Soraka vs Zilean Counter Pick

Most healing matchups come down to who heals harder, but this one breaks that pattern. Chronoshift heals nobody. It drops a rune that pulls an ally back into the fight after they would have died, turning a losing exchange into a winning one, something Wish can’t do no matter how high its value climbs. Rewind also cuts the cooldowns of Time Bomb and Time Warp, so Zilean cycles through his abilities faster than Soraka cycles through hers. Time Bomb latches onto whatever it touches, favors champions, and explodes after three seconds, letting him deal damage without ever stepping into Starcall range.

On paper Zilean is the flimsier support, with 574 base health and 2,206 at level 18 versus Soraka’s 605 and 2,101, and 24 base armor against her 32. That gap changes nothing. Time Warp slows an enemy’s movement speed whenever Zilean chooses, and Soraka’s 325 was already the lower number next to his 335. Both fight from 550 range, both deal magic damage, and both begin with 30 magic resistance, so the raw stats don’t account for the result. The ultimates do. Salvation is Soraka’s only way to close distance, and it only fires after the damage has already gone through. Over 1,071 games on patch 16.13.1, Soraka wins just 46.2 percent of the time against Zilean, which our computed grade rates as a difficult matchup.