Hi! I'm Qvar, from EU servers, and this is my first guide. It's a basic review of the differences between Twisted Treeline and SR, being oriented to those average players who usually plays 5vs5 and wan to try on the first one.

Any additional information would be thankfully recieved. I hope this helps more people to understand and like this game mode. Good luck!

The lanes division here is similar to the 5vs5, being the solo lane top, and the duo lane bottom.
The neutral monster in the center of the map and the most closer to the bases from the top jungle provides starting exp for junglers.
Ganks could being initiated at any time thanks to the short distance between lanes, but usually starts when the solo reaches lvl 6-7, dependind on his MS, or have enough push power to destroy a tower. In other words, a champion with low capacity to destroy towers (casters, AP carry and supports usually) but with a lot to destroy enemies will find himself close to the enemy tower, giving his flanks exposed to ganks from both jungles. This is known as "overextend" and should be avoided as fast as you notice it. When you do, try to give only the final blow against minions, instead of destroying the waves as fast as they come.
I absolutely disencourage to gank before lvl 4, as the ganking team will lose a lot of precious exp if they fail thanks to a simple MIA.

Everybody knows what is this, but in 3vs3 gain more importance than in 5vs5, as in TT the teams actively looks to gank the other on 3vs3 BEFORE the minions spawns, usually in the mid-bottom part of the map. A succesful fb could get you enough gold to buy boots before start killing minions, and thus an important bost at early figths. There are a few places to try this:

a) The most southern bush. Most times this is the faster and easier brush, wich garentees a good position when the minions comes. Dont aproach this brush if your allies delay more than 5-10 second in the initial shop buying, or you could get reaped in 3vs1 by a faster team.

b) The brush under the lizard, the most closer to their base. A good option to counter option A if your team is REALLY fast. With luck, you'll see the enemies entering that bush and could gank them from behind.

c) The brush under the lizard, the most closer to your base. This counters option B succesfully if they are greedy enough to take it, but doesnt gives you a good position if not. Also totally crushes option D.

d) The brush circle near to enemies base. This can be done always, but when enemies get fast to option C. Basically means wait for the enemy solo to bore of trying to gank in the duo lane, and kill him when is coming up alone to his lane. The most risky but worthy if done properly of all the four.

DONT try to fb if:
1. The enemy team have more Heal spells than yours.
2. One champion of your team delays as long as the enemy team could have reachen your tower if needed.
3. One champion of your team is extremely weak in early game (Tryndamere, Leblanc...).
4. You dont have any champion who could facecheck a brush and get the hell out there alive if there are enemy inside, or with some throwing thin (like Mundo's cleaver or Kennen's shuriken).

Despite it would be good to have a ward in every bush of the map, its specially important to set one in:
1. Grez the lizard. Aim to his head and shot. You'll deny 3/4 of the early-mid ganks.
2. The dragon. Obvious reasons.
3. The circle bush near to enemies base. Brings aditional security against ganks, and also is useful when someone hides here in mid-game figths.

In general terms, it's a better idea to put them closer to the enemy base than your own base, so you can see them coming with enough time. Since the last patch, wards havce regained some of their utility, but can be pretty annoying to have to go back every 2 minutes to buy them. Anyway, Grez still need to be warded ALWAYS.

Take in count the paths distribution: Here, the walls are way longer than in SR, so an ability to cross them usually means the diference between live and death, if your skill is long/good enough.

Teleport is (imo) a lot less useful than in SR, as the distances to travel as also way shorter, as happens with clarity (is a lot easier to go base, recover and come back).

There are 4, wich i'll try to remind (correct me if u have more data):

1. Red lizard buff - Gives progressive damage (like Teemo poison, for example) and slow on hit (like Frozen mallet). Try to get it solo at lvl 7-10, or before if teammed.
2. Dragon buff - Gives +1% to attack per champion lvl, to the whole team. Never let the enemy to get this. Usual lvl to team kill is 10, but a good jungler could start alone way before.
3. Big wolf buff - It's in a random spot a bit north of dragon. Gives attack speed and CD reduction. Not so harder than normal creeps.
4. Big wraith buff - Shares random spot with the big wolf. Gives +30% movement speed.

You're in the middle of the map, looking for enemies, and when u find and kill 2 of them, then suddenly realizes that the third is wrecking havoc on your inhibitor turret, then inhbi, you push B... But its so late. That *******ed Yi has destroyed your Nexus and killed all your family, while your team is flaming the chat and running like headless chickens.

Mind:
1. Nexuses in this map are a lot closer than in 5vs5. If you've lost an inhibitor, any moment you could see an enemy jumping the base wall and crushing your only tower, or the nexus if havent, without seeing them coming.
2. Theres only 1 tower protecting the nexus. Thus, is easier to a single champion to destroy it, if feeded enough.
3. The best champions at backdooring will be those who can enter jumping the wall (or get in invi), and those with fast enough autoattack to bring the turret down adn get the hell out there before the enemies come back. Also they will need at least a basic armor, because turrets deals physical damage, and resistance enough to tank some waves of minions.
4. Bests at defending a sieged nexus are those who can, as i say, "set the shop": Heimerdinger, Shaco, Teemo, and basically anyone who can set a trap.

Some basic data about the jungle in TT.
In the botton jungle there are 3 minion camps:
a) Grez the lizard. As I'd said before, he's exactly at the center, alone.
b) Two random minion camps. Those can be made of 1 golem, 1 lizard and 1 little lizard, or 1 big wraith and 3 little wraiths (like to ones in SR). They appear randomly, like the wraiths and the wolves described above regarding the buffs.

In the upper jungle, there are:
a) Ebonmaw the dragon. Apart from the said buff, he gives more global gold than in SR (thanks StViers).
b) The wolves and wraiths with buffs previously meant. Those wolves and wraiths are fair stronger than others. They're composed by 3 big wolves/wraiths and 1 "really big and buffed" wolf/wraith.
c) Random campment on the extrems of the jungle, composed by 1 big wolf and 2 little wolves, or 2 golems.

The randomness fo the campments makes it hard to some mediocre junglers, like say, Evelynn. If your team includes a champion who can choose where to start, you have to know this:
- 1/3 of the monsters are in the enemy side of the map. And you probably will need them all. A gank when you're jungling that wraiths in the bottom jungle will get you killed 90% times.
- So, this means you need ALWAYS a ward in the center, good team comunication and an escape skill or spell (like flash or ghost, if you're playing Warwick).
- Also, ask your mates to keep an eye on you always when an emey goes miss.
-The bottom jungle is a path to cross since people start moving from their lanes, so you will not be safe here. Try to stay in the upper jungle as much as posible. Also, doing this will let the enemy solo more exposed to ganks if he dont have an escpae skill. If he does, better to gank him from bottom, as long as the tower will see you if coming from up.

-Due to the closeness of the bases, an Ace is really dangerous late game (this is 20+ minutes for Twisted Treeline). A wipe in this map may mean, in most cases, one or more turrets lost, and sometimes the whole game. Yet only a single kill could bring enough advantage to finish in a defeat for the team with the death. I encourage set lots of wards if you want to go out your base.

-The champions on solo lane will get more exp than the duo ones. My suggestion, then, is to let the champion with the best or the worst early of your team to go up, depending on wich oponent is likely to be there. If you send the stronger, is posible for him to deny his opponent from early exp and gold, giving an huge advantage later. If you send the weaker one, he will get out this nasty lvls before, ending in a team-wide benefit. Anyway, I disencourage to take early weak champions in this map.

-Due to the map's form (length and proximity of the lanes), this map is more likely to early and unexpected ganks than the Summoners Rift, than planified team figths. This means that carries (champions usually strong hitting and weak survibaility) will have a hard time here when trying to push the lanes, as any MIA could mean 2 enemies rigth in all your scape paths. IMO, this is exactly the reason of the tanky champions here. And of course, the fact of the carries being weak at early plus the shortness of this games.
Make sure of having a lot of CC before choosing a squishy champion.

-3 players are less 5. This is obvions, but important when you try to take down tougth champions who are running like hell to their so close turrets. Also, the turret destroying by overwelming number is less important here.

-3vs3 is shorter than 5vs5, usually lasting for 20-25 min instead of 40-60. For this reason, early dominating champs will be more useful than late domination ones. Also means that you need fast and mid priced items, not those wich are only useful after spending 20 minutes building them, because maybe when you've finished them the game is lost.

- As you must have noticed, this map have tigth lanes. Use this in your benefit with champions who can cover all the lane extension with his skill, deniying the enemy to escape/chase. Examples are Veigar stun, Anivia wall, Pantheon jump (thanks Psyclik).

To finish, I'll make a review of some champions, specially those who excels or are worse than compared to the Summoner's rift. I must underline: This is MY opinion and of course it's biassed due to the noobs and pros I had in my team (well, I'd never won with a Fiddle in my team, but still have hope) with that champs. Here we go, without any specific order:

1. Garen - Partially viable. He does standar damage again, but lacks on any kind of heavy CC when it comes to chase down people. Go for heavy buff on MS (remember to get wraith's buff) or beg your team mates to choose hard stuns/snares.

2. Dr. Mundo - One of the most strong champions you can face here. As I'd said before, tougth champions have a lot won here, mostly because they usually excels in early, and is easy to them to win this map before any carry gets strong.

3. Tristana - A decent carry as long as she can jump over every wall, giving her great survivality. Anyway, i mantain what i've said about not getting carries here.

4. Sauron. I mean... Mordekaiser - Hard to say. He's hard to kill, speacially to those who dont know how he works. Overall he's an average champion. More useful if his teammates are tougth too, so he have time to spam skills, dont noticed his null CC and real tanking skills.

5. Tryndamere - He shines due to being aviable to jumping walls, making him hard to be followed, and the usual lack of CC (3 are less CC than 5). So he's better than in 5vs5, but still he will be countered by an organized team, and specially some of the melee deniying champions (Janna, Tristana...).

6. Xin Zhao / Master Yi - Good tower pushers due to his attack speed. Yi would need some armor to deliver perfect backdoors, but this can be solved buying some. Xin Zhao is at the moment one of the best elections you can do, but he loses some shining compared to 5vs5 because overall, you'll make less damage with his ultimate.

7. Leblanc - She can jump walls, but its sooo short for THIS walls, and the length of the lanes let the enemies to gank her from behind. With a lot of skill and experience you can get to jump the base wall, but the autoattack is far from being useful destroying the nexus in a backdoor.

8. Rammus - A very good choice. Fast, tons of CC, anti-push... He grants lots of ganks thanks to his powerball, before they manage to get to their tower.

9. Shaco - Deadly in good hands. You have less bushes to hide, so if you want to, probably you'll get caugth in one of Shaco's traps. Enter at your own risk.

10. Karthus - No. Dont choose him. His ulti is good when there are plenty of chances to see enemies with low hp. In 3vs3, that chances are close to half, so save your Karthus for SR.

11. Other champions with global ultimate - Here we have Shen, Pantheon, Twisted Fate, and maybe Gangplank. They're not bad at all (well Gangplank is imo), but simply the best part of his ulti is to make them reach far far away from where they are at the moment. When that place is 10 secs far running, they're not THAT good.

12. Ashe/Ezreal - Unlike the last ones, their ultis are still useful. Maybe still a bit increased, because when you do the shooting to enemy base to kill a B'ing enemy, the shoot havent to cross a lane to reach him, but a jungle, where is less likely to be an enemy. Their overall usefulness is a bit decreased for being ranged carries, but their great mobility mantains them as viable.

13. Poppy - Really strong here. A flash, and the next thing your eyes will see is a wall. So close. Her passive defence and her ulti grants enough survibality to escape like a pro tank.

14. Sona/Soraka - And others builded esentially as healers, arent really good here simply because you will lack in damage to kill someone before they escape in an escenario where the bosses are champions tougth to kill. And i dont mean that i havent won matches with Soraka in my team.

15. Taric/Alistar - Oposed to Sona and Soraka, this two's good resistance and CC can give a win if combined rigth with someone who can get advantage from their skills. Maybe 2 ranged dps with Alistar, or Pantheon + Xin Zhao with Taric.

16. Evelynn - She have a good and a bad part: A lot of big bushes positioned exactly in the way of the enemy team will help to avoid oracles. BUT also few pink wards will completely deny you. Also, is way easier to tagrte her when there are only 3 enemies instead of 5. Still, I belive she's a viable champion.

17. Malzahar - A good choice if you know there will be a lot of tanky champions... And here you know it. The problem is his lack of escape mechanisms. A risky election, wich will depend on your team-mates.

18. Urgot - Good combination between damage and survibality, but his ultitame isnt THAT bad when there are only 2 enemies awaiting to eat you instead of 4. Ofc this also works for Urgot himself, so maybe he doesnt needs to build so tanky.

19. Nunu - Nice resistance, with good CC, self heal, and aoe ultimate with less chances to be cancelled than in a 5 man figth, specially if you're teammed with someone with a Banshee effect like Morgana or Kayle. But remeber, he also needs to go with someone with real damage in his team, as long as he really lacks in htat if he doesnt has his ulti ready.

20. Lux - A good choice due to being capable of disable more than half the team (2/3 actually) with only 1 skill, her lazors range and a shield wich will protect your whole team if shoted rigth.

21. Morgana - She can become a real monster if you're not defeated at lvl 6. Until then, she can be weaker, and lacks in CC and damage if not paired correctly, and some coordinated ganks can destroy her.

22. Fiddlesticks - I'm not sure of what to say about this one. He benefeits from the lack of massive aoe damage, wich could get him killed even in ulti. But he's so weak when caugth alone. Get him at your own risk.

23. Galio - A beast. Or he was, I havent seen him a lot lately. He benefeits from the high amount of melee, but not excesive burst damage due to total amount, the range of his skills, and the taunt, making him a great pack if paired with a good dps.

24. Udyr - The great monster of the 3vs3. Stun, resistance, speed and damage, all packed with a black belt. If you want to play this map and dont know who to choose, take Udyr.

25. Blitzcranck - Good resistance too, aoe damage and speed buff, with the added hook. If played correctly, gives good results. If posible, he should be combined with other melee with CC (Pantheon, Taric, Mundo, Tryndamere), or melee deniyers like Janna, Tristana or Gragas, so you can deny his allies help when you've catched one. Stuns are useful to help him hit with the hook.

26. Singed - A pain in the *** hard to take down, probably taking the same place as Blitz in a team, but Singed has a higher needing of slows instead of stuns. I there are, he benefeits more than Blitz from them. Because if you're team mates have slows instead of stuns, they'll probably have something better in exchange.

Thanks for reading this guide! :) Any further data or request will be included asap. I hope you enjoyed the guide and this helps you to win some matches, and that you will forgive me if I've made a lot of crimes against the english language.
As a little Garenty i could say i'm 1370 elo in this mode atm. Not a lot, yeah, thats why this is only a basic guide :P

GL all!