One of League's more neglected fields of justice, Twisted Treeline, provides a fun ranked alternative when you have just three people. I realize most people approach TT pretty casually (so do my friends and I), but I thought I'd assemble a very quick guide to the meta for semi-serious players looking to climb out of the ranked 3v3 ladder's bottom reaches. This is intended for people who have never bothered to understand more about the Treeline or (to a lesser degree) those who haven't been up-to-date in many, many patches.

The meta isn't unintuitive, but if my experience in Bronze, Silver and Gold are any indication, most people aren't very familiar with it. It may be that many or most of those people simply don't care, but it seems that everybody tries earnestly to win; I'm guessing that if they had a better idea of how to do that, they would choose to do it. And it's no surprise why TT is a bit of a mystery. The limited exposure of high-level 3v3 play keeps TT tactics from becoming common knowledge. I was inspired to write this little guide when I discovered how scarce information about 3v3 is on the internet. When you Google "Twisted Treeline meta," you get a number of tier lists and some very outdated discussions on the meta. Tier lists are useful in some way, but they tend not to explain much beyond the power of the picks. As with Summoner's Rift, merely picking a champion understood to be strong doesn't automatically give you any free victories. You must understand the champion and their role on the team. I scoured various League of Legends sites in an effort to assemble some basic information, so here goes:

Team Composition

For some time now, Twisted Treeline has been dominated by a few overall setups and their relative strength shifts with the patches. The feature common to all of them is a solo AP bot lane. As always, it is good to have a balance of damage types. Obviously, the reason you always send the AP player solo is the same as Summoner's Rift: EXP is more valuable on champions who rely on abilities to deal damage. The reason you send them bot also follows a familiar principle: because AP carry champs tend to be inherently more vulnerable and you know they're going solo, you put them in the shorter lane. Bot lane on TT, like mid lane on Summoner's Rift, is the shortest, reducing the APC's exposure to jungle pressure.

The first key distinction between comps is whether or not the top player goes solo. Much like SR, a solo top player typically plays a bruiser. This is the most common arrangement in low elo. The advantage to this is that it frees up your third teammate to play a jungler and extract all possible value out of your half of the map. The disadvantage is that your solo top player may be overwhelmed if your opponents go with a duo top comp. A 1v2 lane is a big disadvantage at any elo, but laning 1v2 is also its own skill, and it's one that is seldom cultivated in lower level players. Jungler comps are therefore a vulnerable strategy with high potential, and they're making a bit of a comeback as of Patch 5.16. In this new era of juggernauts and tanks, that 1v2 situation is a bit more forgiving and you benefit tremendously from having yet another well-funded tanky champ coming out of the jungle.

If you choose a duo top comp, then one of them is a support. As on SR, it is better to concentrate gold on a single champion than divide it up among multiple laners, and supports are the champions who still offer most of their utility while starved for gold. The decision here is whether the other duo laner plays a bruiser or an ADC. With tanky champions in the strong position that they are as of 5.16, the relative strength of ADC's is diminished. They're definitely viable, but you put a lot of burden on yourself to pick one. If, for instance, you're faced with a solo top, you must deny them gold and simultaneously protect your jungle (which is difficult, but possible). If not, you'll still be outscaled. Sending a bruiser up with your support offers a bit more versatility early on. You can deny a solo laner almost as well and you should be fine against ADC comps as long as you choose a bruiser with a gap-closer and some early kill pressure. Out of the three, bruiser+support has the softest scaling but it's much easier not to fall behind early.

Objectives

As is usually the case when it comes to League of Legends, a game is won through objectives. When it comes to TT objectives, your SR instincts are mostly right. Inhibitors are still the most important thing. On both classic maps, the path to victory becomes unambiguous once an inhibitor is down.

If you have a choice, the better inhibitor to take is also still bot. Both Vilemaw and Baron are situated near the top of the map, so enemies will have to cover the highest possible distance in order to contest those key objectives while defending their base if the super minions are coming from bot.

Twisted Treeline is an early game-focused mode, but Riot put some changes in Patch 5.11 that made snowballing a little more difficult. If you haven't played TT in a while, it's important to know that the importance of altars has been diminished and the importance of Vilemaw increased. Before, the disparity between having 0 altars and 2 altars was gold income and AP/AD. Now, it's movement speed and health regeneration, which isn't as powerful. Of course you can use the opponents' altar to pressure a fight you think you can win, just don't put yourself in risky situations for the sake of getting that second altar.

Often, the enemy alter can be grabbed on your way back to base if you utilize the recall trick. This is an underrated tactic that allows you to minimize your time on the opponents' side of the field. Simply begin your recall just as you start capturing the altar. Taking altars and recalling each take about 8 seconds (as long as you don't have the Phasewalker mastery), so it's a very easy thing to time. Still, be careful; the second altar is not worth a death.

Vilemaw, on the other hand, must now be treated with the gravity of Baron. Before 5.11, Vilemaw granted AS, CDR and regen. This was powerful but usually not powerful enough to swing one-sided teamfights the other way in the same manner that Baron buff might. Now, like the new Baron buff, Vilemaw increases the strength of nearby minions.

This is critical. If you have any sort of lead when you secure Vilemaw, you should easily take an inhibitor and begin the process of closing out the game from there.

Towers are valuable as always.

Picks

This is the part of the meta which is already amply covered by tier lists, but I thought I'd offer some explanation. In general, what's strong is strong. That means Darius, Fiora, Gangplank, etc. all remain good picks on Twisted Treeline. The second rule is that tankiness is a common trait of most of the strongest picks, including those for AP and support. Vesuvio's tier list puts Cho'gath, Diana, Lulu and Morgana at the very top of the AP choices – all of which are inherently survivable (waveclear is also important). There are a few peculiarities of TT that affect the viability of certain champs. Most importantly, because the early game is so critical, champions who are strong at levels 1-9 tend to thrive. Other factors are more specific. Rek'sai and Zac, for instance, have a long enough dive to gank through the middle wall, and Anivia, Azir, Kayle and Vayne are powerful in the tight corridors which dominate this map.

I'm not the biggest advocate of tier lists. They're a great place to look for inspiration, but you know what works for you and literally everything has the potential to work in low elo. I would recommend starting with the tier lists and being conscious of what's working.

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