What is up guys, my name is Tactician and i'm a Season 12 Challenger poppy main on the North American server bringing you this guide with over 3 Million mastery points!

I Hit Challenger In Season 12 with a 61% winrate overall and 63% on Poppy whilst being known for my aggressive poppy play style.





Not enough? You can take a quick look here:

I'd say to pick poppy to specifically counter pick the enemy team Composition and to avoid blind picking her! Picking her into champions like Rakan, Jarvan IV, Camille, Zac, Yasuo is perfect because you're able to deny what they're strongest at and you also beat them in top lane!

As for Jungle, Poppy jungle is fairly blind pickable as playing jungle leaves you with a lot more agency compared to Top Lane and Support positions.

Here are some examples showcasing poppy's strength:

Pros
+ Strong Counter Pick
+ Great CC and Peel
+ Great Flex Pick (Top, Jungle, Support)
+ Good Blind Pick(Jungle)
+ One Of The Strongest Early game Champions

Cons
- Easily Kited
- Bad Blind pick(toplane)
- Falls off Lategame
- Hard to Teamfight with
- No Hard Engage Compared to other Tanks ( Zac, Ornn)
- Primarily physical damage based

+ General Sumonners that you take toplane.

: To understand teleport you have to understand wave management as a whole. But generally look to get your teammates ahead by teleporting bot lane or to jg skirmishes especially if your wave is shoved or to match the enemy Toplaners teleport. Mid/Late game you wanna look to split and teleport to a fight if one erupts or if you see a potential flank off a ward.

TOP LANE POPPY

Grasp of the Undying works insanely well with Iron Ambassador towards why it's poppy's primary Keystone for toplane. Shield Bash Also works really well with your passive and allows you to get a lot of value out of it in consistent trades and giving you bonus armour and magic resist that also works with Steadfast Presence passive of increasing your armour and magic resistance.

Bone Plating works really well at reducing burst from champions like Sett & Garen but Conditioning works a lot better versus champions Singed whom don't really get to burst you. Second Wind vs auto attacked harass based champions like Teemo or Kennen. Adapt your choice here based on what you are facing.

Revitalize is core because it works insanely well with Grasp of the Undying, Iron Ambassador shield as well as any other healing/shielding you may receive from outside sources like Janna's Eye of the Storm. I'd consider going Unflinching when versus heavy crowd control compositions.

Biscuit Delivery is a really strong rune as it as long you stay in lane a longer which capitilizes on poppy's niche of being a digusting early game Threat. It helps you abuse those early game matchups like no other whilst giving you mana sustain alongside Corrupting Potion. Time Warp Tonic is an really good rune in conjuction with the previously mentioned rune, Biscuit Delivery & Corrupting Potion as well. This combination of secondary runes will allow you to constantly Harass the enemy top laner, setup dives and keep yourself sustained to build a huge lead in those favorable matchups.

I take armour or magic resist depending on who i'm facing and will double down on it if a bad matchup or the enemy team has a lot of it. If it is a good match ex: Riven i like to take two adaptive forces and one armour. If it's a bad matchup like Teemo, i'll take 1 adaptive force and two magic resists.

When it comes to itemization on poppy she is very diverse in terms of what you can build as a Tank and for that i say ALWAYS BUILD TO ADAPT TO ENEMY COMPOSITION. There is no linear build path for Poppy vs someone like Jayce who ALWAYS builds Eclipse. As it stands currently for toplane poppy you have 3 mythic choices which consist of Sunfire Aegis, Iceborn Gauntlet and Divine Sunderer into full tank.

is good for when you're facing a lot of melees as well as your team needs a tank. Also helps providing with a source of magic damage if you're low on AP on your team.

is good when you're facing a lot of Ranged champions and ur team needs a tank. Also helps providing with a source of magic damage if you're low on AP on your team.

is good when your team already has good amount of frontline(ex: Zac Jungle, Leona supp) or you really feel like you need to 1v9 carry.

Full build Example:

Situational item 2x (ex: + )

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Jungle Poppy

+ General summoners for jungle.

Taking smite is fairly self explanatory, required for jungling. Take Hailblade, the slow makes it easier to chase opponents or is another finishing with Dark Harvest.

JUNGLE 1V9 RUNE SETUP (My personal favorite)

Compared to toplane where you will have more diverse builds, in the jungle i genereally follow this build path.

Rush Divine Sunderer into tier 2 boots Plated Steelcaps(vs AD)/ Mercury's Treads(vs AP), Dead Man's Plate(vs AD)/ Force of Nature(vs AP) or Dead Man's Plate first if they have a good mix of both. I'd get Divine Sunderer into Force of Nature if the enemy has more AP than AD. Every item built after is situational depending on enemy comp (i.e. Thornmail vs healing based compositions).

Now for the rune setup, I know what you're thinking "dark harvest poppy?!" must be troll. Well I thought so first as well but man alongside with items like divine, this setup turns your passive into one of the most threatning things in the game. Use Iron Ambassador with Divine Sunderer on a taget in Dark Harvest esentially acts as an Execute.

Cheap Shot works really well with Steadfast Presence, Heroic Charge & Keeper's Verdict. Having 3 different ways of procing the rune makes it a great choice for our little Hero.

Eyeball Collection to further increase your snowball potential and scaling. Zombie Ward Is also a viable choice but i prefer eyeball collection as early ward kills aren't as common as early kills.

For our last rune in the domination tree, Relentless Hunter is the best choice as mouvement speed enable you to position better for stun angles with Heroic Charge and be more present on the map with out of combat mouvement speed.

For our secondary tree, we'll be running Celerity which shall be increasing mouvement speed from all sources.

Lastly, we'll be running Waterwalking. Another mouvement speed oriented rune for maximum roam potential and even making your river skirmashing even stronger where poppy is arguably weaker due to not having much terrain to work with. It makes travelling inbetween lanes a lot easier and you gain some attack damage. Paired with your other runes, you'll be the fastest yordle on the rift.

Full Build Example:

Situational item 2x (ex: + )

Jungle Tank/Utility SETUP (When your team needs Frontline)

This rune page is setup is good for when wanting more engage on your champion, more peel and better front to back teamfighting but sacrifcing your damage/snowball potential as Poppy. This build is more optimal for structured play like Clash or just general tournament setting as you probably won't be dropping 10+ kills in those environnements in comparaision to Solo Queue.

The major difference in this rune page is that you'll be going Turbo Chemtank as your mythic choice and instead of defensive boots, you'll be opting in for Ionian Boots of Lucidity. Because you're running tenacity in your runes you have no need to go merc treads unless they're HEAVY cc then you can stack it. Plated Steelcaps is also a viable choice if versus heavy auto attackers. If they have a mix of both, then Ionian Boots of Lucidity is the way to go. Turbo Chemtank also covers poppy's weakness of having a weak engage and punishing enemies who are out of position.

Tapping into the rune choice, Phase Rush is really good primary rune on Poppy since it will allow you to keep up with an enemy who is running away after stunning them for a second stun potentially or be able to finish them off. Works well with Turbo Chemtank to able to rebuild the stacks on it after proccing it the first time around.

Nimbus Cloak just a great overall rune on Poppy for making good getaways with Flash or making your Flash + Heroic Charge combo faster and allowing you to gain burst of Mouvement Speed after smiting.

Celerity once again great rune choice for poppy but this time it also works with ur primary keystone Phase Rush & Nimbus Cloak.

Waterwalking as mentioned in the previous rune setup, great for getting around the map faster and making your river skirmishing a lot stronger.

Example of Full Build:

Situational item 2x (ex: + )

Now you may have noticed that In both jungle builds i advocated for Dead Man's Plate and Force of Nature. This is because mouvement speed is single handedly the best stat on Poppy. It allows you to be everywhere at once, clean up kills, facilitate engage and abuse your small hitbox by dodging all incoming skillshots that you can avoid. Dead Man's Plate also works really well with your passive Iron Ambassador, Divine Sunderer and Dark Harvest which allows you to secure kills on low health targets with just a single auto-attack.

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WHEN TO BUILD SITUATIONAL ITEMS?

When Vs crit based champions (ex: Yone, Yasuo, Jinx)

When Vs Attack speed based champions (ex: Jax, Master Yi, Yone, Vayne)

When Vs Healing (ex: Soraka, Yuumi, Conqueror users)

When you have healing/shielding on your team (ex: Karma, Nidalee) and then enemy has magic damage threats (EX: Xerath, Lillia)

When the enemy has tons of poke damage (ex: Lux, Ezreal), i like pairing this with Spirit Visage.

When vs heavy shielding champions (ex: Ivern, Rumble, Immortal Shieldbow users)

When laning toplane and can afford to invest in an early tear. Also like pairing this with Spirit Visage.

When Your team is Filled with Magic Damage and the enemies team as well.

When the enemy team is stacking a lot of armor and your comp is primarily AD.

When the enemy CC consists strictly of slows.

When u feel like having a good TIME :D

A Good poppy player will always ADAPT to their composition and the enemies.

With Poppy Jungle I'm generally adapting my game plan due to how strong poppy's early Ganking is. I will start off by demonstrating her standard clears starting from blue buff and red buff alike but then will introduce some unique cheese variant routes that work depending on what LANERS you currently have and what champs the ENEMY has.

I highlight adaptation here because doing the same thing every single game WILL NOT net you results, rather you should be carefully thinking about the best possible play according to the options presented to you on the Map.

This meaning if I can Impact a Lane as early as level two i will, Poppy 's early game ganks are no joke espcially if the lane you are ganking is left without summoners. Often time i can just taking over the game from a level 3 gank onto someone who isn't respecting my presence and repeat gank that lane until its time for the enemy to press surrender at 15. Always remember that Impact > farming in solo queue. Farming is really the only option when no plays are present on the map. Atleast, thats how i play the champion.

Keep in Mind that Junglers like Poppy that can Full Clear consistently with a Good clear time and healthy are fairly strong in the meta.

Standard blue clear video
Play Video

Red clear video
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Here are a few Cheese Routes that you can Execute versus lanes that you excel at ganking and have good setup. Note for whatever side of the map this is done on the opposite can also be done.

3 Camp Raptors start cheese Route. An example of lane Setup i would do this for is if my toplaner is something like Camille and then Enemy Top Ornn. You can W his E and she has a stun to setup. Same can also be done for botlane.

Play Video

Blue into Enemy raptors in level 2 mid into cycle back into your jungle. This route is good for when enemy mid will push early and u have something strong with decent lvl1/2 like Yasuo who is running Ignite.

Play Video

Lastly this is one of my personal favorites, red krugs into level 2 sidelane gank. I like this one because you generally don't lose out on too much tempo. Can always ask your mid/opposing side lane to ward your blue buff if they have the prio to.

Play Video
Note that all these cheese routes pose risk to them in the case where the gank is unsucessful as you leave you jungle camps vunerable. Full clearing is always the safest way to go about doing your jungle but these starts can really snowball a game out of control if done properly.

Try to time your Iron Ambassador + Grasp of the Undying whenever its available onto the enemy for a free grasp proc.

Lane Harass Combo: Hammer Shock > Auto Space > Iron Ambassador + Grasp of the Undying

ALWAYS LOOK TO PICK UP SHIELDY after using Iron Ambassador.

If you cannot pick up your shield due to it landing in a bad spot, duck into the brush to drop minion aggro!

During this time use Steadfast Presence to interrupt any dash's the enemy may use onto you or to escape like Hookshot, Spinning Slash or Slice and Dice

If the enemy stands near terrain punish with Heroic Charge into a Lane Harass Combo!

If you Manage to Use your Lane Harass Combo more than Twice, you should look to go for an extended trade afterwards or all in them. Use your good judgement!

All in poppy Combo: Heroic Charge > AA > Hammer Shock > AA > Keeper's Verdict


Note that this is what you call a CC Chain, maximizing the duration that the opponent cannot move whilst doing as much damage as you can to them. You can also factor in incoming CC from an ally to keep someone perma CC'd.

Heroic Charge can also be used to escape or close the gap to repeat the Lane Harass Combo by using it onto a minion! Be Creative in your play!

You can buffer up your Hammer Shock before using Flash to catch your enemies off guard! Really useful to finish off low health enemies.


Keeper's Verdict can also be used as a Finisher! Just be careful not to send the enemy flying to their nexus instead. Example:

You can use your Iron Ambassador for an instant shield onto a low health minion or jungle plants like Blast Cone if you need it! Here's a clutch example:


Steadfast Presence + Flash Is super underated combo that can be used to catch Enemies off Guard. Example:


Here are some useful videos I've made covering tips, mistakes to avoid and even a video showcasing every ability Steadfast Presence can block.

Astronaut Poppy Black Chroma

is my trademark skin therefore it is the best SKIN.

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To conclude:

+General Lane Combo VS Melee is Hammer Shock > Auto Space > Iron Ambassador
+Use Keeper's Verdict to Split up team's in a Teamfight.
+Always Steadfast Presence important Dashs or its usually a dead Ability!
+Always pick up Iron Ambassador when trading!
+ Flash + Heroic Charge to catch enemies out of position!

The unconditional support that i got from my twitch viewers and youtube subscribers motivated me to release this guide hope you guys enjoyed it! ^.^