Hello everyone. I'm Hazardis, but also go as Sieghardt in other games/accounts. I've been playing League since season 7 and peaked at Master 300-something LP seasons ago, until unhappiness with the game led me to take a long break from it.

I used to OTP Skarner before and up until his rework in 2024. Some readers might recognize me as the author who made the most upvoted and viewed Skarner guide on MOBAFire, from before he was reworked. I am also the creator of the award-winning guide for Yorick Jungle and the Mordekaiser Jungle guide that won first place in the most recent contest.

Since my original, pre-rework guide for Skarner was outdated from its conception due to the champion's visual and gameplay update, now I bring a new, completely up to date guide for him. He is currently one of the most underrated Jungle champions because of how constant nerfs last year altered player perception, but what many are not aware of is that he's as strong as ever, and his low playrate only aids this fact: your rivals will be less likely to know how to play against a good Skarner player nowadays, and my aim is to help turn you into one by the time you are done reading this guide.

The ancient, colossal brackern Skarner is revered in Ixtal as one of the founding members of its ruling caste, the Yun Tal. Devoted to keeping his nation safe from the rest of the world, Skarner dwells in a chamber beneath Ixaocan where he can hear the vibrations of the earth and detect potential threats. As more members of the Yun Tal begin questioning Ixtal's self-isolation, Skarner grows increasingly paranoid and will do anything to keep Ixtal and its people safe—no matter the cost. Skarner is one of the finest hybrids of the bruiser, juggernaut and tank classes in the game. His kit provides considerable amounts of Crowd Control that is very simple to apply on your targets, damage to finish off kills yourself, and durability to stay in fights for as long as any other tank in the game. His design allows for a mix of tank and Attack Damage bruiser items to be all viable to build, allowing you to adapt to situations where you need to deal more damage than usual, or survive for longer. His ultimate ability, Impale, is the only form of inflicting suppression on multiple targets in the game, making his threat levels relevant even when behind in terms of items or levels.

PROS + Easy to learn + Great scaling + Impactful Ganks + Strong into meta champions + Can itemize against any team Skarner's straightforward kit and role, plus his lack of complex ability combos, make him easy to learn both in terms of time and effort required to feel comfortable piloting him. His ability to bypass terrain means he's a real threat for enemy laners to be wary about, since he can pull of a Gank from unconventional angles at any time. By virtue of his standard items and runes, he's a scaling powerhouse that only becomes stronger as the game goes on, and keeps up with damage-oriented champions that do so as well. As you can get away with building any resistance item(s) if the need arises, he's extremely adaptive to any scenario and enemy team composition that you may run into.

P Q W E R

CONS - Lackluster damage - Slow and immobile - Weak dueling early - Reliant on landing abilities - Vulnerable to % Health damage Skarner has a hard time keeping up on his own in the first few minutes of the game in case a fight with the enemy Jungler breaks out in the river or in counterjungling, due to his long cooldowns, low damage and lack of mobility, which most skirmishers or assassins have more of in the early game. He also doesn't get to make use of Armor shred or penetration items like other Attack Damage bruisers do. Most of his impact comes from Crowd Control, which can be easy to miss sometimes against highly mobile targets and, in that case, you will be rendered vulnerable for a long window of time before your cooldowns come back up. He's also a common victim of items and abilities that hit harder against targets with high Health, such as Blade of the Ruined King and Vayne's Silver Bolts

Grasp of the Undying has been Skarner's main keystone since his rework due to how it matches the champion's intended playstyle: growing your Health as much as possible during the game and then turning those gains not only to added survivability, but also to more damage dealt with your abilities and items. Most importantly, it also opens up the resolve tree for you to take other extremely important runes that match Skarner and his builds better than any other. Additional notes: Spoiler: Click to view While it may not have an impact during fights as quickly as most other keystones in the game, it gives you something to do while your abilities are on cooldown, and also an extra reason to stay in extended fights.

Shield Bash will grant you non-negligible amounts of damage every time you gain a shield, mainly from Seismic Bastion and then Auto Attack any enemy champion shortly after. Given the ability's low cooldown later in the game and other sources of shielding you may have access to, such as Mosstomper Smite, the Mountain Soul and most enchanter supports, you can easily get many activations of it during the course of most of your games.

After 12 minutes have passed, you will passively earn enough bonus Armor and Magic Resistance to match, and even slightly exceed, the values of a Cloth Armor and half of a Null-Magic Mantle. These bonuses can only grow larger if you build any items that provide such resistance stats, which is likely to happen as your game goes on. It's a bit of extra survivability at little to no cost. Additional notes: Spoiler: Click to view It also buffs the true damage applied by your Jungle pet to monsters, as it scales with any bonus Armor and Magic Resistance you have.

Skarner's great scaling based on Health makes this rune a very attractive choice. It will add more value to clearing your Jungle camps and catching minion waves when you need to, as they will all add up to bonus Health that scales infinitely as long as you keep farming. This also means that any items you may have whose effects scale on Health, such as Heartsteel or Overlord's Bloodmail, will scale even better.

Magical Footwear will grant you Slightly Magical Boots through normal gameplay at minute 12, and even quicker into the game if you pull off any successful Ganks or Jungle skirmishes early in the game. Saving 300 gold on Boots while also getting an extra 10 Movement Speed out of them is simply too good to pass up on, as Skarner doesn't normally earn much bonus Movement Speed from other sources.

Approach Velocity helps you chase your targets better, and it will more often than not be your only source of bonus Movement Speed during fights, making it a necessity if you don't want to be outran by most champions. Additional notes: Spoiler: Click to view One hidden synergy between this rune and Skarner is that it will work while you have champions hit by Impale and you are running to the direction opposite to them, as Skarner himself will always be facing in the direction of your suppressed targets, thus meeting the activation condition of this rune.

For your rune shards, Adaptive Force and two shards of Health Scaling are the best for making your first couple of clears as quick as possible while also investing on your long-term scaling, which is Skarner's win condition. The lack of bonus Attack Speed will be quickly offset as soon as you purchase a Dagger.

In games where you won't build Trinity Force, swap the Adaptive Force shard with one of Attack Speed to make your Auto Attacks during farming and dueling feel fluid, stack Threads of Vibration slightly faster on enemy champions and help make sure you clear Wards in time before your Oracle Lens runs out, while also investing on your long-term scaling which is Skarner's win condition.

Scorchclaw Pup is the best Jungle pet choice for Skarner as its very strong Slow effect helps you catch up to targets and keep them Crowd Controlled for long enough for you and your team to do your work. It has great synergy with Skarner's kit given how easy it is to apply on any nearby champion that is within range of Seismic Bastion's area of effect, but it can also hit from longer range if you throw the boulder from Shattered Earth on a target further away.

Mosstomper Seedling is a backup choice of Jungle pet in games where you need to be more more cautious than offensive. Its bonus shielding will help you stay alive for longer in fights and can prevent your Health being chunked down before you've even entered the fight, if the enemy has long range poke abilities, damaging traps, and global ultimates. Another good aspect of running this pet is that it synergizes very well into Shield Bash for a bit of extra damage, and also with Spirit Visage in the event that you build it as well.

Flash is a necessary evil that you have to run in all of your games due to the fact that almost all of your opponents will have it too, because of its versatility: it helps you chase, escape, line up to hit and dodge important skillshots, and simply outplay opponents in endlessly creative ways. Not having it yourself would mean that your rivals will have more tools than you to respond to your engages, and that if you ever get caught out in a bad position with your abilities on cooldown, you wouldn't be able to escape at all.

Passive: Threads of Vibration Skarner's Auto Attacks on-hit, Shattered Earth, and Impale apply a stack of Quaking to enemies hit for 4 seconds, refreshing on subsequent applications and stacking up to 3 times. Enemies afflicted with 3 stacks take magic damage equal to「5% – 9.47% (based on level) of their maximum Health over the duration, capped at 100 – 323.53 (based on level) against monsters.」

Q: Shattered Earth Skarner rips a boulder from the ground, empowering up to three of his next Auto Attacks within 5 seconds of each other. These attacks gain 25 bonus range, bonus Attack Speed, and deal bonus physical damage to the target and surrounding enemies, including structures. The final attack slams the boulder, dealing an additional 11% of each target's maximum Health as physical damage and Slowing afflicted enemies by 40% for 1 second. The additional damage is capped against monsters and is not applied against structures. After 0.5 seconds of the cast, Skarner gains the ability to use Upheaval during Shattered Earth. Casting Shattered Earth resets Skarner's Auto Attack timer. Shattered Earth's duration is paused during Ixtal's Impact.

W: Seismic Bastion Skarner slams his claws into the ground, shielding himself equal to 8% of his maximum Health for 2.5 seconds and releasing a shockwave that quickly expands in a radius around him to deal magic damage to enemies hit and Slow them by 20% for 1 second. Skarner can move during Seismic Bastion's cast time.

E: Ixtal's Impact Skarner charges forward in the direction of the cursor for up to 2.75 seconds, during which he gains Slow immunity, becomes ghosted, ignores terrain collision, and has unobstructed vision of the surrounding 650 units. He automatically navigates his movement along the way and is able to steer himself with a slow turn rate that increases over time, resetting upon changing direction. Ixtal's Impact can be recast after 1 second, and does so automatically after the duration. Skarner begins the charge at a static amount of 150 Movement Speed that increases by 100 every 0.264 seconds, up to 950 total Movement Speed by the end of the duration. If Skarner collides with an enemy champion or large monster, he grabs them with his claws for the time of the remaining charge, attaching them to himself, suppressing them, revealing them, increasing the charge's turn rate to the maximum, and gaining 300 bonus Movement Speed, with a minimum total of 650 and a maximum total of 1150. If a target has been grabbed before the first 1.75 seconds of the charge, the remaining duration is set to 1 second, and set to 0.5 seconds otherwise. The charge does not ramp up in speed while a target is grabbed. Recast: Skarner ends Ixtal's Impact. If a target has been grabbed, he detaches them from himself. Ixtal's Impact ends immediately if Skarner becomes immobilized or grounded, or is affected by any form of cast-inhibiting crowd control, during the charge. The grabbed target is detached if this occurs. While the target is grabbed, they are attached to Skarner 200 units in front of him.

R: Impale Skarner winds up his stingers over the cast time, then lashes them forward in an isosceles trapezoid in the target direction, dealing magic damage to enemies hit and impaling up to 3 of the closest enemy champions within the area to suppress them for 1.5 seconds. While suppressed, the targets are revealed and attached to Skarner. If he successfully impales at least one enemy champion, Skarner gains 40% bonus Movement Speed for the same duration. If Impale is cast during Shattered Earth, Skarner automatically casts Upheaval in the direction of Impale's cast. Skarner is unable to Auto Attack, cast Shattered Earth or Ixtal's Impact, or use Flash during Impale. While the targets are impaled, they are attached to Skarner 300 units in front of him. Targets are placed 200 units in the same direction at the end of the effect.

When it comes to the sequence in which to learn these abilities throughout the game, there's only one that makes sense for Skarner Jungle. It optimizes his clear speed and fighting prowess by also matching the order of your abilities from most used to least used throughotu the game.
Taking Shattered Earth at level 1 is an absolute must because your clear speed would suffer considerably without it. It is the lowest cooldown ability in Skarner's kit and also his main source of damage. Learning Seismic Bastion second helps keep your Health levels competitive during your clear and also speed it up a bit with more damage. Take Ixtal's Impact at level 3 so that you can transition into the next Jungle quadrant quicker, and also to have your main Ganking tool available before you're done with a full clear, just in case.

Skarner has a few combos to optimize the use of his abilities, his damage output and the amount of time he gets to keep his targets under Crowd Control.

Shattered Earth + Upheaval Simply throwing the boulder at a target by recasting Shattered Earth becomes useful in situations where you need to poke for damage in fights, Slow down enemies that are chasing or fleeing, and also to hunt for enemies under stealth such as Teemo during Guerrilla Warfare or Qiyana in her Bush Edge of Ixtal.

Shattered Earth + 2 Auto Attacks + Upheaval Your main combo to use during farm and slow-paced fights against champions involves preparing Shattered Earth, spending 2 of its charges with normal Auto Attacks and then finishing off with a recast, rather than attacking again. What this accomplishes is to get Threads of Vibration fully stacked on your target and the ability's cooldown to begin ticking down as soon as possible, saving you seconds that stack up to a lot of time through all of your Jungle clears.

Shattered Earth + Ixtal's Impact + 1 Auto Attack + Upheaval Prepare Shattered Earth before trying to engage on an enemy champion with Ixtal's Impact. Then, Auto Attack once and immediately recast to throw the boulder at him, because you will normally not have enough time to attack more before the Crowd Control has wore off. This way, you can at least guarantee that he will remain Slowed shortly after and vulnerable to follow up from you.

Shattered Earth + 1 Auto Attack + Impale In situations where you have time to set up before casting your ultimate, use Shattered Earth and one Auto Attack first. This will add two stacks of Threads of Vibration onto your target, which will fully stack once you land Impale. The last use of Shattered Earth will be spent automatically for a guaranteed hit on any suppressed targets in front of you, maximizing your damage.

Ixtal's Impact towards your team + Impale Whenever you have a good angle for it, try to aim the finishing part of Ixtal's Impact towards the side of the map that you're playing on, in order to push the target you lock on to the area of one of your turrets or your teammates. If successful, follow up with Impale to push them even closer to them, and most importantly, to leave Skarner's champion model on the side that your enemy is likely to flee towards, giving you time to dish out more Auto Attacks and have your opponent in a compromised position.

Even if you don't purchase it directly, the game will set Stealth Ward as your trinket by default after you leave the base, and is always the best trinket to take at the start anyway. You will get one charge of it right away, and you'll gain another by the time you can Recall for the first time.

Additional notes:

When you take Scorchclaw Pup as adviced, on top of dealing a bit of extra damage, you will be able to apply a very heavy Slow on any target you hit with any ability once your Jungle quest is done. This is the better path to follow as Skarner rather than a fully defensive Jungle pet, since you already have enough tankiness and can make up for your low Movement Speed through runes and items, so you need as many offensive tools as possible.

Mosstomper Seedling is viable in games where you really need to be as durable as possible. The most common scenario for this is when all 4 of your laners picked non-frontline champions, so you will be the only one tanking damage in the front for the team. It also finds good value when you are up against 2 or more poke-reliant champions like Xerath, Teemo and Jayce, to help you stay high on Health as much as possible even if you tank a few poke abilities before a fight for an objective.

If you are rushing Trinity Force, the component to prioritize will always be Phage due to the different forms of value that it will provide you: the bonus Attack Damage and Health will add to your tankiness but also increase your clearing speed as well as dueling power, and the 20 bonus Movement Speed whenever you Auto Attack makes a noticeable difference when it comes to kiting camps and chasing enemy champions.

Hearthbound Axe is generally best purchased after you have completed Phage, but it can be a good pickup on your first Recall if you managed to get one or two kills early and have enough gold for it and a Ruby Crystal, or also if you prefer to get bonus Attack Speed as quickly as possible in the game for the sake of fluidity when attacking.

When you are sure that your first item purchase will be Protoplasm Harness or Heartsteel, grabbing a Giant's Belt first is the way to go. 350 bonus Health are noticeably powerful for a part of the game where your enemies are unlikely to be dealing high damage, and since Skarner's damage also scales with his bonus Health, the difference in damage compared to when you buy Phage won't be as large as you may think.

Trinity Force is the core item you will be building most often if you're following the main build of this guide. It provides everything Skarner needs to spike early: Attack Speed to make his Auto Attacks and stack his passive faster, Attack Damage to scale Shattered Earth and Ixtal's Impact, Health to add to his tankiness and scale all of his abilities, Ability Haste to get his cooldowns lowered enough to make Shattered Earth spammable, and Movement Speed on-hit to help him kite and chase his targets.

Additional notes:

Protoplasm Harness is one of the tank items that best fit Skarner in the entire game. The sheer amount of Health and Ability Haste you get from it at the mere cost of 2500 gold represent an immediate powerspike that can be felt throughout the entire duration of the game. On top of that, its passive helps you stay alive for longer in fights as long as you play around it when you are facing heavy burst champions, and it keeps scaling when you build other items that provide Health, Armor or Magic Resistance.

Additional notes:

Heartsteel got buffed recently and is back into a playable state, when the right conditions to build it are met. The lesser damage output compared to builds composed of Trinity Force or Titanic Hydra is very noticeable, so it's an item you should seek to build around only in games where your win condition is staying alive for as long as possible in teamfights, and especially if the game seems likely to go into the late game due to the presence of several scaling champions.

Additional notes:

Plated Steelcaps is the go-to purchase when the enemy Jungler (or the majority of champions on the enemy team) is an Attack Damage champion, which only becomes more efficient against Auto Attack-heavy champions like Viego, Xin Zhao or Briar. They are the highest winrate boots on Skarner and for good reason, since the % damage resistance stacks up nicely with all the bonus Health he gains from items and runes.

Mercury's Treads will become a must in situations where the enemy team has several, strong abilities that apply hard Crowd Control and, with Skarner spending most of the time at the frontline tanking the enemy attacks, you are likely to be hit by often. The 30 Tenacity will help you greatly to stay on top of targets so you can dish out your damage reliably, and the small bonus to Magic Resistance is a nice plus as well.

Boots of Swiftness are best purchased to counter strong Slow abilities or effects. Think of enemy team having Singed, Cassiopeia or Mordekaiser building Rylai's Crystal Scepter, or Nasus and Anivia. Since Skarner is normally far below the Movement Speed cap, the extra speed you get from these compared to other boots will never go to waste anyway.

Titanic Hydra is both an amazing stat stick and quality of life improvement on Skarner despite its high cost. The way all of its bonus Health interacts not only with your abilities but also with its own passive effect translates into a considerable boost to your damage output, but most importantly, its active provides an Auto Attack reset mechanic that is useful for several situations: you get to spend all of Shattered Earth's charges and fully stack Threads of Vibration on your target way quicker thanks to it, and also clear up Wards slightly faster with only a 10 seconds cooldown.

Unending Despair is the better tank item to build second when Armor is a valuable stat to purchase early on, like when the enemy Jungler is an Attack Damage champion. It serves as a good stat stick all around, and its sustain passive can prove very valuable through the course of the game, especially if you are facing a somewhat tanky enemy team comp where fights are likely to go for an extended time on every engage.

Additional notes:

Spirit Visage is the best Magic Resistance item to buy second when, contrary to the case where building Unending Despair second is ideal instead, the enemy team has mostly Ability Power champions that you need to itemize against. One upside of this item is that it also works to some degree against Attack Damage champions on Skarner as it passively increases the shielding you gain when using Seismic Bastion, and earns further value if your team's support happens to be an enchanter who can shield or heal you.

Additional notes:

When you rush Heartsteel, you also open up the opportunity to buy Frozen Heart as your second item. With the large pool of Health you would be gaining from your first item, it's fine to take this great stat stick that will massively boost your Armor and overall durability against Attack Damage champions by debuffing their Attack Speed with no further input necessary from you, besides playing fights normally. The bonus Ability Haste also helps offset not having any after having finished Heartsteel, one of the major downsides of rushing that item normally.

In matchups where you need a form of Grievous Wounds to counter your rival's strong sustain, mostly when you're against Warwick or Briar, picking up a Bramble Vest after your first item is a good idea since you will need it eventually anyway, and spending 800 gold for it early lets you forget about it for the time being while meeting an important need. Look to upgrade it into Thornmail only after you're done with the rest of your build, and check the items of your teammates to see if they have purchased any Grievous Wounds items themselves to decide whether to spend gold on it further, or swap it out for a more useful item.

Additional notes:

Critical Attack damage has been buffed considerably for this new season, making most ADC marksmen but also some Junglers like Graves, Kindred and even Master Yi stronger by default. To help counter their extreme damage, Randuin's Omen is your best option. The active Slow is useful once you get on top of your enemies when engaging, helping you keep them Crowd Controlled easier and for longer than usual.

Overlord's Bloodmail is a great item for snowballing if you came out ahead in the early and the midgame, providing a massive boost to your Attack Damage that works passively and only gets better if you are fighting while on low Health. Given its high cost and the fact that it provides no resistances or Ability Haste, I can only recommend building it in games where you are ahead and your team isn't in dire need of more tankiness from you to play teamfights front-to-back.

Force of Nature is better purchased when you're up against two or more Ability Power champions that thrive on extended fights, such as Swain or Cassiopeia. Even though you will rarely find yourself in games where they are the main threat on the enemy team, it's still good to keep this item in mind even if you have already built Spirit Visage beforehand.

Jak'Sho, The Protean is the best item to finish out almost any build you can put together. By the time you have to purchase your 5th and final item, you should have stacked a decent amount of Armor and Magic Resistance, which only get increased further by Conditioning, meaning that this item's passive offers great value and will accomplish its function of keeping you alive through the extreme damage that is being dealt by enemy champions in the very late game.

Additional notes:

Knight's Vow is a good support item to fall back on if you have a reliable teammate who's carrying the game, and especially if they are the only damage-focused champion on your team and your win condition revolves around them staying alive in fights. Its stats are nothing impressive, but its extremely low price can help you powerspike earlier than usual in the midgame and also be better prepared for any upcoming teamfights for objectives.

Kaenic Rookern performs best when you're facing Ability Power champions that rely on gaining a Health advantage for their team through poke or trap damage before fights as their win condition. If you find yourself against champions like Teemo, Nidalee, Vel'Koz or Xerath, picking this up will help you stay healthier when you are contesting an area for zone control before and during teamfights, since you will more often than not be getting hit by their abilities as you traverse through the map to close distance to them.

Zeke's Convergence is one of the most underrated tank items in the current season. What makes it strong is the amount of stats you get for an extremely low cost of 2200 gold, and a considerably lower cooldown on Impale. It's a good pickup in games where mixed resistances are needed and teamfights are bound to happen often, and thus, you need your ultimate available as quickly as possible after every use.

Bandlepipes gives you a lot of utility as you will be guaranteed a permanent buff during champion combat granting you extra Movement Speed and Attack Speed, which also extends to your allies. You will feel your Auto Attacks to spend Shattered Earth more fluid to hit not only because you're attacking faster, but also because you're moving faster during the fight compared to what it usually is like.

Additional notes:

In this section, I will offer more detailed information and tips on several matchups on the basis of them being more common in certain elos, the champion having standout interactions with Skarner or me having more experience against them in my own games.

Bel'Veth excels against targets she can hit uninterrupted by Crowd Control and that can't kite away from her reliably, and Skarner is only halfway there from being able to do both. Unlike with Master Yi though, the Slows from your abilities will be of use and you can play around that to survive the matchup. Her reliance on landing Above and Below if she wants to gap close to you means that you should let her be the one engaging if she's ahead in terms of power, or if you're being outnumbered. If she has to spend her Above and Below charges to flee from you after a successful engage, then you will be in an extremely comfortable position to play out the fight from. A good part of her damage output comes from Royal Maelstrom, and luckily this ability gets hard countered by Armor items that have direct effects against Auto Attacks, such as Randuin's Omen and Frozen Heart. With these items, situational awareness and patience, she can be handled in teamfights. If you have to play defensively, do your best to land Impale on her even if she's the only target, and drag her away from your teammates so that she will have to reengage and be vulnerable for longer.

Brand is potentially more of a headache than Morgana herself, since one could argue that at least against her, simply dodging Dark Binding reduces her threat tremendously and you can proceed to walk up to her without much issue other than her brief immunity to Crowd Control with Black Shield, but Brand's power lies in Rylai's Crystal Scepter and he's pretty much guaranteed to land at least one persistent damage ability on you, namely Conflagration, although the rest of his abilities are easy to land on a sluggish, dashless champion like Skarner. Since these abilities apply damage constantly through his passive Blaze, they leave you permanently Slowed similar to what you can do to enemies, except you have to be in melee and constantly attacking; he can do this from the safety of long range. As you can realize, this makes getting up to enemies, keeping up with them and even moving at all more difficult than normal and it's the reason why a mix of Slow resist on items as well as Magic Resistance are a must. I recommend Boots of Swiftness while completely ignoring Mercury's Treads, since the Tenacity doesn't help at all in this case. It's also one of the few matchups where Force of Nature is undeniably the best tank item to take, and you may even pair it with Dead Man's Plate - if you also need Armor items - to make extra sure that Brand can't single-handedly put you out of the game.

Gwen is never weaker than you be it in duels or in full-on teamfights, and easily outsustains you as well as being capable of bypassing any Magic Resistance you build. She's unlikely to engage on you unless you are very out of position or outnumbered, but still, since most of her damage comes from melee range fighting, you put yourself at a certain disadvantage every time you engage on her, saving her the effort of having to approach you. For this reason, you should never look to fight her alone and much less if you are even or behind in items compared to her. Assess if any of your teammates are nearby, if any of her teammates are nearby, what level she is compared to yours, how many items does she currently have compared to yours, and what objectives are nearby before committing on any engage on her. Once you have gone in and spent some of your cooldowns trying to damage and Crowd Control her, it's a sensible idea to kite away from her a little until your abilities are back because she's much better than Skarner in an extended fight, mostly thanks to the way Conqueror and Riftmaker work, and also since keeping her on the move can force her out of Hallowed Mist, opening good angles for your teammates to attack from safe distances. You may also want to secure some Slow resist from your items to make sure her Needlework doesn't keep you in place, since that's how she tends to set up her combo.

At the time of writing, Shadow Assassin Kayn is so objectively underpowered that the chances of any rival Junglers on Kayn that take it is extremely low, so this advice will mostly apply against Rhaast Kayn. On this form, all 5 of his abilities will prove extremely strong against Skarner: The Darkin Scythe lets him heal back some damage he has inflicted according to his target's maximum Health; Reaping Slash is a two-fold damage ability that also makes him dash over walls; Blade's Reach is an AoE Crowd Control ability that knocks up and is very difficult to dodge for a sluggish champion like Skarner; Shadow Step lets him go through any terrain freely, offering a clear counterplay to any stuns you may land against terrain with Ixtal's Impact; and his ultimate, Umbral Trespass, is a mix of all of those effects, plus temporary invulnerability. With this toolkit, Kayn is virtually immune to ever being pinned down by Skarner and much less killed, as his mobility and sustain can outdo your damage regardless of the skill of the players involved. Still, he's relatively weak at the beginning of the game, so your best hope to win this matchup is to make sure he doesn't get out of the laning phase with too sizable of a gold advantage. You are to achieve this by counterganking, but you must keep in mind that he benefit tremendously from any extended fights against you, since a champion like Skarner will drop red orbs when he damages you, massively accelerating his form adquisition. Play for short fights and only engage if he's outnumbered. Prioritize building Armor after you are done with your first core item too.

Shaco players these days tend to build either Ability Power or Attack Damage unpredictably, so I'll give tips for each. Against Ability Power Shaco, you want to play fights aggressively because they play around Jack In The Box and Two-Shiv Poison for the bulk of their damage, disengaging from you while you're Slowed and dealing with the traps. The good news about this is that if you're the one going ahead activating all the traps by yourself, then your teammates won't have to worry about them and you should remain healthy despite this if you are building Magic Resistance, as you should be. With this said, the real threat of this Shaco playstyle is the Hallucinate clone explosion dealing massive damage in area, and your only way of dealing with this is to either lure the clone away from your team - or drag it if it gets caught up in Impale - and try to kill it in a relatively safe area: that is, away from enemies that can follow up while you are feared. For Attack Damage Shaco, you can expect a more aggressive playstyle with him trying to stick on you to Auto Attack, much like most other assassins do. In this case, the matchup is much more straightforward and you will do just fine by buying a good amount of Armor to survive his initial damage, since he can't do much else other than try and burst you down in a couple of seconds.

Teemo's only tools to disrupt you are the blindness from Blinding Dart and the strong Slow from Noxious Trap, and he struggles a lot in teamfights but can be threatening in duels, or in small skirmishes during the early game. After the laning phase is over, he's more than likely to go around the map's Bushes both in the neutral parts of the river and inside your own Jungle quadrants to plant his mushrooms, which will not only deal decent damage on you or your teammates who activate them, but they will also grant vision of the affected champions to his whole team for a few seconds. The key to deal with his abilities is to grab Tenacity from Mercury's Treads, and Kaenic Rookern to tank the poke damage from any Noxious Traps you activate traversing the map. By the time you are done building these, you should be capable of tanking any amount of damage he can dish out and also to survive his Crowd Control, as to not be too disrupted by him in fights. During the short time you spend blinded by Blinding Dart, avoid Auto Attacking him directly like normal; instead, if you have Shattered Earth prepared already, recast it to throw the boulder at him - the Blind condition doesn't affect Upheaval and this will Slow him while the effect wears off of you.

Trundle gets to steal an important chunk of your stats via Chomp and Subjugate. This forces you to default to a reactive playstyle throughout the game, as he can easily turn a fight around if he can counterengage and catch you in the middle of a skirmish or teamfight being targeted by his allies, or if you two are alone. The good news is that Trundle himself relies on closing the gap to melee to do most of his work, so be patient and let him try to engage first most of the time. If you can catch him before he has used Subjugate, that is, before he gets to inflate his stats by stealing them from you, you should fully commit on him in an attempt to keep him Crowd Controlled for as long as possible during this window of opportunity, and chunk down at least part of his Health to dissuade him from turning the fight around. His Pillar of Ice is really tricky for Skarner to get away from if you don't have Ixtal's Impact available, or if you don't have a clear angle to use it without Trundle himself blocking your path to safety. It's important to build both Frozen Heart and Randuin's Omen in this matchup; he will steal a good part of your Armor, but he can't steal the anti- Auto Attack properties of those items, which will help you remain durable against him after you're under the effects of Subjugate.

Much like Shaco, Udyr players will unpredictably build either Attack Damage or Ability Power, although the latter is less common these days. If he's building Attack Damage, make sure to build more Armor items than usual in order to survive his awakened Wilding Claw, the main threat of his build; he can burst you down easily with it 1v1 regardless of how much Health you may have - this is especially true if he's building any Lethality items as well. Ability Power Udyr is more of a juggernaut such as yourself, because its strength lies in teamfighting and disrupting your teammates heavily. Even though you will rarely have enough damage to deal with him alone before he can disengage, you can at least defend your backline from him by standing between them and him, keeping him Slowed and Crowd Controled at a safe distance from your ranged carries. Against either build, you should be wary of his awakened Blazing Stampede which turns him unstoppable and, as you can guess, immune to being Crowd Controlled in any way; never try to Impale him if you see the red bar indicating that his awakened abilities are available.

You can think of Volibear as another Ability Power fighter that keeps up with you very well just like Gwen, since the matchup plays out very similarly. Unless you catch him with low Health, I advice to not try to ult him since Stormbringer turns him unstoppable for a couple of seconds, and thus, invulnerable to being taken by Impale. On top of that, try to save your offensive abilities for after he's casted Sky Splitter and use them after the circle of storm lands on the ground, in order to avoid its potentially high damage, especially if Volibear is building Ability Power, and also to prevent its strong Slow from disrupting your repositioning during Impale and your normal kiting. Getting a Grievous Wounds item, at least an early Bramble Vest, will be necessary if you ever wish to be able to deal with him. It is a nice idea to build tank items with the sole purpose of disrupting him in fights to prevent him from going frenzy on you and your teammates, such as Frozen Heart to slow down his Auto Attacks and his ability to fully stack The Relentless Storm quickly; Randuin's Omen to Slow him further so he can't close the gap to your backline, and such.

HOW TO GANK: Learning the blind vision spots is of utmost importance when it comes to approaching a lane quickly. Stick to the walls if you're approaching from the river, and pop your Oracle Lens as you enter the river without waiting; if the river Bush is warded and the enemy faelights are active, you will be warned about it before you even reach the Bush. If this happens, now you know to either clear the ward as soon as you approach it, or bypass it and keep running towards the enemy laner in hopes of catching them before they react to your Gank, but do bear in mind that you will have been seen coming from earlier than usual. Ixtal's Impact is best used outside of vision from beyond walls near to the lane you are approaching, as to catch the enemy laner by surprise.

WHEN TO GANK: As Skarner, your Ganks are strong from the very moment you unlock Ixtal's Impact which allows you to approach the enemy laners from creative angles and at the very least force their summoner spells out. Even though this is a viable option, you should aim to complete a full clear of your Jungle as outlined above and, after the first Rift Scuttler spawns and is killed (2:55) is when you are free to think about Ganking the nearby sidelane or at the very least hover around it to be ready and countergank the enemy Jungler if they show up before you Recall for your first item purchases.

WHOM TO GANK: I really advice you to not waste any time ganking any laner that has died before 3 minutes, or that by the 10 minutes mark has at least 3 deaths; that's all the proof you need that they don't know how to lane properly and that they're not worth trusting with any resources. You're better off focusing on lanes near live objectives who are also even or not losing by too much, and especially in volatile matchups (melee vs melee, etc). Since my most adviced pathing involves clearing the Jungle towards bot side from the start of the game, the majority of your Ganks should and will be happening in your bot lane, where you have higher chances of success thanks to the presence of a support that can help set you up with Crowd Control or baiting fights as you approach.

JUNGLE TRACKING: In this season, tracking the enemy Jungler has lost relevancy given the discrepancy between the spawn of the first objectives in the game; however, you should still be mindful of where your counterpart is at all moments in the early game so that you can prepare your plays properly or react to theirs in an intelligent manner. At the spawn of the first Rift Scuttler is when you will find out for sure where the enemy Jungler started their clear, and if he started on the same side of the map as you did for the first clear, he will remain on the same side as you for most of the first 10 minutes of the game, assuming that 1) you are focusing diligently on farming, and 2) he hasn't wasted too much time hovering around mid or the sidelanes while his camps have respawned and are still alive. Use this information to ping your laners intelligently to warn of his presence and potential Ganks, and to assess when you should try to be on the lookout for plays in your lanes.

I advice to clear towards the bot lane in every single game, since the first objective to spawn is always the Dragon, at 5 minutes in the bot lane river. At the very start of the game, you should move to the Jungle quadrant opposite to the one you start and drop a Stealth Ward near the pit where Crimson Raptor spawn if you're playing on blue side, or on the faelight spot in the river Bush if you're playing on red side. This is to defend against vertical jungling from the enemy Jungler, so that you're not caught by surprise and can respond appropriately, while also revealing his location to your laners.


A full clear of your Jungle (6 camps + Rift Scuttler) is the most advisable strategy for your initial clear, and you should always do it leashless so ping your teammates away and give them an optimal start to the game instead of having them waste time leashing for you. Be wary of possible enemy invades or counterjungling while you're still in the first quadrant. The most consistent route, and my personal favorite, is to do Red Brambleback -> Ancient Krug -> Crimson Raptor, then moving on to the opposite quadrant to clear Murk Wolf -> Gromp -> Blue Sentinel, and then finish by taking or contesting the Rift Scuttler.


Note that when clearing the second quadrant, you want to stick to the logic of clearing the smaller camps before taking the buff camp. This is for the sake of making their respawn timers be as close to each other as possible, so when you go back to clear them again, you won't have to wait around for either of them to finish respawning, and be as quick and fluid as possible.


Below is how it's done when you're playing from the red side of the map instead. The same order logic applies, so you will do Red Brambleback -> Krugs -> Crimson Raptor -> Murk Wolf -> Gromp -> Blue Sentinel -> Rift Scuttler.


Analyze the state of your lanes after you are done taking the Rift Scuttler. If the sidelane or mid lane don't seem easy to Gank, take the downtime to explore the enemy Jungler's quadrant to gain vision of taken camps and blow the Scryer's Bloom that spawns on it, then decide on whether you will hover around for long enough to move to where you began your clear and take that quadrant camps' second spawn, or just Recall to spend your gold.

You can be proactive with Ganks at any point of the game once you have learned Ixtal's Impact, but at level 6 when you have unlocked Impale, your potential to catch enemy laners out of position and pressure fights will increase considerably. It is at this point when you should look to impact a lane or river fight while it's not on cooldown, then retreat back to farming while you wait for it to be back up. If the enemy Jungler is a champion that relies on their ultimate ability for their Gank prowess, such as Nocturne, be assured that they will try to Gank the lane closer to them after they're done clearing their camps after Recalling; if you are mirroring them because of having started on the same side of the map, you should preemptively hover near your laners after you're done farming or even before, in order to be ready to countergank.

When the Dragon is alive or the next one is coming up, move to the bot side to gain vision control around it and prepare an ambush on any approaching enemies with smart uses your Oracle Lens and Control Wards. If the Voidgrub or Rift Herald are alive or coming up, play around top side on your next rotation. Your support should always move to prepare as well, so ping them to come. If they move, you can afford to be aggressive when looking to plant vision or catch the enemy Jungler to secure an advantage for the objective; if they don't move, be more conservative as you may even have to forfeit the objective fight completely.

In losing situations, when you are at an items and experience disavantage and your team lost all of the Tier 1 towers, go into your own Jungle more carefully from there on. Nevertheless, it is really important that you do your best to keep your CS numbers as high as possible since you have to keep up with the enemy solo laners being really high level on average.

Your own laners are likely to abandon minion waves on the sidelanes sometimes, and it'll be your job to catch them to prevent enemy pushes, and to gain these gold and experience resources for yourself. Always keep an eye for these waves being pushed too close to your turrets, and if no allies seem on their way to capture them, prioritize going there yourself over your own camps and even more so if you have built Titanic Hydra, which allows you to clear and push waves extremely quick.

Once the late game kicks in (when the average champion level in the game is equal or above 13) is when hypercarry champions such as Master Yi, Kayle, Kassadin etc begin outscaling most other champions and can melt you down solo regardless of how durable you are. Your attitude towards proactive or reactiveness will depend on the presence of such champions on the enemy team, and you shouldn't be looking to initiate fights 1v1 if they have champions that can kill you much faster than you can kill them, even if you land all of your Crowd Control on them.

Stick with your team's most important carry and look to catch targets in the sidelanes before an objective, and prioritize being as early as possible to the side of the map where the next objective will spawn. Skarner can create angles to catch enemies off guard very easily when everyone is moving to plant and clear vision before an upcoming objective, and preparing ambushes in the Jungle at the right time can quickly turn the tides of a losing game, or solidify your lead while you are winning; the enemy team will know this, so even if you can't get kills during this setup then you can at least help your teammates control the vision and space for the upcoming fight.

If the enemy team has champions that scale equally to you, or get outscaled, you can be more aggressive when trying to close out the game. Forcing fights in the mid lane is sure to attract everyone to come contest it, and you can have the upper hand during this by looking to catch any enemy squishies out of position to either get kills on them or force their summoner spells, which will give you and your team a temporary advantage to push waves and take turrets or objectives more comfortably.

Farm becomes less important the more minutes have passed into the game, so if you find yourself with 3+ items already, it is intelligent to bypass a few camps or even an entire Jungle quadrant to go straight into an area where you are needed the most, such as a fight breaking out in the lanes or the river.

Thank you for making it to the end of my Skarner guide. I hope that it offered you wit h up-to-date information and tips on how to find success when you play as him in the Jungle, as it has done for me.

Skarner is relatively untouched in terms of direct balance changes from patch to patch, but there are several items from the tank class that receive consistent attention from the balance team throughout the year, so my plans to keep this guide updated will mostly consist of swapping out good items that become bad to build, bringing in new items that become good to buy on Skarner, and finding new combinations that make for strong, versatile builds while not becoming too off-meta.