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Zelda Breath of the Wild Champions’ Ballad guide: Monk Maz Koshia boss fight

The fight to earn your Master Cycle Zero

Jeffrey Parkin (he/him) has been writing video game guides for Polygon for almost seven years. He has learned to love just about every genre of game that exists.

In this The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild guide, we’ll show you how to fight Monk Maz Koshia to complete the EX The Champions’ Ballad main story quest and get your motorcycle.

The Champions’ Ballad adds a new main story quest for you to take on after you’ve tamed all four Divine Beasts. The first stage of EX The Champions’ Ballad presents you with a new series of challenges on the Great Plateau. After that, you must complete a series of challenges for each of the Champions. Before you can face the Monk Maz Koshia, you must first navigate a Divine Beast beneath the Shrine of Resurrection.

Preparing for the fight

Unlike the fights against the various iterations of Ganon in the previous sections of EX The Champions’ Ballad, you get to keep your full inventory this time. That means you don’t have to prepare as much, but a little forethought is still a big help. This fight is a greatest hits of every Ganon fight you’ve faced — you’ll recognize moves and techniques from every boss fight — along with some new ones.

Pick out an elixir to give you a buff — something like attack up or defense up, but any will help you to some extent. Pick out your favorite (or best) armor. And while there might be a lot of standing around doing nothing involved, waiting for all of your powers (like Urbosa’s Fury) to recharge is a great help during this fight.

Fighting Monk Maz Koshia

There are a lot of phases to this fight — that means that you’re going to be facing a lot of different tactics over the course of the fight. And it’s a long fight no matter what you do (eight minutes or so).

Nintendo

For the first phase, Monk Maz Koshia will rush at you to attack. He’ll behave a lot like one of the Yiga Clan goons you encountered out in the wilds of Hyrule. Sidestep his attacks and swing at him when you see the chance. Get close to him any chance you get and try to hit him enough to score a combo.

Nintendo
Nintendo

When you drain his health enough, he’ll back off and start the next phase. He’ll attack like Thunderblight Ganon by zipping back and forth three times before swinging at you. Time a backflip so that you trigger a flurry rush. If your weapon is strong enough — like the Master Sword — it should only take one flurry rush before you move on to the next phase.

Nintendo

Maz Koshia will create a bunch of clones of himself — eight by our count, though it sure feels like there are more. These are standard video game clones, so they’ll deal damage, but they will also disappear with one hit. The only way to stop the clones from attacking is to hit the real Maz Koshia.

You can attack them as they come at you until you find the real monk, but it’s much easier to immediately charge up your shiny new Urbosa’s Fury+ so that it will hit them all. That will pare down the clones and reveal the real monk. As a bonus, he’ll be electrocuted and helpless. Rush over to him and swing away. It’ll take a few blasts of Urbosa’s Fury+ to move on to the next phase.

Nintendo
Nintendo

For the next phase, Maz Koshia will grow large and summon some spiked metal balls. Avoid them when he throws them at you, then use magnesis to grab one from where they come to a stop. Swing the ball over and hold it next to the monk. When he electrifies the balls, he’ll knock himself out — just like the middle phase of the fight against Thunderblight Ganon.

Nintendo
Nintendo

The next (and final) phase has two attacks at once.

  1. Oversized Maz Koshia will toss a pair of clones at you. If you’re quick, you can hit them both and make them disappear before Maz Koshia starts his next attack.
  2. The other attack is a Guardian eye beam blast. Turn to face him with your shield up (preferably the Hylian shield). There’s a moment between when the red beam disappears and the blast starts where there’s a quick flash. That’s your cue to parry.

When you pull this off, Maz Koshia will fall on his butt and sit for a minute. Get in close and deal as much damage as you can. If you’re struggling, you can still get in close between his attacks and swing at his ankles.

This is the last phase of the fight. Maz Koshia will shrink back down to a reasonable size and praise your fighting prowess.

Link’s motorcycle

Nintendo

After the fight, you’ll be rewarded with a new rune that summons the Master Cycle Zero. Which is a friggin’ motorcycle — making this entire journey very worthwhile.

Now go hit the road.

The next level of puzzles.

Take a break from your day by playing a puzzle or two! We’ve got SpellTower, Typeshift, crosswords, and more.

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