Hey guys, welcome to my Challenger Zed Jungle Guide! For those of you who don't know me, I'm Eagz and I'm a Challenger Jungler from the infamous Oceanic region (I was born in EUW so I inherently have more skill than every OCE player).

I also coach part-time while making videos for GameLeap's YouTube LoL channel. I've coached Rank 1 EUW and helped Kaos (EUW Challenger Talon Jungle) reclaim his throne earlier this season, multiple players from Master/Grandmaster to 1000LP Challenger, hundreds to division and tier climbs...so if you are interested in getting 1500LP coaching check out my patreon: CLICK HERE! OR you can add me on discord to talk about coaching and ask any questions: eagz33#8635

I've made this guide to not only teach you how to Zed, but to also teach you how to jungle (which is far more important). There will be Zed players out there in Gold and Platinum with easily enough mechanics to climb, but they don't know how to play the jungle role at a high level.

This video is a perfect example...

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I hope you enjoy the guide and if you do take something away from it, upvoting it would be much appreciated!

Let's start by discussing why you should play Zed jungle...

PROS

￭ Very fun
￭ Scales well
￭ Outplay potential
￭ 1v9
￭ Mobility

Zed is easily one of the most fun and rewarding champions in the game (for me anyway). You have a bunch of outplay potential because of all your mobility, and the fact you can bait and dodge a lot of abilities. I also love the fact you can kill pretty much any champion in the late game with Red Smite and armor pen in your build. But...it's not all sunshine and rainbows...

CONS

￭ Hard to master
￭ Vulnerable before Level 6
￭ Needs strong lanes to really unleash
￭ Reliance on landing Razor Shuriken
￭ Needs items

With so much mechanical capacity...comes a lot to learn. So it will take time and lots of hours in the practice tool to master Zed (I will help you accelerate this process later). Your early game also is not the strongest (you can sometimes be stronger than the enemy jungler, but generally speaking you are weak). This means that you really want strong lanes so you can actually breathe and scale. If you have a Kayle top, Kassadin mid, and a Twitch and Soraka bot lane...you might as well dodge.

So what do we want to achieve when playing Zed jungle? What should we be focusing on?

Well the first step to playing Zed jungle at a Challenger level is to understand your strengths and weaknesses (listed above). Now, one of these weaknesses and covering for it is crucial to us actually being able to play the game...

WE NEED LEVEL 3 BEFORE WE CAN DO ANYTHING!

Truer words have never been spoken. We need all 3 of our basic abilities to make plays on the map. So how we prepare for the first few levels/camps in the early game is VITAL. This is why in most games I like to start at Red Buff. Red Buff allows us to make plays (invades/contests/ganks) with as much power as possible when we hit Level 3. We can still make those plays with Blue Buff of course, but they won't pack the same punch. I will elaborate on our jungle starts later in the guide, but keep this idea in mind (hitting Level 3 for free!).

So if that's our early game goal...what about our late game goal?

Well this is when we play around Zed's true identity: an assassin. We're not an assassin with an Emberknife, but WE ARE an assassin when we have our mythic item (either Eclipse or Prowler's Claw). Therefore, we want to hunt down KILLABLE enemy champions. Notice how I didn't say 'squishy'. A tank Ornn who is on 200HP is more killable than a 'squishy' Caitlyn with a Lulu next to her. I'm not interested in wasting time trying to kill champions I can't kill. Again, I will elaborate on how to execute this strategy later in the guide, just keep these in mind because our thinking/runes/builds revolve around these ideas.

Speaking of runes...let's get into the two pages I'm currently using.

PAGE 1: FIRST STRIKE


This is my favourite rune setup at the moment. First Strike feels like such a broken rune still even after the nerf in 12.15, and it's really easy to proc. The gold lets us hit those big item spikes of ours earlier.

Magical Footwear saves you 300 gold so you can spend that on early lethality and snowball.

Future's Market is great because Zed is item-reliant. It's also pretty much a guarantee to get Serrated Dirk on your first back so that's also nice.

Cosmic Insight is also a really nice rune because it reduces our Flash and Smite cooldowns, and also our item cooldowns (like Prowler's Claw and Youmuu's Ghostblade).

Eyeball Collection is just the most consistent 'stacking' rune for me. You can choose Sudden Impact after the 12.14 buff, but you shouldn't need that extra lethality to kill people because you will get enough from your items. You can also choose Zombie Ward and rush an Umbral Glaive but I'm not a fan. I'd rather put that gold towards an Eclipse or Prowler's Claw.

Ultimate Hunter is my personal favourite 'Hunter' rune because soloq is chaotic, and having my Death Mark off cooldown means I can be as aggressive and as punishing as possible. Otherwise I have to wait and so do my teammates. Relentless Hunter is definitely viable and the movement speed feels great. But you should have enough movement speed from Magical Footwear and then Youmuu's Ghostblade. Treasure Hunter is also a good shout but sometimes games are drawn out and you won't get the 5 stacks until 20 + minutes. You can make that argument for Eyeball Collection but I still think it's better than the other options.

Remember this is just my opinion. Feel free to test rune combinations out in your own games and use whatever you think FEELS BEST!

PAGE 2: DARK HARVEST


This rune page is run by a lot of high elo Korean Zed junglers and it actually sounds OP (I still need to test it out fully). So why Dark Harvest? Well, when are you not going to proc it? It also scales well because each time we proc it the mark will deal more damage. On top of that, in teamfights it makes us more of a threat because after getting a kill or an assist, the cooldown resets to 1.5 seconds. With First Strike we can only proc it once.

Sudden Impact is the best of its row especially after getting an extra 2 lethality in 12.14.

Eyeball Collection for the reasons stated above for the First Strike page.

Ultimate Hunter for the reasons above.

Magical Footwear for the reasons above.

Cosmic Insight for the reasons above.

For your minor runes ALWAYS take...
￭ 1x Attack Speed
￭ 1x Adaptive Force
...and take...
￭ 1x Armor if the enemy mid and jungle are Attack Damage
￭ 1x Magic Resist if the enemy mid and jungle are Magic Damage
￭ 1x Health if the enemy mid and jungle are Attack and Magic Damage (mixed)

Now for a detailed rundown of the items I like to buy on Zed jungle...

STARTING ITEMS



I prefer Emberknife because it means we can 1v1 pretty much anyone. Using Hailblade can be good with Dark Harvest as your keystone (because it procs the mark) but we have to be selective with who we use it on and who we combo. With Emberknife we can be much more aggressive against champions who would typically be difficult to 1v1 (bruisers with armor for example). Emberknife also lets us 1v1 junglers who do well against us (check the 'Threats' section at the start of the guide).

You can take Refillable Potion but I think it's a waste because you should be healthy after clearing your camps. That's why I much prefer to take 1x Health Potion and a Control Ward. The Control Ward early game is very useful to protect yourself against strong invaders (we'll get into this later) and for vision generally. If you feel as if you need Refillable Potion then no worries, it still comes down to preference.

FIRST BACK



Serrated Dirk is just a massive early game spike, and you can start killing people at higher HP's. You might also still be on the map by the time Level 6 rolls around, and with Serrated Dirk you should easily have enough damage with your Death Mark to kill someone.

If you're running the First Strike tree you want to aim for close to 950 gold (because of Future's Market). This is basically a full clear and a scuttle crab. Remember, the earlier you base and get your Serrated Dirk everything else becomes easier (clearing camps, kills)...so do not overstay!

CORE 1



I love Eclipse for the armor penetration. I still deal enough damage to kill the targets I want to kill, and it makes me a lot harder to kill as well. It scales much better than Prowler's Claw because of the armor penetration, and lets you go toe-to-toe with bruisers and other 'hard to kill' enemies.

Ionian Boots of Lucidity and Youmuu's Ghostblade are ALWAYS items that I buy. Lucidity Boots FEEL great, and if you're a good Zed player you should not need Plated Steelcaps or Mercury's Treads to survive. Ghostblade has been great since it got ability haste and the extra movement speed (along with Eclipse's new movement speed) allows you to get into position to kill unsuspecting enemies.

CORE 2



I only go Prowler's Claw over Eclipse when I am SUPER SUPER FED in the first 10 minutes. It kills a game off quicker because of the extra damage it gives you, but it loses value the later the game goes...so don't fall into the trap of buying Prowler's Claw if you're not that fed or even worse, behind.

LATE GAME ITEMS



Serylda's Grudge - if the enemy team is building armor and has lots of mobility
Edge of Night - if the enemy team has lots of skillshots/CC
Serpent's Fang - if the enemy team has lots of shields
Axiom Arc - if you are snowballing like crazy and turbo fed
Chempunk Chainsword - if the enemy team has healing
Maw of Malmortius - if the enemy team has lots of bursty magic damage
Guardian Angel - if you need survivability and the enemy team has a good amount of attack damage
Black Cleaver - if the enemy team has 50,000 armor

FULL BUILD ECLIPSE EXAMPLE



Because of the armor pen from Eclipse's mythic passive, I tend to not buy any more armor pen unless the enemy team is legit stacking it. So their mid laner might have Zhonya's Hourglass, their Kog'Maw might randomly have a Randuin's Omen etc.

FULL BUILD PROWLER'S CLAW EXAMPLE



Because Prowler's Claw gives us lethality (and arguably too much of it) the enemy team kind of benefits from building armor against us. So we need armor pen from other sources. That's why I pretty much always build Serylda's Grudge third, and Black Cleaver fourth. Otherwise you will be tickling the enemy champions. But remember, you are building Prowler's Claw if you are like 5-0 at 5 minutes, so you should easily have enough damage without all the armor pen to nuke enemies.

This is the most important chapter of this guide. Why? Because HOW you play is much more important than WHO you play.

The FIRST STEP to jungling at a high level on Zed is this: THINK ABOUT THE ENEMY JUNGLER. As soon as champ select starts, look at the enemy jungler. Once you know WHO the enemy jungler is then you put them into one of these categories (and I know this might be a bit scientific, but after doing this for numerous games in a row it will just become second nature):

￭ Level 1/2 invaders ( Kindred, Graves, Nidalee, Trundle)
￭ Level 3 gankers ( Lee Sin, Xin Zhao, Rek'Sai, Rammus, Zac)
￭ Level 4 clearers ( Evelynn, Kayn, Shyvana, Fiddlesticks)

Of course, most if not all of these champions can do another's role...like a Graves doesn't have to always invade, he can full clear too. A Kayn doesn't always full clear, he can gank mid on his way to the other side of the jungle. So there are variations. But for the most part, players playing these champions will do the same thing.

vs LEVEL 1/2 INVADERS

I ALWAYS start at my Red Buff against these aggressors ( Graves, Kindred etc). The reason for this is because I don't want them contesting my Red Buff at Level 2/3. I don't want to run into them with just a Blue Buff because Blue does nothing; they will have too big of an advantage to do anything.

This is where the Control Ward comes in super handy. Because you're starting at Red Buff put the Control Ward in the Blue Buff brush. Level 1/2 invaders have mobility ( Quickdraw, Pounce, Dance of Arrows) so warding Pixel Brush does nothing. The Blue Buff placement ALWAYS works.

After Red Buff, simply do Krugs and then Raptors.



The other question to consider is: what do I do if they invade my Blue Buff? Well you have two reactions...

REACTION 1



In other words, 'Vertical Jungling'. This is great when you don't have strong laners near your Blue Buff (because you will probably lose the fight). Just make sure you pay attention to the map so you know if the enemy laners are moving towards you. Ping 'On the Way' as you invade so your teammates know.

REACTION 2



You contest the invade. Your laners matter so if you have a Darius top and a Vex mid (strong laners) you will probably win. If you have a Nasus top and a Veigar mid (weak laners) you will probably lose.

vs LEVEL 3 GANKERS

Because these junglers are on the map quickly and ganking early, it's best to do the same. The great thing about doing Red > Krugs > Raptors is that you are Level 3 (the same as them) and you have Red Buff. This means you are ready to react.

The key against these junglers, and you should do the same against any jungler, is to figure out where they start. If the enemy top laner shows first then they started bot side; if the enemy bot lane show first then they started top side. If you are unsure you can check the mana of their laners because if they are missing mana then they have most likely used an ability to leash. Their potential Level 3 clears are shown below and keep in mind they can do these clears on both Blue Team and Red Team...



vs LEVEL 4 CLEARERS

You have two options against these junglers. You can either full clear like them which is fine because you scale really well. OR, you can take the more red hot approach and start Red Buff again, hit Level 3 off Krugs and Raptors, and be the Level 3 ganker/playmaker. The whole map will be yours because these junglers will be AFK until 3:15. So if you see an opportunity to gank a lane, send it.

You can also invade the enemy full clearer IF you have lane priority. So let's say you know they started at their Blue Buff, you could do something like this...



Any move you make past the 'equator' of the map, you ping your intention...let your teammates KNOW what you are doing.

You have two options to winning a game after 20 minutes (Baron):
￭ Targetting the side laners
￭ Teamfighting around objectives

Executing either of these like a Challenger revolves around one thing:
￭ Manipulating enemy vision

This might sound weird but it's a simple concept: 'The Unseen Blade is the Deadliest'. There is nothing scarier than an unseen Zed. So how do we stay unseen when we run out of base?

Well it's simple...picture the enemy's version of the minimap, and where their wards are most likely placed. Generally, these 'map movements' almost always lead to easy kills (whether it's to kill a side laner or to get a pick before a teamfight)...

Zed is one of the most complex champions in the game because there are SO MANY mechanics/combos. But the first mechanic I want all of you to master is...

KITE YOUR CAMPS

It's not even a Zed-specific mechanic. This is for any jungler. But I've coached so many students who stand still way too much when they clear jungle camps. After each auto attack, MOVE. After each Q, MOVE. This will keep you healthy.

AUTO + E

You can auto attack while using your Shadow Slash. This is important for clearing camps but also when you are fighting and using your Death Mark.

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WEQ

Use this when you need to slow the enemy champion to land your Razor Shuriken.

WQE

I prefer this combo because your enemy has less time to react to your Razor Shuriken. Great to use when the enemy is already CC'd.

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WQEW Backwards

Use this to bait your enemies into jumping on you. You can draw out key cooldowns and win fights.

F + WQEW + AA

If the enemy is out of range of your Living Shadow then you can Flash first, then use the WQE combo, blink to your W's shadow, and auto attack.

Q + F

If you have no other cooldowns and have kill threat, you can use this to catch your enemy off-guard.

WWQ + F

If the enemy is super far away, you can use this to quickly kill an enemy on 1HP.

RQE

Please master this combo. You are simply pressing R, then Q, then E. Lots of new Zed players think you have to always use Shadow Slash before you use Razor Shuriken. This is not the case and if you are quick with this combo, it's almost impossible to dodge unless the enemy champion has an instant blink or Flash.

WEQWR

If you chunk an enemy with a simple WEQ combo (or WQE) and you realise you can kill them with R, then W again to your shadow and press R. Waiting a second or two before committing is good because you will be close to having your Shadow Slash back up again.

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WERQWR

If the enemy is too healthy to be killed from a non-R combo, then hitting them with this is your best bet. Simply W and E to slow them so you can then get in range to R. Because you have your W's shadow already there, you can immediately Q and W at the same time. This will land 3 Razor Shuriken and you will blink back in front of them - 99.9% of players don't expect it. You can always press R again to be super safe.

RWQE

If you can get in range of your opponent and start with your R, it's almost guaranteed a kill (especially late game). After pressing R, use your WQE as quickly as possible. They will have little time to react. A good idea is to sometimes wait after pressing R though. If you are trying to kill a Fizz for example, they will most likely E when they see you use your Living Shadow, so you can always use your W as bait, and when they have used that 'defensive' ability, go for the kill.

WRQEW

Great for tower diving or going for kills over terrain. Throw your W outside of the tower's range or over the wall/structure, and press R. Then press QEW pretty much at the same time. You will instantly blink back to your W so there is no counterplay, and there is a high chance of you landing your Q and E.

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Zed takes time to master; the jungle takes even longer.

I really hope this guide gave you an insight into how I think about playing jungle Zed, feel free to ask any questions and please upvote it if you enjoyed it!

Eagz