I'm just a Plat-Dia player who loves to play Skarner top. There's just a lof of potential to Skarner Top. Riot tried to kill him with the new items at Season 11 , but its still here. But, you need to know how to handle a lane and how to handle your champion.

Flash is an essential spell for you. So always keep it. Teleport is the nicest one you can take aswell. Like i said at the top , you only go Ghost when you have Spellbook. You can make the Ghost very useful with Spellbook if you know what are you doing. But i dont recommend you going Spellbook if you are not that confident.

Maxing E after W is essential for you. Since you are a tank , going Q max first is not worth it for you. E's cooldown reducing and W shield increasing is much better for you.

Playing as Skarner Top , you need to realize that Skarner Top's laning phase is bad. So most of the time , you just need to wait under your tower to farm easily. If you need to take that short trade no matter what , you need to hit your E first. Hit E and run at them to auto your enemy. As you auto them , you use Q to add up to your damage. You can auto one more if you need to but , you will give your enemy time to use their tools. So just damage them when they are stunned with your E.

When you hit 6 , it is time for you to shine. Bait your enemy to come close to your tower , E them then Ult them drag under your tower. Once they are out your ult you auto so you proc your E. At the time you applied your E stun , they are already dead. This is the only way of getting ahead in lane since you don't have kill potential without your ult.

Once you're out of laning phase , you need to work with your team to gain picks and objectives. Try to get a pick with your pull combo before any fight breaks out so enemy team is forced to 4v5. In teamfights , you should focus the enemy carry. Try to pull them to danger like your team fed mage. Or if you think your team cant kill them , try to pull the enemy fed carry away from the fight so they have to deal with you. Your damage output doesn't matter so while you occupy the fed carry , your team can win the fight.

Pros:

-Your CC chain can make any enemy obsolete in fights.
-Try to fight around your Crystal Spires , you will become much stronger than ever before.
-LvL6 powerspike is unexpected and can tilt enemy team is you can do it more than one time.
-Your kit is kinda fun , and easy to learn.

Cons:

-You have a such weak early game and laning phase because you don't have access to your Crystal Spires.
-You can get kited very easily since other than your W and Passive you can't reach to people easily.
-Your pick can frustrate your team since its not a common pick.

You will realize that i didn't talk about Crystal Spires that much. Since its Skarner Top , most of the time you don't even have an access to your Passive. Passive gives you so much power but you don't have access to it in lane , unfortunately.