Pros -You're tanky -You have great crowd control -Your damage scales extremely well -You don't need to farm in lane in order to scale -You can abuse your range to get easy poking in lane -You have cool skins

Cons -You don't win trades against most meta top laners -You're immobile -People think you're trolling your games -You don't have efficient ways of countering ganks -You're not that good in outnumbered situations. -You might not be getting ganks because "You're trolling".

This chapter will cover your average strategies while playing Thresh top.

Usually, you would try to constantly freeze wave while auto attacking your lane opponent to get free grasp procs off (if you're running that rune of course), freezing wave will allow you to win fights due to your high amounts of cc and decent early damage, given your enemy can't do much other than fight you in your wave or get poked to death.

The next step would be to push out your lane as soon as your opponent recalls after loosing a trade or getting poked too much, since you run demolish you should be taking at least a plate each time your opponent leaves, provided the enemy jungler lets you do so.

As soon as plates or the first tower falls, you should leave lane and join the teamfights, Thresh has great catch potential and joining the fights might turn an otherwise less winnable game by locking down possible carries, you should stick to teamfighting and objective control for the rest of the game.

Pros -You're tanky -You have great crowd control -You don't need to farm in lane in order to scale -You have cool skins -You're great at feeding adcs (both of them)

Cons -You're easy to poke in lane -The hook is easy to read -You need an adc with more than two braincells -Your cooldowns are extremely high -Same thing for your mana costs -You're great at feeding adcs (both of them)

This one will cover the Support Thresh strategies

Your laning phase should start passively, you wont be able to do much engaging with your hook alone without getting poked down by the enemy adc, you should focus on punishing poke attempts with your hook and using your support item's charges to help your adc farming.

You should start roaming past 10 minutes or so if you're well ahead, try to stay in lane with your adc if you're loosing most fights or trades with your opponents, roaming allows you to secure kills for other laners and establishing vision on objectives like the rift herald or dragon.

You should stick to teamfights or try to catch out lacking enemies or their support while they try to get key vision on objectives, spli pushing isn't much in Thresh's domain of experise.

Your keystone, Grasp of the Undying,helps you at poking in lane and getting out extra damage in trades all the while healing you and increasing your max health for the later game, this keystone is one of the two keystones you run on Top Thresh, the other one being Aftershock, I still reccomend mostly using this one.

Aftershock is the alternative keystone,this one is mostly used to play support or turn yourself into a frontline tank if your team lacks one, the extra resistances can help you survive any bursts of damage as long as you can land your cc.

This rune will go along with your grasp setup, running demolish will allow you to get turret plates between trades with your opponent or them leaving lane after getting poked too much and needing to recall. Using demolish you will be able to get extra income early game and allow you to split push later on.

This rune is used to help your adc sustain in lane and during fights, this rune will mostly only used when you're playing support, if you're in the top lane or any other role, you wont need it as you can swap to better alternatives.

Shieldbash is a good alternative to demolish if you don't need to worry about the extra gold from demolish, the extra damage after getting a shield will help you trade with your laner. Shieldbash also gives use to your lantern in lane while you're on your own .

Bone plating will help you win shorter trades if your enemy fights back when you go for poking and withstand any poke from your enemy, using bone plating makes you much more resistant to any poke from enemies and makes short trades much easier.

Conditioning provides extra resistances for the later game if you go against a top laner that wont be poking you much or at all, Thresh scales extremely well into the late game and since you're top lane you get to farm and get resistance items before 12 minutes, increasing your resistances even further.

Second wind will only be used if your lane opponent is another ranged champion like Vayne or Teemo, otherwise I'd suggest to just run Conditioning or Bone Plating, Second wind isn't much useful in other matchups than in ranged top laners matchups.

Overgrowth is another rune that will help you scale into the later game, especially since Overgrowth scales off of any unit, including champions and jungle monsters, you wont need to farm all game to scale.

Fleet Footwork allows you to sustain in lane and deal a bit of extra damage when you poke your lane opponent, the extra move speed can always be used to run away if you're getting ganked, you usually wont be using a different keystone for the build paths I propose.

Presence of mind is another rune that can is used to stay in lane longer, sustaining your mana instead of sustaining health all the while permanently increasing it for the later stages of the game.

Triumph is used if you can do without the extra mana, granting you extra gold from takedowns, the rune increases your income well enough for later items to build.

Overheal synergizes well with your Fleet Footwork Keystone since you can stack a small shield if you go for poking in lane, it wont help much for the later game but can still be a valid option

This will help you sustain even better from your auto attack's physical damage, other runes will be used to heal from your magic damage, best part about this rune is the fact you can stack it without getting straight up kills or assists, although they help.

Most games, you'll have less health than most of your opponents, this is the reason we use this rune, since we will most likely always benefit from the extra damage against targets with more health than us, other than the enemy adc and supports, they will most likely catch up to you in the later game though.

This is the other alternative to Cut Down, you should use this is if you think you wont be winning prolonged fights against your laner or any other dangerous opponent.

This keystone is another alternative for the ad marksman Thresh, stacking it allows you to build towards the later game, you'll probably be able to one shot most squishies if you can make it to late game using this, this is the primary Domination keystone you'll be running, the second one is Electrocute.

This is your second dominaton keystone, you'll run this instead of Dark Harvest if you don't think you'll be able to stack that rune for the later game and you still need the burst damage, this rune is swapped in if you're playing against high amounts of peel and heals.

This rune isn't much useful outside of jungle, but in that peculiar role it's essential, you can't gank without it, jungle Thresh should focus on that keystone and build around it accordingly.

This rune deals absurd amounts of damage, since your whole kit is filled with cc, more precisely, a 1.5 seconds stun, a knockup/displacement and two slows, running Cheap Shot will help increase your damage output.

Taste of Blood helps you sustain in lane, although running it reduces your damage, the sustain is still good enough, the only downside of running this rune is that the healing is practically meaningless late game since you wont be doing much poking without blowing up.

You'll scale, that's always welcome since Thresh is excellent later on and that you can stack it off of takedowns period, making you and your jungler profit off of ganks, this is usually the only rune you run in the second domination tree if you're aiming towards damage.

This is a good sustain rune since you'll heal from the magic damage your Flay gives you on your auto attacks and you'll heal a bit from your abilities landing, even if that healing isn't high, you'd take this rune to heal from your auto attacks.

Ingenious hunter is used on the builds that use item actives like the Everfrost, Prowler's claw or Galeforce, reducing their cooldown which are most of time, extremely long, like Galeforce who's cooldown is about 2 minutes long at all stages of the game, getting this rune will allow you to use them that much more often.

This rune allows you to roam the map faster, you'd run this rune as support if you don't plan on building mobi boots, you probably wont be running this as any role than support or mid lane since you don't need to roam as much as other roles.

No keystones needed here, you will most likely never be running sorcery as a main rune, Arcane comet wont deal damage since you displace them with your abilities, no point in running it. Phase rush isn't that essential since you wont need the movement speed given you'll probably stay in fights. Lastly, Aery is literally useless, you don't use it enough outside of lane for the rune to be worth it at all.

With this rune, you can gap close efficiently without your hook or any other spell, be careful, you need to use a summoner spell in order to activate this so, time your fights along your summoner spell's cooldowns.

This rune gives you extra ability haste for the later game, always welcome since your ability to be useful in fights relies on you landing abilities.

This rune is used in the jungle, just like predator, you'll be using it to gank more effectively for your laners, this rune increases your movement speed permanently along with making other movement

This one allows you to fight for scuttle against your jungling opponent, this rune is, again, only used in the jungle,using this rune can also help your ganks since you'll most likely be coming from the river and thus, going faster

Gathering Storm improves on one of your strenghts, late game. Running this makes you deal more and more damage the longer the games goes on, this allows you to scale even better, as said beforehand.

This is the only key stone you'll be using in every build from the inspiration tree, this rune is used at it's best with the control mage build, this rune applies a slow on your auto attacks and makes landing hooks and flays much easier

Hexflash gives you an extra gap closer, this rune is useful since Thresh doesn't have that, despite this, you probably wont be running this in most matchups as Thresh,

Magical footwear can help you roam the map even better, running this rune allows you to move faster to lanes or teamfights, you can always use this if you think you'll get fed enough to get the footwear early.

This rune gives you a stopwatch, obviously. This rune is useful since you get to use the stopwatch to build into your later objects like your Gargoyle Stoneplate or Zhonya's Hourglass while giving you a tool to negate burst early game.

This is an essential secondary rune on most of your builds, biscuits give you health and mana regen along with permanently increasing your blue bar, with this rune you get to scale ionto late game and mitigate Thresh's mana problems

This rune gives you extra ability haste and summoner spell ability haste, this is extremely useful on Thresh since you revolve around your abilities and landing them, getting more ability haste reduces your margin of error by alot.

This rune will only be used in solo lanes, time warp gives you extra sustain in fights and lane since you'll be getting corrupting potions you'll get mana regen along with health regen and an extra burn on your auto attacks

Usual combo, not the best at all times, but reliable, this should be the main combo you'd be using all game, hooking them allows you to dash to them then E to push them in any direction while they're still stunned, possibly throwing the target into your four other teammates.


Your other alternative, Flay's knockup slows, allowing you to land the hook with less odds of your opponent dodging, you'll be using this combo out of the minion wave since you can't champions through it, most of the time, in solo lanes, your opponent will try to fight back after the E, walking out of the wave to attack you, giving you an easy hook.


An obvious yet inefficient combo, Flashing before your Q leaves more room to reaction for your opponents than a regular hook who can flash away from it just as well or setup an engage and kill you.


A better alternative to the previous combo in my opinion, Flay, your E, is nearly instant, the opposite of your Q, doing this leaves much less room for reaction and practically guarantees your E to land, leaving you to follow up with a hook or a different ability.


This combo would usually put an enemy to near death unless they flash out, activating The Box after landing a hook and then casting Flay Behind yourself should guarantee to break one of your ult walls and deal damage along with slowing the hooked opponent.

When I first started out playing League, I was a Mordekaiser one-trick, until I found out how much fun I was having with Thresh, of course I still main Mordekaiser over Thresh, but over time, Thresh became my second top pick, and a champion I play consistantly simply because of how much fun he is.

I always wanted to play Thresh in a solo lane but I couldn't find a viable way to do so in any other place than top lane, so I started trying stuff out, eventually I came up with the full tank grasp rune page you can see at the beginning of the guide and have been majorly using this one in general, although I like using a different one from game to game.

Thank you for reading this guide all the way down (which I assume you did entirely), if you want you can come back here anytime, I'll try to update the guide regularly in order to constantly inform you people of what my degenerate mind comes up with.

-Feel free to check out my other guide about everyone's favorite tin can here

-You can also check out my friend Sunfalk and his Yuumi top/mid/whatever guide over here, he was of a great help while making this guide, feel free to give him C L O U T