Teemo Build Guide – Runes, Items & More

Teemo is one of the most frustrating champions to face in the top lane due to his long-range poke, stealth, and map-controlling mushrooms. This guide walks you through the optimal build, runes, strategies, matchups, and combos to dominate your lane and tilt your enemies.

Win Rate: 53.4% over 4,492 matches

Summoner Spells

Flash – Essential for escaping, chasing, or repositioning.
Ignite – Provides kill pressure and helps secure early lane dominance, especially against healing champions.

Runes

Primary Tree – Precision

Press the Attack – Amplifies your burst after three auto-attacks.
Triumph – Grants healing and bonus gold after takedowns.
Legend: Alacrity – Boosts your attack speed for better poke and DPS.
Last Stand – Increases damage when you’re low on health.

Secondary Tree – Resolve

Bone Plating – Reduces incoming burst damage during trades.
Overgrowth – Grants bonus health as the game progresses.

Stat Shards

Offense: Attack Speed
Flex: Adaptive Force
Defense: Scaling Health (swap to Armor or Magic Resist depending on the matchup)

Core Item Build

Nashor’s Tooth – Provides AP, cooldown reduction, and massive synergy with Teemo’s poison.
Sorcerer’s Shoes – Adds Magic Penetration to boost your damage.
Liandry’s Torment – Deals sustained damage over time and shreds tanks.
Malignance – Additional burn damage and burst potential on your mushrooms.
Shadowflame – Enhances damage against shielded or low-health targets.
Rabadon’s Deathcap – Huge AP power spike to maximize your late-game damage.

Skill Order: Max E > Q > W

Laning Phase Strategy

Against Melee Champions:

Use your ranged advantage to auto-attack and apply E (Toxic Shot) for poke.
Cast Q (Blinding Dart) to deny trades and stop them from farming.
Maintain lane control with zoning and constant harass.

Mushrooms (R – Noxious Trap):

Place mushrooms in river, jungle paths, and common gank routes to act as vision and traps.
Use passive (Guerrilla Warfare) near mushrooms for surprise ambushes.
Mushrooms also serve as waveclear and can stall enemy pushes.

Basic Combo

Difficulty: Average
Combo Sequence:

R → R → AA → Q → AA → W → AA → AA → AA

Execution:

Drop two mushrooms in quick succession to stack their explosions.
Auto-attack once, then blind with Q, and follow with repeated attacks while chasing or kiting using W.

Notes:

This combo is especially effective against champions with little to no mobility.
The bounce mechanic from double mushrooms increases your range and zone control.

Teemo Strengths

Lane bully: Excels at poking and zoning melee champions.
Anti-carry potential: Q (Blinding Dart) can completely shut down ADCs and auto-reliant champions.
Map control: R (Noxious Trap) offers vision, slows, and heavy damage when placed smartly.

Teemo Weaknesses

Very squishy: Vulnerable to crowd control and burst damage.
Falls off late game: Limited impact in teamfights; often relegated to split pushing.
Easily countered mushrooms: Control Wards and high-mobility junglers can avoid or clear traps.

Favorable Matchups (Strong Against)

Champion	Win Rate
Vayne	40.4%
Rumble	41.3%
Garen	41.9%
Jayce	41.9%
Volibear	42.5%
Singed	42.9%
Gnar	43.6%
Aatrox	44.1%
Yone	44.1%

Focus on constant harass, zoning, and capitalizing on their lack of range or mobility.

Difficult Matchups (Weak Against)

Champion	Win Rate vs Teemo
Cassiopeia	59.7%
Riven	58.1%
Vladimir	55.0%
Aurora	55.0%
Kennen	54.4%
Ryze	53.6%
Cho’Gath	53.3%
Ornn	53.2%
Malphite	52.8%
Nasus	52.7%

These champions can tank, sustain, or gap-close efficiently. Play safe, ward deep, and avoid extended trades.

General Tips

Set traps in jungle entrances and around objectives before they’re contested.
Use Passive (Guerrilla Warfare) to scout or bait enemies when they walk into mushrooms.
Split push when safe, but watch the map carefully to avoid unnecessary deaths.
Communicate with your team — Teemo’s pressure requires them to capitalize on the space you create.

Teemo Build Guide – Runes, Items & More – S2 2025