A League of Legends player laid out what they called a “mouthbreather” climbing strategy, built entirely around Malzahar mid, waveclear, and doing as little as possible.
The pitch is simple. Pick Malzahar, shove the wave as fast as you can, scurry back to tower, and wait. No trades, no forced plays, no risky roams. Just farm, survive, and let the enemy cook themselves.
The logic leans on a familiar solo queue truth. Most ladder games aren’t lost to outplays, they are lost to impatience. Overextensions, bad dives, and pointless roams hand over leads for free. Remove yourself from the equation and the enemy often self-destructs.
Malzahar fits the plan almost too well. His waveclear is automatic once you hit a few levels, his voidlings push without him, and his point-and-click suppression ultimate means he stays useful in every teamfight, even when he isn’t fed. He is the definition of a low-variance pick.
The player admitted this isn’t about winning lane. “I almost always have prio, just by being Malz,” they said, adding that they will “blow all spells to keep it” before retreating back to tower. When mana runs dry, recall, Teleport back, repeat. Once laning ends, the plan shifts to catching side waves, shoving around objective timers, and setting up picks with reliable CC instead of coinflipping fights.
One player summed up the philosophy neatly. “League of Legends is not about outplaying your opponent, it’s about letting your opponents outplay themselves.”
Not exactly bulletproof
The strategy has clear holes. Freezing the wave breaks the whole pattern, since Malzahar has to walk up and trade to get farm. Killing his voidlings chokes his push. And scaling lanes that also want a quiet game can outgrow him entirely.
Smolder mid was flagged as the worst matchup, with the original player declaring “perma ban Smolder” as rule number one. Sion mid, Aurelion Sol, Veigar, Twisted Fate, and Galio were also listed as champions that either match the shove or scale past it.
