Counter Guide

How to Beat Teemo

Matchup Guide · Evergreen · 3 Counter Picks

Nothing on the ladder is more irritating to share a lane with than Teemo, and nothing stops mattering faster once you know what Blinding Dart [Q] actually turns off.

Blinding Dart [Q] turns an auto-attacking champion off for several seconds, and no amount of mechanical skill plays through that. If Teemo makes the lane feel unfair, that's because it structurally is. He's beaten by knowing the rules of his kit rather than by trying to out-fight him inside them.

Matchup Snapshot Teemo, the Swift Scout

Where You Meet HimTop Lane

Damage TypeMagic

Why He Is FrustratingBlind, shrooms, never catchable

MobilityMove Quick [W] speed only

Biggest ThreatNoxious Trap [R]

Hardest CounterOlaf

What a Counter Needs

Damage that doesn't come from basic attacks, because Blinding Dart [Q] stops those
Sustain or magic resist to walk through the poison chip
A gap closer, since he has 500 attack range and no dash

Patch 26.18 Matchup Data

Who Beats Teemo on Patch 26.18

Best Picks Into Teemo

Olaf2,454 games54.1%
Dr. Mundo2,186 games53.4%
Sion1,813 games52.7%
Ornn1,337 games52.0%
Malphite5,887 games51.8%

Picks Teemo Beats

Vayne1,327 games38.0%
Volibear1,472 games41.5%
Camille1,083 games42.1%
Ambessa1,251 games42.9%

Win rates are for the champion listed, in the top lane against Teemo. They come from Nerfplz's own ranked solo queue games on Patch 26.18, Silver and above, 93,739 Teemo games in all. Only matchups that show up in at least 1% of those games are listed.

Teemo Overview

Strengths: What Makes Him Dangerous

Blinding Dart [Q] blinds on a 7 second cooldown at every rank, which turns off basic attacks entirely and beats most melee top laners on its own.
Toxic Shot [E] makes every basic attack apply poison damage on hit plus damage over time, so he wins ranged trades without spending a single ability.
Noxious Trap [R] stores charges, lasts minutes, stealths itself, slows, reveals, and deals damage over time. A stacked river or jungle entrance is a genuine wall.
Guerrilla Warfare [Passive] makes him invisible if he stands still, and he keeps it while moving in brush, then gains attack speed when he breaks it.
Move Quick [W] gives him free movement speed whenever he hasn't been hit recently, which is how he escapes ganks that should have worked.

Weaknesses: Where You Get In

Blinding Dart [Q] only stops basic attacks. Ability damage goes through it completely, which makes half the top lane roster immune to his main defensive tool.
His own damage is almost all basic attacks. Anything that blocks, dodges, or slows attacks turns off his entire kit, including Toxic Shot [E].
He's 500 attack range with no dash and no blink. Once something reaches him, he has movement speed and nothing else.
Mushrooms are revealed and destroyed by sweepers, and Noxious Trap [R] holds a limited number of charges that refresh slowly, so every one you sweep is minutes of banked setup gone for the price of a trinket.
He has no crowd control and no sustain. A champion who out-heals the poison and survives to melee range simply kills him.

Countering Teemo

Based on the strengths and weaknesses above, beating Teemo comes down to champions who can accomplish at least one of the following:

Bring damage that isn't a basic attack. Blinding Dart [Q] is his whole answer to melee champions, and it does nothing at all to ability damage or true damage from abilities.
Negate his attacks instead of trading with them. Attack blocking, dodge windows, and attack speed reduction all shut down Toxic Shot [E], which is where most of his damage actually comes from.
Out-heal the poison. His pressure is chip damage over time, so any champion who restores a large amount of health in one go resets the whole lane.
Buy a sweeper and use it. Mushrooms are the reason he feels unfair in the mid game, and revealing them costs nothing.

If you're already locked into the matchup without any of those tools, these strategies still work:

Playing a Bad Teemo Matchup

Hold your trades for after Blinding Dart [Q], not before. It's a 7 second cooldown, which is a long window, and in that window he's a 500 range champion with no escape.

Sweep before you cross the river, every time (Oracle Lens reveals the mushrooms, and a revealed one can be killed). Noxious Trap [R] lasts minutes and stealths itself, so the mushroom that kills you was probably placed several minutes ago.

Buy magic resist earlier than you normally would. His damage is entirely magic, so there's no physical threat to hedge against and no cost to committing to it.

Give up the wave rather than the plates when he has a lead. Teemo has no way to threaten your tower quickly, so a slow lane is a lane he can't convert.

Best Teemo Counters

The matchup data above ranks the raw records. The three below cover three genuinely different answers to him, and one of them will fit how you already play.

Malphite The Blind Does Nothing

Blinding Dart [Q] disables basic attacks. That's the entire ability. Malphite deals almost none of his damage with basic attacks, so the cooldown Teemo is relying on to survive the lane simply doesn't apply. Seismic Shard [Q] chips him from 625 units and steals the movement speed it slows, and Ground Slam [E] damages him while cutting his attack speed, which is a direct hit on Toxic Shot [E].

Granite Shield [Passive] absorbs a tenth of Malphite's maximum health and recharges whenever Teemo stops poking, which is exactly the wrong shape of defense to poke through. Unstoppable Force [R] then closes 1000 units unstoppably for a knock-up, and Teemo's answer to a gap closer is a movement speed buff.

Warwick Runs Him Down

Teemo survives the lane by being faster than whoever's chasing him, and Blood Hunt [W] is built to win that race. Once Teemo drops below half health, Warwick sees a trail leading to him and gets a big chunk of bonus movement speed for following it.

Infinite Duress [R] finishes the chase. Warwick leaps in immune to crowd control and suppresses him, and Eternal Hunger [Passive] heals Warwick off his attacks whenever he's under half health himself, so the poison ticking on him turns into more healing per hit.

Olaf Out-sustains the Chip

Olaf beats Teemo by getting stronger as the poison ticks. Berserker Rage [Passive] gives him attack speed and life steal scaled off his missing health, and Tough It Out [W] shields him for a percentage of missing health on top of that, so the chip damage pattern Teemo depends on is feeding both of Olaf's defensive tools at once.

Reckless Swing [E] is the part that ignores the blind entirely, since it deals true damage as an ability rather than an attack, and it reaches 325 units. Undertow [Q] out-ranges Blinding Dart [Q] at 1000 units, slows Teemo, and shreds his armor, and Ragnarok [R]'s flat armor and magic resist plus movement speed toward enemy champions closes the gap Teemo has no way to keep open.

Itemizing Against Teemo

Teemo's damage is entirely magic and his map control is entirely stealth-based, so the answer is magic resist plus vision plus not being slowed:

Boots of Swiftness reduce the mushroom slow that turns a bad step into a death, Oracle Lens reveals the mushrooms before you step on them at all, Spirit Visage pairs magic resist with healing amplification for anyone who has sustain of their own, and Force of Nature stacks magic resist and movement speed together, which is the exact pair of stats this matchup asks for.