Edited: 16th January 2011

Foreword: I should probably mention that I haven't even hit lvl 30 yet. I wrote this guide mainly to get some criticism, so comments are greatly appreciated. Even if its just a "lol ***." ;)

Summoner Spells

Flash: Gives you the edge in so many situations. Escaping, iniating a gank with your gold card... Flash is awesome.

Ghost: Unless you're into one of the spells below, Ghost is usually the best choice for added mobility

Other possibilities:
Exhaust: Great spell for one on ones against other Attack Damage chars. Also can help escaping or chasing down an fleeing enemy.
Cleanse: People will try to stun/blind/exhaust you often. Cleanse is always helpful ;)
Teleport: Teleport& Ultimate gives you awesome Towerpushing capabilities in mid/late game. Definitely not a bad choice.

Basically all of these spells are acceptable and mostly depend on your playstyle. But Ghost and Flash is usually what I end up playing with. Feel free to switch around until you find the combo you think is best.

Runes: relatively defensive. You need the flat health to help your early game since you're quite fragile. The dodge/magic resist ones can be swapped if you want, I think they're the best defensive runes of the bunch though. Armor Penetration = best offensive rune possibility. Armor Pen is almost always better than Damage/Critstrike/Critchance.

Masteries: relatively 1v1 oriented. If you don't get ghost, obviously use that point for something else.

Items:
In general, you want to switch up your items depending on who you play against.

First Item:
Dorans Blade - Yaay! Gotta love Doran for his great Items.

Boots:
Boots of Mobility - Makes it easier to chase/harass people. Usually my choice currently.
Beserker Boots - Pretty much the only other good boots for TF. Very cheap :)

Attackspeed Item:
Recurve Bow -> Sword of the Divine - My Attack Speed Item of choice. The unique Active is great, use it whenever you're in a decisive fight. Also try to couple your Divine passive with your stacked deck. Your fourth attack will do amazing damage early/mid and keep enemy heroes at bay.
Stark's Fervor: Lots of people told me to get this for Attackspeed instead. In my opinion though, in late game you're pretty much dead when the enemy team focuses you, lifesteal won't change that. the Armorpen/Dodgeremoval of the SotD seems much more useful to me.

Damage Items:
BF Sword -> Infinity Edge - Always start building your Infinity Edge with BF Sword. The Infinity Edge greatly enhances our damage.

The Brutalizer -> Youmuu's Ghostblade - Very underrated in my opinion. Attack Damage, Critchance, Cooldown Reduction for our Ultimate/Goldcards, Armorpenetration... Don't forget to use the Active whenever you fight, especially when you're finishing fleeing opponents off.

BF Sword -> Black Cleaver - Armor Penetration! Armor Penetration is awesome.

Madred's Blood Razor: If you have lots of enemies who stack health, this is obviously very handy.

Last Whisper - If there's a pesky Armorbased Tank in the enemy team, the 40% Armorpen is usually more useful than flat Armorpen.

Zeal -> Phantom Dancer - Attack Speed& Critchance instead of Armorpen is possible too, I guess. You'll do less damage with this, though; The movementspeed Enhancement is what saves this Item. Still, the phantom dancer is too expensive imo. If you get Zeal, dont upgrade it until you have the rest of your Equipment.


Use 'W' whenever you can in the laning phase. Keep the cards floating above your head for some time, it shrieks the enemy heroes. If you think you can net a kill with a teammate, get a gold to stun, else get a red or a blue to farm.
Keep an eye on your 'E'-skill stack, use it to farm or to harass enemies.
'Q' isnt really that helpful since we're not going AP. Pretty good range though, So you can try to finish people off with this who think they're in safe distance. You can use this to disrupt teleports to piss enemies off if you feel like an *******, too :)
'R' is one of the coolest skills in this game. Basically, you should use this WHENEVER it is ready. Why? So you learn when to use it ;) Use Gate a 100 times and you'll get a hang of when to use it, where to Teleport... In general, use it to gank, kill off junglers (And if you do, for the love of god use exhaust!), finish off fleeing enemies (teleport right next to them so you get a guaranteed stun - also try to remember which enemies have the Flash summoner skills, you usually wont get those unless your flash is ready too) etc... Only kill low health enemies standing next to towers if theres no one else in the vicinity, or it wont be worth it. Trying to kill Fiddlesticks 1v1 is usually a bad idea, just sayin'.
Once you have a pretty good cooldown reduction, you can Spam 'R' quite a bit.
If theres no jungler/lane you can gank, use the teleport to get the dragon or one of the buffs, or to push a tower. If nothing else, teleport to creepwaves that would otherwise just get killed by your towers, its wasted gold if towers kill creeps.

Playstyle:
You're squishy as ****. Never initiate a teamfight. Since you're pretty much the carry, don't die for anyone. This doesn't mean that you shouldn't help low health teammates escaping (by stunning the pursuing enemy, obviously). But if a teammate of yours is being chased by three enemies and you're the only one who can help, you'll just end up killing your teammate AND yourself.
You might want to get a defensive item too. Since exhaust works much better against DPS heroes than against mages, something with magic resistance should be your choice. Banshee's Veil is usually good.
Push towers if you're not needed in a fight, you're a great pusher.
The Items I chose are quite expensive, be sure to farm lots. Try and grab middle, TF is really good on the mid lane.

If you already have a good carry and your role is a bit more support oriented, this guide will suit your role much better: http://www.mobafire.com/league-of-legends/build/twisted-fate-ap-for-high-elo-arranged-utility-carrying-23215


credits go mostly to this guide by verticaldsb, on whom I based the build: http://www.mobafire.com/league-of-legends/build/twisted-fate-the-way-of-the-cards-3287