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Recommended Items
Spells:
Flash
Teleport
Items
Ability Order
Voracity (PASSIVE)
Katarina Passive Ability
Introduction

Welcome to my Top Lane







Runes




This is a pretty standard rune page for any AP top. Magic Pen is probably the best option for Marks although there are other alternatives such as armor. I don't feel that flat AP or AP/level Marks are worth it however. Armor Seals are pretty much a must. The only other option is Scaling Health seals when you're against an AP champion, but even then armor is good in general because it reduces basic attacks and minion attacks. You have a few options with Glyphs, I personally like mixing Flat MR and Scaling MR together, but you can also choose AP/level glyphs as well. You have a number of options for Quintessences as well. I prefer Flat AP, but Movement Speed and Flat Health are also acceptable.

























This is the my particular skill order for

With that said, there are circumstances in which I feel that















sinister steel - Sinister Steel is the spell we will max first. It's on a very short, 4 second cooldown, does a decent amount of damage and also grants us a 20-35% movement speed increase. This is a pretty effective harass tool, especially when proccing a Bouncing Blade mark. It's a decent tool for pushing the wave, but foremost, it allows us to effectively chase people down. We already have very high base movement speed, but with the movement speed granted by Sinister Steel and













I have no set item path that I follow every game, however there are a number of items I consider very strong and build on a frequent basis. I usually base my item purchases in accordance to how the game is going, building what I need. However, there are some item choices that are good and some that are bad.
Strong Items














Viable Options











Weak Item Choices



















Boot Choices











Let's go over some brief goals with a general idea of how you want to play

- Early Game (levels 1-5) - Sit back and farm with
Bouncing Blade, you will likely get behind, you want to avoid trading and taking damage by making use of
Shunpo
- Mid Game (levels 6-11) - You should have an item or two by now and want to start bullying your opponent out. Very few champions can trade with you, bully your opponent out of lane and push up
- Late Game (levels 12-18) - You want to spend a decent amount of time split pushing, creating pressure on the map, but you also have to know when to team fight. You are not a clean-up
Katarina coming in for kills and resets, you are a front line
Katarina constantly causing problems for the enemy carries.

Early Game
Early game is important for every champion and that includes

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Riot recently buffed ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
The classic Cloth + 5 start. It's still good, especially against champions like ![]() ![]() ![]() |

Mid Game
Mid game is the part of the game where



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This is the heavier damage option, it gives spell pen, health and AP. It will make you fairly more squishy but it's a huge boost in damage. You can take this against champions that aren't really a threat to you. |

Late Game
Late game can really dictate how the game ends. This is one of the more difficult parts of the game because this is when experience and game knowledge really comes in. In a very broad sense, at this point you have to decide whether or not it is more beneficial to split-push or to teamfight.

This is a very armor intensive build is extremely effective against most bruisers you will face top lane. It offers a combined 950 hp as well as 115 armor and two awesome passives. You should be able to outtrade virtually everyone and no one will be able to get away from you. |
This is an extremely effective build against an AP top like ![]() ![]() |
This is an extremely synergistic build and effective against hybrid champions that will be doing a lot of physical and magic damage such as ![]() ![]() ![]() |
You should have two core items completed by late game, and the purpose of the above 'item choices' section is to show general build for specific late game situations. Late game itemization is generally filling in gaps of your build to shore up weaknesses.

I will cover the key match-ups to top lane and include the difficulty of facing such a champion as well some tips to win lane. It's important to note that each match-up is different and there are factors such as your skill level as well as the opponents skill level which can change the match-up drastically.
There's not really a lot you can do against her. You early game harass isn't enough to push out of lane even though this is the time to take advantage of her. You have no way to really stop her from steam rolling you post 6 but she has no way of stopping your ultimate. She lacks wave clear so you can take advantage of her in that aspect but the match up is fairly difficult for you.
This is one of those classic match-ups where neither of you can really kill each other. Cho'gath has pretty good wave clear and decent damage on top of being a tanky beast. I recommend getting an early







She's extremely difficult to outtrade and she can just

An uncommon top, but none-the-less strong. She can outtrade if she gets in your face, which isn't hard for her to do with her


This guy is the definition of a cakewalk. He can pretty much never get damage on you, and you can constantly harass him down. Once her burns his Q you pretty much have a free ultimate. I would never go toe-to-toe with him at roughly the same health, but you should easily whittle him down and then go in for the kill. Extremely easy to abuse.
She has a really good late game and built in sustain, but she's abuseable. It should be really hard for her to get damage on you because she's primarily an auto attack champion and you can easily avoid her damage by





He's got a fantastic late game, but you can abuse him slightly. You should really never get stunned by his E and he is an auto-attack based champion so he shouldn't be able to get a lot of damage on you, but since a lot of




Her ultimate can nullify yours and she's really good at turning around trades. You can bully her somewhat often, but I find that she's difficult to build against and pretty good at pushing waves and taking towers. It's an unfavorable match-up and I would suggest rushing

If he lands a Q on you, he can really hurt, but other than that he's really easy. You can harass him down, but he can sustain with his W. It's really hard to get a good ult off on him, because of his ult and he can


Building an


The recent changes have made


In the early levels he's primarily an auto-attack champion so


Asides from being nerfed, this guy was always a cakewalk. It's so hard for him to get significant damage on you and his








This is by far








For most champions



He's pretty hard to deal with even though he can't stop your ultimate. You just don't have that many tools do punish his weak early game. He has very low mobility so call for jungle help often. If he uses his ult to go in on you, you can blow your ultimate as well to reduce the spell vamp effects, but generally you will lose out on this trade.
He can't kill you, but you can't really kill him. He's fairly easy to bully in some respects, but you can't stop his ultimate and you don't take towers all the well, so it's hard to punish him. The most important thing is to constantly harass him and push on him, so he feels like he can't use his ultimate. If he does start channeling his ultimate in lane, go ahead and punish him for it by

Singed is really hard to deal with because you can't really punish him. A lot of

He's annoying as ****, everyone wants to kill him, and just sucks to play against in general. He has no way to stop your ultimate and you can generally get pretty good harass on him, but if he gets multiple auto-attacks on you, you will probably lose trades. It's a hard lane to win and yours to lose if you misplay. This lane is a lot more forgiving for teemo, but you have stronger team fight presence, so use that to your advantage.
It's hard to win lane against, although he's easy to abuse early. He can dodge your ultimate with his pool and generally has enough sustain to deal with your harass until he becomes a late game monster. This isn't really favorable to

He's been pretty bad for some time now, but he can give you problems. His ultimate does more damage than yours and knock's you up, but other than that his kit is really weak. Building a

He's one of the most annoying champions to play against in general, but specifically for




Early on he's not a problem, but after level 6 he becomes really hard to deal with him. If he ults you,

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