How to Completely Counter Zac Jungle

Hello! I’m Zorian, the former Rank 1 Zac player. I’m going to talk about the ins and outs of Zac in the jungle and teach you how to properly neutralize and defeat him in your own ranked games.

I have many of my students surprised of how effective Zac is as a solo carry when I teach them how to play him at a high level. He is often underestimated, and I take advantage of this for quick and easy win streaks. 

This guide will be a brief 10 minute read, and there will be a quiz, so get your notes out. Let’s get into it.

 

Zac’s Identity

Zac is a highly mobile, hard engage tank with a surprising amount of damage. His power spikes in the mid-game, allowing him to dominate teamfights and decide key objectives. 

Understanding his identity allows you to draft champions that can stop him in his tracks. Champions that are mobile, can disengage, or have max health damage can make the game difficult for Zac.

Counters

Some of Zac’s hardest matchups in the jungle would be:

• Lillia (Highly Mobile, Max HP Damage)
• Kindred (Highly Mobile, Strong Early Game)
• Graves (Highly Mobile, Strong Early Game)

while overall counters would include:

• Janna (Strong Disengage)
• Poppy (Strong Disengage)
• Vayne (Highly mobile, Max HP Damage)

Early Game

Understanding His Early Game Weaknesses

Similiarly to many tank junglers, Zac’s early game is very weak. He has very long cooldowns and is vulnerable to invades, especially level 1. He relies on his laners to protect him from invades through their prio.

Zac will be forced to give up recourses if his laners dont have priority, and the enemy jungle plays a strong invade champion like Graves, Kindred, Lee Sin.

How to Capitalize on Zac’s Early Game

Learning to take advantage of this weakness can render Zac useless if done properly, especially below diamond. Zac will always want to full clear to scale fast and accelerate him into his strong midgame, disrupting this is crucial. If you have a strong invade, you want to push Zac out of his jungle and force him to either counter-invade or lose resources. 

For example, say you are blue side and have a strong toplaner to invade with (Olaf, Darius, ect). What you can do is wait outside his jungle with your top laner and invade just as his buff is spawning. If Zac is there, fight him with your superior champions and force him out, if he’s not there, take his entire topside as he will be at his Blue Buff.

In low elo, this tends to be enough to snowball the game in your favour but we can take it a step further. What you can do before you invade is ask your opposite side laner (in this case, your botlane) to ward the river bush.

Why is this important?

This river ward is to ensure Zac has no good options. Zac has two responses to your invade, he can either gank or counter-invade, this ward protects you in both instances. If Zac decides to gank mid it will be warded and he cant gank around it as he doesnt have enough range in his E to gank from other angles. If he decides to counter-invade your red side, you will have vision of him, allowing you to cross through mid and ping your laners to collapse on him. The game is in your control.

Ward Placement

Zac is known to gank from many different angles with his long range E, giving him more opportunities to camp your laners. Standard wards won’t protect you from his unique gank paths, so you need to think ahead. Luckily, I’ve done that for you and put together some of Zac’s most common gank paths, along with wards to spot them:

Top Lane (Blue Side)

Top Lane (Red Side)

Mid Lane (Blue Side)

Mid Lane (Red Side)

Bot Lane (Blue Side)

Bot Lane (Red Side)

Mid Game

Create a Plan

It takes a bit of knowledge in macro decision making to know what is best for each game, but if you take the time to learn it, you will go far.
 

Teamfight Strategy

I’m going to list a few general tips to play against Zac when you do end up teamfighting:

• Prep the fight: Be sure your team has proper vision of the objective before fighting, its easier to dodge abilities when you see them coming. Try to save summoners like flash before teamfighting, flashing Zac’s engage can leave him over-extended.
• Deny Blobs: When Zac hits you with an ability he will drop blobs that heal him when picked up. Denying Zac from his blobs is the best way to burst him down quickly.
• AoE Damage: Champions that have lots of AoE damage, or abilities that can combo Zac as soon as he revives are a hard counter to his revive passive (ex: Caitlyn, Lux, Kayn)
• Grievous wounds: Antiheal items or ignite are also good option if possible to reduce Zac’s healing.
• Cancel engage: Cancel Zac’s E whenever possible, any knock ups, fears, or displacements, will work. 

Late Game

Outscaling

While Zac is still strong in the late game, he does lose his mid-game presence and gets outscaled by many late game champions. Anti-Tank champions like Fiora, Vayne, and Kog’Maw will melt him within seconds. If Zac misses or gets his abilities cancelled he will get blown up quickly in late game teamfights.

Conclusion

I hope you enjoyed this guide on how to counter Zac jungle, I know just how annoying he can be to play against when played to his fullest potential.

If you’re still having trouble reaching that rank you’ve been wanting to get, take a look at our boosting services, where Challenger players like myself can assist you on your climb.

If you found this article useful and wanted to learn more from me, I offer one on one coaching to help you fine tune your game knowledge. I have experience coaching players from a variety of elos with impressive results, especially if you’re a one trick like myself. Feel free to check me out!

Thanks for taking the time to read, goodluck in your games!