Teemo

Overview

The unofficial mascot of League of Legends, Teemo is one of the most polarizing champions in the game. People either hate him or love him and there’s usually no particular rhyme or reason to it. It doesn’t even have to do with his in-game capabilities, though he is unarguably one of the most annoying top laners to play against both in lane and beyond. Click here for the latest data on his best builds, including Runes, Items, Summoner Spells, and more. 

Keys to Remember About Teemo

1. You have a global taunt due to people just really wanting to kill Teemo. Your whole role is to be as annoying as possible, though, so the more you survive pressure from opponents, the better it will be for your team.

2. Teemo's Shrooms provide vision, which is one the best things he brings to the table for the team. You need to keep your side of the map as lit as possible by using your mushrooms whenever they're up.

Strengths

He’s first and foremost a monster in lane phase and has extremely good matchups across the board due the prevalence of melee champions in top lane. Any champions who rely even a little bit on auto-attacks are going to hate eating one of his Blinding Darts [Q], and the continued persistence of his attacks in lane is going to have enemy top laners spamming their jungler for some help. After lane phase, a good Teemo will keep his side of the map lit up with Noxious Traps [R], which also provide a little bit of vision and can do significant damage to unsuspecting enemies. Stepping on even one of them late game can force them to back off. 

Weaknesses

He has a bit of a global taunt in that enemy junglers will come gank him not just once but twice and then a third time for good measure. The nature of his playstyle means he’s often pushed up in his lane, and because he’s a squishy champion, if you’re able to lock him down, then he’s as good as dead. Later in the game, his mushrooms can be cleared away with sweepers and Control Wards, so as long as teams are diligent in their pathing, there’s not much he can do. He isn’t a great team fighter and can be dependent on the rest of his team comp to make up for what he lacks as a top laner, which is tankiness and crowd control. 

Game Plan 

1. Early Game: Blast your opponents with auto-attacks and Blinding Darts [Q] if they try to fight back -- if you can win a couple of trades like this, they won’t be able to do much to you. 

2. Mid Game: Continue to play in a side lane and look to drop mushrooms on all paths approaching you and at the nearest neutral objective -- you want to control the space on your side of the map as much as possible. 

3. Late Game: The plan is largely unchained from the mid game. Teemo’s front-to-back isn’t too bad as long as your team has tanks, otherwise you should look to split and try to keep neutral objectives shroomed up.