Watching professional players battle it out in LCS can be fun and useful, and trying their own strategies in your own solo queue games can be rewarding. One of the more popular builds that just came out of the blue recently is the blue build Ezreal, and its increasing popularity in solo queue is actually worrying.
While blue build can work well, I feel a majority of the average population have no idea what its strengths and weaknesses are and when and why you should build it. It’s just flavor of the month thing and literally every single Ezreal player I’ve seen in the past two weeks has been going the blue way.
What is the blue build?
Blue build got its name from the colors of the items you’re building: Muramana, Spirit of the Elder Lizard, Iceborn Gauntlet, Last Whisper, Blade of the Ruined King/Bloodthirster.
There may be a couple of variations in the items purchased but it’s essentially what most Ezreals go for these days.
Advantages
The biggest advantage to building blue Ez is its constant poke and kiting potential. Your Mystic Shot (Q) can be fired nearly every cooldown without worrying about mana costs and it deals decent damage along with the slow once you get the Iceborn Gauntlet. Pushing minions is also quite easy with this build due to its increased AoE damage and lower cooldowns.
An upside to this build is that you can stay out of danger easily. You can slow enemy champions with your Gauntlet almost permanently and your Arcane Shift has a reduced cooldown enabling you to reposition constantly throughout the fight. Against bruisers (especially with no gap closers) blue build will allow you to kite them forever and eventually take them down.
Disadvantages
Blue build isn’t nearly as effective when you have a team composition with hard engage. If you have a Malphite top, Amumu jungle and support Leona in your team then going blue build makes little sense. Blue build shines in prolonged pokes and turret sieges, not straight up engagements!
With this build you also deal fairly low damage to tanks and your autoattacks are weaker than they normally would be with a standard AD carry build. You will also have trouble bursting anyone down, and the build doesn’t allow any defensive items. Additionally playing a blue Ezreal may even take more mechanical skill than usually as you need to land every single skillshot to make the most of it.
Yet another downside is that your core items are more expensive and less effective than a standard AD carry build: an Ashe with Infinity Edge and Phantom Dancer will deal far more damage than you with Spirit, Gauntlet and Muramana. Even when you get your full build you aren’t dealing as much straight up damage as any other ADC.
When to build it?
The blue build is focused on sustained and constant poke and kiting. It works well when you build an entire team comp around it and when people understand why it works and how to take full advantage of it. Going blue build just for the sake of it or because everyone else is building it nowadays is a good step to failure.
The build also works good with siege team comps with champions like Jayce, Lux or Nidalee. Point being you always want to avoid full-on engages and focus on poking and harassing your enemies enough to make a favorable fight.
Conclusion
Always think about why you’re building certain items. Blue build Ezreal may be flavor of the month thing and apparently everyone is building it but that doesn’t mean it’s universally good. Always consider the champions on your own and the enemy team before deciding what items you’re going to build.
Just because you saw Cop or Genja use these items doesn’t mean it will have the same effectiveness in solo queue.
