Welcome to the League of Legends Champion Spotlight, featuring

Teemo: The Epitome of Cancer

Teemo is a highly mobile poison mage assassin champion who specializes in angering his enemies to no end. Teemo's unique kit allows him to be more annoying to deal with than any other champion in the game when played correctly. With this guide, you will learn how to capitalize on Teemo's potential and use every feature of this champion to make your enemies scream and rage all game.

Have fun.

Passive: Camouflage

Camouflage allows Teemo to turn invisible by standing still for a few seconds. This is a very situational ability but it can be a real game-changer when used properly. Use it when you need to hide from approaching enemies or prepare for an ambush. Keep in mind that although you can't be targeted or attacked while invisible, area of effect spells will still damage you, and there are several items and abilities which can reveal you. If your enemies see you run into a bush and disappear, chances are they will know you are still there and they will use everything they have to try and reveal and/or kill you. Camouflage is not a get-out-of-jail-free card, but it can fake out enemies for a moment or help you surprise them if you know where they are before they see you.

How to troll with Camouflage: When you see a weak enemy champ walking around alone, try hiding if they head towards your position, then jump out and attack when they get close. This can make it much easier to pick up kills.

Q: Blinding Dart

Teemo's Blinding Dart is a targeted ability which deals damage and blinds enemies for a moment. This causes all of their basic attacks to miss for a few seconds. This ability has a slightly greater range than your attacks, so you can use it to get one last hit on an escaping enemy. You should take a point in Blinding Dart at level 1 because it gives you some early poke damage and is pretty darn useful when helping leash a monster camp for your jungler. Hitting a big monster with this can help your jungler avoid taking 50 to 100 points of damage, which is something that he or she will appreciate.

How to troll with Blinding Dart: You shouldn't spam this ability since it costs a fair amount of mana, but try using it to stop your enemy from last-hitting minions. If an allied siege minion is very low on health and your lane opponent is walking up to hit it, using this on them is an easy way to deny them 50 gold, as their attacks will miss the minion and their own minions might finish it off instead. You can also use Blinding Dart to save yourself or allies from an attacking enemy, which can help you win otherwise close duels with opponents. This is a great way to deny a kill to a reckless opponent who has gone all-in.

W: Move Quick

Move Quick gives Teemo a passive movement speed boost, and can be activated to further increase his speed for a moment. This makes it much easier to get around the map. Keep in mind that taking damage from champions or towers will disable the passive effect for several seconds.

How to troll with Move Quick: You can make an already angry opponent even angrier by using your speed to stay constantly out of their reach. This is especially effective against melee opponents, who have to close distance to you in order to hit you. Every time your opponent tries to retaliate against you, just run away from them and return to whatever you were doing the moment they back off.

E: Toxic Shot

This is one of the most annoying things about Teemo. Toxic Shot makes your basic attacks do additional magic damage and apply a damage-over-time poison effect for a few seconds, both of which scale with ability power. Teemo can use this to get a lot more damage out of his attacks as well as finish off low health opponents with the poison.

How to troll with Toxic Shot: There's really not much effort you have to put into this to annoy people. Simply attacking them will do it. Try to get a few final hits on an enemy champion who is retreating to their tower at low health. The poison will sometimes get you the kill. Nothing is more annoying for your opponent than backing off and dying anyway.

R: Noxious Trap

Teemo's ob Noxious Trap places a mushroom next to him, which turns invisible after about a second. The mushroom will explode when enemies step on it or walk very close to it, slowing them and applying a damage over time poison effect for a few seconds. Traps last for 10 minutes when placed or until they explode. Teemo stores a mushroom every 30 seconds or so and can hold up to 3 at once. Cooldown reduction reduces the time it takes to get another shroom. Teemo can place as many shrooms as he wants.

The effects of stepping on multiple shrooms in a short period of time do not stack. Stepping on another mushroom only resets the timer for the poison damage and refreshes the slow. Because of this, it is far better to spread mushrooms out than it is to group them all together. Mushroom traps reveal a small area around them while they last and also reveal opponents that step on them, allowing them to act as warnings when an enemy is approaching. Allied champions can also teleport to mushrooms.

How to troll with Noxious Trap: The more frequently your enemies step on your mushrooms, the angrier they will become. Not only can they kill low-health enemies or stop opponents from escaping or catching up to your allies, they can annoy people simply by slowing them down. A player can get pretty irritated when they're just trying to move across the map and they keep getting slowed down by invisible traps which could be anywhere. It's even more frustrating when these traps can take out a significant portion of their health. This is a great way to punish squishy champs.

The key to using Noxious Trap effectively is being able to predict what paths enemies will walk along and placing mushrooms on those paths. This is easiest in the jungle, where narrow paths make it far more difficult to avoid stepping on mushrooms. It's also good to have mushrooms in bushes because this makes it harder for enemies to surprise you. Remember that enemies will always try and take the shortest path between two points. Try paying attention to your own movement when walking across the map, and take note of when you're in the middle of a path and when you walk closer to the side. Enemies won't always be in the middle of paths. Once you've gotten a good handle on this, place mushrooms at jungle entrances and other key locations where they will be difficult to avoid. Also pay attention to the locations that you place your mushrooms at and see how often they get stepped on. You can learn by trial and error where the best spots are to place mushrooms by whether they get stepped on or whether they expire by timing out after 10 minutes.

A good place to put mushrooms in the top lane is on the edge of the path which leads into the river, on either side of the lane. Players will tend to hug the edges of paths which lead around corners, so this is a great place to start putting them down. You can even stop an enemy jungler who is coming to gank you from the river.

Try to avoid placing mushrooms in the middle of lanes, as minions will step on them and this isn't the best use of your mushrooms unless you need to clear out a huge wave. Other than that, just keep placing mushrooms down all game and watch your opponents rage.

Hidden Passive: Global Taunt

Teemo's global taunt makes enemies more likely to try and kill him than any other champion in the game. This is a very real and noticeable effect and is something that you need to be aware of when playing as Teemo. This effect has a strong correlation with how annoying Teemo is. You should expect to be ganked frequently and focused often in team fights. You are a very high value target to your enemies. As such, you need to be aware of your surroundings at all times. Place shrooms and wards down so you can see enemies coming, and use your trinket ward in the river bush near your lane so you know when ganks are coming.

During team fights, you can use your global taunt to your advantage. You may find enemies diving past your allies to get at you. By positioning yourself effectively and using your abilities to avoid being caught, you can bait enemies into throwing themselves at you and rushing to their deaths as they attempt to kill you.

Above: An extreme case of Teemo's global taunt.

Basic Attacks

Teemo's basic attacks are the first tool in his arsenal when it comes to annoying his enemies. He can use them from level 1, they have no limit on how often they can be used, and Teemo has a fairly high base attack speed to begin with. One of the reasons why Teemo works best in the top lane is that most top lane champions are melee. This gives Teemo a great opportunity to attack them over and over with almost no fear of retaliation. You can force your opponent out of lane and deny them the ability to farm simply by attacking them at every opportunity.

Laughing

Teemo has a particularly annoying laugh. Binding your laugh command to a key which is easy to press, such as A, Z, X, or C, and then spamming it near enemies is a great way to irritate them. Keep in mind that doing this interrupts any other animation you may be performing, such as moving or attacking. Use your laugh in between attacks if you're in the middle of farming or fighting, and only while you're at a safe distance from the enemy.

All Chat

The chat box is a powerful tool and it can really add to your potential as the most annoying champion in the game. Just as your poison makes your enemies angry by dealing damage to them that they can't prevent, all chat is most effectively used to suggest to enemies that this game is beyond their control. Don't use it to call people "noob" or anything of the sort. That's not cool and it makes you look unintelligent. Dropping insults is also a good way to get reported. You don't want that. Instead, use it to comment on how the game is going and make your actions sting even more than they already do. Below are some examples from my games as Teemo, quoted as best as I can remember them. Some quotes have been censored as needed.

Teemo has slain Jax!
Teemo: "Thanks for the gold. Now I can finish my Nashor's Tooth and use the cooldown reduction to place more shrooms! :D"
Jax: "**** you"

(After getting killed by Tryndamere while stealing blue buff out of his jungle, I see a team fight about to start in mid lane)
Teemo: "Tryndamere I will be taking blue buff back now"
Tryndamere: "Not today you little rat"
(I enter the fight)
Teemo has slain Tryndamere!
Teemo: "Thanks for the buff. Bye now!"
Tryndamere: "omg I hate you"

(A fed enemy Ashe retreats into her jungle after a fight and steps on a mushroom)
Teemo has slain Ashe!
Ashe: "omfg teemo shrooms I ****ING HATE YOU TEEMO"
Teemo: "LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL"

When you start the game, grab your items, put a point into your Q, and leash for your jungler if needed before heading top. You can try going invisible to ambush your lane opponent, but you shouldn't expect to get a kill this early. Alternatively, you can simply wait for minions to show up and begin farming as normal. Remember, the order of priorities in lane is survival > farm > harass, which means that any time that you're not in danger and there aren't low health enemy minions nearby is a good time to attack the enemy!

When you attack the enemy, make sure that you aren't putting yourself in danger by doing so. This means that you need to both stay out of the enemy's reach and avoid provoking the enemy minion wave into attacking you. Never chase an enemy through their minions to attack them during the laning phase. It's an easy way to lose several hundred health, and Teemo doesn't have much health to begin with. Instead, poke the enemy with your basic attacks, and when they start to retreat behind their minions, let them. Try not to get too close to the enemy minions while doing this. If the enemy minion wave is almost gone, feel free to chase a little and get some extra damage in. Never tower dive an enemy as Teemo. You will almost certainly die. The good news is that you don't have to kill the enemy to make them angry. You can deny farm and even force your opponent out of lane simply by right clicking. Make sure that you don't attack the enemy at the expense of your own farm. If there are enemy minions at low health, get them.

Keep the bush at your end of the river warded at all times. You don't want to be ganked. Also watch your lane position so that you don't overextend and find yourself unable to retreat in time when the ganks come. If you force your opponent to their tower, return to the middle of the lane at once and resume farming.

After you reach level 6, head towards the river and start placing down your first mushrooms. Keep an eye on how many mushrooms you have stored up throughout the game and make sure to keep placing them down where enemies will step on them. Place them at jungle entrances, in the river, in bushes, and at the entrances to the dragon and baron pits. Some of the best places to put down mushrooms are in the parts of the jungle which are close to mid lane, as those are traveled frequently. If you are new to Teemo, keep an eye on which shrooms get stepped on the most and which don't blow up so you can improve your skills. Continue replacing shrooms that get stepped on. The more mushrooms you have placed across the map, the more likely it is that someone will step on one.

In team fights, make sure to blind the enemy AD carry or any other champ who relies on basic attacks. Stay behind your allies when possible and focus down weaker targets with your attacks.

If you get chased, activate Move Quick to get away and place down a mushroom as you run if needed.