How do you determine between or ? It's mostly matchup dependent solely. If you think can brawl the enemy jungler then you'll run , if they're locking an counter like or then you'll run so you'll have more convinence pathing around the jungle and them. You should also take enemy team composition into consideration as well as yours. Below I've provided an example of where you should take due to being counterpicked by the enemy jungler however, your team composition doesn't require the utility - so you run regardless.

Example Team Composition

Identifying 's purpose in the lobby is the heaviest amount of skill expression you can show outside of mechanics with . He is a very versatile champion with many functions, finding the optimal function in the lobby is absolutely critical to making this pick work. You cannot do the same playstyle every single lobby with this pick and expecting great success with it, you need to be adaptive, so when you're going into your lobby look at your champions and the enemy champions.

See what they're providing or aren't providing for you, see what you need to cater and play against and then think about which runepage is more optimal. is the absolute king in the jungle though if you're able to iron out the weakness of early game.

To pilot jungle's early game I've created the optimal clear for both sides of the jungle.

Red side pathing:

Blue side pathing:

After watching those videos, you've got a couple of options from here. You can from either of those gank pathings skip scuttle and gank the lane sceeding the other side of the maps scuttle to the enemy jungler or prepare to fight for the scuttle, asking your teams to grab prio if possible.

You determine which lane you should gank based on what the enemy laner is and what your laner can provide for you. If the enemy laner is a champion with multiple dashes ( ) and many escape options just visit your other lane which has lane setup for you instead then rotate back up to the scuttle.

The idea with your first pathing that I've created is that you're setting yourself up to be as strong as possible for the contest at scuttles, not many jungles do contest you at the scuttles anymore but on the occasion that they do, you'll have everything up with double buff.

's level 3 is one of the best level 3's in the game. Especially when paired with If they contest you're probably going to get one kill. If you get one kill but die it's still completely worth it. One kill with the full-path clear equals around 950 gold which enable your lucidity boots. Implying you'll be heavily invaded by an unfavourable jungle matchup, I've created some rather psychopathic pathing to avoid them completely while remaining relevant on the map, see below.

	Pathing around enemy example 1		Pathing around enemy example 2
	If the enemy jungler is stronger than you early game and you have the information that they're starting their red buff, do this pathing to have an edge on them.		If the enemy jungler is stronger than you early game and you have the information that they're starting their red buff, do this pathing to have an edge on them.

	Pathing around enemy example 3		Pathing around enemy example 4
	If the enemy jungler is stronger than you early game and you have the information that they're starting their blue buff, do this pathing to have an edge on them.		If the enemy jungler is stronger than you early game and you have the information that they're starting their blue buff, do this pathing to have an edge on them.

This is master tier so I know this Viktor knows exactly what he can and can't get away from. The objective here is to let him use his kiting and see if he'll use his flash prematurely.

The clip shown uses which is also a viable runepage but not suggested anymore, the clip is more so to show you the potential of your pick.

I wouldn't gain anything from making a play on the map, he would just back to midlane if I killed him immediately. So what I did instead was limit everywhere he could walk to until he's completely vulnerable in the middle of the lane, if 's away then I can follow his flash with my + and he'll die in a trade-off that only benefits us. You need to be using your summoners on cooldown, if you have available, then you need to use it as soon as possible.

jungle is mostly a pick that functions from team play and getting leads, you are very team reliant and you should be giving as many kills to your laner as possible. You spike at , getting black, Getting and getting but anything after that and you'll start to fall off.


Here's my biggest win streak with jungle from my climb of low diamond to high diamond. You can see purely from KDA some games where I've completely taken over lobbies but there are some tame games where I understand simply CANNOT do enough and the game isn't about me carrying, it's about my teammates.

You're never really going to be taking over . For the most part, it's here to offer you the option as a viable second choice. mostly exists so you can survive absurdly mad poke matchups like , usually in almost every situation is better.

Below I'll provide some compositions where I would run over . The idea is survival over thriving when you're using this rune.

Example Team Composition 1

Example Team Composition 2

Example Team Composition 3

Level 1 you should be immediately pushing the wave but be very conscious you're only using one of your legs. You'll be saving all other of your legs for pressure on your laner. If you've pushed the wave the entire time with your autos, actively trading with your laner whenever they've attempted to CS you'll have a large advantage heading into level 2. Don't worry if you can't push the wave, as long as you're getting gradual chip damage. Once you hit level 2 you want to E + + then hold your W on them. You have ABSURD kill pressure level 2. Any mage without barrier or phase rush is guaranteed to die level 2. for example.

If you don't kill you're still going to burn their flash which enables your jungle to come mid. is one of the best champions in the 2 v 2 situation. You have an amazing gank set up in your . 50% slow for 1.25s allows your jungler to get into range, if your jungle has a stun then you're set up to use your E which almost guarantees a kill.

Level 2 you want to continue pushing your early superiority, there are not many champions who can contest 's level 1 or level 2 - control mages are the only champions who stand the fighting chance. What you're trying to achieve here is pressure. You want to push the minion wave under the enemy tower, you want them to drop minions to the tower damage, holding perma-priority over them so they can't rotate to scuttles without losing a large chunk of gold.

Champions who struggle against 's level 1's and 2's early game usually struggle to shove back against you. Your W can get you an incredible priority as it's an incredible shove tool. Force them to lose either 200 gold or do 200 damage to you, once your minions are under the enemy tower that's exactly when you want to start walking around with your jungle, you want to be actively looking for the 2 v 2 scuttle fights always, even if your jungle is comparatively weaker compared enemies jungle.

If you've picked up an early kill, you'll want to base immediately but make sure you're conscious about your wave management, wave management is the name of the game mid-lane. You cannot leave minions lingering outside of the enemy tower - even if the enemy has teleport available. You need to wipe out the enemy minion wave, get the rest of your minions that are lingering nearby under the tower so you can reset.

Once you reset you should pick up . is the most incredible item for but it's far too greedy to start as your only starting item. Many people will debate if cull is worth it but using doesn't fill into any of those categories due to how exceptional 's W is with onhit effects. uses the 3hp passive from on hit 3 times per second as well as being an extremely gold-value benefitting champion.

Level 1 let them shove into you. You want them to be crashing the wave under your tower so you can farm it without taking poke from them. Anything with range should be actively attempting to zone you from the wave. At level 2 you should be looking to hold the wave around your tower, level 2 is building up into where the jungles start doing something on the map, if the wave is at your tower you're putting passive pressure on the enemy laner for even being pushed up towards your tower.

At level 3 is when your bad matchups can become managable. In bad matchups you always take the skill order of . Once you've unlocked your , you can slow enemies for 50% for 1.25s.

Around level 3 is when you should start poking your enemy laner with . One of two of them will put them in the threshold to be deleted by your full combo of; + + + + . This combo should deleted any champion, even through barrier if you've poked them down significantly enough, your kill window with this combo lingers around ~800 HP which is extreme overkill on most mid laners HP.


Play Video
Your first base should be based on your gold amount. Regardless of how much gold you have you pick up a . is incredible, especially in bad matchups. You become a bunker champion because you have and then on top of all of that, . At this point nothing can kill you unless you're making repetitive mistakes.

If you have extra gold after your first base, maybe you got first blood, maybe you've just farmed perfectly. Picking up the early and placing it in the mid-river to try and spot out the enemy jungle, providing yourself and your teammates some river control. When you're playing mid you're not just playing against your laner, you are constantly 2 v 2. It's very important to keep this in mind. ing enemy raptors, seeing if they're up and potentially stealing them away if you've shoved the wave under enemy tower etc.

If you still have extra gold after buying the early control ward, there are many things you can do here. Either way you're going to be building into but has three build paths. If you're against something like you'll want , and you'll be able to tank up a lot more damage than you ordinarily would.

But if you're feeling confident, maybe 's missing all of her abilities and you can abuse her regardless of being counter picked, you can go into . When you have that's when you start to come online, mostly against the enemy jungle. is exceptional at clearing the enemy jungle camps, shoving the wave in mid lane and then rotating to the enemy raptors, using your in the middle of them, then holding your will kill the camp in a couple of seconds.

If you've played your lane well then at this point you're an oppressive midgame god, once you have Titanic hydra you should be actively looking to invade the enemy jungle on your own, stealing camps away and putting some deep vision down.

Your goal with mid isn't just to lane against your laner, you need to be the one oppressing the enemy jungle if that's with your jungle or just by yourself, you need to understand your limits and it's a learning process for sure but there are some games where I've completely taken over games and averaged 12.5 CS per minute from just taking enemy JG farm and my lane.