Teemo Top Build & Guide — Patch 26.18

Overview

Teemo is a ranged top laner built around one core trick: Blinding Dart (Q) turns off the enemy's auto-attacks for a few seconds, which deletes the win condition of nearly every melee bruiser in the role. His passive Guerrilla Warfare lets him stand still in brush and become Invisible — a stealth ambush threat the enemy must respect every time you disappear off screen. Toxic Shot (E) layers a damage-over-time poison on every basic attack: even when the enemy disengages, your damage keeps ticking on their HP bar.

His game plan is to harass the enemy top laner with auto-attack-Q-auto trades, kite with Move Quick (W) when they commit, and slowly suffocate the side of the map with Noxious Trap (R) mushrooms on river entry points and tri-bush (the brush at the junction between top lane and the river). You will never one-shot anyone — Teemo wins through sustained pressure (long-term damage instead of burst), map control (deciding who can walk where), and forcing the enemy jungler to waste sweepers on your mushrooms instead of ganking you.

Recommended Build

Starting items: Doran's Ring + Health Potion. AP, mana regen and 60 HP together fit the on-hit poke pattern. Against heavy poke top laners (Gnar, Kennen, Vladimir) start Doran's Shield instead — passive HP regen survives the harass phase.

Core items (in order):

1. Nashor's Tooth — first item every game. 80 ability power, 50% attack speed, 15 ability haste and bonus on-hit magic damage. It scales Teemo's three damage sources at once: faster autos for Toxic Shot poison stacks, more frequent Blinding Dart casts, and on-hit magic damage from the item itself.
2. Sorcerer's Shoes — flat magic penetration (cuts the enemy's Magic Resist) lets your poison and on-hit damage punch through early Magic Resist items.
3. Guinsoo's Rageblade — 30 attack damage, 30 ability power, 25% attack speed and 30 bonus magic damage on-hit. Its Seething Strike passive stacks 8% attack speed four times, and once it is fully stacked every third attack applies your on-hit effects twice, which doubles the Toxic Shot proc on that swing.
4. Zhonya's Hourglass — Armor plus AP plus the Stasis active that makes you untargetable for 2.5 seconds. Critical against divers and assassins (Zed ult, Camille E, Irelia all-in) — wait for them to commit, press Stasis, the entire enemy combo wastes itself.
5. Rabadon's Deathcap — final AP scaling. Multiplies all your AP-based damage (Q, E poison, mushroom damage) by 30%, plus a flat 130 AP. By minute 30, mushrooms can two-shot anyone walking through fog of war.

Situational items:

• Morellonomicon — vs healing-stacking enemies (Aatrox, Dr. Mundo, Vladimir, Yasuo with lifesteal). Grievous Wounds (a debuff that cuts the target's healing and health regeneration by 40% for 3 seconds) is mandatory because your poison ticks otherwise feed their sustain via passive healing.
• Abyssal Mask — vs heavy AP threats (Sylas, Akali, Mordekaiser). Magic Resist plus a passive aura that raises enemy magic damage taken by 12% — your poison ticks deal more on every target near you.
• Wit's End — vs AP top laners with burst combos (Vladimir, Rumble). Magic Resist plus on-hit magic damage keeps the on-hit build flowing without sacrificing magic defense — single best replacement when you need MR before Zhonya's.
• Liandry's Torment — vs stacked-HP tank teams (Cho'Gath, Sion, Ornn). Its 2% max-health burn is applied by your damaging abilities, so it rides Blinding Dart (Q) and Noxious Trap mushrooms. It does not ride Toxic Shot: the poison on your basic attacks is proc damage and does not trigger ability effects, so do not buy this expecting your autos to burn.

Boots: Sorcerer's Shoes is default for magic penetration. Swap to Plated Steelcaps vs heavy AD lane plus jungle (Renekton + Lee Sin, Camille + Graves), or Mercury's Treads vs heavy crowd control teams (3+ stun or knockup abilities, mostly AP — Malphite, Galio, Maokai).

Skill order: Max E first (Toxic Shot is most of your damage — every auto stronger), Q second (the blind goes from 2 to 3 seconds; the 7-second cooldown is the same at every rank, so extra points buy duration and nothing else), W last. Take a point in R at levels 6, 11, 16. W at level 3 is non-negotiable: the passive Movement Speed and the active sprint are your only kiting and escape tools.

Runes: Primary Sorcery with Summon Aery, Manaflow Band, Transcendence, Scorch. Secondary Resolve with Second Wind and Overgrowth. Stat shards: Adaptive Force / Adaptive Force / Health Scaling.

Key matchups

• Darius: Blind his next attack with Blinding Dart (Q) the second he commits Apprehend (E) — without the next auto, his Hemorrhage bleed stack chain breaks. Stay 680 range away (Blinding Dart range), kite with Move Quick, and never let him land Decimate (Q) outer blade twice in a row.
• Camille: Hardest matchup pre-6. Her Hookshot (E) closes any gap you create with W, then her Precision Protocol (Q) deals true damage in two auto windows that Blinding Dart only half-disables. Start Doran's Shield, take Second Wind, and play under turret until Zhonya's Hourglass is online — the Stasis cancels her E2 follow-up.
• Gnar: Trade in mini Gnar form when his Rage bar is low. His Boomerang Throw (Q) out-ranges yours and his Hop builds Rage fast. Once he transforms into Mega Gnar, hug turret — his GNAR! (R) can knock you into terrain for a stun, deleting Teemo from the map.
• Renekton: Don't trade pre-6 unless his Fury bar is empty. His Slice and Dice (E) double-dash closes Move Quick gap, and his Ruthless Predator (W) point-and-click stuns through your blind (it's not an auto). Farm safe under tower, scale to Nashor's, then Blinding Dart his Fury-empowered Q.
• Aatrox: Blinding Dart kills his Q3 sweet-spot windup (the third The Darkin Blade swing). Wait for him to start the Q3 wind, press Q, watch him miss the empowered hit. Once Umbral Dash (E) is giving him lifesteal he simply heals through the poison, so close out your trades before he can attack his way back to full HP.

Power spikes & win conditions

• Level 2: With Q + E you have everything for a poke trade — auto, Q to blind the return auto, auto again with poison. Most melee tops cannot answer the first two levels without burning Flash.
• Level 6: Noxious Trap unlocks the map control game. Seed three mushrooms at tri-bush (between top lane and the river) and river entrance — the enemy jungler has to sweeper-clear them or eat poison ticks on every gank attempt.
• Nashor's Tooth completion (~ minute 11-13): Damage spike. 50% Attack Speed plus on-hit magic damage means your wave clears in one rotation and your trade damage jumps. Look for kills on cooldown.
• Guinsoo's Rageblade online (~ minute 22-25): Anti-tank spike. Seething Strike doubles your on-hit damage every third attack once fully stacked, so even a Sion or Cho'Gath drops in 8-10 autos under poison stacks. Force side lane fights and Baron pressure now.

Common mistakes

• Throwing Blinding Dart at maximum range on cooldown. Q has a long cooldown for what it does (7 seconds at every rank) — wasting it for poke removes your only answer to an enemy all-in. Hold Q until the enemy commits a key auto (Darius Q outer, Aatrox Q3, Camille Q2), then blind that auto.
• Placing all mushrooms in lane. Mushrooms are most valuable on river entry points and tri-bush, not stacked in your wave. A mushroom in lane survives 5 minutes; a mushroom on enemy jungle entrance forces a sweeper and a pathing rework.
• Trading without Move Quick passive active. Move Quick's passive Movement Speed is disabled for 5 seconds whenever you take champion or turret damage. If you walk into a trade already damaged, you have no kiting speed — wait the 5 seconds for the passive to refresh, then commit.
• Staying invisible in lane during a 2-versus-1. Guerrilla Warfare invisibility breaks the second you act. Hiding in brush while your team fights bot wastes you — push the wave, threaten side objectives, force them to send two people for you.
• Ulting walls for mushroom bounces. Noxious Trap bounces off other mushrooms for extra range but cannot bounce off walls. Trying to fling a mushroom over Baron pit terrain just wastes the cast — use the bounce only when you already have a mushroom placed on the river path.

Advanced tip

Use the brush-walk invisibility shuffle to bait skill-shots. Walk into a lane brush, stand still for 1.5 seconds to trigger Guerrilla Warfare, walk back out — the enemy now sees you fade in mid-step. Most players will instinctively throw a skill-shot at your last known position, missing entirely. This creates free trade windows: every time their main skill-shot (Renekton Q empowered, Darius Q, Aatrox Q1) hits empty air, you have a 7-12 second window where their kit cannot pressure you. Combine with Move Quick active for a guaranteed all-in approach from a brush angle they cannot pre-skillshot.