Hello, my name is Greedforce and welcome to my Shaco guide.
Before I jump in to the actual guide I thought I'd make a little introduction and explain why I decided to make this guide, aside from the fact that I enjoy making guides of course.

Long story short, Shaco's my main. I found him shortly after I started playing league and I've been playing him ever since.

I decided to make this guide because although there are plenty of good guides out there, namely WhiteCrow's and Wikipro's Shaco guides, I felt like I could add some of my own experience to the mix. "The more the merrier", right?

If you have any questions about the build or see anything that I can improve, please leave a comment.
If you are interested, you can find my other guides via my profile.

So with that said, let's get going.

Cons + Fun to play + Amazing early-game + Snowballs superhard + Can still be useful if behind + Very slippery and easy to juke with + Amazing splitpusher with the right items + "I'll make you disapear" isn't an empty threat + Can carry games 1v5 (Not easily though) + Has a high skill celling + He's extremely complex and versatile

Cons - Might be a bit hard to learn - Even harder to master - Not that good late-game - Has counters like anyone else - Hard to catch up with if behind - Has somewhat of a hard time against tanks - NEEDS a defensive item late game to survive - Soloing drake pre 6 is risky but not impossible - Doesnt have any hard cc - He's extremely complex and versatile

Ok, before we get in-game we have a few things to talk about, namely runes, masteries and summoner spells. These might not seem like something you need to put much thought into, but they are all very important and have more effect on the game than most people realise.

Let's start with the runes.

(Mandatory) Standard for AD junglers. But I only take 8 of these and then take 1 crit chance mark for reasons stated below.

(Lucky Crit) ONLY TAKE 1 OF THESE! By taking 1 of these, instead of 1 AD mark, you replace 1 AD, not 1 mark but 1 AD, with a chance to get a lucky crit. Unless you're really unlucky, this will give you more damage.

(Mandatory) Every jungler takes armor to take less damage in the jungle, there's no other option here.

(Recommended) I take these because Shaco actually has some really nice AP scalings on his Jack In The Box, Two-Shiv Poison and Hallucinate. These can be swapped for scaling MR.

(VS AP) If you don't like AP glyphs and feel that you need some MR these are the way to go.

(Mandatory) These helps you clear the jungle faster and gives you a nice DPS boost.

Double-Edged Sword is a pretty standard pick for any assassin as it gives you more damage.

Sorcery gives us 5% CDR and lets us put down 1 more Jack In The Box before the jungle camps spawn.

Butcher makes you clear faster and lets you CS better when holding a lane.

Expose Weakness If you can't take someone out this might help someone else finnish the job.

Brute Force brings more AD.

Feast lets you stay topped of while in the jungle.

Spell Weaving works well with Two-Shiv Poison, since you auto attack a lot before throwing it.

Martial Mastery gives you even more AD.

Executioner increases your ability to take out low health targets.

Warlord gives you EVEN more AD.

Dangerous Game increase your chance to get out alive after going in for the kill on someone.

Frenzy because we ALLWAYS crit after using Deceive.

Devastating Strikes for the increased penetration.

Havoc to finnish of the offense tree and boost your damage even more.


Tough Skin for the lowered damage from monsters.


Fleet of Foot for the, oh so sweet, movement speed.

Optional Masteries

The masteries stated above are what most Shacos use (I think), but there are other masteries that are also good and can be swapped for some of the above. I won't mention any defensive masteries here as there are simply too many, but know that putting points in the defense tree is definitely viable.

Fury gives you more attack speed, which increases your DPS, jungle clear speed and let's you split push faster.

Mental Force gives you more AP and as I have stated in a previous chapter Shaco actually has some pretty good AP scalings.

Arcane Mastery for the same reason as Mental Force . However we don't want Archmage as we'd have to allocate points from better masteries.

If you decide to take Mental Force and Arcane Mastery I'd suggest taking points from Expose Weakness and Warlord .

Examples

To finnish off this chapter, here are some examples of viable mastery setups.

Smite is a must have for any jungler! This let's you secure objectives like Dragon and Baron Nashor and helps you jungle. It also gives you another useful effect depending on what jungle item you build.


Ignite gives you a true damage burn that can be really useful when ganking or if you're up against a healing champion like Dr. Mundo.



Exhaust is something that a team should ALLWAYS have at least 1 of. If your support for some reason doesn't take this, then take it yourself. It's really good for dueling and shutting down carries early on in fights, which is kinda your job anyways.


Cleanse is a pretty rare pick on Shaco as you're already very slippery, but sometimes the enemy team just have too much CC. Make sure to have Deceive ready when you use this so that you can vanish before getting CC'ed again.

Bad Summoner Spells

Flash is not something you want and the reason is simple, we already have a low CD Flash that also makes you invisible ( Deceive).



Ghost is as bad as Flash because we already have an AWESOME gap closer and we also have a, damn near, permanent slow meaning we will allways move faster than our enemies, while attacking.


Clarity shouldn't be needed on Shaco as he isn't that mana hungry. You will also have a blue buff at your disposal pretty much all the time, if you counter jungle right, and if you still need mana for some reason, which is beyond me, you can just buy a mana potion or two.

Ok, now that we've shed some light on our runes, masteries and summoner spells, let's jump in game and start talking about items.

Hunter's Machete is the standard starting item for Junglers. It gives you sustain, damage towards monsters and some extra gold from camps. No reason not to take this.

Health Potions to stay topped off. If you start blue buff there is no reason not to take 2 of these.

Mana Potion is an option when you're starting red buff as you will usually have little mana left after invading level 2.*

Stealth Ward is the standard starting trinket. Ward objectives, the enemy jungle or your teams lanes. If you have good vision control your lanes are less likely to get ganked.

* However if the invade was succesful you'd have a blue buff at this point and wouldn't need the Mana Potion.

(Mandatory) Ravenous Hydra

(Recommended) Stalker's Blade - Warrior

This item is so good on Shaco you can't afford to go without it. It gives you sustain, pushing power, aoe damage and the active helps with your burst. Rush this no matter what, it gives you a huge powerspike once you finnish Tiamat and another once you finnish building the entire item.

There are other options for our jungle item, which I'll go over in the Situational Items chapter but this is the one I find the most common. Stalker's Blade, together with red buff and Two-Shiv Poison, gives you a ridicolous slow that makes catching up to people or crowd controling them super easy.*

(Recommended) Maw of Malmortius

(VS Armor) Last Whisper

Shaco can be really squishy, especially if behind, so a defensive item is pretty much mandatory to get at some point of the game. I get Maw of Malmortius in almost 100% of my games, as it not only gives you MR and a nice shield but also increases your damage when you're low on health.

Build this once you notice that the enemy team starts building Armor. When you build this item is very situational as it shouldn't be built to early, because of the fact that you need AD for it to have anything to penetrate with, but you can't build it too late either as you need it to keep doing damage to tanks and eventually squishies, if they decied to get something like a Randuin's Omen.

(Burst) Infinity Edge

(Boots) Berserker's Greaves

This item boosts you Deceive crit to ridicolous heights and if you manage to Deceive behind a squishy ADC or APC, triggering your Backstab passive, with an Infinity Edge you'll pretty much kill them instantly. This is one of the many reasons Shaco is called the killer of squishies amongst the community.

These help with your jungle clear and your DPS. The only other option would be Mobility Boots, which I'll go over in the Situational Items chapter. Movement speed is really good on Shaco so consider building these early. I usually buy them right after I've finnished my Ravenous Hydra.

OR

(Defensive) Banshee's Veil or Guardian Angel

If you feel like you're getting focused and die a lot or just tend to get uncomfortably low in fights, even after you've bought Maw of Malmortius you might wanna look into getting another defensive item like a Banshee's Veil or Guardian Angel. I like Guardian Angel because the revive animation will let your Deceive get of cooldown and let you escape pretty much whatever sticky situation you got yourself caught in. It also gives a nice mix of MR and Armor. Banshee's Veil can save you from getting CC'ed and let you Deceive out of harms way, and it also gives you a big chunk of MR, health and some sustain.

*You should not buy the enchantment until later in the game. Early on you have way better options to get that gives you better passives and stats.

Ok, we're almost done, but before we leave the item part of the guide there are some items that I'd like to go over that may prove useful in certain situations.
Did I say some? I ment A LOT of Items, Shaco is one of those champions that can use a huge variety of different items depending on the situation they're in.
I'm sorry if this chapter seems a little overkill, but I want to make the guide as indebt as possible and give the readers as much information as possible.

Offensive Options

Starting off with the Offensive Items, this part covers split pushing items, items to pick against tanks and a couple of boots options.

(VS Tanks) Blade of the ruined king

Shaco might be the bane of squishies but he does have somewhat of a hard time against tanks. If the enemies have 2+ tanks this is a must buy! I'd also suggest you take Skirmisher's Sabre and rush Last Whisper for maximum tank shred.

(Split pushing) Black Cleaver

If the enemy team is fed or just has a better teamfight comp, split pushing tends to be the answer and Black Cleaver is really good for that. It shreds Armor well, gives you movement speed every time you kill or get an assist on someone (only on kill towards minions) and gives you 20% CDR. I usually combo this with Raptor Cloak.

(Split pushing) Raptor cloak

Don't build this into Ohmwrecker as that would just be a waste of gold. We only want this for the passive. It makes it faster to split push and a lot safer. With this, Black Cleaver and Deceive you become almost impossible to catch while split pushing. If you've got 4 Items and boots sell this or if you want you can build it into Ohmwrecker, but only if it's your last item and I don't really recommend it.

(Split pushing) Statikk Shiv

The passive is really good for split pushing and mixes a little magic damage into your burst. It also gives you more crit chance which is allways nice, especially if you have/are building Infinity Edge. You can pick and choose between the 3 split pushing items I've stated, It's really up to personal preference in the end.

(Snowballing) Sword of the Occult

This is a risky item in my opinion as ONE death can lower your damage significantly. But if you're steam rolling the other team this might be a fun item to get as it gives you 110 AD (10 + 5 * Stacks) and 20% attack speed when fully stacked.

(Map Presence) Boots of Mobility

This is a good alternative to Berserker's Greaves as this let's you roam around the map faster and gank easier. More movement speed also means you can move a greater distance during your Deceive.

(CDR) Ionian Boots of Lucidity

If you don't take Enchantment: Warrior and don't plan on building a Black Cleaver this is a viable option as you lack in CDR. It works well with Enchantment: Runeglaive and AP masteries such as Mental Force and Arcane Mastery .

Defensive Options

When it comes to defensive items it's a little more straight forward, but it still deserved it's own section.

(VS AP) Spirit Visage

Increases your lifesteal and health regeneration, adds some CDR and a big chunk of MR. This increases your survivability by a lot and I highly recommend this if you're going for a tank approach.

(VS AD) Thornmail

If the enemies have a REALLY fed ADC, or any other attack speed based champion like Master Yi, this item is gonna be your savior. They'll literally be killing themselves.

(Tenacity) Mercury's treads

If the enemy has a lot of CC or AP these are a good option, but you're probably not gonna be buidling these very often.

(VS AD) Ninja Tabi

If the enemy team is pure AD these are a really good option, but you're probably not gonna be building these very often either.

Jungle Item Options

I've stated earlier in the guide that you will be building Stalker's Blade - Warrior most of your games, but there are some other viable options that I wanna talk about.

(Jungle clear) Ranger's Trailblazer

There are a couple of reasons why you'd want this. First of all, this is a good item if you're behind as it let's you clear your, and the enemies, jungle faster and keeps your health from dropping too low, in case you get invaded. Secondly, there are times, although rare, when the enemy team doesn't have ANY form of escapes and all the CC you need is in your Two-Shiv Poison. In that case you might as well take this or Skirmisher's Sabre.

(VS Tanks) Skirmisher's sabre

If the enemy team has a lot of tanks this is a good option thanks to its on-hit true damage. If you buy this I suggest building Blade of the Ruined King as it will help shred tanks and works well with the on-hit true damage.

(Poke) Enchantment: Runeglaive

99% of your games you're gonna go Enchantment: Warrior but this is at least worth mentioning as Shaco scales well with AP and this will give his Jack In The Box, Two-Shiv Poison and Hallucinate a little extra sting.

(Passive) Backstab Cooldown: Passive

Backstab enables Shaco to do 20% more damage to someone as long as he is behind them.
"Behind" someone is the 180 degrees that are the way the target is not looking. Backstab procs on every living unit on the map, so everything except structures.

There are a few thing that make Shaco a very complex and hard to learn champion, Backstab is one of them. You NEED to position yourself behind enemies and one way to make that way easier is to make them scared of you, but more on this later. This is also procced by your Two-Shiv Poison.

(Q) Deceive Cooldown: 11 seconds

Deceive let's you jump a short distance, much like Flash, and then become invisible for 3.5 seconds, which is a loooong time. If the time runs out you just appear again, but if you attack someone or something during that time you crit for 40/60/80/100/120 % extra damage. This can be further increased with Infinity Edge.

This might be my favorit ability in all of league. This is what makes Shaco so slippery and so good at juking. It's also an amazing ganking tool as you will just appear next to who you're ganking and they won't have time to react to what's happening.

(W) Jack in the box Cooldown: 16 seconds

Jack In The Box let's you put down a box that will fear whoever goes near it and then start shooting at them. In lower levels this does a lot of damage, but as the game goes on you will mostly be using it for the fear.

This is what makes Shaco's first camp so easy and it is also very useful when fighting or ganking or pushing towers or giving vision or... Well, you get the point. I don't think I could write down every way of using this if I had a week. It's extremely versitile and it will most likely take you quite some time to get used to.

(E) Two-shiv poison Cooldown: 8 seconds

Two-Shiv Poison slows whoever you're attacking and if you're attacking a minion/monster it will also cause the minion/monster to have a chance of missing it's attacks. These effects however only apply when it isn't on cooldown

It let's you clear the jungle while loosing little to no health, unless you're super unlucky, and it slows whoever you're ganking so make sure to save the active for the very last moment possible or to finnish of the enemy.

(R) Hallucinate Cooldown: 100/90/80 seconds

Hallucinate let's Shaco create a clone of himself that does 75 % of his damage and takes 50 % more damage. It also explodes when killed, or after 18 seconds, dealing 300/450/600 magic damage.

This is very useful for soloing dragon, split pushing, doing more damage in fights, juking and so on and so forth. This is, just like Jack In The Box, very versitile. It's also very hard to get used to controling two characters at the same time which is yet another thing that makes Shaco hard to learn.

Here are "a few" tips and tricks that you may find useful.

Deceiving the enemy
When escaping, don't just Deceive the way you're running. Be smart! Use the terrain, jump over walls or disappear when there are two ways to go, so they don't know which one you took.
Or you could do what nobody expects and Deceive right back into them and run back past them. Most of the time they'll just keep running in the same direction and not realise that they're actually running away from you. The same goes for walls. Don't allways jump over the wall, simply aproach it and make it look like you did and instead you Deceive away from the wall and run a different direction. This will either make the enemy waste their Flash or make them run around the wall, giving you plenty of time to get away.
Mix it up a little though, don't allways jump back towards the enemy, because then they'll figure you out in notime.

Allways ready
Allways keep a Vision Ward in your inventory so that you can clear wards when taking dragon.

For the finnish
Two-Shiv Poison's passive goes away once it's on cooldown so don't throw your shiv until it's absolutely necessary. For instance to finnish your target off or, if they flashed, to slow them down and catch up.

Level 3 invade
If you kill someone at their first buff, you can get an early gank mid and then walk to their second buff and kill them there too, since they are already weaker than you. This is pretty much a guaranteed tilt for the enemy jungler and will make your game way easier.
Just be careful, they are probably ready this time.

Jack in a box

There are a lot of ways to use Jack In The Box so I decided to give it its own section. I don't think I've mentioned every way to use it as it is extremely versitile, but I wrote down everything I could think of, off the top of my head. If I missed something, please write so in the comments.


Jungling
When you are in the jungle you can use your box to tank camps and fear them to keep them from hitting you. Jack In The Box can also finnish off the camp while you run away if there's only one small monster left with sufficiently low health (usually only takes one auto from you to set it up).


Replacement ward
You can use boxes as wards, although they don't see as far, and if there are nothing to Teleport to close by, you can put down a box to let your Top laner Teleport in to the fight that may be about to take place.


Safety box
When split pushing use your boxes as wards and to block of paths in the jungle. If you are being chased and the one chasing you walks over a box it will fear them and make them stop for a moment.


Split pushing
Later in the game boxes become useful for pushing. Place one at the caster minions when you push and if you are taking a turret place one by the side to help you take it a little bit faster. It doesn't do a lot of damage but it saves you a few auto attacks and those seconds can save lives.


Towerdives not allowed
You can place a box under your tower if a laner is low. It might save their lives and even lead to a kill if the enemy decides to towerdive and gets feared under tower.


Dueling
If you encountersomeone in the jungle or get jumped by an enemy, place a box at their feet during the fight. This will cause them to get feared and may turn the fight in your favor.


Teamfight setup
Before fights, you should allways put down a couple of boxes to give your team an advantage, make sure to ping the boxes so that your team realise that they're there. This goes back a bit to the "Safety box" tip, but one way of doing this is putting boxes in openings to the jungle to keep the enemies from flanking you and giving you an escape path if the fight goes sour.


Peeling
Shaco doesn't have any hard CC and he is not enough to keep your carries safe, but he can defenitely help. Before and during fights you can put boxes close to your adc/apc, so that the Rengar that just leapt out of the bush gets feared instead of being able to burst them down. Shaco also has a really good slow ( Two-Shiv Poison + Red buff + Stalker's Blade), which you will probably use without putting to much thought into it, that will make it harder for the enemies to get to your carries.


Teamfighting
Shaco is not really a teamfighter but his aoe fear can be really useful. place a box in the middle of a teamfight to fear as many as possible or disable a carry for a short period of time.


Zoning
Your boxes can be used to zone enemies as they will realise the danger of getting feared and thus decides to stay away, and if they don't you might be able to kill them.


Blocking skillshots
When you place a Jack In The Box it will remain visible for a brief moment before disappearing. During this period it can be destroyed but that also means that it can block skillshots like Mystic Shot and Rocket Grab. It might be hard to react or predict skillshots but you should know that this is a thing that you can do.

Hallucinate

There aren't quite as many ways to use Hallucinate as there is to use Jack In The Box, but it still deserves its own section.


Kiting dragon
When your soloing dragon use your clone to kite it. This is done by putting yourself and your clone on opposite sides of the dragon and making the clone go up close to the dragon and attack it to get it to turn and then walking away with the clone so that it turns towards you again and then repeating the process. This will cause the dragon to get confused and not auto attack as frequently, it will also split the damage between you and your clone and let you get more Backstabs off.

When you have Jack In The Box off cooldown it can be used to let both you and your clone Backstab the dragon, drastically increasing your damage.


Permanent slow
Your clone procs on hit effects such as your Ravenous Hydra. This also means that it triggers you Two-Shiv Poison passive and slows the target it's attacking. And since it can't throw its shiv you now have a permanent slow.


Fooling your enemy
This is probably pretty obvious to most, but you can use your clone to juke enemies by making them follow the wrong Shaco. You can also pretend to be your clone and moving with your clone as if it were a player.


Tower diving
When towerdiving you can use your clone to tank or if you've alredy gotten the agro you can split to loose it and then make your clone tank.


Clone explosion
your clone deals damage when exploding and sometimes that is enough to finnish someone off. For example you can send your clone in under tower and make it explode, killing the enemy that though they were safe. The clones explosion is one of the thing about Shaco that scales so well with AP.


Dodging abilities
This might be the trickiest one yet. When you split yourself you stop to exist for a brief moment and if timed correctly you can dodge abilities with this. For instance let's say a Karthus decides to use Requiem to finnish you off, you can dodge it with your Hallucinate (and make sure to laugh afterwards of course).


Jumping walls
This is one hell of a lot easier to do by just Deceiveing over a wall but, if done properly, you can do it with your Hallucinate aswell. Stand by the wall, use Hallucinate and spam right-click on the other side of the wall. This is far from reliable but it's a fun little trick so I decided to mention it.


Dance moves
This is just a silly tip and has no use except for trolling and tilting the enemy or your teammates, you have been warned.
By spamming your dance button and moving your clone around, it will appear to dance while moving and you can litterally do the worm sideways across the rift.
Yes, I told you it was silly.

For more tips and tricks on champion matchups, please refer to the "Threats to Shaco with this build" part at the top of the guide.

Ok, we are now ready to jump in-game, but this chapter is going to be very long due to Shaco's very unique way of jungling, so I've decided to split it into different chapters. Ganking and invading are going to be separate chapters entirely and will be explained after the Early-, Mid- and Late-game chapters.

The first camp

The first camp is special, because Shaco can clear it faster than any other jungler. This is thanks to his Jack In The Box.
ALLWAYS start on either red or blue buff. We can take the first camp super easy so it might aswell be one of the big camps.

At 1:00 you place down a box at the wall behind your starting buff and then you put down another as soon as it's off cooldown and you continue like that until the buff spawns. Let the buff hit the boxes behind it once and then walk up close to it, so that it's attacking you instead, we don't want it to break our boxes. By doing this the boxes will burst it down in a matter of seconds and leave it on low enough health for you to finnish it off without problem. Then auto attack one of the small monsters once and then start killing the other one. Once your Jack In The Box is off cooldown again, place it beside the monster you auto attacked once and let it finnish it off while you run away.

Now from here we have a few different options, we can invade the enemy jungler and try to kill them and steal their buff, or we could go for an early gank or in the worst case scenario, if the other options are not good ideas, we can keep farming.

Buff > Invade
If you are going to invade, run towards dragon/baron pit. The box will finnish of the last monster by the time you reach the wall, put a point in Deceive, jump over the wall and let the invade begin.

Buff > Early gank
If you're up against a jungler that is really strong level 2 or has good enough sustain to not be killed in the jungle ( Udyr is a good example of both), then invading might be a bad idea. If this is the case then look to your lanes. Are any of those gankable (low health or pushed in)? If so then go ahead and gank. Not many laners expect a level 2 gank and will be taken by surprise, which may lead to a kill even if they're not pushed or low health.

Farming
Now if you can't invade and no lane is gankable, your only choice is to farm.
If you choose to stay in the jungle, I'd recommend taking Two-Shiv Poison instead of Deceive for our second spell.
Two-Shiv Poison's passive is really useful for farming as it causes the monsters, that you've attacked, to have a chance of missing you, making Shaco one of the very few champions that can clear the jungle without loosing a single hp early game (not reliably though).
Remember to use your Backstab passive. Put a box behind the camp your taking so that they turn their back towards you to attack the box. Let the camp attack the box until it's almost dead and then take the agro yourself and let the box attack so that it does the maximum amount of damage. Once you have learned how long the boxes last you can get the camp to attack it one last time just before it dies to get another Backstab off, this takes a little getting used to however.

The rest

Once you've gotten through the first few minutes of the game your job is to gank and counter-jungle/invade as much as possible to snowball yourself and your team.

If one of your laners back and the lane is pushing, hold it to get some free exp and farm. If a lane is gankable then gank and if you manage to get your hands on one of the enemies buff timers, for instance if you invaded level 2, hold onto that and make sure you're there to take it as soon as it spawns. Keep denying the enemy team exp, farm and of course buffs.

Make sure to ward dragon so that the enemies can't take it. You can solo it pre 6 but you'll be very low at the end of it and someone can easily steal it and kill you. If however an opportunity arises and bot- or mid-lane comes to help you, by all means go for it.

Once you've hit 6 dragon becomes a priority. Make sure to allways keep an eye on timers as dragon, red and blue buff needs to be taken right as they spawn, especially if it's the enemies buffs.

Split push when you can. This will give you farm and exp and keep you ahead. Assassinate as many as possible and keep snowballing.

Teamfighting is not Shaco's strong suit so if you can pick someone off before grouping you will increase your chances significantly.

Once grouped, throw a Two-Shiv Poison here and there, but make sure you don't empty your mana pool, while waiting for an opportunity to engage on the enemy. Once someone engages, Deceive on to the enemy ADC or APC and burst them down. Put a Jack In The Box in the middle of the team fight to fear as many as possible, unless the enemy has a lot of aoe damage, then the box will die instantly.

Ward extensively so that your team can get picks, which is your main task as an assassin.

Late game Shaco falls off and you shift from an assassin to a split pusher. You can of course still assassinate people and should continue to do so if you get the chance, just know that you won't do as much damage to the squishies once they pick up their defensive items.

Split pushing is something Shaco is REALLY good at. He can push waves fast thanks to Ravenous Hydra and Black Cleaver or Statikk Shiv, if you get any of those, and he can melt towers thanks to his Hallucinate.

Clear waves and push as fast as you can. If someone comes to stop you, either kill them or Deceive away to safety. Once you reach a tower or inhibitor use Hallucinate and put a Jack In The Box beside the tower.
With your clone and your box you will take the tower in no time.
Allways keep an eye on the map though. If someone leaves to stop you, you want to be prepared.

To sum up the late game, your job as Shaco is to get picks and split push and your job as a jungler is to keep objective control over baron and dragon. If you are ahead of the enemy team or have a better teamfight comp you should of course group with your team accordingly.

Ganking is something you're gonna be doing a lot of, to snowball your team and yourself early. Invading is to keep the enemy team behind, but more on that later.

Most of the time you want to Deceive into lane and get that initial crit of on the enemy, but not allways.
If it's a very imobile enemy with no CC that has pushed and is overextended you can simply walk up to them and slow them, this will usually result in a Flash and then you can Deceive onto them and keep on attacking. But there are not a lot of champs without CC or escapes so usually you just want to Deceive right away.

Now if you cant get the crit because they're to far away you might aswell place a Jack In The Box to break stealth. This will give the box time to activate and either zone the enemy to walk the other way, or fear them when they try to escape. This is also useful to enemies that run Ghost or have some form of movement speed buff, as they might be hard to catch up to once they realise they're getting ganked.

Once you're visible the preparations are over and the gank has begun for real. Attack the enemy and slow them with your Two-Shiv Poison passive. Use your Ravenous Hydra active, if you have it, and keep doing damage.

If they Flash or use an escape, wait a little (maybe 1,5 seconds), then throw your shiv to continue slowing them, this will usually let you or your laner(s) catch up again.

If you get a kill, that's awesome. If you don't, you will almost certainly have burned a Flash and left them too low health to stay in lane, and if they stay anyways your laner(s) should be able to pick up the kill later on.

If you have your ultimate and think you could use some extra damage to secure the kill and maybe even take the tower as a result of that, feel free to use it. But keep an eye on the dragon as your clone helps you take it faster and the one whos tanking looses less health, so you might be better of to save it for that instead.

Now that's HOW you gank, now let's talk about WHEN to gank.

The most obvious is of course if a enemy laner is low on health or pushed in, but you also need to keep an eye on how your laner is doing. If they're low the enemy might get a return kill and make their situation worse. You also need to keep track of the enemy jungler to avoid counter ganks. Wards of course help a lot with this.

If there are no potential kills in any lane it's still worth ganking just to pressure the map. Either to get someone low enough that they have to back and let your laner establish a CS or experience lead or to pressure a lane to give them something to think about, while your team takes a different objective, like dragon.

Ganking comes in many shapes and forms and for many different reasons, it will come to you in time and remember "practice makes perfect".

We invade to put the enemy jungler behind, so he can't gank so our lanes are safe and can snowball so that our team gets strong and the enemies get weak. Ganking of course plays a part in this aswell as stated previously.

Level 2 invade

The first invade is a little different, so it gets its own section

Once you've taken your buff, go to the dragon/baron wall and Deceive over it. Now there are 4 different scenarios that can happen from here, but before we go over them here are some general things.

ALLWAYS keep an eye on the map. If an enemy leaves their lane to help their jungler, you want to know before you get killed.

Never sacrifice your life in exchange for the buff, because that'll just give the buff right back to them...

If you can't kill the enemy jungler that's not the end of the world. We're invading to deny them the buff and experience. Killing them would of course be even better, but it's not the main goal.

1st scenario:
You started your red and you're now walking up to their blue, which they're currently taking.

Be patient here, Smite the blue when it's low enough and then go on the enemy. Don't stay longer than you have to and leave if someone comes to help.

This scenario is the most dangerous one as the enemy laners have a lot of time to react and might come to help before you even get to grab the buff.

2nd scenario:
You started your red and you're now walking up to their blue and there is no jungler in sight.

You now have a choice, either wait for them and hope they didn't back after their red or take the blue and leave.

It almost never pays off to wait, so my advice is to take it and then get an early gank mid or something.

If you wait, refer to scenario 1, but if you don't wanna risk it, then throw a ward over the wall so you get a heads up if someone's coming and then take the buff. Once you're done you should leave to go gank a lane. No use in staying.

3rd scenario:
You started your blue and you're now walking through the bush to their red, which they're in the process of taking.

Wait for it to get low and Smite it, then attack them and kill them.

Since they can't see you, unless they warded the bush, you should be safe untill you engage on them. So unlike scenario 1 you still have the element of surprise.

4th scenario:
You started your blue and are walking through the bush to their red and there is no jungler in sight.

This is a lot like scenario 2. You have a choice, wait for them or take it right away. The difference is that you now have a hiding place in one of the two bushes near the red buff. Which greatly increase your chances of getting a kill on the enemy if you wait.

If you decide to wait, refer to scenario 3, but be careful so that they don't ward your bush.

If you don't wanan risk wasting your time, take it and start ganking right away.

Continous invades

If you get your hands on a buff timer, make sure you're there when it spawns so that you can keep denying them their buffs and strengthen your own team with them instead. If you happen to pass by a camp in the enemy jungle, and you have the time, take it, but leave a small monster, so that it doesnt respawn, to deny them even more experience and gold.

But be careful, invading is dangerous and if you don't know where the enemies are it's usually a bad idea. If an enemy leaves lane you might have walked over a ward. Abort mission and rotate to something else. Living is more important than counter jungling.

Special thanks goes out to: League of Legends, for being an awesome game. MobaFire and the hard working crew that runs the website. C9Hai and C9Meteos, I took a lot of inspiration from their guide layout. WhiteCrow, for his amazing Shaco guide and for helping me get better at Shaco. Wikipro, for his Shaco guide. ...and last but not least, my thanks goes out to you guys who read my guide! I may have made this for myself as much as for anyone else, but the fact that someone actually reads it makes it so much better. So thank you! Best regards /Greedforce