At the start of the game, you take Sylas E “Steal from/kidnap”: Sylas dashes to the target location and when reactivated, he flings his chains forward to throw a hit opponent into the air and pull himself towards him. This ability ensures that Sylas already has good skirmishing potential at level 1. In combination with his passive ability “Petrizite Vortex” (boosts the next autoattack after using an ability, stacks up to 3 times), you have a lot of damage for early trades with the opponent at level 1. Since you can reactivate the E, you get 2 charges on the passive.

With level 2 you can decide whether to skill W “Kingslayer” or Q “Crossed Chains” depending on the situation. W is a point and click dash on a target that must be relatively close to him. Sylas deals damage to the enemy and heals herself. The damage increases the less life the opponent has and the healing increases the less life Sylas has. W is therefore suitable for further trades with the opponent. If you are not in a position to trade, I recommend Q.

Q – “Crossed Chains” – Sylas strikes with his chains. At the point where they cross, magical energy explodes after a short delay. This allows you to farm minions at range and you don’t have to take as much damage because Sylas is a melee fighter. You can also use it to poke the enemy, as the explosion deals damage to the enemy and also slows them down. This also makes it easier to hit the E and start an all-in.

A combo could look like this, for example: E->W->AA->Q->E->AA->AA->AA. Your W can also be combined with Flash if you press the W out of range on your opponent and then flash into W range.

Sylla’s ultimate is “Ultimate Takeover”, where he can steal an opponent’s ultimate and use it freely within a certain time window. Each enemy ultimate has a separate cooldown that is independent of Syla’s ultimate, so you can rarely use the same ultimate twice in a row. The best tactic is usually to steal the opponent’s most influential AoE ult (such as Hecarim or Yuumi) or an ult that buffs you during the fight (such as Aatrox or Swain) before big team fights for objectives. Ults that give you additional mobility in combination with damage can also be very useful (e.g. Akali or Yone). Depending on which ult you have for a fight, you can play as a Frontliner, Assassin, Engage/Disengage or AoE-Nuke. As you gain experience, you will learn when to use which ult.