I was a zed main until i find tons of fun nuking people with viktor, and i often see many mid laners asking how to counter this force of nature(most of the top 10 popular mid laners are assasins), and finding lacking or old guides.

Zed is a AD assasins focus more in 1v1 people, then making laps on summoners rift searching for the enemy adc. In league community his is famous for his outplay potential. Zed was a pretty average assasin before S10 his biggest weakness was his ultimate reliance to score kills, but it had a high CD, after the rework of runes he get acess to supreme hunter wich his ultimate can reach 30-40 sec of CD and solve his biggest weakness.

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Strenghts

-Highest damage of all assasins, zed can easily kill glass canons with half of his combo.

-Good scaling, he gets a power spike at lvls 6,11,16 every point in his main tool makes a huge difference in his damage.

-One of the strongest 1v1 of all assasins

-Hard to kill, his high mobility and ultimate makes any non targetable source of damage pratically useless.

-Strong poke, most of his solo kills in mid happens because the enemy mid was half HP when zed gets lvl 6.

-Seeker's armguards and Zhonyas got nerfed they don't deserved.

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Weakness

-His R1 makes him reapear on he oposite side from where he ults this means that if he ults you at north he will apear at south of you and his R2 have a 1 sec CD, this means that if you use your non targetable skills or traps at the place he will reapear is a garanted hit unless if he used a W before ulting or he has flash(not even high elo players know this).

-Low burst.

-Ultimate reliant

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Tips

-A novice zed will try to farm with AA at lvl 1-2 giving a window to damage him, a good one will try to farm and poke you or at least farm from afar, harass zed if he is in melee range of the minions your AA will agro his minions and if you are on the middle of his caster minions you will take a lot of damage can take the full damage of a shuriken.

-Exaust > Barrier, he won't blow you in less then 1 sec like rengar and talon does, Barrier will only save you and can be counter by serpent fang wich is popular between zed players, Exaust can save your ADC/team.

-Place a ward on the middle of the lane will help a lot to control his roam.

-If zed is fed don't follow his roams the chance of feeding zed even more make this extremely risk, its better push the wave under his turret, and of course mia and pray.

-Never be Half HP, recall if needed.

-Even with assasins destroying soloq since the start of this season riot still nerfed Seeker's and Zhonyas, but still those items are better then nothing.

-If you aren't a mage you can build chain vest(40 amor, 800G, it is higher then seeker's)>G.A and not a tabi(20 armor, 1100G before you comment, zed damage don't come from AAs)

-Unless if you have risk of dying by other cause, don't use Zhonyas when full health, use it to avoid the maximum damage you can(shurikens,ultimate,iginite,prowlers), to avoid the risk of zed focusing someone else and still have chance to kill.

-Becarefull Zhonyas have a high cooldown and can't be reduced by normal haste(only ingenious huner) and zed ultimate does not.

-Avoid his outplay potential by not engaging him and counter his engages.

-lvl 11 he can dive with you full life, only amazing zed players know this

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Counter picks

-Vladimir is strong against poke because of his sustain, point and click damage, can counter his ultimate with W, Zhonyas is naturaly a good item to build on vladimir. definitively the best zed counter.

-Ekko can get near the wave and push it without die and can trade evenly with him, his ultimate can avoid zed ultimate with a good timing, he also build zhonyas naturaly.

-Lissandra is malzahar but better, have tons of escapes and CCs, point and click stun is a extremely usefull skill against zed and can impact the match even if zed build QSS, zhonyas is naturaly core for her.

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Miss leads

-Fizz is a skill matchup that most of zed players don't like to play, he can zone zed but he can just farm with the shurikens, and a skill shot that can be avoided by zed even if it hits is not a realiable way to build a strategy, and most of zed one tricks perma ban fizz.

-Malzahar, zed will kill your voidlings with Q and you will not be able to push the have, if he builds QSS you will basicly lost all your potential to counter zed, Malzahar can't survive against zed in a side lane unless you are under your turret.

-A novice zed is weak late game, a good zed is stronger late game.