Hello ya'll

Welcome to my Guide on Pyke toplane, I am Dominik305, a Toplane Pyke/ Mordekaiser main on EUW.

I created the Guide to bring more attention to Solo Lane Pyke because i personally believe he has a lot of unexplored potential, especially in the Toplane.

This Guide focuses on Pyke as a CARRY Toplaner, who can carry games on his own and make the enemy squishies cry.

Solo lane Pyke is a blast to play also Toplane Pyke doesnt have as many weaknesses as Midlane Pyke.

Many problems that Pyke faces in the Midlane are not important Toplane or straight up not there.

For example: his weak early waveclear isnt as punishable in the Toplane as it is in Midlane/Jungle.

His high base armor helps him survive in this AD heavy lane.

He has really good duel potential due to his high base stats and CC.

Passive : Gift of the Drowned ones

Quickly summarized: You get Grey Health when you take damage from enemy Champions, you quickly regenerate all of your Grey Health when you're not visible for enemy Champions

This Passive is one of the reasons why Pyke Toplane works so well, it makes you very poke resistant and combined with his absurdly high base Armor you're super tough to kill and harrass.

Second half of the Passive summarized: You get AD for building Health, but you can't get any more Max. Health than your Base Health.

This is the spicy part of this Passive, you start the game with A LOT of AD when using this Passive to it's full potential. That's why you take Chrysalis and run Resolve in general
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Q : Bone Skewer

Summarized: Tappable for shorter range and higher damage.
If you Charge it instead of Tapping it, you'll get a range increase on this Spell and pull the first enemy hit towards you. (Fixed Distance)

This Spell is your bread and butter, you can use it as Waveclear, Harrass, to kill someone or to set up a gank for you Jungler.

The Tapped version deals insane amounts of damage early game, which is why you want to hit your opponent as often as possible with it.
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W: Ghostwater Dive

Quickly summarized: You get a burst of decaying movementspeed and stealth as long as you're not near enemy champions, Turrets or Control Ward's

This Spell helps you escape stick situations, on lane it's mostly used to get out of trades and escape ganks.

Later in the game you combine it with Youmuu's Ghostblade and Mobility Boots
to boost your roaming and pick potential immensely.

important note:

Enemies get an Indicator when you're near them while invisible
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E: Phantom Undertow

Quickly Summarized: A Dash that leaves a Phantom behind you, after a short delay the Phantom follows you and Damages and Stuns all opponents hit by it.

Pyke's E is the true MVP of his kit, it enables so much plays and it forces trades on lane, most of the time you will win the trade because of the Stun on this ability.

Later in the game you use this Spell to engage, catch people off guard or just to escape
from dangerrous situations.
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R: Death from Below

I know this spell, you know this spell.

This is Pyke's SIGNATURE Move an "X" Shaped Execute that hits multiple enemies and resets on an successfull kill.
Sounds good doesn't it? It also shares Gold with your last ally who Damaged the enemy champion before you brutally dragged them down into the seas.
You ally gains

The Spell gives Pyke everything he could ever wish for: a reliable way to kill his targets later in the game or on lane, insane cleanup potential and mobility because it blinks you towards the Champion/s you targeted
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This is hands down the single most awesome and epic Spell in the League of Legends

Thats the part where things get spicy

Electrocute helps you build an advantage on lane and oneshot squishies later on.
It's still good after the nerfs, the cooldown got reduced which helps you go super hard Level 1 and use it again Level 2. The damage is still reasonable

Sudden Impact is insanely good with your E Phantom Undertow into Q Bone Skewer Auto Electrocute harrass combo.

Always place the Ghost Poro in the enemy jungle when the game starts, you start with 89 AD if you do, which makes it easy to build an early lead.

Relentless Hunter is my personal preference, you can take whichever you like but i prefer having the nice out of combat boost.

Bone Plating builds upon your already strong early by denying your opponent a lot of damage even if hes able to trade back.

Chrysalis scales with your passive for early AD and it gives you more AD when you get kills? Deal!

Pyke's laning is quite straight forward,
Most of the time you'll be harrasing your opponent with tapped Q's.

Pyke Top really shines at trading with your opponent, if he starts a trade, Just tap Bone Skewer and Phantom Undertow away.

If youre starting a trade either go in with Phantom Undertow or use Bone Skewer to slow them to set up an Phantom Undertow dash, after that auto them or activate your Tiamat + auto to proc your Electrocute. Just Ghostwater Dive away after that, most Toplaners cant deal with this insane harrass which leads to a good dive/gank for your Jungler or an easy kill with your Death from Below.

If the enemy Jungler is ganking you, you can just use your Ghostwater Dive and Phantom Undertow to escape the Gank.

Pros

- Insane early game damage
- Snowballs super hard
- Great roaming potential / Shares ult cuts with Midlaners/Junglers
- Good base stats (most important his AD and his Armor)
- Really fun to play
- Almost ungankable
- Strong lanebully
- Can solocarry SUPER Hard, if played properly

Cons

- If you're in a tough lane, you're pretty much screwed
- Doesnt share cuts most of the time
- Will get you reported when doing badly because people are ignorant
- Gold hungry
- Weak waveclear early
- Gets killed quickly if you screw up once
- Falls off really hard Lategame

Due to his flexible nature, Pyke has a few different options for Summoner Spells in the Toplane. Feel free to take the Summoner Spell that fits your gameplan and playstyle the most.

Teleport

This is my go to Summoner Spell for Pyke.
It really helps Pyke and his Team get a lead in the game,Together with his Bone Skewer and Death from Below he has some of the best Teleport ganks in the entire game.
You can also use it for lategame splitpushing, which Pyke is able to perform quite well because of his mobility and high AD.


Ignite

This is your second Summoner Spell option.
You like to go EVEN HARDER early on? prefer to stomp your lane into oblivion? go for it
Ignite boosts his kill potential immensely.
I like to take Ignite that i'm certain that i'll crush in the early.
If you run Ignite you HAVE to win your lane, no matter what, call your jungler, your mid no matter who you're calling just make sure you get good value out of it because the TP is lacking.


Exhaust

Exhaust! This summoner spell saved me so many lanes, its really good when your opponent is pretty resistant against ignite. (Like Riven or Udyr with their shields)
It's almost equally as good as Ignite when it comes to fighting on lane because it completely shuts down the enemy Champion for its duration.
It's really good against high damage early characters like Renekton.
I wouldn't recommend it over Teleport in most lanes but if your jungler is someone Gank heavy like: Lee Sin or Sejuani you can go for it because Exhaust makes you undefeatable in a 1v1 scenario when you got the lead.


Ghost

Well, Pyke doesn't really need the movementspeed from Ghost.
If you're taking it for fighting your opponent or chasing him down, Ignite or Exhaust will do the job better to be honest.
I personally wouldn't recommend taking Ghost on Pyke.


Heal
Pyke cant really use the Heal properly on Toplane, sure you get a speed boost and a nice chunk of HP back, BUT are you really giving up Ignite, [Exhaust]] or my beloved Teleport for that?!
Wouldn't recommend it!


Barrier
Look at what i said about Heal, Barrier is literally that just without the movementspeed.
Can't really recommend Barrier


Smite

You're not the jungler, dont take Smite!
You have no real use for it and the monster hunter debuff that makes you only gain 4 gold per minion will destroy you!
Dont take this Summoner Spell


Cleanse
Not really worth taking, any other combat Summoner Spell will prove more useful on Toplane in my opinion.
Can be used against matchups like Lissandra but i would rather take the Teleport and focus on other lanes instead.
It's viable though because it can remove debuffs as well like, Ignite and Exhaust.
If you're against someone who has strong CC and takes ignite you can take Cleanse if you really feel like you'll need it.

Pyke's options when it comes to Itembuilds are quite flexible, this section will mostly focus on the offensive items due to the aggressive playstyle of this build.

Starting items

Doran's blade
+80 Health
+8 Attack Damage
+3% Life steal

Overall the best starting item for Pyke in my opinion.

It gives you around 14 attack damage on its own because of your passive Gift of the Drowned Ones.

The 3% Life steal are nothing really game changing but it gives you a tiny bit of sustain, which you already have because Gift of the Drowned Ones


Health Potion

Regenerates 5 health every 0,5 seconds, heals 150 Health in 15 seconds simple as that.

You buy one because you got 50 Gold left after your Doran's Blade.

First back

Tiamat

25 Attack damage
50% base health regeneration
1 Passive and 1 Active
Passive, Cleave : Your basic attacks deal damage to units around your target.
Active, Crescent: a stronger version of cleave around your champion.

If you get Tiamat on your first back, you're good to go.

This is Pyke's perfect item for the first back, it gives him everything he wants.
It really helps fixing his Waveclear problem while also giving him extra damage and health regeneration.

Currently working on this section

Enjoy this placeholder

Dont forget to remind your opponents in /all chat that...

THERES NO ESCAPE FROM THE BUTCHER

Pyke Toplane is fun but it has a decently high learning curve because it's so different from Support Pyke, i'll recommend everyone to just try it out on their own.

Join the /r/PykeMains Discord! All the Pyke related pictures from this guide were made by people from the Discord.
discord.gg/eEdQ9ZC
Feel free to ping me on the Discord if you have any urgent questions! I'll gladly answer you.

Thank you for reading my Guide

There may be Grammatical errors and/or typos in this Guide, i will fix them eventually.
Share your thoughts in the comments!
(The Guide is not finished, still working on it)

Now you're all set to play Pyke Toplane!