How to carry with Malphite

Introduction

Today we will discuss on everything you need to know about How to carry with Malphite with a 100% WIN Guarantee!!

Table of Contents

Have you ever gotten a pentakill with Malphite?

My articles are comprehensive and very specific with information that lasts across versions of the game. My goal is to help you climb in League of Legends and win more games.

I have been playing League of Legends Summoners rift since season 7. During that time I have played all roles of the game with particular focus mid and top. I have been able to easily reach high gold elo since the beginning of playing the game and have peaked to Platinum in several seasons. I have played in NA, EUW and EUNE servers. My main account is in EUW.

You can find more information on Malphite and his abilities here.

Malphite has been one of my favorite picks for years. He’s one of the few champions in the game that combines several characteristics that make him very good:

He scales extremely well
His passive makes him super tanky
He has an AOE ranged damage and cc ability
He has movement speed built into his kit so he can be sticky
If built properly he can get an entire team very low in health

Without going into the details of each we are going to break down each of those but first lets begin by talking a bit about how to build him and what to worry about on each phase of the game.

I’m going to talk about items and runes and their importance as the game progresses on and I will not outine everything from the beginning. So each item and rune that comes into play will be explained in the section of the game phase.

Which lane is Malphite the best at

But lets start by talking about where Malphite excels better in terms of laning as an AP mage. Note building him tanky is outside the scope of this article and we will not be focusing on it. So naturaly Malphite is mainly played in the top lane as a tank that has support like capabilities with his kit.

However since we are going to talk about building him as a damage mage the lane hes’ best at is the mid lane. This is where most mages exist and frankly this is where he can easily one shot his enemy. This cannot be done easily in the top lane as it generally has bruisers and tanks. If the enemy picks a champion like riven, teemo, yasuo or assassin like top laner you can go in the top lane with him otherwise I would not recommend it as you will have a hard time getting kills which is an important part of this build to work.

How to play Malphite early

So now that we have gone over where Malphite excels we can talk about how to build him and how to play your early lane.

This is your weakest part of the game. Malphite generally is a scaling champion and his power spike comes in as the game progresses on. But his early lane is particularly vulnerable and sometimes outright nerve braking.

If you are against a poke champion please see below how to itemize to minimize the damage. Generally in this stage of the game all you want to focus on two things:

Farming: Try to last hit the best you can sometimes it’s ok to get poked as your passive helps you regen some of it
Engage with jungler: If your jungler comes make sure you first use your Q on the enemy laner to slow them down and then follow up with W and E with the movement speed boost you get. Do not be the person that goes all in if there’s a counter jungle gank immediately disengage as you are very weak in this stage of the game and will likely lose the 2v2 even if you have an early game jungler like Lee Sin or Shaco.

What items and summoner spells for Malphite early lane

Malphites starting items:

Corrupting pot: Almost always start with this as you need the laning sustain
Dorans/health pots: If you are feeling confident and you want to go more aggressive you can start with these.
Dark seal/Refillable: If you are 100% sure you will be winning lane or have a duo Jungler that’s going to help you out then you can get it so you can start stacking it.

For summoner spells you want to pick either:

Teleport: Pick this if the enemy laner is poke heavy like a Syndra, Malzahar, Ziggs, Vex. Another reason you may want to take teleport is if you want to go bot lane and help them out after 6 as your ulti is very poweful.
Ignite: Pick this if you are against an easy matchup such as Katarina, Zed, Talon etc.

And offcourse get flash along with those. Don’t be one of those that goes Teleport with Ignite this will make you very vulnerable late game when you are the engage of the team.

What runs for Malphite early lane

The runes you want to get is shown below:

Lets break down the important runes here and why you need them:

Arcane comet: This gives you the burst damage you need to one shot the enemies
Manaflow band: For obvious reasons when you are poking in lane with your Q is super easy and you can stack it up easily for extra mana which Malphite deseparately needs
Transcendance: For the lack of something better this helps him out a bit with the cooldown and your ultimate will be up more often
Gathering storm: This is a must it’s like an extra AP item for damage late game
Sudden impact: This helps slightly with your one shoting
Ultimate hunter: This is great to keep your cooldown on your ultimate low it also lets you snowball easier the more kills you get

How to play Malphite mid game

As you are slowly transitioning to mid game things start to change to your advantage. You are still very weak but even at this stage of the game you have a one shot potential against the squishes if they are not full health. Your goals in this stage of the game should be again the similar two we talked about earlier:

Farming: Focus as much as you can on last hitting
One shot mid: Try to one shot your mid laner by slowly poking them down with your Q, trust me most will not be expecting your burst and will stay in lane. If you have taken ignite earlier definitely try to do this it will be a close call and likely you will kill them or at the very least force them to go back and lose farm.

What items for Malphite mid game

Malphite’s item build is fairly simply. You are going to go a burst damage build even if you are falling behind in the game. Trust me as a mid-laner you need to fill in the gap of your team as top and support will likely be offering tankyness for your team mates.

Let’s break down the mid core items you need in the game.

Everfrost: You probably want to pick this if you want to be a bit more tanky since it deals 30% ap damage and scales well as an item. If you need the extra mobility go with Ludens Tempest described below.
Ludens Tempest: You almost always wants to go Ludens due to the increased mana and burst it provides you, plus you get a bonus movement speed which synergizes very well with your Q and gap closing once it’s proc’d.
Sorcerers boots: This is a must for malphite to increase your burst and amplify your movement speed that you desparately need
Zhonya’s Hourglass: Once you engage and hit one more people in mid game you need to have something that will keep you alive until your team follows up. Don’t forget your ulti is a ranged ability and your team mates will unlikely be able to get there soon to help you out. Since you are building in a squishy way as soon as you land your ability you will probably get blown up right after. Also don’t forget to use your Q to get out of the fight once you land your combo, the movement speed may be your saving grace.

How to play Malphite late game

This is where Malphite shines. At this stage of the game if you have managed to do average or even slightly below average you will be unstoppable. The chances of you winning the game even solo carrying are high.

You will have enough AP to basically one shot all the squishies along with the enemy midlaner and potentially the jungler unless they are tanky.

Your roles at this stage of the game are simple:

Wait for a group of people to pile up ideally 2 at the least and then ultimate them. If there’s more even better but don’t waste your ultimate in a team fight for 1 person alone unless it’s the ADC
Jungle traps to one shot squishies. A good tactic to win but a bit cheesy is to shut down the enemy jungler. Since you have a range one shot potential put a ward somewhere in their jungle and one them when they show up.
Do the same thing for the bot lane
Do not focus on tower pushing or split pushing as you need to be taking down people

If you follow the above you will do good and win the game. Just make sure you don’t go after kills if there’s an important objective like baron and dragon and all your team is there.

How to build Malphite late game

The items here matter but not as much as earlier. You will continue building AP to amplify your damage and a lot of things here will depend on how the enemies are adapting to your items. Lets review some of them and see why and how these may be helpful to you.

Deathcap: This is your bread and butter it amplifies your damage and it’s a must if you want to scale into late game so just get it as one of your last items
Nashor’s Tooth: This item is great because it gives you attack speed which Malphite needs for his clear especially when combined with Ludens Tempest
Lich Bane: This item is great for burst damage and blends well with your total AP as it gives a stunning 40% on basic hit after your combo.
Morellonomicon: If there’s for example a team with a lot of healing like Soraka, Yummi, Nami or even life steal champions like Aatrox, Vladimir etc you will most likely want to build as your next item morellonomicon. This will offer you some anti-healing capabilities which your kit is lacking and will allow you to kill easier the high killing champions. While this isn’t a golden bullet it will greatly help overall making progress in the game.
Void staff: Another great situation item you may want to consider in this phase of the game is void staff. If your enemy is tanky and they are building a lot of magic resist which is very common these days due to the buff of a lot of AP assassins in the game ie Diana, Katarina, Sylas you will need this item. This will allow you to neutralize some of the resistances of the enemies and increase your actual damage potential output.

Conclusion

If you found How to carry with Malphite useful and you think it may have helped you please drop me a cheer below I would appreciate it.

My personal favorite thing to do with Malphite is tilt the jungle by putting traps in the jungle and one shoting him.

If you have any questions, comments please post them below I check periodically and try to answer them in the priority they come in.
Also if you have any corrections please do let me know and I’ll update the article with new updates or mistakes I did.

Do you think Malphite is better as a tank or as an AP one shot mage?

I have written similar articles on carrying which you can find below and give you insights on how to beat him.