Thanks to Jimmy Da Bae and Energy for sitting through my moanings on skype while I struggled to remember the various matchups. I am not liable if you do not get out of bronze. Comments appreciated. All information listed is either my opinion or fact. Take your pick.

Also votes are dumb. If you're gonna downvote at least tell me how to improve

Why you should listen to me:
I love Poppy
I adore yordles
I'm mastery level 6 on Poppy
I am a Poppy main
Someone once said I was really good on Poppy

Stats:
Poppy
156.2 CS
2.59:1 KDA
7.7 / 6.5 / 9.2

Why you shouldn't listen to me:
By many league standards, I'm still a new Poppy main
I used to be an ADC
Other stuff
Was once told I was **** at Poppy (F you Morgana)

http://oce.op.gg/summoner/userName=Harrsta
To those that are like "Oh but you've been doing so bad recently," a gunsmith does not necessarily know how to use a gun well, yet the military still use his tools.

Poppy is a fighter/tank that has damage, tankiness, utility, a Firetruck you get outta here, a short range short time stasis on enemy champs, a sort of peel and a sort of escape. You can build her tanky but she still dishes out tons of damage. I view her and Riven as similar (for some strange reason), but different in the sense that Poppy's stun is longer but interacts with the enviroment, her knockup puts the enemies into stasis, and Riven is much more mobile.

Poppy's lore is complicated. Basically, as a Yordle, she wanted a purpose, so she left her carefree Yordle brethren, not wanting to become like them (I mean, if Yordles have so much free time that Veigar went from a punk to a real actual evil guy, yeah, I agree with her). So she goes to Western Valoren and just watches hopeful human people "Journey to the West" (Wukong and Ahri if anyone gets the reference). She then sees a different caravan that's operating like a hive mind except in a good way. She meets the leader, Orlon, who's pretty cool and everyone loves him in a no **** no romantic sort of way. She takes off her magical hiding (which somehow she says. If you wanna dispute me, it says in the lore that "for the first time she revealed herself to a human"). So he says you're pretty cool, cause you're not like all the other fanboys who don't wanna touch my beautiful face and because you're asking so many annoying questions that sort of becomes adorable (like anime), so tell you what, how about you go with us to a new place called Demacia? So of course the little yordle is like, yes please, and so off they go with the caravan to Demacia. People start spreading rumours about how OP Orlon's new ult will become. Orlon becomes a hero to the people, but tragically starts dying somehow (old age probably). He passes on the hammer to Poppy, and tells her a good old deathbed story about how the hammer is destined for the hero of Demacia, blah blah blah, and Poppy's like, I will find this hero for you in your place. And then Orlon dies.
Play Video
But what's so cute/tragic about this storyline is that Poppy is actually the hero, which is what makes everyone go aw, so cute, but they forget about all the people Poppy murders by armed-live-field testing if they're the hero. She's a mass murderer. Makes you wonder why Riot gave her a Noxus skin.

9 Armour Seals- This is for some early tankiness.
9 AD Marks- This is for CSing and for doing some damage while still being tanky
5 MR Gylphs + 4 Scaling MR Glyphs- You can completely change this for 9 full Scaling MR Glyphs if your enemy top laner and Jungle are both AD and you feel like you or their mid won't be roaming a lot. This is for reducing the damage enemy AP spells can do early on.
3 AD Quints- This is for CSing and for doing some damage while still being tanky. These can be exchanged for HP Quints if you wanna go the full tankiness route.

0/12/18
Cunninng
Most likely, you won't be roaming a lot through the Jungle and the River, so Savagery should be the best choice
Secret Stash is only there for the Long Sword start against enemies that won't be able to take down a lot of your HP. Otherwise, exchange it for Assassin for early lane damage. Runic Infinity is for the buffs that you should not get
Merciless is the most obvious choice, as meditation becomes useless after the earliest game, and even then, if you get corrupting potion you shouldn't have any EXTREME mana problems.
Bandit is a Fiora/GP/Ranged Top Lane Champ/Support Mastery. The 10 Gold you can get from hitting an enemy with your passive is absolutely trash, as your passive early on (when Bandit will matter) has a very high CD. Besides, Dangerous Game can save you from an ignite, a stupid dive on your part, or a teamfight.

Resolve
Recovery seems more like a mastery for Garen or Mundo, and you should be amply prepared for healing up with either your corrupting potions, biscuits, and occasional Grasp of the Undying procs. Unyielding also sounds cool with your keystone (cause you're nt only Unyielding, you're also Undying) and all round seems better than Recovery.
Tough skin doesn't really seem that amazing, but it's definetely better than wanderer (for me) as you won't be roaming frequently or staying in the jungle for extended periods of time. You might wanna take wanderer for if you are gonna roam and offset some of Poppy's slow speed early on, but exceptional circumstances aside Tough Skin is better
Runic Affinity is really good when paired with Poppy's passive. Level 1, Poppy shields for 15% of her max HP, which is 81 HP +8% of that, equivalent to about one auto attack and a bit, which allows you to grab a bit of CS against a ranged champ. However, as the game progresses, the shield will only get stronger, and that 8% larger and larger. Veteran scars isn't that great, as it's only 50 HP max rank. Thorughout the whole course of the game, Runic Affinity will be better
As with recovery, I feel Perseverance should only be used on Mundo and Garen. Besides, it's nice to have a more frequent flash and ignite for plays and TP for ganks.
Poppy, while she is slow, depends on her speed (which is why we build some swifties) for positioning with her E. That's why I take swiftness (no, this is not an infomercial). With Poppy's role as a tank, however, you can take Legendary Guardian, a little bonus on top of your W (Steadfast prescence).
Grasp of the Undying is proc'd by your passive and shreds their HP, on top of your other damage, the passive's extra damage, and your Q's % of Max Health. Please take this, if nothing else.

Experiment with masteries as you see fit. Call me out if you think a different one is better.

Start #1
Your starting Items should include- Corrupting Potion and Warding Totem. Even if you're not against a ranged enemy champ (Gangplank and Fiora sort of count) still take potion. This gives you early sustain and sort of allows you to spam your Q (Hammer Shock).

Start #2
Your other option is a Longsword start with 3 Potions (which you'll use as biscuits). Take this option if you're against a champ you could probably bully early on (NASUS). Allows you to get a bit of a start for your aggressive build path, where you get a titanic hydra first off.

Core
No matter if you're building tanky or damage, these 3 items are necessary.
Boots of Swiftness allow you to actually move around a bit, which Poppy can't because she's slow without boots (She's not fat, just well-padded). This is essential for positioning your E.
Sunfire Cape is so bloody beautiful. Tankiness and HP and consistent damage makes this such a perfect item.
Iceborn Gauntlet is really strong on Poppy as she can spam her Qs, allowing her to spam her spellblade. The extra mana stops her from running dry on fuel, and even her passive proc's this.

Against AP Items
Banshee's veil provides, HP and a lot of MR. It's beautiful because it stops you from being bursted down by enemy's spells with its passive. I'd take this as a fourth or fifth item usually, unless I want to get ZZ'Rot
Zz'Rot is sort of like another sunfire cape. It gives you tankiness but no HP, but makes up for it with MR. Don't, however, take this however sunfire, as it doesn't give you any HP. It also offers wave clear and a bit of splitpush potential, and there's a trick (which sadly I haven't done) which allows you to E them into the portal.
Spirit Visage is only good if you have someone with consistent heals on your team AND you will be there to utilise them, so if you're sticking with your team 24/7 and you ahve a Soraka, Sona, etc., feel free to pick this one up
Maw's pretty good as well, serves like a sort-of banshee's veil, except it gives you some damage. Comparison: Maw only triggers when you're about to die, Banshee's triggers indiscriminately. Maw costs 800 gold more than Banshees. Maw gives you armour pen and AD, while Banshee's gives you HP and health regen.

Armour Items
Thornmail is a good item against a full AD team. Basically, when they kill you, they also kill thmselves. I've seen a Poppy (different guy) kill an ADC with thornmail.
Dead man's Plate is a pretty good item. It gives you the same stats as Sunfire Cape, and its unique passives give you some move speed which builds up when you're not spamming AAs, extra damage and a sort of slow, but all the passives have to be built up by walking, and are discharged without the slow on a basic attack if you have not reached 100 stacks. I'd normally grab this item no matter what. Combined with Sunfire Cape, you get 1k HP and 100 Armour.
Randuin's Omen is an item I'd grab against a Crit team, where they have someone like Master Yi or Yasuo. It reduces the damage from a critical strike, has a passive which automatically slows enemy attack speed if they attack you, and when activated slows nearby enemies movement speed with a range of just past your passive's.
Warmogs gives you plenty of HP but no tankiness. The passive gives you a walking fountain if you're out of combat for the time of a back. I honestly only used this once as a joke. That's all. Goodbye.

Damage
Because pink is the perfect for damage items
The black cleaver is an amazing item if you don't want one of the two hydras. It provides AD, armour pen for the whole team (basically a better expose weakness mastery [which no one uses]) CDR, HP, and a Jinx Passive. Take this item if you still want to CS without accidentally killing everything else as well, or if the enemy is stacking a lot of armour. Warmog's armour, though it has armour in its name, only gives HP, so no, this won't have an effect.
Ravenous Hydra. I have never used this item on Poppy, preferring its brother- brother or sister? (holy **** my left ear is ringing send help) hydra. In theory, this item gives you OK stats on Poppy. It gives Poppy a lot of AD (which for me is the one positive on Poppy), an AOE auto attack, health regen, and lifesteal. I personally don't use this item because it's passive is influenced by dmg, while Poppy needs to actually build tanky.
Titanic Hydra, the better of the two hydra twins for Poppy. (Wait, if you kill one hydra two takes it's place, which champ/item did riot kill for the two hydras? 0_0) Titanic Hydra gives you HP (which I feel is worth the fact that it has), reduced AD compared to ravenous hydra, the same health regen, and a similar (but IMO better) passive. The passive deals a flat amount + 2.5% of your max hp to enemies in a cone of who you AA, meaning you can control whether or not you wanna lose CS and which enemies you want to hit, and you deal a LOT of damage even if they're far away. Offers slightly higher waveclear potential and more damage

Boot Options
Normally, I build Boots of swiftness no matter what, because it offsets a bit of the fact that Poppy's slow (ONCE AGAIN, ITS THE ARMOUR AND THE UNDER THE ARMOUR CLOTHES). But sometimes, if you're getting whooped because of an enemy champ that has a lot of AD or AP, you might wanna take some merc treads or ninja tabi.

Misc
You need pink wards. Full stop. You can use it to set up ganks if you know they're gonna push and they just warded top river. You can pink ward tri bush so you know no one can dive you without getting dominated. You can help your mid laner and pink ward the top lane push slightly outside of the bush right next to lane. Later on you can pink ward dragon or baron to have continual vision of key objectives. Pink wards have saved lives. Help raise awareness for pink wards today.
Blue wards. Read above. Put them where you put pinks. Just like pinks, except free, give less gold, can be used for scouting, and don't reveal stealth wards.
The two elixirs are for when you can't buy anything else and want some stat boosts.

It's really your choice, preferences, friend's banter and dares, and what the enemy builds that matter when choosing your items.

Your Skill Sequence, like items, depend upon the situation, but the skill sequence above should be your standard unless your enemy top laner/jungler have a dash (and the jungle is a ***** and will gank you) get W third. You want to max R - Q - E -W


Passive: Iron Ambassador
Poppy throws her buckler, gaining range and bonus magic damage.

The buckler lands at a nearby location and Poppy can pick it up to gain a shield. Enemies can step on the buckler to destroy it

Poppy's passive can proc on hit effects like statikk and iceborn. Use it to harrass, or if you kill a minion/tower/champ/dragon/baron have the shield bounce right back to you. Against ranged champs that really wanna punish you for going after minions, it can help you sort of get back into the game. Along with the rest of her kit, Poppy's passive can help her outplay with extra HP.



Q: Hammer Shock
Cost: 35/40/45/50/55 Mana
Range: 430
Poppy swings her hammer, dealing damage and creating a zone that will slow enemies and explode after a delay.
Poppy smashes the ground, dealing 35/55/75/95/115 (+80% bonus Attack Damage) plus 7% of the enemies' maximum Health as physical damage, and leaving an unstable area.The area slows enemies inside it by 20/25/30/35/40% and erupts after 1 second, dealing the initial damage again.

Poppy's Q is something that should just be spammed. Each Q deals a set amount of damage + 7% of the enemy's max HP + 80% of your AD as AD damage, slowing enemy's for 1 second, and re triggering. Once that one second ends, the initial damage hits the enemies still on the ground again. A good way to make sure enemies don't dodge the ability (as it is pretty predictable, as you'll just be wanting to spam it) is to E onto the enemy and then Q. If you land your E, the stun allows the second part to also hit, already doing at least 14% of the enemy's HP. Definitely do not use quick cast on this, or if you must, only leave it on for a couple of games.


W: Steadfast Presence
Cost: 50 Mana
Range: 400
Poppy stops enemy dashes around her and gains movement speed.
Passive: Poppy gains 0 Armor and 0 Magic Resist (12% of Armor and Magic Resist). This bonus is doubled if Poppy is below 40% Health.
Active: For the next 2.5 seconds, Poppy gains 27/29/31/33/35% Movement Speed. While Steadfast Presence is active, she stops enemy dashes in an area around her, dealing 70/110/150/190/230 (+70% Ability Power) magic damage.

This ability is what allows Poppy to set up her E, absolutely counter enemy dashes, and get out of sticky situations that her tankiness alone can't do. It gives her a significant amount of armour and MR as well as utility, and can be used to outplay a lot of enemy champs. But to be honest, it can be hard to react to enemy dashes, so instead try to just guess when and act accordingly. Signs that they'll be dashing are things like Yasuo trying to CS, Leblanc marking your ADC, Nidalee marking you, and the list goes on. But at the same time, don't just save it for dashes. We all want to look cool (DONT DENY IT) and stop that clutch Yasuo E onto your ADC, but you might just wanna leave that salty Ezreal out to dry and gain that move speed to save your own ***. This is automatically on quick cast.


E: Heroic Charge
Cost: 70 Mana
Range: 425
Poppy dashes to the target and pushes it back. If the target is pushed into a wall, it is stunned.
Poppy tackles an enemy, dealing 50/70/90/110/130 (+50% bonus Attack Damage) physical damage and carrying them forward. If Poppy carries the target into terrain, the enemy takes 50/70/90/110/130 (+50% bonus Attack Damage) additional physical damage and is stunned for 1.6/1.7/1.8/1.9/2 seconds.

Poppy's E gives her outplay potential, a very specific escape, a stun, and a dash. More on how to use this in the laning, skirmishing and teamfighting sections. You can choose whether or not you want quick cast or normal cast. I'd recommend normal cast if you used that for Vayne's condemn (e).


R: Keeper's Verdict
Cost: 100 Mana
Range: 500
Poppy channels a hammer strike that knocks enemies very far away.
First Cast: Poppy channels for up to 4 seconds, slowing herself by 15%.
Second Cast: Poppy smashes the ground, emanating a shockwave that deals 200/300/400 (+90% bonus Attack Damage) physical damage to enemies around the first champion hit and knocking them a large distance toward their Summoning Platform. The shockwave length and knockback distance increases with channel duration.Enemies are untargetable while they are being knocked away.

Poppy's ult is absolutely amazing. You can save team mates, save yourself, stop dashes, stop enemy's escaping, set up picks, etc. More on this in the laning, skirmishing, and teamfight sections. Sidenote: This also confirms the fact that Poppy is the foretold hero of Demacia, as the ult does what the rumours circulating Demacia said the hammer was meant to do.

Poppy's just like most other top laners. Disregarding specific enemy champs (NASUS) you want to grab as much CS as possible and poking the enemy doewn with your Q and a combo I'll say teach you later on.

Dealing with ranged champions: Against some ranged champs (Teemo), sometimes it's inevitable that you must just back off and let the lane push. If this is the case, try to freeze the lane to at least get some items. Or you can go complete rambo and just take his poke like a boss, back off, then tp back into lane with your magic resist item (assumption as most ranged top laners are mages), and move along. If you want to get the first 3 sword minions, hit him with your passive, get the shield, and take his AAs. Be aware, however, that your shield will only be able to last one AA and a bit.

Dealing with melee champs: Level 1, without minions, you could actually try and contest most other champs. This is because of your Q and your passive, which means you can take more than them and deal more damage than them. When you move up to CS, if they move up along with you, Q so you CS and you poke them, than immediately back off to minimise minion aggro. If they have regen like mundo or garen, or even if you need to heal up anyway, use a corrupting potion when you're around 1/2 - 3/4 hp and AA + Q + AA. This chunks a significant portion of his HP and you stop his regen, making full use of your pots.

Combo: If the enemy is out of position (as in they're between you and a wall, or they're between you and your tower), you should use this combo to chunk a lot of his HP and possibly murder him/her/them.
Stun Combo- E them towards the wall, Q, AA, than orb walk with them while continually AAing. Orb walking is clearer on an ADC, but you can still do it with a melee champ. Use this whenever you can, because even if you don't kill them, you'll still be able to chunk them down.
Towards tower- E towards tower, AA then Q (this is because they can quickly walk past where you drag them to, and you want to actually land it) then orb walk AA as mentioned above.
You can also flash stun, but I would only do this to secure a kill if you're even or behind, or use either of these combos if someone's ganking for you.

Dyrus Strategy- Cs normally for the first lane, but try and build up your wave so it's larger than your opponents. Then, when the second wave hits, push the wave as fast as possible, using a corrupting potion if you must. Then go ward the enemy's buff. If they're low enough, you could even contest the buff or get a kill or flash off them. Otherwise, if they're not there