When Teemo Beat League of Legends Pros

it is debatable but you can definitely make the argument that teemo might be the most hated video game character of all time he's unusual in that back in early seasons of league riot had this crusade against what they called anti-fun champions and mechanics if a character item or playstyle was frustrating to play against then riot would make it a point to say that's a problem we need to fix this ranged from removing items they didn't believe to be healthy for the long-term success of the game to reworking entire characters any champion with a kit that might seem too uninteractive or annoying would be reworked into a more dynamic experience that wasn't just fun to play as but at least tolerable to play against but not teemo when teemo was first released in 2009 he was almost immediately panned as the most annoying character in game but as frustrating as he was riot seemingly doubled down on the idea that this is just his identity being a champion that drives you mad is just who he is and for these last 10 years he's remained functionally the exact same receiving almost nothing but buffs to keep his ancient kit somewhat viable traditionally there's only ever been one respite from teemo's wrath which ironically is professional play paradoxically the things that make teemo such a good character in solo queue like solid harass good 1v1s and mushroom minefields well those are actually pretty easy to take care of in a professional setting as teemo becomes more of a liability than an asset in a coordinated environment it seems as though this high level of play is the one and only place the devil has never seen except for a few instances when he's reared his ugly head it hasn't happened often but every once in a while we'll see one of league's top pros choose to dance with the devil using his power to not just annoy solo queue stars but to try and make the lives of their fellow professionals miserable too sometimes it's worked sometimes it hasn't but today we're gonna go through each and every circumstance when a person has tried to do it this is the competitive history of league's most hated champion [Music] but first a word from our sponsor if there's one thing i value above all else in life you guys know it's fashion and as an authority on the subject let me tell you there is nothing less fashionable than walking around with a big bulky wallet bulging out of your pockets but thankfully there's a modern solution for that the ridge wallet the ridge is a sleek light industrial wallet designed to be way more durable yet easier to carry around than whatever you're stuck with right now it holds up to 12 cards all your cash and comes with a lifetime guarantee truly a buy it for life item i love that kind of thing it makes a surprisingly good holiday gift for yourself or someone you care about i mean it's certainly the kind of gift someone's going to get a lot of use out of and nobody ever thinks to buy themselves an upgraded wallet if you go to ridge.com gba99 today you can get 10 off your order and free worldwide shipping and free returns just make sure to use code gba 99 at checkout a link is in the description and thanks again to reg for sponsoring this video the story of competitive teemo really begins with a single individual from a very well-known team the rain man who was the first ever top laner for tsm rain man was an early league pro known for his innovative top lane picks as well as his out-there baylife personality that garnered him as well as tsm a large part of their early following he was the first pro who tried to bring teemo into the forefront of league's competitive scene when he began maining the champion and eventually climbed all the way up to rank 1 on the solo queue ladder with him in 2011. he also encouraged others to check out the character's play style when he began populating a youtube channel with plenty of highlights from his climb up the ladder stylized with his eccentric personality this was the first circumstance where we saw a pro player harness the devil's power like this which was much more effective in earlier seasons back in season one when champions didn't have as many gap closers utility tankiness and damage like we see today teemo is actually a pretty effective pick when comboed with flash and ignite he could out damage most of the other meta top lanes with surprisingly good dps meaning if you wanted to implore that classic win lane win game mentality then he was a solid option i'm sure rainman first picked teemo competitively in one of league's many early online events tournaments like the go for lull series which have a very important part of league's early history but sadly it seems as though all vods and match histories from those events have been lost to time the first recorded instance that we have of teemo being picked was when rainman decided to pull him out at the season one world championship at this point in the event tsm had just been knocked down into losers bracket where they were about to face off against epic gamer captained by reginald's brother dan din and featuring future tsm stars dyrus and doublelift tsm had managed to take game one in the best of three series where if they could just win game two they would be guaranteed a top three finish in champion selective this game too tsm saw dyrus lock in singed top lane who he had been having success with all tournament long well teemo is a pretty strong counterpick to singed so rainman would lock the champion in getting us our first recorded instance of teemo being used in pro play wants hero helping his team out with the pick oh do it do it raymond do it yes and oh poor dyrus you don't it could be first blood here they're flashing by timon it is going to be the fling he did not save himself and uh yeah a great job there as rain man teemo uh able to pick up the first kill by tsm that they were in a terrible position nobody was on the map look the rain man just kind of taken top lane over by himself it's going to be a poured in from the destiny ultimate coming out of the hands of reginald they should be able to take down west rice here and a very nice job catching west rice standing the timing of how annie wanted to do that saucy taken down by the hands of rain man and it looks like this fight is actually going in favor of team solomid tyrus looks like he could go down here he will continue to do the damage he can until the fight happens and a very nice job four down for epic gaming at this time his team solomid may have just turned the tide of this game rain man destroyed this match getting a final score line of 14 2 and 9. in the post game interview that followed reginald gave a bit of insight into what went down when tsm saw the singed pick um the teemo thing was kind of like at the on the moment here at the moment we're just like oh what should we landing in him and we're like okay let's get timo because rayman's always like teemu's the best later on in that event rainman would pick teemo again when facing against all authority in the losers finals where he would play miss an a.d carry into vain bot lane which is something we would start to see a few times throughout league's history teemo being used as an encounter to aid he carries since he can essentially make them useless for a few seconds unable to auto attack from his blind but here it didn't work out super well as tsm lost the game and the series getting eliminated with a third place finish although tsm didn't get first overall this was still a beautiful moment for teemo mains across the world in that they got to see their devil destroy the hearts and souls of pro players on the world stage he was no longer just a weird niche playstyle contained only to solo queue now you might run into teemo literally anywhere although he was basically the only pro playing him rain man continued championing teemo in later tournaments as he seemingly took up the torch for the teemo maine's crusade across the world the next event he pulled him out at was iem season six kiev where here rain man would use teemo as an effective counter pick weapon against two irelia players he first countered anorelia when facing sk gaming's kevin where he went 2-1-7 in this group stage match only managing to top his performance in the semi-finals shortly thereafter where he countered dignitas's voy boy getting a perfect 3-0-4 score line this sent tsm into the grand finals where they would narrowly lose a 2-1 series against moscow 5. although it's worth mentioning these were the only games they dropped the whole event as much as people like to hate teemo rainman was a really fun pro to see use him to have a top player in the world on one of the best teams out there use this weird pocket pick that literally nobody else even wanted to try and to see him win the majority of his games with him that was really cool to see rain man had a few creative picks he liked to play alongside teemo and was a fan favorite on tsm for a while although he wouldn't stay with the team long early on into season 2 tsm would choose to replace him with dyrus after a disagreement about practice regimens after that rainman all but retired from professional league tsm would be the only team he ever really played for as the rest of his pro league career only consisted of substituting in for a couple of teams at a few events afterward years later he would make headlines in the league scene for some controversial solo queue decisions when streaming the game and would get banned as the community soured on him and his personality a bit but even today he still makes content online running a youtube channel where he plays mountain blade kenshi rimworld and occasionally league of legends postmarked by his signature champion back when he first left tsm though it seemed as though teemo fans had lost a knight in their crusade for competitive relevancy as nobody else had the courage or maybe the heartlessness to pick teemo top lane again for years in fact if we just look at the instances when he was played top lane in international tournaments or top regional leagues what are sometimes called premier events nobody would even attempt to use teemo top again for almost half a decade [Music] teemo would see a bit of a revival in the mid and bot lanes the following seasons as a full ap champion who was a bit of a flexible option for the lane swap meta that emerged azubu blaze's ambition would get a perfect kda with him in the champions 2013 spring split although those early years of the korean league had their vods wiped a while back meaning we have no footage of this glorious first game of korean teemo dominance beyond that chawi from the singapore sentinels would actually use him to great effect three times in the gpl 2014 winter season where although he'd win his lanes very hard almost every game he'd be unable to carry sgs only getting a one and two score line with the character overall as time went on teemo slowly began fading into irrelevancy as fewer and fewer players even bothered trying to use him he wasn't alone in that though this was a trend we started to see with all of league's older champions which eventually got made worse by two new developments we saw in the following seasons firstly the rune and mastery systems were reworked in league which gave more tankiness damage and utility to basically every champion in game the only instances we'd seen teemo being played up until now were when he could confidently take flash and ignite as his big strength was that overpowering damage over time well when other champions began getting more damage or had an easier time tanking and surviving his harass from these new runes and masteries flat damage dealers like teemo didn't have much use anymore the other thing that really turned into a final nail in the coffin for teemo's longevity was the release of newer more modern champions who could do his job just as well if not better the biggest example being gnar released in 2014 nar was basically a better version of tiemoue a champion who has still arranged harasser in laning phase with movement speed for kiting and the ability to escape tough situations but someone who also had a lot of usefulness in the mid and late game as a team fighting tank with his transformation ability once nara was put into the game people started thinking why would you ever play teemo instead of gnar as long as nars available to you well it turned out you could actually use teemo for one thing you could use him to counterpick nar when teemo finally did make a return top lane more than four years later at this point he was picked three times in a row as a counter to nar a korean top laner named shai not v shy that's a different guy he picked him against longzhu's expression once when playing for cj entes in the 2016 summer lck split there he is the little yodel oh the little rodent you can see this yeah nice little smiles here we go the face of longzhu and we do officially have a teemo in lck the thought here was nara actually dealt less damage than timo in a straight up 1v1 so although he might be more useful later on in a game teemo should theoretically beat him in lane and could potentially set him behind enough to a point where he's effectively useless later on this pick didn't really work out for cjntus though as shy went 0-2 and won in his teemo match losing the game another korean top laner assumed would try it again in that very same lck split with another teemo pick up against another gnar this time representing kt rolster when playing against trace on jin air what are you serious all right that's like legit i think that's legit i think it is here he'd do much better getting a final score line of two one and four but would ultimately lose as well later on these players would claim that it was an accident that they picked teemo suggesting they were actually trying to swap to other characters but that the league client bugged out and didn't allow them to do so i don't really believe that as in the first game especially they had plenty of time to make a selection i think these guys actually wanted to try and take advantage of the counterpick match-up which we would see a third player trying to do so shortly afterward just two weeks later in the north american lcs hauntzer would bring teemo back to tsm as another counterpick against a third gnar also having the nar on top for the wallop he's gonna do it he would do worst of all though going one five and one and would lose as well three losses in a row now with this supposed counter pick at this point in league's history the game had just begun evolving away from that old win-lane win game adage that simply wasn't a viable strategy anymore 1v1 solo kills almost never happened as a part of competitive play as players were now too cautious and too good to let themselves get killed laning phase in general transformed into being much more about getting small cs leads or experience advantages that could be turned into threats with coordinated team fights around objectives in the mid and late game for the older champions who were only good at old strategies like 1v1 i mean they were starting to become less and less effective even if they were picked into good matchups not just teemo but all these champions began fading from relevancy fast both in pro play and solo queue a character getting reworked where riot would give them a new more modern kit with better abilities and mechanics was pretty much the only hope these older champions had of ever being relevant again as the years went by more and more characters got these reworks to bring them back into viability with stronger updated kits but of course teemo didn't although he got a few small buffs or updates to try and keep him relevant over the years he remained functionally the exact same as in a constantly changing world he seemingly refused to change oddly enough at this point teemo had almost transformed from a terrifying frustrating nightmare to face in solo queue to a symbol of how older champions in league were becoming more and more irrelevant with each passing day a few players would continue trying to make him work though a year later in 2017 ion in the japanese league would pick him as well as wonder in the lec but teemo would just keep on racking up losses through the end of the year by the start of 2018 it had been more than half a decade almost six years since teemo had been picked top lane and won in a competitive game we were approaching the possibility that he was someone who we might just not ever see played professionally again until a hero emerged in the distance mateo alejandro odotegi zamora a league of legends player from uruguay who plays under the name bugox took up the mantle that nobody else wanted to take in 2018 when playing for a team named gaming gaming he would pick teemo top in the latin american north league counter-picking cho'gath here he had a chance to break a six-year losing streak for teemo top players and he sure did his predecessors proud out the win and reviving the nearly dead champion but he wasn't done there just one week later he would pick him again this time blind picking him in the lln playoffs during a decisive game five that would either advance his team or send them home packing basically gg i'll be honest i didn't know anything about this guy before making this video but he is my new hero with these wins he showed us that old champions are never too dead to revive he even confidently picked teemo again later on in that very same playoff run trying to counter another cho'gath top lane but would sadly lose this time as his team was just a bit outmatched by their opponents rainbow seven this was a beautiful sight to see though a new pro willing to pick teemo in multiple games in high pressure situations and actually succeeding at doing so it might have just renewed an interest in the possibility of teemo's usage as a counterpick champion as just a few months later we would see one of the best teams in the world playing him [Laughter] we're doing it guys team griffin and their 80 carry viper who at the time in 2018 you could very well argue were the best team in the world they picked teemo twice at 80 carry as a counterpick to ezreal and destroyed with him by his butt side fight we're going to be taking up the turret as tarzan lots of damage hit by pole max is definitely dead can they juggle the aggro though as viper he's going to help pick up the second kill almost dies to the turret but he survives and griffin double kill bottom lane double kill the teemo lane no kills to team we call it a problem all right it might be an exaggeration to say they destroyed because viper would actually only go one one and two and zero zero three in these two teemo games but griffin would pick up wins in both of them this time admitting that it was a serious pick as well this would be followed up by a european 80 carry in the turkish league named freeze using teemo to roll swap to top lane and counter a dr mundo with great success picking up another win for the champion which is starting to make his match history look much much better whether these were all isolated incidents or whether bugox had actually renewed a global interest in using this champion as a creative counter this was beautiful to see possibly the oldest unchanged strategy in league that was on death's door had suddenly been brought back into the spotlight in multiple leagues across the world personally i'll give boogax the credit he remains today as the only person alongside rain man to pick teemo in more than 3 competitive games he currently has the last and most recent win with teemo picking him in the lla as a counter to quirky top lane of all things this is when he was on isra's gaming who would win the lla that year and go to worlds 2019 the first time since season 1 we saw a teemo player get to worlds at the time of recording bugox is not contracted to a team as he is currently a free agent he most recently played for the brazilian brcc team val call and has been teamless as of may 2020 i'm not sure if he's been teamless for a while because he's considering retirement or if he has limited international offers due to the pandemic or something but i hope he keeps playing for a while he's only 22 years old right now and might be the only player in competitive play willing to carry the teemo torch for now other than boogax there have been a few circumstances where teemo was picked top lane somewhat recently in the 2019 summer lst series in southeast asia shine picked teemo against a cannon top lane this is a pretty strange counterpick as ranged characters with crowd control like kennen should do very well against timo and negate many of his strengths shine did end up losing that series with a final score line of 1-5-1 there have also been a couple of times when teemo was picked in the lcl the russian league here he was first picked by pvp's dejos in the 2019 spring split when gambit gaming faced off against vayvictus esports that famous all-female league of legends team that team is kind of a story for another time but here gambit was able to get a win with stasios getting a final score line of six one and three it might be seen as a bit disrespectful with him playing teemo into them as if he can pick ridiculous champions and still get easy wins but no hard feelings seem to occur as hilariously enough vivictus's top laner helma then picked teemo when rematching gambit the following lcl 2019 summer split when they pick teemo however they would not do quite as well getting a loss although helma would get a decent enough final score of five five and zero the last time we saw teemo being played was at the 2020 lec spring split when misfits dan dan picked him as a counter to what he thought was going to be in aatrox top lane dead locked in for pokemon there's the teemo there's the teemo oh how's tivo into aatrox but g2 actually swapped their picks around to play a barred top lane against that teemo instead and ended up winning a somewhat hilarious and weird game at the time of recording this video that was the last time teemo was picked in a premier event a story that has now been 10 years in the making at the end of the day as cheesy as it may sound i think teemo has kind of turned into a representation of what we all love about league of legends at least when we see him in pro play i mean it's kind of ironic that the game's most hated devil has become a sort of beacon of hope for the dreams and aspirations of pocket pick players who still like seeing off meta strategies on the competitive stage teemo is now a testament to the weird strategies that keep this game always feeling fresh and exciting he's someone that should be admired a champion who is himself even if nobody likes him i mean no matter what people say he refuses to change and demands that the world mold itself to accept who he is regardless of how others feel and pro players who take a risk on still trying to make this old kit work they should be celebrated since as frustrating as he is he might now best represent the spirit of all those old champions and strategies that everyone else has long forgotten he might only be played as a meme at this point but he has turned into the ultimate off meta pick who reminds us that everybody no matter how small deserves some time in the spotlight if boogax isn't signed soon then i'm a little bit worried about the future for competitive teemo he might not be played for another five years and it might be even longer before he gets his next win if there's no pro currently willing to take up that mantle of teemo guys soon we might not see another hero who's willing to do so for another generation of professionals or even two but i'm sure teemo will always be out there no matter how much the league of legends changes i seriously doubt that teemo ever will his playstyle will always remain the exact same as he'll always be somewhere in this game remaining who he is until the end of time thank you very much for watching

Channel: Gbay99

Views: 362,597

Keywords: teemo, league of legends, teemo league of legends, league of legends teemo, rank 1 teemo, season 11 teemo, lol teemo, lol, teemo lol, teemo top, gbay99, gbay, league of legends history, league of legends documentary, teemo gameplay, best teemo, teemo league, challenger teemo, lol teemo gameplay, league, lol esports, league of legends esports, lolesports, esports documentary, #1 teemo, lcs, lck, therainman, TRM, Rain Man, TSM, team solomid, buggax, isurus gaming, esports talk, isurus

Id: AK3zHgukgts

Length: 26min 7sec (1567 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 23 2020