The history of Teemo, The Swift Scout

Whether you like it or not, Teemo is often viewed as the League of Legends mascot. With his blowgun and mushrooms in hand, he has ruined the games of thousands of players over the years. We’ve all been there. We’ve all faced Teemo’s wrath. Even worse, we’ve all thought, “Oh god, our top picked Teemo — why?” only for them to hit like a truck by the time the game hits 30 minutes.

Teemo is an odd boy but a famous one. He’s also one of League’s original champions. So let’s take a look at him and his horrible, evil history.

Teemo’s Release History

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Teemo doesn’t have a release date because he was a champion that first showed up in the League of Legends alpha. Yes, people have been hating Teemo since before League even launched as a real game that everyone could play.

Unless you’ve been playing since Alpha, there’s someone out there that’s definitely hated Teemo longer than you have.

Teemo’s Lore

Teemo’s lore has changed quite a bit. According to the League of Legends Wiki, he is currently on his fourth iteration of the lore. That’s a true release champion right there.

The first iteration of Teemo is pretty bizarre, and not just because it focuses on the actual in-lore League of Legends. Teemo started as a scout leader in Bandle City. But he wasn’t just responsible for fixing up activities for kiddos, he was also in it for the straight murder that comes with defending his homeland. He also wrote a autobiography that he would apparently sign copies of outside of the League of Legends.

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In the second iteration of Teemo’s lore, he loses a lot of the very Draven personality he started with. Instead, it’s replaced with the stone cold killer we know and love (?) today. This lore mentions that something “switches off” in Teemo so he can murder fools without guilt or hesitation.

Iteration three is almost no different than two. The team added in some additional history of his training and how Teemo scared his trainers so much that they sent him to special forces school almost immediately. This still being old lore, it of course pushes deeper into Teemo’s time in the League of Legends as well.

The fourth iteration of Teemo’s story is the most recent. The lore here is almost identical to the third and second iterations. The only difference? No mention of the League of Legends. Instead, it focuses on Teemo’s warm personality matched up against the sudden and worrying snap when it comes time for him to kill ...

How Teemo has changed

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Teemo’s abilities have changed quite a bit over the years. Being an alpha champ, he went through a lot of changes before LoL even came out. Even after he hit live, the company replaced some things.

Teemo’s passive has had a weird history. First, it was called Eagle Eye and gave Teemo an increased vision range. A around release, it was changed to Trailblazer. This had an interesting effect that caused Teemo to leave a trail behind him (like a fuzzy slug!) that would increase the vision of allies that walked over it as well as grant Teemo vision of the ground.

After release, in patch V.1.0.0.61, Trailblazer was removed in favor of Camouflage, the ability we all kind of know it as today. If Teemo stands still for long enough, he will become invisible. The time started high at six seconds and quickly moved down. A few patches later, Teemo gained an attack speed after popping out of stealth.

In Patch 5.15, Camouflage got a bonus in bushes, stealthing Teemo 50 percent faster. In 6.1, the speed of camo while in a bush was removed in favor of Teemo being able to move invisible while in a brush. Finally, in 6.22, the ability was renamed to Guerrilla Warfare.

Teemo’s Q used to blind players by giving them a percent chance to miss their next few autos. Eventually, it evolved to simply causing an amount of autos to be missed entirely. Quickly after this it became what we have now: champions will miss all autos for a certain amount of time.

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Teemo’s W used to slow him if he took damage after activating it. After that was removed, Riot removed the mana cost of toggling the movement speed off. In V1.0.0.110, the toggle was removed entirely and it became a cooldown spell with a time effect. Instead, Teemo would gain movement speed up to a cap. When activating his W, it would increase the movement speed by double.

Teemo’s E has changed quite a bit more than his other abilities. Toxic Shot used to have a cooldown instead of being a passive ability. Teemo’s poison shots used to stack and deal damage when he would activate it. Once it became a passive, it was given an AP ratio and has seen tons of balance changes since then.

Noxious Trap has got to be one of the most changed abilities in the history of League of Legends. The ability wasn’t added until a few weeks into the beta period. The ability worked fairly similarly to how it does now. But every week for months it saw a new balance pass. In the beta, traps used to have a limit of 15. In the same patch where that limit was removed, the traps gained the life cycle of 10 minutes.

In V.1.0.0.103, Teemo’s Noxious Traps were given charges every few seconds up to a total of three. A patch later, the bounty for killing traps was removed. In V.1.0.0.123, Teemo’s shrooms would level as Teemo does, even if they were already in place. The bounty was returned in 3.12.

In Patch 5.15, the duration was reduced to five minutes and the slow would decay over time. The cast range was also drastically increased, allowing Teemo to toss them. If Teemo launches a mushroom on top of another mushroom it will bounce and land a few units away. A patch later, enemies effected by shrooms are visible to all players.

There is a change to Noxious Trap in almost every single patch that touches on Teemo.

Teemo’s skins

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Teemo currently has nine skins:

• Astronaut Teemo
• Cottontail Teemo
• Super Teemo
• Panda Teemo
• Omega Squad Teemo
• Happy Elf Teemo (legacy)
• Recon Teemo (legacy)
• Badger Teemo (legacy)
• Little Devil Teemo (legacy)

OK, so Teemo has a lot of skins. Some of them are really good, and we’re gonna talk about those. Others are not very good, and we’re not gonna talk about them.

Astronaut Teemo was the fancy Teemo skin when I started playing. It’s this kind of adorable mix between weird little squirrel in a suit and military grade technology.

Super Teemo was the other option in terms of fancy skins. His cute little flying animation paired with the weird sigil mushrooms gave it a pretty unique look compared to other skins back in 2013.

As far as his non-legacy skins are concerned though, Omega Squad Teemo is the only answer. There are a few reasons for this. First, it gives him a whole new rig and makes him look like a real, modern champion instead of a tiny clump of dirt. Second, it captures the essence of his lore, turning him into the stone cold killer we all know him to be. Third, the mushrooms explode into mushroom clouds, which is both adorable and terrifying.

To be honest, most of his legacy skins are legacy for a reason: they bad. But, there is one major exception to this, and that is Little Devil Teemo.

This skin shocked me when it was first released. It wasn’t subtle, it was a skin based on one of League’s oldest memes. Because of his annoying to play against nature, Teemo was always considered to be League’s Satan. Well, they made a nearly perfect skin to exemplify that and it really captures the cute and creepy that Teemo has always been known for. The only shame is that you can only get it around Halloween time.