I was cruising some of the red posts on the forums today and noticed a post about a new Irelia skin. I haven’t been looking for mid-cycle skins for a while now, in large part because they stopped being mid-cycle. While I was poking around for the Irelia skin, I figured I might as well have a look at what else was in the mix.

And then I found this. Yes, it’s another Teemo skin. It’s not just any skin, though, it’s…it’s…it’s SUPER TEEMO!

I can’t lie, I’m pretty excited for this skin. Can’t help but wonder if Riot will do something special to announce its release. I’d really like to see more skins in this style – something silly and fun that has nothing to do with warfare. We got another Caitlyn skin this week that’s just another chick with a big gun and an undersized bra. Caitlyn is sort of an exception – it’s tough to come up with really creative stuff for her paradigm – but there are so many options for fun champion skins. The day I see Xin Zhao wielding anything but a spear is the day I buy a Xin Zhao skin to replace Commando.

The Teemo champ of the week has been one of the toughest yet. Teemo is missing a lot of the mobility and survivability that other champions have, not to mention that he has one of the weakest passives in the game. He can still have an excellent early game, though, as long as you’re willing to play carefully.

I started the week trying to tweak my typical Teemo build to take advantage of Trinity Force and Wit’s End. Unfortunately, that’s a lot of gold to put toward items that best augment a naturally high attack damage or a naturally higher attack speed. Teemo’s poison certainly gives him a lot of damage, but it adds magic damage to each shot, both when the attack lands and in the damage over time. For that reason, Malady/Bloodrazor seem to be the best way to go, with a little survivability as you need it. I’m not typically a fan of Frozen Mallet, but it really is a solid item for Teemo if you don’t need a Banshee’s Veil.

The strangest thing about Teemo is his secret taunt passive. For whatever reason, players love to kill Teemo. Even in fights in which I thought I was second or even third priority, I often found myself getting focused immediately. In a weird way, this can absolutely help your team. Teemo’s damage output is great once he’s farmed, but depending on map position, taking the priority off your carries can be effective.

For the most part, I think Teemo is in a pretty good place. He needs a team with enough crowd control/peel to help keep him alive, a favor he can return with the exceptional map control offered by his mushrooms. If I could change one thing about Teemo it would definitely be his passive. His passive has essentially one use and one use only: level 1 harassment. It can be helpful when setting up a teamfight, but unless you’re well ahead of your opponent, it usually doesn’t make sense to stand still long enough to take advantage of the passive. I’d like to see him get some sort of damage or utility, potentially giving him the survivability to make it into the jungle. My few attempts to counter jungle were met with almost immediate failure. Counter junglers really need to be able to control creeps, not champions, and Teemo just doesn’t have that power early in the game.

Stay tuned later today for this coming week’s Champ of the Week.

This is now the sixth part of the Champ of the Week series and I can honestly say I haven’t had this kind of bad luck yet. Every time I’ve picked Teemo this week it has resulted in utter failure. My first serious attempt at counter jungling I ended at 4-10, basically tanking for our team because our real tank was never with us. In other games my teammates have been all over the place, or we haven’t had any CC.

I also had the unique displeasure of laning mid against Warwick. I can’t wait till they nerf that hairy bastard. He was tower diving me at level six and otherwise nuking straight through the 80 magic resistance I had at level 10. It was an infuriating experience.

For right now I’m just trying to keep the faith. I know I’ve had fun with Teemo. I know I’ve done well with Teemo, and not just in that fluke, the-other-team-is-a-wild-pack-of-noobs kind of way. Still, I’m having a hard time seeing those games right now. That’s one of the funny things about this game – it’s so easy to get into a rut with a champion or a comp or a class or anything and just forget to try and dig yourself out. There are champions I haven’t played in ages, probably because my last experience wasn’t so great.

Not Teemo. I won’t let that little Yordle down. If I give up on him, who are we going to send to make mushroom art on the moon?

I was sad to get a late start on the Champ of the Week this week, but the weekend away was totally worth it. I drove late last night thinking of who I felt confident I could fully test over the course of a short week and kept coming back to the same answer: Teemo. Yes, I’ll be playing everyone’s favorite Yordle this week.

I used to have nothing but loathing for Teemo. It took him forever to get a decent mushroom field going and his damage was fairly lackluster. Now, though, he’s got a pretty solid kit and he’s certainly capable of tying a team together. He also offers his team some crazy map control, which can be a lot of fun.

Teemo does suffer if he has a lackluster early game which is made especially painful against teams that push through the laning phase early. Without a big farm, Teemo feels especially dull. His health is too low to survive the bursty teams and his damage doesn’t ramp up fast enough to cut down the tanks.

That said, Teemo does have some nice early game damage and I think he has a pretty cool skillset for some counter jungling. I’m hoping some of my Nunu skills will carry over. Teemo definitely doesn’t have the creep control that Nunu does, but I could see him being powerful as a ganker against some of the slower, softer junglers.

My first experiment with it did not go particularly well. I was having a terrible string of luck, not to mention my opponents had a very competent Karma running Clairvoyance, which made things all the more annoying. Hopefully I’ll have more to report in the next several days.

The mid-cycle skin is finally available, and it comes as part of a milestone. League of Legends is now officially one year old. I haven’t personally been a part of the LoL community for a full year – more like 10 months – but it’s definitely cool to see where the game has come from over the past year.

Oh, did I mention the Teemo skin is awesome? No? Well it is. He bounces like he’s in low gravity, plants satellite dishes for shrooms, has voiceovers that sound like he’s talking through a radio can, and shoots lasers. Yes, people. LAZERZ!

Well, happy birthday, LoL, and happy birthday Riot. I bought that skin, just for you guys.