Time Warp is an effective way to enable allies to finish off enemies, or escape from a losing battle.
You can combine the use of Time Bomb and Rewind to place two Time Bombs on a target quickly. Placing the second bomb will detonate the first and stun all nearby enemies.
Chronoshift is a powerful deterrent to attacking your carries, but casting Chronoshift too early in a fight can cause the enemy to switch targets too soon, making it less effective.
Try to gank Anivia when she's laning. With multiple people, it is easier to ensure that her egg dies.
Try to fight Anivia in the lanes. In the jungle she can block pathways with lower ranks of Crystallize.
If you're playing a ranged champion, stay far enough away from Anivia so you can dodge Flash Frost more easily.
The stats shown here feature several strategic Zilean vs. Anivia matchup stats that can help us appreciate the differences and similarities between this set of champions. For instance, Zilean’s KDA ratio ([kills + assists] / deaths) of NaN is better than Anivia’s ratio of NaN, showing that Zilean may be more central to his team's team fighting potential than Anivia. This observation is in large part caused by the differences in assists.
Zilean usually has a slightly smaller longest killing spree than his counter does. On average, he takes less damage than Anivia. This is usually reflective of differing health capacities; however, it can also imply that the champion with higher HP has less mobility and thus is not able to flee from further damage when engaged or poked.
Both League champions are great champions. Both have their pros and cons. In League's current meta, Zilean usually wins when trying to fight Anivia, with a 51.2% win rate. Thus, Zilean makes a good counter to Anivia.
While Zilean does have a higher win rate than Anivia, when facing one another, Zilean also has a much lower level of difficulty that makes him a less challenging champ to learn. You should be careful when picking Zilean into Anivia.
Furthermore, Zilean has a great deal of utility and CC, a similar amount to Anivia. This often makes her just as valuable during teamfights, especially when trying to counter champions with a ton of burst damage.
While there is not a single best champion for every situation in League of Legends, in Zilean vs Anivia matchups, Zilean is the better champion with a higher win rate, less champion complexity, and a similar amount of utility to help out your teammates during team fights.
Zilean is a decent counter to Anivia. Focus your play on keeping up your gold income and clearing objectives. If you are able to do that, you should do very well as Zilean against Anivia.
If you would like to truly master Zilean to counter Anivia during both the early game and mid / late game phases of League of Legends, you should keep reading to learn a few extra tips and tricks for this matchup. If you listen to the build and stats shown above, you should increase your win rate significantly and be closer to League of Legends pro players.
Zilean most often racks up less CS relative to Anivia. Champions who on average don't get many minion kills often don't require much CS to be valuable teammates, such as sup champs. These kinds of champions are capable of scaling properly off of their abilities and first items alone. Yet, champs with a lot of CS, such as hyper-carries, usually require many items to be effective. In either situation, try to surpass the values reported here to do well.
The best items to focus on in your Zilean versus Anivia build consist of Shurelya's Battlesong, Zhonya's Hourglass, and Shard of True Ice. When Zilean bought at least these three items in his build, he performed a lot better vs Anivia than with many other typical item sets. In fact, Zilean boasted an average win rate of 51.2% battling Anivia with this counter build.
To have the highest probability of defeating Anivia as Zilean, you should equip the Summon Aery, Manaflow Band, Transcendence, Waterwalking, Cheap Shot, and Relentless Hunter runes from the Sorcery and Domination rune sets. Out of all the rune builds that we analyzed for Zilean vs Anivia fights, this sequence of runes yielded the best win rate. In fact, these runes averaged a 51.2% winrate overall.
By default, tips, stats, and builds on how to beat Anivia as Zilean are displayed for every ranked division. To scope the stats and builds to a particular skill level, you can use the selection menu earlier in the counter matchup guide.