Friday, October 30, 2009

Team Composition - Tanks: Initiating and Pulling Aggro

As a tank, you want to take as many hits as possible and live as long as possible. Your job is to be at the front line, the first to go in, and the first to die. I know this may or may not be intuitive, but yes, you want to be the one focused and the first to die. Remember, everything explained here assumes that you are roaming as a group and that your team are following and are preparing for a decisive battle.



As a tank you will be leading the team through the forest. You will be about 1-2 seconds a head of your team while they follow closely behind. In regards to maintaining aggro and tanking hits. Sometimes I think of it as a team effort. Your team has to position themselves behind you so that it is worth while to for them to attack you while your team hits from behind instead of walking past you while you are attacking them. Focusing their main dps will generally cause their team to focus on you. Also you will lead differently depending on which hero you play. For example.



Allistar: you will walk the front lines and the moment you see the other team (assuming you are roaming as 5) you will flash in (if you have it) then pulverive them and push the squishiest hero towards your team. After doing so you will be the only hero in attacking range of 4 of them so they will intuitively focus you. If you do not have flash, you can always just ghost walk and headbutt their tanks back while you and your team go forwards to initiate. Remember after you headbutt you have to choose when you should pulverize. Don't do it automatically. You want to stun as many as possible. So I would usually walk forwards a little into the center of their team before pulverizing.



Amumu: again, your job is to lead. The best way to initiate is to have your team move forwards slightly before and a head of you. You then you flash in and use your ultimate to maximize the 3 seconds of pounding you just set the other team up for. Again, be selective of when you should use your ultimate. Do not use it until your teammates are in range of attacking. Sometimes, I flash in too early or I am tanking their hits. I would tantrum and dispair for a second or two to wait for my team to catch up before I use my ultimate. Remember, Amumu's ultimate does not do that much damage. Its purpose is to disable the other team while yours can pound them. So make a conscious decision when you should ult to maximize that damage. When you do ult them, remember to auto attack and tantrum their carry dps and bandage that champion as your ultimate runs out.



Gangplank: It is kind of unconventional to build gangplank as a tank but it works pretty well. If you are using him as a tank. I wouldn't mind having him be the initiator aswell. You want to run far enough infront of your team so that they focus you usually 2 seconds. You want to keep charging forwards towards their range heros so their melee can follow until they ultimately are all grouped up on top of you then you can use your ultimate.



Malphite: Is sort of like Amumu because of the AOE stun but is different because he is basically flashing and stunning at the same time with his ultimate. The best way to use his ult is to wait for the battle to commence first then go in and focus their dps. This would mean that an off tank has to initiate.



Singed: He is a pretty good initator as well. You can use ghost, boost, and insanity potion to charge in with poison trail and slow one of their squishies and toss them back and run back instantly. This will allow you to pick 1 off and snare/poison the other team if they want to run forwards to save the person that got tossed.

Janna: I like to set her up a little differently. People think of Janna as a squishy hero and that she cannot tank so its almost natural to try and jump and kill her asap. I like to run into a group of 5 a second a head of my team and drop a howling gale before I use my ult to blow 1-2 champions towards my team and the rest back. This will allow my 4 teammates to focus 1-2 champions and kill them quickly. If they focus me while my ult is up I will shield myself while simultaneously use my the gale which has been charging to knock they up in the air and go back behind my team.

There are several different tanks and different ways to initiate but the moral of the story is: If you are the tank, you have to run ahead. This will make the other team focus you. As the tank you want to tank the hits and charge towards their squishies or dps and disable them if you have it. Tanks with AOE disables are:Gangplank, Malphite, Amumu, Janna, Allistar, Rammus, Nunu, Morgana even Singed (Nasus doesn't have an AOE disable but is also an awesome tank).

But as a quick disclaimer, this will only work if your team is together and you plan on being organized. Because if you run in and no one follows up. You will die and the fight will quickly become a 4v5 which will lead to an infinite spiral of death.

Thursday, October 29, 2009

Card Master Guide by Ben



Usually when I see someone at the loading screen and sigh' I know they are good. Ben has the most annoying card master I've ever played against. Enjoy!


[Guide] Twisted Fate - The Card Master


Base Stats - Who cares!


Skill Build
Level 1 - Pick a Card
Level 2 - Wild Cards
Level 3 - Wild Cards
Level 4 - Gate
Level 5 - Wild Cards
Level 6 - Destiny
Level 7 - Wild Cards
Level 8 - Pick a Card
Level 9 - Wild Cards
Level 10 - Pick a Card
Level 11 - Destiny
Level 12 - Pick a Card
Level 13 - Pick a Card
Level 14 - Gate
Level 15 - Gate
Level 16 - Destiny
Level 17 - Gate
Level 18 - Gate
You can swap Wild Cards for Gate at level 3 if you need to heal.


Summoner Spells
Exhaust / Flash


Runes
Red - Armor Pen
Yellow - HP / 18
Blue - Mana Regen / 18
Quint - Static HP (+118)


Masteries
9 / 0 / 21
Offense: 3 in AP, 1 in Exhaust, 4 in Cooldown, 1 in MR Reduction
Utility: 3 in Regen, 2 in Good Hands, 4 in %EXP, 1 in Greed, 3 in Mana Regen, 3 in Move Speed, 1 in Flash, 3 in Cooldown, 1 in last mastery.


Build Order
Meki Pendant
2 HP Potions
Chalice
Sorcerer Boots
Mejai Soulstealer
Elixir of Brilliance (Always have one on)
Sheen
Lich Bane
Zhongya's Ring


Level 1-5

The most important aspect to playing CM well is getting the timing for gold card down. You should be able to do it without even looking at your screen after it turns red. Basically just let it go from blue -> red, and then you need to get the timing for red->gold down without looking. It's pretty easy for me, but if you can't do it 90% of the time, I don't think CM is for you.
After the whole level 1 team fight or dragon or golem/lizard buff, head to a lane!
Harass with gold cards to gauge the damage on them. Don't harass with Wild Cards until it's level 2. Once you're level 3, and you've gauged damage of Gold Cards + Wild Cards, harass them until they will die from Gold Cards + Wild Cards + 2-3 regular hits.
They never expect the gold card + flash combo, I don't know why. But basically:

Lock Gold -> Flash In -> Exhaust -> Stun -> Wild Cards -> Regular Attack
And you'll likely get first blood (You can Exhaust after Stun if you need more hits).
At level 4 you'll probably run low on mana, just try to get 850 gold, so you can grab a chalice + boots when you blue pill to base. If you can't gank anyone, then just gate back to your lane and repeat above until level 6.


Level 6+
Lane until your Gate + Destiny combo is up, and then just notify your team and wait to setup a gank. Lock a gold card, Destiny, Gate behind them, Stun -> Wild Card -> Regular hit, and throw in Exhaust as needed.


In team fights, just try to get in as many gold card stuns as you can. Stay back, throw wild cards, and get gold cards. Don't use regular attacks. How useful you are at this point depends entirely on your gold card timing. As far as farming goes, once you get an elixir, you should be clearing waves with Wild Card.


General Notes
Basically, the more gold cards you land on the enemy during the game, the better you did. That is REALLY all there is to it. Even if it's just for harassment. Landing Gold Card + Wild Card combo for harassment hurts, and is great for farming.

Golem Buff is never a bad idea, it's actually not amazingly useful on CM, but if there's no other caster, go for it.


The reason for AP over DPS is simple. You will be too close to the fight as a DPS. CM isn't a tank, so just hang back, get gold cards, and toss wild cards. Don't go into the fray without a gold card, or a blue/red card if you are going to time into a gold card as you walk in.


If you're attacking a tower, just lock blue card over and over.
CM is also great at jungling once you hit level 5. Just stunlock with gold cards, and spam wild cards. So do get the 2 golems / 3 wolves / 4 ghoul spawn whenever you can.
Also, when you Destiny + Gate to kill someone in a gank, and you can't kill them after a standard combo, don't regular attack. Just start running to / ahead of them until Pick a Card cooldown refreshes. Then lock a gold, and do a 2nd combo from there.


Using Destiny
Aside from gold cards, CM's next best skill is Destiny. Do NOT use it to check vision unless you're 80% sure someone is jungling, and might be low enough for you to Gate in and kill with a Gold Card pre-locked.


Always have a gold card locked before you use destiny.
Destiny is MAINLY used in a team fight. Once you spot a group of enemies, and you're roaming with your teammates, as you pop out of brush / fog, use destiny, and stun with gold card. This lets your team easily engage them, and prevents them from running. It also messes their team fight capabilities, as the tanks won't be tanking, and it will be difficult for champions like Rammus to initiate. Players will also be more likely to mess up which champions to target and the timing of their skill casts.


Basically, casting Destiny right before / during a team fight is the best time.
The only other acceptable time to use it, is during Baron, in order to slow them from reaching you when Baron is almost dead or to stop them from doing Baron. But usually, wards/shrooms are used to prevent enemy Baron.

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Team Composition - Tank Builds Armor/Resist Stacking

My last post I wrote about which are good tanks for teams. In this post I will follow up by explaining what you need to think about when you build a tank instead of an exact item build. I think I've made a similar post in the past about building a tank but I am going to post again about whatever is on my mind even if some of the information is a repeat.

In this post I do not want to get too into specifics with building a certain tank. But rather discuss what you want to think about when it comes to item selections and how to play a tank.

Building a Tank:
The most important aspect of building a tank is survivability and pulling aggro.

First off I want to talk about survivabilty. You want to have a lot of damage reduction because of several factors which I will list.

1. Your support will keep you up. So by having extra reduction you multiply the effects of their spell. Like Morgana/Janna's shield calculates in your reduction before it absorbs damage.

2. Having damage reduction basically increases the effectiveness of the heals cast on you.

3. Having armor is a lot more effective at tanking nashor rather than HP stacking.

Items that gives the most survivability are:
Ninja Tabi, Mercury Threads, Banshees Veil, Aegis of Legion, Guardian Angel, Frozen Heart and other situational items.

As you've noticed I did not mention warmogs armor, which is generally a very good item later in the game but easily overshadowed when you or your team has heals. I just feel that at low level the addition survivability added from armor and magic resist from items such as aegis and guardians angel you get so much more survivabilty. Just simply getting any of the two will increase your survivabilty by about 30%-50%. Then if you factor in heals and shields then the survivabilty goes up a lot more.

Anyhow as the tank you want to focus on how to counter the other teams damage. You want to identify how many casters and how many physical dps's are on the other team and build your tank accordingly. If you see heavy DPS focus more on Tabi, Aegis, GA, Wardeners Mail. If you see a lot of Casters focus on Mercury, Aegis, Banshee, GA. A chalice of Harmony is great if you are mana dependant and want to defend against casters.

Next Time, I will write about how to pull aggro and maintain it.

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Coming Soon - CATourney Champs Video

Tournament Finals Video posted at http://www.solomid.net/media.htm
Also, an interview with some of the players will be posted.

Team Composition - Tanks

One of my readers asked me about team composition yesterday and asked that I write about it. The 3 important aspects of any successful team is tank/initiator, crowd control, and. I will start off with tanking, then I will move onto crowd control after I have fully covered tanking and so on for dps.

Starting with Tank/Initiator:
You want a champion that can run in there first to take hits and blow cool downs before your dps and crowd controlers come in. While they are blowing their cool downs your dps and crowd controllers can rush in to deal damage and not take hits because the enemies spells are all on cool down.

Champions that falls under the tank sections are: Malphite, Amumu, Sion, Singed, Nunu and Rammus.

If your tank happens to have a good initiating spell like Malphite and Amumu that can stun the opponents team then it is best to rush in simultaneously and pick 1 off instead of having the tank lead. Because Malphite can rush in with his ultimate and as an Amumu you want to carry flash to fully utilize his curse of the mummy ultimate.

Under the tank section: I would definitely always pick an Amumu or Malphite. Also looking at the top 3 teams in the Couch athletics tournament. Every team ran a Malphite and banned amumu. Those 2 tanks are game breaking.

The next post will be about how to build your tank, item wise to maximize survivability.

Monday, October 26, 2009

Taking a break for a day or two, sorry guys

Swamped with mid-terms and work. It's been taking a toll on me this weekend. Gotta man up and study for my mid term thru friday. Then Ill be back in full force.

Saturday, October 24, 2009

Team Aon Round 1&2 Video Compilation



Heres the run down. For round 1 we ran a fun team and there were no real strategy involved. However, for round 2. Our strategy going into this was to just run the characters that we all play be independant of what the other team is doing. What we knew we wanted was definitely a Soraka and Morgana. Heal and shield for the win.

What we did was lvl 1 Ganks near the dragon and golem. We killed 2, then got the golem and went to our lanes. We lanes Soraka(dan)/Kayle(lasthit) vs Amumu Jax Bottom, Anivia(regi) vs Gangplank Mid, and Morgana(dyrus) & Teemo(cheesy) vs Twitch and Maphite.

Oh basic strat was just total lane domination/rune control/dragon control and roaming ganks by 7 minutes. We ran the same set up the second game with the same strat.

New Video - Sun Fire Twitch

Just a fun video Reginald made. Google is still audio swapping if there is no music.

Friday, October 23, 2009

Annie Guide by Dcgreen

Dcgreen’s Annie


This guide is written by Dcgreen. Another one of the players I respect. His guide offers a different perspective to Annie. It goes to show that even among the Pros player she is played differently.

Summoner Spells: Ignite and Flash

Runebook: Nothing is official, I mix and match her runes a lot still looking for something “perfect” but this is what I use for now.

9 static red hp runes
9 static yellow hp runes
9 static blue cooldown redux runes
3 exp +2% runes

Masteries
Offense:
3/3 Archmage Savvy
1/3 Deadliness
4/4 Sorcery
1/1 Archaic Knowledge

Utility:
3/3 Perseverance
1/3 Good Hands
4/4 Awareness
3/3 Meditation
2/2 Utility Mastery
3/3 Quickness
1/1 Blink of an Eye
3/3 Intelligence
1/1 Presence of the Master

Skills:
Disintegrate
Incinerate
Disintegrate
Incinerate
Disintegrate
Tibbers
Disintegrate
Incinerate
Disintegrate
Incinerate
Tibbers
Incinerate
-15. Molten Shield
16. Tibbers
17.-18. Molten Shield

Levels 1-6
Buy Regrowth Pendant
Call solo mid, you want to be in a lane that is most likely going to have the fewest heroes and no grass. This also maximizes the effects of your leveling runes.
Use Disintegrate to farm as best as possible. It costs 0 mana if you get the last hit on a mob with it, a lot of people don’t know this even though its in the tooltip.

Harass your opponent as often as possible, the more damage you do without spending mana the better.

Every 5th spell you get a stun, use it on your opponent via disintegrate and then follow up with some autoattacks to maximize damage. Levels 1-5 you are basically buttering up your opponent to kill at lvl 6. If they are not smart and you can get a pre lvl 6 kill go for it.

When you get 640g go back to base and finish your philosophers stone and go back to your lane. This is to maximize the 5g/10s you get from it.
Don’t forget to use flash and incinerate.

If Tibbers is still alive after your first gank use him to clear your side or the opponent’s golem. You will be at the 40% cooldown cap thanks to masteries and runes. Plus you have infinite mana.

You want to continue farming your lane but also assisting the other lanes with ganks. You have crazy burst and excess levels because you are the solo. Get energized from farming in your lane and go assist top or bottom by initiating with your stun.

Get boots as your second item, upgrading them isn’t necessary right away.
Start building Mejai’s Soulstealer, this item is crucial to Annie and should be crafted asap.

Depending on the composition of the team you will make your boots into either Ninja Tabai or Mercury Treads. Annie is a squishy hero and you need to up her defenses and giving up 25ap on her boots is an easy way of doing this.
Next item to make is Rod of the Ages. This is a boring ass item but you need the extra health and mana to boost your defenses.
Keep Ganking people.

Levels 13-18
Your ap should be between 150-200, your health should be 1500-2000.
Keep snagging the golem buff everytime you can for the mana and cd redux.
In team battles it is important you let your tank initiate, never yourself because you are squishy.

Keep Molten shield on because you WILL get targeted.
Try and be energized before the battle begins so you can drop a Tibbers with a stun and really fuck some ones day up. Proceed to target the main assist and hit him with Disintegrate followed by Incinerate hitting as many people as possible.
Start itemizing for defense if you are getting heavily targeted in team battles. My favorite item for this is frozen heart.

If you are being allowed to burn everything alive itemize for more ap via Zhonyas. The main points to remember with Annie is that you have infinite resources to farm so you should never be under geared. You do the most burst damage in the early to mid game so take advantage of your stun for initiation, flash for chasing, and aoe for multiple target ganks. You can stop whole pushes with just Incinerate. When your team is pushing a tower you don’t do a lot of damage to them so it is best to go ahead and stop the next creep wave with your spells or to ward off defending heroes. If played right they will be afraid of you. Get the Deathfire Grasp when they reimpliment it, if they have a lot of tanks.

CouchAtlethics Tournament - Round 1

Tournament brackets are updated @ Solomid.net

Thursday, October 22, 2009

Blitzcrank Guide - by Korean

Blitzcrank




Summoner spells: Teleport/Flash or Teleport/Exhaust

You should always grab Teleport while playing Blitzcrank. There will be many times where your teammates will be fighting, and you will have the opportunity to teleport in and help out with Power Fist.

Flash is also a great summoner spell to get. You can flash in an initiate with a power fist. You can flash out to try to escape. Or flash in to power fist someone running away.
And some more advanced techniques would be flashing away, and grabbing them towards your tower/allies.

Exhaust is another option. If you are the more aggressive player, exhaust can help you and your teammates score that first blood. Later on as you reach Power Fist
level 5, exhaust + power fisting can keep your enemy by your side almost indefinitely. Exhaust is great for ganking.

Runes:
Marks- +Mana at level 18.
Seals- +Mana at level 18.
Glyphs- +Mana at level 18.
Quintessence- +Mana, or +Exp, or +Hp regen. Take advantage of these Quintessences early game. So grabbing the +Mana (not the level 18 ones), or exp boost,
or Hp regen can really make a huge impact on early-mid game. All 3 work well, and all depends on personal preference.

I believe runes are the most important thing that you can put on a Blitzcrank. They play the biggest impact on how a Blitzcrank can operate throughout
the game. And I have found that stacking mana runes will make you extremely hard to kill. And give you the mana pool that you need early game to spam Grabs.
I've tried various rune builds, cooldown builds, dodge builds, regen builds. Stacking mana seems to be the most effective. By level 18, runes alone
will net you somewhere near +800 mana. The reason why this is so effective is because of Blitzcranks passive. He forms a shield with his mana when he gets low
on hp. Having a large mana pool will allow you to stay at low hp for a long period of time, because people will be draining your mana instead of your hp. And just
natural player instinct, when you see low HP, you will aim for it. Little do they know, that youre still really hard to kill. While enemies are trying to get the
last hit on you, your teammates will be killing them. This is my personal little secret to get the edge on other Blitzcranks. And I might regret sharing this!

Masteries: 9-0-21

9 Points in Offense tree.
0 Points in Defense tree.
21 Points in Utility tree.

Get the extra cooldown reduction!

Skills:
Q - Rocket Grab
W - Overdrive
E - Power Fist
R - Static Field

1) Q or E. Depends on what your teammates want to do. E for early ganking (first blood). Q for regular laning.
2) Q or E. Whichever skill you didn't get for your first skill.
3) E.
4) Q
5) E.
6) R
7) E
8) W
9) E
10) W
11) R
12) W
13) Q
14) W
15) Q
16) R
17) Q
18) W

This is my personal skill order. W (Overdrive) comes in handy in a lot of situations. The extra speeed boost can help you get close to enemies to power fist.
Or to chase, and run away.

Items :

1) 1 Sapphire Crystal, 2 health pots.
2) Sapphire Crystal turns to Sheen
3) Boots of swiftness

This will be your cookie cutter build. A Blitzcrank with sheen is extremely effective. Once you have your sheen you should be trying to gank enemies.
Boots of swiftness is highly effective with Blitz as well. Topped off with his Overdrive skill, you can escape most situations. From here on, there
are a few ways to build a Blitz. But he should ALWAYS be built as a Tank/Support.

So take a look at your enemies champions. Your worst enemy is probably Veigar due to the rune build. If this is the case, try to get a Banshees Veil
asap. If the enemies teams' dps is mainly casters. Get magic resist. Banshees veil, Aegis, and Guardian Angel. However, if your enemies team is physical.
I'd suggest, Frozen heart, Aegis, and Guardian Angel.

My favorite item on Blitz is Frozen heart. It's cheap and effective and allows your Power Fist cooldown to be imba.

Keep in mind, mana is your friend!


How to play :

During the early game, I try my hardest to farm as fast as I can for the sheen. However, if your laning partner wants to be aggressive, then support him with your
grabs and your power fists. If not, then continue farming. Remember to use Blitzcranks power fist to farm mobs. You will deal double damage, so if you're having trouble last hitting, use this skill.

Concealing yourself in brush is a good strategy for Blitz. Grabbing people from brush so that you and your partner can jump on them gives you a huge advantage
early game. Also, try to use brush to your advantage. If you have a hero chasing you, run into some brush. Wait for them. When they get to you, power fist them in the air. And then resume
running. Continue to do this until you get away.

I don't think mindlessly rocket grabbing is a good idea. It has a pretty long cooldown for a regular skill, so I try to use my best judgement as to when would be
a good time to grab. Such as, when they are getting near your tower. Grabbing them to your allies. And most importantly grabbing when the enemy is running away.
Do not rush yourself when they are running away. Take your time. Most players will try to juke you out for the first few seconds, and then they'll walk a straight line. This will be your
opportunity.

Blitzcranks role is to support. Hopefully you are not forced to be the main tank. He can most definitely play the main tank role though if need be. When there is a group fight I will always try to run into the center and use his ult. And I try to stick onto the DPSer with Blitzcranks power fist.

It'll take some time to practice his play style and push his limits.

A good tip to keep in mind is to spam his E about halfway through the cooldown. You'll see the cooldown bar resetting but you can actually cast his E about
1 second faster than the cooldown bar actually shows. When I am chasing someone, I will constantly spam E with my left finger while right clicking on the enemy.

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Clan AoN is Scrimming Riot Designer Team

Clan AoN will be scrimming the Riot Designer Team Sunday October 24 @ 2PM PST. We will covering the match afterwards via this blog and solomid.net. Videos will be posted shortly aftwerwards.

Karthus Guide by Reginald

Karthus- The Deathsinger




Summoner Spells:
Teleport
Flash

Rune book:
Nine Greater Marks of Resilience
Nine Greater Seals of Evasion
Nine Greater Glyphs of Insight
Three Quintessence of Fortitude

Masteries:

Offensive Tree:
3 points into Archmage's Savvy
1 point into Deadliness
4 points into sorcery
1 point into Archaic Knowledge

Defensive Tree: None

Utility Tree:
1 point into Spatial Accuracy
3 points into Perserverance
4 points into Expanded mind
2 points into Utility mastery
3 points into Meditation
3 points into Movement
1 point into Blink of an Eye
3 points into Intelligence
1 point into Presence of the Master

The Beginning:
1x Sapphire Crystal
2x Health Potion

Skill Build
Level 1: Lay Waste
Level 2: Defile
Level 3: Lay Waste
Level 4: Wall of Pain
Level 5: Lay Waste
Level 6: Requiem
Level 7: Lay Waste
Level 8: Defile
Level 9: Lay Waste
Level 10: Defile
Level 11: Requiem
Level 12: Defile
Level 13: Defile
Level 14: Wall of Pain
Level 15: Wall of Pain
Level 16: Requiem
Level 17: Wall of Pain
Level 18: Wall of Pain

How to use Lay Waste: Usually when lay wasting an opponent you must decide whether they are going to be offensive ( attack you) or defensive ( run away). After deciding whether they are running or not, you lay waste them depending on their course of action. The next thing a good karthus must know is the map and its surroundings. Try to imagine the pathing and the quickest way of escaping as if you were the one being focused by a Karthus. Never laywaste on top of an opponent, unless they are stunned. Always time 1 second ahead of their pathing and cast Lay waste at that point. Also when last hitting creeps, try to aim the Lay Waste at the side of a creep where your Lay Waste would only hit 1 creep. Doing so will make your damage do twice as much, making it very easy to last hit. Not only will it be easy to last hit, the lane will not be pushed as much. Keeping the lane on your side will make it harder for enemy champions to gank you and easier for your team to gank them.


Wall of Pain: Wall of Pain is a very good spell in all circumstances, offensively and defensively. This spell helps your magical damage take much more due to the reduction of magic resist. When using Wall of pain, try to use it in positions where your opponent does not see the wall. Doing so will increase your chances of killing an opponent. When an unexpected attack happens to an enemy champion, they would have a slower reaction than when they know it is coming. This spell is usually used for karthus to stand around a range of 200-300 (about half of max range) from their enemies. At that range it is perfect because ; Melees must take time to turn around and focus karthus, Karthus's Defile is also hitting his enemies aswell as lay wastes.


Defile: This spell is a very good AoE, but very mana inefficient. Usually this spell is used later in the game, or when Karthus gets the Ancient Golem buff. In many cases Karthus players usually forget to turn off defile, always keep an eye on your defile and toggle it off as soon as the enemy champion is out of range. In my experiences, i have seen many karthus's forget to turn defile off, therefore making them unable to kill their opponents due to lack of mana. Getting golem for Karthus's defile is a must. Always have a lookout for when Ancient golem is up. Keep track of the respawning time of the Ancient and kill it when it respawns. The respawn time is 5 minutes. With the Ancient Golem Buff, Karthus is very strong. The buff increases his farming ability, ganking ability and reduces his Requiem drastically.


Requiem: This spell is very straight forward, it deals a certain amount of damage per its level to all enemy champions on the map. However I see Karthus's miss kills daily, due to them not factoring in magic resist. Always expect Karthus's ultimate to take around 4/5's of the spells full damage or even less. Using this spell to its fullest potential, the Karthus must know how much magic resist the enemy champions have and estimate how much the requiem is going to deal. Magic resist has the same effect as armor, so if calculated briefly, it will be very easy to know when to cast Requiem for it to kill an opponent.


Builds on Karthus:

Tank Build-
Items to get in this order:
Tears of Godess
Ninja Tabi
Catalyst the protector
Rylai's Scepter
Turn Catalyst into Rod of Ages
Tears into Arcangel's Staff
Guardians Angel
Zhonya's Ring

End game items: Ninja Tabi, Arcangel's Staff, Rods of Ages, Guardian's Angel, Zhonya's Ring, Rylais Scepter.


Recommended Build
Ganking/ All out Damage build:
Items in this order:
Tears of Godess
Boots of Swiftness
Mejai's Soulstealer
Catalyst the protector
Turn Catalyst into Rod of Ages
Tears into Arcangels Staff
Guardians Angel
Zhonya's Ring
End Game items: Boots of Swiftness, Arcangel's Staff, Mejai's Soulstealer, Rod of Ages, Guardian's Angel, Zhonya's Ring

Tips:
Always look out for Ancient Golem Buff.
During team fights, be the second person to initiate after the tank.
Dont be scared to die.
When you are killed, Turn on your defile.
Don't cancel your ultimate on accident.
After getting Guardian's Angel, play really aggresive when its up. Sometimes even initiate. Use your flash to initiate and use wall of pain to slow them.

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Items that wins games

Doran Shield - 435 G
+130 Health
+9 Armor
+8 Health Regen/5 seconds

This item is one of the best items to start with as a tank instead of a health pendant if you are not going to combine the health pendant into a higher tier item anytime soon. The armor and health gives additional survivability far pass what the extra regen the health pendant offers.

Aegis of Legion - 1925 G
+285 Health UNIQUE Aura:
+35 Armor / +40 Magic Resistance / +8 Damage to nearby allied champions.

This is a good item in any game becaues it has and aura that benefits the entire team! Generally your whole team will not stack armor or MR and will live off the base Armor/MR for the first 30 minutes of the game. The 40 magic resist your teammate gains from the aegis could me an 18-19% extra spell damage reduction. Additionally, the 35 armor will mean a 10-15% extra physical damage reduction.

Starks Fervor - 2700 G
+20% Attack Speed UNIQUE Aura:
Gives nearby allied Champions 20% Lifesteal, 25% Attack Speed, and 30 health per 5 seconds regenerated. Reduces the Armor of nearby enemy champions by 25.

This is best used on teams with a lot of physical dps. It will maximize the carrys dps and survivabilty at the same time furthering the dps by reducing the enemies armor by 20. I usually rush a starks when we have a team of 3 or more physical dps.

Frozen Heart -
+110 Armor 500 Mana UNIQUE Passive:
Reduces ability cooldowns by 25% and reduces the attack speed of nearby enemies by 25%

A solid item against a team full of physical dps and is great for players that are cool down and armor dependant. Counters the starks fervor.

Guardian Angel -
+75 Armor +30 Magic Resistance UNIQUE Passive: Revives your Champion upon death, restoring 50% of their health and Mana, this effect can only occur once every 5 minutes

Perfect Item for any tank. You run in you make players burst all their cool down, then you come back to fight. It also greatly improves your damage reduction so you can tank for a lot longer and better. A cool champion to use this with is Morgana. If she has a guardian angel, her ult will still proc when she is reviving. Also you can use your teleport in the time that you are reviving to exit ganks.

Videos are down due to too much complaints

The devs haven't said anything, but to appease the trolls I have taken them off temporarily.

Monday, October 19, 2009

Amumu and Kathas Video

Karthas and Amumu video by Reginald and Last Hit Magic. Its just a video of some good combos and micro skills. Leave some comments on what you think.

Soraka - How to Lane Soraka

In this post I will briefly show and explain to you how I lane my soraka. An important thing to note is that I play my soraka very agressively due to the survivability from her heal and her magic resist passive.


First-off, the thing I like to do the most is to get golem at level 1 with her star call ability. The ancient golem buff will increase her spam power to heal and deal damage. This also allows me to not get mana infusion as my second spell.

The next thing I like to do is to run past the creeps and harass other champions to prevent them from getting last hits and if I can push the far back enough to deny them exp.

The two summoner's spell I have is heal and ghost walk. It allows me to heal bait champions and dance around them while I starcall at the same time hunt other champions down. As a last resort it will allow me to escape and exit the battle.

Sunday, October 18, 2009

Instant Teleport - Card Master Video

This is the same post as before. However, this time I've included a video on how to do it.



How to:
Its very simple. Just throw wild cards and teleport immediately. You want to do it while cardmaster is still doing the throwing animation. The completion of his attack animation forces the completion of his teleport channeling. It will take a few times to get the timing right.

This is a pretty cheap exploit because card master can enter a fight instantly anywhere on the map and leave instantly without dying.

Pro Tip - Annie Solo Ancient Golem

*DOESN'T WORK ANYMORE DUE TO GAME CHANGES*

Often times when Annie reaches level 6 she will charge up pyromania so she can roam and gank. What happens after you've finished your gank and still have time on your tibbers? One thing that most pros do is to use Tibbers to control the Elder Lizard or Ancient Golem Runes.

How to - Use alt to control Tibbers to go to any of the 4 runes on the map. Move Annie behind the walls of of the neutral mobs while running Tibbers to them directly. When you do that, Tibbers will immolate the creeps and they will try to target your champion. However, your champion will be safely on the other side of the wall. Tibbers will give you vision of the mob at the same time immolating it.

Saturday, October 17, 2009

League of Legends Guide - Annie by Reginald

Annie- The Dark Child
Also available at http://www.solomid.net/news and http://www.solomid.net/strategies.htm


Runes:
Nine Marks of Greater Resilience
Nine Seals of Greater Evasion
Nine Glyphs of Insight
Three Quintessence of Fortitude

Masteries:

Offensive Tree:
3 points into Archmage's Savvy
1 point into Cripple
4 points into Sorcery
1 point into Archaic Knowledge

Defensive Tree: None

Utility Tree:


1 point into Spatial Accuracy
3 points into Perseverance
4 points into Expanded mind
2 points into Utility mastery
3 points into Meditation
3 points into Movement
1 point into Blink of an Eye
3 points into Intelligence
1 point into Presence of the Master

Pregame Items:
Sapphire Crystal
Health Potion x 2

Leveling Skills:
Level 1: Incinerate
Level 2: Disintegrate
Level 3: Incinerate
Level 4: Disintegrate
Level 5: Disintegrate
Level 6: Summon: Tibbers
Level 7: Disintegrate
Level 8: Incinerate
Level 9: Disintegrate
Level 10: Incinerate
Level 11: Summon: Tibbers
Level 12: Incinerate
Level 13: Molten Shield
Level 14: Molten Shield
Level 15: Molten Shield
Level 16: Summon: Tibbers
Level 17: Molten Shiled
Level 18: Molten Shiled


Level 1: Incinerate
Adding a skill point into incinerate is very useful to the team because it is the deciding factor of an early team battle.

Tip: At level one add a skill into incinerate, and energize pyromani at the Reviving point. Doing so, you will acquire an AoE stun for 1.75 seconds by the 30 seconds mark. This very useful because in upper-level play, there will always be an early battle at dragon, Ancient Golem, or Ancient Lizard. Take advantage of Annie's AoE stun and grab First-blood. First blood at level 1 is very advantageous because the bonus 400 gold from that kill is equal to 20 creep kills and will help you outlane the enemy with the extra items bought.

Annie's Specialty: Annie is the type of hero that does massive burst damage and can easily kill an enemy champion within seconds of combat. Taking the Solo lane for Annie is the best decision in most cases. She is a very good ganker early and middle game. If she had farmed correctly she can be very powerful late game as well. Annie is the type of hero that is useful all-game, and especially devastating early game.

How to Lane: To dominate with Annie early game, it takes a very aggressive play-style but at the same time very passive. When Annie is Energized, play aggressive. When Annie is not Energize stay back to charge her stun. By level 2 you should take advantage of her Disintegrate. Constantly last hit creeps with Disintegrate to Energize yourself. When Energize is up Stun the opponent with Disintegrate and then Incinerate them (Offensive). Afterwards resume your passive play, back up and last hit creeps with Disintegrate to charge up your stun. (passive). When your Energize is up, follow up with another Disintegrate and Incinerate. Repeat the process until you think the hero is killable. Harass them until they are low enough to be killed. If you think you're able to kill them, charge up a stun and use your summoner spells(Exhaust and Flash) to go for the kill. . The trick to Annie is to lower the enemy champions health points enough for the opponent to think they are able to lane without dying, but not lower it enough for them to go back and heal. It is important to remember the opponents summoner’s spells at the preloading screen to gauge what they're capable of, when you are able to do so -- killing an opponent will be easy.

Disintegrate:
This spell is Annie's spammable spell that is mainly used to charge up Annie's stun (early game). It is very good in team fights and does massive overtime as well. In team fights, it is important to focus a target. Some examples of good targets to spam spells on in team fights are ; Ashe, Veigar, Tristana, mainly the paperweight/glass cannon heroes that are not very tanky.

Incinerate:
This spell is very tough to use. I see other Annies miss in battles far too often. Always position yourself behind heroes and cast it from far away. Make sure to always hit 2 or more heroes with your Incinerate.
Tip: When Energize is up, try to use Incinerate to AoE stun their whole team (when you are not Tibbers stunning)

Molten Shield:
Make sure to always use this spell during battle. Not only does it help Annie from taking less damage, but it helps Annie charge up her Energize. Doing this will lower the duration of how long it takes to charge up a stun. During a team fight, an Annie should beable to stun their team 2-3 times.

Summon Tibbers: Not only does this spell do burst spell damage, but Tibbers is very strong as well. The damage Tibbers does is similar to a sunfire cape. A good way to use Tibbers is to use it with Energized. When you are Energized, wait for the enemy team to group up before initiating with Tibbers+Energized. It usually requires flash to hit a good Tibbers stun/ that stuns the majority of the champions on the opposing side. Most Annies forget to use the Tibbers to do damage, however it is very useful. Tibbers can be used for; Tanking towers(while diving), blocking skill shots, and you can even chase with the Tibbers to kill someone that is low( dies to the 40 hp per second burn). To use Tibbers correctly, press Alt then click to move to the desired area. To micro both Annie and Tibbers, press Alt and clicking to move to a target area then letting go and click to move to the target area again. This will make Annie and Tibbers go to the same place. If you are able to follow an Enemy champion while doing that spamming Annie's Incinerate and Disintegrate, the enemy champion is sure to die.

Initiation: There are mainly two ways to initiate with Annie.
1. Wait for your tank to initiate first and wait for their team to gather up. Then initiate with a Tibbers stun. Afterwards, stay back and continue to nuke.
2. Flash on to their carry (ashe, tristana, the hero that does the most damage) Tibber stun, incinerate, disintegrate). With this situation, you need your team to follow up and disable the rest of their team. If not done correctly you will just die.

Option 1 is usually the best, however there are situations where their carry does massive damage and needs to be killed in order to win a team battle. This option allows you to output the most damage through time and constantly disable their opponents if your team is positioned correctly.

Option 2 is very good with a Guardians Angel because, not only does their team waste all of their nukes to kill you, their carry hero is most likely dead due to the massive burst damage Annie causes.

Item builds on Annie:

Cookie Cutter Build (burst damage)
First item: Sapphire Crystal to Tears of Goddess
Second item: Sorcerer's Shoes
Third item: Mejai's SoulStealer
Fourth item: Rods of Ages
Fifth item: Guardian Angel's
Sixth item: Zhonya's Ring

Next, turn your Tears of Goddess into Archangels Staff


Tank/Survivalbility (disable/dps through time)
First item: Tears of Godess
Second item: Ninja Tabi
Third item: Rods of Ages (get Catalyst first)
Fourth item: Guardian's Angel
Fifth item: Banshee's Veil
Sixth item: Zhonya's Ring

Next, turn Tears of Goddess into Archangels Staff

Friday, October 16, 2009

League of Legends Guide - Anivia by Reginald

Anivia- The CryoPhoenix



Summoner Spells:
Teleport
Flash

Rune book:
Nine Greater Marks of Resilience
Nine Greater Seals of Evasion
Nine Greater Glyphs of Insight
Three Quintessence of Fortitude

Masteries:
Offensive Tree:
3 points into Archmage's Savvy
1 point into Deadliness
4 points into sorcery
1 point into Archaic Knowledge

Defensive Tree: None


Utility Tree:

1 point into Spatial Accuracy
3 points into Perserverance
4 points into Expanded mind
2 points into Utility mastery
3 points into Meditation
3 points into Movement
1 point into Blink of an Eye
3 points into Intelligence
1 point into Presence of the Master

The Beginning:

1x Sapphire Crystal
2x Health Potion

Lane: It is very important for Anivia to get the solo lane middle. Anivia is one of the best solo heroes in the game. When playing anivia , the player must play very aggresive and take advantage of her passive rebirth spell. At the early stages of the game, the player using Anivia should always be trading hits with the opponents. It does not hurt to use your egg early in the game. Anivia does massive damage per second when she hits level 6, take advantage of her ultimate and her E. When hitting level 6 , begin to get the Ancient Golem buff ( blue rune). This buff is very useful to Anivia, it helps her farm and gank very well. After getting the blue rune, ask a teammate to take over your solo middle lane and begin to gank. Reaching a fast level 6 means very easy kills for anivia. Make sure to continue to look for the Ancient Golem Buff.

Leveling her Ability:
Level 1 : Flash Frost (Q)
Level 2: Frostbite (E)
Level 3: Frostbite (E)
Level 4: Flash Frost (Q)
Level 5: Frostbite (E)
Level 6: Glacial Storm (R)
Level 7: Frostbite(E)
Level 8: Crystallize (W)
Level 9: Frostbite (E)
Level 10: Flash Frost (Q)
Level 11: Crystallize (W)
Level 12: Flash Frost (Q)
Level 13: Flash Frost (Q)
Level 14: Glacial Storm (R)
Level 15: Crystallize (W)
Level 16: Glacial Storm (R)
Level 17: Crystallize (W)
Level 18: Crystallize (W)

Flash Frost
Adding Flash Frost at level 1 has many purposes such as; Early game ganking, you can use it as a stun and a slow. Another useful way to use it is to stun dragon/lizard early game to reduce damage from your tank. If you happen to engage in a battle before the spawning creeps, Flash Frost can single-handedly help win a battle because of its aoe stun. (Try to aim in the center of their team) They are usually grouped up at the beginning.

Tips on using Flash Frost:
When heroes run up to hit you, their hero pathing is straight. ( Aim at them and be ready to detonate). Always be ready to detonate your flash frost spell. ( Learn the Area of effect that Flash Frost hits). By learning the area effected, Flash frost can be hit even when it comes close to the target. Another way to land your Flash Frost is to set it up with Glacial Storm. Your enemy champion will attempt to run out of your Ultimate with a straight pathing in order to take less damage. Exploiting their fear of your ultimate, you can stun them inside Glacial Storm and constantly spam your Frostbite.

Crystallize
This spell can be used in a defensively or offensively. The purpose of this spell is put the other team in a bad position and mess up their synergy.
Instances where this spell is very useful:
Blocking enemy team from chasing you.
Blocking them from running away.
Trapping hero/heroes by the wall.
Blocking off their carry from doing damage.
Cancelling someones Teleport.

Tips on using Crystallize: Using flash to combo up with your wall is a good idea. For instance, when champions are running away.... flash and block off their escape route, then combo up with your Flash Frost and Glacial Storm.

Frostbite: This spell is Anivia's main offensive spell that outputs the majority of her damage. Basically use Glacial storm and spam Frostbite.
Tips: Initiate with Flash Frost, then cast Frostbite, and then cast Glacial storm.

Glacial Storm: This spell is mainly to setup your frostbite. However this spell does massive damage in team battles due to the fact that it damages every enemy champion that is in the area of effect. ( Make sure to turn off Glacial Storm when it is not effecting enemy champions. Forgetting to do so might lose you a kill or two).

Item Builds:
Begin with Sapphire Crystal and work towards a Tears of Godess.
1st Item: Tears of Godess
2nd item: Sorcerer's Shoes
3rd item: Catalyst the Protector
4th item: Catalyst the Protector
5th item: Transform first Catalyst Protector into a Rod of Ages
6th Item: Transform second Catalyst Protector into Rod of Ages
7th Item: Build Guardians Angel's
8th item: Tears of Godess into Archangel's Staff
9th item: Zhonya's Ring

End game Items: Rods of Ages x 2, Zhonya's ring, Sorcerers shoes, Guardians Angel's, Archangel's staff.
There are many builds for Anivia-- this one is mainly to tank damage, and to take as much damage over time as possible. There are many builds for her and depending on the team she goes against, changing her Sorcerer's Shoes to Ninja tabi may be a good idea.

Pro Tip - Gangplank / Nunu/ Heimerdinger/ Smite

Since the new patch yesterday, a lot of new content has been release and a lot of new game play mechanics were introduced. Heres what you can do with Gangplank, Nunu, Heimerdinger, and Smite.

Gangplank - can raise morale using Heimerdinger's towers. This is beneficial in a teamfight where creeps are not available (in the forest). By Classick.

Nunu - can consume opposing team's turrets for health. It is beneficial in a forest fight because a Heimerdinger will almost always drop a tower.

Heimerdinger - should drop turrets in brushes so range heros have to run into it and take hits before they can target it. Also drop it in common choke points where people would have to go through to gank you for vision (like teemo's mushroom).

Smite - You can smite Heimerdinger's Towers.

Also available at http://solomid.net/news/

Thursday, October 15, 2009

Pro Tip - Using Fortify

One of the best defensive summoner's spell that I frequently use is fortify (usually with a heal). Fortify makes all ally towers invulnerable with a 100% increase in attack rate and added splash damage. Even if it is a good spell, if you do not know when to use it, it is pretty useless. In this pro tip, I will give situations which would be a good fit for using fortify.

I will be dual posting my blog at http://solomid.net/news/ because I recently bought a domain that had wordpress and Wordpress looks amazing.

1. The other team is pushing your tower as 2-5 and your team is ready to defend: Let them crowd around the tower first then have your team use all of your aoe spells and 1 fortify(do not stack them)near simultaneously. Ie: Gangplanks Cannon Barrage, Fiddle Stick's Crowstorm, Amumu's Curse of the Sad Mummy, Janna's Howling Gale, Malphite's Unstoppable Force, and etc. Using your AoE spells will clear all the creeps and allow the tower to dominate the enemies. The two most important part of this is 1. initiation and 2. crowd control. You want to do everything near simultaneous as possible with the exception of stuns to avoid stun stacking (Amumu's ult & Malphites ult). To crowd control is to keep your enemies around the tower so they can take more hits from both your team and your tower.

2. You want to use fortify when people are tower diving. I see too often where people tower dive and get away with very little hit point and a teammate has a fortify up. This would in practice only work if you have teamspeak or ventrilo because calling out a fortify will take too long by typing.

3. Heal Baiting. My most favorite of them all. I generally gauge my hp and will know how many hits I can take before I die. Sometimes people will dive by flash/casting or ghost/casting and take a couple of hits before getting out with a kill. Its a little difficult by it is possible that you can heal as a bullet,spell, or arrow flys at you if your time is good. If getting tower dive happens frequently to you, try saving that heal and fort for crucial moments and it might save you at the same time give you a couple extra kills.

4. You are laning Rammus against a melee hero:
One of the thing I like to do when I play rammus is use puncturing taunt and pull people into tower then fortify. I will stun them when the taunt wears off. An important thing to remember that it only works on melee characters and is best when they run up to last hit a creep just out of or in tower range.

5. You are Allistar. One of the most common technique when using Allistar is to flash in stun your opponent, then push them into tower range. Its imporant that the hero is just out of tower range and the tower is not attacking anything because if it is attacking creeps when you push the champion in it won't switch targets.

WHEN NOT TO USE FORTIFY.

If tower is going to go down anyways. For example your team is scattered and they are going for a base push and the 2nd tower is already low. I suggest that you let the tower fall while you group up and prepare for a fight inside the base with fortify.

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Uncommon Exploit - Dragon Level 1, Take no Damage

I recently had a game with some of the other pros against some other pros to scout out what the competition was like. In that game, my buddy Jackalope specifically choose Blitzcrank to show me something cool. At the 1 minute 36seconds mark we reached the wall behind the dragon and created a box at the kink (corner) where the wall of the dragons den meets the border of the river.

Blitzcrank proceeded to pull the dragon across the wall and then we downed it. When Blitzcrank pulls the Dragon across the wall, it will want to run back [and won't attack you] because League of Legends AI tells all neutral creeps to return to its passive position when it gets a certain distance away from its original spot to prevent it from chasing a hero across the map.

Important things to note:
1. Try this in a practice game first because you will fail the first time.
2. Box the dragon.
3. Leave enough space between Blitz and the wall so the Dragon can actually be pulled across.
4. It can be done with 2 man but the positioning has to be perfect.
5. You have to have a Blitzcrank.
6. You're not the only one who knows about it (whenever I see a blitzcrank I gank their dragon/steal their lizard).

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

How to play against unbalanced teams

A lot of times when you solo queue or play in a premade you would often see a team with 4 magic based damage and 1 physical or 4 physical based 1 magic based damaged champions. What should you do in this case?

In any case you should make a well balanced team of casters, tanks, and dps. Any of the following combination usually works.

3 casters, 1 tank, 1 dps
2 casters, 2 tanks, 1 dps
2 casters, 1 tank, 2 dps

The first important thing is to look at their team composition. Its very intuitive. If you see a team with too much physical damage you get a lot of armor and HP. If you see a team with too much magic resist you get a lot of magic resist and HP.

The next important point is how to build your tank. I generally like to get improved heal as a summoner's spell on all my tanks. In any case you want to get an aegis of legion on your teams tank as an early item. Right after your upgrade boots or even after your level 1 boots.

If you are playing against a team with too many physical dps, I suggest either 1 of the casters or the tank to get a frozen heart. If you have 1 or two in either cases they should both get a sunfire's cape then a guardian's angel or vice versa.

With just the Aegis/FrozenHeart/Sunfire/Guardians, you should be able to piss off any physical damage dependant team.


Next is against a team with too much magic damage. One of the thing that I have and is by far the most underrated tank book among the mid and lower tier levels and more exploited among the high teir level is the +75 magic resist book. I use this book in all cases when I am tanking. Because even physical damage heros have spell damage. Unlike armor, magic resist does not scale like armor as you level.

The first Item I get on my tank is an Aegis of Legion. Again, this Item adds both armor and magic resist to the entire team! The second item should either be a banshees viel or a guardian angel.

Try some of these things out and let me know what you think. Apparently the new hot build is armor and magic resist stacking and HP comes secondary.

Monday, October 12, 2009

Extensive Teemo Guide - By Friend

Guide to Teemo
by Friend


~Index~


Intro... S1
Builds... S2
Tips & Tricks... S3a
The Art of Mushrooms... S3b
Playing Teemo... S4






~Intro (S1)~


This guide covers my favorite ways to build Teemo, techniques and strategies for his skills, and advice on how to synergize well with your team. Having strong core skills (map awareness, team communication, familiarity with strategies, micro, etc) is important to playing any character, but Teemo in particular benefits from it.


Section Summary:


S2 – Item, mastery, rune, and spell builds.
S3a – Useful techniques relating to Teemo's skills, and how to use mindgames to your advantage, as well as useful facts.
S3b – A section all about mushrooms and how to use them.
S4 – Suggestions on how to dominate lanes with Teemo, be a good team player, and similar.




~Builds (S2)~


There are a couple ways I like playing Teemo, but my favorite lately has been physical DPS Teemo. The thing to keep in mind with Teemo is that there are several quite viable ways to play him, and you want to choose the one that best suits your team. If you have good, strong carries played by players you can trust, you should specialize in map control and mushrooms; if you need DPS or carrying power, physical Teemo is a good choice, et cetera.


Always experiment with builds and strategies you find in guides if you think of something. It's a great way to find new stuff, and improve as a player.


Physical DPS


Focuses: Physical damage/Attack speed


A very powerful build for laning and teamfights, but your mushrooms suffer a lot for it. This is generally my preferred way of playing Teemo currently.


Skill Order:


Your passive poison (E) is important to level up early, and a few levels of Blinding Dart (Q) are vital. You want to get 1 level of Move Quick (W) at some point before level 10, but exactly where is up to you, and depends on how the game is going. If you find that you need to escape a lot (ew) or you're chasing down enemies frequently (yay) you'll probably want to get it sooner than later. I suggest it at 4 or 8 usually; you only need 1 level of it in most cases, so just get it when you need it and then max it out last.


1 – (E) Toxic Shot
2 – (Q) Blinding Dart
3 – (E) Toxic Shot
4 – (Q) Blinding Dart OR (W) Move Quick
5 – (E) Toxic Shot
6 – (R) Noxious Trap
7 – (E) Toxic Shot
8 – (Q) Blinding Dart OR (W) Move Quick
9 – (E) Toxic Shot
10 – (Q) Blinding Dart
11 – (R) Noxious Trap
12 – (Q) Blinding Dart OR (W) Move Quick
13 – other skill (probably Move Quick)
14 – other skill
15 – other skill
16 – (R) Noxious Trap
17 – (W) Move Quick
18 – (W) Move Quick


Items:


Berserker's Greaves (920g)
Last Whisper (1,965g)
Madred's Bloodrazor (3,800g)
Guinsoo's Rageblade (2,235g)
Guardian Angel (2,250g)
The Bloodthirster (3,200g) OR player's choice
Total: (13,470g)


If you're feeling squishy, get the Guardian Angel before the Rageblade. Games usually end by the time you're finishing your Guardian Angel in the listed build order; I like getting a Bloodthirster for the extra damage and lifesteal, but you might want to pick up something else if that doesn't seem useful. Doran's Shield is a really surprisingly solid starter item-- gives you a lot of survivability and makes it easier to survive ganks and dominate your lane until you sell it later.


I list the component items for each recipe in the order I suggest getting them, and each stage is for the next item in order.


Starting Items
Doran's Shield (435g)
Health Potion x1 (35g)


1st Stage
Boots of Speed (350g)
Dagger (420g)
Berserker's Greaves (150g)


2nd Stage
Recurve Bow (1,050g)
Long Sword (415g)
Last Whisper (500g)


3rd Stage
Cloth Armor (300g)
Long Sword (415g)
Madred's Razors (500g)


Pickaxe (975g)
Recurve Bow (1,050g)
Madred's Bloodrazors (775g)


4th Stage
Blasting Wand (860g)
Pickaxe (975g)
Guinsoo's Rageblade (400g)


5th Stage
Null-Magic Mantle (400g)
Chain Vest (700g)
Cloth Armor (300g)
Guardian Angel (850g)


After
-If you have lots of money at this point, buy green and red Elixirs while you're saving up for the next item
-Sell Doran's Shield for first component of next item
User's Choice




Masteries:




22/0/8 is a very solid build that helps Teemo's damage and staying power amazingly. Don't forget to switch out the point in Improved Exhaust with something else if you're not using that spell.


Suggested Runes:
+Armor Penetration (All red runes and quints)
+Attack Speed at 18 (9)
+Crit Damage at 18 (9)


Move speed quints are also pretty good. You can emphasize attack speed or crit damage if you like; I prefer a balance, but you might find your playstyle is different.


Summoner Spells:
*Exhaust/Teleport – My favorite combo. Great for 1v1s, teamfights, escaping, chasing, and freedom of movement.
Heal/Teleport – Particularly useful earlygame. Heal is handy for tricking people who think Teemo is weak, and for an extra bit of staying power you might otherwise be lacking.
Flash/Teleport – Can be useful for getting unexpected kills, and escaping situations that are going badly. Standard Flash usage, in other words.


* indicates my standard choice.


Map Control


Focuses: Mana/Cooldown Reduction/AP


Very fun way to play Teemo. Your mushrooms and poison do shittons of damage, and there is no better character or build to make the other team rage at you.


Skill Order:


You might notice that the skill order is the same as in the physical DPS build. It works very well with both styles of Teemo, and I've yet to find a reason to change it. Same notes apply, get Move Quick whenever you feel like you're starting to need more maneuverability. It's more useful to get it at level 4 than with a physical build, because you can start laying mushrooms more effectively with AP, though.


1 – (E) Toxic Shot
2 – (Q) Blinding Dart
3 – (E) Toxic Shot
4 – (Q) Blinding Dart OR (W) Move Quick
5 – (E) Toxic Shot
6 – (R) Noxious Trap
7 – (E) Toxic Shot
8 – (Q) Blinding Dart OR (W) Move Quick
9 – (E) Toxic Shot
10 – (Q) Blinding Dart
11 – (R) Noxious Trap
12 – (Q) Blinding Dart OR (W) Move Quick
13 – other skill (probably Move Quick)
14 – other skill
15 – other skill
16 – (R) Noxious Trap
17 – (W) Move Quick
18 – (W) Move Quick


Items:


Sorcerer's Shoes (925g)
Nashor's Tooth (2,645g)
Rod of Ages
Rylai's Scepter
Zhonya's Ring
Lich Bane
Total:


This certainly isn't the only way (or order) you can build an AP Teemo. It's my preferred way because it gives you early spammable mushrooms, better late-game viability thanks to RoA, slows to help your team from Rylai's, and pretty good AP and damage overall with Z-ring and Lich Bane. Note that I the Amplifying Tome I recommend you buy at the start is used for your Fiendish Codex, not your Sorcerer's Shoes. This is because basic boots + Move Quick is enough to keep you speeding around at this point, and the mana regen + cooldown reduction from Codex is very useful.


Starting Items
Amplifying Tome (435g)
Health Potion x1 (35g)


1st Stage
Boots of Speed (350g)
Meki Pendant (390g)
Fiendish Codex (420g)


2nd Stage
Amplifying Tome (435g)
Sorcerer's Shoes (140g)


3rd Stage
Dagger (420g)
Faerie Charm (180g)
Stinger (300g)
Nashor's Tooth (500g)


4th Stage
Ruby Crystal (475g)
Sapphire Crystal (400g)
Catalyst the Protector (450g)
Blasting Wand (860g)
Rod of Ages (850g)


5th Stage
Blasting Wand (860g)
Amplifying Tome (435g)
Giant's Belt (1,150g) – switch this with Blasting Wand if you're dying a lot
Rylai's Scepter (700g)


6th Stage
Blasting Wand (860g)
Blasting Wand (860g)
Sage's Ring (975g)
Zhonya's Ring (1,000g)


7th Stage
Amplifying Tome (435g)
Sapphire Crystal (400g)
Sheen (425g)


Blasting Wand (860g)
Null-Magic Mantle (400g)
Lich Bane (950g)


Masteries:




9/0/21 is my 'classic' mastery build for many champions, Teemo included. There are probably a few ways you might want to customize this, and I usually rotate a few slots (take out Good Hands, try Greed, get Improved Flash, get Presence of the Master, etc) depending on what I feel like trying. If you're using a build with Ignite, be sure to get the Improved Ignite spell in the Offense tree.


Suggested Runes:
+Cooldown Reduction (9)
+Mana at 18 (9)
+AP at 18 (9)
3 Quints in 1 of the 3 above


You might also want to try move speed quints.


Summoner Spells:
Heal/Teleport – Again, useful for tricking enemies when they're sure they have you. It's particularly useful on AP Teemo, I find, because it means you can kite enemies a little more dangerously-- run closer to them and get them to extend much farther then they would if they thought you had more HP, etc.
*Exhaust/Teleport – All sorts of fun things you can do, as usual. Mushrooms + Rylai's slow Blinding Dart + Exhaust while keeping up with Move Quick means you can do a surprising amount of slowing.
Ignite/Teleport – Recent strategy that popped up which looks interesting. Grabbing ignite and the Improved Ignite mastery lets you stack quite a lot of AP at level 1, and harass very effectively.
Clairvoyance/Teleport – For full map control. When someone trips your mushrooms, such as at dragon, you can drop a clairvoyance to see if they're luring you or actually doing something. Personally I don't use it very often, since I don't like losing out on effectiveness in fights, but it is viable.


* indicates my standard choice.


~Tips & Tricks (S3a)~


This section covers some useful stuff you can do with your various abilities, and things you can do to make your abilities help your team overall, as well as various factoids of information about Teemo that will help you improve your game. Mushrooms have their own section (S3b) which deals specifically with placing mushrooms effectively, but there are several tips that include mushrooms in the main section.


General


Playstyle Tip: Mindgames are a big part of playing Teemo, as you'll see throughout this and the next section. Learning how players of different levels (newbie, idiot pub, smart pub, high-level) react and plan in various situations means you can anticipate their actions, and counter them sometimes before they've even acted. Player psychology is very important; you will not regret making a study of it.


Map Control Tip: Keep track of your mushrooms. If the mushroom you had at dragon disappears, then alert your team as soon as you notice. Your team will usually notice if an enemy champion runs near or trips a mushroom, but it never hurts to ping the map as well. Mushrooms aren't things you fire and forget; they're active things you need to notice and tally as part of playing Teemo.


Blinding Dart


Strategy: Blinding Dart & Exhaust
This skill and summoner spell make an excellent pair. Combo'ing them has two primary uses:


In teamfights, you can lock down the primary carry first with one then the other to disable their damage output for a sizable chunk of the fight. Alternatively, if they have two high damage champions, you may cast Exhaust on one and Blinding Dart on the other simultaneously (or wherever is appropriate in the course of the fight, for example to save a dying teammate), and lock down two enemies at once.
In 1v1 fights, I like using Blinding Dart right away (so it's on cooldown and will be up while the fight is hopefully still going), and then letting the enemy hit me for a few seconds before I use Exhaust. The reasoning is pretty simple: letting them hit me a little lulls them into a false sense of security, and makes them greedier for the rest of the fight because I appear to be weaker. Slamming Exhaust on them when they think they're winning usually catches them quite off-guard, and sometimes makes them run just because you cast it. Try to use it when they're low enough you're pretty sure you can kill them by chasing them down, or when you're pretty sure that you're not going to win.


Ganking Tip: Blinding Dart does NOT apply your passive poison when it hits. If there's a case where you think your Blinding Dart will kill someone, try to auto-attack them once first to apply your poison and then Blinding Dart them. This usually means that your poison will finish them off even if your Dart couldn't.


Harassing Tip #1: Blinding Dart has great range, and is useful for harassing enemy champions. Be careful not to overdo it, though, and always try to save at least 150~ mana in reserve in case you're unexpectedly ganked, or have a chance to grab a kill that only your Dart will secure.


Harassing Tip #2: One of the other useful features of Blinding Dart is that it's pretty good at fucking up someone who's trying to last hit. Try and time your shot so that it'll prevent them from getting a creep kill they expect to get, and throw them off momentarily. By doing this, you might convince them that you'll keep doing it in the future, and make them play more defensively than they otherwise would.


Move Quick


Obvious Tip #1: If you're hit while Move Quick is activated, you get knocked out of it, and Move Quick goes on a 6 second cooldown. Don't activate it when you're attacking an enemy champion and there are enemy ranged creeps nearby, because they'll usually just knock you back out of it right away. The only case I've found where it's useful to activate it anyway is when the other champion is nearly dead, and I just need a 1 second burst of speed to get a last hit on them.


Obvious Tip #2: There's no downside to keeping Move Quick on as much of the time when you're running around the jungle as possible. Always keep an eye on the ability, and make sure you're not using efficiency by not using it when you could. Always activate it when you're fleeing from fights, leaving lanes, or were hit once and knocked out of it, but probably won't be hit again. The corollary to this is that you might want to not activate it right away when fleeing from multiple enemies if there's a chance one of them is going to use a long-range move that will hit you before you get too far away from them anyway. Save it for after it hits you, but be sure to use it then.


Toxic Shot


Warning: If you apply your poison on an enemy champion and get in range of their turret, it WILL aggro you first and foremost, because that counts as actively attacking the enemy champion. Avoid taking unnecessary hits because of this, and hold off harassing when you get near the enemy turret. Note, however, that you can use this to distract the tower while another ally is attacking the enemy champions if they're in greater danger than you are.


Other Warning: Toxic Shot has a nasty way of stealing neutral creeps from teammates who you're helping. Pull off earlier than you think you need to just to be on the safe side. Nothing more fun than explaining to a pissed off Ashe why you have her lizard buff as the first creep wave is spawning. =P


Technique: Poison Spreading
Attack each enemy creep in a wave once to apply your poison to each one, making the enemy wave weaker overall, provide less security for enemy champions, and easier to last hit for yourself and your teammates. Furthermore, poison spreading (or not) lets you control how hard the enemy is able to push; meaning you can set the ones in your lane up for a gank by holding back on your poison for a few waves. Be sure to do this to enemy champions too, when you're able. Snipe them with a poison shot here and there, and you'll notice that they'll quickly start playing more defensively, and give you greater dominance over your lane.


At high attack speeds, it's possible to apply your poison to an entire large creep wave in about 2 seconds, if you're quick about it. The only downside to this technique early on is that you're likely to lose a few last hits because you're busy keeping your poison applied. That's ok. Keeping the enemy pushed back often outweighs the drawbacks.


This trick is a very core element of playing Teemo, and is one of the reasons he can be such a powerful laner. That said, surprisingly few people take advantage of it at all, let alone consistently. Use it.


Kiting


Kiting & Harassing Tip: If an enemy champion is deadset on killing you and you're pretty close to your tower, you can usually turn around and auto-attack once to slap a poison on him while you're running. If you're able to pull this off a few times without taking damage, it's possible to around the gank and make them run. Don't get carried away; unless you're quite confident you can turn it into a kill, play defensively enough to escape.


Teamplay Tip: Remind your teammates that they mushrooms available to kite enemies through. It's no good to have them down if you're the only one utilizing them. Of course, be sure to actually have the mushrooms for them to kite over in the first place; more on that in S3b.


Move Quick Tip: As mentioned above, don't forget you have Move Quick available if you get knocked out of it from damage. You can turn this into a mindgame by leaving Move Quick off for a little while while you're being chased if you have help coming, because the chaser will usually be much greedier if he thinks he can run you down and catch you. The end result, if all goes well, is that they'll overextend more than they wanted to, and die in a countergank.


Ganking


Strategy: Initiating through Kiting
While you're not a very good initiator through traditional means (running in and blowing shit up with massive disable), you can be pretty effective at luring enemies back to your team by engaging solo and kiting them back, preferably through mushrooms. What it takes to get enemies to chase you varies depending on the player, and you can hopefully figure out the required amount of force by observing them throughout the game.


Teamplay Tip: Mushrooms and Teleport
If you have mushrooms positioned to allow backdooring or an effective gank, alert your teammates to that fact at an appropriate time (when you have enough up and with teleport to actually initiate the gank; when backdooring would be a good tactical move, etc). One of your jobs is to keep your team updated on what strategic possibilities they have available through your mushrooms, so be sure to be aware in this role.


Pushing & Defending


Strategy: Clearing Lanes
You have a couple means of clearing lanes quickly available to you by midgame. The effectiveness of each largely depends on your build: mushrooms boosted by high AP rape creeps and you can afford to place them more carelessly; and poison spreading works wonders when you have the high attack speed to make it work via a physical build.
First method is to drop a mushroom on the creep wave near the caster creeps, and make all the creeps continue aggroing you until the mushroom explodes. You then probably want to snipe the creeps that look like they won't die on their own, and move on.
With a physical build, you can efficiently attack each creep once and rotate through the wave until they're all dead. While it doesn't sound as fast as focusing one creep at a time, your poison in conjunction with your high damage make it faster than the alternative when facing large numbers of creeps.


Strategy: Mushroom Tanking
While situational, it's useful to know that turrets prioritize hitting mushrooms before creeps and non-aggressive (not attacking enemy champions) champions. Because of this, you can drop a mushroom within tower range, and the tower will focus it and save you a hit.


Tip: Prioritizing Creeps
When clearing large waves of creeps, spread your poison on caster creeps first, melee creeps second, and cannon creeps third. If you have armor penetration runes, focus cannon creeps down after poison spreading first, because you can shred through their armor most effectively.


Note: Farming with Mushrooms
Creeps that die to your mushrooms give you gold wherever you are on the map. Dropping a mushroom before you leave a lane where creeps walk can net you some extra gold and slow down possible pushes from the other team.


Teamfights


Teamplay Tip: Picking Targets
Effectively choosing targets in a fight is affected by a few factors. One, you should always try to focus-fire the same targets as your team as a general rule. Two, if your team is obviously focusing the wrong target (let's all chase Alistar lololol), then switch to a more appropriate target and try to get your team to follow your lead. Three, if something comes up in the fight that puts your teammate in mortal danger, you should do what you can to save them; but only if doing so does not prevent you from getting more kills than the number of deaths you would prevent.


As far as actually picking and prioritizing targets, you should follow a general order:
I. Carries and the squishiest champions first.
II. Support champions.
III. Tanks and anyone else.


Of course, you are not limited to using Blinding Dart on your primary target; if there's a physical carry your team can't focus for whatever reason, throw an Exhaust or Blinding Dart on them in addition to auto-attacking your team's target. This is usually more beneficial than using it to damage the primary target.


Teamplay Tip: Saving Allies
As Teemo, you have available to you several ways to possibly take focus off an ally, and save them from what seems certain death. Having a trail of mushrooms available for your ally to run through is one, of course, and is covered in greater detail in S3b; in most cases you'll want to employ a bit of psychology and focus-firing to save the day instead.
One approach is simply to start focusing whoever is attacking your vulnerable ally. If you deal sufficient damage at that point in the game, as well as having blind and possibly Exhaust available, you can delay your targeted enemy long enough and deal enough damage to make them strongly reconsider attacking that particular ally. I find especially if you have outrageously high attack speed (in the area of 2+ attacks per second), the visible effect of a player seeing their champion being hit that many times is scarier than the actual damage being dealt. Use that to your advantage, and see if you can scare them away.
Mushrooms are also useful. Try and use Move Quick to get ahead of them (assuming you're not being attacked yourself), and lay a mushroom where your ally is going to run. If the teamfight is relatively stationary, then drop a mushroom nearby, but a little in the direction your team would want to run if they'd retreat. Thus if the enemies become more aggressive and move in that direction, they'll probably hit your mushroom, and be tidily slowed and damaged.
An additional fun trick with mushrooms is if your ally has some form of semi-invulnerability (Judicator's ult, Tryndamere's ult, or what have you), is standing in exactly the same place, and the attacking enemy just keeps attacking and tries to wait it out. Drop a mushroom practically on top of him, and it's likely that it'll trigger before he tries to move out of range.


Teamplay Tip: Chasing
There's frankly only so much you can do to herd a running enemy in one direction or another towards your mushrooms. The best you can do is with Rylai's Scepter or Exhaust to slow them, and run near them and to the side-- staying, of course, on the side you don't want them to run, and hope they don't try to go past you, particularly if it means staying in range of you longer. Nonetheless, Teemo is a good chaser because of Move Quick and his poisons, so you should usually try to focus on killing the target if herding them doesn't look like it's going to work.


Neutrals


Tip: When to take buffs
Physical Teemo is a very good candidate for lizard and golem buff, and AP Teemo is also a very good candidate for golem buff, and occasionally lizard as well.
As a physical Teemo, the only times when you want to not ask for the buffs are when one or more of your allies are jungling and need them, when a particular lane aside from yours is going to be pushed extra-hard (by a solo in the earlygame, for example), or when another champion on your team has a specific use for one of the buffs (Taric getting golem buff to feed his ult, for example).


As an AP Teemo, you don't really need golem buff until you're level 6 and can start laying mushrooms, at which point you usually have the highest priority on it. Lizard buff can be very useful for harassing your lane at the start if no one else needs it, so don't be afraid to ask for it.


Tip: When to take neutral creep camps
Since Teemo can farm lanes moderately well, it's usually better to leave the creep camps in your jungle to allies who need it more. In the enemy jungle, it's not a bad idea to steal a creep camp while you're waiting for the cooldown on your mushroom to refresh, assuming of course it's safe to be there for that long. In short, Teemo is good at taking creep camps quickly, but he can farm well enough that he doesn't need them to excel.


Tip: When to dragon
Whenever you're strong enough and aren't needed elsewhere. Physical Teemo can solo dragon pretty easily, albeit a little slowly, with only a few items, but AP Teemo has a harder time of it. Use judgment based on how many enemies are missing, how hard lanes need to be pushed, what the rest of your team is doing, and similar factors.




~The Art of Mushrooms (S3b)~


Ah, mushrooms. They're what make Teemo be Teemo, no question about it. When placing mushrooms, there are several things of which you should be aware.
Players: Watch how the enemy players move, how they plan, how they think, how they attack, how they chase, how they run; all the little details. Those details are what let you place mushrooms in exactly the right places to trap them.
Types: I mentally divide mushrooms into several categories when I'm playing Teemo: scouting mushrooms, attack mushrooms, and defensive mushrooms. If the other team is moving about the jungle with great coordination, I want to focus on scouting mushrooms to function like wards; if they're pushing hard then I'll drop mushrooms in lanes to slow down pushes; and if my team is doing a lot of kiting and running, I'll place mushrooms at bottlenecks in the forest to try and ensure as many escape routes as possible.
Gameflow: Sometimes there are locations in a game where putting mushrooms just isn't useful. Even if you're getting out a ton of mushrooms but not many of them are being hit, you likely want to reassess your placements. On the other side of the coin, if your mushrooms are being tripped almost as soon as you put them up, you might want to place them more defensively so that you'll have mushrooms on the map in reserve.


Key Locations
There are a few places on the map where it is absolutely vital to have a mushroom as a ward.
Dragon camp: placing a mushroom either in the brush right outside the dragon's camp, or nearly on top of the dragon itself is one of the first locations you should secure with a mushroom after you hit level 6. Don't get lazy about putting them there, either-- if they drop or expire on their own, it doesn't hurt to leave one there in case the other team tries something surprising.
Baron Nashor: same as above, except it's not important to have a mushroom there before the 15-20 minute mark. After that, it's necessary.
Ends of the river: there are four places you want to try and keep mushrooms active in the river. At either end of the river, right outside the lanes, and in the two patches of brush by the middle lane.


Scouting Mushrooms
These are defined as mushrooms placed to keep an eye on a location, and warn of enemies doing things; they can also double as defensive mushrooms. In addition to the locations mentioned above, there are a few handy places you'll want to drop mushrooms if there's a lot of movement in the jungle.
Rune creeps: place mushrooms near the golem and lizard buff creeps, particularly if anyone on either side is jungling.
River exits: wherever the river exits into the jungle is not only a good bottleneck location to put a mushroom, but it warns of impending ganks and enemy movement as well.
Side lane brush: drop one somewhere in each patch of brush. This becomes less important as the game goes on and champions stay in their lanes less and less.


Attack Mushrooms
This type of mushroom is designed to be tripped either pretty soon after it's placed, or when something specific an enemy does should trigger it.
Creep-killers: place these right where the creeps walk, but far enough back from any oncoming wave that the mushroom has time to fade from view before the creeps get there.
Lane controllers: place these near where creeps walk but not on where creeps walk. These prevent your opponents from being too mobile, lest they trip mushrooms. These also can stop ganks on your lane if you place the mushrooms in such a way the the would-be gankers have to chase you over them, or trip them as they're coming towards you.
Midfight traps: If you think a fight is going to occur near you on the map, or you're planning on initiating one, then drop a mushroom nearby in a place that it's likely enemy champions would trod on them. The purpose of these is to soften enemies when they come in, and to slow them when they're chasing or running.


Defensive Mushrooms
Probably the most useful overall to your team, these mushrooms are ones placed in bottlenecks and other locations that are easy to run to in order to escape enemy champions, or lure them into a vulnerable place.
Any bottleneck on the map is a good candidate. The more traffic it sees, the more you should consider it as a routine place to put mushrooms. Generally the exits and entrances to the jungle and river, clumps of brush, and paths going to and leading from the lanes are likely spots.


Placing Mushrooms Just So
The fine detail of where *exactly* you lay a mushroom in any given location is a big part of how effective they end up being. As an example, mushrooms placed in exactly the middle of bottlenecks probably won't be hit as often as mushrooms that are placed slightly to one side. Players who are running or chasing and trying to be efficient in their movement are likely going to want to cut corners, and won't hit the bottleneck at exactly the middle, meaning there's a fair chance your mushroom would otherwise miss. So, a few tips:
Angle your mushrooms. Like I just said above, put your mushrooms offset from the center of a spot to a place where champions who are running tight corners are likely to go.
Switch it up. Don't ever put a mushroom in exactly the same place twice. You can (and should!) put many in the same general locations, but you should always place them a little bit off so players who try to guess ahead and avoid the spots where you previously placed them will instead run into them in their new locations.
Read the players. Get an idea of the style of players you're facing, and place mushrooms accordingly. If they like using certain lanes in the jungle, trap those up and force them to make new plans or just take the mushroom hits.
Don't be afraid to experiment a bit. Try putting your mushrooms in somewhat odd locations, and see what happens. As an example of how this can help, I figured out that it's a good idea to put a mushroom between the two patches of brush in a side-lane. Why? Because almost no one expects a mushroom to actually be there. Everyone thinks that the mushrooms are going to be in the patches of brush themselves, so they tread carefully there and then run right to the other patch, hitting the mushroom on the way. That is helpful in escaping ganks, because most gankers don't think to avoid that bare patch.


A lot of placing mushrooms comes from experience. The more you play Teemo, the more you figure out what works and what doesn't, and which common paths people take. So don't worry if you feel insecure about your choosing spots in that regard; you're likely to figure it out rather quickly with practice.




~Playing Teemo (S4)~


After grabbing your items and determining your lanes, you'll probably stay near your tower until the creeps arrive, unless your lanemate (if you have one) is a good ganker, in which case you should try for first blood from the brush. Laning with Teemo is pretty easy once you get the hang of it, and allows for some very hard pushing.


Solo vs. Duo
One of the first things to consider is how you want to set up a lane. Contrary to what some believe, Teemo is actually quite good in a duo lane. Poison lets him keep the enemies harassed and the creeps weakened, and his lanemate can easily farm, push, and help harass in most lanes. Further, a lane where one or more people have Exhaust can usually guarantee a first blood thanks to Toxic Shot.
Duo Pros
-Very powerful lane presence
-High chance of a first blood, and other early kills
-Decent farming potential
Duo Cons
-Takes longer to get mushrooms
-Might not get an easily harassable matchup


Solo lanes are good for Teemo as well, however. It almost guarantees faster access to mushrooms, and Teemo can hold his own very well in most lane setups. His bane is tower-diving enemies in the earlygame, because he's unable to do much against them, he has relatively low HP, and fleeing from the tower with a ganker in tow is almost certain death.
Solo Pros
-Quick access to mushrooms
-Still good lane presence and harassing
-Can usually hold off even a duo lane
Solo Cons
-When you're ganked, you're pretty fucked
-If you lose control even briefly (random early death, for example), it hurts your lane dominance pretty hard


Harassing
Your role early on is to utilize poison-spreading a great deal, harass enemy champions by darting in and out of combat, and using your long attack range to your advantage. You can play aggressively, as long as you stay out of reach of the other champions. Being disabled is very bad for Teemo, and usually leads to his death.


Preventing enemies from last-hitting is made easy by staying near your caster creeps, and attacking them once when they get near your melee creeps. No one likes Teemo's poison, and almost everyone falls back after getting hit with it a few times. Stay in position near your creeps even after they fall back; there's a pretty good chance they'll try again a few times right after they're hit, and if you poison them again it makes them play quite defensively for a few minutes thereafter.


Other Champions and You
Always try and play off the strengths of your allies. If your lanemate has a heal, play more aggressively than you normally would, and your farming and harassing will improve from it. As far as playing versus certain types of champions, keep some things in mind:
Disables are very, very hard on Teemo. Your long range lets you harass pretty well even by staying near the back, and you will want to take advantage of that when fighting champions who can stun you.
Tanks and melee champions are some of the easiest to play against. Harass them hard and often, and once they fall back you can push much harder than they. Be wary of them, but tank lanes are pretty easy overall for Teemo.
Casters are tricky. They can kill you easily if you're not careful, and you should treat any lanes including casters with plenty of caution.
Healers are annoying, but not overly hard to deal with unless their lanemate has a lot of lane presence. You always want to be in control of a situation, and healers can make it hard to manipulate an encounter to your advantage. Luckily, your poison and harassing abilities are effective at making them use lots of mana.
In lanes versus a duo, there are two approaches to take. Either focus your harassing on both equally (if they're both easy to harass and not playing very aggressively), or focus completely on one champion (if they don't have regen and the other does, or one is otherwise easy to lock down), and lock them out of the laning game. Both can be effective, and you should use your judgment to determine which is appropriate.


Getting Mobile in Midgame
Once you hit level 6 and get mushrooms, you should start moving around the map and placing them. Don't go too far at first; just trap the area around your lane, and work from there as you're able to leave your lane more and more. At this point you can also start helping with ganks more usefully, and you should utilize Teleport to assist other lanes that need your help; ganking, pushing, or otherwise.


Keep an eye on neutral camps, dragon, and maybe even Baron at this point. Strong early game control of neutrals leads to a better farmed and dominating team overall. If someone on their team is jungling, you can also lead an ally or two to attempt to gank them, and then mushroom up the area so they're wary to try again.


In general, you want to stay in lanes long enough to farm a little bit, and then keep moving to lay mushrooms where they're most needed, and help your team in pushes.


Teamplay
Playing with your team is pretty straightforward, and there are only a few points that should be emphasized.
Try not to lead the way. This might seem counterintuitive, given your passive and Move Quick, but enemy teams have a nasty way of focusing on Teemo first because he looks so squishy. Your best damage is dealt by staying in the back and getting a steady line of fire going, so try not to get in the way too much at first.
Stay aware even in teamfights about what's happening with mushrooms. It's entirely possible their reinforcements will trip a few on the way in.
To complement the above point, keep laying mushrooms even as you're fighting, chasing, and running. It only takes a moment, and one mushroom can change the course of a fight or chase when placed just so.


Lategame
You're a very good pusher at this point. Teleport to mushrooms placed far in their jungle, or to your pushing creep waves, and devastate things as far as you can comfortably go. Teemo does excellent damage against towers, and you should be able to do a good amount of damage even in short pushes.


Your mushrooms are still important, but a little less so than in early and mid game. Keep mushrooms up in important tactical locations (Baron!), and litter them over choice escape routes. Support your team in pushes and fights with the techniques and tips covered above, and you should do well.


~Closing~


Well, congratulations if you actually read through all of that. =p I hope there's some useful information to be found in there for everyone; things for experienced and new Teemo players alike. Teemo is one of my favorite champions not only because he's fun and versatile, but because he looks a bit like a flamboyant miniature elephant hunter, and what more do you need than that?


Thanks for reading, and happy mushrooming.