Good day Summoners! today I'll bring you a fun, yet very strong for those in lower elo, or simply are looking to have a different approach when playing Teemo.


(Note, you can apply this exact gameplay as Heimerdinger)

Excuse my bad English, I'll try my best to explain why would I do such a terrible thing as playing Tank teemo mid and if I even have a soul, so there won't be any confusions.

I want to make this perfectly clear, you should practice it in normals... don't want to stress it enough I know many people will just press the item build and runes then dismiss the rest, yet they'll end feeding or inting like madmens.

(It will not be my fault if you perform terribly because you refuse to listen a bit or are incapable of learning anything at all, for these people I strongly suggest not to do this and stick to any common normal teemo builds, never look back.)

The items themselves won't help you win a game unless you learn first the finest art of mental warfare, so let's begin!

Your job, (and I want to stress this enough) it's to literally deal a lot of mental damage to the enemy mid laner, why mid and not top? because every mid laner you'll be against is squishy or highly punishable in early game.
Zed's, Fizz, Akalies, Katarinas, Yasuos, Le'Blancs, Ekko's and hell even Dianas you name it! those who usually are counters to teemo with the right items and movement gameplay you can make them shriek in absolute rage.

You'll be able to kill them too.


The trade-off's from this gameplay is damage, you won't be able to deal absurds amounts of damage, but with a shut-down mid laner and an okay damage yourself, you can shrug off a lot of enemy incoming attacks and deal back what you absorbed in full, due to the fragility of your enemy.

They won't understand why a tank teemo is dealing a lot of damage, but that's because you don't really... THEY are just squishy to the point of a single flea landing on them might rip em apart, and you need to early on capitalize on that fact, the more scared your MID laner is from you the better you'll perform.

Harass them over, and over, and over again to the point of their jungler starting to camp you, but if their jungler decides not to help their mid laner then you'll 900% dominate your lane, at that point take the towers force it, be bold and never be afraid to waste a flash-ignite auto-dart-auto to kill your enemy at 20% HP.

They will buy sweepers and pink wards to deal with shrooms that barely are any threat at all and thats GOOD, meaning they'll play blindly against your own jungler, the more sweepers they buy the less map control they'll have, be sure to check on their items.

Grasp of the Undying was a test rune that I tried for a while with several champions and Teemo performs rather efficiently with it.

It is VERY HARD to farm and harass at the same time, because this particular build will render teemo a slow-attacker until you get a Wit's end at least, that's why you must rely on the fact that your Q will reset your autoattack, try auto-dart-auto when harassing, and ONLY when you got your grasp activated, otherwise don't bother.

Land a poisoned autoattack on a minion and stand by, the poison timer will stack your grasp and keep the timer refreshed until both expires, but you can still keep it refreshed with another attack on a big minion or mage giving you time to either go for a grasp-hit or land your farm, remember the more booger hits you land the weary your enemy will be to the point of them relying on jungler to deal with you.

If you cannot be aggressive or your gameplay is to stand on the back all of the time, rendering Grasp of the Undying useless then there's no point in using this type of playthrough at all.

The laning phase!

Most delightful phase of it all, this is literally what will decide your outcome... (No kidding) most of my games is depending on how well I perform in the laning phase.

I want to let you know on a secret: Teemo is strong, you're stronger than any other champ that gets thrown at you at lvl 1 and even more if you're having Plate runes or worse if you get to lvl 2 first.

You can have an early advantage by quickly coming and standing on each of these spots respectively:
and wait for the enemy to approach, they'll think you're not even in lane and get confidently closer to farm for at LEAST two surprise autoattacks on your part before retreating, this early harass as silly as it sounds keeps the enemy HIGHLY wary of you and you really need that.

A good enemy will be those who are too wary and will waste their mana or be extra careful on farming minions far away from your reach, and never engaging you, be watchful with those since you'll expose yourself for early jungle ganks by trying to harass them, just be patient.

A bad enemy is that Zed who'll try to shuriken you instead of a minion for example (You all know them) respond them in kindness, you know what to do so wear em down, booger after booger.

You'll have a lot of problems farming so, just saying... hopefully you got that practiced to the core because keeping your Undying charged while trying to use it and farm at the same time requires quite the awareness.


Do not over-use shrooms they're there just to shove lane when the mid laner is gone to shop or set up anti-gank clutching shrooms, keep some mana for a sprint or a dart if anything because you'll need them.

The shroom positioning that always keeps me safe is this

Remember ALWAYS show your enemy mid laner where are you placing the shrooms, that way you'll be able to control their pathing, put shrooms on the edges and let them see it like the devil you are, so you'll know they won't move that way and move to the other side instead potentially setting themselves up for your jungler to gank them easily.

When I place a mushroom I get near it then place another a bit far ahead, after that I move to the opposite side from them so the enemy mid will be forced to multitask in shroom positioning and your own, they won't have free lane to move aside of just retreating back to their turret remember that.

This might put some people off, especially those who never uses a ward, but if you don't get at minimum one of the side bushes warded with a pink or a control ward? then YOU be afraid of the enemy jungler.

Have eyes everywhere, sorry but this is why other people complains to me why my build and runes never work, when they just overextend and pretend they're immortal by building semi-tank, it's not like that and never will, you're the most suited opportunist and turret murderer there is, I gave you the tools to make tons of mistakes not to overuse that ticket with laziness.

You need to check the minimap constantly, and for the most the only thing you should be aware is the enemy jungler.

A jungler can boost your enemy mid's confidence a lot if they gank you successfully and that only spells problems for you... not to mention they'll just use you as their piggy money by camping mid lane, just be mindful of your enemy jungler and what pathing is gonna take, if they took red then you know you should ward the bush where they might come from blue side

Don't just appear in lane and drop a ward in a bush at lvl 1 for no reason, wait a bit if you see them from early invades/wards or just gamble it by using common senses, a jungler who's mana starving will clearly start in blue then make their way towards their red so THEN you'll know which bush to ward.

(This doesn't happen 100% of the time, you'll find a twitch jungler who might end ganking you at lvl 2 for example with stealth, a Shaco or an Evelynn, Kayn is also a bit unexpected due to his ability to phase through walls, but be bold and trust on your own jungler as well (Which also doesn't happen all the time... but hey we can't have everything.)

Help your jungler at all times if you can, with dragons and heralds, or when it's engaging with the other jungler, go right on and don't hesitate to flash for a Q to save them, if you die but they get the kills is still on your favor.

If the enemy mid also responds to aid their jungler, ignore them and rush to yours, the quicker you and your jungler shuts down one the better odds you'll have against the opposite mid laner.

FLASH AND IGNITE ARE FOR USING, DON'T JUST SAVE IT, U S E I T.
If you can use it for a Flash-ignite auto-dart-auto kill on a 20% enemy it's well worth the investment, but be mindful you'll have to be extra careful since you'll be relying on a leveled up sprint (Which I assume you've been leveling up along your poison and not maxing up the dart)

A low mana costing dart will keep your mana regulated, or to last-hit minions given your low attack speed.

Try not to abuse by spamming shrooms, they will get you OOM FAST until you get that frozen heart, it's only worth spamming if you're shoving lane once your enemy recalled, that Demolition attack on turrets certainly adds up to win your lane.

Also I don't think I can stress this enough but buy pink wards don't be stingy, if your item needs to be on hold for 75 gold then so be it, I know I said you'll have a build that allows you to make mistakes, but don't underestimate their jungler, have eyes on your eyes, all of that awareness is there for you so you can engage your enemy laner in a breeze.

You know, you can still perform a lot of mind-games that will certainly demoralize your opponent in lane.

As I told before, letting them know where you put the shrooms keep them from running there or cut their escape if your jungler comes from behind, the only thing available for them is to burn flash or use any escape towards their turret, that'll keep them one hundred percent scared to engage while you got free minions and harassing opportunities.

Their desperation to farm ultimately leads to them into making mistakes.

Another really COOL KIDS trick is to pretend retreating, if you manage to master the fine art of fog of war and minion vision range, you can turn invisible in many parts for a killing or to make your enemy waste something.

I usually press recall just to make the enemy believe I'm going back, then move back into the fog of war near my turret and turn invisible, 7 out of 10 the enemy will try to get a plating or take advantage of your "missing" and that's the ripest moment to appear and deal significant amounts of damage to them, chase em if possible, they're near your turret and escaping towards theirs.

If you do this multiple times I guarantee they'll be scared to even approach your turret again on chances of teemo being invisible there, giving you a lot of time to return into lane again, but before returning bait them into believing you're gone and be patient... they'll try to get closer or quickly rip a plate off your turret, trust me this will severely pressure them and again, we like that.

Dart first then auto em away so they got no chance to retaliate, if they do your turret will deal significant extra damage and they won't take that chance.

Oh boy... here we go.

As much as it pains me to say, often your jungler will take a huge roll in all of this, if they're not listening to you (which happens to me constantly) then don't bother with them UNLESS there's a chance for yourself.

Let them know when your enemy wasted a flash, but LET THEM KNOW, that's all part of the awareness chapter too, if they flashed make sure you tell them on hopes they'll come around for a gank, if they don't just adjust yourself, trade some aggressiveness for farming and be safe.


Mana is a H U G E problem with this build, you won't have the luxury of putting that many shrooms, but as long as you got for some darts and a sprint that's good enough, after all your overall damage comes from a maxed up poison auto and Riftwalk pure damage, and trust me it hurts if you get that stacked up with wit's end.

Triggering a mushroom will activate Riftwalk too, use this as an indicator that a jungler just stepped on one and react accordingly if you haven't payed attention to the map (Which you should be doing.)

If you can roam bot and top, good! but only do it if they're having trouble and your jungler doesn't wanna help them.

If your mid-laner is missing, ping them seven million times, the amount of times a Zed who was getting stomped roamed down for a double kill even though I pinged until my finger fell off will really elevate your sodium levels but keep playing calmly you're still stronger if you got the movement speed and reflexes to dodge skillshots.


And the most important part for this build and overall tactic to work:

Dodge, everything if you can.
The build is basically for you to make mistakes, but still play if as if you were playing a flimsy AP teemo with no armor, dodge and bait them into throwing stuff at you by overusing your W

Use your speed to catch up or dodge skillshots don't just run in a straight line, do zig-zags or approach from one side and use your minions to shield yourself when your W is on cooldown, that's the key on catching up with your opponent or fleeing from a gank, the higher your W is the harder it will be for them to have a hold on you.

Another way to use your W is to use it and run straight at your enemy, they'll think they're getting ganked ;p and that adds to the mental pressure.

At this point you'll be relying entirely on your team, you're like a second support at this point, with extra mana from frozen or ocean drakes you should be able to put shrooms in any important path of interest.

You'll have so much cooldown reduction that placing shrooms is also your late-game play style, on barons or near end drakes (Soul and Elder dragon) to put shrooms on each entrance of their river size just in case they want to escape or try to gank in grops when any of your teammates are splitpushing.

At this point I bet three out of two enemy players will have sweepers and you know what that means (More map control for your team) you'll be able to facecheck bushes a lot more this way.

But NEVER and I repeat NEVER play safe when in a teamfight, you'll be tanky enough to soak up any combos or possibly summoner spells thrown at you in the hopes of quickly dispatching the poisonous raccoon, that's good it's an ignite they won't have for your ADC, top or Jungler, an ultimate that could be directed to kill that vayne in the back, every little bit helps

Die for the cause! unless you see they engaged without you or uneven numbers then just retreat and prepare a concoction of shrooms to kill time until your team revives again.

Stick to their most fragile champions throw everything you can at them, yes even flash on their faces if you can.

Usually I speed up W + flash-ignite their ADC even at full HP(Who's usually on the back and get them to waste a lot of team-potential skills or spells on the tanky rat for no reason, you'll still be alive enough to put shrooms in between so the ADC has even less of an option to engage.

(While your team will quickly capitalize on that and clean up after your mess easily) And that, I call it a win.


Note: I only do this when I'm ahead and feed as all hell, if you're in a situation where the enemy team is far ahead, just stick with your team and lay down mushrooms in their way so they'll be unable to engage or simply waste their sweeper cooldowns, if you see em breaking a shroom put another right where that last one was, it buys time if they stay in one spot breaking useless shrooms in a late game where gold is no longer an issue, but time. (Also it protects the potential shrooms on the back that won't be detected due to them wasting sweeper time on a stack of mushrooms in the beginning.

With Riftwalk, Demonic Embrace and Void Staff in late game, your shrooms will certainly be quite threatening for non-tanks, such as ADC's or the support so don't sweat it.

Your job in late game is to stick to their weak, usually the ones who deal damage or even the support, a support that dies early with minimal risk is also turntable worthy.


But have fun! and tell me how it goes, sorry for my bad English, I kinda lied about this being "short and understandable" tho.