Instead of talking Champions, Items, or skills you need to better your lane phase. Today we’re gonna talk about an often overlooked aspect of League of Legends, the Summoner Spells. This is one aspect of the game that often goes unchallenged and, in the past, unaddressed by Riot unless there’s something super toxic happening in professional play, but we’re starting to see Riot warm up to the idea of shifting some power away from Flash to free up the slot for other spells.

So, today we’re gonna break down each of the Summoner Spells, talk about when and why they should be utilized and we’ll throw in a few Champion suggestions that match up well with them!

Teleport

We’ll start first with Teleport, lovingly short-handed to TP by the community. Teleport is a unit-targeted summoner spell that blinks your Champion to the target allied unit after a 4-second channel.

Things to know about TP are:

It has no cast time, meaning that the channel instantly starts once you select your target.
You can select your target from the Minimap.
Teleport renders a targeted Minion completely invulnerable. It does however disarm and root the Minion for the duration of the cast.
Teleporting to a Ward or Trap (like a Teemo Shroom) reveals it, except if it is in a brush and no enemies have vision of the unit. If these units expire while they are the target of TP, the spell will NOT be canceled.
Teleport is canceled if the target turret is destroyed before the channel completes.
Teleporting always puts the Champion on the side of the map closest towards their Nexus.
Teleporting doesn’t cancel movement or attack orders.
Teleport cannot be cast on allied Champions.
Teleport can be used on Zac blobs to prolong as it makes him invulnerable for the duration.

Why do we use TP? Well, Teleport is mainly used to minimize any downtime after recalling or respawning. By Teleporting back to lane, you’re getting right back into the action which can reduce the opportunity your opponent has to build a lead over you.

Teleport also is great for ganking! Despite its slow channel time, if your opponents over-commit on your allies, a well-timed TP can turn the tides of a fight by giving you a flank or bringing more numbers to your team’s defense.

Teleport is also excellent at switching defenses and pushing off split pushers. If your opponent is shoving down a lonely Tier 2 turret, and you’ve got TP to respond, it’s usually not a bad idea to respond with TP, especially if you’re on the opposite side of the map.

TP also has cheeky uses by being a great backdoor tool. If you’re a split-push focused Champion, dropping a ward in the enemy's base or near the objective that your focus is on can allow you to quickly knock it down and apply heavy split pressure to unsuspecting opponents.

Teleport can also be utilized as an escape tool! For Champions that don’t have any hard CC to interrupt the channel, think Vlad or Dr. Mundo for example, a well-timed TP can blink you far away from any threat they might present to you.

Typically, Teleport is utilized by Top and Mid Laners who want to maximize their lane presence and farm potential or by those that back at awkward windows for very particular item spikes. Ryze, Cassiopeia, Shen, and Jax are all fine examples of this. Occasionally, you’ll see it picked up by Marksmen or Mages that run Bot Lane for the same reasons.

It’s also taken in losing situations as a sort of safety net. If you’re matched unfavorably and expect to die, Teleport can swing you back from a misplay and allow you to minimize as a deficit that your opponents are pushing against you.

Heal

The next spell up is Heal! Heal is an auto-targeted summoner spell that instantly restores health to your Champion and ally. It also grants a small burst of movement speed for both targets for 1 second.

Things to know about Heal are:

It’s affected by health modifiers on yourself and only yourself. This means heal amplifying effects like Trundle’s Frozen Domain and Spirit Visage’s passive.
Using or being affected by Heal if you were already healed within the last 35 seconds reduces the effects any additional heal casts afterward. And this is the Summoner Spell Heal, not Soraka or Sona heals.

Heal is typically utilized to save a life when low on health and under attack. In that same line of thought, this makes Heal an excellent bait tool. By hanging around at low HP, the player holding heal can be knocking on death’s door only to side-step their opponents for flashy outplays or follow-ups.

Heal is also widely considered superior to Barrier. Primarily due to the fact that the Heal is permanent and gives back the most important stat in the game, it affects two people instead of one, and gives a burst of movespeed. This makes Heal widely favored in Duo Lane situations where it’s typically picked up down in Bot Lane by the acting Carry.

Ghost

Next up is Ghost. Ghost has been under Riot’s watchful eye lately as they’ve tried to buff the Spell to be more of an alternative to Flash. Though it remains to be seen if Ghost will ever achieve Flash-status. It’s definitely shining on a few Champions that thoroughly enjoy its buffs.

Anyway, Ghost is a self-targeted summoner spell that increases your Champion’s movement speed and grants them the ability to ignore unit collision for 4 to 7 seconds. (This effect is based on level.)

Some notes about Ghost:

It will still be in effect after being resurrected via Zilean Ultimate.
Ghost’s movement speed stacks additively and may be stacked a maximum of five times.

Ghost can be used offensively or defensively as its effects make it easier to chase down enemies or dodge spells and escape risky situations. Further, it’s stacking nature makes it excellent for those Champions that already have some form of ‘rush down’ or position focused ability in their kit.

Singed, Darius, Cassiopeia, Hecarim, and Vladimir all utilize this rune to its maximum potential. And it’s not uncommon to see them rock Flash alongside it for extreme chase and escape. In the case of Hecarim, since his passive gives him damage based on his movement speed, Ghost is an optimal choice for him over flash as it adds more redundancy to his movement focused kit and it opens up for his second spell to be something like TP, Ignite, or Smite.

Barrier

Barrier’s throwing itself up next and it's a self-targeted spell that shields your Champion from damage for a few seconds.

Barrier is great for absorbing enemy burst or turret shots. Whether used on a squishy Mid Laner or shielding focused Support, Barrier can help escape rough all-in situations and is great for Champions with low mobility.

When knocked up next to Heal though, Barrier does typically fall flat due to the permanent effect and secondary effects of Heal. But Barrier isn’t affected by Grievous Wounds, whereas Heal is. And it’s on a much shorter cooldown, blocks more damage against single target burst, and can be utilized while full health (perfect for Champions looking to 100-to-0 you).

For these reasons, Barrier is often used Mid Lane over Heal. The lower cooldown helps keep assassins in Check since it can soak both their damage and ignore the Grievous Wounds effect of Ignite.

Champions like Ziggs, Viktor, Lux, and Soraka all benefit greatly from Barrier over other Summoners since it helps compensate for their lack of mobility by making them harder to burst down.

Exhaust

Man, this has been EXHAUSTING! Get it? Cause Exhaust is the next Summoner Spell up? No... Okay, I’ll save my jokes.

Exhaust is a unit-targeted Summoner Spell that slows an enemy Champion by 30% and reduces their damage dealt for 3 seconds.

Things to know about Exhaust are:

It will not reduce True Damage.
Cleanse will remove Exhaust’s effects.
Using Exhaust on a Champion that is already affected by it will simply reapply the spell and not increase the effects.
Its cooldown can be reduced by CDR.

Exhaust is an extremely capable tool for disabling Champions who deal a high amount of damage. Top Laners, Mid Laners, Marksmen, and Supports can all flex their secondary selection to this Spell to mitigate the damage from their lane opponents or enemies they think will be diving them or their allies later. To put it simply, if their team is nothing but Assassins or Fighters alongside hypercarries like Vayne or Kog’Maw… you probably benefit from Exhaust coming out from somewhere on your team.

Lately, Marksmen have been electing to take this Spell over Heal when in Bot Lane, allowing their Supports to pick up Heal for more safety, or continue running Ignite to make their 2v2 fight potential even better. With some many dashes and ways to access the backline these days, having a carry run this Spell against dive heavy comps isn’t the worst idea.

Cleanse

Time for a palette cleanser! Get it? *sigh*

Cleanse is a self-targeted summoner spell that removes most crowd control effects and summoner spell debuffs.

Cleanse will remove the following status effects:

Blind
Forced Actions like Charm, Flee/Fear, Taunt, Cripple, and Disarm
Drowsy and Sleep
Ground
Round
Silence
Slow
Stun

It will also remove the effects of its fellow Summoner Spells Ignite (minus the Grievous Wounds Debuff), Exhaust, Chilling Smite, and Challenging Smite (but not the True Damage)

Cleanse is primarily utilized by Mid Laners and Carries that want to utilize it as a tool to escape all-ins. Champions that possess hard CC combos like Leona, Thresh, Annie, or Malzahar all fall a little flat when their primary lockdown can be knocked off with a single keypress.

The down-side to this Spell though is that it can be considered a tax in many ways. If you elect to take it over other defensive or offensive options, you’re leaving combat potential off the board. And there are items like Mercurial Scimitar and Banshee’s Veil that offer similar mitigation to Cleanse.

However, Cleanse is free. And you’ll have it from the go! And if you’re a squishy hypercarry against an all-in lane like Leona-Tristana, it’s definitely handy to be able to just pop Cleanse and tumble-flash away from their level 2 all-in.

Ignite

Things are getting hot in here with Ignite being up next. Ignite is a unit-targeted Summoner Spell that deals true damage over 5 seconds, applies Grievous Wounds healing reduction, and grants sight of the targeted Champion.

Things to know about Ignite:

Cleanse will remove all but the healing reduction from it.
Ignite’s healing debuff does not reduce shields or max health gains like Reneketon/Lulu Ultimates
Ignite cannot reveal stealthed starts as it doesn’t apply true-sight
Double igniting someone will simply overwrite the first Ignite, not amplify it.
Ignite grants two stacks of Conqueror, one stack of Electrocute, and one stack of Phase Rush on activation.
Ignite deals True Damage and therefore cannot be mitigated by damage reduction. Shields and Invulnerability will absorb the damage, however.
The cooldown of this spell can be reduced by CDR.

Ignite, these days, is picked up by just about everyone but Marksmen. It provides excellent offensive and defensive utility and damage that scales with level and always increases kill potential which is highly valued in the Solo-Duo environment.

Against heavy healing Champions like Soraka, Vlad, Aatrox, Warwick, Dr. Mundo, and Swain, Ignite is considered a spell that hard counters their healing/regen based kits thanks to its Grievous Wounds effect. Grievous Wounds reduces all life-steal, spell vamp, and drain effects from items and abilities so it knocks off Ravenous Hunter and Death’s Deaths effects which are ever so popular in the Season 10 meta.

Typically, one takes Ignite in situations where they want to snowball hard through cheese or a precise power spike. Akali’s level 6 is a precise power spike that Ignite amplifies, for example, while Darius’ level 1 bush camp is a great example of early cheese that pays off with Ignite in the pocket.

Smite

Smite, not to be confused with the mythology-based MOBA, is a unit-targeted spell that deals true damage to the target large or medium monster, enemy minion, or pet. When cast on a large creature, you are healed for 70 + 10% of your max health. This spell is required to buy the Jungle items of Hunter’s Machete and Hunter’s Talisman as well as their subsequent upgrades.

Smite can be taken into two unique paths that alter its effects. This occurs when you upgrade your primary Jungle item and opt for either the Stalker’s Blade (Blue/Chilling) or Skirmisher’s Sabre (Red/Challenging).

Chilling Smite can be cast on enemy Champions dealing true damage based on level and slowing the target by 20% for 2 seconds while also increasing your own movement speed by 20% for the same duration.

Challenging Smite can be cast on enemy Champions to mark them for 4 seconds. This reduces their damage against you by 20% and empowers your basica attacks to deal true damage to the target based on level for 2.5 seconds.

Smite is ALWAYS used by Junglers. It drastically increases clear speed and aids in the last hitting of crucial objectives like Rift Herald, Dragon, and Baron.

If taken in a lane, Smite can be used to push a lane more quickly and is typically used to secure last hits on Siege Minions. Though, I do not encourage the selection of Smite in lane since it has little use beyond this and Hook Cheese for Thresh and Blitzcrank.

Smite deals True Damage, so it will always deal the same amount and it cannot be reduced or amplified in any way other than one exception against a hard CC’d Scuttle Crab.

Smite can be utilized on pets like Tibbers, Voidlings, Daisy, and Shaco boxes. And it can be used on Zac blobs. For you Hecarim mains, it also heals you even more while in the effects of your Spirit of Dread.

Some notes about Smite:

It starts with one charge on a 15-second cooldown and gains an additional charge every 90 seconds starting from 1:30 in-game. Its maximum number of charges is 2.
The recharge and cooldown of this spell can be reduced by CDR
Both Chilling and Challenging Smite are negated by Spell Shield effects from Nocturne and Sivir
Both Chilling and Challenging Smite can be removed by Cleanse.

Flash

The grand-daddy of them all. The spell that 100% belongs on D. The near 100% pick or lose Summoner Spell. Flash is our last point.

Flash is a ground-targeted spell that causes your Champion to blink a short distance in the direction of your cursor. It cannot be cast while silenced, rooted, or grounded. When Hextech Flashtraption is taken as a rune, Hexflash replaces Flash when on cooldown.

Flash can be used as both an escape tool and a pursuit tool. It can be utilized to land and dodge abilities and many Champions have unique Flash-Cancel interactions with the spell that offer unique angles to land abilities.

Flash is a near 90% pick or lose Summoner Spell due to the mobility it offers. It covers weakness on immobile Champions like Ashe, Soraka, Lux, Ziggs, and Swain with ease and allows them to play into matchups against Champions that possess superior mobility.

There are very few Champions that do not take Flash and it is almost always present in all lanes. Typically, Flash is subbed out for Ghost in lane or for a more aggressive spell like Ignite.

Champions that do elect not to take Flash typically have extremely high mobility or unique evasiveness that allows for their kits to function without the need of the spell. Shaco, Rengar, Hecarim, and Shyvana are all examples of this and to further point out, these Champions are all typically Junglers who do not engage in a constant back and forth directly against an opponent so are not always under pressure.

With that said though, even if you are these Champions: 96 out of 100 times, you’re going to always want to take Flash as your primary Summoner Spell. The power and advantage that it gives is unparalleled in League of Legends and it’s simply foolish to play the game without it if your Champion cannot emulate its effect near perfectly.

To recap: TP keeps you in the lane. Heal heals you and gives you movement speed. Exhaust slows and reduces damage from enemies. Ignite deals true damage and grievous wounds. Barrier is better for solo lanes and is on a lower CD than heal. Take Smite if you’re a Jungler. Pretty much always take Flash. Cleanse is great against high crowd control teams. Clarity and Snowball-Dash aren't available on Summoner’s Rift.