With the introduction of Season 7, Twitch has been an extremely relevant Marksman, but now the rise of mage supports can make the bot lane a hard place to survive. I believe Twitch could possibly be one of the best Marksman in the ranked ladder, but only if he's played in the correct manner. In this guide, we will be going over how to effectively use Twitch’s strengths and how to overcome his early game weakness.

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Strengths:

• Stealth to engage and disengage
• Scales well into late game
• Extra range on ultimate
• Great for catching enemies out of position

Weaknesses:

• Early laning phase is extremely hard
• Squishy
• Can be countered by well-placed Control Wards
• Struggles against mage supports
  
  

Runes

This is a standard Marksman rune page which consists of the following:

• Attack Damage Marks x9
• Armor Seals x9
• Magic Resist Glyphs x9
• Attack Speed Quintessence x3

The only thing you may wish to consider about the runes is changing them for how you feel overall about your playstyle. Maybe you have a preference in using more Attack Speed on Marksman. If so, you can remove some MR Glyphs and put some AS Glyphs in as replacements. But, in general, I believe this is a fine page to use for Twitch.

Masteries

This is a classic Marksman mastery page, but it can differ from person to person. I prefer to take Warlord's Bloodlust and the reason for that being that as Twitch you are extremely susceptible to taking poke over farm by the enemy Marksman and harassment from the enemy Support as well, so it's nice to have some lifesteal to keep you in lane longer to get some extra CS or even give you the slight edge in a losing trade.

Abilities

Passive: Deadly Venom

Twitch’s basic attacks will apply a single stack of Deadly Venom per hit which slowly poisons their targets dealing true damage over six seconds. These stacks can be applied up to six times, which means auto attacks after six stacks will just reset the timer on the poison.

This is one of the main things that makes people hate Twitch, as his true damage can be extremely effective, especially during the early game if you don’t get over-poked and you’re able to take the correct trades.

Q : Ambush

Twitch gains the ability to become camouflaged. He gains movement speed while stealthed and when he comes out of Ambush, you would gain bonus Attack Speed for five seconds. The cooldown of Ambush is reset upon kills or assists.

Now of course Twitch never used to have camouflage but with the introduction of the Patch 6.22, camouflage was added to Twitch’s kit to replace invisibility. At first, I wasn’t exactly happy with the change to his kit, as everyone wanted to be “right under their noses”, but I’ve come to find myself thinking I prefer it due to it being a longer duration stealth, so I’m fine just being near their noses instead.

Overall, this is a key part of Twitch’s kit and one best things to abuse in game as you can either catch enemies overextending or in the incorrect positions. By catching enemies out of position, you can give your team the edge to win teamfights. Ambush is also especially good if you are chasing down an enemy as you gain an extra 30% movement speed increase towards enemy champions who are unable to see you.

But a bad thing about camouflage is that if an enemy comes into the vicinity of Twitch’s Ambush, or you walk by a Control Ward, they will be able to see you and do damage to you, so there will be times you could be trying to set up a kill but a slight movement by the enemy Marksman will ruin your plans.

W : Venom Cask

Twitch throws venom at a specific area and infects all in the area with a Deadly Venom stack and be slown by up to 45%. The area will be contaminated for over three seconds and each second spent inside that area will apply a stack of Deadly Venom.

This can be a very important ability as you can cast it to disengage when being chased or to just quickly push a wave. Late game, this may not be the best to cast when being chased as it will make you stand still while casting it and that small delay may be enough to get you killed.

E : Contaminate

Twitch will deal physical damage to all enemies nearby that have been infected with Deadly Venom and each stack will grant extra damage.

Now this is a very straightforward and easy to understand ability, Contaminate is used to execute an enemy as the last blow, but you have to do it at the correct time to make it work. You can have the enemy Marksman at six stacks of Deadly Venom but if they expect you to use Contaminate to kill them, they could Flash out of the range of it to make it useless. Timing is everything, so as soon as you reach six stacks, or as many stacks you think is possible, I’d recommend using Contaminate to get the full efficiency out of it.

R : Spray and Pray

This ability will grant Twitch up to 40 bonus attack damage and 300 bonus attack range lasting around 5 seconds. This will also allow Twitch’s basic attacks to travel the full range, skewering every enemy champion it passes through but dealing less damage per enemy hit. It will also apply on-hit effects on all enemies hit.

Spray and Pray is a key ability to winning trades and teamfights. This gives you both the advantage in range and damage, but if it is used at the wrong time it can get you killed. If used correctly, you may even be able to 1v5 the entirety of the enemy team.

Skill Order

On Twitch it's best to max E>Q>R>W. The reason for maxing Contaminate first is to get more damage, of course, which will help you overall early/mid game. Ambush you max second. This is mostly due to it not doing damage so there is no need to rush it first but maxing this ability out will grant you extra time in stealth, which can be crucial in certain games. These two abilities should be enough to kill anybody willing to duel you.

Builds

Now Twitch has many a good build to follow as long as you have Infinity Edge and Runaan’s Hurricane. These items alone are Twitch’s most prized possessions. These two items combined with Twitch’s kit makes him a beautifully powerful rat. In general, your first back will want to be one of the items in Infinity Edge’s build path, which would either be a BF Sword or Pickaxe. The reason for this being that it gives you the damage to trade a bit more in lane and makes hitting CS much easier. But after that, you will want to rush Runaan’s as soon as possible as it's probably the best item to get on Twitch as it allows you to get extra stacks of Deadly Venom onto enemies near you.

Runaan’s will also help when you cast Spray and Pray, as it helps spread your Deadly Venom onto more targets. After rushing Runaan’s, you should then proceed to finish Infinity Edge for Critical Strike and overall damage and then get your Berserker’s Greaves for that juicy 35% Attack Speed increase.

After these two items you can either build one more Attack Speed item or just move on to situational items. These options are below:

Statikk Shiv: This will allow you to get that extra bit of burst onto the unsuspecting enemy, while also being able to push waves slightly faster due to its unique Shiv Lightning. I would say I see most standard Twitch players build this as their next item after having IE and RH. This item is better for when you are pushing a lot and the enemy team is quick at rotating. Having this should make pushing quick enough to allow for you to make an escape after taking a wave or two.

Phantom Dancer: This is also a very nice item to get after having IE and RH, but I wouldn’t recommend having both Statikk and Phantom. It's either one or the other, but it depends on what you're against. Overall, I prefer the Phantom Dancer for the time being. The reason for that being that if you are looking to catch enemies out of position, it can help you with its passive Spectral Waltz as it gives you more movement speed when within 550 units of an enemy champion. This, combined with Ambush’s 30% movement speed increase when going towards an enemy, will let you catch up easier letting you kill and escape quicker. Its second passive Lament helps you duel, as it grants 12% damage reduction on last champion hit which helps with close 1v1 trades with enemies.

Hexdrinker: This is a very needed item due to popularity of mage Supports. This will grant you a shield when you have taken magic damage that reduces you under 30% health. This could be the item that saves you from a Flash Malzahar ult or even the dreaded Syndra R. Overall, get this item if the enemy team is extremely stacking AP damage dealers.

Quicksliver Sash: Now this is a good item for laning against champs like Morgana, Brand and Malzahar. It gives you +30 MR and its active allows you to remove all crowd control from your champion, meaning if Malzahar ults you, you can escape with the active. Later on in the game, you can upgrade it to Mercurial Scimitar which grants you +5 more MR, 65 AD and 10% Lifesteal.

Edge of Night: This is an especially good item due to the Lethality changes in 7.2 as now you get 60% of its value as flat armor penetration while the remainder will scale with the enemy champions. This item is pretty impressive as it grants you Magic Resist, Damage, Lethality and out of combat Movement Speed. If that doesn’t sell you on this item, there's much more, such as its unique active that is able to channel a shield that blocks the next incoming enemy ability. Also with the 7.2 patch changes you’re now able to channel this unique active while in stealth, making it another great item for Twitch to use while in Ambush.

Youmuu’s Ghostblade: This item isn’t really built too often but Youmuu’s is still a good item. It grants you 60 AD, 10% Cooldown Reduction, 20 Lethality and +20 Movement Speed out of combat, which can be good with Ambush. Its unique active grants you 20% extra movement speed for 6 seconds, which can make hunting down people easier but I believe it may be better to opt for Edge of Night as it’s only 200 gold more and has MR along with a defensive active.

Blade of the Ruined King: This grants you with a bit more Attack speed, Damage and Lifesteal. This item is good when going up against very high health champions such as Mundo as it will deal 8% of the target's current health plus its unique active letting you deal 10% of the target champion's health in damage and healing you for that amount dealt along with stealing 25% of the Movement Speed from the enemy you cast it on. Overall, this item isn’t incredibly good at this point in time, but if you are having hard time getting peel from your team, BotRK can help by using its unique active to speed you up and slow the enemy down so that you can get out of harm's way.

Bloodthirster: Overall, most people will know what this item does. It grants you more survivability by giving you over 20% lifesteal plus more damage to teamfight and duel enemies. It will also overheal you, granting you a shield that can absorb up to 350 damage, which can also save you from many a thing.

Lord Dominik’s Regards: This is in most late game builds. This item is for when you’re against tanks as the passive Giant Slayer will grant up to 15% bonus physical damage against enemies with more health along with the passive Last Whisper which grants 45% Armour Pen.

Mortal Reminder: Usually you either build Lord Dominik’s or Mortal Reminder. This item is better for champions with healing abilities such as if you're against a very annoying Soraka healing everybody. Mortal Reminder applies Grievous Wounds for five seconds and with it applied it’ll reduce healing received by 40% which can help a lot.

Early Game

Now this is probably the biggest issue with Twitch. He has an extremely weak early game presence and this is mainly due to the fact that mage Supports have become the new normal. The best advice I could give you is to just play as safe as you possibly can. For example, if you were laning as Twitch with Blitzcrank against Draven and Zyra, you wouldn’t be able to get any damage off as the trades will be too inconsistent and you’ll either die extremely quickly if you overextend to last hit or get chunked and get dived if you stay.

As I’ve said, just play safe as you can possibly be. By this I mean if you are trading over CS and losing every time, just wait til the wave pushes to tower even if that means you are 40 CS behind. If you are stuck waiting at tower and the enemies are freezing you can do one of three things:

1. Take Krugs to get a bit of XP back from CS you are missing out on.
2. Roam and attempt to get mid ahead.
3. Hide out of vision to give off the illusion you are roaming when in fact you are just waiting in the shadows for the enemy bot lane shove the wave back to you.

I understand it can be frustrating being behind but sometimes it just happens. You should just wait for ganks from your jungler or wait till the enemy bot roams and you are able to get some CS to get you back into game.

If you are not in an overly aggressive lane, it’s really good to poke when possible such as when the enemy is going to last hit a minion. You may be able to trade an auto without taking any damage from the Marksman or the Support. It’s a good idea to get a lot of vision bot so you don’t get ganked too frequently because if you lose to a gank, the enemy Marksman may play more aggressively meaning you lose out on CS.

Now if you have won bot lane extremely hard, the best thing you can do is roam. I wouldn't recommend roaming all the way to top but maybe gank mid if possible. If the gank is successful, it will help to get your mid laner ahead of their opponent which helps towards the end game.

Mid Game

At this point, you should have Twitch’s core items. This is where he will excel as you are now in the position to roam and catch others out or group up and team fight. When looking to catch enemies out of position, it's key to be aware of your surroundings as you don’t want to cast Ambush then walk over a Control Ward and be caught out resulting in your death. I’d say the most common times you’re able to catch the enemy Marksman out is when the Support is going up river to ward. They leave the Marksman vulnerable at this stage if they travel too far towards mid. Sometimes, the enemy may not realize their Support is warding so they push without thinking. This gives you the perfect opportunity to use Ambush and kill them to get the reset then cast Ambush again and get away.

The reason for making picks is to put your team ahead in teamfights. If you kill the marksman before a teamfight, that leaves them at a disadvantage of it being a 5v4. It’s important for you to capitalise on these opportunities but also not too ahead of yourself as you may think someone is alone but it could be a general bait to get you killed to put your team at a disadvantage instead.

Late Game

Now this is where playing Twitch may get a lot harder. Catching people out may be more of an issue as this point in the game as teams are very grouped up and are looking for mistakes to capitalize on but it's important to not underestimate your damage. For example, there have been countless times where my teammates have died and it’s a 3v5 and the enemies have proceeded to attempt Baron. Now the Baron Pit and the Dragon Pit are both areas where Twitch’s kit is perfect for, as most teams group up extremely close together when trying to kill them. With Twitch you can use Ambush to sneak up close and then use Spray and Pray to get stacks of Deadly Venom on them all with the aid of Runaan’s Hurricane.

Now I mentioned not to underestimate your damage, but you should never underestimate the enemy's damage either. For example, if you see someone alone and you both are fed, it's probably for the best that you don’t throw your lead by trying to burst down a 14/3 Fiora top.

The best thing you can do as a late game Twitch is group. Teamfighting with Twitch is the way you’ll win the games. The best thing you can do is sit behind your team out of vision completely and wait for your team to engage. Then you wait for certain champions who pose a threat to use the abilities that may risk your demise such as a Syndra Ultimate. After that has happened, use Ambush and use Spray and Pray. The Attack Speed boost with the AD and range boost should allow you to clear out a team in seconds if played correctly.

Synergies

Nami

She allows Twitch to poke freely and that’s simply due to her heal. Twitch can poke and trade with the enemy Marksman due to her being able to back him up with easy heals which makes lane sustain pretty simple and nice. She also adds to his engage potential such as you could use her Aqua Prison to catch a potential kill or even speed Twitch up with it by casting it on the area he is standing upon.

Nami’s ability Tidecaller’s Blessing will help Twitch get off auto attacks that slow the enemy and deal magic damage per hit. If you get caught, she has great disengage as she can use Aqua Prison or she could even use her Ultimate for a huge initiation/team disengage.

Zilean

This champion is really nice to play with and is probably one of my favourites. When Zilean lands two of his Time Bombs on an enemy, it will work as an AOE Stun. This pairs up nicely with a Twitch Venom Cask for poke damage in early game and late game. Zilean also can speed Twitch up while in Ambush, using his ability Time Warp to give up to 99% movement speed increase over 2.5 seconds. It's incredibly useful for both engaging and disengaging. He also allows Twitch another chance at life with his ability Chronoshift that allows you to die and come back to life with a set amount of health. This allows you to play extremely aggressively meaning you don’t have to worry about repercussions unless you're fighting in a bad area of the map.

But it is also wise to think of the person who is playing Zilean, because you may think that you are on the same page but not be. Sometimes it's best to just play safe over playing overly aggressive as Supports will not be able to read your mind.

Lulu

Now, to be fair, in ranked ladder, I don’t see a lot of Lulu played as support or at all lately, but when you do finally get paired with Lulu as Twitch it can be one of the nicest lanes to play. I’ll start with her Glitterlance. When this ability hits enemy champions, it allows Twitch to catch up and land a lot of poke damage along with it being able to help you to disengage due to its 80% slow that decays over two seconds. Sometimes Glitterlance alone will being doing enough poke damage in lane to allow you for an easy game of farming. Another ability that kinda goes hand in hand with this is “Help, Pix!”, which acts as a shield when cast on an ally champion while also granting her passive Pix to the champion shielded.

What this means is that Pix will allow Twitch to get extra damage off due to gaining 3 extra bolts to the target he is basic attacking dealing magic damage to them. This is really helpful, as sometimes it can end up pushing your early game to be easier along with it also keeping you alive due to the shield effect. Lulu’s Ultimate Wild Growth will help with engage and disengage. It helps with engage as it creates a knock up AoE around Twitch when cast on him. Paired with Ambush, this could make for a really strong engage that the enemy isn’t expecting. As for disengage, the knock up AoE can help with running away from champions that are sticking to you while also granting you bonus health that can keep you safe if things get a bit too rough for you.

Hard Matchups

Caitlyn

Due to her incredible range of 650, she is able to poke with ease over a wave. Trades with Cait can be some infuriating as most of the time she’ll win due to range advantage, and as you back off she’ll still be in range to hit autos on you as you retire to safety. Her ability Yordle Snap Trap can be increasingly troublesome in lane if well-placed. They may keep you away from farm and also when trying to use Ambush to catch her out you may step on one of those traps that could reveal your location and give you away. Best thing to do here is refer back to what I said about early laning phase - Just play safe.

Draven

Now with Draven is much different Caitlyn. His early game damage can be pretty deadly, so trading can be pretty hard but if he gains a kill early so his stacks of Adoration can give him extra gold, you will be in dire peril. If you win the first trade you should be fine playing this lane, but if you lose early you must allow yourself to miss CS as an overfed Draven can be very hard to deal with especially when your gold difference is quite high. My advice for this lane is to let your Jungler know in advance that you may need some help so you can stay in the game. If they do not help, you just have to be careful at all times and stick with your Support and team when necessary.

Varus

Varus has become another very relevant Marksman. You can see this pick often in the ranked ladder and even in the competitive scene. The reason for Twitch having a hard time with Varus is due to mostly range and lockdown. Varus offers a lot of easy poke without putting himself at risk due to his overwhelming reach on his Piercing Arrow.

His Ultimate, Chain of Corruption, can easily lock Twitch down and keep him in place meaning that if you are out of position he can catch you out with ease and capitalise on it with his team. Overall to play against this I’d recommend trying to keep an eye on Varus in lane to avoid taking needless Piercing Arrow damage and, once you hit level 6, play safer to avoid being ult’d by him as it could lead to a really easy gank for the enemy Jungler.

Tips

Shoving Waves: The best way to shove waves is by throwing your Venom Cask into a wave and then using Contaminate after Deadly Venom stacks have been applied. This should allow for quick and easy pushes.

Safer Recalls: Casting Ambush just before you attempt to recall will allow you to go into camouflage while you’re recalling, meaning enemies will only see you recalling if you are by a Control Ward or the enemy has entered your Ambush radius.

Cancelling Ambush: When Twitch begins to auto while in Ambush, it will bring you out of stealth. Even if you have cancelled that auto attack, it will proceed to unveil you from the Ambush. It can be very frustrating but the advice I’d give you is instead of clicking everywhere you intend to walk, just hold down the click and allow Twitch to follow the cursor.

Awareness: You have to remember that Control Wards will allow people to see you in stealth. These wards are the worst as if you're near them it makes you a sitting duck for the enemies to kill. Make sure not to use Ambush to overextend too far as you may be camouflaged but if an enemy gets too close that might end up losing you the game.

Thank You!

Thanks for reading my first guide. If you have any questions/opinions, be sure to leave them in the comment section below and I'll reply when I can. I hope this guide has helped you improve your Twitch knowledge and gameplay. I'll see you on the Rift.

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