Hey Guys,

this is my very first guide on mobafire. I play Twitch as my main and collected a lot of experience with him, ca. 150 - 200 matches played with him. I just wanted to share my style how to build and how to play him, so people who like this guide can adopt it.

I know that my use of runes and my kind of playing differs from others very much, but that doesn't make it worse.
The only thing important is that i don't recommend using this guide, if you have problems with basic things like "last hitting on minions", "playing safe", "playing under turret" (if necessary) and if you can't adjust a build and playstyle to a team.
The last thing is very important to recognise as you often play with random teammates and they may play badly so you have to change your build to safe the lane/team or whole game.

I hope you enjoy reading this guide!

Pros

Cons

Great Sustain Invisibility Nice Poke / Harass Strong Mid Game Roaming Qualitys (Grade B) Great Backdooring

Squishy Well countered by Stuns and Slows Countered by High Range Bad Teamfights without Fulltank

Why did i choose the masteries i chose?
I will describe it very detailed in this chapter, but it's not necessary to read this chapter if you trust in the masteries above.

Offense:

You may have seen that i dedicate my build for Twitch on Attack Speed, so it's quite obvious that i skilled Fury to increase my Attack Speed whenever i can. 4 Points = 5% AS.
Expose Weakness - When you fight with a mate together on a lane, you will see that your Venom Cask is an ability, so you increase the damage of your mate against your opponent on the lane. Brute Force ... Obviously more damage, especially in early game. The same goes with Martial Mastery . Executioner increases your damage as well as the chance to kill your opponents in your lane. Dangerous Game is just an option to get some mana and life back after you had a fight. Warlord increases your damage again, the same goes with Havoc . Frenzy increases your attack-speed after you stroke critical, which is obviously helpful, because you have 55% chance on critical strike with the core-items.

Defense:

I spent 7 points into the defensive masteries, because Twitch is very squishy, so you need something, to stay in lane as long as you can. Block reduces the damage you take from the champions you fight against, Recovery increases your regeneration of health. Veteran Scars increases your life. All of these defensive masteries are obviously to take, but let me say something: The bonuses given by the masteries are not much, but this little increasings of armor, health, magical resistence and health regeneration are the little changes, which help you to stay in lane in the early game instead of recalling every minute. It won't help you to survive a late-game teamfight but it makes you less squishy in early game.

And at last i spent to points into utility, Fleet of Foot , so you have a minimal bonus on your movement speed. As the defensive masteries it's not a great change but it's helpful at all.

You may have seen that i did not, as nearly all other LoL-players do this, choose different runes to increase a variety of points of my champ, as we did with our masteries. Let me tell you why:

The Dedication: Speed

When i started to think about runes, i had a vision about how i wanted to play Twitch and other ADCs. But when i thought about this, i thought about other champs too. And i realised one important thing: If you want to damage your enemey without spells, you need much sustain of your physical strength. So i calculated different builds etc, but actually a champ with much attack-speed is more effective than a champ with much normal damage. See why: If you take a champ and build him completely on damage (just to think about it) with 6 Ravenous Hydra (which is not possible for Twitch, but just think about it), you get additional damage of 6 x 75 = 450. With a basical damage of 106 at lvl 18 you would do a damage of 556 per attack. But how fast can you attack? 1 attack / second, so you deal 556 ad / s. The first problem is that you attack so slowly that you are much easier to take for opponents' champs. The second point is the following. Think about buying 3 Phantom Dancer and 3 Bloodthirster. I don't want to calculate that exactly, but, even without runes, you will get a speed around 2,25 and an additional damage of 3 x 70 = 210.
So you attack with 2,25 attacks per second and per attack you deal 106 + 210 = 316 damage.
What damage do you deal now? 2,25 x 316 = 711 in each second!!

Why the runes?

So now you see why i dedicated my ADCs on attack speed, but why don't i just buy the items in the matches and build different runes? Remember one thing: You can't buy your first good item that fast, but you have to deal enormous damage as early as possible, because you will carry the game, your job is to become fed! It's again a calculating thing, i don't want to bore you all, but as you see, the runes completely on attack speed give a great bonus (38% Attack Speed) when you start the game. You may want to leave the 3 Greater Quintessence of Attack Speed and take 3 Greater Quintessence of Life Steal, which is a good choice too, but you are missing 10% attack speed, just remember this.

Variety

But what i love most with this runes is the following: When you play Solotop or Solomid, you would never buy items to increase your attack-speed, unless you play Master Yi for example. For example: You play Malphite on the Top-Lane, the opponents' team sends you Garen. You may have your tanky masteries, he will have tanky masteries or maybe offtank-masteries, and he chose armor-runes to improve his lane-stability (which is enormous with his passive Perseverance). What is your advantage? You have tanky masteries, bought Doran's Shield and have attack-speed runes. You will attack much faster than Garen which is quite obviously an advantage as well, you may don't have this tankiness you should have, not so early, but will be able to force Garen out of the lane, because you deal more damage as a result of your faster attack. Same goes with the Mid-Lane, if you play Ahri for example. Or if you are the jungler and play Lee Sin. Nevermind the Champion, your attack-speed runes are an enormous advantage in early game and gives you the possibility to dominate the game.

Many people i am talking with about runes are very confused by my choice. They ask me, why i don't choose runes for some armor, life or lifereg. Well, i know how squishy Twitch is, but that doesn't bother me. As you play safe you don't have a need for more armor, your potion helps you out and Doran's Blade too. As soon as you have the Blade of the Ruined King and Bloodthirster you heal yourself with creeps easily. Usually i don't have problems with my squishyness.

To sum up this chapter: Buying runes dedicated on attack-speed is not only an investment for ADCs, it will help you with many champs. But i recommend, if you play an APC, runes built for them.

Now we get even closer to our main chapter: The build itself.

Start-Items

It's quite obvious why i chose this items, i don't think there is much to say. You can either choose Health Potion or Mana Potion. I recommend the Health Potion for more durability on lane, but you can choose a Mana Potion too, it will be helpful for continuing pokes.

The Core

As the core-build i chose Boots of Swiftness, Bloodthirster, Blade of the Ruined King, Infinity Edge and Phantom Dancer. I took this boots into this core build, because it's really important for a long time. And this bonus of movement speed is the bonus you will need in early and mid game. The first thing you will notice about the core is that they are also dedicating on attack speed. But there is a second reason i chose this core, it's a littlebit subtle but it's focusing life steal. This core in it's standard gives you a bonus of 27% Life Steal and that's enormous if you think about how fast you will attack (and each attack grants you Life Steal), the core gives you a 55% chance to strike critical, 90% attack-speed and so on. This Core is a combination of significant damage and significant attack speed, which is combined with your runes. The combination of your attack speed, damage and lifesteal overcomes your squishyness, as you heal yourself while fighting. If your health is critical, take some creeps in jungle to heal yourself. It's insane.
Now give it another thought: Realise the passive of Blade of the Ruined King, passive of the Infinity Edge and the passive of Bloodthirster. Each item has an incredible passive. Well, the passive of the Phantom Dancer is quite helpful to flee but not significant. And now realise the active of the Blade of the Ruined King. Got it? Great. This core is very strong and will help you to dominate the game and carry it as far as possible.
Now there are 2 slots left (because you will sell your Doran's Blade as you have the money to fill this slot and so do you with your Boots of Swiftness later). It is depending now what you are going to buy, that's why i have opened 3 sections: Shredding, Offensive and Defensive.

Shredding

If the enemies' team is very tanky i recommend the section "shredding". Buy both of the two items. Last Whisper helps you to deal your damage through their armor and Executioner's Calling helps you to reduce their health-regeneration, life-steal or heals by spell / support.

Offensive

If their team is normal (like one or two tanks) i recommend the "offensive"-section. Choose one or two of this items. My personal favourites are the Last Whisper and the Black Cleaver. Why? With the Last Whisper you gain 35% armor penetration and the Black Cleaver is awesome, because it grants you life and much damage, cooldown reduction and 5% armor reduction, stacking up to 5 times by dealt physical damage. Know what? your Venom Cask deals physical damage over time!

Defensive

If the enemies' team is fed or very strong or deals much damage you may have to choose a more defensive build. That is why i made the third section "defensive" (obviously). Just choose one or two of this items, depending on the match. My favourites are the Guardian Angel and the Thornmail. The Guardian Angel will save your life a few times (games are so confusing, sometimes enemies will forget you got a revive. Or your team comes to save you so the enemies can't kill you a second time) and it grants you armor and magical resistence as well. The Thornmail grants you armor at it's finest and deals damage against enemies who attack you. These two items take a lot of squishyness off you, but remember: You deal less damage as you get more tanky!

This chapter may be the easiest to read, there are not many things to say. At the top of the page you can read, in which order i skill.
You may wonder why i start with expunge instead of Venom Cask or Ambush, but i think to start it's the best way. Often i get the first blood, when the enemies invade our jungler and it's about a few points of health to kill them, but they are out of range. As Twitch's basic attack uses his passive Deadly Venom you can use Expunge to make "enormous" damge in early game. I recommend to max it as soon as possible, and so do you with your ult Spray and Pray.
It may be important to have Ambush skilled soon, so you can hide but in my opinion that is not necessary. If you need to flee because you are under attack it takes too long to get invisible and to get the bonus of attack damage it is not necessary unless you don't have any runes or masteries or something. The reason why i skilled Venom Cask as second is that it is good to harass enemies and you can use it in combination with Expunge. This combination is great to harass and get some kills in early game. Really great is the use of Ambush to get to the right position and use the combination above.

As always it depends on the match. You may be forced to skill Ambush earlier as an escape or something, when you are countered on your lane, or the enemies' jungler babysits your lane and so on. But normally you are good with the sequences i made.

Spray and Pray

I made a special chapter for your ultimate skill to explain it in detail. You may realised that your ultimate grants you more damage and range, but may did not realise the awesomeness of this skill. This is one of the points why i love Twitch so much. Spray and Pray sustains Twitch enormous. With that range you are able to save kills when enemies hide unter their turret, to kill a turret with low life etc. You are also able to kill champs while attacking other champs because of the penetration. As i said above it's a great combination with Ambush as you can walk to your enemies unseen and kill them from behind or do a turret or an inhibitor backdoor. I really recommend you to max your ultimate skill as soon as possible (6,11,16)!

As we now know how to build and how to skill we need to know how to play, so we can use our OPness to take another win! Obviously i divided this chapter into three parts: "early game", "mid game" and "late game". Let's see why:

Early Game

After my first hundred of games with Twitch i thought you have to play an aggressive early game to get fed as soon as possible, but recently i realised how wrong i was. You play very defensive and stay safe. Just get your minion's last hits and get a good cs, don't try to force kills on the opponents. They may try to take you out, just poke them and run into safety. It well be very annoying for them not to get kills and same is for you, but trust me, it's the best way. Make sure you have enough lane stability and prevent ganks, it doesn't matter that you have no kills as long as you have no deaths. Your CS is most important in this part of the game. Hopefully you started with buying a Stealth Ward (to preven ganks if your support did not buy wards or had to recall because he startet an attack), Doran's Blade and Health Potion so you have enough lane durability. What does that mean? That means that you can stay extremely long in your lane. From time to time you poke your opponent laner with a Venom Cask or a basic attack and then use expunge, but stay safe at any time. They have to recall once and so have you. But try (don't force it, if it's necessary, do a recall) to recall first time when you are able to buy Bloodthirster. And take as many Health Potion with you as possible. They grant you the lane durability you need, if they jungler and the laner try to take you out. Hug your turret and keep last hitting.
But now as you have your Bloodthirster you can play a littlebit more aggressive, but don't commit suicide, even if support and/or jungler harass you with that.
Soon you are possible to buy Blade of the Ruined King. This will help you much, as it grants you more needed attack-speed and damage+lifesteal. If you have this half core-build you can start pushing.

Mid Game

As i said before: Time to push! Well, not hardly but you start more intensive harassing now. Try to force your opponent laner out of the lane or even to get a kill, if it's possible (they will be annoyed of your safe play so they are going to play aggressive too). Time for your combo: Ambush, get behind them, Venom Cask and maybe Ignite, some basic attacks and if they try to get out use your expunge to secure the kill. If they have an escape or use flash, use your Spray and Pray to secure this kill with safe range (so you don't have to suicide because you hug their turret). Often you don't need your Spray and Pray because you are fast and have good damage, so your Ambush, which grants you attack-speed sustains you enough in combination with expunge and they have a longer way to flee when you went behind them. But be careful, try not to die, don't even by their support. It's not bad if the support gets the kill but it's a disadvantage for you because you can't farm and push. Have that in mind before you start your attack.
Now you should be able to take their turret down, if not, keep farming. High CS with 0 D = Win. You should be possible to buy Infinity Edge soon and hopefully you can buy your Phantom Dancer at the same time. As soon as you have got your core-build complete your time has come. It will be easy for you and your support to dominate the lane and push it to their inhibitor, even if their jungler starts babysitting now. Always stay safe, there is no reason for commiting suicide, if necessary call for help by your jungler.
It will be quite different if you are attacking their inhibitor-turret. You will recognise that it's easily to take down a turret with your attack-speed and damage and that you won't need more Health Potion because you can full up your life with killing minions. But as you are attacking their inhibitor-region their team will see how OP you are and they will try to save the lane with their whole team. Maybe it's worth that you die once for the turret so the inhibitor is free to take, it depends on you, your team and how the game went until yet. I leave that open to you, you have to judge the situation on yourself. But if you have no deaths it may be worth. But be sure then that you take the turret out!
If you can take out the turret and then their team arrives it is easily to say: Run for your life, use Ambush to get hidden and run! Now that the inhibitor is free to take it is easily for you, don't worry about that, so don't suicide for that.

If you are safe, recall and buy your 2 left items to complete your build. Late Game starts now!

Late Game

This is the part of the game, which is in my opinion most hard to play. I recommend, to fill up your build, the Black Cleaver and the Last Whisper(as i said in a chapter before). You can see why if you scroll to the chapter "items". To make it easy for you i will sum it up shortly: Black Cleaver grants you health and significant damage. Also it grants you armor reduction 5% by dealt physical damage, stacking up to 5 times and as your Venom Cask deals physical damage over time it's easy for you to reach the 25%. This will be sustained by the 10% CD-Redcution, which is also an effect of the Black Cleaver. The Last Whisper is a great addition to your build because it's simply an item morphing you into a shredding-machine. 35% armor penetration + 40 attack damage. Awesome. But you can choose on your own what you build, i made a list of items which are quite useful!

Now the more important things: Play defensive again. Problem with Late Game (for you) is that the AP-Carrys deal enormous damage. Think of Veigar. A standard late game-veigar kills you easily using Baleful Strike 2 times. So what to do?
Imporant is to move as a team. You need your team-tank to eat all the damage and stuns so you and your AP-Carry can hide right behind the tank and shred the opponents to death. This teamfights will be easy to win as long as you avoid stuns and slows. If that happens, you are dead. They will try to focus you and your APC because this both champs are the most dangerous. Same do you. Focus their ADC and APC but make sure you are not alone.
You can push as a team and secure your win.
If your team has not got a real tank (maybe an offtank or attacking machines like Aatrox) try (as a team!) to take out enemies one by one and avoid teamfights because your whole team is squishy then and you will lose the fights. Taking them one by one or using traps is a good way to secure your win without having a tank.

Another option and reason for the title of this guide: Backdooring.
We have to split this up:
1. If the situation is like this chapter, their inhibitor is free to take. What do you do? You go through the jungle and a few metres before you reach the inhibitor you use Ambush to get invisible and increase your attack speed. Keep invisible until you reach the inhibitor and then attack it. It will take a few seconds until it's down, no problem for you. Just ignore the minions, they take time you could spend better. If the enemies are far away from their base, push it. Attack (with your minions, don't spend a Spray and Pray for that!) the turrets of their nexus, you will see it is quite easy to secure the win. It often happens that they don't even realise if they are pushing hard, but if they realise, become invisible and run. Move as a team again and if necessary you can backdoor again. Step by step.
Another situation could be, that you did not destroy the inhibitor-turret in mid game. No problem, you can backdoor it as well, just as you would do with the nexus-turrets above. Go with a minion wave and push on your own. But always be careful! Have a look on the map how many enemies you see and where they are, they will recognise your pushing more easily and give you a team-gank. That is a death and not worth. The qualitys of Twitch as a backdoor are enormous. With your Ambush you can easily enter or leave areas (fights are harder to leave because the time until you are invisible is much longer if you took damage) so you are suddenly in a situation which is critical for your enemies, especially if they need time until they can defend. This skill also makes it easy for you to roam and secure some kills, because you won't be seen by Stealth Wards. Use it wisely.

Countering ADCs:

There are some ADCs you don't want to meet in lane playing Twitch. Here are some guys i hate:
Varus, Jinx and Caitlyn.
It is quite obvious why, they have pokes with enormous range and the possibiity to decrease your sustain. Varus has this super-ranged skill and a slow on another skill. Jinx has this super-ranged skill and a snaring(!) on another skill. And Caitlyn is much more dangerous because she has not only a ranged-shot and a snaring, her snaring makes your invisibility useless!
Edit:
I have to update this. Really annoying counters are by the way Corki, because he can make your invisibility useless. Same goes with Caitlyn, as i said before.

Countering Supports:

Some supports i hate on lane playing Twitch are:

Blitzcrank, Alistar and Cho'Gath.
All 3 of them have something in common: They have a skill to knock you airbourne. But my most hated of them is Blitzcrank and i alwas ask for ban in draft pick. He combines his stun with his pull, which is extremely dangerous! Silencing of Cho'Gath and Cure of Alistar aren't as annoying as this pull-stun-combi. Trust me.
I also recommend to ban Leona, not only with Twitch but in general, she is simply OP. Her Stuns make her enormous annoying and her tankyness is quite heavy. Nevertheless she is one of the best supports YOU can have.

I also insert Nidalee here. If you play against a bot lane with Nidalee as support, you're looking bad. Her spear is insane in early game and she pokes you a thousand times in a minute.

So, what support do you take?

When i play an ADC i often get asked which support i want. To be honest, i don't have a favourite supporter, but i prefer supports which have a snare/stun-skill or a pull. Also helpful is a tanky support you eats the damage for you.
Following that, good supports could be: Morgana, Lux and Ryze (because of their snaring) or Blitzcrank and Thresh. Another good choice is Taric. Once i had one (random) as support and it was awesome. His stun is simply amazing. See the full match in the next chapter.

This chapter is contains everything i don't wanted to make a new chapter for and which doesn't fit well in another chapter.

Some General Advices

• Be careful with enemies's turrets, if you attacked recently. Your Deadly Venom can make the turret attacking you!
• Use the penetration of your Spray and Pray in Teamfights, it will help you a lot!
• Use the Range of Spray and Pray to kill enemies from safe range.

Okay Guys,

the really last chapter. First i want to say: Thanks for reading this long guide. I know that i wrote very much and went in detail. Thank you for your time.
I really hope it helped you a littlebit with playing as a Twitch, even if my use of runes is very different to any other player.
You may have seen that this difference is strange but also very strong, use it wisely.

Play a defensive early game, get a good farm and play a strong mid game. You will carry and you will win!

If you play a draft pick / ranked, don't choose Twitch if the enemy has chosen Caitlyn, Jinx or Varus before.

Buy your items dedicated on lifesteal and damage while getting speed by runes!

And at last i recommend you to read other Twitch-guides, too. I saw many good guides which are helpful and well written. Give it a look before playing my guide and think about which guide fits better with you and your style.

Don't hesitate to write me a pm about this guide, what would you do better etc. etc.

So, to finish this guide: Taste of my disease!