!!!DOMINION ONLY GUIDE!!!

Why do I play Twitch? I love and play Twitch a LOT in Dominion. He is one of my favorite champions in general and I feel he is grossly overlooked and underrated. His kit is fun if used right.

Why play Twitch? Best laugh in the game, hands down. Hes such an adorable mouse, you just want to hug him. People love surprises, and Twitch offers plenty of surprises! His ability to completely decimate the enemy team is astounding. He can make the enemy team waste money/slots on things like a sweeper or oracles or lightbring (p.s. lightbringer is rofl against Twitch).

Twitch is *BEST* played on a team that has a fairly decent amount of CC. Alistar, Blitzcrank, Leona, Cho Gath, Maokai, Amumu, or really anything with good peel, go hard CC, and the ability to keep you alive and squeekin!

When playing Twitch there are several important things to make note of. First, you should NEVER be the one to initiate, if you do you will most likely be a dead mouse. Second, you must always try to be fashionably late to the party and learn WHEN to pop out of stealth and join the team fight, usually this is after 2-5 seconds of the fight breaking out from a safe distance (ideally with your ult) and AFTER you see CC's blown. Third, you will be focused... constantly... no really it is going to make you feel loved at how much attention people give you (and how could they not? You are playing the cutest mouse in all of LOL), just so much constant focus on killing you, even more so if played correctly. Lastly, you are supposed to keep the entire enemy team guessing and worried as to your whereabouts, so stay hidden, stay in the jungle or near speed shrines, and try to only show up on YOUR terms.

MOBILITY IS KING FOR TWITCH! Never stay in one place too long, never stay visible on the map too long, learn to fake people out by showing yourself on the map heading in one direction, stealth, then go the complete OPPOSITE direction to give people a false sense of security.

For your summoner abilities, you can swap surge for ignite (if they have a ryze/ww/sion,etc). Surge should be saved for times when you can ult safely away from the entire enemy team and get the full (or a lot of the) duration from the ability.

DO: Scout, be an opportunists, kill secure when possible, gank, backdoor when applicable, stay stealthed as long as you can (either in FoW or via stealth), look for where you are needed most, keep the enemy guessing, watch for what people are building and change your playstyle accordingly, and stay at MAX RANGE as much as possible.

DONT: Stay visible, try to solo tanky champions, be in the middle of the team fights (the further the better!), kill yourself on thornmail, build TOO MUCH attack speed (unless they have a lot of Frozen Hearts/Randuins/Wardens Mails).

Watch what the enemy is running at the start of the match, this part is VERY important to see how you are going to build. Usually I will start my build with an Infinity Edge in mind with boots+pickaxe but it can change easily depending on how things go. If everyone is running revives and my team has none, I will go for a bot gank or a mid backdooring.

Before match starts: First, let everyone know you plan to cap mid, dont take no for an answer, Twitch is the squishiest champ in the game and you will get decimated as a "top poke". You will either buy boots 1+pickaxe/Prospectors or boots 5+a health pot depending on what the enemy team is running.

Game start:
1)If the enemy team is running a lot of revives, buy the boots 5+health and either go gank bot if you have a good bot laner who can help (use surge/ignite/exhaust as needed), or backdoor their mid, this should net you a free turret/first blood. If you get their mid/bot tower, go grab the health and stay in the fog of war until someone comes to cap it back, stealth, go over, and poke them once or twice and use your slow. They wont dive you, and if they do, exhaust/surge/ignite=win. When they come back to try to cap the turret again, your poison should still be ticking, expunge it and stealth when possible (rinse and repeat until 2+ come to help).
2)If they are not running a lot of revives, or your team has just as many, stealth just before you arrive to Windmill and hang out near the BOTTOM of the WM and wait to be an opportunist. If your stealth is about to wear off on its own, try to get in a ***!SAFE!*** poke or two to let your dot start ticking. If your team initiates, try to kill the squishies person, OR the person who is the furthest away from the rest of the enemy team since most champs are squishy at the start anyway. If the team fight drags on, stealth when its up again for the AS buff+the surprise factor!

STAY BEHIND YOUR TEAMMATES or you turn into the cutest mouse corpse imaginable.

Mid game:
Mid game is where Twitch begins to shine. By mid game you should have boots5+Infinity Edge (ideally, unless you are getting focused and need to go the tanky route). At this point, keep staying near speed shrines and wait for the enemy to show their position. If everyone is visible, go for a gank or get into position to kill at top lane.

Backdooring: Twitch is not an ideal backdoor champion. Both shaco and eve can both get away cleaner and with less chance of total pwnage than Twitch, however there will be times when going to backdoor is a necessity. If you need to backdoor, go towards the turret, and click your stealth JUST before you click the turret. You will stealth and start to cap. IMPORTANT!!! to note here is that even though you are stealthed, YOU ARE STILL VISIBLE due to turret vision. The stealth is for when someone comes for the easy Twitch kill and you need to retreat, you will retreat in stealth giving you a clean getaway.

Twitch *CAN* be a great scout for your teammates (even more so if you do something dumb like buy a hextech sweeper... which isnt TOTALLY bad but not really worth it as it gives CDR+AP+health+reveal isnt terrible on Twitch but its not good either).

However, what you need to realize is some people WILL! try hard to shut you down and buy oracles/sweeper/lightbringer. This is when scouting is bad because you WILL get caught poking your nose into their brush at the wrong time and getting owned.

When you find a group waiting to lay a trap and no one has oracle, stay on top of them so your team can see too. ALSO keep an eye on the timer for your stealth, you dont want to accidentally pop out of stealth in the middle of their team!

Sometimes if the enemy team is focusing and dominating you so hard, you will have to learn to adjust your playstyle. There are a few ways to do this which I will mention below. You should never try to stick to a SINGLE build style regardless of the enemy team. Below are a few build styles. Of course, you should try to be flexible as to what you need the MOST as opposed to only buying one set constantly.

Also, as a stealther, your job is to know where to be and when you need to be there. Speed shrines+boots 5 give you great map coverage so stay mobile. If bot is being pushed or hurting, head down for a gank and turret, if the entire enemy team is MIA, stick around the mid-speed shrine to protect from a backdoor/bot gank and see where they are heading.

This is the most standard build which is covered many other places. Theres not much more new I can add so I will tell the basic items and give a brief rundown of why. Items include:

Infinity Edge - Always grab this as its Twitch's bread and butter item.
Wits End - Great for when you have a caster who likes to keep focusing you hard.
Executioners Calling - Helps to control certain champions like WW, Sion, or people building heavy lifesteal/vamp.
Last Whisper: Lets you do damage when they build heavy armor.
Sanguine Blade: HUGE damage plus the ability to stay alive longer
Lightbringer: No more juking for the enemy, also great against stealthers.
Phage/Frozen Mallet: A lot of people are against this as Twitch with his built in slow ability, I disagree but wont get into it and will just state that this is great for Twitch IMHO. Health+damage+slow=yum.

If the enemy team has a lot of good gap closers/assassins or you are just heavily focused, it might be time to build tank Twitch. Tank twitch can be very useful because many times, people instinctively go for Twitch when he comes out of stealth and are used to exploding you immediately. If the team now has to spend several seconds and all/most of their CDs/CCs in order to kill you, this is precious time your team can be dominating their carries. Knowing when to play as tank Twitch is important. The builds of tank Twitch usually consist of:

Frozen Mallet
Atma's
+Whatever defensive item(s) you need most (MR/Armor)

This build allows you to still do decent enough damage while surviving the onslaught of their DPS. Some of my best games were when I was forced to go tanky Twitch.

"Oh noes!" you say, "The enemy bought a thornmail and I'm Twitch, that means I just lost the game!!!one1!

Thornmail isnt as big of an issue as many people feel it is, and on Twitch he has great synergy with how to counter it, namely:
Wits End + Lifesteal (Executioners or Sanguine for instance) + Last Whisper (if they are building heavy armor).

You will still very likely lose a little HP off of it, but it really wont be that big of a deal with lifesteal and magic resist.

"BUT OH NOES AGAIN TWITCHY MOUSE!" you insistently continue as I roll my eyes, "THEY HAVE A FROZEN HEART TOO!!! OHZ MY GAWDS!"

Frozen Heart can be bad due to Twitch having a base range of about 500 or so, however what you need to realize is that Frozen Heart has a range of 1000, while Twitch's ult (spray and pray) has a range of 1200. Ive seen many a tank build a Frozen Heart just for me. What you do is wait for the team fight to break out, stay MAX RANGE, and spray and pray them all. At worst you will get your entire clip off at normal speed and leave the enemy HURTING BADLY, which you can then go in and clean up with more shots+expunge.

When you have other stealthers on the enemy team, such as:
Wukong
Talon
Eve
Shaco
Akali
(Even Leblanc to a lesser extent, as it lets you know which one is the clone)

RUSH!!!! a Lightbringer. Seriously, that should be your FIRST item (start with either shoes+health crystal+long sword OR shoes+recurve bow). Most of these champions absolutely RELY on their stealth to get done what they need to do (whereas Twitch's stealth is more "permanently on" and you only pop out of for action. When you see these champions, be sure to poke them EARLY to get the vision on them. You will go from seeing those champions dominate/escape all the time, to becoming tasty mouse food for your team to enjoy.

Additionally, if the other teams stealther is buying oracles, I cannot stress enough the importance buying oracles for YOURSELF as well!!! They might catch you, but at least it wont be by surprise! If the other team is buying oracles, STOP SCOUTING until they stop.

This can be very tricky as it has a huge radius PLUS any spells by that person reveals you. When someone gets a sweeper, learn to play extremely cautiously, and stop scouting unless you KNOW where that player is. Also be VERY CAREFUL for a Karthus ult+sweeper, it can cause for some very inopportune moments.

Twitch stays in stealth until its time to fight, so normally lightbringer should RARELY be a problem for you. Just play as if its not there.

Oracles can be very bad for Twitch but its small range makes it more of an issue for eve and shaco than for Twitch. If the enemy has an oracle, try to stay away until you are ready to engage. Once you engage, go in with the intent of killing that player. Even if you die because of it and still get the kill, its money out of THEIR pocket and now they have to buy a new one or suffer.

Quick Silver Sash (or QSS)is an amazing item on its own, but on Twitch it can be godly. The reason? Enemy Warwick's WILL constantly save their ult for YOU so their team can focus you, as will Malzahar, and many other people (Shen, Rammus, Taric, Sion, etc.) will save their long taunt/root/stun/charms JUST for your cute lil mouse tail. If you are being heavily focused by the enemy with these types of abilities EVEN AFTER playing safe, throw a QSS into your inventory and laugh and laugh at their inability to kill you.

Trust me, the enemy WILL keep stupidly ulting you or using their long CC cooldowns because its ingrained into peoples mind: TWITCH = USE ALL THE CC AND KILL NAO!

Why not start with double expunge as your first two skills?!: For me, the reason is simple: Twitch is more about surprise. At the start of the game, getting off 6 shots for a max expunge is extremely difficult. Either you are focused or the enemy runs. I've tried the double expunge at the start, but I feel that the damage is mediocre for what it does without max stacks, and the most often time I expunge is when the enemy is extremely low then uses a movement boost (flash, ghost, etc.) to get away. The bonus +attack speed and longer stealth duration are extremely useful.

Where is item X on your list?!: As previously mentioned, Twitch has to stay flexible, he doesnt have the escape that other stealthers do, so when he commits, hes usually committed to SOMEONES death. If you are focused, use whatever you need while not sacrificing TOO much from your damage output. Odins is great to help with being mage focused, the tanky twitch route is good for preventing insta-death vs. melee. See what works best for you!

But... Twitch SUCKS!!!!: Then why are you reading this guide? Twitch is a great champion but he needs to be played VERY smartly and with few mistakes.

I always die as Twitch so fast, why?!: Stay further behind your teammates, if glass cannon isnt working, try adding something to help you stay alive (like a frozen mallet). As I said before, flexibility is a key concern for a GOOD twitch player.

Where is the Phantom Dancers/Zeals?!: I find that when I am playing Twitch, I reach the attack speed cap VERY QUICKLY with his stealth. With boots5 and Phage/Frozen Mallet, movement speed isnt that big of an issue. The extra crit can be great, but it can also come from other sources (Executioners, Cloak and Dagger). While not BAD for Twitch, I feel that its an item that would be more useful later when you have damage to backup near 100% crit rates.

Here is my much coveted Twitch playstyle. Twitch is a VERY hard champion with his squishiness and insta-focus but give it a go and if played well can be a powerhouse of destruction.