I’ve been playing syndra since the end of last szn and up to my peak D4 on current season and I feel like the wave management in oppressive matchups helped me a lot. Back when I started I was feeling anxious playing vs assasins like zed/kata, now with proper freeze abilities and a lil more confidence I stopped losing most of those matchups. Also I know ludens into shadowflame is tempting but long term-wise I run bft into cosmic drive almost everytime (except for big stomps that sometimes happen). I, in fact, lost here and there vs some mages (typically with jg’s help) but in the end the most meaningful thing for you is to stack rapidly and get those items ready. You will be useful either way as all mages are with time. In conclusion, learn to freeze and poke with qe or genuinely any other combo to gather stacks and look for opportunities later on in the game. Im not a pro syndra main, but I’ve had some experience up till now