Your first ten games on Zilean: a smurf opener
A ten-game plan for Zilean on a fresh account — the abilities to drill, the real cooldowns to respect, and the habit that costs the most games.
Why Zilean on a new account
A new account gives you ten normal games before ranked opens. That is the only stretch where you can misplay Zilean at no cost to your rating, and most players spend it on autopilot.
Zilean is a support whose job in a fight is to make somebody else win a lane, then convert map presence into objectives. 550 attack range means Zilean wins by not being where the fight is. Spacing is the whole skill, not a detail of it.
Zilean is mana-gated, which is the real limit on how often you can contest a wave early.
Drill these, in this order
Time In A Bottle
Zilean stores time as Experience and can grant it to his allies. When he has enough Experience to finish an ally's level up, he can right-click them to impart it. Zilean receives as much Experience as he gives.
Time Bomb
Tosses a bomb to target area that sticks to units that come near it (prioritizes Champions). It detonates after 3 seconds, dealing area of effect damage. If a Time Bomb is detonated early by another Time Bomb, it also stuns enemies.
Rewind
Zilean can prepare himself for future confrontations, reducing the cooldowns of his other basic abilities.
Time Warp
Zilean bends time around any unit, decreasing an enemy's Move Speed or increasing an ally's Move Speed for a short time.
Chronoshift
Zilean places a protective time rune on an allied champion, teleporting the champion back in time if they take lethal damage.
Skill order, and how to reason about it
Take Chronoshift at levels 6, 11 and 16 — the ultimate is always worth the point it costs.
For the basic abilities, Rewind (W) gains the most from being ranked: its cooldown falls by 8 seconds between rank 1 and max, which is the largest improvement in the kit. That is the usual argument for maxing it first.
This is reasoning from the cooldown data, not a win-rate ranking — a matchup that punishes you can invert it.
- Q · Time Bomb — cooldown 10/9.5/9/8.5/8s, improving by 2s across its ranks
- W · Rewind — cooldown 14/12/10/8/6s, improving by 8s across its ranks
- E · Time Warp — cooldown 15s
Games one to four: last-hitting only
Do not look for kills. Farm, and watch the cooldown figures above — a support that walks up with its main ability down is giving away a free trade, and at rank one those cooldowns are at their longest.
Ranged last-hitting under tower is its own skill, and these are the games to practise it deliberately.
Games five to ten: trading patterns
Now use the cooldowns. The recurring error for this class is watching the lane instead of the map — it never feels like a mistake in the moment, which is exactly why it survives into ranked.
Riot's own notes on playing Zilean
These are the designers' words, not ours — the tips shipped in the client for Zilean.
- You can combine the use of Time Bomb and Rewind to place two Time Bombs on a target quickly. Placing the second bomb will detonate the first and stun all nearby enemies.
- Time Warp is an effective way to enable allies to finish off enemies, or escape from a losing battle.
- Chronoshift is a powerful deterrent to attacking your carries, but casting Chronoshift too early in a fight can cause the enemy to switch targets too soon, making it less effective.
What the stat line does between level 1 and 18
| Stat | Level 1 | Level 18 |
|---|---|---|
| Health | 574 | 2206 |
| Attack damage | 52 | 52 |
| Armour | 24 | 109 |
| Magic resist | 30 | 52.1 |
Movement speed 335 and attack range 550 do not grow with levels — they are the two numbers that stay true all game.
Full Zilean page — abilities, stats and every skin →