DO NOT JUST USE THE CHEAT SHEET AT THE TOP. YOU WILL FAIL IF YOU DO NOT READ THE WHOLE GUIDE

AD Quintessences, AD Marks, Flat MR Glyphs, Flat Armor Yellows.

Flat armor Reds, Yellows, and Blues. HP regen/5 Quints

Attack Speed reds, AD quints, MR blues, Armor yellows

Trap Masteries That You Shouldn't Take

vs

This is a popular argument and there's a lot of debate over which is actually better on Jax, but it really all comes down to lane matchup. If your opponent is someone with high mobility and lots of blinks, it could be beneficial to run Ghost in order to chase them down. Flash is really nice against things that like to jump onto you to deal damage, such as Irelia or Zed.



I typically bring Ignite as my second summoner simply for the damage in lane. Sometimes it can turn the tide of a fight or let you pick up clutch under-tower kills.


Always take this when jungling.


Exhaust is very strong on Jax and gives him even more dueling potential. Take this if your support and mid are both running Ignite.


This spell can actually be very useful vs heavy AOE damage teams. Pick it up if you dont need the kill pressure from Ignite.


A very strong spell for post-6 Jax due to his ability to easily clean up fights.

Starting Items

x1 x1Sight Wardx5 x1
Start this almost all the time. It's got great sustain and safety with the ward.

x1 x3
This is a great start against top laners and junglers that dont have high kill potential.

x1 x5
This is a good start vs AD lane bullies.

First Back

2x 1xSight Wardx3
This is a great grab on your first back because it gives you good dueling power and safety. I grab this almost every time.


1x 1x 1xSight Ward3x
This is a very defensive pickup and very strong if you're losing lane.

Early Items

Sight Ward
Hextech Gunblade is always core on Jax synergy with his ultimate and AP scalings on Q, W, and R. Be sure to grab copious amounts of wards. You should have at least T1 bootsby this point, but it's usually a good idea to grab T2 boots


This is a fantastic first item for Jax. It gives you a lot of punch in lane and makes you an incredible duelist. Get this before Hextech Gunblade due to cost efficiency. Only get this if you wont need a defensive item early on.


This is always a good pickup vs AD/Bruiser compositions that seem to be the standard in Solo Queue. Grab this after your Hextech Gunblade for maximum effectiveness.


A very strong item on Jax due to its synergy with Hextech Gunblade. Grab one of these if they have a double AP composition.


Very strong vs fed AP's that rely on chaining a combo such as LeBlanc and Fizz.


If they have a double ADC comp or a very fed ADC this item helps a lot.


This item is great when you dont need heavy defense as it gives you a TON of offensive stats in addition to some nice MR.


Pick this up when they have no real threat. It gives you great damage and survivability due to the Armor, CDR, and Sheen procs. If you get this, dont go Trinity Force.

Grab Hextech Gunblade and one of the above items according to what you need.

Early-Mid Game

This is a great pickup as a 3rd item - especially with the new buffs and cheaper cost. If you have an Iceborn Gauntlet it's just best not to get this and instead go for Blade of the Ruined King.


A good pickup if you didn't go Trinity Force or their tank line is pretty huge. This is a great item for helping your carry in teamfights but not great for killing squishies or pushing towers.


A pretty strong item but pretty costly for the stats it gives. I'd only get this if you're having a lot of trouble chasing down carries and you haven't opted for Iceborn Gauntlet.


This is an incredibly efficient pickup on Jax due to his natural tankiness. Grab this if you're getting bursted by their AP mages.


Surprisingly effective on Jax, especially when combined with Iceborn Gauntlet or Frozen Mallet. The passive proc's on the 3rd hit of your ultimate and Jax scales very well with AP. Overall an incredible item on him that is perfect for taking out squishies.


Grab one of these items to help your overall DPS. From here on you'll be building a mixture of offense and defense.

Late-Mid Game

This is crunch-time and where most of the game will be decided if the team are even. It's about 30 minutes in and as Jax you're becoming an monster that the enemy team can't deal with. Ideally you're tearing squishies apart in teamfights right now, but as their ADC and APC start getting more and more damage you're going to need some better resists and some extra killing power. Defensive items that share offensive stats are key at this point in the game. By now you should have two offensive items, two defensive items, and T2 Boots.


If you didn't pick this up earlier and you don't already have a Frozen Mallet or Trinity Force, this is the time to grab it. It's extremely powerful on Jax due to the CDR and Sheen proc's, as well as the slow helping him chase.


Lot's of people say this item is bad, but it works really well on Jax if you already have a lot of HP. If you've got Sunfire Aegis and Spirit Visage then feel free to grab one of these when you need some extra armor.


This item's going to help a ton vs things that rely on a lock-down combo. It's also very strong against Vladimere and Zed because it actually removes their ultimate's delayed damage.


This is basically a pure defensive version of Iceborn Gauntlet. You still get the armor, mana, and CDR but now you have a ton of pressure on everyone around you due to the aura. It's very efficient on Jax and incredibly strong when you're up against a fed ADC or double ADC comp.

Moving into late game you're going to start dealing even more damage. At level 16 with four items you should be able to duel anyone in the game or splitpush hard.

Early-Late Game

This is about 35-40 minutes in. You should be level 16-18 with at least four items + boots. You're already really strong, but its time to make you even beefier. The items you purchase here are items you've already thought about but have decided to wait on.

or
You need one of these two items in your build every game unless there is no APC on their team. If their only magic damage is a full tank Malphite you won't have to worry about it nearly as much and instead can make do with Maw of Malmortius or Guardian Angel.

or
If they have a strong AD team you should already have a Randuin's Omen, but if not you can now make the choice between that or Warmog's Armor. The decision should be made based on how dive-heavy your team is, how much AD the enemy team has, and what kind of damage you're actually taking. If you're sitting on a Spirit Visage but still get bursted, consider grabbing the Warmog's Armor. In almost all other cases however, Randuin's Omen is better due to the massive amount of EHP it grants + the ability to tank towers with ease.


I personally have a love-hate relationship with GA. I love the passive, but I hate the stats it provides and the cooldown. It's great if you're just getting blown up by champions with powerful ultimate abilities such as Zed or high-CC long-CD spells such as Malphite's Unstoppable Force. However if you're dying to sustained, low-CD abilities then this item is not a good pick up.


This is a better version of Guardian Angel in my experience as it has 1/2 the cooldown and allows you to dodge those critical abilities such as Death Mark or Command: Shockwave. It also grants you an insane amount of damage due to the AP. Lot's of people will be skeptical and tell me I'm wrong, but I've tested this over 30-40 games and it has always proven to be a solid item on Jax.

Now you should be sitting on 5 items + boots. You have reached your critical mass and can basically destroy everything in your path.

There's a lot of items in the game that look like they would benefit Jax, but they simply aren't as good as other choices. We'll discuss those here.


These items looks like they'd be great on Jax due to his relationship with Attack Speed, however ITS A TRAP. While the items are actually very good on Jax, other items will do their job better. Wit's End and Blade of the Ruined King are both high-atkspd items that are better on Jax than the items listed above.


This item is basically just a worse version of Wit's End for Jax. While I do have an AP Jax experimental build going on, this item isn't good for standard Jax.

And other AP items
AP on Jax is great, but only a select few items actually sync with Jax's kit. There will be an AP Jax discussion later in the guide, but it is purely for advanced players and completely experimental.


With the example build listen above, Jax actually does more magic damage than physical damage, thus Armor Penetration item's are virtually useless on him. Penetration is powerful, but it's better just to grab AD/AP and Resits for Jax.


Like stated above, Jax does a lot of magic damage and has extremely poor AD Scaling unlike Riven and Renekton. Therefore it's generally a bad idea to build expensive AD-Heavy items on him as he gets more out of things like Hextech Gunblade and Trinity Force.


Neither of these work very well on Jax when compared to rushing Guinsoo's Rageblade, Hextech Gunblade, or Spirit of the Ancient Golem. Of course we're talking about jungling here.