For You Who Hate Yone and Trundle

I highly recommend this guy. Note: this is a bit of a long read.

Top lane Lethal Tempo Rammus is an unstoppable champion — you can beat a level 1 Trundle and a level 2 Wukong. If someone tries to ignore you and just free-farm under turret, you taunt them, they take a few tower shots and have to base crying. The only scenario where Trundle can kill you is if you use your ult for engage and he ults you back. Outside that, you never die to him.

First, skill breakdown: Q — AP ratio, movespeed increase (lane recovery) W — armor/MR increase, reflected damage, duration extends on auto attacks (trade tool, why you take Lethal Tempo) E — attack speed increase, taunt (can't use on minions, W active extends E duration) R — engage slow (used more often for disengage in lane)

Warning: If you ult during W, W ends.

Primary runes: Lethal Tempo, Triumph, Alacrity (or Tenacity), Last Stand. Secondary: I originally ran Resolve — Demolish/Bone Plating/Conditioning, Overgrowth/Unflinching, but the more I look at those, the more it feels like they make Rammus' passive early lane even worse instead of fixing it. So I switched to Inspiration — Minion Dematerializer, Time Warp Tonic. Rune shards: Attack Speed, Armor, Armor.

Summoner spells: TP + Ignite / TP + Exhaust / TP + Flash. Ignite is the baseline. Exhaust if they have high burst. Flash if you're good at the Q-Flash return.

Item builds vary a lot by situation — more on that later.

Why this guy is good:

1. Top lane is overwhelmingly AD champs. With the current jungle meta favoring Lee Sin/Graves, first-picking Rammus is no problem and you can bait the enemy jungle into picking Sylas. If they do pick Sylas jungle, tell your jungler to pick Elise/Nidalee/Graves and just invade him. Sylas will have to roam crying.
2. The meta top laners — Jax, Trundle, Yone — are all AD auto-attack champions that Rammus beats. That said, if you're not experienced on Rammus, Yone and Jax and a Trundle with ult will destroy you, so you need practice.
3. Even if our bot lane feeds, you can force the enemy ADC to Flash or leave every teamfight half-dead, making them a non-factor.

Playstyle and items: First, Bramble Vest + Ninja Tabi are mandatory, not optional. When I was learning top Rammus, Byungchan's father (an old Korean streamer) would build Bramble Vest even against 5 AP and get flamed — I used to flame him too. I want to slap my past self. From here on, assume you have Bramble Vest.

-Component items-

1. Enemy top is a pure auto-attack champ (Yasuo, Trundle, etc.) Build Warden's Mail. Trades that would cost you 500 HP end up costing only 300. Trade efficiency skyrockets.

2. Enemy top has slow waveclear Build Bami's Cinder (optional). Rammus is naturally fine with being pushed in — you can freeze or taunt them if they try to farm. But if they sit under turret, your options become very limited. If they have slow clear and just hide under turret, it's often better to grab Bami's, shove the wave before it arrives, and roam. Two ways to do this: (1) Waveclear with W under their turret. (2) Overextend and farm. If the enemy jungler is AD (Jarvan, Lee Sin, Graves), you can overextend and either not die or even kill one. If the enemy jungler is AP, stay under turret with W and farm respectably. Always remember: Rammus' biggest counter in lane is AP.

I take Minion Dematerializer because melee minion aggro is absolute garbage — never use it on ranged minions. More on this later.

The two situations above are the standard. Beyond that, there are many other components you can build into full items: Bramble Vest, Bami's, Warden's Mail, Chain Vest, Aegis of the Legion, Crystal Wardens — this champ has huge itemization variance.

-Mythic and Legendary Items- Rammus's only mythic is Thornmail. First item must be Thornmail — remember it's not a tank item, it's a damage item.

Second item: If you built Warden's Mail, go Randuin's Omen. You can mix in Bami's if you want. If you didn't build Warden's, just go Sunfire Aegis and focus on waveclear.

Third item: Build whichever you didn't pick between Randuin's and Sunfire. Even if the enemy team has zero crit, I still build Randuin's — not to mitigate damage, but to secure kills.

Unless they're in Bronze/Silver/Gold, no one will trade with you while your W is up. If you taunt them, they'll run away the moment it ends and dance. But the moment your W ends, you grab them by the scruff and pull them back. Your W cooldown is actually pretty short, so very often you use the Randuin's slow to survive one rotation, then come back with W off cooldown and reverse-kill them. Or if your Q and R are down, you can use Randuin's to close the gap and then taunt — amazing synergy.

Why not build Frozen Heart (Warden's Mail upgrade)? Its passive reduces enemy attack speed — which also reduces your own damage because it slows their attack rate for your W reflect. Anti-synergy.

Fourth item: You build your mythic here, and from this point on, Rammus becomes a carry champion.

Four main mythic options, in pick rate order: Evenshroud / Jak'Sho, The Protean / Riftmaker / Goredrinker.

Evenshroud — to one-shot the enemy ADC. Jak'Sho — to handle enemy AP. Riftmaker — when your team has no AP and you're gigafed. Goredrinker — when your team has no AD and you're gigafed.

If your team is even, just build tank and bully the enemy ADC. If your team is losing, Rammus becomes a useless ball of sponge that just runs in and gets hit. In that case, cry and build some lifesteal so you can take hits without your HP moving. Honestly, if you're building Riftmaker or Goredrinker, you've probably already lost — it's just a last-ditch gamble. Also, with Riftmaker or Goredrinker, you can walk to base while getting beaten up by minions/jungle camps.

Because he has AP ratios and Lethal Tempo, both AD and AP items give decent value. Especially with Goredrinker — it's hilarious to see the enemy team yell "haha Rammus with W down, kill him!" then get clipped by one Goredrinker active and panic-run away.

Fifth item:

• Abyssal Mask if enemy AP is fed / enemy AD is weak.
• Hullbreaker if you need side lane pressure.
• Dead Man's Plate if you need engage.
• Anathema's Chains if one champion is too painful.
• Gargoyle Stoneplate if you just need to survive one rotation.
• Warmog's (pure HP) if they have no damage. Possibilities are endless. Build according to the situation.

Note: Abyssal Mask works with Thornmail to shred enemy MR and boost your own damage — it's a damage item.

Gameplay.

First, laning phase.

Starting item: Corrupting Potion. It's not that Corrupting is great — it's that Doran's items don't fit him. Doran's Blade = trash. Doran's Shield = you have to keep getting hit, but you can't make use of its regen properly. Doran's Ring = two pots is okay, but you have low AP influence early (only Q and R have ratios). Mana problems can be solved with Corrupting anyway.

Since you take Time Warp Tonic, pop Corrupting, chase them with the movespeed boost, and just auto them with Lethal Tempo — the damage is genuinely unexpected. And the instant heal from the potion creates completely unexpected outplays.

His laning is more reactive than proactive.

His waveclear and trading are based on getting hit, not hitting. So in an even wave situation, you'll often find you can't push even if you auto all day. And if you can't land taunt, you can't trade at all. That's why you max E (taunt) first. I tried maxing W first at first, but what's the point of extra armor if I can't hit them?

Also, the reflected damage from W procs Corrupting Potion's passive burn.

Turret taking is very weak. His passive works on towers, but if the enemy is there, the turret hits you because of Thornmail or W, so you almost never get tower plates in lane. And his attack speed is only from Lethal Tempo, so demolishing is slow.

In laning phase, you have three waveclear options:

1. Let enemy push, then clear under your tower while getting hit by minions.
2. Clear under enemy tower before your wave arrives.
3. Overextend and push. When minions crash on your tower, clear with the turret's help. If the enemy tries to take plates, smack them with a taunt. If you have Randuin's, use it after the taunt ends when they try to run.

If you overextend, it's very easy to time your recall. With Q, you can get back to lane fast — learn from "Strategical Death" (Sion players) but without dying, just finding recall timings.

The moment you have 800 gold, you MUST recall. Bramble Vest is god.

If you got first blood: usually by wave 3 you're level 3 with 800 gold. Take 1 point W and 2 points E, survive one trade (the enemy will likely TP back so you can die), then recall and TP back.

If you didn't get kill: just lane normally until 800 gold, recall, then decide whether to TP or Q back.

Q makes returning to lane fast, and if you can overextend, it's easy to set up recalls. So you won't miss XP, but you'll lose a lot of minions until Bami's — Minion Dematerializer helps with that.

His waveclear: once you get the hang of it, you walk past the melee minions so the ranged ones target you, then clear the ranged. The thing is, the melee minions aggro your own minions, not you, so you have to reluctantly auto or Bami's them down. To reduce minion loss, I put 3 Dematerializer charges on melee minions.

With Q, roaming is easy. If you shoved the wave first, you can bully the enemy mid and jungler — watch for angles.

After laning — macro phase:

His tower taking is slow, but his rotation speed is fast. So you should generally go side lane unless your team is worthless without you.

His kit: once he starts winning, he wins without variance (Trundle ult, Jax ult passive, Yone E true damage are the only variables — but you can just ult and walk away). Conversely, once he starts losing, he keeps losing. So it's crucial to go side lane and not let your growth get stalled.

Tower demolishing: if the tower is empty, his passive makes it decent (the problem in lane is the tower hits you).

Teamfights:

In teamfights, just go Q-R-E-W, clickclickclickclick, and grant infinite happiness to the enemy ADC.

Finally, I'll wrap up with top lane matchups.

Note: The build is completely different from jungle Rammus, so the dueling matchups are different. For example, jungle Rammus loses to jungle Trundle.

Broad smile / No chance to lose: Irelia, Trundle, Yasuo, Urgot, Top Xin Zhao, Top Warwick, Top ADC (note: against Vayne, Vayne dies before you do), full AD enemy team. (Champs who only have auto-attacks or AD damage as their damage source.)

Smile / Lose if enemy is really fucking good: Jax, Yone, Volibear, Olaf, Top Master Yi, Renekton, Rengar, Darius, Garen. (Champs who can disengage, have sustain, and have AP/true damage / immobile AD caster.)

Blank face / Neither good nor bad: Tanks (except Ornn), Kayle, Teemo (AP auto-attack based), Pantheon, Jayce, Riven, Aatrox, Camille, Nasus, Tryndamere, etc. (No damage / agile AD casters / AP auto-attackers / sustain monsters that can also bully our ADC.)

Pouty lips / Not impossible but really annoying: Ornn, Fiora, Our bot lane, Sylas, Sett, Gangplank, Akali, Mordekaiser, Gwen. (Fucking high true damage / AP casters / hard to taunt champs.)

... (omitted) / Recommend dodge: Yorick, Lillia, Cassiopeia, Kennen, Top Shaco, Singed, Vladimir. (Can't land taunt, slow attack speed, good sustain, heavy magic and true damage, and stronger in side lane and teamfights than Rammus.)

Note: Enemy junglers I'd love to see top gank: Viego, Bel'Veth, Briar.

Enemy junglers you can overextend against: Graves, Jarvan, Lee Sin, Nocturne, Vi, Rek'Sai.

Enemy junglers you can't overextend against: Evelynn, Nunu, Elise, Nidalee, Taliyah, Brand.

Champions not listed are mostly playable but just not very common.