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 , I've created an additional guide talking about the pathing, realistically what you're looking to achive and what you should expect on this peck, give this a watch.




After watching that video, 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 after full clearing is ganking whichever lane you think has most impact eg. If your botlane is the wincon for the lobby, start the buff parallel to them, full clear heading downwards towards them and apply pressure, if you can't gank your botlane due to their botlane being strong earlier or they don't have enough set up, play for Mid or Top instead, again starting paralell to the lane you're wantting to path to.

's level 4 is one of the best level 4's in the game in the Jungle, 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.

Start . Level 1 grab the priority of the wave by starting . Use your frontal legs to the wave and annihilate the first wave's melee minions, don't overextend too far forward by trying to immediately kill the ranged minions or you'll get poked back far more than it's worth, as long as you don't drop below 80% HP for doing this on the first wave you're absolutely fine though. The objective of pushing this first wave is to have a huge priority going into level 2.

Once you're about to hit level 2, make sure you're walking forward before you've hit level 2, positioning yourself on the minions dying, level up your as soon as you levelled up, , and then auto attack before activating your . Whoever you've grabbed most likely will die. Just be mindful of what survivability options they have. If they're an with lane you cannot make this play expecting a kill, so with this in mind you're not going to a kill, so do not contribute your You will trade one summoner ( ) for their , probably and which I don't need to say is worth. Also keep in mind some supports run . is incredible against denying your kill windows, you can proc from range with one of your IF you land it on both of them. This can be a little frustruating to proc sometimes but patience is the name of the game.

If you've pulled off an early kill which is very likely when playing try to base as fast as possible but don't neglect your wave, there are many ways you can leave your wave state but just to be uncomplicated, I'll show you a good wave state vs bad wave state.

	Good lane state		Bad lane state
	The reason this lane state is good is that these minions will crash under the enemy tower, you will be making the enemy ADC miss the experience from not being near these minions as well as making them drop the gold from not last hitting them, you can safely recall once your wave is under their tower like this because the minion wave will push back into you.		If you leave your wave like this the enemy team will freeze the wave there and then it doesn't matter if you're stronger than them or not, minion waves early game do an extremely high amount of damage so you cannot fight them in the middle of it. You will be forced to farm with your mana hungry and continue to hold their freeze for them, kill those minions and get your wave under their tower.

Send your support off to roam around with your jungle but make a note that the enemy bot lane doesn't have summoners right now and you can make a play bot lane, if they don't come bot again it's no issue since you're contributing more to the map and you scale better into the midgame with your .

Weakside is an invaluable strategy in the current meta, especially when you're playing bot lane. is one if not the best weakside champions purely because he's not looking to be hyper-accelerated in the game to function. gives you a net gold gain of 180, on top of that 180 you're getting solo experience, levels aren't as important on any other champion as much as they are on . 's strongest time in the game is at level 13 when his legs are on 2.5 seconds cooldown cap.