To counter Teemo, pick a champion that doesn’t depend on autoattacks to win trades, buy an Oracle Lens before his mushrooms go down at level 6, and gank him through the paths his shrooms don’t cover. On current Emerald+ data the best counters are Olaf, Ornn and Sion, and the purchase that matters most is the Oracle Lens trinket, since Teemo’s late-game value is the minefield. Below are dated matchup win rates, exact Blinding Dart and mushroom numbers, a phase-by-phase lane plan, and the famous “Teemo counters” that the data says lose to him.
Teemo is the classic top lane counter-pick, the champion people lock in last because he punishes melee autoattackers. That makes him a test of the general rule in how counter-picking works in every lane: if you’re the one being counter-picked, the matchup tells you how to play rather than whether you can win.
Best Teemo counters by win rate
No common top laner hard-counters Teemo right now. The numbers below are our read of Lolalytics’ Teemo counter data, top vs top at Emerald+, patch 26.20 (Lolalytics labels it 16.20), last checked October 2026, filtered to matchups with roughly 1,000+ games. The Emerald+ average win rate on Lolalytics is 51.71%, and Teemo’s overall top win rate there is 53.54% on 116,971 games, so even his “bad” matchups are close to even.
| Counter | Teemo win rate vs (Emerald+) | Games | Why it works |
|---|---|---|---|
| Olaf | 48.04% | 2,496 | Undertow is an ability, not an auto, and Ragnarok’s crowd control immunity lets him run Teemo down |
| Ornn | 48.88% | 2,459 | Volcanic Rupture pokes from range, and he can buy without recalling, so Teemo’s poke never forces him out of lane |
| Sion | 49.85% | 2,399 | Soul Furnace shield and Decimating Smash don’t care about blind; he scales into a tank Teemo can’t kill |
| Pantheon | 50.36% | 2,250 | Point-and-click Shield Vault stun and Comet Spear poke; kill pressure before Teemo has items |
| Yasuo | 50.45% | 2,456 | Wind Wall blocks Blinding Dart and Steel Tempest is an ability, so blind doesn’t stop it |
| Malphite | 50.93% | 6,582 | Seismic Shard poke and steals Teemo’s movement speed; armor makes his autos tickle |
Every counter on that list wins trades with abilities rather than autoattacks. Teemo’s whole lane is built around making autos miss and punishing walk-ups, so champions whose damage comes from spells skip half his kit. The effect is stronger in Silver, where Sion (Teemo 46.21%), Ornn (46.32%) and Mordekaiser (47.47% on 8,371 games) are the best common answers. The tiny-sample off-role picks that top Lolalytics’ list, such as Fiddlesticks (Teemo 42.13%, 235 games) and Veigar (44.09%, 220 games), follow the same logic but are too rare to trust.
Teemo’s kit and the windows to punish
Teemo is squishy and slow to kill you, and each of his tools has a timer you can play around. Numbers from the official League wiki, unchanged on Summoner’s Rift in 26.21:
| Ability | Cooldown | Numbers | How to play around it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Guerrilla Warfare (passive) | – | Camouflage after 1.5s standing still, keeps it while moving in brush; up to 80% attack speed for 5s after | Don’t walk into brush he’s been sitting in. The ambush attack speed is where his burst comes from |
| Blinding Dart (Q) | 7s | 680 range, blind 2 / 2.25 / 2.5 / 2.75 / 3s, 80-260 (+70% AP) | Trade with abilities when it’s up, all-in with autos when it’s down |
| Move Quick (W) | 14s | Passive 12-28% move speed, lost when a champion or tower hits him, back after 5s; active doubles it for 3s | Hit him once to strip the passive, then chase. Don’t chase while the active is running |
| Toxic Shot (E) | Passive | 9-65 (+30% AP) on-hit, plus 24-120 (+40% AP) poison over 4s | Short trades. Every extra auto he lands adds poison |
| Noxious Trap (R) | 35 / 30 / 25s per charge | 3 / 4 / 5 charges, 600 / 750 / 900 range, lasts 5 min, arms in 1s, 30-50% slow for 4s, 200 / 325 / 450 (+50% AP) | Sweep his favourite spots and count his charges. He can’t shroom what he can’t stock |
Blinding Dart decides trades. It blinds you for 2 seconds at rank 1 and 3 seconds at rank 5, on a flat 7-second cooldown, and it’s a point-and-click spell from 680 range. When you see him throw it, he has nothing to stop your autos for the next 7 seconds. A melee champion who waits for Q to go on cooldown before walking in can turn a losing lane into an even one.
Move Quick is the other timer to watch. Its passive speed boost drops the instant you damage him, then comes back 5 seconds after the last hit. So one poke before you chase him is worth more than the damage it does. Teemo’s base stats are thin, too: 615 health and 24 armor at level 1, with 330 base move speed. Once you catch him, he dies quickly.
Level and item spikes to respect
Teemo is annoying at level 1, dangerous at level 6 and a map problem from then on:
- Levels 1-3: his poke wins short trades, but he dies to an all-in from most bruisers if Q is down. Look for the all-in right after he blinds you and misses the follow-up.
- Level 6: Noxious Trap comes online. From here, any brush, river entrance or bush near your tower can hold a 200-damage, 30% slow trap.
- First AP item: mushrooms start doing real damage, and his poison chunks you during every trade.
- Rank 3 R (level 16): five charges, 25-second recharge and 900 range. By now the whole side of the map is mined, and every objective fight starts with a sweep.
Clearing shrooms: Oracle Lens and control wards
Teemo’s real value is the mushroom minefield, and it’s cheaper to remove than most teams think. Each mushroom has 6 health, and only champion autos damage it: melee autos deal 3 and ranged autos deal 2. That’s 2 hits for a melee champion and 3 for a ranged one. Your tools:
| Tool | Cost | What it does to shrooms | When to use it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Oracle Lens | Free trinket | Reveals traps in a 600-750 radius for 8 seconds; does not disable them. Recharges in 160-100s depending on average champion level | Before every objective and every time you walk through his side of the river |
| Control Ward | 75g | Reveals stealthed traps within 900 units; does not disable them | On top-side river brush and tri-brush, where he shrooms most |
| Your autos | Free | 2 melee / 3 ranged hits kill a revealed shroom | Any time a shroom is revealed and you’re not in a fight |
Most guides get one detail wrong: neither Oracle Lens nor a control ward disables a shroom. Both only make it visible. A revealed mushroom still explodes if you walk on it, so you either kill it with autos or path around it. Swap to Oracle Lens on your first back after he hits 6, and plant control wards where his shrooms sit on the way to your jungle. The top lane warding spots map is also roughly where Teemo shrooms: river brush, tri-brush and the lane brushes.
If Teemo has turned your top lane into an obstacle course you’d rather not run every game, our League of Legends rank boost team takes the account through the tier. It saves you the time, though the mushrooms will still be there next game.
Lane plan and gank paths
Teemo wants to poke, stay out of range, and shove the wave so he can roam or place shrooms. Your counter plan by phase:
- Levels 1-3: freeze near your tower. Teemo wants the lane in the middle so he can poke you as you walk up. A wave near your tower makes him walk forward instead, away from his escape.
- Before 6: call your jungler. Teemo has no dash. His escape is Move Quick, and one gank hit removes the passive. Tell your jungler when his Q is down and the wave is near your side.
- After 6: sweep, then gank. A gank through a shroomed river brush loses half its value to the slow. Have the jungler come in from behind your tower or through the lane rather than the river, or sweep the river first.
- Mid game: group with Oracle Lens in hand. Teemo is weak in a 5v5 he can’t kite, and his team pays for a top laner who can’t front-line.
The r/summonerschool thread on which role’s counter-picks matter most puts top lane first for exactly this reason: a ranged counter-pick can take over the lane completely if you play it like a normal matchup. Respect the pick and play the lane for jungle help.
We see this on Silver accounts all the time. A Garen flashes onto a camouflaged Teemo in lane brush, gets blinded before his first Decisive Strike can connect, eats a full trade of poison and walks back to base with 30% health. He blames Teemo, but he went in with Blinding Dart up.
Team and draft answers
Teemo isn’t a teamfighter, so draft to make the game about teamfights. Good team picks against him:
- Hard engage and point-and-click CC: Malphite ult, Vi ult and similar lockdown kill a 615-base-health champion before he can kite.
- A jungler with early ganks: Teemo has no dash, so any jungler with CC is a threat to him before 6.
- Objective tempo: force early objectives before he has charges stocked around the pit and before his first AP item.
Counter items against Teemo
Most of Teemo’s damage is magic (Toxic Shot, poison and mushrooms), so the item answer is magic resist plus vision. The vision part matters more.
| Item | Cost | Why it helps against Teemo | When |
|---|---|---|---|
| Oracle Lens | Free trinket | Reveals his shrooms for 8 seconds in a 600-750 radius | First back after he reaches 6 |
| Control Ward | 75g | Reveals stealthed traps within 900 units around the brush he mines | Every back |
| Null-Magic Mantle | Component | Early magic resist against poison and Blinding Dart damage | First back in a losing lane |
| Mercury’s Treads | 1,250g | Magic resist boots, plus 30% tenacity against the hard CC on his team | When his team has AP and CC beyond Teemo |
Overrated Teemo counters
Several popular “Teemo counters” lose to him on current data. Our read of Lolalytics at Emerald+, 26.20:
- Darius: Teemo wins 57.31% of 3,856 games. Darius can pull Teemo from 535 units, but every trade he loses before that adds up, and Blinding Dart makes his empowered W auto whiff.
- Garen: Teemo wins 54.73% of 3,782 games. Garen’s whole lane is autos and Judgment, and blind stops half of it.
- Tryndamere, Volibear and Illaoi: Teemo wins 56.71%, 59.36% and 59.31%. All three rely on long trades Teemo simply doesn’t take.
- Vayne top: Teemo wins 63.05% of 1,096 games. A ranged autoattacker against the blind is the worst matchup on this list.
Where this advice breaks down
Teemo is strong right now, and nothing on this page changes that completely. His Emerald+ win rate of 53.54% sits well above the bracket average, and our current top lane tier list puts him in A tier as a counter-pick for that reason. Even his worst common matchup, Olaf, leaves him at 48.04%. A counter-pick here buys you a few points, not a free lane.
There’s also a bracket problem. In Master+ Teemo’s play rate drops to 2.46% (11,568 games), and his worst matchups there (Gangplank and Urgot at 48.09%) rest on 131-314 games. Lolalytics also counts each side from its own player’s tier, so the Teemo page (Teemo 57.31% into Darius) and the Darius page (Darius 48.06% into Teemo) don’t mirror. Both say Teemo wins, but treat the exact margin as approximate.
Frequently asked questions
Who is the best counter to Teemo?
At Emerald+, Olaf (Teemo 48.04%) and Ornn (48.88%), with Sion close behind. In Silver, Sion and Ornn are the strongest common answers at about 46%.
How many hits does a Teemo shroom take?
A mushroom has 6 health and only champion autos damage it. Melee autos deal 3 and ranged autos deal 2, so it takes 2 melee hits or 3 ranged hits.
Does Oracle Lens disable Teemo shrooms?
No. It reveals them but doesn’t disable them, so you still have to attack them or walk around them.
Do control wards reveal Teemo mushrooms?
Yes, within 900 units. They don’t disable them either.
How long does Teemo’s blind last?
2 seconds at rank 1, up to 3 seconds at rank 5, on a 7-second cooldown.
Is Darius good against Teemo?
No. On Lolalytics, Teemo wins 57.31% of games into Darius at Emerald+.
Teemo wins lanes against players who autoattack into Blinding Dart, chase through brush and walk over mushrooms. Pick an ability-based counter like Olaf, Ornn or Sion, trade when Q is on cooldown, sweep before every objective and gank him through paths he hasn’t mined.
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