Season 6 Top Lane: TP vs Ignite

For almost 2 years Teleport has been the go-to Summoner Spell for Top Laners in League of Legends. At the beginning of Season 5 some Mid Laners started to take Teleport as well, even though only on certain champions like Diana but that changed when xPeke rampaged with it at the Season 5 World Championship. After that TP became the second most used Summoner Spell (behind Flash) in SoloQ #byfar.

First, let’s look at what made TP this powerful of a Summoner Spell. Patch 4.4:

• Teleporting to an allied turret now refunds 100 seconds of the cooldown.
• Cooldown refunded for cancelling Teleport reduced to 100 seconds from 150 seconds.
• Channel duration reduced to 3.5 seconds from 4 seconds.

With Teleport you had now a safety net which allowed you to be right back to Lane if something went wrong. Later on players learned to use it better like for example Teleporting Bot Lane which could give your team kills and objectives or Teleporting behind the enemy team to engage. Teams went even further and discovered what a major role TP can play in laneswaps and much more.

Not many player’s were pleased with Teleport having such big impact to the game, especially AD Carry’s which were often target’s for Bot Lane TP-Partys. So with the preseason 6 Patch Teleport got some nerfs:

• No longer refunds cooldown by teleporting to an allied turret.
• Channel duration increased to 4 seconds from 3.5 seconds.

Now Teleport is pretty much the same as it was before it got buffed, which led to it becoming this dominant. We didn’t see much competitive League on this Patch  yet, but in Solo Queue Teleport is taken much less often since many players say Ignite is the better Summoner Spell now and as seen on the LOLKING statistics it at least seems to be the more popular Summoner Spell.

Teleport being nerfed is not the only reason Ignite got so much more popular though. Games are much more snowbally and don’t last as long as they used to in Season 5 making the laning phase a more important part of the game which Ignite help’s you to win.

So does this mean Ignite will be the dominant Top Lane Summoner Spell in competitive League of Legend and Solo Queue?

The answer is no! at least not for competitive League of legends and we all know that Solo Queue players do what they see LCS players doing. Let me explain why Teleport will prevail as the go-to Summoner Spell for Top Laners.

Aside from the fact that Teleport gives your team big strategic options and advantages, it also doesn’t have to be in such long cooldown.

The Tier 4 Resolve Mastery Insight is an easy for Top Laners accessible Mastery which give’s you 15% cooldown reduction on Summoner Spells by putting 12 point’s into that tree which mean’s you can take a Keystone Mastery from another tree if you don’t like the one’s in the Resolve tree. Insight reduces Teleports cooldown from 300 seconds to 255 seconds. This Mastery alone could shift the meta in a way that Top Laners would pick champion’s that want to go all the way into the Resolve tree to get Insight.

But that’s not all. In Patch 5.23 the Homeguard enchantment has been removed from purchase but instead is given to everyone in a weaker state after the 20 minute mark. Homeguard was the most popular enchantment, with it gone players have now the option to buy other enchantments like the Distortion enchantment which gives another 15% cooldown reduction on Teleport and Flash. Distortion with Insight reduces the cooldown of Teleport from 300 seconds to 217 seconds.

And that’s not all. Mercury’s Treads, which alongside Ninja Tabi’s were the most popular boots for Top Laners got it’s Tenacity reduced to 20%, making it a far less attractive purchase, especially since you can have almost the same amount (15%) from the Resolve Tree. Now, unless you need Ninja Tabi’s you can buy the Ionian Boots of Lucidity which is a very powerful item right now since it’s so cheap and also gives not only 10% regular cooldown reduction but also 10% Summoner Spells cooldown reduction. If you buy these with Distortion enchantment and also the Insight from the Resolve tree, your Teleport cooldown will drop from 300 seconds to 191 seconds.

And that is the reason why Teleport will prevail as the season 6 go-to Top Lane Summoner Spell for competitive League of Legends. In Solo Queue, if you want to kill the enemy and snowball the game out of it, Ignite is your man. If you’re unsure of your ability to win the lane, take Teleport. It’s up tou you.