic damage. Null Sphere [Q] adds a magic shield on top for a second and a half, so the window Fizz commits his combo into is the window Kassadin is hardest to kill.

Fizz's escape is a hop. Riftwalk [R] is a blink on a short cooldown (two seconds at rank three) that goes after him, and once Kassadin has it the trade Fizz wanted to take and leave turns into one he can't leave at all.

Itemizing Against Fizz

All of Fizz's damage is magic and almost all of it lands inside two seconds:

Zhonya's Hourglass is the standard answer and the timing is the whole item. Stasis after the shark connects wastes his combo, stasis before it just tells him to wait. Banshee's Veil grants a spell shield that blocks the next enemy ability, which can eat Chum the Waters [R] before it ever attaches. Mercury's Treads add magic resist and cut the slow that keeps you inside the combo. Kaenic Rookern grants a large magic shield after fifteen seconds without magic damage, so it's a poor laning purchase against a champion with a bleed and an excellent one for the team fights afterwards.