This is the setup I use most of the time. You could swap around the attack speed marks with magic pen or hybrid pen, it'll still be fine (and do a bit more damage overall throughout the game), but I prefer the 15% extra attack speed in lane to keep auto's procced quickly, making trades with Ekko easy (especially after you E-Q onto the enemy, auto once for grasp, and walk away with the passive movement speed buff). I've seen people use the attack speed and vamp/life steal masteries as well; these can also be good. It really is a matter of preference here.

I would always run flash and teleport, but I suppose you could also run flash and ignite or flash and exhaust if you see a very hard match-up, see the enemy has multiple high damage threats for the lategame, or think you can absolutely stomp on your enemy top before he/she comes online (looking at you, Trundle and Nasus)

Hi dear Leaguers and Leaguettes, my name is A Plebian and I am currently somewhere in platinum on EUW. I'm a 25 year old teacher at a high school who plays League in his spare time. Before this season, most of my ranked seasons consisted of me coming 'online' between July and October or so, spamming a lot of matches in a short period of time to get a rank (usually somewhere in platinum) and then being done for another 6-9 months with the game. This year is a bit different, and I've been playing from the start, currently climbed from silver 1 to plat 4 I believe, and aiming for diamond. I main Orianna (although I can't maintain a proper winrate with her because the assassin and highly mobile bruiser meta has kind of ruined my general stats with her), and have played an extensive amount of Jax and Akali in the past. I picked up Ekko this season, and although I am by no means a veteran with him, I've been doing increasingly better with him in the past few weeks, winning a large majority of my games on him with this very specific build.

So if you're looking for a professional Ekko player, please look further. I cannot tell you that I am the best Ekko out there (although I am aiming to at least get good enough with him to get to diamond), but I have actually won quite a few matches with him now, and I got a good feel for how to play this kind of playstyle, which is largely my own experiences transferred from playing tanky akali (which I have been doing for the past 3 seasons). If you are interested, however, in how to become an almost unkillable force (to be reckoned with), please, read and (hopefully) enjoy this guide!

AP Ekko, as most of you know, will deal a LOT more damage than tanky Ekko; yet, tenkko is a rather viable build path for him. The toplane is largely dominated by champions that excel at sustained fights and that rely on being either a frontline for their team, or a hard engage with either a lot of cc or a lot of damage. Tenkko brings a bit of all of this for your team. By going 12/0/18 in masteries, with the grasp of the undying, Ekko has proper sustain and a tanky setup that will help you survive a lot of the bruisers in top lane. In combination with Sunfire Cape and Iceborn gauntlett, you will have enough armor, sustained magic damage, continuous slows, health, and health-steals (with Grasp) to be able to take on any AD champion (AD carries, AD-based top laners that focus on building damage, such as Fiora, Riven, Quinn, and AD assassins such as Talon, Zed and Yasuo).

The Iceborn slow will automatically proc when you E onto someone, making it very easy to high the 'double Q', since they can't really run away, giving you the speedboost to continue sticking to your enemy. This allows you to basically wither them down over time, with continuous small bursts of damage and the burning effect of sunfire (and if you decide to build liandry's, that item will help too).

The stun field (w) will be rather easy for you to get off in teamfights, since you do not have to be afraid to die if you engage with it in fights, because unlike AP Ekko, you can actually sustain some of the damage dealt to you, making it a more simple task to get your W stuns off, rather than having to look for a perfect angle to jump in and proc it. Your R will obviously heal you less and deal less damage, but it's base damages are pretty good, making tank Ekko also in this regard a viable pick. Overall, what tank Ekko provides is a lot of durability, a lot of mobility, a lot of slows, potential massive stuns in teamfights, a fair amount of damage in spite of your tanky build, and overall sustainability. Because the build path you can go allows you to potentially get 40% cdr, you can utilize your kit to the fullest potential, being a constant nuisance to your enemies, while simultaneously being mobile enough, especially with E, to also peel for your carries if necessary.

Especially throughout the mid to late game, tank Ekko shines, because he will be tanky enough to sustain through most damage, while still dealing enough damage to actually 1v1 most of the ad carries or AP mage midlaners, as well as squishy damage junglers such as Kindred or Nidalee. Tank Ekko DOES fall off a little bit towards the very-late game, where ADCs have 6 items (potentially a botrk in there too) and they can just shut you down from a distance; this, however, isn't necessarily a problem, as you can generally reach them easily in fights with your mobility and dashes, and at least force summoners if you're on top of them, or take enough of the enemy team's time to get your team into position to deal damage (because remember, your 4 second delayed ghost can actually just allow you to tank the enemy team for 3-3.5 seconds before you R back to your previous location).

In the early laning phase, Ekko can either shine (especially vs more squishy or farm reliant champions, such as Nasus) or be famished - this especially vs champs that can constantly push without having to worry about resources - or that have much higher sustain (looking at Garen, Trundle, Poppy). Ultimately, I suggest you play it rather safe and make sure you don't waste all your corruption potion's stacks early, because they become very useful for the additional damage around lvl 3 (say 3-3.5 mins into the game) where your jungler (if he/she started bot side at least) can potentially gank for you. Until this point (unless the enemy shows they do not know how to do deal with you) try to play passively and if necessary just farm with Q (if you do so, try to position yourself so that you can actually hit the enemy with at least 1 and preferably 2x your Q).

Tank Ekko, unlike AP Ekko, relies less on perfect positioning and timing, making him a bit easier (albeit a lot of fun) and forgiving when it comes to these aspects. I will give a rundown and a few examples of some tips and tricks with Ekko soon, but don't expect a waterfall of information here.

I have filled in I believe only 2 at this point - I will put in more, but I have to admit I haven't played all top lane match-ups yet. A lot of matches are rather repetitive in their line-up, so I can tell you how to play against e.g. Fiora, Renekton, Riven, Garen, Darius, Poppy, Nautilus, Nasus, Graves and Quinn, but those are kind of the champions I almost always face when playing Ekko. - Will be updated soon.