Hi, I'm Mr. Nyahr. I've been a player since the later part of Season 2, and a MF member/guide creator since 2015. I'm really excited to bring you guys my guide on Teemo, as he's been one of my all-time favorite champions since I started. While a lot of people underestimate him, Teemo can bring quite a lot to the table, and if played correctly can completely turn the tide of the match. I'll do my best to help you improve your knowledge and gameplay on one of the most slept-on champions in the game. Let's get started!

Pros
+ Very annoying to lane against.
+ Easy to learn.
+ High poke/burst damage with Blinding Dart.
+ Can deny CS very effectively with Blinding Dart.
+ Great sustained damage.
+ Powerful utility, area denial, and wave-clear from Noxious Trap.
+ Mental warfare potential with Noxious Trap.
+ Your passive; Guerrilla Warfare allows you to make very clever plays or avoid enemies.
+ Hard to chase or tower-dive against.

Cons
- Very squishy and has no innate sustain.
- Learning curve with CS denial and Noxious Trap placement.
- No hard CC.
- Doesn't scale as hard as some other champions.
- Ignorant teammates may think you're trolling.

Summon Aery is almost always the best primary rune choice on Teemo, in my opinion. It offers decent poke/shielding, and you cannot miss it. Manaflow Band gives you some much-needed mana during the laning phase, as your Q can get quite expensive if you use it liberally. Absolute Focus/ Scorch give you a lot more poke and dueling potential, especially in the early game.

Legend: Alacrity gives you a lot more sustained damage through increased attack speed as you progress through the match, and Coup de Grace is a good pseudo-execute to help you finish off targets.

Take attack speed, adaptive force, and armor for your minor traits.







This is a much safer rune set when you're against a tough lane, especially one that likes to poke. Taking Taste of Blood and Ravenous Hunter will give you the little bit of added sustain you'll need to stay in lane longer and get to the mid game. If you're running this rune set, I highly suggest you start with Corrupting Potion into Dark Seal as your first items.

As with nearly every other champion in the game, Flash is pretty much mandatory. It can save your life, help engage or disengage, or any number of other uses. Always take this as your first spell.



This is one of the spells I use most commonly, along with Ignite. It enables you to get back to lane quickly in the early game, and gives you immense map pressure later on. A very strong option.



If your focus is on lane pressure, or you're against a champion with a lot of regen, such as Garen, this is the obvious choice. Gives you unmatched kill potential, especially in the early game, and shuts down heals really well.



You will almost never take this spell, as you can always purchase a Quicksilver Sash or Banshee's Veil later in the match, but it is worth considering. Only viable against teams with a ridiculous amount of CC.

Starting Items:


A fairly common starting item, this gives you some AP, Health, and good sustain for the laning phase. Get this with 2x potions at the start if you see it being an easy lane.




This gives you a massive advantage if you get a kill or assist top which can help you climb out of your early-game slump. If you want to get this, buy a Corrupting Potion as your starting item.




These are potions that refill when you return to your team's fountain, and they give you vastly more sustain, as well as some trading power in lane. A good starting item if you know you're going to have a difficult laning phase.


Core Items:



Almost always the boots you will take. The magic penetration usually outweighs the attack speed that you would get from taking Berserker's Greaves. Consider Ninja Tabi or Mercury's Treads against heavy AD or heavy CC respectively.




This is your main item, your bread and butter, the jelly to your toast, the Kris to your Kross. A LOT of AP and attack speed, a ton of CDR, and additional on-hit damage. Literally everything you could want on Teemo. Always get this as your first full item.




Another must-have item for Teemo, this gives you quite a bit of health to keep you alive during trades. More importantly, it gives you quite a lot of AP, as well as a stacking damage buff and a DoT effect that is improved by the slow from your ultimate; Noxious Trap. Makes you vastly more annoying to play against as well. Get this second, after finishing Nashor's.




Not a lot to say about Void Staff, it gives you a lot of AP and a lot of magic penetration. Even if they're not building MR for you, you're going to want to take this for the raw damage it offers.



Situational Items:



This item offers you likely the highest burst damage from any item in the game. Simply Q > Autoattack and you can kill or seriously maim a carry, especially later in the game. Never a bad option against teams with a lot of squishy champions. Take this if you want to remove enemy carries from the face of the Earth.




Not an item I buy very often, but super powerful if you need additional poke. It also gives a nice amount of mana and CDR in addition to the massive AP of the item.




Absolutely mandatory against high-regen champions such as Garen or Dr. Mundo. The AP and magic penetration are useful across the board as well, and the health is a nice bonus. (If you are against a regen champion and need the healing reduction early, you can always opt for an Executioner's Calling that you'll sell later to purchase this in full.




Lots of AP and a good chunk of health, but you buy this for the passive. Your Toxic Shot WILL NOT proc this passive, but your Q and shrooms will. If someone lands on one of your shrooms with this, they'll be slowed immensely, as well as taking the dot damage from Liandry's and the ability itself. Can be situationally useful for baiting opponents, but not strongly recommended.




A pretty fun item to use, and very nice to have in situations where you'd like a bit more sustain. The active gives you an additional source of burst damage to further delete squishy carries, and it gives you just slightly more split damage due to the AD. I usually buy this alongside Lich Bane if the enemy team has only 1 or no tanks.


Defensive Items:



Comes with a good amount of AP, armor, and CDR, but the main point of this item is the active. Every 2 minutes, for 2.5 seconds, you are complete and utterly untouchable. You can't take damage, you can't be slowed, CC'd, displaced, etc. A wonderful item to get against high-burst damage champions such as Zed, or if you just need armor for AD-heavy teams. A very strongly recommended item.




Not as commonly used as Zhonya's Hourglass, but still very powerful in the right situation. Provides AP, MR, and CDR, but just like Zhonya's, you take it for the ability, this time a passive. This item's passive is a shield that makes you completely immune to 1 enemy spell of any kind, which refreshes after 40 seconds of taking no damage from enemy champions. Incredibly useful against champions like Nidalee, Morgana, etc. that have strong single-target abilities.


Other Boot Options:



Generally not as good as Sorcerer's Shoes, but it will increase your attack speed, and therefore your sustained DPS, as you will be applying on-hit effects that much faster.




Incredibly useful against champions with powerful slows, such as Nasus, and the base movement speed is slightly higher than that of most other boots. Definitely a viable option if you're afraid of someone chasing you down.




These can greatly reduce the damage taken from auto-attack based AD champions, but are still useful against AD assassins. Generally, Zhonya's Hourglass is all the armor you'll want in your build, but they can be lifesaving against AD-heavy comps.




The go-to option against CC-heavy teams, or teams with a lot of sustained AP damage. Get these if your main concern is being hit with a strong crowd-control such as Sejuani's ult or Morgana's Q.

If Teemo stands still and takes no actions for 1.5 seconds, he becomes stealthed indefinitely. After leaving stealth, Teemo gains the Element of Surprise, increasing his attack speed by 20/40/60/80% for 2 seconds.

In addition, moving inside brush for 1.5 seconds also allows Teemo to become stealthed.

This ability is what allows Teemo to set up some of the strongest baits and traps of any champion in the game. For example, you can wait in near an enemy jungle camp in the early game and lay into them as soon as they get low to potentially get a free kill or jungle buff. You can also use this to avoid enemies that would come searching for you, such as during a gank. Lastly, you can simply use this to increase your DPS for a time, which is very useful for trading in lane.





Obscures an enemy's vision with a powerful venom, dealing 80/125/170/215/260(+80% of ability power) magic damage to the target unit, blinding them and causing all their attacks to miss for 1.5/1.75/2/2.25/2.5 seconds.

This is your main damaging ability, and should be taken and maxed before anything else. Huge poke for laning, and strong enough to chunk carries later on, as well as applying your Liandry's Torment effect. A very nice part of this ability is that it blinds the target. You can use this to prevent an enemy from harming you or landing a CC ability, or to do more obscure things such as denying an enemy from last-hitting a cannon creep, which can put someone pretty far behind in gold over the course of the laning phase.





Passive: Grants 10/14/18/22/26% increased movement speed until struck by a champion or turret. The passive is restored 5 seconds (static cooldown) after last being struck by a champion or turret.

Active: For 3 seconds, Teemo gains double his passive movement speed and will not lose it even if he is hit.

As the name implies, this ability simply allows you to move more quickly. The passive movement speed it nice, but you should really save the active for getting back to lane or escaping danger. Take and max this last, after all other abilities.





Passive: Each time Teemo attacks an enemy, he will poison the target, dealing 10/20/30/40/50%(+30% of ability power) magic damage on hit and 6/12/18/24/30(+10% of ability power) each second for 4 seconds. The duration of this poison will be refreshed with every subsequent attack, but the damage does not stack.

Your main source of sustained damage. This does more than you might think, and is part of the reason that Teemo will very frequently top the damage charts by the end of the game. It's doesn't apply effects such as Liandry's Torment's DoT, but along with Nashor's Tooth and some AP, you will be hitting for a LOT on auto-attacks. Take and max this second, after your Q.





Teemo places a trap which stealths and arms in 1 second. It detonates if an enemy steps on it, dealing 200/325/450(+50% of ability power) magic damage by poisoning nearby enemies, applying a 30/40/50% slow and revealing them for 4 seconds. The traps last 5 minutes. Teemo will store one every 30/25/20 seconds, and can have a maximum of three stocked up. Each cast requires and uses a trap. After death, Teemo respawns with 2 mushrooms.

Casting traps on existing Noxious Traps casuses them to bounce 3/4/5 Teemos further in the direction they were originally tossed.

Here is the most iconic ability of Teemo, and arguably the most infuriating thing to encounter in the entirety of the game. You store up to 3 mushrooms, which recharge over time. You place them in a set location, where they become invisible and arm after 1 second. If an enemy hits one of these, it deals massive damage and a slow effect to all enemies inside its radius. You can also throw a shroom on top of another that is already placed to "bounce" it forward a set distance, allowing you to get them into pretty cheeky spots from a safe distance.

Placement of these mushrooms is VITAL, so I have included a visual aid to help you determine where to place your traps.


KEY:
GREEN = Priority locations.
YELLOW = Secondary locations.



As you can see, you're going to want to place your shrooms in locations that are highly trafficked areas, or areas that give you the most information. Such locations include the corners of lanes, where junglers/roamers will run along during ganks, or near buffs to give your jungler information on the location of the enemy. Other very strong locations are in or around the Baron or Drake pits, as they give your team free information, as well as doing enough damage to potentially deter the enemy team from taking said monster.

During the early game as Teemo, you should be looking to farm as much as humanly possible, but keep in mind that your trading potential is very high, and you can really punish enemies who misstep or get overly-cocky. Pre-6, let them shove the wave toward you just a little bit if you're not confident that you can survive a gank, and poke with Q > auto-attack whenever you see an opening.

At 6, you should be setting up shrooms in locations that would slow down or prevent a gank, as this will allow you to push the wave with confidence. Make sure on cannon waves to blind the enemy with Blinding Dart so that they miss the last-hit on the cannon minion. If you do this successfully each time, you can put them pretty far behind in gold income.

Before taking a fight, be sure to poke them down a little bit first, as you have no burst damage after your Q, and you'll be relying on damage from your autos and possibly shrooms if you have any stocked up. Be sure to get into the brush often to increase your attack speed, as this greatly increases your pressure in lane, and can earn you some free damage on the enemy laner.

General:

After laning phase, you should be doing one of two things;

1: Placing Noxious Traps to get vision and area denial in key locations on the map, mainly near the Baron and Drake pits, or in the entrances to lanes.

2: Grouping with your team in order to secure objectives or participate in fights.

Be sure to keep wards up in addition to your traps in order to maximize your teams vision, as information is king in this game. Purchase Control Wards whenever you have spare gold and use them to deny enemy vision on objectives.
Your split push potential is okay, but your main goal in the match at this point is to deny pushes and delete enemy carries. If you can kill the enemy ADC or mid-laner at the start of a fight and don't die in the process, you've already done your job. At that point you should be doing the same thing as your ADC, which is hitting the closest target to you without putting yourself in too much danger. If there's a dangerous auto-attack based champion still alive, be sure to blind them in order to minimize damage to your team.

Your tower and monster killing pressure is pretty high, so you won't have an issue pushing lanes with your team if you win a fight.

Teemo is easily the most underrated, ignored, and hated champion in all of League, but I'd like to help people understand that in the right hands, played correctly, he can be quite an asset to nearly any team. Hopefully you found this guide insightful and learned a thing or two, and if you did, perhaps you would enjoy the other guides on my profile.

Thank you for reading, I'll try to keep this updated as much as possible when new content is released.