I noticed while helping my lower ranked friends out that a lot of time they stick to a very concrete build. No one ever deviates from something listed on a guide and never has any type of counter-itemization. This is quite frustrating to see because that means that they aren't fully evaluating the game. Counter-itemization and timing your items is a small thing that can go a long way in terms of absorbing or dealing damage.

While considering what items to build, and when to build them, you need to think about two things: if you have your core items, and what items your enemy has. Obviously core items should come before you build for your enemies. An example would be that you're playing Sion and you enemy have a LeBlanc that is 0/5/2 with 124 CS, but Jinx who is 10/2/4 and has 183 CS. You wouldn't build a Locket of Iron Solari because LeBlanc is irrelavent. She is underfed and underfarmed, your gold should be focused on helping you tank Jinx, so building a Frozen Heart or Thornmail would be far more optimal. This is the concept of "counter-itemization".

On the opposite side of the spectrum there is the concept of "optimal itemization". Optimal itemization is using your gold to build items that you need in order to do more damage, or utility, in a more efficient manner. An example would be choosing to build Tri-Force and Sorcerer's Shoes on Corki rather than an Infinity Edge and Berserker's Greaves. By going Tri-Force you're offered a far stronger burst damage on Corki and in order to increase your damage you augment it with the spell penetration via Sorcerer's shoes. ADC champions normally build IE due to the high amount of AD offered and Berserker's Greaves due to attack speed being a primary secondary stat to most ADC champions. But, due to Corki being an AD Caster type of champion, the Sheen passive along with Q scaling with both AP and AD offers an insane amount of burst.

Guides are an amazing thing to look at when learning how to itemize certain champions. Although, most guides only ever tell you what the optimal buildpath is, and never tells you what you should do in the case that you either get behind in lane or against certain matchups. As a result, people build the same game after game no matter what the matchup is or if you win or lose lane.

Different times call for different measures. If you're a Rumble top lane and you're laning against a Renekton, building Seeker's Armguard will give you both AP and armor in order to deal more damage to him and mitigate damage he does to you. You wouldn't build magic resist against a Renekton, that's just silly! If each champion is unique, then each matchup is unique meaning that you can't treat everything the same and build the same route game after game.

While deciding what items you should build against the enemy team, here are a few suggestions of situations in which you would buy certain items.

 Mikael's Crucible:

Mikael's Crucible is a very strong item that supports build in order to help peel. Upon activation, Mikael's Crucible breaks stuns, taunts, silences, roots, fears, and slows on allied targetted champion along with healing them for 150+ 10% of targetted champions health. Mikael's Crucible is a strong item to pick against enemy teams with heavy crowd controling abilites, excluding blinds, knockups, and suppression.

 Locket of the Iron Solari:

Locket is a very nice item to have to give your team small MR boost. Although its' active only gives 50 +10/level of a shield, it still offers at least some damage mitigation along with providing the MR aura.

 Abyssal Scepter:

If you're a champion like Galio, Fiddlesticks, or Diana looking for both AP and MR, then you should consider an Abyssal Scepter. Abyssal Scepter is like the opposite of Locket, in a sense that instead of giving your allies 20 MR, you're reducing enemy MR by 20. This item is good for AP champions who need to be in close range of enemies in order to do damage.

 Banshee's Veil:

Banshee's Veil is a great item against team who have targetted CC ults (Vi, WW, Malzahar). By building a Banshee's Veil, you force your enemy to engage differently, as to not waste any valuable CC/ults. Although the spell shield is extremely nice to have, you must still be wary when playing against enemy teams that have low cooldown poke such as Nidalee, Mundo, or Ezreal as they will just pop your shield and then you will be a sitting duck.

 Mercurial Scimitar:

ADC's who built a Quicksilver Sash will upgrade this no-brainer. Building out of a B.F. Sword and QSS, Mercurial Scimitar is an amazing item to provide both a cleanse and AD. If you're an ADC against a high CC team, I highly recommend building this item. Upon activation you gain +50% movement speed while removing all debuffs. Although you have the slight speed boost, because this would be considered your "defensive" item (rather than something like a GA), I cannot stress how much more important your positioning is.

Before I would like to finish, I would like to talk about the pick/ban side of itemization. In the pick/ban phase, this is commonly known as "itemization trapping". Itemization trapping is basing your pick/ban phase in order to force your opponents to build a specific way.

Assume your team composition is as followed: Rumble top, Ahri mid, Vi jungle, Janna support, and Vayne ADC. Your enemy solo laners will be building some type of MR in order to mitigate your solo laner's damage. This is the trap. If your enemy solo laners only have build MR items, Vi's gank potential will be even more deadly due to the lack of armor to mitigate her high physical damage.

Although the concept of itemization trapping may be considered old and out-dated, it's still something I put into consideration for the early and mid game when I am making teama comps for my own personal competitive teams.

Thank you very much for reading my article on itemization, I really appreciate the support. If you enjoyed this article and would like to hear me give insight on a topic that you're interested in feel free to tweet it to me on Twitter: @gShouranF, and follow me on twitch here. I also love playing games with my stream viewers and such so feel free to add me on NA: Ala Moana (Currently until I name change back to NVe Shouran about mid-August).