I'm the Teemo main who plays league from season 1 and mains Teemo from season 3.
I'm playing him very much and at the moment I'm playing only ranked and only Teemo, having at about 500k points on him on this account.
I once reached Plat I but for today I'm only Plat IV (but to be honest, when I decided to make this guide I was Gold 4 somewhere about april 14 ;), but I'm willing to get as high as I can and as high as it is possible with Teemo and this is a guide for those who are aiming for the same.

There are lots of builds and guides on this champion and each shows that Teemo can fulfill any role from top lane on-hit bully to burst control support. And that's true, I will surely update my adc Teemo guide and mid-sustain guide.

But this guide is about what is the optimal and most successful role for Teemo.
As far as my experience shows, Teemo, getting some solo advantage in lane, should on the one hand,
provide lots of map control to his team,
and on the other he is very good at setting up ambushes with his Noxious Traps and Guerrilla Warfare.
That's the 2 sides of one coin.

Teemo gains control around the area he chooses by setting there shrooms and denying vision, and then he can help his team with neutral objectives and can split push at the same time, also punishing enemies who decided to facecheck, or solo split push without understanding Teemo's current position.
And the entire build is around this tactics. Gain control, get objectives, assasinate squishies.

It's no secret though, that some Teemo players are persisting with building teemo attack speed on-hit or tank items.
I love Tankmo and ad and on-hit builds very much myself, but I wish to make 3 accents.

1-st. Teemo is an AP champion. Unfortunately, we can't doubt that. One can build him however one wishes, but those AP ratious can not be ignored. Tank, or AD build? No shroom damage :(
And even though you can build Duskblade of Draktharr + Statikk Shiv + Infinity Edge to oneshot everybody, your Noxious Traps and Blinding Dart will do no damage.
2-nd. Teemo's positioning and shroom setups are those things that keeps him alive. Not the amount of health points. You can have perfect KDA with only Liandry's Torment as a hp item, or feed with Warmog's Armor, Frozen Mallet and Black Cleaver. Same with the resistances stats.
3-rd. Teemo can kite and melt tanks, indeed, and it is quite discussible if Teemo needs to kill carries or tanks but here is my arguement against killing tanks.
Teemo's range is quite short and he has no escapes.

That is what makes Teemo not very good with melting tanks. He can't escape those heavy engages and he will mostly take more damage than he could deal in those 5 vs 5 baron dances. He is more about kitting, scouting and ambushing. He can't be safe enough to melt tanks in teamfights. And dead do not do damage.
That's why this guide is such as it is.

So let's look onto runes.

Yeah, that's a very good combination. I don't want to speak much about it. I just don't recommend picking Scorch and Celerity. They are both less impactful compared to other option, and to be honest I find Scorch eiter useless out of the laning phase and pretty low valuable in the lane.

But I would like you to understand why do I chose the Domination as a primary tree and the Electrocute as the keystone. I consider that it is essential, to have the Ravenous Hunter - it's so op on ap carries and combines well with the Hextech Gunblade. So you should always have your Domination tree. Moreover I consider Electrocute to be much better in the late game than Summon Aery. Just compare their scaling. But there are some situations where you would want to get to your Gunblade slot as fast as possible without loosing any crucial stats. You can't always afford yoursef getting the boots before the Gunblade. That's why going for the Precision tree can be useful. fulfill that lack of attack speed Teemo will have by bying the early Hextech Gunblade, without getting any Berserker's Greaves and moreover gives more pros to getting the [sorcerer's shoes] instead later in the game. is a really good addition to this Domination kit, which allows you to assasinate champions even easier. In that case you are forced to deny the Sorcery tree in order to safe your Ravenous Hunter and get your Legend: Alacrity and that is also an option. As for the Eyeball Collection It can be surely replaced by either Zombie Ward or Ghost Poro. But these are more complicated options. But I prefer Eyeball Collection which gives you a nice 30 ap bonus when stacked, though you lose your additional macro advantage. It's an option for novices.

It's nice to say, that no one expects Teemo in ranked. If you pick after your opponent, you will most definetly get a good match up. If you pick first - your opponent will either:

• pick what he wanted to pick no matter if he is facing Teemo,
• or pick a 'counter pick' as he thinks it is,
• or even if he piks a real counter to Teemo, in 80% cases he won't know how to play it (because Teemo's counters are not actually top laners).

As for those match up you couldn't find in my list, there are those who I didn't face quite in a while, so I decided not to add them for now. I will surelly add them after I face them.

As for considering to pick Teemo or not to pick, I would always say yes mostly because of what I wrote up there. Teemo is not a common top pick and his kit allows him to win almost all top lane matchups.

So don't be afraid to pick Teemo - learn how to play him correctly.

is one of your dominance factors. Though you don't need a huge early advantage and it's enough for you simply to farm, you would really like to get at least a little one. And ignite is a huge factor here.

Most people don't respect their opponent having ignite and you can punish them when they are overstaying with low health.

Even if not, ignite helps with allins (mostly with those when your opponents try to kill you) and ambushes. Quick Hextech Gunblade+ Blinding Dart+ Toxic Shot combo will be much more succesfull if you add the Ignite to it.

Before getting your Hextech Gunblade it might be difficult to play in some matchups, and ignite can help you there.

But having Ignite instead of Teleport also has some disadvantages:

1. You can't rotate as quick as your enemy can. Teemo can't even interrupt his opponents teleport. When you see that your enemy has just teleported bot or to dragon pit, most of the times it's better to push the lane to the tower and get as much cs as possible, in order for you to get farm and for him to lose it or even to take the first turret. If you decide to go and help your team, haste yourself, because the time you will be coming from base or from lane to fight can be enough for the enemy to kill all your allies. Your teammates should respect the fact that you have no tp.

2. Lane control becomes a bit more difficult for you. After an unfortunate trade, you have a risk to lose a bunch of cs after the back. You also can't push the oponent in after getting a kill, because he will use his teleport to go back to lane.
So Ignite is much more a save pick than Teleport. You sacrifice your team presence to dominate your lane or to assasinate squishies easier later on, but honestly, if you feel that you are enough good as Teemo (I don't feel myself like this) you can rush teleport.

Helping your team via Teleport as a Teemo is a theme for another chapter.

A few more words about it because the one you have seen top is just an example.
Depending on the matchup the skill sequnce can be different.
Taking 3 early points into Move Quick should help playing vs slow tanks. Get it to level 5.
If you are holding a poke matchup like Jayce or Pantheon get early 3 points into Blinding Dart and then 3 points into Toxic Shot. If you are able to get an advantage early on, don't deny the Move Quick and get your 3 points into it to level 3. Many Teemo players either underestimate this skill or just want to stack much damage as early as it is possible. You will get your damage when you get your Hextech Gunblade, you do not need too much!
Even later on I sometimes choose to max my Move Quick leaving q and e at 3 points untill level 14. It gives so much movement speed! Don't be afraid that a little lack of damage or q duration will ruin you the game.
It is also an option to spread the points equally, for example you can have 2 points in all skills exept the ultimate at level 7, 3 at level 10 and 4 at level 14, and that's nice! Just imagine, why would you need those 5 points into q and e at level 13 with only 1 (!) point in w, when you can have all your skills to be at level 4 just 1 level up.

See match ups to chose whether to start with Doran's Ring or Doran's Shield. Some people even take Dark Seal and a Refillable Potion, and that's an option. But I don't recomend bying the Corrupting Potion right after, because you normally want to get your Hextech Gunblade at least at 15 mins.

The main rule while playing as a top lane Teemo is to play like your are laning 1 vs 2. You should always be ready for a gank unless you can see the enemy jungler being somewhere far away from you. In that case you can go more aggressive, but you should always mind the wave control. In the early game I prefer to get a little bit pushed in order for the enemy jungle not to kill me, but that is also difficult for me to farm under the tower (Teemo has not very much options for that like some champions (Cassiopea, Yasuo, Kalista). Usually the laning phase for Teemo is about getting his Gunblade. At this point you can start pushing hard and trading with no fear with almost any top laner. And your laning phase would idealy end as a destroyed enemy tower and a captured rift herald (that's hard to do!) After getting to this point you should swap your vision trinket to oracle lens in order to destroy enemy wards. Buy control wards! Buy 2,3 as much as you can and use them! It's essential for the proper setups in the mid-late game.

In the mid game, Teemo can either move to bot to provide more control around the dragon, and start pushing the bot tower (even the bot tier 2).

Or you can stay topside and capture the vision of the enemy jungle to push the second tower safely. Don't forget about baron setups.

In the mid game Teemo interacts more with his team. At this point when you have your Hextech Gunblade complete, you can start dealing huge amounts of damage to squishy carries. If they come out of position - punish them!

But to do that you should always set up the shrooms and the vision around the place where you are sitting. Use oracle lens and control wards. Don't show yourself very much to the enemies without a reason. But don't forget to farm and push when you can.

At the 2 items point - it can be Nashor's Tooth or Liandry's Torment or Zhonya's Hourglass depending on the matchups (good timing is 19 minutes), you will be able to assasinate the enemy carries in a couple of seconds. That is your primary aim which is impossible without good positioning and good shroom setups. Don't allow yourself to go too aggressive without it.

Ideally you don't ever die in the game.

It has always been a question if one should farm with mushrooms or not. That depends on the situation. You can farm with shrooms if:

• You need to push lane to opponents tower in order to go to base (if you play without a Teleport.
• You are pushing hard and you need to kill the waves as fast as it is possible.
• You need to kill the wave fast (to create a slow push or simply to defend the tower) in order to go back to your team.

In all other cases (tell me if I forgot something) you should not use shrooms for pushing.
As for the spots to put the shrooms, here is my little map.Here are not all the spots of course. Here are some useful spots around objectives. That's an example, every Teemo makes his own shrooming, but this might be useful.

When the game comes to the dancing-around-baron stage, you should be either with your team or on the side lane, depending on the situation.
If you are around the baron - shroom it and get as much vision and control as possible. If you are at the side lane - don't overextend and be aware of ganks.

Teemo is very strong at 3 items spike.

Having these 3 you can end the 40 minutes game, so even if you are very much behind you will still be very strong (and there won't be any need to buy Hexdrinker vs a fed Katarina or an Abyssal Mask because of a strong Zoe in game).

At this point you should have all the enemies outer and inner turrets destroyed. And now it's time for seting up for a baron nashor seriously.
The shroom field in the previous chapter shows an example of setting things up.
Ideally, your enemy should have no vision around the area and if he makes an attempt to set some - your Noxious Traps will help you to punish him. (Especially those squishy utility supports;)
Use Control Wards, use your Oracle Lens it's cooldown is very short. And shroom, shroom and shroom. After getting 6 items you can simply live in the jungle around those vital objectives.

The other option in the late game is protecting your ADC (also can be an option for mid game). Destroy everything what touches him, especially assasins. Don't be afraid to make those calculated Flash + Ignite + Hextech Gunblade + Blinding Dart + Toxic Shot allins, if you are 95 % sure that you will kill the enemy.

The fact that Twitch junglers in exist high elo insures us that players do not always care of their champion's positioning. And that's the possibility for a Teemo as well to punish them.

Other option is, of course, split pushing. Do it like in the mid game. Have the area control where you are splitting, be aware of ganks and punish those squishy targets who somehow decided to stop you solo.

And the most important point.

Do not die.
You can't trade 1 for 1. You are too valuable as a Teemo. You can't afford yourself dying.
If you trade - trade at least 1 for 2. Better 1 for 3.

Of course + + is only the most stable option. There are many others!
But basically, + are must haves.

• If you are far ahead get the . But please don't omit Nashor's Tooth in this case. Lich Bane is pretty bad as a second item for Teemo.
• If you want to split push go for the . But again, don't skip Nashor's Tooth!
• If there are too much tanks in the enemy team get . Rageblade is so OP at the moment. You can even use this as a primary build, though it requires more concentration. The only problem of Guinsoo's Rageblade as a second item is that his base stats are pretty low and he requiers 6 autoattacks to stack! In adition, it doesn't give cooldown reduction like Nashor's Tooth does, which is essential for mid-late game shrooming.
• If you are facing too many AD champions get . In this case you can even skip the Nashor's Tooth.
• If you are having problems with AP champions you can buy before Nashor's Tooth.

After chosing one of these options you can combine them adding different items as a 4-th or 5-th slot. Or you can decide even to sell your boots, because Teemo has pretty good movement speed even without them.

So, this is my favuorite one:
+ + + + + . It combines both assasination potential and tank melting/pushing power and gives you that 40% cdr which will allow you to spam shrooms less than every 10 seconds.

Or this is more classical one:
+ + + + + . More AP = more burst damage (sell boots to get the Luden's Tempest).
You can get even some kind of a tank build:
+ + + + +

Don't be afraid to experiment! Your aims and your mindset is usually more important than your build!

I hope you enjoyed this guide, and I could help both those who are making their first steps as Teemo players and those who are looking for the fresh view (though my view is not anyhow fresh;)

Would be grateful if you upvote this, write you comments and ask your questions, I will be glad to answer!

Special gratitude to jhoijhoi and her help guide! And to my wife who was clearing my english (I'm still sorry about it;)
Have fun with Teemo!