Deceptively tough lane just because of how broken Riven is. She never runs out of dashes and can pull of some truly bs maneuvers meaning you need to play twice as smart to beat her. Flay will interrupt one dash though she will have three more. Q can be used to interrupt her combo. The reason this matchup isn't a 5 is due to her being 100% physical damage which Thresh will hard counter with enough souls.
Dr. Mundo
Thresh can avoid a lot of bad trades with Mundo by standing in the minion wave, blocking his Q. Auto him fairly frequently so he's too low hp to run at you and win. You can't overextend vs him post 6 as he can run you down. Thresh should beat him in teamfights by being more useful - although significantly squishier.
Fiora
Ugly matchup. A good Fiora will parry every single time you use Q or E since both of these abilities are pretty telegraphed and easy to predict (particularly Q). The good news is Fiora's ult is soft countered by The Box - massive slow vs massive ms boost. The downside is it's very hard to trade with her outside of turret and she can effectively freeze the wave while you cannot. She also outscales and lawnmows turrets. I'm probably going to start banning her because she is that annoying.
Aatrox
You can't beat him. Just survive. He will hit you a lot so bramble vest will help reduce that healing. The good news is while his lane is brutal, its almost exclusively physical damage which Thresh scales well against. As a result, you are probably stronger in teamfights than him with plenty of disruption to lock Aatrox down.
Poppy
Poppy can be challenging because of her high amount of crowd control, tankiness, and damage. Don't force too many trades and avoid getting knocked into a wall and destroyed. She can pull off some frustrating towerdives.
Gnar
Gnar is a pretty annoying champion with plenty of mobility, damage, and crowd control. He's also tanky. His ult can throw you out of your tower so be mindful of that. He mostly does physical damage so stack armor.
Kayle
She's like a ranged Nasus in terms of how playable she is for tanks.
Pre-6 she is absurdly weak and you can bonk her whenever you want. Post-6 she gains a huge amount of range and sustained damage making the lane very hard. Q destroys her entire kit. She will scale but does no true damage so anathemas is extremely good here.
Darius
Darius is difficult because you'll never be able to fight him after lvl 2 (assuming he levels his E. If he doesn't then lvl 3), regardless of your build or how ahead you are. His stats are better than yours, his pull is difficult to dodge (and gives armor pen), his Q allows him to potentially survive dives, and he'll zone you off of cs 24/7. While you do outrange him you can only poke very early on (lvl 1-2) and when his E is down. Still, he can Q in the middle of your auto and win the trade.
This matchup is a 5 if he takes ghost and a 4 if he does not. He's never worth a ban because he's not Fiora and can be shut down with crowd control.
Garen
Garen is pretty weak in the earlygame. You can bully him hard during this time, just auto him constantly and flay when he tries to Q you. He has an annoying interaction where he can Q even if you flay him a second too late so keep that in mind. His W soft counters your crowd control, although he can only cleanse one of the slows (from E & R) not both.
His ult will do a lot of true damage and this is why he is a 2 and not a 1. The main threat of Garen is he can always win a 1v1 if he is able to press R on you. Flay him away or box to make him useless in every teamfight.
Tryndamere
Tryndamere's annoying because he can spin on you and chunk a lot of hp with his autos (especially if he crits). He also has a pretty good heal that allows him to survive most of your poke. Still, you beat him very hard early (like Garen) so poke him constantly and flay whenever he tries to go in. Once he's 6 ult and flay him away. Then re-engage once his ult is down - or is about to run out - and kill him. He's a splitpusher so you want to get significantly ahead so he can't powerfarm and catch up.
Grasp or aftershock build with bone plating works fine. Build a frozen heart and thornmail. They will block a lot of his auto damage, reduce his attack speed, reduce his Q healing, and give you CDR to deal with his low spin CD (from navori quickblade). Anathema's is really good here.
Gangplank
Complete cancer. Maybe there is a way to play this but I don't know of one. I'd just dodge because I hate this champion and don't understand why Riot buffed him.
Kennen
Kennen lane can be hard but it's also winnable. He's fairly squishy and can be poked down with autos. The most annoying thing is his stun which, on top of his mobility, can make it hard to Q/Flay him. His ult is better than your ult and so items like Knight's Vow and Mikaels are advisable later in the game.
Olaf
Olaf kind of just runs at you and kills you and there's not much you can do about it. Unplayable lane after lvl 6 and you should dodge.
Yasuo
Thresh/Yasuo is a skill matchup. His windwall counters your hook but can't block your autos, allowing you to poke him constantly. He has armor penetration from his ult and his passive can block a lot of damage early on. But you can cancel his dashes with flay and hook (if he's not expecting it) and he has no way to block your R damage - or slow. If either of you gets ahead it's very hard for the other to come back.
Malphite
Malphite is a melee tank with one poke ability - his Q. This will do strong poke and combined with his speed boost, is oppressive to play against. You'll need to take MR shard and second wind to deal with it. His ult is better than your ult and is the main reason he's a 4 on the threat level. Knight's vow/Redemption can be good for handling him.
Mordekaiser
Mordekaiser is annoying for Thresh to deal with. He is just as tanky, does more damage, and is hard to itemize against. He is also difficult to gank post 6 and can force you to trade with him via his E (which also gives him magic pen) or his point and click 650 range ult. Poke him early levels in between his Q and E and ask for a gank. Ult when he ults, it will keep him away from you allowing you to survive. He's like the AP version of Darius, but with lower kill potential.
Knight's Vow can be good against him since it should mitigate damage allies take in the Death Realm.
Renekton
Thresh has some outplay potential on Renekton. His dash animation is extremely fast but if you anticipate it you can deny his entire engage. Your autos slightly outrange his Q and Renekton is very weak level 1. You can poke him a bit during this time. At lvl 2 he wins all trades unless you flay the engage. Thresh will aftershock will beat him but grasp Thresh can do so as well (although it is riskier given the lack of defenses for his engage). Bone plating is essential to mitigating his engage.
The main thing about this matchup is denying him early kills. If Renekton can't pop off early then Thresh outscales him in the fights.
Jax
Jax is very hard to solo lane against if he's good. Thanks to recent buffs lowering his counterstrike and leap cooldowns he'll jump on you constantly and force unfavorable trades. Poke him when he's weakest, lvl 1-3, and play very carefully afterwards. Stay out of his melee range at all costs which you can do with flay.
Anathemas and frozen heart are extremely strong vs this champion.
Illaoi
You can't 1v1 her at any point but it's not the worst. Illaoi lacks any mobility and her spirit idol can be blocked by minions. Your cc can potentially interrupt her ult. Anathemas and thornmail are both very good items here. Redemption is not bad either since the AoE heal soft counters her AoE ult.
Sion
Sion will always be tankier than you, do a lot of damage, and generally be hard to kill. His lane is not particularly oppressive, however. Thresh can interrupt Sion's Q, can avoid Sion's W, and is usually out of range to avoid being punished by Sion's E. He's also free grasp stacks.
Ganks at lvl 6 can be hard because he'll press R and run away. Punish him if he greeds for tower plating. He outscales pretty hard and you can't 1v1 him after about 15-20 minutes depending on the build and the game. Anathemas is a nice item vs him. Redemption and KV can also be good if he's going AD and oneshotting your team.
Nasus
Nasus is obnoxious because of how hard he scales, making him a monster in the mid-lategame no matter what. Fortunately his Q does physical damage and Thresh's armor stacking can counter this to a certain extent. Grasp build recommended to scale with him. Bully him hard pre-6 and use your ult and flay to push him away if/when he tries to all in.
Thresh should never lose teamfights to Nasus. With a little CDR Thresh can permanently stun him making him useless unless your team is too weak to finish him off. You will need help to handle his splitpush. Unflinching recommended.
Wukong
Like all assassins, Wukong is outscaled by Thresh, mainly as a tank. Unfortunately his recent rework made him a lot harder as his numbers are up across the board and he has two ultimates. Thresh can bully him early but he will obliterate you at lvl 6.
Aftershock will help survive his inevitable all in though grasp can force him out of lane.
Vayne
Vayne top is pretty scary and you can't do much about it other than flay and try to predict her tumble. Ganks can shut her down and you can set them up effectively, especially once you have chemtank.
It's good to prioritize her at all times just from how much true damage she does. She can hard carry.
Lucian
Similar to vayne but without the true damage. He also might build black cleaver which can mess you up. Can bully you extremely hard in lane forcing you to sacrifice large amounts of cs and xp. However, very high outplay potential anywhere near tower as he lacks Vayne's condemn and true damage. Free kill if ahead.
Maokai
Maokai is annoying but has low kill pressure (and poke) on you. Go tanky with grasp and make him miserable.
Ornn
Ornn is pretty tough because of his strong poke, engage, and sustain. You can't poke him most of the time because of Thresh's low range and Ornn's low Q CD and high damage. He's also tankier than you. His ult is good but you can deny most his engage with your ult and flay.
Kled
Kled isn't too bad. His double dash and Q are what you really need to worry about. Otherwise you can pull off some funny kills when Skarrl is down. He mostly does physical damage automatically making him easier than Jax or Irelia. Build frostfire so he can't move and build into randuins and thornmail so he can't hurt you.
Teemo
Teemo's poke and damage is very high and annoying but you can easily lock him down with flay, hook (or box) combo for jungle ganks. Take second wind and doran's shield for the most sustain. Aftershock with chemtank recommended.
Sett
Sett is like Garen in that he has so much health regen the dude is basically not possible to kill without your jungler. He also has a ton of damage mitigation in trades and can beat the **** out of you in melee range. Also like Garen, his only form of engage is running at you which is pretty simple to flay every time unless he flashes.
His ult is not as good as Garen's, what you really need to watch out for his the true damage W which can shred your healthbar. Otherwise just hit him and stack grasp for free. Zeke's and redemption are nice lategame options for him the former so your team can kill him and the latter to deal with his W.
Rumble
Rumble has tons of aoe magic damage, decent mobility, and strong range. Avoid trading when his flamespitter is up and focus on becoming tanky as possible/setting up ganks. His ult is better than your ult and does way more damage than you'd expect.
Mikaels, redemption, and anathemas are all good here.
Volibear
This lane is hard. Volibear is like Udyr. You have to respect him because his all in is powerful and deadly even at lvl 2. His ult also deactivates turrets which is a big problem for Thresh who likes to play around towers. While lane can be very difficult, Thresh can do well into Volibear in teamfights. Thresh ult and flay alone can keep him off of your team. After the earlygame he will also not be able to kill you unless he's far ahead.
You can run grasp vs this guy but aftershock is safer. Anathemas and frozen heart are good vs him.
Yorick
Thresh can bully Yorick a bit early lvls and maybe even kill him if he starts corrupting potion instead of doran's shield.
However this lane becomes unplayable after lvl 6 as you can never kill his maiden (unless he's bad) and his wall makes it hard to get away from him. He also does mixed damage and has a great splitpush. Anathemas is mandatory here but the game is going to be hard.
Akali
Akali does magic damage, has a lot of dashes, is hard to gank, and generally has way too many escapes in her kit. She's also hard to poke because her Q has no cooldown, cost is not high enough, and it does too much damage. It also gives her mobility.
Thresh can interrupt any of her dashes with flay and can potentially trap her under turret or other bad situations with ult. Hook and flay can pull her out of her shroud revealing her.
Anathemas and knight's vow (put it on a squishy ally) are good options here.
Irelia
Irelia's lane phase is extremely overpowered making her one of the hardest champions to deal with in lane. She has way too many dashes that do not cost mana, her damage is way too high, her stun can be over 1000 range, and her abuse of corrupting pot and time warp tonic makes her hard to kill. Play extremely carefully the entire lane and do not force any trades with her without your jungler or away from your tower.
Post 6 this lane becomes almost unplayable as her ult is also broken and counters your ult. Bramble vest is mandatory though she can quickly heal to full from minions.
What keeps this matchup from being a 5 is that her teamfights are garbage and a single hook can shut her down entirely. It also helps that anathemas and frozen heart counter her entire kit.
Pantheon
This lane is already hard because Pantheon's kit is strong (base stats are too high, damage is too high etc.). It becomes harder because of his ultimate, which you can't do anything about. Take demolish and bone plating and ping him whenever he's missing post 6. Thresh will outscale him.
Camille
This lane is not that bad for Thresh. Camille's entire engage can be denied by flay though you have to time it right. Thresh can poke with grasp and can deny her escape with flay and Q. Thresh ult soft counters Camille ult as you can flay her into a wall and walk away.
On the other hand, Camille has a lot of true damage, can roam effectively, and if you don't deny her engage she will punish you hard for it. You won't be able to 1v1 her after the early game with how broken sunderer is on her, but you don't need to since she suffers vs hard cc.
Shen
Shen's taunt can be flayed but it has an extremely fast animation and you can't block it unless you predict it. That probably won't happen. And if you don't block it he taunts you and chunks half your hp bar with no counterplay.
His ult can be interrupted with hook or flay but doing so can cause you to die to a taunt combo - or he'll walk out of vision ult and you won't have a chance to interrupt it. Irregardless, even if you do interrupt his ult he still gets his shield off which can be huge in a fight.
Shen is also a better tank than Thresh and will be very hard to kill. His global presence with R is not something you can match and it's better to ban him because this champion is OP.
Nautilus
You don't see this guy much in toplane anymore but he pops up every now and then. Like Thresh, Nautilus is a more supportive tank. And since he is also melee his damage is low and he cannot trade with you unless he lands a Q or if you walk into melee range.
The biggest risk here is getting ganked post 6 as Thresh cannot escape the almighty point and click. Take grasp and make him miserable.
Cho'Gath
Tank Cho is a pretty big issue for Thresh - pun intended. He has a lot of cc and Thresh has trouble dodging it due to lower base MS and no dashes. Unlike Volibear, Cho is comparably weak before lvl 6. You can win short trades but probably can't kill him. He is difficult to handle later as his huge size and cc will make teamfights tough, especially if there are hypercarries on his team.
Zekes can be a good option mid-late as the bonus on hit damage makes it easier to kill him.
Skarner
The only risks here are being pulled under tower and stunlocked or being ganked and stunlocked. Skarner can't do much to you on his own. Welcome to grasp city.
Cho'Gath
AP Cho'Gath is extremely painful to lane against. His Q can be hard to dodge and does a ton of damage. Thresh has no mr scaling and this lane will force you to stack it. He can poke you out of lane and you can never 1v1 him.
Cassiopeia
This lane is absolutely brutal. Since the removal of adaptive helm there's very little to mitigate the high damage burn of Cassio's abilities. Focus on surviving. A good Q can knock her out of the fight since you can follow this up with flay ult, and another Q provided some CDR. Anathemas and Mikaels are good items vs her.
Heimerdinger
Extremely annoying. This champion is known for pissing everyone off and this is especially true for Thresh. Why? Because Heimer's turrets block your hook. His W poke can be quite high and it is not difficult for him to hit an E on you due to Thresh's immobility.
Expect to lose your tower at 12 minutes without jungle supervision. Heimerdinger can be beaten in fights and taking redemption can be good to mitigate his high AOE.
Jayce
Jayce does a lot of poke damage and can knock you away and kite you to death if engaged on. The plus side is he is entirely physical damage so Thresh will scale against him.
Do not try to kill him without the jungler as Jayce's all in is deceptively strong at all points of the game. He also pokes.
Urgot
The main issue with Urgot is getting hit by his E. It's a 1.5 second stun, gives him a shield, and will lead into a high damage combo that can melt your healthbar. Fortunately, Thresh deny this with E though you'll need to predict it in close range. You'll be punished hard if you mess this up.
Trading with Urgot is weird because while he has 100 less range than you, his auto animation is faster. This means Thresh's trading isn't as favored as you'd think.
Urgot R can be scary and will execute you if below 25% health no matter what. This makes him akin to champions like Garen in terms of both his lane phase and true damage.
In fights it's best to cc the Urgot and keep him off anyone squishy. It might take a while to kill him as he's deceptively tanky.
Frozen heart is extremely strong against him since a lot of Urgot's damage comes from a big attack speed steroid from Purge. Excellent item to rush ahead of Abyssal if you don't absolutely need MR.
Gwen
Every single time she wants to go in press E and walk away. She has no way to gapclose after she uses her dash. Gwen can become untargetable which can deny your flay but in that instance just walk away. It's very easy to avoid trades with her while hitting her occasionally with Thresh's range advantage.
Teamfights can be more difficult due to her invulnerable but appropriate cc lockdown will make her useless. Unlike many bruisers she is bad at chasing you. But like many bruisers she outscales and will eventually win every 1v1. Anathemas is useless vs her and redemption/kv are better choices.
Trundle
The troll has really high stats and base health, good mobility, good waveclear, and a big ****ing pillar. None of these things are particularly big problems except the pillar. It is amazing disruption that can set up ganks from anywhere.
What Trundle wants to do is pillar, walk up and beat the **** out of you. To avoid this, it comes down to positioning and spacing. Never walk up to him if you're not next to the turret, never stand too close to a wall to avoid being creepblocked, and look to freeze if you can't shove the wave in time.
Trundle likes hitting things, particularly turrets. Watch out for his backdoor. If he tries to teamfight just hook him and he's useless. Anathemas and Frozen heart are your friends here.
Leona
Like two people play Leona top and for good reason. It sucks. She has no waveclear and all of her strength comes from repeatedly zenith blade-all inning which Thresh can repeatedly deny with E. She will be extremely tanky like Nautilus and can also set up ganks so keep that in mind. Otherwise take grasp and punish her for this pick.
Yone
Yone top is basically Yasuo top but harder. This is due to his good sustain, high damage, and his unstoppable on E. The unstoppable is especially annoying because Yone will often misposition with it then instantly correct his position ignoring all CC including your hook. Frozen heart and maybe redemption are pretty good vs him since he has some AOE and a lot of attack speed. Anathemas can be a good choice as well.
Quinn
Lane can be rough earlygame. Thresh passive will outscale her so it's possible to stomp this lane with enough armor. But what Quinn wants to do is run around the map and farm kills which is difficult to deal with due to her high mobility and lane bully status.
Tahm Kench
Complete hell to lane against after lvl 2-3. His W completely mitigates Thresh range advantage by allowing him to jump on you at any time and force a bad trade. Does good magic damage making the soul scaling useless. In lane you will be forced to sit under tower and wait for jungler to try and kill the frog. The upsides are that he does not push very well and can be locked down in teamfights. Q and E will both cancel his W. He falls off very hard.
Vladimir
Hard outscales and oneshots mid-late. Can pool Q,E, and R all at once making him a teamfight menace. It is possible to fight Vladimir in the earlygame but he will heal off of minions and out-sustain if he is not killed. Probably unbeatable if he's good.
Sylas
This lane is extremely dangerous as Sylas has a very powerful all-in even at lvl 2. This can be denied with flay but the dude has constant ability rotations that you'll need to respect. Thresh's ult isn't great for him to steal as it only bursts a single target. He can be locked down with cc and does not like to splitpush. Anathemas is good here.
Teemo
A good Teemo is pretty rough to play against. His damage is 90% magical so he doesn't care about Thresh's soul scaling. He will build a lot of attack speed to melt your hp bar even with MR. He's also hard to catch thanks to a tiny hitbox and high mobility. Not fun overall.
If you kill this guy its because he got overaggressive and decided to trade near turret. That's a death sentence for Teemo and always punish him if he does this. He's hard to deal with at all points in the game, especially later because his mushrooms can nuke your team. Anathemas can be good because he likes to splitpush and doesn't do true damage. Frozen heart isn't bad either, nor is redemption or mikaels to shield your allies.
Ekko
Ekko's AOE stun has excellent synergy with Thresh. Thresh can flay enemies into it for a 2.25 second stun and then hook for an additional 1.5 second stun for over 3.75 seconds of hard cc. Ekko can also dash to your lantern for free ganks or escapes.
Pantheon
Pantheon has pretty strong early roams and they only become stronger with Thresh. Your lantern perfectly sets up his stun and his stun can also prep an easy hook/flay combo. You can 2v2 with him.
Nunu & Willump
Nunu doesn't do much damage but has strong ganks and a lot of cc.
Fiddlesticks
Not very useful until 6. After 6 it's a strong synergy as Thresh can easily hold enemies inside the entire duration of his ult.
Amumu
Amumu has good damage, strong ganks, and tons of cc and generally works well with Thresh.
Evelynn
Really good champion with Thresh because her charm perfectly sets up Thresh Q/E. You can also set up her charm with Q/E or lantern. Thresh can hold enemies in place for her to ult them. She also snowballs very, very hard which makes repeat ganks increasingly beneficial.
Master Yi
Early ganks with him aren't the greatest since he has no cc. He can snowball insanely hard though, so make sure he gets the kill every time he ganks you.
Skarner
Skarner and Thresh are the cc machine of no damage. This combo is pretty good for stomping lanes early but falls off pretty hard later on since neither you or Skarner will be doing damage later on. There are better synergies.
Synergies
IdealStrongOkLowNone
Ekko
Ekko's AOE stun has excellent synergy with Thresh. Thresh can flay enemies into it for a 2.25 second stun and then hook for an additional 1.5 second stun for over 3.75 seconds of hard cc. Ekko can also dash to your lantern for free ganks or escapes.
Pantheon
Pantheon has pretty strong early roams and they only become stronger with Thresh. Your lantern perfectly sets up his stun and his stun can also prep an easy hook/flay combo. You can 2v2 with him.
Nunu & Willump
Nunu doesn't do much damage but has strong ganks and a lot of cc.
Fiddlesticks
Not very useful until 6. After 6 it's a strong synergy as Thresh can easily hold enemies inside the entire duration of his ult.
Amumu
Amumu has good damage, strong ganks, and tons of cc and generally works well with Thresh.
Evelynn
Really good champion with Thresh because her charm perfectly sets up Thresh Q/E. You can also set up her charm with Q/E or lantern. Thresh can hold enemies in place for her to ult them. She also snowballs very, very hard which makes repeat ganks increasingly beneficial.
Master Yi
Early ganks with him aren't the greatest since he has no cc. He can snowball insanely hard though, so make sure he gets the kill every time he ganks you.
Skarner
Skarner and Thresh are the cc machine of no damage. This combo is pretty good for stomping lanes early but falls off pretty hard later on since neither you or Skarner will be doing damage later on. There are better synergies.
Runes: STANDARD CARRY
123
Domination
Hail of Blades
Cheap Shot
Ghost Poro
Ravenous Hunter
Precision
Legend: Alacrity
Coup de Grace
Bonus:
+9 Adaptive (5.4 AD or 9 AP)
+9 Adaptive (5.4 AD or 9 AP)
+6 Armor
Domination
Dark Harvest
Taste of Blood
Ghost Poro
Ravenous Hunter
Precision
Legend: Bloodline
Coup de Grace
Bonus:
+9 Adaptive (5.4 AD or 9 AP)
+9 Adaptive (5.4 AD or 9 AP)
+6 Armor
Precision
Lethal Tempo
Triumph
Legend: Alacrity
Coup de Grace
Domination
Ravenous Hunter
Cheap Shot
Bonus:
+10% Attack Speed
+9 Adaptive (5.4 AD or 9 AP)
+6 Armor
The ezreal matchup is actually pretty easy early game because his damage is low and he has no dps. This becomes harder when he hits 6 because his ult has really high base damage and scaling. He will continue to outscale you from here and it will be impossible to touch him.
Draven
Draven is one of the worst matchups for ADC Thresh because of his high early game damage and aggressive playstyle. But he's very susceptible to cc and if you get a lead you can pop him.
Lucian
Lucian has multiple dashes, decent poke, and a lot of damage. But he's a shorter ranged ADC - only 500 range - and doesn't have the powerful lategame (Vayne) so it's not too bad if you survive early.
Vayne
Provided she's appropriately locked down, Vayne can be popped at all points of the game. Watch out for her condemn because the stun will stop you from autoing her.
Quinn
Quinn's blind can interrupt your autos and she has high mobility/roaming potential. But she's easy to pop if locked down and has mediocre range.
Jinx
Not an extreme threat but Jinx is definitely annoying. Her root can block an engage and her Zap does a lot of damage. She can also poke behind waves with her Q. She's similar to Vayne in how hard she can snowball if ahead
Caitlyn
Higher range ADCs are always a problem for Thresh and Caitlyn is no exception. She outranges you by 200 (650 vs 450), has a dash, a root, and can poke way behind minion waves (with both Q and R). This would be an instance where I would opt for Doran's Shield instead of Doran's Blade as you really need the help to survive lane. Exceptions would be if you're playing with an engage support who can reliably jump on her. In which case, take Doran's Blade for the extra damage.
Neeko
Neeko is pretty obnoxious for Thresh, ADC or otherwise. Her clone cancels your auto since it makes her invisible and, of course, you can mistakenly auto the clone if she does it properly. Her ult is impossible to avoid if she lands her root and she has good auto and spell poke. Playable if you have the right support (engage like Leona) but terrible if you don't. Fortunately, you'll probably never see Neeko support
Morgana
Not as bad as Neeko since her root doesn't pass through minion waves and her E poke is only effective if you're low (she won't max E anyway). If you DO get hit by her bind you're in trouble, which is what makes this matchup difficult. Her ult zhonyas combo can also cancel an autoattack, her stun cancels autoattacks, her pool poke will hurt later on, and her spellshield blocks Thresh's auto damage. Ban since she pops up often, especially in low elo.
Janna
A good Janna player will take advantage of the range disparity and constantly W auto you for a bunch of poke. Her Q and R both deny your (or your support's) engage, her shield mitigates your damage, and she can be hard to catch. This is less cancerous to deal with once you have rapid firecannon - at which point you will delete her in 1 auto. But until then...
Varus
Lethality varus is hard to deal with because its equivalent to the ADC version of Xerath. Opt for Doran's shield if you do not have a support who can reliably jump on him.
Nautilus
Nautilus can easily 1v1 you and is impossible to kill. And unlike Leona, you can't use cleanse to get rid of the cc from his ult (which is a point and click). Hope you have a frontline to handle him or you'll spend a lot of time running from his anchor.
Miss Fortune
Miss Fortune ADC really isn't that bad. She has a lot of mobility but very low base damage and mediocre range. Just avoid tanking her Q's and you're good to go.
Ashe
Ashe ADC's volley poke and Q slow are super annoying and she also has 600 range. However she has no mobility and is highly susceptible to hard engage. Given the right comp, you can easily pop her.
Ashe
Ashe support will spend the entire lane poking you with volley but she has no durability and no hard cc out of her crystal arrow. With an engage support or a good hook you can burst her down in seconds for free kills. If she's playing with a poke adc consider taking Doran's Shield so you don't get too low.
Brand
His poke and range are pretty tough for ADC Thresh. He can 1v2 lane in certain scenarios. You can pop him given a lead.
Aphelios
Has a turret that he can use to block Death Sentence and long range poke, cc, and other ********. Not the best auto range, though, and no dashes.
Samira
Like Yasuo, Samira windwall does not block Thresh autos. This gives you a huge advantage when trading with her. Flay and Death Sentence can both interrupt her ult. Her 500 auto range means you'll take minimal poke too.
Jhin
His snares and 4th shot damage can be very annoying. His ult is only a problem if there's no one around to peel for it. Whoever wins this lane stomps and vice versa.
Senna
Senna has a lot of poke, unlimited range scaling, cc, and high damage. Her wraith form also makes her untargetable with autoattacks. Without hard engage, lane will be rough. However you can pop her given a lead.
Braum
Braum has a powerful slow, a knockup and aoe slow, and a stun. Try to keep him off of you because his stun will make trading impossible. He's also very tanky so good luck killing him. That said, his shield won't block the Thresh autos which is a big plus.
Leona
Leona, like Nautilus, is a tanky engage machine whose only purpose is to remove the enemy adc from the game (while being unkillable). This matchup isn't so bad pre 6 since Thresh can flay her E and spacing from her Q isn't hard. But post 6 she can run at you whenever she likes and press R. Buying QSS or running cleanse is a good idea if you want to move.
Karthus
Oneshotting him doesn't actually win fights.
Nautilus
Nautilus is fantastic with Thresh. His hook can set up your hook, as can his root, E, or R. He also provides excellent frontline and the hard peeling AD Thresh needs. His earlygame damage is also very strong making for a powerful 2v2 if he can engage on the enemy ADC.
Leona
Leona is very similar to Nautilus in how she works with Thresh. Permanent crowd control, strong damage, and very tanky. She has multiple ways to set up combos and provides a lot of pressure in lane.
Pyke
Pyke has a nice hook/stun combo that can drag enemies into Thresh's Q/E/R. His ult executes low hp enemies you may be unable to finish off. The only downside is he is not tanky and cannot frontline like Leona or Nautilus.
Blitzcrank
Blitz and Thresh have the iconic double hook lane which is excellent when it works and terrible when it doesn't. Blitzcrank has no particularly helpful tools outside of his Q so if he misses it, you're not doing much.
Bard
A good Bard is a joy to lane with. His stun can set up free hooks or autos and his poke can be really, really strong. His portal is good for playmaking and his ult can set up a good ult + auto combo for Thresh on stasis targets. HIs heals are also nice and also give a speedboost. The biggest downside to Bard is he's not tanky and can't frontline.
Sona
Sona has no hard CC outside of her ult but is vulnerable to hard engage. About the only thing she can do is provide occasional heals and poke, which lets you probably survive lane but not win it.
Braum
Great pick with Thresh. Braum has solid crowd control, is very tanky, and can block a lot of damage with his shield. He also has a great engage with his ult. He's just as good as Nautilus and Leona so it's an ideal support for sure.
Morgana
The Morgana lane really isn't that great. On one hand, if she lands Qs it sets up free hooks, autos etc. On the other, she has no hard cc outside that until 6 and even then it's not that great.
Zyra
Not the best for crowd control, she still has a root and lots and lots of damage. Pretty good to all in with if not the best at prepping it.
Alistar
Alistar's engage is really nice and if he's good he can headbutt enemies into your auto range or away from you if you're getting all-in'd. Not as good as Nautilus and Leona because he's not great at holding people still. Not a bad choice though. Also heals.
Zilean
Revive and speedboost are nice. He's very squishy and has inconsistent poke though. His slow or double bomb can set up an all in.
Maokai
It's free whenever he has a chance to go in with his W. He is susceptible to poke though.
Synergies
IdealStrongOkLowNone
Nautilus
Nautilus is fantastic with Thresh. His hook can set up your hook, as can his root, E, or R. He also provides excellent frontline and the hard peeling AD Thresh needs. His earlygame damage is also very strong making for a powerful 2v2 if he can engage on the enemy ADC.
Leona
Leona is very similar to Nautilus in how she works with Thresh. Permanent crowd control, strong damage, and very tanky. She has multiple ways to set up combos and provides a lot of pressure in lane.
Pyke
Pyke has a nice hook/stun combo that can drag enemies into Thresh's Q/E/R. His ult executes low hp enemies you may be unable to finish off. The only downside is he is not tanky and cannot frontline like Leona or Nautilus.
Blitzcrank
Blitz and Thresh have the iconic double hook lane which is excellent when it works and terrible when it doesn't. Blitzcrank has no particularly helpful tools outside of his Q so if he misses it, you're not doing much.
Bard
A good Bard is a joy to lane with. His stun can set up free hooks or autos and his poke can be really, really strong. His portal is good for playmaking and his ult can set up a good ult + auto combo for Thresh on stasis targets. HIs heals are also nice and also give a speedboost. The biggest downside to Bard is he's not tanky and can't frontline.
Sona
Sona has no hard CC outside of her ult but is vulnerable to hard engage. About the only thing she can do is provide occasional heals and poke, which lets you probably survive lane but not win it.
Braum
Great pick with Thresh. Braum has solid crowd control, is very tanky, and can block a lot of damage with his shield. He also has a great engage with his ult. He's just as good as Nautilus and Leona so it's an ideal support for sure.
Morgana
The Morgana lane really isn't that great. On one hand, if she lands Qs it sets up free hooks, autos etc. On the other, she has no hard cc outside that until 6 and even then it's not that great.
Zyra
Not the best for crowd control, she still has a root and lots and lots of damage. Pretty good to all in with if not the best at prepping it.
Alistar
Alistar's engage is really nice and if he's good he can headbutt enemies into your auto range or away from you if you're getting all-in'd. Not as good as Nautilus and Leona because he's not great at holding people still. Not a bad choice though. Also heals.
Zilean
Revive and speedboost are nice. He's very squishy and has inconsistent poke though. His slow or double bomb can set up an all in.
Maokai
It's free whenever he has a chance to go in with his W. He is susceptible to poke though.
Runes: ONE SHOT CARRY
123
Resolve
Aftershock
Demolish
Second Wind
Overgrowth
Domination
Cheap Shot
Relentless Hunter
Bonus:
+9 Adaptive (5.4 AD or 9 AP)
+9 Adaptive (5.4 AD or 9 AP)
+6 Armor
Inspiration
Glacial Augment
Hextech Flashtraption
Biscuit Delivery
Time Warp Tonic
Resolve
Font of Life
Bone Plating
Bonus:
+9 Adaptive (5.4 AD or 9 AP)
+9 Adaptive (5.4 AD or 9 AP)
+6 Armor
Morgana's entire kit counters Thresh in one way or another, yet this is not nessecarily a loss. It's a skill matchup to a certain extent. Morgana's spellshield has a very long early game cooldown (several seconds longer than Death Sentence lvl 1) and if used on your hook - it won't block your engage. Her Q is extremely annoying and does a lot of damage thanks to its 90% AP ratio, but it's slow moving and not too difficult to dodge. The difficulty of Morgana matchup will depend on how good you or the ADC (especially the ADC) are at dodging her bind. If you can't dodge it, you'll quickly run into trouble. Consider banning if you think you can't handle her.
Sivir
Sivir is a pretty annoying champion who can deal a lot of poke far behind minion waves and can nullify your entire engage with one button. She takes a while to run out of mana, and will never run out once she has Essence Reaver, so she'll rarely be too oom for spellshield. Probably Thresh's hardest counter because she will always save spellshield for your hook. Her ult is also very annoying as she can run you down with it or run away if you (somehow) manage to get on top of her. She doesn't have a high pickrate so it isn't worth to ban her.
Janna
Not a dumb champion, but a very annoying one. Janna can disrupt Thresh's entire engage with Q and ult, can shield an ally from his damage (or the adc's), and can heal in a big ****ing AOE for like, a lot of health. She has decent earlygame poke, which is annoying, but Thresh will beat her quite hard pre-6. After which killing anyone on her team becomes significantly more difficult.
Sona
Lvl 1 pokebot but that's about all. Her hitbox is only slightly smaller than Canada (think Greenland) - which is also difficult for NA Threshmains to miss. Super, duper, ultra squishy and dead if you hit basically anything (and if she doesn't have flash). She will outscale you so keep that in mind. She has pick potential with her ult.
Brand
Cancer but beatable. His stun is his only escape and he's somewhat weak pre-6. Redemption and locket will be necessary in this lane. Probably a 4-5 threat in low elo because adcs never dodge his pillar and, usually, don't dodge his stun. Ganks may be necessary to do anything depending on the adcs (Sivir/Brand and Caitlyn/Brand are quite hard).
Alistar
Alistar's engage can be flayed but its a very fast animation meaning you must predict it. He's hard to kill but much less versatile than you.
Nautilus
Heavy cc and tankiness but less utility. He also has a hitbox the size of Canada, which is good because even NA threshmains can't miss it. Only danger is if he hooks your adc or manages to get a nice ult when the enemy jungler is around. Lantern away in both cases. Re-engage potential is strong. You can also poke him lvl 1-2 with autos. Becoms hard post 6.
Lux
Lux is pretty annoying with her light binding and undodgeable Q poke but that's about all. Like any squishy mage you can stomp her hard earlygame, which means the matchup is automatically in your favor. She also does not scale as hard as other mage/enchanter supports which is good news for you.
Braum
Braum's stun and that thing where he jumps to his ADC and shields all incoming damage is pretty annoying. He's also tanky and his Q poke is surprisingly decent. His ult is also a problem if it's combo'd with another AoE (such as Ezreal ult - overpowered as **** btw). This will force you to flash. The slow and knockup from it also counters the cc from your box. That said, he's just not a particularly big problem. Thresh has greater utility and just as much cc, in addition to being able to poke lvl 1-2. Lantern also, arguably, allows Thresh to peel his adc harder than Braum can. Avoid getting stunlocked out of position and you should be fine.
Rakan
His engage and disengage dashes have fast animations can be difficult to cancel. If you do you can set up a very free kill with EQ combo. Post 6 is hard due to the multitarget hard cc from his ult + knockup combo.
Soraka
Earlygame poke can be a problem. Her silence can also deny your engage but she can't do much if flashed on. Focus her in fights.
Ezreal
Ezreal is pretty annoying for Thresh to deal with. I've done some predictions which you can find in the videos in this guide of Ezreal E. But I've also had my share of boosted moments where I miss or they don't E and it's just not fun. Ezreal can be especially oppressive if he's got the right support.
Draven
Hook where his axes land, he'll always try to pick them up. Don't be overconfident, he has a speedboost and a displacement tool. You will be punished quite hard if you miss your QE/EQ combo.
Galio
His engage + taunt combo is pretty obnoxious to fight. He's also hard to kill and can block your abilities with his big hitbox.
Nami
Her bubble + ult can be a problem as can her earlygame poke (which is stronger than you'd think). She doesn't handle hard engage very well though. Similar to Soraka.
Zilean
Zilean is my counterpick to Thresh and he should be considered as such for any player. The only time Thresh will beat him is pre-6, or particularly pre-3, when Zilean does not have his Q,W,Q combo up (his double bomb and AOE stun). After that, Zilean will hard outscale. He can shove waves with his Q, can save himself or allies with his E, can obliterate your squishies with 1 successful combo, can pick you or an ally off with a 99% point and click slow, and to top it off, can revive anyone on his team with his ult (which also has a 200% ap scaling). Oh and did I say he does, exclusively, magic damage? Because he does. Yes, magic damage, the thing that tanks cannot itemize against.
Blitzcrank
Blitz is a pretty tough matchup for Thresh. His hook outclasses your hook and he's a lot, lot tankier earlygame so if you hook him he's probably fine. But if he hooks you, you're burning flashes. You can save ADC with lantern, though his ult will break any of your shields.
Bard
Skill matchup. If he doesnt poke you down you can win though.
Leona
Difficult due to how tanky Leona is. Post 6 is hard because she can catch you with her ult-E combo. Can easily deny her pre 6 engage with flay. Poke with autos lvl 1. Flay away if she starts E and engages.
Vayne
Vayne is a ******** champion who can tumble every few seconds, at low mana cost, to dodge your chains. Condemn does ridiculous damage with press the attack (both need to be nerfed) and can deny your engage. Lategame she will melt all tanks with a handful of autos due to how ******ed her kit is. Lock her down early (when she is very weak) and she will have trouble coming back. Don't and you lose 100%.
Aphelios
High threat level just because of how much damage he does. His turret can also block your hook and his long ranged root is obnoxious to play against. That said, he has no escapes and can be effectively locked down with a good EQ combo.
Senna
Senna's root and poke are annoying but Thresh will stomp the all ins every single time.
Caitlyn
Caitlyn has long range, a dash, and some very annoying crowd control with her traps. It is, however, possible to flay her dash into a free hook. Don't get poked down and you can look for opportunities to engage.
Yuumi
Pre 6 depends on the Yuumi's positioning and the safety of the ADC they're playing with. It is possible to catch her with a hook while she leaps back to her carry. Post 6 can be difficult as the hard cc from her ult can deny your engage.
Maokai
Maokai has tons of crowd control and is impossible to kill. By WQ'ing you or your adc he can deny your entire engage. His ult can counter your ult, but only if you get caught by it. His saplings can also provide vision for incoming ganks, can deny your engage (they also slow), or can just poke you or the ADC from bushes.
Lulu
Thresh beats Lulu early but loses quite hard later on. She's a possible ban for you.
Draven
A good Draven is gamechanging with Thresh. You can set up kill after kill after kill for him and can lantern him out if he chooses to towerdive. Many Dravens choose to be *too* aggressive so this doesn't always go as well as you'd hope...
Kalista
This is a classic lane and one of my favorites. Kalista can ult Thresh throw him into a 2v2 for a free box, flay, hook combo. Devastating if played right. She can jump to your lantern.
Samira
Samira's knockup perfectly preps Thresh Q/E and Thresh box keeps targets locked inside her ult. She can also dash to your lantern. Very strong synergy.
Miss Fortune
MF has pretty good poke and her slow can set up a flash engage with flay or hook. Thresh and MF ults have pretty good synergy though it's not as strong as Leona/MF.
Jhin
Jhin's downside is his auto resets are very slow. The upside is he has high burst and can root enemies for very free hooks or flays. If Thresh positions correctly he can hold enemies still for Jhin to hit with his ult.
Ezreal
Only synergy here is Ezreal can arcane shift to your lantern. His kit relies primarily on poking and not all-ins so there are plenty of better options.
Synergies
IdealStrongOkLowNone
Draven
A good Draven is gamechanging with Thresh. You can set up kill after kill after kill for him and can lantern him out if he chooses to towerdive. Many Dravens choose to be *too* aggressive so this doesn't always go as well as you'd hope...
Kalista
This is a classic lane and one of my favorites. Kalista can ult Thresh throw him into a 2v2 for a free box, flay, hook combo. Devastating if played right. She can jump to your lantern.
Samira
Samira's knockup perfectly preps Thresh Q/E and Thresh box keeps targets locked inside her ult. She can also dash to your lantern. Very strong synergy.
Miss Fortune
MF has pretty good poke and her slow can set up a flash engage with flay or hook. Thresh and MF ults have pretty good synergy though it's not as strong as Leona/MF.
Jhin
Jhin's downside is his auto resets are very slow. The upside is he has high burst and can root enemies for very free hooks or flays. If Thresh positions correctly he can hold enemies still for Jhin to hit with his ult.
Ezreal
Only synergy here is Ezreal can arcane shift to your lantern. His kit relies primarily on poking and not all-ins so there are plenty of better options.
Runes: STANDARD BURST
12
Domination
Electrocute
Cheap Shot
Ghost Poro
Ingenious Hunter
Sorcery
Transcendence
Nullifying Orb
Bonus:
+8 Ability Haste
+9 Adaptive (5.4 AD or 9 AP)
+6 Armor
Domination
Electrocute
Cheap Shot
Ghost Poro
Ingenious Hunter
Resolve
Bone Plating
Overgrowth
Bonus:
+8 Ability Haste
+9 Adaptive (5.4 AD or 9 AP)
+6 Armor
Ahri has a bunch of dashes and can poke you from behind minion waves. Her charm is extremely annoying and can be tricky to dodge since you can't farm from long range. She can also dodge your combo (or just your hook) with ult.
Heimerdinger
His turrets block your hooks and Thresh's immobility and short range makes it difficult to avoid his stun. You also lack the damage to efficiently clear his turrets although you can pull them under turret with Q. Unplayable if he's good.
Anivia
Unplayable.
Katarina
Earlygame, lvl 1-3, you will have the damage to trade with her and even beat her. However her damage quickly outscales yours and she will become dangerous. Make the most of your range advantage and repeat kill her so she can't kill you. Take electrocute and ignite.
Cassiopeia
Potentially beatable early levels due to mediocre damage and mana issues. Lane becomes difficult once she has her miasma and much harder post 6. Take electrocute and nullifying orb.
Lux
AD Thresh mid isn't the worst vs Lux, provided you can reliably dodge her light binding. Getting hit by it will set up a free Lux Q leading to you losing half your health.
Ryze
Ryze can be difficult due to his high waveclear, damage, and mobility with phase rush. His range isn't great though meaning you can probably combo him repeatedly with protobelt flay and ult.
Aurelion Sol
Veigar
Veigar is fairly easy pre 6. Use that time to constantly bully him because post 6 will be very hard. His cage counters your W and Q dashes! You also can't protobelt through it.
Vladimir
Extreme counter. His 20 second cd pool completely counters Thesh's 140 sec cd ult. He out sustains any of your poke and can burst you from full health. You can combo him hard when his pool is down though.
Sylas
Sylas isn't as bad as the others because he is melee, allowing you to poke him somewhat frequently early on. Post 6 will be difficult as your ult isn't terrible for him to steal (high base damage in single target 1v1s) and his W healing can bring him back to full hp in one click.
Akali
Can be hard to kill but you have potential outtrade potential with flay auto box combo.
Neeko
Her clone can block your hook and also makes her briefly invisible. Neeko's root/Q combo is very obnoxious and a good Neeko will do this every time you walk up to the wave. You can flay her ult.
Xerath
You need your jungler for this one or it will be very rough.
Zed
Rush seekers and stopwatch so you don't die to his 6. Thresh's armor stacking is pretty good against Zed and you can cheese kill lvl 1-2 with doran's blade.
Malzahar
Unplayable.
Diana
Diana has extremely high burst which should not be underestimated. She lacks aoe and range, however, and can be outplayed early.
Fizz
Borderline unplayable, stopwatch is mandatory in this lane. Fizz is like Vladimir as he can completely counter your ult with a much shorter CD ability and is generally hard to hit with any cc.
Irelia
One of the few matchups which isn't much of a problem. Thresh has a lot of safety against Irelia mid because she can't poke you and relies entirely on 24/7 all-ins. That's hard to pull off with Thresh's cc anywhere near the tower. Flay interrupts her dashes and stunning with hook can stop her R.
Lucian
Not as hard as Lucian top but still dangerous due to his powerful all in potential. Can hard engage on him with protobelt, flay, and ult.
Karthus
He's not hard to burst but can blow you up from beyond the grave. Scales much harder mid/late and is automatically more useful than you by pressing R. Once again, zhonyas is important!
Talon
He has surprising early burst but can be hard countered by Thresh's crowd control. Thresh ult counters his ult and it's generally not hard to hook or flay him out of invisibility. The main issue will be his roams...
Hi I'm Michael Kurylo also known as BunnyFuFuu, former support for Cloud 9 and full time streamer.
I am a NA Threshmain with over 4,000 games on the champion and was Master to Challenger elo in seasons 4,5, and 6. I played in the LCS for two years and originally became famous for my game-winning Thresh outplays.
My combined mastery across multiple accounts is approximately 3 million points, with a 58% winrate including normal and ranked games. I used to be a support main until I took Thresh into ADC and occasionally the toplane. After which I've played Thresh in every role with varying degrees of success with an equal degree of int. One of my more notable achievements was playing 100 ranked games (NA gold) of Thresh jungle with a 65% winrate overall.
Outside of League I stream TFT, miss hoops in basketball, and mess around with merch guy. Oh and I've got a GIRLFRIEND now kappapride. One day boys. One day. #noodlearms
This guide started as an ADC Thresh build which I made as a subscriber special. Apparently people really liked it and within a few months it was upvoted to the second highest rated Thresh build on Mobafire for a few weeks. That was really surprising but when you've got a big enough YouTube presence I guess anything can happen. Recently I decided to do a complete overhaul of the guide - with information on how to play Thresh in all roles so you can climb to challenger, with the best advice possible.
Normally I'd rely on my editors to do this sort of thing but I was like nah man, Bunny's gotta do this one himself. And that's exactly what I did. And honestly, I've learned a lot about Mobafire's formatting and BB code while trying to put this together. There's still some things I don't really know how to do but I am NOT asking Tanto to do it ok I'm going to figure this out myself. But I've definitely got a better feel for BB code and Gimp, which I used to create most of the 'fancy' text and make the images look edgier, cooler, all that good stuff. I hope you find this guide useful, and if not useful, entertaining. Enjoy!
Guys, guys,guys,
I love you guys so much that I've decided to import some of my Thresh wisdom to Mobafire. POGGERS! Just kidding, but for real, we have got so much to talk about with this champion. We got hooks, lanterns, flays, setting up plays with The Box everything. All that information and more is below. It's all part of the Secret Hook Formula, as promised, and once you're through with this guide you'll know all about the mechanics that make my plays possible.
Alrighty to start lets begin with Thresh top, which is definitely one of my favorites, and we'll go from there.
Thresh Top is what you'd call an 'off meta' pick and while it isn't the greatest it can work for a couple reasons:
Range. Thresh's autoattack range is 450 which is considerably higher than virtually every toplaner. The exceptions being Teemo, Urgot (also 450 range), Heimerdinger, Ryze, Vayne... you get the idea. Mages and ADCs are the problem here. Excepting those lanes, Thresh can avoid trading in seemingly unfavorable lanes - or win trades - due to his range advantage. There are a few bruisers who can reliably get on top of you, and in that case, build defensively and play safely.
Souls. Thresh's passive, Damnation gives him free armor and AP, both of which counter (most) toplaners who do physical damage and are susceptible to magic damage (which is what Thresh deals anyway). At around 15-20 min Thresh's soul passive will outscale most of the toplaners in terms of armor gained. By 25 minutes, if you're collecting the souls you'll outscale the tanks too.
Utility. Thresh can set up ganks better than any champion in the game with his Death Sentence, Flay, and Dark Passage (QEW) combo. This becomes even easier with The Box and Flash up. Land anything and at the very least you'll force Flash or secure a kill. Just funnel your jungler if you can't win lane. It's easy!
I haven't made any Thresh top videos personally but if you want to give my very good friend AdmiralMunson some love he's starting out on YouTube, making some good content like the video below. Check it out!
Thresh ADC is also an off meta pick that has seen some play from low to high elo since his release in season 3. It's generally regarded as a meme build due to the emphasis on oneshots Thresh's classification as a support.
It is a meme build but he can work as an ADC due to the (at max lvl) 200% AD bonus damage from his Flay passive on a fully charged autoattack. Thresh also works well with most supports (particularly Pyke, Blitzcrank, Nami, and Leona) due to the utility in his kit and can easily set up ganks with Death Sentence, Dark Passage, or Flay (if not all 3). The double hooker botlane is always a classic, and
a pretty hot one too heheh (don't kill me). Early plays can give Thresh free kills, allowing him to snowball the game pretty hard.
The biggest downside to ADC Thresh is his lack of range. Thresh, on release, had 475 range which was just good enough to allow him to be a meta ADC (this was in season 3) as well as a support. Now it's 450. Another is Thresh's really slow autoattack windup. Thresh's 1st auto windup is 25% as fast as every other champion - a nerf intended to keep ADC Thresh from being a thing. However, with the addition of Rapidfirecannon and Stormrazor (ironically it's better on Thresh than any other champion) Thresh ADC can work as a one-shotting assassin where you stack all of your damage on the 1st autoattack. Just don't expect to top the damage charts with this! (do Ezreal if you want that, his poke is insane!)
See my videos below for ADC Thresh in action, using Dark Harvest and many of the other runes listed above:
Rapid Firecannon is a great item on ADC Thresh, it's definitely one of my favorites. Of course, you don't always have to go RFC, Tanto put up the Stattik Shiv & Runaan's Hurricane technology!
Thresh's traditional role. Per leagueofgraphs.com, 99% of games in every elo are played with Thresh as a support. And if you are not a onetrick, or actually want to climb in ranked, that's where you should play him. I am a onetrick and because I am that means I'm allowed to do a lot of really dumb stuff with this champion and get away with it.
However, most of you are not onetricks Thresh support is where you should start - in ranked at least. Thresh is an excellent support who excels at playmaking and picks. He is also one of the hardest supports to play, and master, in the game. Thresh is very skillshot dependent, with long cooldowns on his abilities. Landing Death Sentence is particularly important to doing well with Thresh - it's the most powerful ability in his kit with Dark Passage as the runner up.
Downsides to Thresh support: long range poke mages, especially ones with sustain/mobility or crowd control. Some of Thresh's hardest counters are Zyra, Brand, and Sona for this reason. All of them have good damage ( Brand arguably has the most) with Sona and Zyra having crowd control and/or sustain.
This video gives a general overview of my thoughts on Season 10 Thresh but for the latest info on what to build, what to buy, matchups all that good stuff, check out the build paths above and the description below!
Thresh mid is probably one of the worst things you can ever play. You will be massively outranged by 9/10 matchups and usually won't be able to do anything when most mages hit 6. That said, it's Thresh and it's fun. And fun is what we're all about since most of us aren't getting out of silver anyway.
"So how do I play Thresh mid LCS god fufuu?" Ah, well there are three ways to play Thresh mid. AP caster, AD burst, or 0 damage tank. The tank build, where you stack MR ( Spirit Visage, Locket of the Iron Solari, and perhaps a Turbo Chemtank for engage) is fun because you never die. Thresh can stack a lot of MR and get away with it, too, since Damnation gives him up to 100 free armor (a Frozen Heart basically) at ~30 minutes depending on how many souls you're collecting. The downside is you lose any burst you'd get from full AP prince or AD Thresh. You're basically a tankier Thresh support with a Bami's Cinder (or a Sunfire Aegis depending on the game).
As for AP Thresh, it's been best described as squishy Thresh support with a little more damage. As I've said, it's just about the worst thing you can ever play. But that hasn't stopped me so why should it stop you? This is Mobafire after all, where Silver teaches Bronze. Now AP Thresh mid can be rather fun early where you can go Electrocute, Cheap Shot, and Scorch with double AD adaptive (with Doran's Shield or Doran's Blade) for some ridiculous lvl 1-2 damage. Problem is, some midlaners ( Irelia, Twisted Fate etc.) go Corrupting Potion - an annoyingly broken item that gives far more sustain than it should. Or if they take Doran's Ring they'll have more potions than you anyway and can sustain through your initial burst. Since Thresh has no dps and minimal poke it's hard to follow up. Alternatively you can go for a more passive AP Thresh and focus on damaging/providing utility with your Death Sentence.
AD Thresh mid abuses the awful base stats most mages have (i.e. really low armor) for some crazy early-midgame burst. Build him similar to ADC Thresh with Infinity Edge, Rapid Firecannon and maybe a Bloodthirster for huge 1st auto damage and take Relentless Hunter for roams once you've finished tormenting Lux.
Both of these videos demonstrate the proto-**** technology at its finest. The video below is also a great example of what I want you guys to be building on Thresh mid OK? You want the Hextech Rocketbelt, the Zhonya's Hourglass, and round it off with 40%+ CDR and Rabadon's Deathcap. The playmaking potential is through the ROOF
Watch and learn boys. Watch and learn.
- High base damage - Strong lane phase anywhere - Really OP roams - Almost impossible to towerdive - Tons of utility - Plenty of gank potential ( Dark Passage from Fog of War) - Utility - Self peel ( Flay and The Box) - Free armor and AP from Damnation - Infinite scaling - Ranged champion. Doesn't get bullied by melee's
- Can be zoned off minions and souls - Ranged champion (higher execute threshhold for minions) - Bad waveclear - Bad AD scaling (93 AD at lvl 18) - Very slow first auto windup (25% as fast as most other champions) - Out-damaged by most champions - Bad MR scaling (38 at lvl 18) - Skillshot dependent ( Death Sentence) - Weak to crowd control. Flay and The Box only escapes - No sustain or healing
PASSIVE
ABILITY
DAMNATION(Passive): Thresh gains souls from his passive, one for every three minions killed, one for every champion killed (either by Thresh or anyone else), and two per epic monster (dragons, Rift Herald, Baron Nashor etc) killed. Thresh gains 0.75 armor and AP per soul, in addition to 1 bonus magic damage per autoattack scaling infinitely. That is - if Thresh has 100 souls he gains 75 bonus armor and AP while his autoattacks deal 100 bonus magic damage every autoattack. His Dark Passage shield also shields for 100 more damage.
Thresh, unlike every other champion, does not gain armor per level. He gains armor through collecting souls. You can use Dark Passage to collect them if you're being denied (say vs. Yasuo or Teemo). Further, Thresh has one of the lowest AD scalings in the game at +2 AD/lvl (93 AD at lvl 18). His soul collection compensates for that. Suppose Thresh has 100 souls at lvl 18 - his autos will deal 100 + (93 -> 186) damage, or 193 to 286 damage, which is comparable to most toplaners. His autos also do a lot more damage, compensating for low base AD when you play Thresh ADC. That's why it's important to collect the souls!
Thresh Passive
Q
DEATH SENTENCE(Q): Arguably the most powerful ability in Thresh's kit, Death Sentence is a long ranged stun - and hook - which can be used as any of the following:
A gapcloser
An escape
A picking tool
Playmaking tool
Thresh winds his Death Sentence for 0.5 seconds before casting it in a direction - which he does not have to be facing at the time of the cast. Landing a Death Sentence stuns the target for 1.5 seconds and drags them toward Thresh for 2 seconds (total). Thresh can reactivate Death Sentence to 'leap' to his target, possibly using Dark Passage to take an ally with him.
Death Sentence can be blocked by Yasuo's Windwall but interrupting the channel will not stop the hook. For example, Udyr's Blazing Stampede cannot stop your hook as long as you cast it before his stun.
Death Sentence is difficult to land, mainly due to the windup, and you will have to spend a lot of time practicing to land it even half the time. It is Thresh's signature ability and without it you won't be much use in teamfights - particularly as a support or toplane tank. However, Death Sentence isn't as important if you're building Thresh as an assassin or an ADC, where you'll be spending most of your time autoattacking rather than using your abilities. In fact, it's (generally) better not to spend time hooking (etc.) as ADC or assassin Thresh as Thresh is 'stunned' (he can't take any other actions) while casting Death Sentence. This isn't a problem if you're a tank, but it is if you're a squishy ADC
Use appropriately
HOOK
W
DARK PASSAGE(W): Thresh's Dark Passage or lantern is one of the most meme'd abilities in the game, and also one of the most broken. There is no ability that gapcloses, or distances, more efficiently than Dark Passage. This stupid ability allows Thresh to rescue allies from seemingly impossible situations or certain death.
The shield is big enough to tank the damage from Ignite, minion aggro, at least one tower shot, and some enemy abilities. Allies who take Dark Passage - which you can do by RIGHT CLICKING ON IT - will travel to Thresh's current position (this can be extended with Flash). Aside from rescuing idiots or re-positioning, Thresh can use Dark Passage to gain vision in bush or fog of war and collect nearby souls.
Like Death Sentence, Dark Passage counts as a projectile and can be blocked by Yasuo Windwall. Once placed, Dark Passage is coded as terrain (although very small) and can disrupt movement or block enemies. Thresh cannot hook to his Dark Passage - but it'd be F*CKIN COOL IF HE COULD
LANTERN
E
FLAY(E): Flay is probably the most underrated ability in Thresh's kit, mainly because it does no damage. At least, the active doesn't. Flay's active is a rectangular displacement directly around Thresh, which can be cast in any direction. Enemies hit with Flay will be displaced in the direction of the cast - taking minimal damage (unless you're full AP Thresh? Taking advantage of that DANK 40% AP scaling?) and being slowed by 20-40% for 1 second.
Death Sentence is flashy but Flay is just as useful for making big plays. Flay can be used to disrupt every single dash, jump (or leap), and blink ability in the game ( Counter Strike, Rocket Jump, Lucian's dash, Shuriken Flip, and all of Riven's dashes/jumps for example). The only abilities it won't work on is that one ability Warwick has which is f*cking annoying, especially because I can't remember what it's called - and anything protected by a spell-shield (think Morgana, Malzahar, or Sivir). A good Flay can displace multiple people - the whole enemy team if that's who it hits - and can set up an easy Death Sentence. If you're really good you can pull off the
This is one of many plays you can pull off with Flay.
Flay is also an excellent peeling tool and can be used as an escape, although not a very good one (the slow only lasts 1 second).
What Flay is better known for are oneshots. Flay's passive is an autoattack windup which deals bonus magic damage on Thresh's autos dealing + 100-200% TOTAL AD. This stupid passive makes AD Thresh and ADC Thresh viable. For example: Suppose you're playing ADC Thresh and have 350 total AD, 100% crit, and 100 souls. With Infinity Edge your critical strikes are hitting for 210% damage, or 735.
Let's do some QUICC MATHS:
350 AD * 2 + (100 this is the damage from souls) = 800
800 + 735 = 1535
TOTAL: 1,535 damage on your first autoattack. Nutty? Just add in Predator or Dark Harvest for maximum memes.
That's Flay. Good for utility. Great for memes. Use appropriately
FLAY
R
THE BOX(Q): The Box, or the Death Circle, is an ult with a very cool sounding name but is, in reality, pretty f*ckin lame.
Back in the day, when League wasn't a 24/7 LUL ONESHOT iron 4 clown fiesta we had these things called 'teamfights'. In teamfights we would have an emphasis on skill, positioning blah blah blah. Anyway, if you were Thresh and went AP all you had to do was walk into one of said teamfights, be like 'yo w***up', drop The Box and blow everyone up because every wall collision did damage and it was ****in AWESOME.
NOW only one collision does damage, ranging from 250-550 with 100% AP scaling, also slowing for 99% for 2 seconds. The other 4 wall collisions deal no damage and only slow for 50%, for 1 second. It's so mediocre it could be the Hangover 2. Get it? Because that was a really mediocre movie...
Seriously though, this thing does less damage than Blitzcrank ult, on a MUCH LONGER COOLDOWN, and only to one target. Buff Thresh Rito pls
That said, Thresh can make some good plays with The Box. The oneshot combo, where Thresh hooks, flays or otherwise displaces an enemy into The Box and following with Ignite, securing an easy kill. The Box is also useful for peeling and re-positioning - the concurrent slows can allow Thresh, or even Thresh's entire team, to escape when chased. Thresh can also wall off narrow passages (i.e. certain parts of the jungle) with The Box, escaping that way. This can also be used to prevent enemies from escaping especially in teamfights. For example, The Box has nutty synergy with Turbo Chemtank.
Death Sentence --> Turbo Chemtank --> The Box into the enemy team and you can lock them all down long enough for your allies to follow up. This is especially good if you have AoE followup ( Zigg's ult or Lux's Final Spark). You can also
FLASH: Like every champion, excepting Shaco, Shyvana and possibly Ezreal, Flash is essential on Thresh. Thresh has no reliable escapes or gapclosers - although his Death Sentence and Flay can serve that function in certain situations. Flash is particularly useful on Thresh as it can allow him to instantly reposition and potentially land a gamechanging Death Sentence with a Flash QER combo.
Flash can also be used with Dark Passage - i.e. Flash while an ally is traveling with you to extend the distance. This can also be used to make plays with Death Sentence and Flay. Toplane and ADC Thresh are less focused on plays than support Thresh but Flash is just as important for escaping and re-positioning regardless.
Check out the video below if you want to see some of the classic plays I've made with Thresh including many of the above. But we all know what you guys are here for, the bunnyhops.
IGNITE: Thresh is an aggressive playmaker so Ignite is, like Flash, an extremely good rune on him by default. Thresh can all in most champions level 2, as he has most of his displacement tools ( Flay and Death Sentence) and high base damage to chunk very hard. As a toplaner, Ignite is situational, but generally recommended.
Enemies will usually disrespect you and try to towerdive - or get way too close to your tower - early levels. Landing a Death Sentence or Flay will force their flash and Ignite will finish them off. Ignite is also extremely good in lanes where you can 1v1 - such as Jax, Tryndamere, and Riven. Poke with autoattacks and Flay + Ignite when they all in. You should win the trade every time. Ignite is also good, and practically essential, to deal with champions with a lot of sustain ( Nasus, Darius, Illaoi, Dr. Mundo)because the grievous wounds reduce all healing by 40%.
As a support, Thresh takes Ignite because Exhaust sucks. That's literally why. Thresh excels at making picks and Exhaust is lousy for that. It's a defensive summoner, Ignite is an offensive one. The only instance(s) where you'd take ignite is if there are multiple assassins on the enemy team - where Exhaust can shut them down. Another is in a lane which you'll almost certainly lose (perhaps Zilean + Lucian or Brand + Sivir) where neither side has sustain but they have considerably more damage. You'll be forced to play defense, saving Exhaust for the inevitable all in.
TELEPORT: Teleport is strictly a toplane rune for Thresh. It's pointless to take on support - unless paired with Unsealed Spellbook -and as a toplaner you'll want Teleport to avoid losing tower against hard push lanes that you cannot easily win (i.e. Heimerdinger, Yorick). Thresh top can also use Teleport to tp to fights in bot, mid, or around dragon and add his considerable amount of crowd control to the mix. Your roams are much stronger than you might think.
HEAL: Like Teleport, Heal is strictly for one role on Thresh - ADC. As the ADC you'll obviously be focused and with little built in sustain and no movement speed steroids ADC Thresh absolutely needs Heal to stick around in lane. Alternatively, ADC Thresh can take Barrier over heal - although this is only recommended if you already have a sustain support such as Soraka or Nami.
If you want to see more of my ADC Thresh gameplay check out the video below. It's not the most educational but great if you want to see big plays and even bigger damage that you guys love so much:
We got you covered no matter what you want to play. Check out the descriptions below for the advantages of each rune and a detailed explanation of the Bunz way to carry yourself no matter where you're playing!
Grasp of the Undying
Grasp of the Undying: Grasp is a great rune for Thresh top as it gives you some good harass in trades and Thresh can stack it often enough to get 20-40 stacks per game in most matchups. This is really good against champions like Garen and Maokai who don't have much range and are kinda immobile. But it's also pretty good against Camille, Jax etc. just for the trading power. Try it out. It's fun!
Demolish
Demolish: all of the options here kind of suck on Thresh. Font of Life is only good on support but as a toplaner you're on an island like Tom Hanks with the volleyball. When are you going to use that? Never! Shield Bash isn't great. Thresh TECHNICALLY has a shield but who uses Dark Passage for a 60 hp shield every 20 seconds? Come on guys. Don't listen to Merch Guy. Go Demolish. It's free cash if you push!
Bone Plating
Bone Plating: There's three good choices here, and it's all matchup dependent. Conditioning is good to take when you can play safely and avoid poke. Second Wind for when you can't. And either Second Wind or Bone Plating for heavy trading. Second Wind falls off, however, and Conditioning's stat bonus was nerfed rom 10 minutes to 12. Bone Plating is the best way to go if you want a good rune that will deny damage from most toplane champions, especially those with hard engage like Irelia, Renekton, and Jax
Overgrowth
Overgrowth: Pretty straightforward pick on Thresh. You're a tank, you work best as a tank, and Overgrowth is for tanks. This rune also counters true damage from champions like Garen, Darius, and Camille which can mess you up. Take it!
Biscuit Delivery
Biscuit Delivery: Biscuits are great on Thresh I've been preaching this since season 7 folks! Don't sleep on these. They give you 120 bonus mana which is an extra hook or two extra flays. Pretty important to avoid going oom. They also give a bit of health sustain which is important in all lanes but especially against the EVIL POKE DEVIL Teemo and other champions who outrange or outdamage Thresh. Oh, and remember Biscuit Delivery is REALLY EASY to abuse with Time Warp Tonic. Try it out, you'll love em. That's the Bunz guarentee!
Time Warp Tonic
Time Warp Tonic: Ever since Cosmic Insight stopped giving ability haste (CDR) we're on the Time Warp Train. OK? That's what we're on if you aren't well it already left the station so, good thing I made this guide. Approach Velocity isn't needed since Thresh has got enough engage without an extra 10 movement speed. You can also abuse Time Warp Tonic even harder by taking Refillable Potion. Not only does it give you instant heals but movement speed too. Poggers!
ALTERNATIVE TOP RUNES
Aftershock
Aftershock: Aftershock is a solid rune for Thresh top as it provides plenty of defense stats after landing crowd control, perfectly setting up ganks and denying high damage engages from champions like Darius and Renekton. I like to think it puts the 'tank' in 'tank toplane', which Thresh can do with some success. Aftershock is always the best choice in lanes where you can't reliably poke and just need a little extra safety. It also has an 80% scaling with your bonus resistances, which is great for infinite stacking champions like Thresh, especially if you're building tank too!
Conditioning
Conditioning: Manaflow is pretty mandatory if you aren't taking biscuits on Thresh. Thresh has a pretty low mana pool earlygame and if you want to keep making those big plays or peeling for your ADC or supporting your jungler etc. you gotta have the mana to do it. Take Manaflow Band - but only if you're doing the max CDR rush. It's suboptimal compared to biscuits because you lose out on the health and it's harder to stack the mana. Not a terrible option though if you're feeling SPICY!
Second Wind
Second Wind: Transcendence is the bread and butter of the CDR rush. The 10 haste from it is perfect for getting that low Death Sentence cooldown and hooking you up with that free LP. It's even better on Thresh than it used to be now that you get the CDR for free at lvl 5 and again at lvl 8. Try it out. You'll love it.
Dark Harvest
Hail of Blades: Ok, ok, ok I know what you're thinking. BUNNY?? WHY HAIL OF BLADES? I THOUGHT DARK HARVEST WAS THE ADC THRESH RUNE? Well, it was when it proc'd on the first autoattack. But *now*, it doesn't. It's an execute rune only, sorry fellas, party's over. Riot's fixed the synergy it doesn't work anymore!
But I'll tell you what does work is Hail of Blades. This rune is great in early 2v2's and almost any situation in the early game. Thresh can't orbwalk due to his LOOONG auto windup so being able to pump out those autos before you get some daggers is pretty great and so is this rune.
Cheap Shot
Cheap Shot: a no brainer for Thresh, it's easy to proc and gives free true damage in trades. That said, it's not very practical later on, when your Flay passive really starts kicking in and you're oneshotting people. Additional lethality/magic penetration may be a better option.
Ghost Poro
Ghost Poro: There's only two good choices in this column - Eyeball Collection or Ghost Poro. Ghost Poro will give you a bit of extra adaptive damage (AD in our case) if you're 1) in enemy territory or 2) placed your poro in enemy territory. This is nice because it's like an Absolute Focus for wards.
The downside is you can lose the free damage from Ghost Poro if anyone steps in the bush where your poro was placed. Furthermore, it's annoying to place Ghost Poro in spots where the vision might not be useful for the sake of gaining a more AD (12 AD at lvl 18). Eyeball Collection is also okay but you won't get stats from it without kills. And if you're not in my videos with the boys, that isn't guaranteed!
Ravenous Hunter
Ravenous Hunter: Did you know that Ravenous Hunter procs with Thresh's empowered autoattacks (from the Flay passive)? Because it does! It's not great - the healing is minimal early levels and especially pre Galeforce. But you can get some decent healing from it, upwards of 5,000, over the course of a 30 minute game. Alternatively, you can take Relentless Hunter which is much better for assassin-style gameplay (it gives you up to 45 movement speed) but you lose that juicy sustain. Your choice!
Alacrity
Legend: Alacrity: Legend: Alacrity balances out your big damage with some nice attack speed. It's not much at first but becomes noticeable after a few stacks. This helps Thresh farm but also lets you get those autos out a bit faster for more damage. Alternatively you could take Triumph for the bonus health and gold, but prepare for your autos to be slow as **** once Hail of Blades wears off...
Coup de Grace
Coup de Grace: This rune is pretty great for finishing people off and for that, you're going to need all the help you can get. Both a good rune for laning and for teamfighting, take this in all situations.
Guardian
Aftershock: Guardian is a pretty good rune to take on Thresh support. A few nice things about Guardian: the shield scales with AP and max health, both of which Thresh stacks over time - AP with his passive and health with Overgrowth or items ( Thresh base health scaling is also pretty high). Thresh can also proc the shield with his Dark Passage, although it's the only spell he can proc it with and his lantern has a 22 second cooldown rank 1. That's why we max our Dark Passage and stack some CDR for lower cooldown, more procs, and more shields. With locket it's OP!
Font of Life
Font of Life: not the best rune, but Font of Life can be proc'd by Thresh Death Sentence, Flay, and The Box. And, by building tank, you increase the heal allies get from it. This can be a trade-winner in certain lanes. Font of Life is particularly good with autoattack heavy teams (mage heavy teams won't really benefit from it). Demolish can also be okay but you won't proc it much if you're shoved in a lot, if the ADC is a potato (looking at you Merch Guy) or yall just ain't doing it in the jungler department. Take font.
Second Wind
Bone Plating isn't a great rune post 15, but very helpful in the engages Thresh loves so much. It can also block some poke, especially from auto-attacks and can also block damage if you get engaged on (maybe by Leona to give a classic example). Alternatively you can take Second Wind if you really can't go in and are getting the max poke experience.
Overgrowth
Overgrowth: Pretty straightforward pick on Thresh. You're a tank, you work best as a tank, and Overgrowth is for tanks. Take it.
The bonus health from Overgrowth (you will get around 100 at 20 min) also scales with Font of Life and Guardian increasing the effectiveness of both.
Biscuit Delivery
Biscuit Delivery: Biscuits are great on Thresh I've been preaching this since season 7 folks! Don't sleep on these. They give you 120 bonus mana which is an extra hook or two extra flays. Pretty important to avoid going oom. They also give a bit of health sustain which is important in all lanes but especially against poke like the ANNOYING Ashe SUPPORT! Try em out, you'll love it. That's the Bunz guarentee.
Cosmic Insight
Cosmic Insight: This rune isn't as great as it used to be when it gave 5% ability CDR but it's still got the spicy summoner and trinket CDR, which is great for Thresh support. You want Ignite up more often for those spicy plays you subscribed for and you want the trinket CDR to have Oracle Lens up for the vision control and clear. That's right boys, VISION CONTROL, one of the most important functions of a support and exactly the thing ya gotta learn if you want to climb to challenger like Capn' Bunz!
ALTERNATIVE SUPPORT RUNES
Aftershock
Aftershock: Aftershock is a solid rune for Thresh support as it provides plenty of defense stats after landing crowd control, perfectly setting up your all-in (at level 2, for example). I like to think it puts the 'tank' in 'tank support', which is what Thresh is. Aftershock, generally speaking, is better in lanes where you can reliably all in since it's so strong in those instances. Your choice.
Manaflow Band
Manaflow Band: Manaflow is pretty mandatory if you aren't taking biscuits on Thresh. Thresh has a pretty low mana pool earlygame and if you want to keep making those big plays or peeling for your ADC or supporting your jungler etc. you gotta have the mana to do it. Take Manaflow Band - but only if you're doing the max CDR rush. It's suboptimal compared to biscuits because you lose out on the health and it's harder to stack the mana. Not a terrible option though if you're feeling SPICY!
Transcendence
Transcendence: Transcendence is the bread and butter of the CDR rush. The 10 haste from it is perfect for getting that low Death Sentence cooldown and hooking you up with that free LP. It's even better on Thresh than it used to be now that you get the CDR for free at lvl 5 and again at lvl 8. Try it out. You'll love it.
Electrocute
Electrocute: Electrocute is a pretty good rune to take on Thresh mid. Thresh has multiple ways to proc it. Below are listed some of the combos that will proc electrocute:
and so on. This rune also gives you really strong earlygame damage allowing Thresh to secure early kills in certain lanes (like Katarina or maybe Zed lvl 1). Electrocute is also quite good for preparing ganks, which AP Thresh will be doing a lot of since you'll usually lack damage to kill someone 1v1. It's also just better than Dark Harvest, which you can't proc nearly as often, and Hail of Blades since the latter doesn't really work with an AP build. Predator can also be disqualified because it does not help with trading. Take Electrocute.
Cheap Shot
Cheap Shot: This is a pretty strong rune on AP Thresh mid. It's very easy to proc - just crowd control someone with Death Sentence or Flay and damage them in any way and it'll do a bit of true damage. This adds to your Electrocute + Ignite combo for strong early cheese. It's better than Taste of Blood because you don't care about sustain and you can't play that way anyway (often times you'll eventually be poked out of lane). Cheap Shot is good for an aggressive playstyle and works well with Thresh overall.
Ghost Poro
Ghost Poro: There's only two good choices in this column - Eyeball Collection or Ghost Poro. Ghost Poro will give you a bit of extra adaptive damage (AP in our case) if you're 1) in enemy territory or 2) placed your poro in enemy territory. This is nice because it's like an Absolute Focus for wards.
The downside is you can lose the free damage from Ghost Poro if anyone steps in the bush where your poro was placed. Furthermore, it's annoying to place Ghost Poro in spots where the vision might not be useful for the sake of gaining a more AD (12 AD at lvl 18). Eyeball Collection is also okay but you won't get stats from it without kills. That's pretty hit and miss in mid but vision isn't. Take Ghost Poro.
Ingenious Hunter
Ingenious Hunter: Ingenious Hunter is a solid rune. It gives ability haste (same thing as item CDR), up to 35 haste, for your item actives. This puts Hextech Rocketbelt on a relatively low cooldown, from 40 seconds to less than 30. This is a pretty big deal because a lot of AP Thresh engage and damage will come from playing around the Hextech Rocketbelt active, which has strong synergy with Thresh's combos. This is better than Ultimate Hunter simply because you can always use Hextech Rocketbelt way more often than you can press R. And if there's one thing you know about Bunz, he loves to use Hextech Rocketbelt
Transcendence
Transcendence: Transcendence is the bread and butter of most non-AD Thresh builds. The 10 haste from it is perfect for getting lower cooldowns on Thresh's abilities. This is especially crucial on AP Thresh because outside of Hextech Rocketbelt and Lich Bane, all of your damage will come from abilities. The alternatives, Celerity and Absolute Focus aren't good because the bonus movement speed isn't great and Thresh has no built in mobility. Absolute Focus will do almost nothing as you'll get poked down before you can ever use it (it only works at 70% health or above). As a result, it's very important to take Transcendence.
Nullifying Orb
Nullifying Orb: Manaflow Band is a reasonable alternative but Nullifying Orb is stronger. Why? Because the shield is a trade winner against mages and AP assassins like Katarina and Fizz. This is especially true early when the shield gives the most value and when Thresh does most of his fighting. Take it.
ALTERNATIVE MID RUNES
Bone Plating
Bone Plating: Bone Plating is a pretty strong defensive rune that will mitigate a lot of damage from champions that like to auto you a lot or combo you very quickly. Zed is a perfect example of this as he likes to hit you with his shadows for an electrocute proc chunking half your health. Bone Plating will prevent some of this and will make the matchup significantly more playable. It also blocks the damage from certain spells from mages and AP assassins, though not all.
Overgrowth
Overgrowth: This is a good rune to pair with Bone Plating against tough midlane matchups since it makes you beefier with around 100 health gained by 15 minutes which will continue to stack the more you farm and the longer the game goes on. It's also better than the alternatives, Unflinching and Revitalize since neither offer lasting tankiness (or any at all), which is what Thresh will need to survive in certain scenarios. Take Overgrowth
Thresh Top is heavily focused to frontline tank and peel, so you will need to buy items that work towards that end.
FIRST
ITEM
Sunfire Aegis : is an excellent buy and a must have for any tank Thresh build. It gives you a lot of waveclear which you'll be lacking since you aren't building AD. Sunfire Aegis also gives approximately 10% CDR which is great on Thresh, it also gives some decent armor and mr stats (30 each) and is overall a good pick against most lanes - especially mixed damage. However it is not your only option as we'll see below.
SECOND
ITEM
Thornmail: In a lot of lane matchups you'll find yourself needing a Bramble Vest. This is going to be the case against most of the bruisers, who tend to use Conqueror but you'll *really* need it against uber-healing champions like Irelia, Fiora, Aatrox and maybe Darius. In fact, in those lanes it will be the item you rush 90% of the time. It's a good idea not to take up too many inventory slots with components and while Bramble Vest is an effective component you can get a lot of value out of Thornmail. Why?
Well this item has always been pretty good on Thresh both in toplane and very occasionally in support. The reflected damage scales well with Damnation and it makes you tanky with a good amount of health and armor. Now it's even better as the healing reduction increases to 60% with crowd control and also gives more health while still providing plenty of armor. This means Thresh can basically knock out Aatrox's ultimate entirely by flaying him. At least, you can for a few seconds!
THIRD
ITEM
Abyssal Mask: Really good item on Thresh whenever you can afford it - and don't need to buy something else. Abyssal Mask amplifies all damage taken to enemies you crowd control, which pairs nicely with the powerful heal reduction from Thornmail. This item is good in 1v1s but considerably better in teamfights. It also gives nice MR and health making it a solid choice on tank Thresh toplane.
FOURTH
ITEM
Frozen Heart: You can go either way on this item but Frozen Heart has several good stats that Thresh likes. It gives attack speed reduction, it gives a ton of armor, is the only tank item that gives mana, and blocks damage based on your maximum health. The damage blocker scales with Thresh grasp stacks, overgrowth, and the health from your other items. The attack speed reduction is highly important against certain champions like Irelia, Master Yi, and ADCs in general, and the mana is nice so you don't go oom in fights. However Thresh does not have mana issues as much as other tanks, like Maokai, simply because he uses his abilities less often. As mentioned you can go either way, but this is a good item and great into certain compositions.
I also like taking this item on Thresh support when I'm feeling jiggy with it. The tankier Thresh is the more hooks he can throw! Especially with this item since it also gives 20 ability haste. Is that juicy or what?
Thresh ADC loves big crits and bigger burst and we want items that give us the big whips like you see in my videos. Below is what I want you guys to build every single game on ADC Thresh OK? Tanto, put em up! (editor's got my back guys dw):
FIRST
ITEM
Galeforce: Galeforce is a pretty cool item on Thresh. A lot of people have already talked about the interactions but I'll cover it just for you guys. Here's a few combos Thresh can do with Galeforce:
and the list. goes. on. It's basically the AD version of Hextech Rocketbelt how cool is that? Galeforce also gives Thresh a solid 60 AD, 20% crit, some attack speed, and bonus movement speed, which is great for getting in range for the big hits. I know, I know I haven't tried it YET but I will soon ok? You'll see a video dropping in the future where we show you just how nuts this item is.
SECOND
ITEM
Rapid Firecannon: One of the CLASSICS on ADC Thresh this item is not only great for oneshotting with bonus crit and 120 additional magic damage on an empowered autoattack, but RFC also gives Thresh 600 range. That's the same range as Ashe. Poggers!!! This item is MANDATORY and I want to see you guys build it every game OK? No messing around with Runaan's Hurricane you're not in my videos you're not going to have coordination ok. We're back in Africa and playing with monkeys it's just how it is. You gotta take the game in your hands and be like I got this team.
Infinity Edge: Another one of the classic ADC Thresh items, Infinity Edge has big burst and bigger crits. Thresh LOVES this item and so will you. With Rapid Firecannon and Galeforce this bad boy will give you 210% damage on your crits. No it's not the 250% we miss so much from Season 7, BUT, it's not bad boys. It's not bad. Build this every game, third item is best but if you can't afford it, Stormrazor isn't the worst substitute.
FOURTH
ITEM
Stormrazor: Another one of my favorites, Stormrazor has always been a great item on ADC Thresh ESPECIALLY when it gave a guarenteed crit on the first autoattack. That was gamebreaking with Thresh and man was that fun. Now it's not nearly as good, but the 75% slow is still great, especially at 600 range. It's also cheap and still gives a neat 40 AD. You can also take The Collector if you're ahead and want to go big.
Support is the classic role of Thresh and we've got a lot to talk about here. I want to give you the tips and tricks to Thresh support to unlocking your elo and making the gamewinning plays I'm famous for. One of the most important aspects is knowing what to build and why, which we'll get into below...
FIRST
ITEM
Bulwark of the Mountain: Building out of Relic Shield this item gives you a solid amount of health and ability power. Now you're probably wondering "BUNNY? Why are you taking RELIC over SHOULDERGUARDS? Don't you NEED the bonus AD for earlygame??". That's a good point. The bonus AD from Steel Shoulderguards is pretty good for earlygame but Relic Shield is good at all points of the game. We take it because *both* its health and AP scale with Guardian which means big shields at all points in the game. That provides the protection your teammates need because if you can't keep your allies alive, why even play support? Come on guys.
SECOND
ITEM
Locket of the Iron Solari: This is going to be your mythic RUSH every single game. Locket is just too good right now, with a strong early game shield of at least 180, good resistances, health, and 20 haste (15% CDR) it's a really good item on a tanky support like Thresh. As an added bonus it also gives 5 armor and mr to all of your allies in an AOE, scaling with your legendary items - this includes Bulwark of the Mountain. When you think about it, 5 bonus armor and mr ain't bad especially if your allies are squishy. Remember, even 1 bonus resistances is significant if your champion doesn't have much to begin with!
Locket of the Iron Solari's health bonus also scales with your Guardian shield and is just another way you can peel for your allies. It's the bread and butter of Thresh support. Take it.
THIRD
ITEM
Redemption: Another one of my favorites I've been building Redemption ever since I became a Thresh main. The CDR, bonus healing and shielding, and AOE heal are too good to pass up. This item is teamfight winning if you use it properly and works great with the other tools in your kit. This is the third item in your three item support core. Take it every game. You won't regret it.
FOURTH
ITEM
Knight's Vow: KV used to be a pretty poor item on Thresh when it only redirected 6% of damage from the ADC. That was kinda GNARLY. Buuuut, after the rework it's way better than before and if you aren't building it at SOME POINT on Thresh support what are you even doing? KV gives 15% damage redirection to keep your ADC - or any carry - alive in fights as well as plenty of health and CDR to round out your first three items. It doesn't offer the juicy AOE we'd like but it's good for what you need: peel and shield. Ok guys?
That's what we want with Thresh support. Peeling and shielding. I want you guys to drill that into your brain OK? No more messing around!
Thresh mid is a pretty fun cheese pick that can do surprising burst early and midgame and then falls off a cliff because of how bad Thresh's AP scalings are. Rito buff AP Thresh pls ;(. It also works great with most junglers and with the right items and actives you can make the big plays like in the videos linked above.
FIRST
ITEM
Hextech Rocketbelt: Okay boys. Backs against the WALL. We're down 2 inhibs, Baron Nashor's up, we're down on drags, down on kills, and got super's crashing on our only nexus turret. What is there to do?
/ff
No! We are not ff'ing. We are not surrendering. We are NOT losing! What we're going to do is break out the secret sauce. And that is Hextech Rocketbelt. This item is the upgraded version of season 9 Protobelt and is it bigger and better than ever. It gives more AP, more health, more CDR, and 5% magic pen as a mythic passive. Poggers!! There's so many fun combos Thresh can do with this item and we've already covered a few of 'em. One of the classics is Hextech Rocketbelt the wave, dash into Flay range, Flay under the turret and auto for a juicy Electrocute proc and multiple tower shots. Boom, you got a kill.
I'm telling you fellas it's a good time. It is a goooood time.
SECOND
ITEM
Zhonya's Hourglass: This item is just broken lol. It also costs 2,500 gold and that's a cheap ****in price for 5% free magic pen, an active that can save you from anything, armor, and ability power. Zhonya's Hourglass is especially good against assassins like Zed and Fizz who can dodge Death Sentence + Flay combo. It's good most games though. You can swap this with Lich Bane in the build order if you're stomping.
THIRD
ITEM
Lich Bane: Lich Bane empowers your next auto after using an ability with a ton of magic damage. This item is pretty powerful, especially early/mid (it falls off later) and scales both with Damnation and Thresh E passive, which is an autoattack enhancer. It's a pretty strong item for oneshotting single targets and that's what AP Thresh does best. The bonus movement speed is also really nice for moving around the map if nothing else. Take second if you don't absolutely need Zhonya's Hourglass.
FOURTH
ITEM
Banshee's Veil: This is just a nice item to round out the first three items. It gives Thresh some badly needed MR, which you can't go wrong with, and even more CDR. This item is especially crucial against long range since that will be really hard to deal with later on (think 30 minutes or later). The AP from it isn't bad either and it's just better than other options. Alternatively you can consider a Mejai's Soulstealer if you're stomping, though that's always risky on short ranged champions like Thresh. But the AP stacking is poggers when it works out. And if you've seen my videos, you know we love those 25 stacks **bungasm**
FIFTH ITEM OPTIONS:
5A
Warmog's Armor: Warmog's is a nice finishing item for tank Thresh because it basically acts as a big stat stick. It gives you 800 health making you very hard to kill, while also having synergy with the passive of Frozen Heart. Warmog's also gives a little CDR that we love so much and the passive lets you leave and rejoin fights without having to base - the biggest bonus by far. This item is particularly good if you are the only tank on your team. But it's not the best!
5B
Guardian Angel: very fun item on Thresh, especially ADC Thresh. It gives you some extra damage on your autos but at lategame that's not what we're buying it for. We're buying it for that spicy revive passive, making you tankier and giving you another shot if you get caught. I bought this all the time back in the day, and you can still buy it now!
5C
Randuin's Omen: This item is pretty strong against AD compositions but is also strong against champions with a lot of mobility. Why? Because the active, which I love, is a 99% AOE slow for 0.25 seconds. That gives you a LOT of control with The Box and Flay. But like I said, don't generally buy this unless the enemy team has a LOT of AD, especially a fed ADC you need to lock down and take out.
5D
Gargoyle Stoneplate: this item has always been really fun on Thresh because of how crazy tanky it makes you. I've actually featured this item in some of my videos! You could legit run into 3-4 people and tank all of the damage because it DOUBLED your health. That was in season 7. Now, after its rework, its super expensive but even better and more broken than before. Thresh, with full build, can get over a 2,000 health shield with this item. That's a Sett W on Thresh. Poggers!! It also gives great armor and MR stats, CDR, and a resist stacking passive which is really good if you're being focused. Try it out. You'll love it.
That's the bunz guarantee.
5A
The Collector: This item gives Thresh 55 AD, a little lethality, and 20% crit, rounding out your crit chance for maximum boppage. But most importantly it executes any enemy 5% health or below, meaning you're guaranteed kills on any stragglers you can't kill in a single auto. This also works extremely well with Coup de Grace. It's a very fun item and I highly recommend it on ADC Thresh.
5B
Guardian Angel: very fun item on Thresh, especially ADC Thresh. It gives you some extra damage on your autos but at lategame that's not what we're buying it for. We're buying it for that spicy revive passive, which is very useful against assassins and ranged burst alike. Downsides: you don't get 100% crit. Remember, this is a DEFENSIVE option, like Immortal Shieldbow so buy appropriately.
5A
Warmog's Armor: Warmog's is a nice finishing item for support Thresh because it basically acts as a big stat stick. It gives you 800 health making you very hard to kill, while also having synergy with Font of Life, Knight's Vow and Guardian. Warmog's also gives a little CDR that we love so much and the passive lets you leave and rejoin fights without having to base - the biggest bonus by far. This item is particularly good if you are the only tank on your team. There's other options like Zeke's Convergence but this is what you want to go for that lategame beefiness.
5A
Rabadon's Deathcap: Deathcap is always going to be your finishing item whenever you can afford it. It gives you 40% bonus ability power on top of the AP you already have (including the 120 it gives you outright), which scales with Damnation, which scales with Lich Bane, which scales with all of your abilities. It's too good! With Rabadon's Deathcap you should be hitting around 600-800 AP, or more, by around 30-40 minutes. This will cause The Box to hit for at least 1,000 damage every time you cast it - obliterating squishies the moment they touch it. How cool is that??
BOOTS:
TANK BOOTS
Mercury's Treads: Merc's are a solid choice for Thresh top into almost any team composition. Thresh lacks MR scaling and you want a good balance of armor and MR. Since you'll be building an armor item second it's good to take MR boots to balance out the lost MR. Mercury's Treads is a great option here plus it gives 25% tenacity which is useful in almost any situation. It's particularly good against champions like Nasus or any of the tanks. The more you can move the more you can hook!
TANK BOOTS
Plated Steelcaps: Tabis are a very powerful anti-auto item as they block 12% of incoming damage and give you 20 armor. Always build these into full AD teams and maybe rush early if you have to against certain toplaners like Irelia or Fiora who are autoattack heavy. Then sell later for Mercury's Treads.
ADC BOOTS
Berserker's Greaves: Berserker's are a pretty strong item on ADC Thresh. They give you a lot of attack speed to complement your burst and can help you handle tanks that are often the nemesis of ADC Thresh. They do not scale with your soul passive like Sorcer's Shoes do but they're better for scaling and better for the consistent damage you'll often need. Take these most games.
ADC BOOTS
Sorcerer's Shoes: a magic pen item seems odd on an AD build. After all, you're doing physical damage right? Wrong. Thresh's E passive is bonus magic damage on your basic attack, and magic pen amplifies that damage which is more reliable than the dps offered from Sorcerer's Shoes (and so on). Optional depending on their team comp/how fed their carries are. Big pen for big bops. That's the formula boys.
SUPP BOOTS
Boots of Mobility: Mobi boots are always the best option for Thresh support, with the NON-CDR RUSH playstyle. They give you excellent roaming potential with 110 bonus movement speed and allow you to set up play after play after play with Dark Passage anywhere on the map. The downside to these boots is they're really weak to poke with you losing all of the bonus movement speed if you take any damage. So they may not be the best every game but they're always the most fun.
SUPP BOOTS
Boots of Swiftness: Swiftness boots are the cheap alternative to Mobility Boots and you should buy them if you can't afford the latter. They'll get you to 395 ms, which isn't amazing but it's consistent and good enough for both laning and roaming. They also give slow resistance which can be good into certain team compositions. That's about it. I'm not wild about em.
SUPP BOOTS
Ionian Boots of Lucidity: These guys are one of my favorites. I've built Ionian Boots of Lucidity on Thresh most of the games I play him. I've busted them out in pro play when I played for Gravity and when I played for Cloud 9, watch my videos they're on YT you can see me take em. Why? Because the CDR is juicy and so is the summoner spell cooldown. That means more hooks, flashes, ignites etc. which means more plays, which Thresh loves so much. The downside is you lose mobility only getting to 380 ms which kinda sucks. Still, 20 haste is tough to pass up, especially with the max CDR rush! Use appropriately.
ADC BOOTS
Sorcerer's Shoes: Pretty straightforward buy on Thresh mid. You're doing magic damage and with magic penetration you can do even more magic damage. Alternatively you can go Ionian Boots of Lucidity if you're feeling spicy but Sorcer's Shoes is always a good choice.
Early game with Thresh ADC is very boring. Unless someone strays too close to your tower and you can get a cheese kill you won't be doing much. You won't be doing much because you can't do much. If you try to fight you'll simply be poked into oblivion and might die in the process.
Play passive and farm under tower, Thresh can do this safely anyway. You'll be relying heavily on your support and/or jungler to carry you through the early game and secure a kill or two. Your damage is also very underwhelming pre B.F. Sword so this is another thing to keep in mind.
Midgame is arguably ADC Thresh's strongest phase of the game. Mages haven't gotten their deathcap yet so their burst lags behind yours (unless they're very fed) and the same is true for assassins. Continue farming and look for picks. Teamfighting isn't your strong suit so you want to establish the largest possible lead to set up for lategame.
If things are going well you should have your Infinity Edge and at least 20% crit by 20-25 min. If not, buy a Rapid Firecannon and a Pickaxe to sell later for a B.F. Sword. At least you'll have crit. Alternatively you can go Bloodthirster into a Rapid Firecannon for extra sustain. Purchase order depends on their team comp and how well you're able to carry.
Like Thresh support, ADC Thresh falls off late. Your burst is as strong as ever. You can destroy all squishies and (unless very fed) any adc 1 on 1. The problem is you'll almost never get that 1v1 30+ min in. And since you can only focus a single target there is only so much you can contribute to teamfights before you get locked down or burst.
How lategame goes depends heavily on team comp. If they have a lot of cc you won't be doing much, even with Mercurial Scimitar. Focus on getting picks and try to bait teamfights rather than start them. You will get focused and there's nothing you can do if you are.
To prove that this build actually does work I did some QUICC MATHS for the 1st auto damage from the build listed above.
Note: all values assume lvl 18 Thresh, 80 AD from Gathering Storm and 120 Souls, or 120 bonus damage on E passive. Infernal Drakes and Baron are not included
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