At the end of a four-hour stream, TJPuma pulled up a set he lost. Not a highlight, not a close one — his words were “I got bodied,” and “it wasn’t even close.”
The opponent was a top 30 challenger player on Teemo and Ekko, running Freestyle, matched into him in Masters 2. They had played roughly ten times in ranked already, so this was not a stranger — TJ knew the habits and still could not solve them in the moment.
Watching a good player explain their own loss is worth more than watching them win, so here is everything that set contained.
The round start nobody guesses correctly
TJ paused the replay on the opening frame and asked chat what Teemo does. The guesses were the normal ones: jump, or light.
| What most players do at round start | What the challenger did |
|---|---|
| Jump in, or press a fast button | Shoot a pellet |
| Commit to an approach | Call the Ekko assist |
| Hope to win the first exchange | Shoot another pellet |
| — | Now Ekko is on screen reacting to whatever you do |
The result, in TJ’s words: “There’s nothing I can do.” Not because the sequence is unbeatable in theory, but because it costs the Teemo player nothing and forces you to act first into a screen that already has two threats on it.
That is the difference in a nutshell. A good player wins round start. A challenger player makes round start not be a coin flip at all.
He wouldn’t take the fast punish
The moment that made TJ stop the replay: he got parried, and the challenger did not immediately convert.
“Even off the parry, he doesn’t hit me immediately. He runs me to the corner so he could get a guaranteed corner combo.”
Most players take the damage that is in front of them. He took the position instead, because a corner combo is worth more than a midscreen one and he had already decided that before the parry landed.
If you want one habit from this whole article, it is that: ask what the hit is worth before you take it.
The mistake TJ blames himself for: blowing his meter
He is blunt about the actual cause of the loss, and it is not a matchup problem.
“You need to be consistent with your meter in Challenger. You can’t just blow it like I did.”
He used his Double Down immediately, which meant that for the rest of the game he had no meter to parry with. Every mixup after that had to be guessed rather than answered.
He calls this the biggest weakness of Double Down, and it is worth understanding as a structural point rather than a one-off: the fuse that gives you the biggest single payoff also leaves you with the least to defend yourself when it is gone. “I don’t have meter, so I have to play fair.” Against a challenger, playing fair is losing. The fuses guide covers the trade-offs.
The crossup was set up two moves early
One sequence took TJ several rewinds to unpack, and it is the clearest example of challenger-level planning in the set.
- He threw a rock before tagging
- He tagged into Teemo
- The shroom popped on its own timing
- TJ got crossed up — and the jump stole the corner, landing him back in the bad spot
TJ’s read: “This was an intentional cross up.” The rock was not a poke, it was a timer. The tag was not an escape, it was a setup. By the time the crossup happened, the decision had been made three actions earlier.
Anti-airs are safe, and that’s a problem
This is the most technically useful part of the review, and it applies to everyone.
TJ jumped. The challenger read it and anti-aired. TJ deliberately did not panic — so the anti-air whiffed. That should be a punish. It wasn’t, because anti-airs in this game can be cancelled, and the cancel is safe. He cancelled into a shroom and went straight into a double overhead.
“I can’t parry this. I can’t do nothing. He did that double overhead. I blocked that. And then I got hit by the next one.”
The follow-up question from chat was the right one: what can Vi do about a whiffed 2H? TJ’s answer is honest and unsatisfying:
Sway — left or right into S1. That is the only genuine option. But it comes with a real cost: if the 2H would have hit, swaying means you just gave up your conversion. You are guessing whether your own anti-air is going to land, and getting it wrong is expensive either way.
The most practical advice in the whole segment came from chat and TJ agreed with it immediately: “otherwise, just commit and grit your teeth.” Sometimes the correct answer in a fighting game is to accept the situation is bad and block properly.
He never zoned once
The detail TJ wanted people to notice most, because it contradicts what everyone assumes about the character:
“Notice he did not zone me once, bro. Not once. He’s just rushing down with crazy stuff. A well-placed rock here and there in my face. He did not zone me once.”
A top 30 Teemo played the entire set as a rushdown character who happens to own the screen. The traps and rocks were not a wall to hide behind — they were setup for offence he was already committed to.
If you have been losing to Teemo by trying to out-patience him, that is why. The Teemo guide covers his kit, and the same principle shows up in the Jinx guide — the strongest trap characters are not the ones playing keep-away.
One free piece of Jinx counterplay
Buried in the middle of getting beaten, TJ gave away the answer to his own character:
“You want to know how to deal with Jinx? She puts out a trap. Run up. Press medium. What can I do? Nothing. There’s nothing I can do.”
Trap characters rely on you respecting the trap. If you walk straight through the placement window and press a button, the trap has not done its job yet and she has no answer. Full detail in the Jinx guide.
What to take from a loss
- Stop spending your meter on the first opening. Ask whether you will need it to defend later — you almost always will
- Take position over damage when the corner is available
- Set your mixups up before you need them. A projectile thrown two actions early is a timer, not a poke
- Know that whiffed anti-airs are not free punishes. Plan for the cancel
- Do not assume a trap character wants to keep you out — the good ones are rushing you down
- Walk through the trap and press medium against Jinx
And the meta habit underneath all of it is the same one from the rest of the stream: staggered hits and deliberate tag usage, covered in the new meta breakdown. Where these characters currently sit is in the Season 2 final patch tier list.
Credit where it is due — TJ published the whole set, losses included, rather than the games he won. If you want yours pulled apart the same way, book a session and bring the ones you lost. Or come argue about the Teemo matchup in the 2XKO Jungle Discord.
