Sir Zipinald Shadowchaser Whitewing, First of His Name, Harbinger of Dawn, Bardictus of the Bristlewood might be one of the most underrated and slept-on units of the whole set. Despite the bombastic name, Zippy can be a key unit in guild comps that can either be flexed as a hard-hitting carry that jumps to the backline or an unkillable tank with infinite shields.
In this guide, I will be showcasing the strength of Zippy by breaking down the comp’s early, mid, and final boards, which items and augments to use, and finally some tips and tricks to zip through to your enemies.
Final Board:
This final board focuses on Xayah scaling safely from the backlines as the fight stalls out. With Zippy CCing the backline, drawing aggro, and soaking huge amounts of damage, Xayah and the other units can play a picture-perfect front-to-back fight which Xayah rarely loses.
What makes this comp so strong?
Guild Xayah has been around since the pioneer stages of Set 7, with the Guild buffs complimenting Xayah’s kit almost perfectly and making her a strong solo-carry if she is able to ramp up in fights. The Guild and Ragewing units complement each other to the tee, with the two strongest Ragewing units (Xayah and Shyvana) pairing up with the solid Guild units (Twitch and Jayce).
Adding Zippy to this board counts as 3 extra Guild for a 2-slot unit, allowing us to drop the useless Sej late in the game to run 2 Dragons and a much more reliable frontline in Zippy.
Early Game:
The goal of the early game is to slam your Xayah and Zippy items early on units that can efficiently utilize them. Slamming these items on a 2-star AD carry or high-roll Zippy as your opener would guarantee a win streak and enable you to hit the final board easily.
Although win streaking is always good, the important thing about this comp is to get rich as fast as possible and have BIS (or close to BIS) items. This can be achieved through lose-streaking and getting a high pick priority on each carousel.
Example Board 1:
Ezreal temporarily acts as Xayah’s replacement and item holder in the early game, as he benefits insanely well from Swiftshot and Guild bonuses, while Nasus or any other early-game Guardians can hold items for Zippy.
Example Board 2:
This board is also fairly cheap to hit and may actually be stronger than the first example board. However, the pivot is much harder as none of the units are similar to the end-game comp.
Mid Game:
Example Board 1:
So the odds of hitting a 4 cost are pretty low on 7, so now you have a Zippy, no Xayah, and have both tank and damage items slammed. What do you do? This mid-game comp allows you to slam the damage items on Zippy while having Rakan or Hecarim hold the tank items until the Level 8 Pivot and roll down.
Although Zippy is meant to be an annoying, backline-jumping, tank, he is still a solid carry if you 2-star him early and stack some damage items. The supposed tank is now a Bruiser/Assassin that is deleting the enemy's backline one by one while constantly shielding himself to soak damage.
Example Board 2:
With Sej, Twitch, and Zippy in this comp already, the pivot on Level 8 is fairly easy as this board has established Guild units already drafted.
Items:
Good Items: Sunfire, Gargoyle, Bramble, Dragons Claw
Xayah: BIS: Guinsoos*, Hand of Justice/Bloodthirster
Good Items: Giant Slayer, Last Whisper, Deathblade
Shyvana BIS: Morello, Spark
Good Items: Jeweled Gauntlet, Warmogs, Bramble, Dragons Claw
Augments:
Silver: Stand United 1*, Electrocharge 1*, First Aid Kit*, Second Wind, Celestial Blessing 1*, Weakspot, Guild Heart*, Ragewing Heart
Gold: Celestial Blessing 2*, Stand United 2, Electrocharge 2, Portable Forge, Guild Crest*, Loot Master, Scorch,
Prismatic: Celestial Blessing 3*, Stand United 3*, High-End Shopping, Level Up, Verdant Veil, Wise Spending, Windfall, Best Friends, Guild Crown*
With this comp, Celestial Blessing, Stand United, First Aid Kit, and Guild/Ragewing Crests/Crowns are the best augments you can get. With CB, Xayah and Zippy can survive much longer in fights and sustain damage from stray skills such as Sohm or Lux.
First Aid Kit procs on Zippy shields and Ragewing healing.
Guild Crests/Crown gives us the option to now tech in 8 Guild, which provides the whole team with an insane stat buff, while Ragewing Crest/Crown enables 6 Ragewing in the final comp.
Pros and Cons
Pros: This comp does not rely on insane amounts of econ or high HP/win streaks. Although good econ definitely helps, the goal is to always level to 8 on 4-2/ 4-3 and roll down for Xayah 2 and some frontline upgrades, rather than saving econ to go 9 and pivot into legendaries. Another pro is that it is fairly easy to pivot into, as you are just looking to run guild members + Xayah and Rakan, and maybe a lucky Shyvana during your rolldown.
Cons: One major con of this comp is that Xayah, Shyvana, and the other guild members are heavily contested as they are insanely strong in the current meta. This means that if you miss Xayah and are stuck with an AD Zippy 2 as your main carry, due to Zippy’s single target nature, your losses are going to cost you infinite HP.
Tips and Tricks
- Good econ always helps, so make sure you keep those streaks consistent so you can stay rich.
- Keep in mind, the majority of the lobby is rolling at 8 on 3-2 and guild Xayah is pretty contested. This means that in order to hit more units compared to the lobby, you need more gold to roll down.
- Zippy shield scales of max HP, which is why Warmogs is BIS on him. With Zippy constantly tanking, he often, makes Warmogs a max value item for him.
- Giant Slayer is a hidden BIS item for Zippy, since his skill targets the highest HP % unit, almost guaranteeing GS to proc on each cast.
I hope this guide answers all your questions, and I wish you guys the best of luck in your future games. Abuse this comp while you can, as it is one of the best-performing and safest comps to get an easy Top 4 with!
