Hello, this is my first guide so if you have any questions, see any error's or want me to try something feel free to comment. I appreciate any constructive comments and look forward to improving this one as I test more things. Also special shout out to sua1ty for helping me out and showing me how to use the coding so that I could improve my guide and I definitely encourage all to go check out his guides. Hope you enjoy the guide!
UPDATE (1/27/13)
Changed my preferred marks to Greater Mark of Attack Damage because I feel that they work better in giving you a heavier poke in lane with the passive on his Death Sentence. I have just found it to be better overall. I also changed his masteries to where he is primarily down the utility tree, mainly due to how high the cool down on his spells are I have found that path to be more beneficial. You're getting more gold, and the Regenerative Biscuit along with the Explorer's Ward are definitely helping me out in lane. [PICKPOCKET is also a perk from going down the Utility Tree due to the synergy with the passive on Death Sentence, while providing your lane a heavy poke, you also give yourself an extra 5 gold.

Your main goal for this build is to tank, so I prefer going heavily down the Defense Skill tree and also due to my aggressive play-style I invest the rest of my points into the Offensive Skill tree. The way I build the tree will only change if I am going for a different last item other than Iceborn Gauntlet.When building Iceborn Gauntlet as your last item you want to have 4 points in Sorcery because it puts you right at 35% CDR. But if your building Frozen Heart then I would suggest not wasting the points due to the extra 5% CDR Frozen Heart already gives you and instead putting 1 point into Summoner's Wrath and 3 points into Fury . The Summoner's Wrath will make your exhaust more efficient in ganks or when your chasing after successfully landing a Death Sentence, also poking is a very effective tool that Thresh has that other tanky supports lack, his auto attack combined with the passive on Death Sentence is very good in poking and controlling the lane so putting 3 extra points in Fury for more attack speed won't hurt.

As you can see my starting items include both a Vision Ward and sight ward. I primarily use my Vision Ward to knock off their supports first Sight Ward which allows my jungle to complete early ganks. If you don't obtain vision as to the exact location of their Sight Ward placement then I recommend placing your Vision Ward in the River bush, I usually find their Ward located there due to how important that locations vision is while laning.

With the initial sight ward I will do one of three things. One, I could ward either of the lane bushes to prevent zoning. Secondly, I could save it for being put up after my first Vision Ward fades, and the last option is depending on how much pressure is being applied to your lane from the jungle/mid, for example if I see that mid is strangely MIA along with their jungler, I might put it in my tri bush to eliminate another possible pathway for them to intrude upon my lane and attempt ganks.





Towards the mid game one key point to have Warded is dragon and Baron Nashor. Not only will it give you information as to whether they are trying to kill Dragon or Baron, but it will also give you vision of two popular crossing pathways in which players use to go from one side of the map to another which is essential for counter ganking, understanding strategy, and sometimes just "catching people with their pants down" by picking up a free kill.

The mid game will consist primarily of pushing towers,very important skirmishes, and team fights. In order to do these things efficiently and strategically one must have vision so they are able to infer the actions of their opponents. Understanding what your opponents are doing and where they are is critical for doing things such as split pushing, sniping objectives, stealing blue buffs, stealing red buffs, dragon, ganking.

Also if your team is getting pressured, have your jungle warded, and if your team is the ones pressuring, have their jungle warded. Having vision in either of these situations will benefit you and your team.

The core of Your early game should be focused around getting the Sightstone and Philosopher's Stone, towards the Mid game I get the Locket of the Iron Solari as soon as possible due to its contribution to team fights and also the stats help you fulfill your role in tanking teamfights. After the Locket is obtained you can start looking into your Mercury's Treads and Runic Bulwark, the Bulwark is another essential item and I would argue is worth rushing if you're absolutely dominating the lane. Towards the late game you want to finish off Shurelya's with your Philosophers Stone you bought earlier on, and for my last item I prefer the Iceborn Gauntlet, they give you AOE slows which is more CC, they give CDR, armor, mana, and ability power (all your spells scale off AP). It's just such a well rounded item for Thresh.


Knowing when to upgrade your Sightstone is situational. Most of the time I find myself just keeping the normal Sightstone and buying 1 or 2 vision wards to kill the other supports ward when I return to my lane. Although if you do have the money I feel that it is the proper decision to upgrade your Sightstone due to how the extra map vision gives you more knowledge of player positioning which is key in pushing towers, ganking, and avoid being ganked yourself.

As for your Vision Ward purchases there is basically simple guidlines I stick to with them. For starters if I see someone ward my lane, I know that when I go buy I need at least 1 vision ward. Also if you are going back to lane with 125g or some silly number that's not enough to grab an item, it will Never hurt to grab a vision ward instead of going back with the extra gold. I can't tell you how many times I've spent my left over gold just to get 1 vision ward and sure enough, that bush was warded. Also the third and final situation in which vision wards are vital are stealth champions, for example if they have a jungle Shaco, it's never a bad idea to Vision Ward your tri or river bushes. These Vision Wards are extremely important and contribute to the overall status of early game. Also, if you succeed in planting your Vision Ward and eliminate an opponents Vision Ward, you just made a great play, You denied their vision and improved yours, you opened up a window for your jungle to gank, and you gained back some of the gold put into your ward. Having control over your lanes vision is essential to winning a lane.


Getting your Mercury's Treads is somewhat situational due to the amount of gold you will be funding into wards and defensive items. You certainly want them by Mid game, but no earlier than that. I would not worry abut them early on unless you get fed or are dominating your lane. Also if the lane you're facing is giving you trouble because of their cc, you might want to pick them up in response.

I start off with Death Sentence, this allows you to begin the aggression and set the overall pace for the lane. Ideally you want to hit the first hook which for me has always forced them to use a majority of their consumables in order to stay in lane. But even with missing your initial hook you force them into a defensive posture due to the fact that now you could possibly segregate one of them from another and focus that one person to try and make them go back or even obatin a kill.
Landing your Death Sentence works especially well with Caitlyn because you can pull them into her Yordle Snap Trap and then reactivate it to get back to them, so with Caitlyn's trap and auto-attack damage combined with your hook and auto-attack damage, it's enough to force a recall if not gain a kill depending on how early it is in the game.

Once you obtain your Dark Passage, and Flay you can really start bullying. To initiate you want to land your Death Sentence and begin to pull them back and just before it ends reactive it to get to them, this way they will be as far as possible from any means of defense or escape paths and you along with your ADC can continue to damage them, after successfully landing a Death Sentence, you can then go on to Flay them back even further and for me personally this has always forced a recall if not secure a kill for my ADC if done properly.

Towards the mid game Thresh is basically the same except now The Box is far more relevant and extremely important to team fights. Ideally you want to initiate the fight with your Death Sentence by yanking yourself into a majority of their team, then once you cast The Box while your surrounded, your team will have an opportunity to land extremely efficient AOE spells and or skill-shots which is always relevant to coming out on top of an engagement. Miss fortune is a great example of a champion that can be absolutely devastating for the enemy team when you catch multiple people in your ultimate and she releases Bullet Time on top of it. The Box can be tied with any high damaging AOE spell, Anivia, Orianna, Lux, Ezreal, Eve, and Wukong are some examples of champions that when combing their ultimate with yours can be used to immediately shift a team fight into your favor. I was just recently playing a game where we had three AOE ultimate's, they were Wukong, Anivia, and Miss Fortune and without fail we won most of our fights due to how constricted the enemy team became when I hooked into them and activated The Box. This gave much oppurtunity for my team to land perfect ultimate's and because of how strong we were in our mid game team fights we went on to having a dominant late game.
So basically you just want to center your engagements around the CC he provides in order for your team to have more accurate and efficient spells.