Counter Guide

How to Beat Ziggs

Matchup Guide · Evergreen · 3 Counter Picks

Ziggs never has to be in the fight. He shoves the wave, drops a minefield on the only path forward, and pokes you off the map from behind it.

Losing to Ziggs doesn't feel like losing to a champion. It feels like being told where you're allowed to stand for half an hour. He shoves, he zones, and the fight you wanted never happens. It's exactly why he keeps turning up in the bot lane section of our solo queue tier list. It's a fair complaint, and it also describes a champion with one escape button and no self-healing whatsoever.

Matchup Snapshot Ziggs, the Hexplosives Expert

Where You Meet HimBot Lane

Damage TypeMagic

Why He Is FrustratingHe never has to actually fight you

MobilityOne self-knockback

Biggest ThreatHexplosive Minefield [E]

Hardest CounterVayne

What a Counter Needs

A gap closer that crosses his zone in one motion rather than walking through it
Lockdown that lands from further away than he can react to
A plan for the wave, since he shoves faster than almost anyone in the role

Patch 26.18 Matchup Data

Who Beats Ziggs on Patch 26.18

Best Picks Into Ziggs

Vayne476 games53.1%
Twitch631 games52.1%
Zeri453 games51.9%
Xayah479 games50.9%

Picks Ziggs Beats

Kalista409 games45.2%
Varus448 games45.5%
Ashe1,229 games46.5%
Caitlyn3,933 games47.2%

Win rates are for the champion listed, in the bot lane against Ziggs. They come from Nerfplz's own ranked solo queue games on Patch 26.18, Silver and above, 28,786 Ziggs games in all. Only matchups that show up in at least 1% of those games are listed.

Ziggs Overview

Strengths: What Makes Him Dangerous

Hexplosive Minefield [E] is area denial rather than damage. It decides where you're allowed to walk, which matters more than the numbers on it.
He clears the wave and pokes you with the same button. Bouncing Bomb [Q] is on a 4 second cooldown by rank 5, so there's no version of the lane where he has to choose between the two.
Satchel Charge [W] gets him out of an engage for free, without dealing him any damage, and it can finish off a weakened tower on the way out.
His poke feels relentless because it is. Every spell he casts shortens the cooldown on a bonus damage attack.
Mega Inferno Bomb [R] reaches 5000 units, so he takes kills out of fights he never walked to.

Weaknesses: Where You Get In

Everything he owns is a projectile or a delayed zone. None of his damage is guaranteed and all of it can be walked out of.
Satchel Charge [W] is his only escape. It's 20 seconds at rank 1, and after it he's a slow mage standing in the open.
He's extremely squishy and heals for nothing. There's no sustain anywhere in the kit and no defensive item in a standard build.
His only crowd control is a slow. Nothing he has stops a champion who's already standing next to him.
His close range game doesn't exist. Once Satchel Charge [W] is used, he has no answer to anything at melee distance.

Countering Ziggs

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

Cross the minefield in one motion. It punishes walking and does nothing about arriving. A dash, a blink, or a charge takes one detonation instead of four.
Bait the Satchel Charge [W]. Threaten once, make him use it, then commit properly during the 20 seconds where he has no exit.
Lock him down from range. He can't dodge what's already traveling and he can't disengage from what's already landed.
Match the wave, don't fight it. He'll shove faster than you. Play for the freeze on your side or for the roam, rather than for the CS war.

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

Playing a Bad Ziggs Matchup

Stand at the edge of your wave rather than the middle of it. His clear is fast and the wave is where every Bouncing Bomb [Q] is aimed anyway.

Never path through a minefield to answer a poke. That's the trade he's asking for (and the damage stacks per mine).

Buy a Null-Magic Mantle on your first back when the poke is landing. His damage is entirely magic and his early numbers are a lot less scary against 25 magic resist than they look.

Play for the 2v2 or the roam rather than the farm. You won't out-CS him, and the answer is to make the lane irrelevant rather than to win it.

Best Ziggs Counters

Three ways to answer a zone control mage: land on top of him, lock him down from further out, or refuse to be targetable when the bomb arrives.

Tristana Lands on Top of Him

Rocket Jump [W] crosses 900 units in one motion (the exact thing Hexplosive Minefield [E] is designed to prevent, and can't). She arrives past the zone rather than through it, and Ziggs' only answer is a Satchel Charge [W] that pushes him a fraction of the distance she just covered.

Explosive Charge [E] then does the rest, and the Rocket Jump [W] cooldown resets when the charge kills its target, so the escape she used to engage is often back before he is. Buster Shot [R] also removes his positioning entirely (worse than the damage, for a champion whose plan is standing far away).

Ashe Punishes from Max Range

Enchanted Crystal Arrow [R] is fired from anywhere on the map and stuns for longer the further it travels (the cleanest possible answer to a champion who wins by never being near the fight). Ziggs' Satchel Charge [W] does nothing about a projectile already in flight.

Frost Shot [Passive] then slows on every attack permanently, and Volley [W] applies it across a cone at 1200 units. A slowed Ziggs can't walk out of his own minefield's radius any faster than you can, and the range advantage he was counting on stops existing.

Xayah Untargetable on Command

Featherstorm [R] lifts Xayah into the air, untargetable and ghosted, for a second and a half. That's more than enough to sit out a Mega Inferno Bomb [R], a Satchel Charge [W] detonation, or the exact moment a minefield was supposed to catch her, and it leaves feathers behind while she does it.

Bladecaller [E] then recalls those feathers from up to 2000 units and roots everything they pass through, which reaches Ziggs at the distance he's chosen to stand. Clean Cuts [Passive] also means her attacks pass through the wave he's hiding behind rather than stopping on it.

Itemizing Against Ziggs

Ziggs is entirely magic damage, delivered at long range and in repeated chunks rather than one burst:

Maw of Malmortius is the strongest single purchase for a carry, because the lifeline triggers during the poke rather than after it. Mercury's Treads cuts the minefield slow that stops you leaving, Wit's End turns magic resist into damage for anyone still trying to reach him, and Banshee's Veil eats the Mega Inferno Bomb [R] that was aimed at your back line.