Hello Mobafire, this is Mikuroo with a guide to the Twisted Treeline and some of the better picks to help players win. While gameplay and mechanics remain the same as on Summoner’s Rift, there are significant changes to playstyle. Many champions that may be just mediocre on Summoner’s Rift can play to the strengths of Twisted Treeline and become very strong picks. I will go over what it takes to make a good pick and the reasons why.

I will also be talking about common thinkings as well as team compositions and mistakes that people make while playing ranked 3’s. Note that I am not claiming to be an amazing twisted treeline player, I got a lot of my information from researching and talking to high elo ranked 3’s players. While much of the content is not original, I will present it for the community.

Every screenshot found is this guide that displays gameplay or item builds and picks will be from a high elo ranked 3’s game taken from the highest elo teams. This is to bluntly show that what I am saying is true, because some of the things in this guide are pretty odd and would probably just be labeled as “noobish.”

Because I cannot include guides on every single champion that is a “pro pick”, there will be links below to smaller guides explaining the build. There will be tips and tricks, but you will have to refer to this guide for the overall gameplay. Not everything will be released at once, and the list of champions below will increase over time.

The map itself is quite an interesting thing. While the lanes are around the same length as top or bottom lane, the bush positions and lane entrances allow for quick ganks. This puts champions with mobility in an advantage, allowing them to gank more, as well as run away from ganks.

Now believe it or not, the ideal goal of this map is to farm. Because creeps actually give more gold, and the jungle is so accessible, the faster someone gets his or her items the better off they will be. Now this map would not be very fun if it was just a farming game, where people would just last hit. This map is action packed because of how easy it is to disturb someone from simply last hitting. By giving the enemy a chance to solo farm his frozen lane, they will have a noticeable advantage when the team fights break out. In fact, many teams pick a late game carry and have him sit in lane to farm creeps, while the whole team plays defensively.

The two most important parts of the twisted treeline are the early game and late game synergy/counters. While early game leads usually lead to victory, it often occurs that a late game team will counter another and just simply win, even though they were behind. It is very important to pick your champions wisely so your early and late game balance out, and that you do not counter pick yourself.

I will talk about Picks later.

Speaking of picks, Because of the smooth income, gold per 10 items do not need to be bought unless they are actually part of the items being built. That means you should not buy a kage’s lucky pick (haha, see what I did there?) unless you are actually going to build it into another item. Also, the map has more tight areas which can allow for some tide turning ultimates, like Amumu or Rumble. Finally, this map has no wards and has to be played by someone with prediction skills and map awareness. You cannot tell if the enemy is in your jungle, and the wolf camp is conveniently placed so that you could be caught while doing them.

What makes a strong pick:
Mobility
Utility
Tanky Damage or the Ability to Kite
Jungle Clear

Because there are only three sets of abilities per team, a champion without any utility needs a team that has more utility than average. In any circumstance, a team needs some sorts of utility that will help your team in general. Examples of skills are stuns, slows, damage amplifications, movement skills like Apprehend and Headbutt, heals, etc.

Tanky damage or the ability to kite increases your survivability in this very unsuspecting map. Playing as someone like soraka will give you a very hard time trying to stay alive because you have no peels, and you will be forced to build as a full tank.

Finally, whether you have a jungler or not, you need champions that can clear the jungle. The jungle should be constantly cleared for maximized gold income, and the enemies jungle as well when the situation arises.

Links to Champion Builds:
Amumu: Amumu is an insanely strong pick, because he not only has stuns, he has insane damage with Blackfire Torch.
Annie: Annie can be built as a tanky burst mage. Her only weakness is gap closers which are really common on this map. Her aoe damage is really amazing.
Cho’gath: He has a large single target nuke which really helps in a map with only 3 champions. Also, his silence and knock-up are easier to hit.
Darius: He does insane damage while built tanky as well. His grab also gives a lot of utility.
Diana: Diana is one of the most played champions on this map because she gives damage, utility, and also has mobility in her dash.
Draven: He can kite extremely well, and his knockback/slow is really useful when used well. His damage is downright Draven.
Dr. Mundo: He’s the “tankiest champion in the game, and his cleavers hit for 700 damage.” - Hotshotgg.
Elise: Elise is overall just broken in her insane percent damage. This lets her build tanky.
Ezreal: Great damage and the ability to kite.
Evelynn: She can gank insanely well, and has the damage to back up her late game.
Fiddlesticks:
Garen:
Hecarim:
Jayce:
Jax:
Karma:
Katarina:
Kayle:
Lee sin:
Malphite:
Nunu:
Olaf:
Renekton:
Rengar:
Riven:
Rumble:
Shen:
Shyvana:
Singed:
Syndra:
Wukong:
Zyra:

Altars:

While altars will be game changing and are important, most of the the league of legends community overestimates their importance and sacrifice a huge amount just to take an altar. I will summarize the altar importance below.

Early Game: Honestly, the difference is very unimportant, and unless your team has a much stronger early game it is not worth the risk to try and steal an altar. Taking an altar leaves you in a horrible position and allows the enemy to do whatever he wants. While the difference isn’t much early game, in higher levels of gaming that 10% may end up to be a lot. Take the altar if you have the chance, but don’t strain yourself into going for the altar no matter what.

A common mistake people do is going straight for the altar once they ace the enemy team or get a kill. While the altars are important, there are a few things you have to consider.

1. Towers. Are your lanes pushed? If so, go hit the turret and either take it down or damage it. Turrets win this game, and there are fewer turrets in the twisted treeline, so even the tier 1 turrets are super important. Altars aren’t going to win you the game, and you’ll probably lose it in 90 seconds anyways.
2. How behind are they? If you are winning and want to keep that lead, taking their jungle (either taking it as they respawn, or counter jungling) will help. While the altar will give you a quick boost in damage, taking the jungle has a more reliable long term effect.
3. Are there any big minion waves? Clear those so you don’t lose experience and gold. Items are permanent, altars are not.

Mid Game: It should be clear which team is stronger by now, so you can take altars if you are stronger as a team, or you have a 2v3 situation, after catching someone. You can also take it if you want to initiate but you are having trouble finding a way. By using someone like Amumu, you can initiate on them by surprise while they rush to the altar to stop you.

Late Game: Extremely important late game, the AD and AP bonuses are insane at this point, and you should never fight the enemy team while you control no altars, unless you are that much stronger than them / you see a very nice engage.

Speed Shrine: Simply what it says. This is a speed shrine. It gives you speed.

Vilemaw: Early game, this buff is tougher than it looks and will destroy your team if you aren’t familiar with it. It has a very high ad and requires someone with a low cooldown shield, or lifesteal/tankiness. In all honesty, this buff isn’t that great because of the duration it lasts. Usually, if the opponent has the buff you can just wait it off. You will probably lose some health on your turrets. Note that if your team has enough burst, this buff doesn’t really help as it does not give ap or ad.

When two teams are in Vilemaw’s nest as he is aggro’ed, he will pull everyone currently in the nest right back on top of him. This can make for some big plays on Vilemaw baits, so try not to get caught like this with an aoe stun on the enemy team.

Vilemaw will only attack one target, but has an aoe autoattack. As long as your team isn’t clumped on top of each other, only one champion will tank Vilemaw. Make sure your whole team isn’t tanking vilemaw, or else the enemy team will come in and pick up a free ace (depending on the time and how complete everyone’s builds are).

A warning about team compositions based on one strategy is that they will never work consistently unless they are very deeply thought out, and even then, they will have hard counters. However, when you find a good strategy it often pays off very well. In fact, many of the top teams repeatedly play the same three champions because of how well they work together.

They then pick slight variations over the course of many games depending on the enemies picks and bans. The best comps abuse a champion’s kit and utility, finding a very hard to counter team comp, and they then outplay the enemy team. These are totally different from knock up or aoe stun comps, that abuse utility, and not kits. A team needs to have damage to back up utility, not just the utility.

Some team comps that may look really “overpowered” usually just get countered. I have one example here, but if you have some specific team composition you are really having issues with you can comment below. If it is a general problem I will add it to the guide as well, if not I will just answer with a comment.

Aoe stun team - Amumu, Annie, Galio, Kennen, Wukong, etc. While a comp with Annie may work because of her insane damage, these teams rely on their cc in the mid game to snowball extremely hard and win. Their late game fights are very strong if left uncountered.

Counterpicks - Dr. Mundo, Singed, basically anyone who is tanky. After the enemy team has used their cc you can rip them apart. Asides from picks, you can try to catch them, they are powerless when left alone (usually. don’t try to 1v1 annie though. Amumu is really overpowered too as well). Actually that is pretty bad advice because it is only situational. Instead, you can simply not clump up as a team like 900 elo players. You can also buy items like wooglet’s witchcap to mitigate the damage they deal while you are stunned. Banshee’s veil stops hard initiates like annie’s tibbers, and Quicksilver Sash is another strong item choice.

Champions that can disengage like janna, hecarim also can waste the enemy teams ultimate and allow you to push while they wait for their cooldowns to come back.

I’d like to make an interesting note at the summoner spell revive. While it may seem like the worst choice that a player could make and a simple noob trap, there is more to this spell than meets the eye. While it is quite useless early game due to the very short respawn times, if played correctly a triple revive team will dominate and win the late game.

Note: This is not a troll.

As you die in a teamfight, the enemy team will be quite low and unable to fight. WIth the speed boost you get from the mastery points in the defensive tree, you will be able to get right back into the fight, as if you have 2 lives. Even if the enemy team aces you and and suffers one death, your team will be able to make an advantage out of this. Whether the enemy team gets away or not, you will be able to push a turret down, and then turtle off your revive cooldown.

The downside to taking this spell is the early game disadvantages. Taking revive forces your team into a passive position where you farm until mid/late game, and then start fighting. It sounds simple, but it is very hard to achieve at times. Another downside is how boring freezing your lane is. While you aren’t directly forced to freeze your lane, it is the best way to play passively. Also, let me remind you what the cooldown is. Somewhere around gabillion seconds.

Depending on the number of revives your team has, the longer the game goes on without giving the enemy too much of a lead, the higher your chance of winning is. It is important to see that even if the enemy has a lead, though not too significant, you will have a high chance of winning team fights. And the more revives you have on your team, the higher that chance is going to be.
However, because of the huge cooldown on the spell it is recommended that you have some kind of communication with your team in case of misplays, and that you are experienced in this map. Taking revive requires a lot of skill that many players don’t have, and allows the enemy to snowball extremely hard early game.