This game, especially in lower ELO, is all about maintaining the lanning phase and coming out alive while getting farm. By farming better than your opponent you will naturally scale, but you do not want to play overly passive with a weak early game champion. Otherwise you are promoting them to dive you, and telling them you like being shoved in. As a team game, the jungler will never gank for you because he's a greedy Bronze player who doesn't see a kill in your lane. This would be due to the fact GP does not have a reliable slow, or high damage output.

Runes
This is your standard GP rune set primarily used against AD laners with a mixed team of AP and AD. The reason why you go flat AD is for the early game, as other guides may suggest lethality for the late game true damage and one-shot potential on low hp targets. One-shot potential is fun, but not reliable enough to carry consistently.

On the other hand this is the rune page you take against a heavy AP line ups with at LEAST THREE ability powered champions. Team compositions you are to play this in to would be Elise/Amumu jungle, Fizz/Mordekaiser top, and an AP Mid. It's also acceptable to take this if they have a mage support over an enchanter/shield (healer)/tank support. Examples being Brand, Zyra, or even a Vel'Koz.

Masteries
The reason this mastery page is preferred over thunderlords is due to the lane sustain. Reviewing specific tiers you get from maxing the Resolve tree is:

• Recovey for +2 Health per 5 seconds
  
• Tough Skin for minion damage reduction when Q trading.
  
• 3 Points Veteran Scars for ignite cheese pre-six (hp/5 regen through 1 tick of dmg) + 2 points
• Runic armor since it will be better late game scaling for oranges and Health per 5 regeneration
  
• Perseverance for health per 5 sustain
  
• Swiftness- 15% Free Tenacity and slow resistance
  
• Grasp of the Undying - Both a damage ability plus a lifesteal with a 4 second Cool Down that scales with the build you will be using every game (tanky gangplank)

Starting Items

Always start with a corrupting potion as it acts as further sustain for both HP and Mana, should have it running when ever you hit 75% hp and mana. Also try and play aggressive when using it to make use of the passive magical burn, damage adds up to be an additional 15-30 (based on level) magic damage to your autos and Q's. On your first back you always want to buy a Doran blade at the minimum as it's the highest value item in the game. If you happen to have enough gold consider buying a Doran Blade, and a Cull at the same time to maximize the next 10 minutes farming speed. But if the match up is close, and the jungler is an active one that may dive you. Buy a second Doran Blade for an immediate power spike to discourage dives.

Level one lanning phase
When laning phase starts you want to abuse your opponent since you will most likely be in a ranged vs melee (or weak pre-3) match up. Your Q allows you to proc your grasp from a distance so abuse that when you can. Also remember auto attacking an enemy ignites them with your Trial by Fire passive dealing 30-200 (based on level) (+100% bonus AD) true damage over 2 seconds. And allows you to gain increased movement speed for the disengage. By auto-attacking the enemy once, Q and use orange you will win any trade and gain a slow advantage. Considering your champion is very weak in the early game this prevents you from auto-losing the lane with the famous sapphire crystal for sheen on first recall and a refillable to boot. That build is admitting you'll have to go back early due to being useless, and having no control over the early game besides trying not to feed.

Level two lanning phase
Now that you're level two and have barrels at your disposal you will want to use them to act as a zoning tool since the enemy will only help you proc them faster. Not being able to get the last hit on them due to how slow it naturally ticks down this early in the game. It acts as a zoning tool to prevent enemies getting close to farm, or a tool that provides free damage if used successfully. You may either melee or Q the barrel if the enemy is not expecting it. Often this is referred to as the two barrel combo or "one barrel combo" since the second is placed with little to no time to expect it/react to it. Once the barrel is destroyed you gain movement speed and it resets your passive Trail by Fire which you'll want to run up to the enemy and apply it. Gaining further movement speed to disengage.

Always engage with the intent to disengage unless you're able to all in the enemy. But take small victories instead of accidentally over extending, taking a bad trade, or leaving yourself low enough for the jungler to gank you. Tanking even one tower shot to get your passive off may not be worth it depending on the jungler. Remember since you get increase movement speed when hitting the barrel initially you may use this movement speed to dodge predictable line skill shots to further your advantage.

Tips & Tricks

• Use barrels to spot bushes and act as a ward to spot incoming jungle ganks. Or to check them from a distance if you think there may be someone sitting in there to prevent face checking it.
  
• Always play with confidence, and aggressive with your trades zoning your opponent off farm with Q poke and out sustaining them. This is what most consider as mind games, since the opponent will stop trying to take trades or even farm once they realize you can heal it back up. They will consider you a better player than them even if you're not. Keep in mind though this can lead to feeding quickly, don't be discouraged but learn the limitations of your champion by pushing the boundaries and failing. Knowing your weakness and how to hide that to minimize mistakes.
  
• You can use barrels to prevent enemies from using red blast cones in the jungle when chasing them, or at the minimum make it harder for them to use the blast cone as they will most likely target your barrel due to the way the game's targeting priority is set up.
  
• If you get the chance, such as an enemy under-estimating your damage and they try to all in you. Place down a barrel immediately auto attack them to apply your passive. Q the barrel and auto attack them again with your reset on your Trail by Fire passive dealing insane early game damage.
  
• When attempting to all in early game don't forget to use potions during combat. Or even when trying to disengage or escape use the potion charges.
  
• When running back to lane destroy barrels on the way to get the increased movement speed. And try to leave one in the bush so you can use it to disengage easier if the jungler rotates while you're trying to all in.

Upon taking your first tower you will want to buy a sheen and upgrade your boots to Ninja Tabi/Merc Treads ASAP. Once you upgraded your boots you may finish Trinity Force and start on Sterak's which is your largest power spike in the game. At this point you do want to push out your minions one to two waves deep then rotate to take an objective with your team. Rather that's a dragon, a tower, Rift herald or even gank a lane with your ultimate and force a fight. Since you're a tank you can play forward and try to either force them to engage on you, use orange to remove any crowd control then run at them since their spells are on cool down now. Or go back and shop. You never want to be idle on a late game champion since immediately after your successful gank, objective, or even shop for your next item. You must rotate back top to catch the wave before it crashes into your tower and farm it up with Q to get silver serpents. If you don't have enough money to shop, and no where to gank look to invade and take the enemy jungle camps, your jungle camps, or ward aggressively to gain information when they rotate top and hard commit to a push. Know your champions limitations and who you can 1v1, or even 1v2 when they rotate.

For the late game situation you will decide between two build paths. One being where your team is ahead, or have an additional tank besides you. In this case you may go Ghostblade next item for the active movement speed plus armor pen, and flat AD to make your damage something the enemy can't ignore. But tanky enough still due to Trinity, Steraks they can't burst you either. If on the other hand the enemy is ahead significantly enough where your steraks popping doesn't keep you alive under focus fire long enough to at least take one with you. You will have to consider a titanic hydra as your damage and hp mix item. Keep in mind Hydra does more damage then you initially think because the active empowers the first auto on your original target, plus more HP equals more damage from your grasp of the undying (3% of your maximum hp as additional damage). Benefit to getting that hydra early is the split push will allow you to get back into the game and farm up the rest of your items fairly quick even while at a disadvantage. Once you complete one item you will want to complete the other though before moving on in your item build.

If an AP champion snowballed on the enemy team. With no exception you will need a Maw before either items above are completed to survive their burst since Raw HP won't be enough. Maw and Sterak's combo though will allow you to run down the AP carry and shut them down each fight. Unless they hard peel for the AP carry. In this case they waste multiple spells on you, try and disengage knowing you wasted several of their cool downs and have done plenty for the team fight. If you live you can re-engage later or go split push. In a team fight scenario them wasting multiple big ticket spells such as crowd control, which you've orange off and made them apply further crowd control forced them to play at a disadvantage since they did not get a kill but waste several key spells required to successfully team fight. Now your team should be able to follow up and clean house while you split push and take objectives. If you die it's harder to judge if it's worth especially if your team fails to follow up.

After both items are complete you will want to build a last whisper item to make your barrels do near true damage and to make sure your damage does not fall off. This means a lord dominik's regards or Mortal reminder is a must, which is only dependent on one question. Does the enemy suffer from grievous wounds. If the answer is yes, go the Mortal reminder.

Every game end with one of two build paths:

• Ninja Tabi/Merc Treads, Trinity Force, Sterak's gage, Titanic hydra, Maw of malmortius, LDR/Mortal Reminder, Red Pot
  
• Ninja Tabi/Merc Treads, Trinity Force, Sterak's gage, Titanic hydra, Ghost Blade, LDR/Mortal Reminder, Red Pot

Don't feed.

• Don't play scared of your laner but play aggressive, trying to bully them out of lane since you have more sustain
  
• Don't take unnecessary damage. Even if you're able to get the better half of the trade you open yourself up to jungle rotation. Take small advantages at a time. unless you're able to all in and secure a kill or a flash.
  
• No shame in too much starting Items. Buying a 2nd Doran blade may be the correct buy as it doubles your lifesteal, and discourage dives on you. Your Q bonus gold plus not being zoned off CS makes up for the initial investment of an additional Doran blade.

Practice and what ever happens do not tilt. You must feed and lose to or you will never improve. Focus on what you did wrong, and never do that again. When playing aggressive what turned the tides and made you die. Was it even close, did you not play around cool downs, did you not watch their levels or jungle rotation? Did you not place wards and seen mid MIA?