for masteries i take 4, 21, 5, making sure to take heavy armor and tenacity in defense, then cooldown in offense, and mana regen, recall time, and alchemy in support.

this setup will allow you to sustain very well in the early game and take full advantage of thresh's hook, flay combo. even if you get pushed out of lane, you'll be getting ton's of harass for your AD carry, even a few kills if your opponents hang around too long.

for runes you should be taking flat ability power glyths and flat armor seals, for obvious reasons.

for marks however it get's changed up a bit, taking half attack speed and half hybrid penetration. this will give you potent dueling power throughout the game.

lastly, full CD reduction quints will allow you to harass and burst optimally in the early game.

while i covered the items fairly thoroughly in their respective tool tips, one thing to remember with this build is that you want to build damage throughout the entire game.

the goal of this is to do as much damage as possible in a very short period of time, and as that is difficult with thresh's abilities, supplementing that with active items and auto enhancers, you create a powerful presence.

just remember you make yourself a target when playing as thresh, and he is not a champion played on the back lines. know your limits both in terms of the build and as your skill as a player, or you just end up feeding.

remember that even though by late game you will have a terrifying presence all your own, thresh is a team player and a play maker. optimizing your hook, your lantern, and your ult works wonders for annihilating powerhouses in team fights, or simply diving an enemy teams power while bringing your own team together.

remember to use your hook to separate squishier targets from their more tanky defenders. disabling a teams adc or assassin will cut their killing power down drastically, so be sure to land your hook and ride it for as long as possible before using flay backwards to make sure they don't escape.

your lantern is a fantastic tool for getting your much more bursty team mates to their target. by dropping your lantern and then hooking an enemy and pulling yourself to them, you can bring that high damage payload directly to it's target, allowing them to use what would normally be their initiation to chase and secure the kill or move on to other squishy targets.

lastly, a well placed ult can divide an enemy team, or even create a killzone, just by placing it in the right location. placing it in between the front and back lines can make it very difficult for the back line to initiate, and very hard for the front line to defend, utterly destroying team synergy. as players will often try to save their team mates from your box by breaking the walls, placing your box on top of a low champion may even create a killing floor for heavy AOE damage, as several team mates will be converging on the box to rescue their friend.