Hello, Everynyan! I’m Painter, an avid League player who has peaked at Diamond III, and hasn't reached those heights ever since. So… I'm neither the best nor the most consistent player, but what I do have is experience, along with a passion for overanalyzing builds and interactions, something which is really useful for an outdated and bug ridden champ as Shaco.

My personal cup of tea has always been bruisers and draintanks; things like Kayn (Rhaast only), Briar, and Aatrox normally fill up my most played champs, yet there is one exception to that pattern, that being Shaco. With all of these champs you kinda love fighting, which makes the game really unfun when you are up against ranged comps who perma cc you are no fun. Then I started playing champs who countered said bruisers, since in my bruiser perspective, they were very broken and uncounterable, but then I found that those champs have unplayable matchups as well. I played tons of champions, until I stumbled upon the gem that is AP Shaco. He is the epitome of annoyances, a character so degenerate that, even when you are losing, you can't help but have fun and laugh at the enemy team's suffering! If any of those things sound appealing to you, then i recommend you to give Shaco a try.

As mentioned in the Notes section at the start of the guide, your **first back should ALWAYS be** Fated Ashes. It significantly speeds up your clear thanks to your boxes AoE damage.

From there, you’ll typically build into either Blackfire Torch or Liandry's Torment:

• Blackfire Torch is generally better first if you're going Liandry's Torment later. It’s cheaper, the mana is actually useful in longer skirmishes, and it provides a lot of Ability Haste to help with objective clearing.
• If you’re only building one DoT item, go Liandry's Torment first — it outdamages Blackfire Torch overall.

I generally prefer to build tier 1 Boots whenever I can (after Fated Ashes of course), and only upgrade them after I have finished the first item. Then, as I said at the beginning, you should generally just default to Ionian Boots of Lucidity; you don't really need most other boots as you just never make use of them as well. The only real competitors are Sorcerer's Shoes, but with how scarce Ability Haste is, and the fact that Ionian Boots of Lucidity are much cheaper, just make them the overall better choice.

As with tier 1 Boots, I generally look to purchase Dark Seal whenever I can after Fated Ashes, though I usually prioritize Boots since they allow me to get to objectives faster. As I said in the build options at the beginning, Dark Seal is never a bad purchase; even without stacks its pretty gold efficient, and if you are getting stacks, then you are getting way more than what you paid for. I usually just keep Dark Seal until fourth item, where I either upgrade it or sell it for another situational item.

For your second item:
• Build Liandry's Torment if you didn’t already. The Blackfire Torch + Liandry's Torment combo massively boosts box damage.
• If you're going the ult burst build (just one DoT item — Liandry's Torment), build Imperial Mandate second. It gives mana regen, Haste, AP, and a very efficient passive.

There’s also a neat interaction with Imperial Mandate:

• Shaco and his Hallucinate clone can trigger each other’s Mandate. The clone recieves a copy of your items, and is treated as a champion, so the clone can both activate your mark and put the mark on an enemy.
• If the clone autos while Two-Shiv Poison is on cooldown, it slows the enemy and it procs Mandate, and the real Shaco can follow up to activate it. Since this Imperial Mandate proc is initiated by the clone, technically the damage is done by the clone's Imperial Mandate, so the damage wont show up in your item toolbar. You still deal the damage though.
• If Shaco CCs or slows with Two-Shiv Poison’s active (for some reason the slow auto-attacks when Two-Shiv Poison is active dont count), and the clone attacks that target (it must be the clone — boxes don't count), Imperial Mandate will proc and this time the damage will show up in your item toolbar, as it was done by your mandate.

Third item options:
• Generally, you should default to Cryptbloom as it gives decent Haste, Penetration (which further speeds up your clear, as well as making your DoT items do more damage), and healing (which is not entirely useless, AP Shaco is a team player).
• Malignance is a good purchase for the burst build – it has similar stats to Blackfire Torch, gives great snowball potential, while also amplifying clone greatly through extra pen and basically permanent uptime through ultimate haste.

Post-core utility items:

• Morellonomicon – Anti-heal tool via Grievous Wounds. Important against healing-heavy comps. Pretty cheap and gold efficient, and it gives haste. Not bad at all.
• Horizon Focus – Excellent for DoT builds, allowing you to spam more boxes. Before it was bait on Shaco, as your traps wouldnt activate the passive. After it got changed into a statstick, its pretty great, giving some of the highest haste in the game.
• Zhonya's Hourglass – Lifesaving against assassins or heavy AD threats. Time your stasis well in teamfights. Its especailly good on Shaco since you can stall for Deceive or Hallucinate.
• Mejai's Soulstealer – A strong snowball item if you're ahead. Scales hard with AP and is great if you’re popping off. Only buy this if you are snowballing and you are confident in your ability to not die, though, as it is extremely gold inefficient, and takes up a slot that could have been used for something better.

Last Item (my absolute GOAT):

• Rabadon's Deathcap – Always your final spike. Massive AP boost, pushes your clone's box and ult burst into truly lethal territory. Essential for full damage scaling into late game. Makes boxes last so much more, making your ability haste more efficient by allowing you to have more boxes around the map.

There really only are two keystones that work for AP Shaco; Domination with Dark Harvest and Sorcery with Arcane Comet. As I explained in the notes section of the runes, through, not only does Sorcery have better runes overall, but your boxes aren't usually gonna bring enemies low in one go. While Teemo’s shrooms do do a heck of a lot of damage, and will usually be able to get a Dark Harvest stack per shroom, you will just be doing poke damage until you either make the enemy retreat, or are able to follow it up with your Two-Shiv Poison execute. Thus, Arcane Comet’s cd reduction, and the fact that you don't have to be aggressive early to farm stacks, makes it a much more appealing rune page. Domination still has a place in the alternative burst build path I provided, but generally I recommend to just use the first rune page I’ll recommend below. For secondary rune page, you generally want to go Precision if you went Sorcery (Haste and extra poke damage is great for your gameplan), or Sorcery if you went Domination (as I said, Sorcery tree is great). Below are the two rune pages I recommend; the main ‘poke’ Arcane Comet runepage and the burst Dark Harvest runepage. For both builds, go Ability Haste, Adaptive Force and Health Scaling for your rune shards. You love haste, AP, and health is the only really good one in that last row.

At the very start of the game, make sure to start with Jack In The Box. The reason is twofold: first — and most obviously — you can stack boxes on a single camp before it spawns, significantly speeding up your clear. Not doing this will result in a slower clear than 99% of junglers, so it's absolutely essential.

The second reason is that you can use the boxes to “ward off” enemy invades right as the game starts by placing a trap at your jungle entrances. I usually default to placing one at the red-side entrance through mid, as that’s where invades most commonly happen (see image below — the image comes from Zefath’s stream, a solid AP Shaco streamer I recommend).

Remember to place it similarly to how it’s positioned in the image — just above the line I drew. Don’t place it out in the river, but rather slightly deeper into your jungle. If opponents rush an invade through mid and you’ve placed the box in the river, they’ll likely see you setting it up. This can either lead them to reroute through another entrance or avoid the trap entirely, preventing you from punishing them.

If the box is triggered inside the jungle instead, your teammates will find it much easier to follow up than if the trap were out in the river.

As for how to clear the jungle, the biggest tip I can give you is to remember this timestamp; 00:50. The first camps to spawn are Murk Wolfs, Red Bramblebacks, Blue Sentinels and Crimson Raptors at exactly 1:30. Since boxes last 40 seconds without any additional AP, placing a box at any of these camps at around 00:50 will make it activate as soon as the camp spawns in. Generally, I recommend starting at either wolves or red buff. This is because you are one of the only junglers who can get his clear disrupted; if someone invades, activates one of your boxes that you left on a camp, and leaves, you are pretty screwed. This generally doenst happen unless the enemy team is familiar with Shaco but its better to be safe than sorry; thus, starting at blue buff or raptors sets you up for failure. Since these camps are right next to the jungle entrances, enemies might be able to go in, activate your boxes, leave, and hinder your clear. Putting the boxes in wolves or red buff wont prevent them from activating the traps, but it means they really have to commit, and since they have to go so deep in your jungle, it provides your team with an opportunity to collapse on them. Theres also the fact that starting raptors is generally suited better for AD Shaco, since it allows you to clear relatively quickly, but since you end your clear on krugs, its a long way to your blue quadrant, so this clear is better suited for quick level 3 ganks or invades, whose lethality is boosted by you having red buff. These are AD Shaco’s specialty, with Hail of Blades, while Ap generally just looks to fullclear.

Since you have a makeshift ward against invades with your traps, I generally go Oracle Lens right out of the gate — you don’t need wards to ward off invades. After placing your defensive trap, choose whether you’ll be starting in your red or blue quadrant. In general, default to clearing from top to bot. That means: if your red quadrant is top and your blue quadrant is bot, start red and path downward.
Unlike AD Shaco, who prefers early invades and cheesy picks, you just want to full clear. Pathing bot means you’re more likely to secure kills on a successful gank. That said, I said generally path bot — not always. Like many things in League, you have to adapt to your circumstances.
When deciding where to start, there are three key things to consider:
Your laners — how well can they set up or follow up a gank?


Their opponents — how difficult will they be to catch or kill?


The enemy jungler’s playstyle.


For example, you usually don’t want to path bot if the enemy bot lane is something like Zeri + Yuumi, due to their immense mobility and sustain. You probably dont want to path bot if your own bot lane is Zeri + Yuumi, since they have weak early damage, no CC, and poor follow-up potential. This doesn’t mean you should avoid ganking non-ideal lanes altogether, but you do want to ensure that your ganks count — otherwise, you're wasting time (tempo) that could have been spent farming or pressuring elsewhere. The third and final factor is the enemy jungler — though this may also include other members of the enemy team. Depending on their tendencies, the enemy may invade early, gank quickly, or have already invaded. You lack strong early dueling power, especially without Hail of Blades (the AD variant’s main keystone), so you generally want to avoid confrontations without your team. For example, if there’s a Trundle top who might invade you, path accordingly: either start top so he can’t invade your top side at level 3, or place a box on your jungle entrance as you clear. Against something like Bel'Veth, who has an infamously strong level 3, use Oracle Lens before walking into your jungle to avoid getting caught with your pants down. Generally, this last factor — adapting to the enemy — can’t be fully planned in champ select. It requires more experience and real-time decision making. The first two (gankable lanes and enemy mobility) can be prepped in loading screen, but adapting to unexpected plays is what separates good Shaco players from great ones. Now that you know what factors go into which side to start, let me take you through both a red quadrant start full clear and blue quandrant start full clear.

For your red quadrant full clear, I recommend putting your three boxes in the red buff camp. (There are three because, assuming you place a box right at 00:50, you’ll get two more box uses before 1:30 — assuming you place them immediately.)
The exact placement doesn’t matter much, as long as all three are in range of the red buff. Remember to use Backstab as much as possible, taking advantage of the fact that the red buff will be feared or attacking your boxes most of the time. Once you get your next box, place it immediately — and that’s the red buff done with, no Smite needed.
Then, level up Deceive, and blink over to the krugs, making sure to Backstab the big one while invisible to maximize your damage. Try to get both large krugs low before placing your box, so it can finish off the small ones efficiently.
After that, proceed to raptors (put a point in Two-Shiv Poison) → wolves → gromp → blue buff→ scuttle crab.
I don’t have any special tips for the remaining camps — just make sure to make use of Backstab and Two-Shiv Poison’s execute damage to speed up your clear. Use your second Smite if you feel it’s necessary.

For your blue quadrant full clear, as always, start by putting a point into Jack In The Box. Instead of placing all three boxes in one camp, you should put two traps in wolves and one in gromp. This is because buffs tend to tank more damage, so you need more boxes for them. If you were clearing raptors first, you’d also just use two boxes.

Since gromp and krugs spawn a bit later than the other camps, by the time you're done with wolves (assuming you used Backstab effectively and had two traps there), you’ll be able to put a point into Deceive and blink over to gromp, who should be spawning.

From there, kill gromp (putting a point into Two-Shiv Poison), smite and clear blue buff, then proceed to clear raptors → red buff → krugs → scuttle crab, using your second smite whenever you find it optimal.

As mentioned earlier during the red-side clear, make sure to use Backstab and Two-Shiv Poison’s execute damage to speed up your clear efficiently.
After your first clear, you generally want to look for quick opportunities, then return to clearing. Is X laner overextended? Punish them. You play very much like a Lillia—due to your low dueling power, you're not looking for extended fights early.

I’ll elaborate more on this in the Mid Game section, but your objective clear is downright abysmal (well, maybe not that bad—but you get the point). Because of that, whenever an objective is about to come up, try to get priority in nearby lanes through ganks or pressure, so your teammates can help secure it. Meanwhile, cover the area with traps across river paths and jungle entrances to deny vision and protect yourself from getting collapsed on.

Now we get to the midgame. In this section, I’ll cover a few things that technically also apply to the early and late game—specifically important Deceive and Hallucinate wall hops (i.e., extending the blink range using walls). Remember, since the ult blinks you in the target direction while spawning a clone in the opposite one, you can use it to teleport over walls.

Deceive wall hops are a dime a dozen, and you’ll naturally get a feel for which walls can extend your blink and which can’t just by playing the game and paying attention to the ability indicator. The specific blinks I’ll be highlighting are extremely useful in the early-mid game, as they let you bypass most, if not all, tower vision—allowing for sneaky rotations, ganks, and sometimes a kill or two.

There are also Hallucinate wall hops. There are more of these than there are for Deceive, because—like I mentioned—I’m not listing every Deceive hop (basically almost every wall can be jumped with it; I’m only showing the important ones). Meanwhile, Hallucinate hops are much more limited, but they can easily catch people off guard—especially those unfamiliar with Shaco—by allowing you to both hop over a wall and leave a clone behind.

Most of the jumps I show here are ones I learned from the Shaco YouTuber iBronto, since I personally just know them by muscle memory. Huge thanks to them—go check them out if you'd like (though keep in mind they mainly play AD).

So, you may be asking—what does this image mean? Basically, it's a summary of what I consider the most important hops to know. The red lines represent the most crucial Deceive jumps, while the green ones mark almost all of the possible Hallucinate jumps you can do around the map.

I won’t go too in-depth on each of the Hallucinate jumps since they’re all pretty straightforward—you can’t really extend them with clever mouse placement. They all consist of hugging the marked wall, placing your mouse on the other side, and voilà!—you’ve jumped the wall and left a decoy behind.

I mainly wanted to include this because there’s an astounding number of Shaco players who simply don’t know about these jumps, or how many of them actually exist.

Below is an example of a typical ult wall hop. As you can see, it’s just a matter of standing close enough to the wall and placing your mouse on the other side. You can usually hop over anything around the width of that wall—nothing more.


Now onto the Deceive hops. First, let’s go over the two topside wall jumps. Aside from simply walking through the river, this is your main method of entering top lane during the early-to-mid game. Entering top through the red quadrant is arguably the hardest hop you’ll need to perform, as it requires precise positioning and mouse placement (see the first GIF below).

As shown, first place your mouse between the two purple void cracks on the ground and right-click. Then, move your mouse to the small ‘groove’ in the wall. After that, cast Deceive, and you should blink cleanly to the other side—just outside of tower range!

As for entering top through the blue-side quadrant, it’s arguably a bit easier and more forgiving (see the second GIF below). You simply need to right-click the wall slightly above the brush, then place your mouse over the general area shown in the GIF. If done correctly, you should hop over without any issue.
The botside jumps are definitely more straightforward, as the two main walls between the river and jungle are much thinner than those in top lane. The redside wallhops require you to approach the wall from the jungle and place your mouse on the other side—either toward lane or toward river—depending on your intention. The river hop is useful for catching people off guard while they’re rotating or placing wards, while the lane hop is great when the enemy bot lane is pushed up, allowing you to quickly clean them up. This hop is shown in the first GIF.

The blueside wallhops are essentially identical, just done on the opposite side. These can be performed as shown in the second GIF, but they can also be done in reverse, allowing you to enter lane from jungle—just like the redside version.

As for the mid wallhops, the most consistent and straightforward ones involve jumping over the raptor wall. These are easy to execute and can catch people off guard, but you likely don’t need me to teach you those.

Instead, I want to focus on two specific jumps that place you in a much riskier position—close to the enemy mid tower. That exact element of surprise, though, makes them great for catching people off guard, perhaps landing a sneaky Two-Shiv Poison while they’re recalling. Alternatively, once the mid towers go down, these jumps become far more viable, letting you catch unsuspecting enemies farming the mid wave.

The first jump (shown in the first GIF) is done from the topside river, going into the blue quadrant. Position yourself in the mid bush, place your mouse on the edge of the wall, and cast Deceive. It’s straightforward and can be used both to escape toward your allied tower or to poke a recalling enemy with a sneaky Two-Shiv Poison.

The second jump (second GIF) is done from the botside river, also heading into the blue quadrant. Like the first one, you position yourself in the bush, but this time place your mouse slightly before the edge of the wall. This makes you blink just outside of turret aggro range, allowing for clever gank setups.

Since you’re making these jumps from a heavily warded area (mid river bushes), remember to use Oracle Lens or check for wards first so the play isn’t completely telegraphed.

You might be wondering, “But Painter, all my damage is in boxes and clone. Two-Shiv Poison only does damage when someone’s low. How will I ever beat drake?”
Well, to that I say—you can still use those abilities while doing drake. You just have to use them wisely. It might seem weird to non- Shaco players to “waste” ult on an objective, but for our dear clown, it’s pretty much the only way to reliably take them down.
First, let’s talk about the boxes.
You might try to drop them in the pit, only to watch them get one-tapped by the objective. That’s because you’re not placing them correctly. Think of them like stationary turrets—you want to place them far enough away so that the objective prioritizes you (or your clone) while the boxes can freely deal damage from a distance. This constant damage helps maintain Liandry's Torment uptime and other burn effects. Most objectives can be cleared using this method.The one exception is Voidgrubs. For these, you don’t really need to use your clone, since most of the time you’ll be left low, but not outright killed. If you’re already under half health, though, then do use the clone to tank and help you survive. My biggest recommendation is to “leash” all the grubs out of the pit so that they line up by the entrance. That way, you can hit all three with a single box, drastically speeding up your clear.Second, let’s go over the clone.
You might’ve already figured this out while reading about the boxes, but the clone’s job during objectives like Drakes and Rift Herald is mostly to tank damage. By having it and yourself swap aggro, you both get more uptime on Backstab hits, since the clone can trigger it too. It’s not like AD Shaco, where the clone chunks objectives with crits and scaling—your AP version uses it mostly to tank hits, buy time for your traps, and sneak in passive damage.
In summary, to efficiently clear objectives, you want to make sure your boxes don’t get immediately destroyed, so they have time to deal consistent damage. Your clone should be used to tank hits and help swap aggro, giving you more uptime on Backstab hits—since the clone can trigger them too.
Even when doing all of this correctly, your objective-clearing potential is still quite weak, especially against tankier targets like Rift Herald. That’s why it’s crucial to set up in advance. Unlike most junglers, who can simply sweep for wards and start objectives solo (which is still risky), Shaco needs to guarantee prio in the nearby lanes. This not only brings in a teammate to speed up the clear but also provides protection if the enemy jungler shows up—since your dueling power isn’t great.
On top of that, you should be placing boxes around the objective area ahead of time—especially in choke points and behind the pit. This both chunks out enemies who try to contest and gives you valuable vision control over the surrounding area.
The image below shows how you should ideally set up for Drake under normal circumstances. The red circles indicate strong box placements, the yellow circle marks the usual location of the drake, and the purple-cyan figure represents Shaco’s typical position.
Generally, you want to leash the drake slightly out of the pit, keeping it near the yellow-marked area. Meanwhile, placing one box inside the pit can catch enemy junglers trying to sneak in with a dash to steal the objective—only to get feared and shut down.
The rest of the boxes are positioned in common paths or choke points frequently used by the enemy team. These not only give you early warning of enemy movement, but also serve as deterrents and soft zoning tools. You can basically use the same trap placement when setting up in the baron pit on topside.

Ahh, the late game. For most champions, this is when the stakes are at their highest—one mistake can get you killed for a full minute, and a single lost teamfight might end the game, even if your team was ahead. But for AP Shaco, this is where you shine.
With most (if not all) of your items completed, your boxes are now on a really short cooldown—around 8 seconds or so—and they start hitting like a truck, especially against squishy champions.
Your job in the late game is simple: light up the map. You want to flood every section of the jungle with boxes—not randomly, but strategically. Placing them just anywhere won’t do much. You should be prioritizing choke points and jungle entrances, as these are routes nearly everyone has to pass through, making them ideal ambush spots. River entrances also become extremely important, especially when an objective like Drake or Baron is about to spawn; locking down the entrance to the pit can make it nearly impossible for enemies to safely approach.
Another great tactic is to cover jungle utility spots—such as Blast Cones, Scryer's Blooms, and, on the Hextech Rift, the Hextech Gates. These are areas players frequently interact with, so trapping them with a box can easily turn a key moment in your favor. Do make sure to not place them too close together, as that means that they can easily be found with just one use of Oracle Lens. Try to spread them out so its more annoying for the enemy team to clear them.

Now for what will probably decide most games—teamfights. While they occur throughout both mid and late game, I chose to talk about them here because their impact becomes most critical as the stakes rise.

As you may have noticed, AP Shaco doesn’t teamfight in a traditional sense, much like how he doesn’t really do anything the conventional way. Unlike AD Shaco, whose gameplay mimics that of other assassins—sneak in, delete a target, and try to escape—AP Shaco doesn’t follow any familiar model. The closest champion in terms of playstyle might be Teemo, but even he often functions like a marksman, weaving autos into fights.

Instead, AP Shaco operates as an anti-carry. You’re not the one diving the backline and solo-carrying a fight through burst damage. You carry by disrupting, poking, and forcing bad decisions. Your strength lies in turning the enemy team’s aggression against them, luring them into poor engages, wasting their time and cooldowns, and creating chaos.

Because of this, you generally want to avoid standard 5v5 teamfights whenever possible—not because you’re useless in them (far from it), but because AP Shaco excels in drawn-out engagements where the enemy is already weakened or disorganized. You want to control the tempo by setting up fights on your terms. That means littering the map with boxes, zoning key entrances, harassing with poke, and sending in your clone to soak resources or bait key abilities.

By the time the enemy team actually walks into a fight, they should already be missing half their HP from traps, have blown their Oracle Lens, and be mentally tilted from walking into one too many fear boxes. Your goal is to attrition them into a fight they’re already set up to lose, not to win a straight-up brawl.