The meta of League of Legends has evolved steadily over the last five years. Many champions have come and gone but there have always been champions taking turns sitting at the top of professional play depending on the patch. Mordekaiser saw his time, Poppy got her spotlight, and even Urgot saw some midlane play. One champion however has never been considered a meta pick except for one game in NA and he has since been nerfed and his name is Teemo, the Swift Scout.

Teemo has always been considered a bit of a troll pick. He gets love, he gets hate, the emotions he generates in those who play him, play with him, and play against him form a wonderful rainbow that covers the entire emotional spectrum of those playing League. While all of this is going on however, Teemo as a champion has been a very static champion for most of the lifetime of League. Why this is stems from many different things and each of them while not completely unrelated, they do come from many different aspects of Teemo.

The first aspect of Teemo that prevents his non troll appearance in professional play is how he builds. While most might not think about this, Teemo has very many options to choose from when he loads onto the Rift. He can go full AP with a Lichbane and Rabadon’s Deathcap. He can go on-hit with a Wit’s End and a Guinsoo’s Rageblade. He can even go full AD with an Infinity Edge and a Runaan’s Hurricane. While all of these builds work on Teemo, none of them are truly optimal. With all the build options available on Teemo, none of them make him successful and consistent enough to have him a consideration for a professional pick. His build is only one portion of this problem though, the other piece to this puzzle is his kit.

Teemo’s abilities while balanced do have very important flaws. First his Q Blinding Dart. This ability does damage and blinds the enemy prevent their auto attacks from hitting anything for the duration. While this ability is useful, since it is a targeted ability it is more consistent so it’s effectiveness needs to be lowered to compensated. If it were a skill shot then Riot could put more power into the ability. Next is his W titled appropriately Move Quick. It does exactly was it says, makes him move quick and if he activates it he moves quicker. While move speed is useful, the amount this ability gives doesn’t do that much and is almost a waste of an ability slot. His E isn’t any better which just gives him on hit magic damage and a magic damage dot. While the damage isn’t bad, it doesn’t count as a spell effect so many possible item combos do not work. Last is his icon Noxious Trap ultimate. While at one point they used to be terrifyingly strong, they have since been nerfed into the ground and are only useful as slightly damaging wards. While all of this may sound kind of harsh against Teemo, he still does have his uses. The problem is that his use is the final nail in the coffin for how he doesn’t function in a way that works for pro play.

The situation where Teemo is strongest is in two scenarios. The first scenario is Teemo is ahead of the enemy team, but Teemo’s team is weaker than the enemy. What this will cause to happen is the enemy team will engage onto your team, but Teemo will have Traps set up in advance to counter the enemy engage. Using that method Teemo can turn around an entire teamfight. The other use Teemo has is split pushing. Teemo has extra move speed and free ward/traps that allow him to overextend in a lane to possibly gain advantages for his team. While both of these strategies are fine on paper, they aren’t as good in practice. The first strategy has the flaw that you need to prepare for it in advance. There are plenty of better disengage mages that can turn around a fight like that better than Teemo, and that isn’t even counting the fact that Teemo needs to be reasonably ahead to be most effective in that scenario. The second style for Teemo has another issue, Teemo can get destroyed by a lot of other split push champions. While Teemo can hold his own for a while, eventually he can fall behind other split pushing top laners. Teemo also is very weak to ganks pre level six so getting snowballed on is even more likely.

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With all of that in mind, you might wonder why Riot hasn’t reworked Teemo yet? Of course, they have applied many bandaids to Teemo, but not a full rework even though you could argue he needs one more than champions like Taric or Ryze. The reason for this is most likely, Teemo is too iconic. Everyone loves or hates Teemo, be it playing him or playing with or against and Riot knows that. If they reworked Teemo, the people that loved him might get upset because he’s changed, the people who hate him might hate Riot for making him better. Whatever Riot decides to do with Teemo, I’m sure eventually they will make the right decision and then maybe Teemo can shine in professional play like every Teemo main has always dreamed.

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