Hello, I'm Smolnom and this will be a quick, straight to the point guide. I started playing League in season 2 and until season 6 I was mostly a casual player. In season 7 I took League a bit more seriously and started to grind the ladder. Right now I play at Diamond elo and the reason why I managed to climb so fast was mostly because of Evelynn. This guide is mostly for people who plan to get in higher elo in season 8. Before you read this guide you should have a basic idea about what Evelynn's role is and what her abilities do, as I will not mention it here. Instead, the guide will be focused on how to improve this basic idea and how to play Evelynn at a competitive level.

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Dark Harvest instead of Electrocute. Very few people actually use Dark Harvest even less people use it on ability power champions. Basically Electrocute is stronger than Dark Harvest early to mid game. When you collect 150 souls Dark Harvest heavily outperforms Electrocute. Normally, when you play on lane you want to have an early lead that’s why you pick Electrocute. When you play jungler you pick Electrocute to help you burst people quicker especially if you are an assassin. However, I think this is the biggest mistake people make. Dark Harvest works like Nasus stacking in a way, you get 2 stacks per jungle camp. So, realistically speaking you can get 150 souls in about 25 minutes. It’s a long journey but every assassin already deals a lot of damage early so you can sacrifice about 100 damage from the Electrocute. Also, the souls work similarly to Thresh’s souls. If you kill the target you get the souls immediately. If you are near the target but don’t kill it you the souls will drop on the ground and you have to pick it up. A lot of people ignore this especially when there is a cannon minion 9 out of 10 it is better to stay for the cannot minion to take his soul which equals 2 jungle camp clears. In Evelynn’s case, your early game is weak anyway. Your late game is more important unlike other assassins. Also, to proc your Dark Harvest you need to attack the champion with a basic attack. However, your Whiplash activates on hit effects so you just need to cast Whiplash on the champion which you do anyway.

Sudden Impact it activates when you leave Demon Shade after level 6 or when you cast your Empowered Whiplash or Last Caress.

Eyeball Collection as a jungler it is not hard to stack it and gives you 30 extra ability power when fully stacked.

Relentless Hunter because you don’t need heal from spells and you don’t buy any active items.

Last Caress has a huge cooldown and it is crucial for risky engages and finishing off low health champions that’s why you need The Ultimate Hat.

Celerity as a jungler you want to have more movement speed for bigger presence on the map. Also, this will help you a tiny bit to close the gap between being revealed and casting a spell on your about to be charmed target.

Always start the game with Hunter's Talisman it gives you a huge mana regeneration in the jungle and it also provides health sustain.

You cannot play Evelynn jungle without building Stalker's Blade - Runic Echoes. It makes your jungler clear much faster, which is essential for not falling behind. The movement speed steal can be used for escaping or catching up enemies.

You should be able to make great use of Lich Bane, as your Whiplash procs Lich Bane, but also Dark Harvest. The combined damage can sometimes deal about 80% of the enemy's HP. This also works on tanks because you shred their magic resist with Allure and your Empowered Whiplash deals % of their max HP.

The winner between Mobility Boots and Sorcerer's Shoes before the new runes came was Mobility Boots because it gives you bigger presence on the map. However, The new rune Relentless Hunter gives you a huge out of combat movement speed. If you get Mobility Boots as well, a flat movement speed cap will be applied and you won't be able to benefit that much from it. That's why I highly recommend to buy Sorcerer's Shoes every game. Even if you are facing a full AD team or a team with a lot of CC Ninja Tabi and Mercury's Treads are also not viable for Evelynn. In team fights you are trying to burst your target(s) as fast as possible and then quickly shroud yourself in Demon Shade, which will also heal up your lost health.

The 4th core item after Lich Bane should almost always be Rabadon's Deathcap. When you buy it you should be able to burst every squishy champion especially ADCs. If you are quite fed early you can buy Rabadon's Deathcap as a 3rd core item. You will surprised at how strong it is. If you are not that fed build first Lich Bane as the burst is slightly higher and also Lich Bane is cheaper.

Banshee's Veil is my usual 5th core item. The magic shield it gives you is quite useful for Evelynn. Your Allure is similar to Rengar's Thrill of the Hunt - both abilities indicate to your enemies that you are about to jump on them. That means that they will expect you and they will prepare some kind of CC to stop you from closing the gap between you and them and the magic shield Banshee's Veil gives will block the first incoming CC, which most of the time prevents you from killing your target.

Zhonya's Hourglass is amazing item for every ability power champion. For Evelynn is even better because in close fights you can active Zhonya's Hourglass to get enough time to better use Last Caress to escape.

In most games when there aren't that many tanks Void Staff is not necessary. Your Allure gives you enough magic penetration to burst your enemies. The good thing about Void Staff is that you don't have to wait for Allure to deal damage to tank champions.

Dead Man's Plate might look like a troll item for Evelynn at first but it is actually quite useful, especially against full AD team. It gives you enough sustain to survive the first hits from champions until your Allure is ready. The movement speed from the passive effect of Dead Man's Plate will make it easier for you to charm your target when they are running away. Also, your Whiplash will proc the damage from Dead Man's Plate, which means even more damage for the already busted Whiplash, Dark Harvest, Lich Bane, Stalker's Blade - Runic Echoes combo.

Hextech Rocketbelt: I personally never build this item on Evelynn. It gives you HP for more sustain, AP and CD, also a way to shorten the distance for a charm and a good wave clear. However, 60 ability power is quite low compared to other items. You don’t need extra HP as you kill and leave with Last Caress. The active effect is neat but there are other more important items that go well with Evelynn kit.

Frostfang is quite useful when you are behind. If the enemy jungler counters you by stealing your camps and lurking in your jungle you cannot deal with it with your weak early game if your team does not help you. Building Spellthief's Edge and upgrading it will give you a lot of gold. Late game the gold it gave you will be more than the gold it cost to buy. After earning 650 gold the movement speed bonus from Queens Tribute goes well with Evelynn's kit, as you can use it to escape after bursting someone.

Early Game

Before level 6 you cannot properly gank the only CC you have is your Allure and it needs 2.5 seconds to activate plus the enemy will see it. So, I don’t actually recommend to force yourself to gank before level 6. Do it only if the enemy has pushed to the turret and you are certain you can kill them. Because if you try to gank them and fail you will lose a lot of time and this is much more punishing for Evelynn than any other jungler. That’s why you should always choose the most optimal path to get to level 6 as fast as possible.

Jungle Path

You should always take Hate Spike at level 1, as it deals more damage than Allure. For your jungle path always start Blue even if no one helps you, you can still kill it on your own using your potions. Then go to Gromp and use smite on it. The next camps are wolves then raptors and then Red. After Red, you can do a quick check on the top and mid lane if you can get a kill go and take it otherwise continue to Krugs and after that try to get the River Scuttler. If you see that it is taken or that the enemy jungler is doing it back and recall immediately. The logic behind this jungle path is as follows. If you start Red instead of Blue your jungle item alone won’t be able to provide you with enough mana regeneration and after 1 more camp you will have to go and kill the Blue Sentinel. Which means that you will skip at least 2 other camps. Also, if you take first Red instead of Blue and then go to Krugs it won’t be worth it at all. First, because Krugs are at the end of the jungle which means that to go to the next camp you have to walk more. The second reason is that it takes a lot of time to kill all the Krugs. So, the higher your level for them is the better. And lastly, the Krugs have a longer respawn time than wolves and raptors. So, when you kill Blue and get your Allure you can quite easily burst the Gromp with smite. Wait for the Allure and use it on the wolves. After that some people skip the raptors and go straight to Red. But this is a huge mistake in my opinion because like I said raptors respawn quite fast and you need them to level up to 6, you don’t prioritise ganking with Evelynn like other junglers do before level 6. After your first clear, you will be about 20 gold short of buying Boots and upgrading to Stalker's Blade, wait for the gold. After that go to the Gromp camp even if it is not respawned it will respawn when you get there. And again, do Gromp then wolves and then raptors. With your first jungle clear you will be level 4. If on your second jungle clear you go to Krugs after raptors you will hit level 6. If not, get a River Scuttler or experience from a few lane minions. Then your actual game starts.

After level 6

Usually, it is better if you gank top or mid. Bot is always the hardest lane to gank because the support usually has some kind of CC or a way to peel for the ADC. Bear in mind that before 3 core items you will have to use a full combo to kill someone. The ideal combo is: Allure then Hate Spike get close to the target Whiplash Hate Spike again and Last Caress try to do at least one AA between your Hate Spikes. If you don’t kill them or they flash away and you cannot execute them with Last Caress don’t try to chase them because all your abilities have long cooldowns. In other words, if you don’t kill them with your first try give up and do something else. Most people don’t know but you can see when Last Caress will deal its full damage. You can see when the target is below 30% HP. There is like a purple veil around champions below 30% HP.







Ideally, the best way to put enough pressure on the enemy team and at the same time to not lose experience and gold is to try a gank. Regardless of whether you kill them or not go to the jungle and clear 1 or 2 camps. You do that because after the gank your abilities will be on cooldown and probably you will have low mana and health. Going back to the jungle will give you mana regenaration from your jungle item and your passive will activate as well. Basically, unlike other junglers you don’t lose anything for clearing camps. In my opinion, the Demon Shade Evelynn has is one of the strongest if not the strongest passive among all champions.

Is it worth it to main Evelynn?

How far can I climb with her?

The higher you climb with an assassin, the harder it gets. Because, games start to be more team-oriented with more team fights, which isn’t exactly what assassins like. Also, people die less which means less stacks on Dark Harvest and early to mid game which is assassins best time has less value. All of that is true but don’t get me wrong Evelynn isn’t a typical assassin. She is my main jungler and I play her at diamond elo.
So I can confirm that it is possible to get to diamond with maining Evelynn. I’m not sure about Master and Challenger as I’m still in diamond.


Thank you for reading. Let me know what you think in the comements. Hopefully, this guide helped you become a better Evelynn player and if it did hit the upvote button.