Ivern, Friend of the Forest Ivern is the most unique champion in League. On paper he's just an enchanter who shields for his team, but in practice he does so much more. Ivern has many very unique and skill-expressive concepts like grove sequencing, bush placement, and Daisy control. These make Ivern a deeply rewarding champion to master through advanced strategy and understanding hyper-specific concepts that nobody else knows. The open-ended nature of Ivern's kit allows for many creative uses of his abilities and interesting tech. If you enjoy discovering weird strategies and playing the game unconventionally, Ivern is the right champion for you.

About Me Hi, I'm garbocan, a challenger Ivern player with over 4000 ranked Ivern games in the past 3 seasons alone. At the time of writing this, I'm currently the highest ranked Ivern player across all servers. I've also played a lot of Ivern across all roles. Here are the ranks I have gotten on each one: Grandmaster 610LP • Challenger 1216LP • Challenger 892LP Master 220LP • Master 300LP Despite my expertise, I still find out new things about my champion on a frequent basis. This discovery is one of the main appeals for me, so in this guide I'd like to share some of my knowledge to help others with picking up Ivern. My main account opgg link. Ivern leaderboard if you want to check if i'm still the highest ranked Ivern.

Over my time playing Ivern, I've seen a lot of confusion as to what Ivern's class actually is. Is he an enchanter? Mage? Specialist? Does he even fall under any predefined classes? It's important to understand what Ivern's role is within a game and it will give context to a lot of my build decisions and why I find certain things mandatory.

According to Riot, there are 13 subclasses in League of Legends. Most champions will draw a few attributes from 1-2 different subclasses. For Ivern, there are 3 that stand out:

Enchanter The enchanter class is the easiest parallel to draw for Ivern due to his main ability being an allied shield . One of the key roles of an enchanter is to amplify the effectiveness of allies and directly protect them from incoming threats, which is something that Ivern clearly does. Catcher If you look at Riot's official classification, Ivern is listed as a catcher. Catchers specialize in locking down enemies with ranged crowd control, which Ivern has an abundance of with Q / E / R. If I had to define Ivern by one class, catcher would make the most sense from how much of his kit is dedicated to CC. Specialist The specialist class is for champions that have their own unique play patterns that don't quite fit the existing categories. Champions like Azir or Fiddlesticks fall into this category. Ivern has many champion-specific patterns like playing around Brushmaker or Daisy!, so specialist would also be a fitting class for Ivern.

Now that we've established the 3 categories Ivern falls under, we can start looking at how this applies in actual games. What's interesting is that Ivern's identity significantly shifts over the course of a single game. Here's a rough breakdown:

EARLY GAME Before Level 6 // 70% Catcher, 20% Enchanter, 10% Specialist In the early game, Ivern is mostly played as a ‎ catcher. This is because early game jungle activities like ganking and skirmishing value the aggression of his CC more than the protection of his shields. The ratio between enchanter and catcher varies based on comp, with melee champions generally leading to a higher emphasis on enchanter abilities and vice versa. This is because Ivern can afford to play back and amplify a strong melee carry, whereas he relies more on locking down enemies for ranged allies.

MID GAME Levels 6-13 // 60% Specialist, 25% Catcher, 15% Enchanter Once Daisy is unlocked, Ivern's playstyle gets completely flipped. The majority of what you do during this time will involve Daisy in some way, whether that be using her to deliver E slow in a gank or as a zoning tool around objectives. During this time period, there are many medium-scale skirmishes where you can greatly benefit from shielding Daisy and/or yourself over your teammates. Because of how Daisy-centric this stage of the game is, Ivern can be considered as primarily a ‎ specialist in the midgame.

LATE GAME Level 14+ // 80% Enchanter, 10% catcher, 10% Specialist At some point, the fights start becoming large enough where Daisy is easily dealt with. At the same time, any scaling champions will be reaching their big late-game 3/4 item spikes. For this portion of the game, there's a lot less room for aggression since you put yourself at much higher risk and are better off just peeling for the carries. While the early and mid game playstyles can vary a lot based on comp, Ivern will almost always play like a full ‎ enchanter by minute 30. The only exceptions would be if the enemy comp has a hard time killing daisy (low single target dmg, low cc, etc) or if Ivern is very ahead.

There are many ways to play Ivern. Some people will build full support to spec into being an ‎ enchanter, while others will build full AP to maximize their abilities as a ‎ ‎ specialist. In this guide, I'll be teaching what I believe to be the optimal way to play Ivern, which is to accomodate for all 3 styles, and smoothly transition between each class with the flow of the game.

KEYSTONE Summon Aery is by far Ivern's strongest keystone. I have tried to replace it many times, but it has proven to be the best time and time again. The key reason why it's so good is due to it's flexibility. It's good for‎‎ catcher and ‎ specialist Ivern due to the extra damage, while also scaling with extra shielding for ‎ enchanter Ivern. The perfect mix of offensive early damage and late game scaling. SECONDARY: INSPIRATION Cosmic Insight is a necessary rune on Ivern because of the immense value of having more Smite charges. Having smite up more often allows you to do anything that you'd normally want better. If you want to play for tempo, Smite allows you to save on pathing time. If you want to push a winning lane's advantage, you'll need to have Smite charges to take the enemy jungle. If you want to play defensively, Smite charges can secure camps that are at risk of being stolen. Having Flash up more often is also very helpful as a jungler. As you get better at Ivern, you'll find this rune increasingly irreplaceable. Future's Market is a strong rune option due to Ivern's inconsistent income. Unlike laners or other junglers, Ivern can't always farm a bit more if he needs 100-200 more gold for an item. Due to the inconsistency of your income, Future's Market allows you to avoid awkward situations. It's also useful to accelerate your spikes, which is generally good on all junglers. Some Ivern players will opt to replace Future's Market with Perfect Timing. While this isn't the worst thing, I've found perfect timing to be only sometimes useful. On the other hand, I'll always get value out of Future's Market every time I take it regardless of circumstance.

NULLIFYING ORB In games where you're being threatened by AP burst such as into Evelynn or Diana, you can swap out Nimbus Cloak for Nullifying Orb. The main drawback is that you lose early ganking power through self-cast Triggerseed + Flash. Always take Nullifying Orb into 4+ AP.

ATTACK SPEED If there will be a lot of early fighting, Attack Speed does more than Haste. Attack Speed is also particularly good against weak early junglers like Kha'Zix or Evelynn, since it enables more aggressive plays. Attack Speed falls off in usefulness very hard, so I only take it when I'm certain of it's value. If you're unsure, just go Haste.

RESISTANCE SHARDS The defensive stat shard slot is the most straightforward. Take Armor if you're against physical threats, MR against magic, and health for mixed. Since you aren't fighting your jungle camps and you aren't usually tanking towers, there is no bias towards armor, so focus solely on the enemy champions.

Cosmic Drive

Shurelya's Battlesong

Zhonya's Hourglass

As I mentioned earlier, Ivern has 3 different playstyles that he can apply, and each of them are most useful at different times in the game. My approach to itemization is to make sure that I'm playing towards my current strongest type while smoothly transitioning to the next. This leads to 2 main build options: or .

Why Cosmic Drive? Cosmic Drive is the best first item on Ivern due to it's flexibility. It has incredibly good components with Fiendish Codex and Aether Wisp to make you strong early, it compliments ‎ specialist Ivern a lot upon completion with high AP, Haste, and Movement Speed to help you take aggressive fights during the mid-game, and scales well into ‎ enchanter Ivern with the AP and Haste being great for spam shielding. But best of all: Cosmic Drive isn't a mythic, which allows you to adapt your build even further by not locking yourself into any specific path. Solo queue is a very unpredictable environment, so being able to delay your decision until you have more information is OP.

SHURELYA'S BATTLESONG

VS

MOONSTONE RENEWER

Shurelya's Battlesong is good for fast fights, picks, engage, and snowballing. You won't be shielding as much for the same amount of gold, but you'll be able to push advantages that you already have much harder. An advantage of Shurelya's Battlesong is that you aren't bound to buying Redemption 3rd, freeing up that slot for Zhonya's Hourglass.

Moonstone Renewer is good for counterengage, front to back, slow fights, and scaling. Moonstone itself isn't that big of a spike, but really comes online at 3rd and 4th item with Redemption and Staff of Flowing Water, where you'll be spamming massive shields on a 3 second cooldown.

AFTER CORE OPTIONS Once you're finished your core items, you're mostly free to build whatever you want. At this point in the game, the best items will generally trend towards the ‎ enchanter style. However, there are a few AP items that can get a lot of value here if you have the income for them.

ZHONYA'S HOURGLASS / REDEMPTION Whichever one you didn't take in your core. Zhonya's Hourglass is one of the best items on Ivern since it allows you to play much further up safely. While Redemption isn't as good with Shurelya's Battlesong, it's still a great option for teamfighting.

STAFF OF FLOWING WATER Insane value when shielding teammates. Even if your entire team is AD, Staff of Flowing Water still manages to be a high value item for the stats that it gives yourself. Since you'll have enough Ability Haste by this point, your Triggerseed cooldown will be low enough that it'll benefit from Staff's buff, since your E casts will be close enough together.

MIKAEL'S BLESSING The situations where Mikael's Blessing is useful are pretty obvious. If your team is vulnerable to champions like Lissandra or Zoe, Mikael's is a great option.

RABADON'S DEATHCAP Even though you haven't been building full AP, Rabadon's Deathcap is still such a strong item for raw power. It's always good if you can afford it, but the situations where that actually happens are very rare. Not worth forcing unless you came across a random 1000 gold shutdown or some other large amount of gold.

ITEMS THAT I DON'T BUILD: NIGHT HARVESTER While Night Harvester provides a bit more power than Cosmic Drive at 1 item, it completely falls off during the transition to ‎ enchanter Ivern since it's passive is entirely damage. It's also a mythic which means it locks you into the ‎ specialist playstyle, giving you much less flexibility. MOBILITY BOOTS Like Night Harvester, buying Mobility Boots makes one aspect of Ivern's playstyle very strong while sacrificing the others, this time benefitting the ‎ catcher style. Buying mobis makes you very strong in the early game, and you're able to match more timers and traverse the jungle faster (which also speeds up your clear). However, they start falling off as early as Level 6, since you miss out on the Ability Haste and Summoner Spell Haste of Ionian Boots of Lucidity. RYLAI'S CRYSTAL SCEPTER Rylai's Crystal Scepter is good for exactly one thing: chasing people with Daisy!. Since Daisy's attacks are treated as spell damage, Rylai's slow applies to every hit. The problem is that it's far too one dimensional and the enemy team can just focus Daisy, making the item useless. Ivern doesn't even have issues with chasing people in the first place, and it only makes a big difference for people who aren't microing Daisy properly.

As Ivern, there's only one really viable first clear. However, there are countless variations of that same clear that can be used to adapt to new information, making it extremely flexible.

For this section, I've include 3 different levels of Ivern's first clear variations. Move onto the next level once you're comfortable with the contents of the previous ones.

Level 1: Basic First ClearBeginner Level 2: Common AdaptationsIntermediate Level 3: Specialized PathingExpert Level 1 - Basic First Clear (Beginner) The base version of Ivern's main clear. When you're first starting out with Ivern, I'd recommend only using this path until you're comfortable with it. Once you have this one down, everything else will branch from it. Basic 1-Smite Fullclear: In the video, you'll notice I also used a Q trick with the blast cone. This is performed by attacking the blast cone, and then casting your Q as your attack is about to hit. If done right, you'll be able to collect both Wolves and Blue in quick succession (saves roughly 3-4 seconds). Once you're familiar with this clear, you're ready to start adapting it. For how to do that, move on to Level 2. Level 2 - Common Adaptations (Intermediate) The most common adaptation of the 1-Smite Fullclear is the 2-Smite Fullclear. Instead of clearing Red on your 2nd trip, smite it right after marking. 4 Camp Gank Path (gank comes out at roughly 2:40) The major advantage of clearing this way is that it opens up the opportunity for 4 camp ganks to top/mid on blueside and bot/mid on redside. There are 3 key reasons why early ganking is better with this path: Your Red is taken off the map, meaning it can't get stolen as a response to your gank. You have more health to work with, since you healed more off of clearing an extra camp. You have Red buff, which increases your power for the gank. Keep an eye on your laners as you're marking your camps for your first clear. If you notice them heavy trading, you can smite Red and look to gank. You only have to make the decision of whether to smite or not at 2:10, so use all of the time before that to gather information and discern whether a 4 camp gank is possible or not. Another common path that gets used often is the Red Invade Flank. To do this path, mark your blue-side as usual, and then run into the enemy jungle to smite their Red. Once you've done that, you can look for a flank on the enemy side lane through that side's tri-bush. To use this path effectively, there are 3 conditions that must be met: The enemy jungler starts Blue. The river pixel bush and their red-side jungle entrances aren't warded. The enemy top laner is contesting the lane. The main disadvantage of this path is that the enemy jungler gets free access to the other side of your jungle. This isn't that big of a deal if your gank works, but if it doesn't, you'll be set very far behind. Being able to accurately discern if this path will work takes experience, but can completely win a lane before 2:30 once mastered. Red Invade Flank (gank comes out at roughly 2:15) red invade flank example Olaf heavy trades level 1 and is able to crash the 2nd wave, which perfectly sets up the conditions for a dive. Once you've gotten used to the common variations and adapting your path, you're ready for the more obscure and situational paths in Level 3. Level 3 - Specialized Pathing (Expert) One of the more situational (but highly effective) paths is the Same-side Raptor Steal. This path is most effective against junglers who like to level 3 gank, but still can be used in most matchups. Mark your blue-side as usual, and then run into the enemy jungle and steal their raptors. Raptors Steal Path (this is the only viable way to do it) Unlike the Red Invade Flank, this one is safe to do on vision since the enemy jungler will be stuck on their krugs and won't be able to respond until it's too late. There are 2 conditions that need to be fulfilled for this path to work: The enemy jungler starts Red and paths to Krugs second (you can tell if you have a ward on their red since they'll kite up). Your mid laner has lane priority. This is important because if they're losing, the enemy jungle/mid can go directly to your raptors/red and take everything. A big reason why this path is so strong is because it forces both junglers onto the same side of the map and limits their options. This makes ganking junglers like Lee Sin or Elise who would normally be difficult to predict easily manageable. raptor steal full sequence example Using my Fiora's lane priority and Lissandra's power in early skirmishes, I decide to steal Viego's raptors since I know my red-side can be protected. This sequence ends up leading to a large camp lead and kill. Another advanced situational path is the 2-Smite Early Reset. This path looks almost identical to the 2-Smite Fullclear, but instead of smiting Red you smite Raptors. This secures a much faster 4:15 respawn for Raptors and saves your red buff for later. While you could do this in every game, there's only a few cases where it's actually worth it: There won't be any plays on the map, so you're planning on resetting immediately after taking Krugs. This makes it so you can start your 2nd rotation of camps much sooner after your reset. You plan on playing for mid lane level 4. While you won't have a smite charge for scuttle, you'll be able to easily mark raptors into reset after the fight mid, creating a more smooth sequence. Your mid laner is hard losing and you're afraid of your Raptors getting invaded. Since Red is in a safer and further position from mid lane, it's better to secure Raptors first, since it's more convenient to invade. Example path using an early reset. (gank comes out at roughly 3:40 with Aether Wisp) It's also worth noting that this path is significantly weaker after the Future's Market nerfs in 13.17. This is because you can no longer buy Ionian Boots of Lucidity from a fullclear, making your fast reset purchase be either Boots+ Dark Seal or Aether Wisp. While that's the end of my examples, there are still many other viable Ivern pathing variations to discover. Keep in mind that this is not an exhaustive list of paths (nor could it be, since nobody actually knows the limits of Ivern's pathing).

Remember that just knowing these paths doesn't really mean anything on it's own. It's important to also be able to accurately discern what's optimal to go for at any given moment. Ivern's clear hardly requires any input, so use your abundance of downtime to stalk all 3 lanes carefully. The key to the adaptive Ivern path is to change your path as you're executing it.

So we've gone over theory, builds, and clear, but I haven't actually addressed the most important part, which is how to put this stuff into practice. For this section, I want to talk about strictly practical advice on how to win jungle as Ivern.

I will once again be splitting this into 3 levels, each talking about increasing levels Ivern fundamentals.

Level 1: Basic GankingBeginner Level 2: CountergankingIntermediate Level 3: Tempo ManipulationExpert Level 1 - Ganking (Beginner) As we all know, ganking is one of the primary services that junglers provide to their team. In general, there are 4 main ways to approach a gank as Ivern before level 6: E on an ally who can go in This is the most reliable option for Ivern, since it allows you to reliably get your E slow off without overextending. This works best with champions who can go in unconditionally like Pantheon or Sylas. Irelia has plenty of dashes and ways to get onto her target, which makes Ivern's job simple. E yourself and walk in If you want to gank champions who can't easily deliver your E slow, you may have to do it yourself. This option requires you to have either Flash or a good flank from behind the enemy. The issue with this type of gank is that you leave yourself in a vulnerable position without shield, so it runs a big risk of getting counterganked. Since the enemy bot lane was overextended, I was able to walk in and cut them off with a self-shield. Ashe also helps by making it easier to catch up to them. Follow up your teammate's CC If you have a laner who can set up ganks with CC, you can have them initiate the gank and follow up with Q. This is most effective when ganking for mages since most of them won't be able to go in on their own. Twisted Fate's gold card is a very consistent way to set up ganks. Q and pray While it's the least reliable option, sometimes it's worth just trying to land Q from the beginning. The only consistent time where this works is if the enemy laner hasn't warded and is leaning towards the side of the lane that you're on. Since Quinn, a ranged top laner, has control of the bushes, Garen is naturally forced towards the bottom side of the lane which makes him easier to throw Q at from the river. Once you hit Level 6, ganking becomes much easier with Daisy!. This is because instead of having to either risk yourself or have a teammate who can deliver your E, Daisy can do it for you. Simply summon Daisy, put E on her, and then have her cut off the enemy's path. Level 2 - Counterganking (Intermediate) You may have realized this while reading the previous level, but Ivern is actually pretty bad at ganking. Without ideal teammates, he struggles to have a reliable method of ganking (much more so than other junglers). But what Ivern lacks in ganking power, he makes up for with counterganking. Not only is Ivern's E incredibly powerful in 2v2/3v3s, but Ivern's passive also makes him able to hover lanes while his groves are ticking. The most common method of counterganking is to identify vulnerable wave states. When looking to countergank, there are 2 main conditions: Your laner's wave meets at the enemy side, forcing them to walk up to get cs The enemy jungler is nearby and has a timer to gank If these conditions are met, chances are the jungler will gank, which sets you up in a position to counter. Hover off vision and wait for the enemy to waste their mobility spells, and then counter once they've overcommitted. The best thing about this scenario is that even if they don't gank, you've still gained value by allowing your laner to safely crash the wave and get out of the vulnerable spot. Outside of the main 2 conditions, there are other factors to consider that make a gank more likely. For example: The allied laner has low HP The enemy jungler is a champion who favors ganking like Rek'Sai or Elise The allied laner is a champion with low mobility like Twisted Fate or Lux An example of a countergank without vision. My Vayne had a vulnerable lane state with low HP, and I knew Zed would be nearby from tracking his clear. Level 3 - Tempo Manipulation (Expert) As any decent jungler will tell you, the jungle role is all about managing what you do with your time. If you skip your raptors to gank mid, it means the potential benefit of the gank must be greater than what you would gain by taking the camp. In other words, your time as a jungler is valuable because by choosing to influence the map, you're using time that could've been spent farming or resetting. Opportunity Cost: The loss of potential gain from other alternatives when one alternative is chosen. Because of this, it's usually more preferable to look for plays while your camps are respawning. You can think of a camp respawning as it passively generating value regardless of where you are. This makes it more preferable to clear camps when they're alive and look for plays to make while they're respawning. In short, the more camps you have respawning, the less opportunity cost you incur by ganking. Now let's look at Ivern. Since Ivern can clear camps without being on them, his main advantage comes from being able to spend his time at less of an opportunity cost. Instead of choosing between ganking or farming, he can gank while farming. This leads to three major benefits: If Ivern forces a response out of the enemy jungler, they lose more by showing up than he does. This makes scenarios like going even 1 for 1 on a skirmish still benefit Ivern more. This also applies to responding to a play that the enemy jungler makes. Ivern can afford to go for more low-value plays like fixing laners' wave states or clearing vision (which other junglers couldn't do since they lose too much) Ivern's pathing is a lot harder to track because he can gank on many different timings. While most junglers will clear into a gank, Ivern can gank during his clear, making him less predictable. Understanding these benefits and using them to your advantage is the key to success when playing Ivern in the jungle. Practical Examples: Good and Bad Pathing So now that I have the theory out of the way, let's get into how it is applied in practice. Let's go over 2 examples of Ivern paths and I'll explain why they're either good or bad: Note: Pathing is completely situational, so there's still instances where the example "bad path" would be better than the "good path". Instead of copying them camp for camp, try to implement these ideas into your own play. good vs bad pathing (both take a similar amount of time to execute) For context, the scenario in both of these games are the same. Both teams' junglers did full clears, got a scuttle crab, and reset with around 1100 gold each. With the second rotation of camps spawned, we're now deciding how to get ahead during the pivotal second clear. Bad Pathing First of all, I want to mention that this path isn't actually that terrible. The reason I chose this as my example is because it's a path that might work, but plays against Ivern's core strengths as a jungler. If I were to use a genuinely awful pathing example, there would be nothing to learn. An example of inefficient pathing. Path taken from one of my old replays (Diamond 2) With this path, the first thing that stands out is the time it takes to get the first gank out. Even with lucidity boots, marking all 4 camps and running mid takes around 42 seconds, which is enough time for most junglers to clear gromp -> wolves -> raptors at level 4. This means that during the gank, the cost for the enemy jungler to respond is low since they have 3 camps respawning, made even worse by the fact that the enemy jungler will be level 5 while Ivern's still at level 4. The second thing of note is how long the path is. At level 4, Ivern's passive takes 34 seconds to complete. This means that after marking a camp, you'd ideally want to make a path that returns to it close to 34 seconds later. By the time this path smites krugs, gromp and wolves are already finished, but it takes another 35-50 seconds to loop back around to clear them. These 35-50 seconds can be seen as "wasted value". To expand on this idea of wasted value, it's not that leaving the camps up is inherently bad, but it means that the gank mid would need to be greater in value than the camps you're leaving up. By having completed camps, the opportunity cost for ganking has increased since you now have to choose between clearing or ganking. In summary, this path is bad because by the time the gank comes out, the Ivern's presence has a high opportunity cost and the enemy jungler's presence has a low opportunity cost. If this play were to have gone even, Ivern loses more by being there. Good Pathing For this example, I picked the closest thing I could find to an optimal path from one of my replays. Now that we've seen an example that played against Ivern's strengths, let's observe what happens when you play towards them. An example of efficient pathing. Path taken from one of my recent replays (Challenger) The first major difference to spot is how quickly the first gank happens. I've opted to skip marking gromp to save time, and arrive mid in roughly 18 seconds. During that time, the enemy jungler could only finish gromp, so it would cost them a lot to respond to this play. On the other hand, I have 2 camps ticking during the gank, so the cost of my presence is extremely low. In practice, this means that I don't even need to gain much of an advantage for this gank to be considered successful. If the gank simply helped them get prio or created some pressure, it's still a win. This also means that if the gank results in a flash or kill, it's even better since it came at such a low cost. After the first gank, I walk over to the topside jungle and use smite on the gromp that I previously skipped. Having smite allows you to create "holes" in your path to get your ganks out faster, and is also why cosmic insight and lucidity boots are so great on Ivern. I'd talk about smite usage more, but I think it's a topic worth expanding on in it's own post. As for the second gank, the advantages of it come from being able to easily gank from either side of the mid lane. Since we've already given our mid laner an advantage with the first gank, they should have control of the wave to set us up for a second. I can either gank mid from topside after wolves with 2 camps respawning, or path to raptors and gank mid from botside with 3 camps respawning. For these reasons, this gank has a very high success rate for a still decently low opportunity cost.

Thanks for reading! This guide is still WIP, and there is a lot that still needs work, so I'll be updating it more over the next few days to add more examples, clean up the presentation, and finish the synergies section. For now though, if you enjoyed reading about Ivern, you can read more on ivern.io, my blog where I talk about Ivern concepts and tech.

Also follow me on Twitter. If you have anything specific that you want to ask me directly, I'm most likely to respond there.