The latest patch 10.14 brought back our familiar name at midlane: Zed – The Master of Shadows.
Season 10 is said to be the season of midlane assassins’ domination, so that according to some experts’ guess, Zed will definitely return to the meta as soon as he is buffed and will become the leader of midlane assassins.
However, Zed had been quite disgraced since the beginning of this season. He was used for only one time by Mickey in patch 10.11, although he has been an outstading assassin since he was published.
But when patch 10.14 came, a brand new life came to Zed when his W was buffed a bit. Specifically, his W’s missile speed and CD at early game has been reduced. Thanks to that, his winrate increased from 49.22% to 51.59% while his banrate and pickrate also went up from 4.21% to 6.26%.
The return of Zed in this patch may comes from two main reasons. Firstly, the increase in his W’s missile speed would allow him to approach his targets 40% faster than before. This will make his targets nearly unable to do nothing when Zed starts attacking, as well as maximize his killing ability when he does not have to wait for his shadow to appear anymore.
Secondly, the reduction of 2 seconds in his W’s CD at level 1 will allow him to use his W much more often because most Zed players won’t upgrade W until other skills get their maximum level. Consequently, his laning phase will become a bit more “easy to breath” and be capable of roaming more regularly.
Hope that due to these buffs, Zed will appear more often in professional as well as ranked matches.
If you are now scared of Zed, read this: League of Legends: Champions that can absolutely beat the most powerful midlane assassins off without any difficulties!!!