@Riot What do you want Teemo to actually do in your game?

I always hear that Riot wants every champion to have a niche they can occupy, but then random weird changes happen for really no particular reason with no real explanation, like the Teemo nerf. Teemo isn't a top tier champion, after his constant nerfs and changes a long time ago, he never became a contender. He's really only annoying to people and he murders people with lack of match-up knowledge that are unwilling to figure it out.

I can confidently say most Teemo players are unhappy about the changes and honestly I don't think anybody would agree it's warranted. If you want Teemo to be a healthy part of League, what do you want him to do? If you don't want him to be a map control champion that can split push and is annoying when he gets ahead, what kind of gameplay pattern do you think is healthy for him?

Before, to have map control top, he couldn't just sit top all day, shrooms were expensive. He had to place some, push a little and then go back or you could just put pressure top and kill him because he didn't have mana to fight. Like-wise you can simply spend time getting a tanky player to sweep the top side to clear everything out and have the team invest in pink wards to remove Teemo's pressure completely. I've had this done to me plenty of times and had to resort to changing plans to cope against the enemy team countering my map control tactics.

What is the new Teemo supposed to do that other champions just don't do way better? I mean if someone can tell me what's truly toxic about his gameplay other than "no counterplay", because you're wrong.

I argue that the most fun aspect of Teemo is map control paired with hit & run tactics. That's why I play Teemo and the amount of strategy in placing shrooms properly and maneuvering your opponent into them as they try to aggressively pressure your lane or you is the most rewarding part of Teemo. You can't do that anymore, 10 minutes was a good amount of time that forced the opponent to deal with your traps, 5 minutes means they mostly die on their own now. Really good Teemo players tend to have different philosophies when placing shrooms, a lot which comes down to certain styles of play they like to employ. The pattern of shrooms you see can actually speak volumes about the player and the lack of shrooms also does.

So basically, @Riot, as a fan of Teemo, if you think map control Teemo is unhealthy for your game, find a new niche for him and give us a new kit. I don't want to play this garbage revision of him that can't do anything he used to do and there are plenty of other champions that can do what he does now except they have actual escapes and are better champions in general. Chucking shrooms at people doesn't work, it's not fun, it costs too much and it was cute the first time you saw the shrooms bounced, but ultimately no Teemo main cares. The only people who cares about this update are the people who hate Teemo because they see less of him now and low MMR Teemo players that never abused Teemo's only unique strength in the game because I've seen plenty of "Teemo mains" that claim their shrooms never last more than 5 minutes anyways.