You can use Brand's abilities in a variety of combinations to maximize his damage in different situations.
You can deter enemies from standing near their minions by setting them ablaze, due to Conflagration.
Pyroclasm bounces randomly between enemies, so try to cast it on a small group of enemies if you want to hit the same target multiple times.
Zilean is fragile if a team focuses on him, but otherwise he's very difficult to kill. Commit to killing him as a team.
If you're able to match Zilean's speed, it can sometimes be beneficial to wait until his ultimate has faded before landing the killing blow.
The stat comparisons provided here highlight some valuable Brand against Zilean matchup stats that may help us grasp the distinctions between the two. As an example, Brand’s KDA ratio ([kills + assists] / deaths) of NaN is better than Zilean’s KDA ratio of NaN, demonstrating that Brand may be more central to his team's team fighting potential than Zilean..
Brand often has a slightly larger longest kill spree than his enemy does. On average, he takes more damage than Zilean. This commonly reflects different amounts of tankyness, but it can also indicate that the champ with increased HP has less mobility and thus is not able to flee from additional harm when poked or engaged.
Both League of Legends champs are great champions. Both champs have their pros and cons. In the game's current meta, Brand usually fairs equally well when playing against Zilean, with a 50.7% win rate. As a result, Brand makes an ok counter to Zilean.
While Brand does have a higher win rate compared to Zilean, when facing one another, Brand also has a lower learning curve that makes him a less challenging champ to pick up and master. You still need to be cautious when picking Brand into Zilean.
Moreover, Brand also has some amount of CC and other utility, a similar amount to Zilean. This makes her just as valuable during team fights, especially when fighting champions with a ton of burst damage.
While there isn't one best champion in League of Legends, in Brand vs Zilean matchups, Brand is the better champ with a similar win rate, less champion complexity, and a similar amount of utility to help out your allies during team fights.
Brand is a decent counter to Zilean. You will do well by focussing your gameplay on maximizing your gold income and taking out objectives. If you can do that, you should do very well as Brand against Zilean.
If you would like to truly master Brand in order to counter Zilean during both the lane and mid / late game phases of League of Legends, you should continue reading to learn a few extra tips and tricks for this matchup. If you listen to the build and stats shown above, you will increase your win rate by a lot and be closer to League of Legends pro players.
Brand usually racks up a similar amount of CS compared to Zilean. Champs who on average don't take many minion kills often don't have to have much CS to be effective, such as supports. These kinds of champions are capable of scaling properly off of their skills, stats, and first items alone. Yet, champs with a lot of CS, such as hyper-carries, typically need many items to be effective. In either case, try to surpass the values displayed here to do well.
The most important items to prioritize in your Brand versus Zilean build include Rylai's Crystal Scepter, Shadowflame, and Liandry's Torment. When Brand incorporated at least these three items in his build, he performed significantly better versus Zilean than with many other commonly used builds. In fact, Brand boasted an average win rate of 50.7% when countering Zilean with this counter build.
To have the highest likelihood of coming out on top against Zilean as Brand, Brand players should equip the Dark Harvest, Cheap Shot, Eyeball Collection, Treasure Hunter, Cosmic Insight, and Magical Footwear runes from the Domination and Inspiration rune sets. Out of all the rune combinations players chose for Brand vs Zilean fights, this mix of runes resulted in the highest win rate. Notably, these runes gave a 50.7% winrate overall.
If you would like to view Brand vs Zilean tips and counter stats for a a distinct player tier, please choose one from the selection menu displayed above. By default, the statistics and build suggestions shown are computed using every match completed with these champs.