Jungle Rammus is extremely effective in ranked play.
It works best in a premade, but works very effectively in solo queue because of Rammus's great initiation abilities.

This guide will show you how to SAFELY jungle as Rammus in a ranked format.
There are many different routes to take for this build, and I will try to explain your options.

Marks: Greater Mark of Armor x9
Seals: Greater Seal of Armor x9
Glyphs: Greater Glyph of Magic Resist x9
Quints: Greater Quintessence of Health x3


8.19 Armor from marks
12.69 Armor from seals
13 Magic Resist from glyphs
78 Health from quints

The armor ends up giving you 27 additional armor just from runes and masteries
The MR ends up being 19 just from runes and masteries.

Consider that we are buying a Cloth Armor at the start of the game. This will throw our initial additional armor total to a whopping 45 armor.

Despite jungling we still want rammus to have a full defensive tree. This is because mid->late game he will become the tank.

I find taking the utility tree with exp bonus and 15% blue/red buff bonus far better than taking the improved smite. If you feel otherwise, feel free to change up the masteries. I would absolutely keep a maxed out defensive tree, however.

You can also max out Defensive Mastery and Harden Skin and reduce Strength of Spirit and Resistance if you tend to have trouble with early jungling.

EARLY GAME
Early game you'll want to grab a Cloth Armor and 5x Health Potions

Next, you'll need Ninja Tabi and a Sight Ward

Always grab a Heart of Gold and a Philosopher's Stone next

EARLY->MID GAME
This is where everything turns variable. You have a few options right now. Check your enemy team and see what kind of damage they are dealing.

Mostly Physical: Upgrade your Heart of Gold into a Randuin's Omen and follow suit with either a Sunfire Aegis and/or Thornmail.

Mostly Magic: Upgrade your Philosopher's Stone into either an Eleisa's Miracle or a Shurelya's Battlesong depending how how much CC they have.

We don't get magic resist just yet in the game due to our Defensive Ball Curl, but if you feel the need to, pick up a Negatron Cloak

MID->LATE GAME
Finish up the following staples:
Banshee's Veil
Eleisa's Miracle / Shurelya's Battlesong
Randuin's Omen

and choose from the following to build...
Sunfire Aegis (if not done already)
Thornmail (if not done already)
Force of Nature (if heavy caster team)
Shurelya's Battlesong (if not done) to give a team mini-ghost (if running or initiating seems to be a problem)

JUNGLE RAMMUS SHOULD ALWAYS HAVE THE FOLLOWING FIRST 6 SKILLS
W ( Defensive Ball Curl)
Q ( Powerball)
W ( Defensive Ball Curl)
E ( Puncturing Taunt)
E ( Puncturing Taunt)
R ( Soaring Slam)

Following that run on this priority
R>E>W=Q

This means that sometimes Q and W are both good choices... use your situational awareness to choose if you want the extra armor/mr or the extra slow.

Smite is a must for jungle Rammus. You can easily jungle without it, but you will be so behind on levels that you will actually end up crippling the team. Always go for smite for speed when jungling.

Flash is a best choice on Rammus. It is beautiful for initiation and jumping over creeps.

I find heal to be another viable option if your team is full of squishies and your team didn't pick a support (ouch...). In that case, change your mastery tree to buff heal up.

The beauty of jungle Rammus is that you are very secure the entire time.
You don't have to worry about that Eve that may be behind your back while you take on Red buff.


My Route
Blue buff .... Use a potion as you take damage, pop W as often as possible, smite when golem gets low.
Then use W to take on Wolves, Wraiths, Double Golems, Red Lizard, and repeat the cycle.
You can use Q to take on packs like the Wolves and the Wraiths, but make sure you have blue buff when you do so as it is a HUGE mana hog.

Now, that route is obviously very flexible, and starts you at blue.
But this is ranked, you don't always get to start at blue.
If you feel there are too many enemies pressuring you near blue, just skip it!

Take on the wolves, Wraiths, Double Golems, then go to blue. That should buy you enough time. If you only used your W move, then you should still have near full mana.

What is your role as jungle Rammus?
INITIATE AND TANK.

How can you do this?
Powerball and puncturing Taunt

Here is the main skill sequence for ganking...
Pop Powerball and collide with the enemy, and then use puncturing taunt to taunt them while your team attacks. Use Defensive Ball Curl and Soaring Slam while taunting to deal extra damage. If they survive this, chase with another Powerball and puncturing taunt combo.

Thanks for reading, and good luck to you all!

I hope this guide helped.

REMEMBER: No guide is a blueprint. Never follow it word to word. Just use the ideas that are inside it to help you formulate a living, adaptable strategy.

I plan on adding a video in the near future (couple weeks) of how to use Flash on jungle Rammus.

Thanks!