This guide is a continuing work in progress, over time I intend to expand upon everything within it, as well as steadily add more and more detail not just to the concepts behind the thoughts involved in my choices, but also game play styles for Teemo himself. Please be patient, starting off I want to at least go over the choices you can see here: Items, runes, Masteries, summoner spells, and skill sequence. So with this in mind, do check back often, as I'll continue to add to this guide as time goes on ( And as always, I encourage and welcome feedback). I will warn you, this guide is NOT going to be short. Something I've learned from reading guides is that a perfect setup is useless without the understanding and knowledge that goes along with it. I'm still working on going further into detail about Teemo's Mushroom tactic's (Beyond the warding of specific area's and escape routes). Now, without further ado, let us begin.

The above runes may surprise a few people, especially those who may be new to Teemo. Those that play him with any kind of frequency will know and understand two major things:

( 1 ) Teemo's squishy. While out of the gate he has about average armor/mres/HP, he lacks shields, stuns, blinks, etc. What many fail to understand is it's not Teemo's base stats that make him squishy, it's the combination of a relatively low range and that he doesn't have any way of "stopping" his opponent in order to escape. THIS is the nature of Teemo's squishyness.

( 2 ) As many have said before me, Teemo has a cross map 'Taunt'. He doesn't in any way have a skill or ability that is a taunt, but people see a little Teemo and they instantly consider my first point, if I catch him, I can kill him. And if I can't catch him, at least I can drive him off.

The above runes accomplish two things for our little friend.

The Greater Quintessence of Movement Speed provide our already zoomy little friend with the extra bit of speed for his early kiting and ease for last hitting.

The Greater Mark of Attack Damage provide the added early game AD for last hitting and exchanges against your lane partner.

For seals I went with Greater Mark of Armor, while armor per level grants a larger bonus end game, you end up with a fair amount of armor anyway and early game most of the damage one suffers is actually from auto attacks and minion strikes, both of which can be mitigated with higher armor. This lets you poke a bit more often and suffer less in a trade off. This in turn helps you establish lane dominance.

You'll note that while with seals I went flat armor instead of scaling, I chose Greater Glyph of Scaling Magic Resistfor my glyphs. Teemo. Hates. Mages. Period. Early game most casters (I say most.. *cough LeBlanc cough*) do not have full bursty combinations. Late game the enemy AP champions are the ones you have to be cautious of. The Mres/level glyphs kick in just as casters start to become really dangerous and pushing to end game help give Teemo some needed durability.

Starting to see a pattern? The trick to runes isn't to buy every last one to bolster your strengths, it's to use everything you've got to diminish your weakness's. Sure, if you go all offensive runes you'll have more games where you just destroy the enemy team, but you'll also have more, if not a ton more, games where you get shut down hard and are useless all game.

Yes, I use 21/9/0. Allow me to explain before you scream at me. As stated above, Teemo is often focused and requires some added durability in order to survive as a result. The 9 points in the defensive masteries grant a bit of extra armor and mres that work well with our defensive seals/glyphs. The 3/hp5 may seem small, but in combination with Teemo's Natural health regen it gives a pretty decent amount of health regen which combined with the lowered incoming damage from our glyphs and other defensive masteries adds up to a pretty decent level of sustain.

As for our offensive masteries.
First off, yes, all of Teemo's abilities scale off AP, and NONE of them scale off AD. This is the main reason why AD Teemo isn't cost effective. That being said, 4 AP is such a small value it doesn't even register in his abilities. I'm not saying you won't notice, I'm saying the value of damage DOES NOT CHANGE. On the other hand, 3 AD more makes last hitting just a bit easier, combined with your Toxic Shot you actually do a pretty decent amount of level 1 damage. This makes both farming easier, and, again, winning your lane. By putting our three points into Brute Force we're also left with one point which we can drop into Summoner's Wrath .

By putting that one point into Summoner's Wrath we're able to empower our Exhaust so that it drops the armor and mres of our target by 10 each(Nifty Fact, most characters start with about 35 mres. 15 from your runes+ Summoner's Wrath for 10 and you've now dropped their Mres to 15. That's a ton of free damage, not to mention the drop in armor will make the AD portion of your hits hit that bit harder too. It all adds up my friends, it all adds up.)

Now in the second Tier you'll notice we've taken both Sorcery and Alacrity . While the CD reduction from Sorcery is lackluster with this build, the mastery it unlocks in the next tear is well worth the invested points. Alacrity provides us with a small amount of extra attack speed which works well with the general theme of the build, and again, unlocks a very useful ability.

Onto Tier three. Arcane Knowledge is a given for most Teemo players, 10% mpen=more damage from everything we do.

Where most players might question my decision is in Weapon Expertise . 10% armor pen, on a AS/on Hit build? Yes. So very Yes. You'll note, that by the time you've finished your build (should the game last that long) you have over 200 AD. That's 200 damage that your losing chunks of to armor. That 10% armor pen will allow you to dish out that bit of extra damage.

Now for Havoc , 1.5% damage increase doesn't seem like a whole heck of a lot really. But lets see, 3000 HP, Madred's Bloodrazor does 4% of that in damage. That's 120 damage(Assuming no Magic resistance. But I digress) 1.5% of that is another 1.8 damage. Yup, I know, that's it. But that's 1.8 from Madred's Bloodrazor, and then 1.5% from Malady, your auto attack damage, hextek gunblade.... see where I'm going with this? It may only be a few points of extra damage, but it DOES add up. Try not taking it. Count how many times an enemy escapes with 10-15 HP. Just remember, you'd have gotten that kill if you'd taken Havoc .

Note we don't take anything from tier 4. Nothing really good for us there, so lets skip right on down to tier 5, Sunder. As I've said a few times now, bit of extra armor pen=bit of extra damage. And at the end of the day, that IS your job.

And last but certainly not least, Executioner . 6% extra damage once someone is below 40% HP gives us just a bit more finishing power and damage to bring someone down. Pretty self explanatory.

Ghost vs Flash, and Ignite vs Exhaust (Because lets face it. Those are the only things up for debate.)

Personally, I favor Flash over Ghost. If your slowed and you Flash, your enemy will just catch up to you. If you Flash to escape anywhere that your not flashing over a well to do so, your opponent can just pop Ghost and run you down. Since Flash's nerf there are even champion abilities that can still reach you after you've flashed. So there are certainly issues with using flash. I just like the escape of Flash in a "Oh **** I'm surrounded" situation over ghost, though there are times where I miss being able to ghost from one lane to another and tear a turret apart.

If your still die-hard attached to Ghost, I wont say not to use it. But in the end, for what we are looking to accomplish here, I find Flash to be the superior choice.

As for Ignite vs Exhaust. 50 damage. That's how much Ignite does at level 1. 50, damage. less than an auto attack. People argue that the benefit is in the 50% reduction to healing. OK, won't disagree with you there. Aside from characters like Dr. Mundo with his Ult, most champions don't do a ton of healing on their own outside of lifesteal. While a support can provide healing, they should be dying early and fast anyway. As for the lifesteal portion, I'd rather a 70% reduction in attack speed(and thus damage) which equates to a 70% reduction in lifesteal for the duration coupled with a slow and armor/mres debuff that can be used either offensively or defensibly.

Again, you can choose to run with Ignite if you so desire, but I would strongly recommend Exhaust.

OK, OK! The item list is very specific. Just remember, I'm trying to help you, not give you a headache.

I've experimented with a few starting items, and Bootsand x3 Health Potion pots just works so well on Teemo. The added movement speed lets you escape a bit better, lets you dash in and out for harass, and best of all, isn't 475 gold down the drain that you won't build anything out of (Sensing a dislike for the Doran's Items? Maybe?). The three Health Potion's add quite a bit of sustain.

Some may argue that the 1-2 HP from Doran's Blade is better because you have more health and do more damage, but again, your delaying your build. Trust me, it's not worth it unless your really behind and think stacking a few Doran's for the stats will help you catch up. Or Doran's Shield, for armor and a bit of passive regen to go with that health. Here's the thing, if your able to sit back and regenerate health, were you really in any danger? No. If your health is low enough that your waiting on regen, then you should have backed already.



(Reworking the item selection as I've come across a superior build. The items are listed above, but the details involved with the picks will have to wait until I have a bit more time to rewrite the full thought process behind each as I have done I the past.)

(I'll be adding picture diagrams here later)

Shroom placement and use can make or break a good Teemo. At level 16, with no CDR, you get a mushroom every 20 seconds or so. They last 10 minutes. 10 minutes=30 sets of 20=30 mushrooms. 1 for each blue buff, 1 for each red buff, 1 for dragon, 1 for baron. That leaves 24 for bushes/farming/escape routes/combat. It's often best to place them just inside of bushes so that if an enemy champion grabs an oracles they don't just run around clearing all your mushrooms out. If they want to find them, make them pay for it.


Now: When your team has started gathering in mid for team fights there is one annoying thing you can do to drive your opponents crazy. Best yet, most times they don't even realize what's happening.

It takes 2 minutes, just 2 minutes, to place three mushrooms in the top and bottom lane. You want to place them in a line, spread out a bit. The intention is that as the enemy minions push forward into them, they'll detonate, weakening fighter minions and killing caster minions.

The benefit to this is that now your team's minions will "win" and push forward. Doesn't sound like a big deal hmm? Well, when your entire team is grouped up pushing mid and the enemy team comes to deal with you they're going to run into a problem. If your team keeps pressure on middle, those minions on the side lanes are going to push, and yes, they will even down towers. Now the enemy team has to either send someone to deal with the minions(and risk a 5v4 encounter) or lose the towers. Either way, they're suddenly at a disadvantage, and all because you planted a few mushrooms a few minutes ago.

If you notice your jungler is not warding his buffs, you can use Move Quick to dash down into your own jungle and place a few shrooms to warn of someone trying to steal the buff. Placing one in the bush on the same side as blue golem(or just outside the bush towards lizard) and one within sight range, but not in the auto pathing to the buffs, you can both keep an eye on the buff as well as limiting an opponents chances of escape.

Teemo actually has 3, count them, 3 escape mechanisms.
(1) Move Quick, his W, passively makes him faster, meaning if you see a champion coming you can simple, well, run away. The difference between escape and getting caught often comes down to WHEN you use the activated portion of move quick, doubling it's effect for three seconds. Since Move Quick's passive is lost temporarily when struck by an enemy champion or tower, using the activated portion the moment you see an enemy champion in order to run away often means that all of 2 seconds later you'll run into his friend who will poke you will any random attack and cost you your much needed speed. TLDR: Dont use Move Quick until your enemy is on top of you, save it for when you actually need it.

(2) Teemo's Passive. This little beauty has gotten me out of countless problems (And set up the occasional good gank too. By standing still for 2 seconds Teemo will turn invisible so long as he remains still, and does not attack. The trick to using his passive effectively as an escape mechanism is actually rather simple: Do NOT use it in the bush when trying to escape. Your not the only one who knows about Teemo's passive, and a number of champions have AoE abilities that can and WILL hit you while stealthed. It's far better to move to a spot where your actually somewhat out in the open. Make sure you stop when neither enemy minions or champions can see you and be wary of wards. But stopping in an unusual spot will often throw the enemy off. I've watched a number of times as my opponents AoE'd the last bush I ran through thinking I've stopped inside it when in fact, I'm all of 2 inches of screen length away from the very spot they're hitting.

( 3 ) Shrooms. Yes, Noxious Trap. Leaving a criss-crossing trail of these explosive little mushrooms can allow you to backtrack through them, slowing and damaging (and possibly even killing) enemies that follow so that you may escape.