Ezreal has been a champion that I think has been neglected in by players in the past couple of patches. He is such a reliable champion that has great damage distribution between physical and magic damage, great abilities to stay safe, and his ability to have a broad itemization pool. Not to mention he closely resembles Riot Dash! Looking mighty dapper. To understand why Ezreal is a good champ to master, it is important to understand what his abilities entail.

Ezreal, The Prodigal Explorer

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Passive - Rising Spell Force

Every time Ezreal hits an enemy with an ability, he gets 10% bonus attack speed that stacks up to 5 times. That is a total of 50% bonus attack speed. If you make your shots and abilities count, your basic attacks will be a force to be reckoned with.

Q - Mystic Shot

Ezreal fires a bolt in a straight line that stops on the first target hit. This bolt deals physical damage and applies on-hit effects. If this ability hits a target, then the cooldown is reduced by 1.5 seconds. This ability also heals you off of lifesteal instead of spell vamp.

Mana Cost: 28/31/34/37/40

Cooldown: 5.5/5.25/5/4.75/4.5s

W - Essence Flux

Ezreal throws out a ball that sticks to the first enemy champion, epic monster, or tower for a short duration. Hitting the target with a damaging ability or basic attack triggers this ball to detonate, dealing a burst of magic damage. This ability allows for the target to take physical and magic damage. Detonating this ball also gives you 60 mana back.

Mana Cost: 50

Cooldown: 12s

E - Arcane Shift

Ezreal blinks a short distance away in the direction of his choosing. While blinking, he fires a bolt to the nearest enemy that deals magic damage. However, the bolt will prioritize targets that have the Essence Flux.

Mana Cost: 90

Cooldown: 25/22/19/16/13s

R - Trueshot Barrage

Ezreal fires a global projectile in the direction of his choosing. This projectile will travel across Summoner's Rift dealing magic damage and revealing anything it passes through until it reaches the end of the Rift.

Mana Cost: 100

Cooldown: 120s

Ezreal's abilities really go hand in hand with each other and feel very fluid when you play as him. He possess a different variety of combos for you to try so it does not get stale. His kit provides two sources of damage, physical and magic damage. This makes it hard for opponents to itemize against Ezreal's damage.

Itemization

Mananune to Muramana

Manamune is the first item that needs to be built on Ezreal. Ezreal is a very mana hungry ADC. His Mystic Shot is on low cooldown which allows him to spam and use it very often. Manamune is built out of a Tear of the Goddess and a Pickaxe.

Always purchase the Tear first because it grants 250 mana and its unique passive AWE refunds 10% of the mana you use. This allows you to not be so conservative with your mana. It also has the passive Mana Charge that grants 4 mana for every ability use. This stacks up to a max of 750 mana and carries on into the items it builds into.

The Pickaxe just grants you an additional 25 attack damage and has no unique passives.

After completion of Manamune, Awe grants bonus attack damage equal to 2% of your maximum mana and refunds you 15% of the mana you use. Mana Charge grants 5 mana for every on-hit basic attack or ability use still stacking up to a max of 750 mana. You get an additional 10 attack damage equaling to 35 and there is no increase in mana.

Once Manamune reaches full max stacks, the item is transformed into Muramana. Muramana ends up granting a whopping 1000 mana but still provides 35 attack damage. The Awe passive stays the same, but Mana Charge transforms into the unique passive Shock. This new passive allows basic attacks and single targeted abilities, like Mystic Shot, against champions (on-hit) consume 3% current mana to deal 6% current mana bonus physical damage.

Manamune to Muramana is an essential purchase to curb Ezreal's mana use and give him the bulk of his damage.

Boots (Ionian, Ninja Tabi, Merc Treads)

Ionian Boots of Lucidity have always been the go-to for Ezreal. Unlike other ADCs, Berserker's Greaves do not really synergize well with Ezreal because they provide 35% attack speed. This may seem like a good stat to be granted, but Ezreal really shines with his abilities doing most of the damage instead of his basic attacks. Ionian Boots provide an early 10% cooldown reduction so that Ezreal could use his abilities more often. This is still a viable purchase. However, Ezreal's recent item path is full of cooldown reduction, so it is better to put this gold towards defensive boots instead.

Ninja Tabi are the most reliable boots to build on Ezreal. They provide Ezreal with 20 armor and the passive grants 12% reduction to basic attack damage. This makes him significantly harder to kill during the laning phase and gives him a lot more survivability. Early armor has never hurt anyone. Ezreal can outlast his opponent which can result in the enemy having to take a badly timed recall and giving Ezreal an advantage.

Mercury's Treads are basically the same concept as Ninja Tabi, but you only build them if the enemy team is very magic damage heavy. Mercury's Treads provide 25 magic resistance and the unique passive Tenacity that reduces all crowd control effects by 30%. That magic resistance and reduced crowd control will help Ezreal survive for late game against magic heavy teams.

Iceborn Gauntlet

This might be a weird item to see on Ezreal, but it is a must. Iceborn is something that you see on tanks or bruisers. However, the passives and stats synergize well with Ezreal. The 65 armor makes Ezreal even more difficult to kill as he will not take a lot of physical damage. The 20% cooldown reduction lets Ezreal use his abilities more often increasing his DPS. The 500 mana increases the bonus attack damage given from the Awe passive and increases the burst damage from the Shock passive from Muramana. Iceborn Gauntlet grants the unique passive Spellblade which makes your next basic attack deal 100% of your base attack damage as bonus physical damage on-hit after using an ability within 10 seconds. As you have read, this synergizes well with Ezreal's Mystic Shot and basic attack. The last unique passive, Icy Zone, goes hand-in-hand with Spellblade. After triggering Spellblade, Icy Zone will create a zone that deals 100% of your base attack damage as physical damage to targets and it slows them. All in all, this item provides great defensive stats, provides more damage, and peel for Ezreal.

Death's Dance

After patch 10.6, Death's Dance got build path rework that stopped the item from being damage oriented and gave it more defensive stats. This put the item perfectly into the path of Ezreal. The item used to give you 80 attack damage and 10% cooldown reduction. Now, it still gives you 10% cooldown reduction, but the damage granted has been dropped to 50 attack damage. This is because the item provides 30 magic resistance and 30 armor. Again, the cooldown reduction serves to let Ezreal use his abilities more often. Obviously, attack damage makes Ezreal's basic attacks and abilities do more damage. The magic resistance and armor make him even harder to kill by mages and other physical damage champions. The passive on this item grants instant healing for 15% of all the damage you deal. This works well with Ezreal because he spams abilities so often that he is constantly healing himself.

Blade of the Ruined King (BotRK)

BotRK is a great item for ADCs to build. The percent of current health damage it provides combined with lifesteal and attack speed make it a favourable item. The item grants 40 attack damage, 25% attack speed, and 12% lifesteal. The attack speed works well with Ezreal's passive making him basic attack rapidly. The lifesteal from BotRK combined with Death's Dance really keeps Ezreal healthy during fights. The passive for this item fits perfectly into Ezreal's kit. The passive allows basic attacks deal 12% of the target's current health as bonus physical damage on-hit. However, Ezreal is a ranged champion which means that percent damage is dropped to 8% instead of 12%. The key word there is on-hit. If you remember, Ezreal's Mystic Shot counts as on-hit damage. That means Ezreal's Mystic Shot and basic attacks will be dealing 8% of a target's current health. The last passive lets you deal 100 magic damage to a target, slowing them by 25%, and increase your movement speed by 25%.

Mortal Reminder

Usually, the last item is purely situational in someone's build. However, Mortal Reminder is a solid last item. This item provides a flat 45 attack damage, but it really shines in its unique passives. Grievous Wounds is a very underrated debuff that champions can apply to healing heavy team compositions. If a target is effected by Grievous Wounds, it reduces incoming healing or self healing by 40%. Soraka's healing and Aatrox's built in lifesteal would be affected. The unique passive Executioner makes physical damage apply Grievous Wounds to enemy champions for 5 seconds. It may not be a long time, but it makes a difference in fights. The last unique passive Last Whisper grants 25% armor penetration which helps you deal with tanky champions like Sion or Cho'Gath.

Runes

Conqueror

Conqueror is the best key stone you can run on Ezreal. Conqueror is a stackable keystone that grants attack damage or ability power for each stack you get that has a max of 10 stacks. At full stacks, Conqueror lets melee champions heal for 15% of the damage they deal and ranged champions heal for 8% of the damage they deal. To get these stacks as a ranged champion, basic attacks on-hit would grant one stack. However, damaging abilities will always grant 2 stacks of Conqueror. Ezreal possess 4 damaging abilities. His Mystic Shot, Essence Flux damage, Arcane Shift bolt, and Trueshot Barrage missile all deal damage to enemies and are almost spammable with the amount of cooldown reduction Ezreal has. He should have no problem getting 10 stacks.

Presence of Mind

Presence of Mind is a rune that restores 20% of your maximum mana or 20% of you maximum energy on takedowns. It also grants 100 mana on takedowns that stacks up to 5 times for a maximum of 500 mana. This rule usually aids mana and energy hungry champions. They can continue to pop off on takedowns without having to worry about running out of mana. Ezreal falls into this category. A bonus is that the bonus 500 mana that you are granted increases the attack damage given by the Awe passive on Muramana.

Legend: Bloodline

Bloodline is the best Legend rune to choose on Ezreal. Alacrity gives him increased attack speed, but his passive and build gives him plenty! Tenacity reduces the effects of crowd control on Ezreal, but he is such a mobile that the chances of him being hit by crowd control are slim. Passively gaining lifesteal is the best fit for Ezreal. With this rune, you gain 0.6% lifesteal per 1 Legend stack. This goes up to a max of 20 stacks equaling at 12% lifesteal.

Coup De Grace

Coup De Grace is a better rune to choose over Cut Down and Last Stand. Cut Down deals increased damage to targets that have more maximum health than you, but you have BotRK and Mortal Reminder to help you deal with tanky enemies. Last Stand lets you deal more damage to enemies when you are below 60% health and more damage when you are below 30% health. This would be hard for Ezreal to activate because he will have so much lifesteal that he will be healthy and will not get any value from this rune. Coup De Grace allows you to deal more damage to enemies who are below 40% health. This will provide more value.

Manaflow Band

Manaflow Band is the best rune to pick from the Sorcery tree. Hitting enemies with abilities permanently increases your maximum mana by 25 up to 250 bonus mana. Once you have reached 250 bonus mana, you will restore 1% of your missing mana every 5 seconds. Landing 10 Mystic Shots will let you get the most out of this rune. Plus, it synergizes well with the Awe passive on Muramana by providing bonus attack damage.

Transcendence

Transcendence is the last rune you want to run on Ezreal. It will grant you 10% cooldown reduction when you reach level 10. Any excess cooldown reduction gained after reaching the max of 40% will be converted into bonus attack damage or ability power. Since Ezreal's itemization is very cooldown reducing, he will be getting even more damage and value from his build with this rune.

Shards

For your shards, you would want to run 10% bonus attack speed, 9 adaptive force, and 6 armor or 6 magic resistance based upon your match up.

Ezreal truly is a great champion to master and climb with in your ranked adventures. He is such a safe and heaving hitting champion. His abilities allow him to farm from afar during the laning phase. He can escape ganks easily. He can dodge crowd control and position better in team fights. He can poke out his enemies before fights. Lastly, he just deals a ton of damage. His itemization makes him tanky for an ADC all while not to compromising his damage. The runes Ezreal runs and the items he buys really build off of each other unlike any other champion. Do not miss your chance to master Ezreal and climb with him!