How to win lane as Annie against Zed · 52.94% win rate over 1,749 Emerald+ games · Updated 2026-07-27
| Stage | Favoured | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Level 1 | Even / skill | Level 1: Zed's ranged shuriken poke offsets your short stun range, keeping trades even and skill-dependent. |
| Level 2 | Even / skill | Level 2: still a poke stalemate — neither champion has the tools to force a decisive fight yet. |
| Level 3 | Even / skill | Level 3: even at the edge, since Zed adds Living Shadow mobility right as your stun length grows, balancing out. |
| Levels 4-5 | Annie | Levels 4-5: your full stun-into-burst rotation clearly outdamages anything he can answer with, favoring Annie. |
| Level 6 | Annie | Level 6: Death Mark's delayed burst combined with shadow-swap safety gives Zed the strongest all-in window of the match, favoring him. |
| First item | Zed | First item: your burst spike lets the stun-rotation one-shot him from range again, swinging clearly back to Annie. |
| Two+ items | Annie | 2+ items: net damage and threat range still favor Annie, since your rotation punishes any approach he makes even as he looks for reset windows. |
Levels 1-2 favor neither side clearly — Zed's Shadow Slash chip poke keeps him safe from your short stun range, and you don't have the combo burst yet to punish his aggression, so it's mostly a wave-management stalemate.
The full Annie vs Zed report continues with the mid-game plan, the late-game and teamfight plan, every power spike to play around, and the win conditions for both sides — plus cooldown tracking and the live enemy-jungle tracker inside the app.
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Playing the other side? Zed vs Annie guide →
All Annie mid lane matchups →