The patch notes for 3.13 recently came out, and one of the champions changed was Zyra. Being a Zyra main, a bunch of people asked me about my opinions on her changes. I am personally fine with the changes, and feel like Zyra somewhat deserved them, but this is coming from a middle laner. Someone who mains Zyra as a support will probably say that she was significantly nerfed.

In the middle lane, the first and most significant change to Zyra is her ability to dominate melee champions in early levels. Zyra’s Deadly Bloom (Q) + plant combo was so powerful that after hitting it twice, most early-level melee champions wouldn’t have enough health to go anywhere near Zyra to harass her. If they did go in to harass her anyway and fail to kill her, they would continue to get poked to death by plants and auto attacks as they’re retreating.

To reduce her power, Riot reduced the range on Deadly Bloom and reduced the early-level base damage on her plants. According to the current numbers, her plant damage is the same as pre-patch at level 6, and has increased damage after level 6.

This allows melee champions to have more counterplay to Zyra – the amount of poke damage will be slightly reduced during levels 1-5, and Zyra needs to get a tiny bit closer to harass. The damage at level 6 is the same as before, but this is acceptable as, by that time, the melee champions will have their ultimate abilities and be able to fight back.

The next noticeable change is that Zyra can now safely initiate with Stranglethorns (R) and not have to worry about losing the attack speed bonus to plants. This is because Stranglethorns was changed such that plants spawned inside the area while it is active will still get enraged. This allows Zyra to better chain her crowd control upon a catch, as she doesn’t need to wait until her plants spawn to place her ultimate on top of them.

The biggest changes to Zyra come with playing her as a support. The base damage on her Deadly Bloom was reduced, but her ability power ratio was increased. In order for Deadly Bloom (at rank 5) to deal the same amount of damage as prior to the patch, a Zyra must have 500 AP. Zyra with more than 500 AP will deal more damage with her Deadly Bloom compared to before the patch.

One of the reasons support Zyra was so powerful was because of the very high base damages on her abilities. Normally when I play Zyra as a support, I usually deal significantly more damage than my AD carry due to the initial burst, then the constant pummeling of the plants. This change ensures that if Zyra players want to continue dealing heavy damage, they must itemize to do so.

Earlier today, I got promoted to Platinum V in solo/duo queue ranked in League of Legends.

I was in Silver IV and Silver III for the longest time, so people assumed that that’s where I belonged. I decided to take League of Legends a little bit more seriously lately to demonstrate that I could very easily get myself into Platinum whenever I wanted.

It took me about a week to get from Silver IV to Gold V. This happened before my laptop broke. After I got a replacement laptop, I spent another six days playing ranked to get myself from Gold V to Platinum V. During the process, I skipped Gold IV and Gold II because the rating system thought my skill was far higher than my ranking. Overall, out of days played, it took about two weeks for me to get from Silver IV to Platinum V by playing anywhere between 1-5 games per day.

So, what’s my secret? I’ll share.

• I stopped giving up in the middle of the game. When things weren’t going my way, I was patient and kept trying my best, rather than randomly walking around the map doing nothing.
• I stopped playing purely to have fun, and started playing to win. When I wanted to do something exciting and crazy, but knew it would hurt my chances of winning the game, I refrained from doing it.
• I stopped raging at my allies. When they did things that made me unhappy, I did not express my discontent.
• I complimented my allies. When I noticed my allies did something well, I pointed it out so they knew I noticed all the hard work they’re putting into the team. This ultimately motivated them to keep performing well.
• When I didn’t get the lane I wanted (middle), I negotiated. Before, I would just pick a random champion and go to whatever lane was open, then feed and give up after ten minutes. Instead, I asked the higher-pick person who wanted to go to middle lane if there were any other lanes (s)he was able to play, and tried to negotiate to see if I could get my main role.
• I asked my allies for help. If I still wasn’t able to get middle lane, I asked my allies for advice as to what I should be doing in the other roles with which I was unfamiliar, rather than doing whatever I wanted, feeding, and giving up after ten minutes.

I ended up going almost undefeated as middle lane Zyra – I only lost one game throughout my entire journey, when I was duo queueing with Ed (Grainyrice). I still ended up losing a majority of the games where I did not go middle, but it happened a lot less frequently than normal due to my attempts at negotiating positions.

So, I think this proves two important things. First is that I was skilled enough all along to be at the very least a platinum-level player. As of right now, I’m still getting +26 LP per victory, which indicates that the rating system has low confidence in my ranking. In simpler terms, it thinks I still belong higher than I am right now, and wants to get me there as quickly as possible.

The second is that your attitude is very important in League of Legends – so important that changing my apathetic and negative attitude into something positive brought me up from silver to platinum.

If you’re having trouble getting to a league and/or division you want, try making sure your attitude is prepared to bring you there. Be patient with your allies, and don’t let their poor performance affect your positivity. Even if someone is intentionally feeding (as in, purposely running down middle lane and suiciding to the turret), stay positive. Joke around with them and try to make them your friend. I did, and I was able to carry a game that I thought was going to be a 4 vs. 6.

Being a Zyra main, a lot of people asked me if I was excited for the new Zyra skin due to be released with the Harrowing patch.

Although my answer might surprise you, I actually don’t like Haunted Zyra. So many people have asked me why that I decided just to write a post about it.

To me, Zyra is a champion who appears harmless, but holds deadly power. Before she captured the body of the sorceress (according to her lore) and was just a plant, there was no apparent danger when approaching her jungle. Animals ventured in numerous times, and would eventually get killed by Zyra in a place where they thought they were in a regular natural habitat. Even after injecting her powers into a body and becoming mobile, she has an attractive and flowerly appearance, but when an enemy gets in range, she traps them in place and kills them instantly without giving them a chance of escape.

Haunted Zyra seems to have an innate evil to herself. She’s surrounded by death, and spawns creatures you would presumably find in a graveyard. Upon her death, she herself turns into a hideous creature. This conflicts with what I think Zyra is, or at the very least, what I want her to be. Instead of being innocent to lure in prey, she clearly advertises how terrorizing she is.

I dislike the Wildfire Zyra skin for similar reasons – it doesn’t seem like she fits in well with randomly setting forest fires when she herself is supposed to represent nature. I think a better skin for Zyra would be Death Blossom Zyra, similar to the Elise skin. I think that series is fitting for Zyra, and if it is ever made, I would definitely get it.