Hi, my name is Sam! I'm currently a college student at Emerson College, Boston MA and play for the Emerson LCS team North Eastern Region NA. Though I'm on the "B TEAM," I started my way from B5 and soloed my way up to silver. During this process I took it upon myself to experiment with off-meta champions in off-meta roles with off-meta builds to see what hidden champions and OP builds had yet to be discovered in League of Legends. The guides I post are complete, meaning that none are still in development/require further testing. I only post guides that I know can SUCCESSFULLY carry a solo player from Bronze to Silver with no external help.

Most Shaco players like to argue that Shaco is only a strong champion if you build him full ad/ap rather than mixing him as a hybrid champion. The funny thing is though, his ability kit screams hybrid! His Q is a guaranteed crit strike dealing physical damage, W a cc evoking AP distraction, E a strong mixture of both AD/AP that slows his opponents, and lastly his R being fully AP explosion of damage if timed/juked correctly. To build him only AD completely disregards his potential to deal insane amounts of AP damage, while only building AP ignores his Q's instant critical damage spike and makes him vulnerable when all his abilities are on cool down. What I've found is that his he needs AD to make him useful for 1v1 takedowns AND AP to make him useful in team fights. Without any AD, he struggles to 1v1 and duel an opponent. Without any AP, he struggles to enter a team fight without getting caught and killed instantly. To be useful through out the ENTIRE game while carrying himself AND his team, he must bring both AD AND AP damage to the fight. Initiating a team fight with his clone, causing chaos in the enemy line, and then releasing a hefty explosion of AP damage is great for widling down the enemy teams' health (tanks included) and spreading them away from each other so your front line can jump on a now separated team formation while you come in from the back line and burst down their add/apc squishies. Let's face it, Shaco isn't tanky like Garen, and he doesn't have the attack speed of Master Yi, so the best way to sustain yourself throughout the game is bursting the SH!T out of enemy champions with high damage outputs who would otherwise give your team trouble in team fights, e.g. Veigar, Brand, any ADC, etc. Shaco is an assassin, so let's play him like one! Now, this isn't to say that he can't also be useful against tanks and fighters, he absolutely can be! What I've found is that tanks typically try to max their armor to counter your team's ADC...take advantage of this, while they build armor, you'll be building AP mixed with some Magic Pen giving you the upper hand when you gank early game against these fools.