[2.6a] Did I just miss the shurikens?: A Zed Guide

honestly, pre-5 and post-5 you win against Lux. Dodge her Light Binding and execute your all-in combo to get an easy solo kill.

Avoid Bouncing Bomb and be wary of Hexplosive Minefield and you literally win against him pre-5 and post-5.

Much like Lux except her only solid form of CC is empowered Beat Drop and Encore . Seraphine excels in poking you over and over with High Note and Beat Drop . Easy pre-5 and post-5 and you can easily snowball against a Seraphine mid. Be mindful of her ultimate as your greediness might lead to a shutdown gold for the Seraphine. Her trades are somehow decent due to the fact that she has notes to increase auto-attack damage.

A good Annie is always willing to stun a Zed when she has 4 stacks with Disintegrate or Incinerate . Overall, you have amazing kill pressure against Annie and wins short trades assuming her Molten Shield is on cooldown. Be wary as executing your Death Mark against her while she is under her turret is a bad idea, never ever do it.

ASol is reliant on poking and whittling down your health via the stars that orbit his body. His Starsurge is also easily telegraphed so dodge it always or else it will stun you. The only threat about ASol is his Voice Of Light which pushes you back thus making you vulnerable to his stars, other than that you win pre-5 and post-5 against ASol. Furthermore, you might find him roaming as well so take that chance to burst him down.

Yes you beat Malphite pre-5 and post-5 early game, but at the late game, he is going to start stacking armor thus making him a tanky. You either burst him or he sustains that damage and claps your Ionian butt until you die. My tip for this match up is to build an early Mortal Reminder or Maw of Malmortius if Malphite goes tanky or AP respectively.

Veigar is an easy matchup, as his only method of becoming a threat to you is when you get caged by his Event Horizon . Other than that, you can poke him with your Razor Shuriken and Living Shadow and DO NOT LET VEIGAR SCALE. End the game swiftly before he becomes a menace for the entire team. 

Much like Lux, Morgana relies on her Dark Binding to have kill pressure over you. However, the difference is that her Soul Shackles is suited for teamfights. You can easily kill Morgana provided that you can evade her cc, once you notice that she buys [stasis enchant] change your target priority to other squishes. 

Twisted Fate can be classified as an easy matchup as his cards can be easily telegraphed thus making it avoidable. The only threat he presents is his excellent roaming capability with Destiny and yellow card from Pick A Card . Pre-5 you need to avoid that yellow card and stay outside of his range and then by post-5 you can deal with him easily.

*STILL TRYING TO GO UP AGAINST MORE CORKI PLAYERS IN MID. WILL UPDATE AS SOON AS I'VE FORMULATED A COHERENT MATCHUP STATEMENT FOR CORKI*

Teemo only has an advantage pre-6 and loses to you post-6. When ulting Teemo be wary of his blinding dart which will UNFORTUNATELY result in a failed crucial auto-attack. Teemo is easy to poke with Living Shadow Shadow Slash Razor Shuriken combo until you are sure you can all-in him. When roaming always be sure that you've built umbral glaive or have your oracle lens ready, Teemo's Noxious Trap are deadly and should not be underestimated.

Katarina is pretty useless pre-level 3. As soon as she hits her level 3 spike, be wary of her dagger's positioning and DO NOT STEP ON IT as a good Katarina player will find it as a means of doing an easy trade against you. Don't let Katarina roam freely and keep up with her roam, a fed Katarina is something you might find yourself having a hard time. Make sure she stays useless throughout the game. 

Against a Diana, be reminded that it Pale Cascade allows her to mitigate your basic trading combo along with safely trading against you. On the other hand, Crescent Strike grants her decent poking capabilities so you need to dodge her skillshot or you might risk getting poked every now and then. I recommend going Conqueror against Diana as she can get beefy with her AP items providing health especially Rod of Ages . Her roam is quite decent but what makes her a threat is the Moonfall which can turn the tide during clashes. 

I would like to recommend picking Conqueror over Electrocute because Renekton will just build beefy items such as Sterak's Gage or Death's Dance to mitigate your combo damage. Do not engage Renekton when his [renekton:passive] is 50% as he may either Cull The Meek or Ruthless Predator to ensure that you lose trades. I also recommend building an early Mortal Reminder to reduce his healing from Cull The Meek and to penetrate through his armor, assuming he builds Plated Steelcaps and Death's Dance

An annoying midlaner who can poke you out to death. Since Brand has the range and damage advantage, farm with your Razor Shuriken and only use your Living Shadow if you know you can execute your combo well. And if you feel a little useless, please do roam and kill the overextended baron laner or dragon laners to give yourself a lead. During team fights always kill him before he murders your team. If he starts being a massive nuisance, build Maw of Malmortius . 

Note: Do not underestimate a Brand at all costs, it only takes a grouped enemy team for him to maximize his skills. 

WIP

Gathering more data :) 

Fizz basically counters your pre-5 and post-5 combos with his S3. Your only chance of killing him is by making him waste his Playful / Trickster . Do not take extended trades as you lose those trades when it comes to Fizz. If he launches his Chum The Waters at you, dodge it by using Death Mark . 

Be wary that once the "fish" is locked onto you after 2 seconds, that is where the shark comes in to deal a ton of AP damage. Use that time to assess the situation if you can dodge it or simply blink away to a safe position.

The Queen of Poking Balls. If Orianna has Aery, oh man you are in for some bad time. Her long-range poke with Command: Attack and Command: Dissonance is annoying and even if you manage to do your pre-5 all-in combo she can kite and poke you until you are nearly killed. Fight smartly by using wise positioning of your shadows and shurikens, do not auto-aim frequently as the Orianna might notice that, and start telegraphing your movements.

Kennen mid is sometimes picked as he can roam very well and provide amazing ganks to any lane or invade the enemy jungle. As Zed, you should realize that at level 1 Kennen has a complete advantage over you as he is ranged and can make use of his passive to deal respectable damage. By level 3, you should be trading in a wise manner by making sure you always proc electrocute. Post-6 both of you have amazing roam potential and be careful when you roam to dragon lane as a Kennen counter-gank is a bad situation assuming you and your dragon lane have no summoner spells available.

Not exactly a midlane pick but more of a champion that literally gives you a hard time. Lulu can either ult the adc or transmogulate you thus making it harder for you to kill the adc or anyone who is a priority target.

Although designed to shield himself against AP type champions, Galio's skills are good enough to interrupt your combo especially Shield Of Durand and Justice Punch . As such Galio also excels in providing heavy cc during clashes and have effective roams due to Hero's Entrance . My personal note when facing against a Galio is, don't mind him and focus on getting the squishies. I've deduced that most Galio mid users will act as a dangerous bodyguard the moment the laning phase ends. I recommend building an early Mortal Reminder to counter a Galio the moment he builds armor. 

what makes Pantheon a hard matchup is because of his Aegis Assault which negates all non-tower damage in a certain direction. Meaning your basic trading combo and all-in combo could be negated by a single skill. For this matchup, you need to use mind games to bait Pantheon into using his Aegis Assault and then going in for the kill. Another reminder in this matchup is that Pantheon can assist his allies quickly which beats your capability to respond due to his Grand Starfall . 

Although Pantheon mids are rare to see, they are still disgusting. 

Akali = Very tricky and skill-reliant matchup. Every good Akali will use their shroud to evade your pre-5 combos and post-5 combos. Your best tactic to fight Akali is to continuously whittle down her hp fight her when she has no Twilight Shroud , and the cooldown is around 20 seconds so play around that cooldown timer and try to damage her. Her Perfect Execution isn’t really that much of a threat as it only deals excess damage if your hp is low enough for execution. 

Cool, a Zed-to-Zed matchup in normals. At this point, you should be wary that the first one who chops down their opponent’s health to 50 to 45% is done for. With that said, evade the pre-5 all-in combos. As you know Zed has 20 seconds cooldown on his living shadow so makes him waste that second skill and fight with that condition.

do not engage him when he has his Living Vengeance , proc it with Razor Shuriken or Living Shadow and be wary of his Wind Wall as it blocks projectiles. Do not go for extensive trades as you lose as the fight goes on. Pre-5 you have a good fighting chance against him and by post-5 is all about ultimate timing and by that it is better to proc his Way Of The Wanderer and dodge his Steel Tempest .

Whenever you're playing against Irelia you should know that her kit's win condition is reliant on Irelia ACCURATELY hitting her Flawless Duet . If she misses it, she's done for and none of her skills allow her to escape a deadly situation thus giving you the advantage. Furthermore, be wary that she has high kill potential when she reaches level 2 in which Bladesurge and Flawless Duet are already available and bad positioning from Zed might lead to your death. 

That being said, if you can't get a kill on Irelia or she is playing the lane safely then shove the wave and roam frequently to assist your laners to get them ahead.