Riven vs Zilean
How to Beat Zilean as Riven
based on 1,463 Riven vs Zilean matchupsHow We Analyze LoL Champion Counters
Riven vs Zilean Matchup Summary
Best Riven vs Zilean Counter Build
Items
Starter Items
Early Items
Core Riven Items
Optional Items
Summoner Spells
Skill Order
Runes
Guide to Countering Zilean as Riven
Tips for Playing as Riven against Zilean
Riven lacks a source of healing or strong defense and must compensate with burst combos. Lead into fights with Broken Wings and Ki Burst, while using Valor to escape and absorb counter-harass.
Riven's Broken Wings locks onto the champion your cursor is over at the time of cast. If you want to move past your opponent, make sure that your cursor is past your opponent as well.
Advice to Win Against Zilean
Zilean is fragile if a team focuses on him, but otherwise he's very difficult to kill. Commit to killing him as a team.
If you're able to match Zilean's speed, it can sometimes be beneficial to wait until his ultimate has faded before landing the killing blow.
Riven vs Zilean Counter Stats
How to Counter Zilean with Riven in LoL
The stats shown on this page underscore several important Riven against Zilean counter stats that may help us explain the differences between this pair of champions. Riven’s KDA ratio ([kills + assists] / deaths) of NaN is more than Zilean’s KDA ratio of NaN, indicating that Riven may be more central to her team's team fighting capacity than Zilean. This observation is in large part caused by the difference in kills.
Riven typically has a much larger longest killing spree than her enemy does. Commonly, she takes more damage than Zilean. This commonly reflects different amounts of tankyness, but it can also illustrate that the champ with increased HP has less mobility and thus is unable to escape additional harm when engaged or poked.
Differences between Riven and Zilean
Damage Types Compared
Champion Playstyles Compared
Who is Better, Riven or Zilean?
Both League champs are great champions. Both champs have their pros and cons. In League's current meta, Riven usually fairs equally well when trying to fight Zilean, with a 49.8% win rate. Thus, Riven makes an ok counter to Zilean.
While Riven does have a lower win rate than Zilean, when facing one another, Riven also has a greater level of difficulty that makes her a more difficult champ to develop with. You should be careful when picking Riven into Zileanas her relative depth means that you may not be able to unleash her full potential without a lot of practice beforehand.
Additionally, Riven has some amount of utility and CC, a similar amount to Zilean. This often makes her just as valuable during team fights, especially when trying to counter champions with a lot of burst damage.
While there is not a single best champion overall in League of Legends, in Riven vs Zilean matchups, Zilean is the better champion with a similar win rate, more champion depth, and a similar amount of utility to help out your team members during teamfights.
Riven is a somewhat poor counter for Zilean. Focus your gameplay on increasing your gold income and clearing objectives. If you can do that, you should hold your own as Riven against Zilean.
Other Champion Matchups Against Riven
Additional Information for Riven Players
How We Calculated Our Riven vs Zilean Build and Stats
Other Useful Resources
Further Insights to Win this Matchup
To learn all of the intricacies of Riven to counter Zilean during both the lane and mid / late game phases of League of Legends, you should continue reading to pick up a few extra tricks and insights into this matchup. If you listen to the build and suggestions presented above, you will grow your win rate by a lot and be that much closer to League of Legends pro players.
Riven most often accumulates much more CS as Zilean. Champs who on average don't get much CS typically don't require much CS to be effective, such as sup champs. They are capable of scaling properly off of their abilities and first items alone. Yet, champs with large amounts of CS, such as hyper-carries, usually have to have many items to be effective. In either situation, try to surpass the numbers shown on this page to do well.
The top items to use in your Riven versus Zilean build consist of Black Cleaver, Spear of Shojin, and Sundered Sky. When Riven included at least these three items in her build, she did significantly better against Zilean than with most other common counter builds. In fact, Riven had an average winrate of 49.8% when playing against Zilean with this build.
To have the greatest chance of beating Zilean as Riven, you should equip the Conqueror, Triumph, Legend: Tenacity, Last Stand, Nimbus Cloak, and Transcendence runes from the Precision and Sorcery rune sets. Of all the runes that we analyzed for Riven vs Zilean matchups, this combination of runes resulted in the greatest win rate. In fact, these runes gave a 49.8% win rate overall.
By default, tips, statistics, and builds on how to beat Zilean as Riven are given for all ranked divisions. To narrow the stats and builds to an individual skill level, you can use the selection menu located earlier on the page.