WARNING: PLEASE DO NOT READ ON OR YOU WILL BE A PRO SHACO PLAYER, THIS GUIDE HAS BEEN TESTED BY YOUNGMINI TO AUTOMATICALLY IMPROVE YOUR SHACO SKILLS OR FOR STARTERS, YOU WILL BE ACCUSTOMED TO PLAYING SHACO AND WIN EVERY GAME.

WARNING: PLEASE DO NOT READ ON OR YOU WILL BE A PRO SHACO PLAYER, THIS GUIDE HAS BEEN TESTED BY YOUNGMINI TO AUTOMATICALLY IMPROVE YOUR SHACO SKILLS OR FOR STARTERS, YOU WILL BE ACCUSTOMED TO PLAYING SHACO AND WIN EVERY GAME.

Before we start, everyone playing shaco needs to put their mindset as follows. "Aggressive assassin (not cocky but aggressive), i want to kill every lane outsmarting them with shaco, don't be scared even if you die. Everyone learns from their mistakes and that's what improves you as a better player."

About shaco: Shaco is one of the most complicated champs to expert but at the same time one of the really easiest champions to play. We'll start with why this champ may be easy, as you start out as level one, shaco becomes a fun champion to play because your jack in the boxes(jibt) do all the work for you to kill the first buff that you are aiming for(blue or red) by stacking boxes on its spawn location. Once you have cleared either red or blue buff you go to your next buff and clear it without losing much hp because you still have smite as well as a jibt tanking and doing damage. This is when you decide which lane to gank or to counter gank and it is totally up to you to decide. DO NOT GO TO LANES THAT SAY "OMG HELP HELP HELP". You must look into the best option possible to succeed in your first gank, this is key to playing shaco. Because shaco cannot clear jungle fast compared to every other jungler, ganks are crucial and it is the only way shaco can compete with your opponent jungler. Once you succeed in getting first blood most likely at top or mid (choose the lane that is pushed up a lot and plays aggressive and gank this lane after double buffs lvl 3).

The challenging part of this champion can also be you level 1, starting at either buffs, red or blue, the potential of you being invaded is 50%. Everyone knows shaco has bad early game if you team does NOT defend you correctly with support putting down many wards at level 1. Therefore if you get invaded at level 1 and happen to lose your buff or even die, this is when it gets hard for you to catch up because of shaco not being able to clear jungle fast. If situations like this occurs, do not panic. Go do your other buff that is still alive and smite it, you're lvl 2. Clear wolves, wraiths for level 3 and force a gank. Forcing the gank is really important because like i said previously, ganks are key to shacos victory. Once you spot a aggressive lane, go to it and make sure you kill him and tada! all caught up :) Playing late game also is a big mess if you are new to shaco. Split push or team fight? If you get fed early game and you're higher level, more items then anyone in the game, just go team fight and rape everyone. If this isn't your case and you aren't fed but you have equivalent farm with everyone, split push and take objectives while your teammates distract them in another lane, so do a 1-3-1 split or a 0-4-1 split. (1 top 3 mid 1 bot or 0 top 4 mid 1 bot) You as shaco should be one of the solo pushers.

About me: i love to eat chicken nuggets, im korean and i crave shaco :) im youngMINI and thanks for viewing my guide! I play in the NA server, if you need more help or have any questions check me out on http://www.twitch.tv/youngmini. DOH i stream! im always reading chat on stream but here is the rest of the build/guide, enjoy fellow shaco'ers!

My old names. saranghaeyo4. racoonboywuchuckwu

Some randoms stuff about me are that I love to eat chicken nuggets and I'm Korean. I crave for Shaco. Thank you for taking your time viewing my guide! I play in the NA server. If you have any questions or need an advice you can ask me on my fb page http://www.facebook.com/youngMINILOL or check me out on http://www.twitch.tv/youngmini . Make sure you guys follow and like both my stream and fb page ! :)
Smurfs: Confidant Thug, saranghaeyo4, racoonboywuchuckwu

Pros

+Dude i can go invisible :)
+Fast early game ganks
+Assassin early game to spoon feed every lane kills
+Great split push
+Jack in the box
+Able to dodge any skill with Hallucinate (ult)


Cons

-Squishy
-Bad survivalbility
-Bad jungle clear
-Easy to fall behind
-A small poof when you deceive
-Hard to catch up if behind

Pros
*Starting with Doran's Blade

The rune build i am using is, "fast and burst" a term i like to use because i move and attack fast and do a huge burst combined from your first crit following up with a poison shiv. We get marks ad runes to help us apply more AD for the extra burst as well as the damage for shiv early game, attack speed is crucial for shaco because thats what he relies on the entire game, therefore we get glyphs and seals, attack speed. for quints i suggest movement speed for faster ganks after your double buffs and also as a substitution for mobility boots. If you are just starting to play shaco and you don't have all the runes, just use what you have :)for and example, if you already have AD quints, use them while you farm more ip for movement quints.

- Preferred

- Smite should be a required on every jungler :) fun fact! - when you're going against a [champ/zac.png], you can smite him during his passive, 4 blobs come out! KILL 3 AND SMITE THE LAST FOR FUN! And also this is an obvious haha, even though you're playing shaco and basically your boxes do all the work at level 1, you still need it for the 2nd buff clear. Also important for dragon/baron.

- Ignite is super duper important, you are playing shaco, burst hungery! Any additional burst or damage during ganks and team fights are very crucial because you want to kill off players as fast as you can. Faster you burn them, the faster the +30 lp :)

Alternatives


- Smite

- Exhaust is honestly not that bad, if your team has no exhaust because your support grabbed barrier or heal, you can grab this for late game and exhaust their carries during team fights. It's also good for ganking because you will never lose your kill. Your opponent you try to gank may flash away but exhaust will keep him from going anywhere.

Or

- Smite

- Ghost is a viable spell to invest in as well, say you're bot and see a potential gank on your teammate, you can ghost from 1 lane to another within a few seconds and prevent that gank and counter gank. As well ghosting to baron/dragon to smite it etc. You can even chase carries with this spell and split them away from the team fights.

Or

] - Smite

- Teleport is also a great alternative, not only can you teleport to countergank for your team, you can also teleport to backdoor and get free towers/inhibs while enemy team is distracted defending a tower or killing dragon. (fun fact: you can teleport on your jack in the boxes)

We maximize our skills into poison shiv mainly because that is our only skill that actually outputs damage other than your auto attacks. When you gank a lane, you wanna kill him as fast as possible so he can't get help from others or flash away to safety. Leveling up shiv will not only slow but do massive damage scaling with your ad and ap, although you have no ap, the ad scaling should be more than enough. Secondly we max our Jack In The Box because it increases fear duration, the more fear time, the more kill time. Lsstly we level up deceive for more damage.

Also remember! Backstab Shaco deals 20% bonus damage when striking a unit from behind with his autoattacks or abilities.

Backstab - Shaco deals 20% bonus damage when striking a unit from behind with his autoattacks or abilities.

Your passive very helpful for you because you are an assassin, deceive into a gank, going behind them and auto attack a few times with a poison shiv for maximum damage output.

This passive also works with buffs and dragon. If you watch my video for starting the jungle as level one, i let my jitb tank my 2nd buff for me so that i cna smite and deal damage from its back.

here is a video of the use of shaco's passive killing dragon.

Play Video


And remember, Backstab's bonus damage applies to Shaco's autoattacks and abilities, except for Jack in the Box. That means your shiv too! so during a gank make sure you shiv and auto attack from behind as quick as possible.



Deceive - Shaco instantly blinks to a target nearby location and enters stealth for up to 3.5 seconds.
His next auto-attack in the next 6 seconds will critically strike with modified critical damage (normal critical strikes are 200% damage), dealing physical damage and ending his stealth

Cost: 90 / 80 / 70 / 60 / 50 mana
Critical Strike Damage: 140 / 160 / 180 / 200 / 220 %

Notice how Deceive only increases crit damage, it is not worth leveling this up until late game where you have a ton of AD.

This skill is used to initiate your ganks, following up with a jitb

Jack in the box - Shaco creates a Jack in the Box at the target location with 150 health. It will stealth after 2 seconds and trigger when an enemy comes near, fearing nearby enemies briefly and attacking them. It deals magic damage, and lasts 60 seconds stealthed or 5 seconds while firing.

Aslo to remember that casting Jack In The Box breaks stealth!

Your main use of jitb comes in as you gank, put the box down in the direction your enemy will go to so that they will get feared trying to run to safety (their tower).

(unknown embed type)Two-shiv poison - (Passive): Shaco's attacks poison his targets, reducing their movement speed for 2 seconds. (Active): Shaco throws a dagger to target enemy dealing magic damage and applying his slowing poison to them for 3 seconds.
The passive is deactivated during the cooldown. The passive also gives affected non-champion units a chance to miss their attacks.
Hallucinate - Shaco disappears, becoming untargetable for half a second and creates a clone of himself next to him that will last for up 18 seconds


Remeber at the end of its duration or when dying the clone will explode, dealing magic damage to nearby enemies. So tower diving is that much easier with shaco, just send in your clone to kill low hp enemys!

Your clone is controlled by (Alt+Right-Click)

This skill is your most important skill when it comes to ganking mid-late game. Shaco has no survivability. All he has is 9 masteries into defensive as well as a late game item guardian angel. Hallucinate makes shaco another reason why he is just that much fun.

Fun fact; hallucinate can dodge any skill, karthus ult, nunu ult, malp ult, even caitlyns ultimate. practice might be needed on timing them perfectly.

YOU CAN DODGE ANYTHING. you name it.

Hear is a short clip of me using my ult to kill someone in tower range.

Play Video
Having this skill up is very important before you engage into a team fight, it is your only escape ability because you will be engaging with your deceive. If you get low in a team fight, use your ultimate to trick people and confusing which one is you, this buys you time to deceive away.

During late game team fights, your clone and guardian angel play key roles. You act as a decoy/bait for your team. Initiating on the enemy team then using hallucinate makes the enemy focus you because you are first in site, thats 2 targets the 5 enemy players are going to try to kill using all their skills. After that you have GA left. By the time you are reviving due to your GA, the enemy team won't have any skills to kill your team with because they used it all on you, in the end you're still alive! Make sure you try to get all the cc skills on you before you die, your role is a target dummy.

So as a shaco and a jungler, your goal is to GANK early and fast.
you want to look for the best opportunity and gank players who play really aggressive and that are harassing your teammates badly.

MOST IMPORTANTLY; DO NOT TAKE EVERY KILL POSSIBLE, sharing is caring!! don't be greedy. It's not what you're made for, as a jungler you want to spoon feed your players and help them out, once you see your players win each lane then start taking kills. If they are semi losing or equal in farm, toss them a kill and they'll love you. Just play to win the game, not to be greedy and potentially losing the game because your team is behind in kills.

You start out by hiding in an area where your smoke on deceive cannot be seen, such as;


by using these angles and fog of war, you cannot be seen even with your deceive smoke to players who are aware of shaco's smokes making it very decisive for a quick and easy kill :)

Importance of your teammates:


Many players do not know how to play with and against shaco. During early game phase, if the enemy team wards the entire map it gets hard for you to gank so remembering those specific angles is important.
When you solo q, not many people play with an aggressive shaco assassin so they won't really have an idea what you are capable of and how fast and big of a burst you can deal to someone at lvl 3. Let your solo laners know that you will be coming before you make the gank happen. This will help out big time, most of the time if people are zoned out, they will not notice that you are coming for a gank because shaco has to deceive from a bit far distance in order to not get caught from the smoke he makes. The key of the ganks relies on not only you, but how your teammate follows up as well. Say you went invisible using deceive, but you are nowhere near the enemy, yet your teammate starts running at him. This is a big no no, it gives away your possible free kills and ruins your ganks because your teammate just gave it away that you are here by randomly running at him. ALWAYS LET YOUR FRIENDS KNOW THAT YOU WANT TO OPEN UP THE FIGHT . This will make things go much easier, i promise you.



this is my score right now as of 9/12/2013. I have 640+ games played with shaco and my score is superb. You can tell that i give and take kills, i have just as many assist as kills. "help your team, help you"

Prioritize your buffs then make it rain.


As you start your game, you clear double buffs and gain level 3. Decision making time. Look around your map to see what lane the enemy is pushing hard in as well as being aggressive towards your teammates. Once spotted make your way there to get the first gank. Now a good thing to remember, you don't to necessarily succeed in getting the kill, even if the enemy pops flash, it is still well worth the time because sooner or later your teammate will finish him off alone or with you again by a follow up gank.

Here is an example of how to start your game after double buffs.
Play Video

As you saw from this video, i saw opportunities in counterjungling as well as an early gank on the mid enemy team because he was pushed up close to mid.

Don't let your hp scare you away from great chances like this, one good thing to know is how much damage you can deal at level 3 as well as how much damage you can take. This you will eventually get a grasp of when you keep practicing games with shaco.



COUNTER JUNGLING - be aware of your map


Now when you counter jungle, it is important for you to keep your eyes on the minimap. YOU JUST MIGHT BE WARDED. Say you are trying to invade the enemy jungler and counterjungle by trying to prevent him from getting his 2nd buff, you might see middle or top or even bot shifting towards you, that means you are in the red zone ( warded ) get ready to dipset...

During the mid game phase


Your goal is to get as much towers and dragons you can for your team as well as protecting you buffs for your middle laner. Losing your buff can cause you to fall behind so if you get a buff stolen, just go to his and take it back :) Warding is also very important to get easy kill picks from people wandering around all by them selves not knowing that you have vision on them. Even if your team is behind because of bad laning phase , dragon gold and tower gold will help out tremendously and will allow your team to recover from it. Once all of the first tier towers are gone, force a team fight at dragon if you are ahead and if you arn't ahead just try to pick someone off with a quick shaco gank.

Split pushing comes in very helpful during mid game. As your teammates group up mid to get the 2nd tower, you can split bottom or top and get the 2nd tower there all by your self then relocating to your teammates or even the next lane.

Late game; play as a team


This is not a solo game, you cannot win 1v5 so just remind your self to always be positive with your team and lead them to victory with the shaco plays :p

Late game will be based off how well your ad carry has farmed and how much cc your team brings into the fights. If you have a team with 0 cc, do not force team fights. no matter how farmed you are, most like your team is going to lose because they probably wont live through any of the cc unless all 5 of you guys manage to flash out of aoe cc. This calls for split pushing or forcing baron. We force a baron knowing how fast you can clear baron, the baron buff significantly helps out your team with more damage and defense, if you have this buff you can 5v5 with no trouble unless someone gets picked off beginning of the fight.



Now you don't always want to force baron when you don't need to. Do not get greedy for this if you are ahead, it is one of the most common ways to throw the game.

Hey im playing shaco!! this means you can trap the **** out of baron so if anyone tries to stop you, you'll stop them from gettnig anywhere near and have all the time you need to clear baron.
Your boxes will allow you to even fake baron, if you can jitb-fear more than 2 people just rush in and kill them off but be wise about the choice you make, only make plays if you know its for the better of your team as in your death for 2-3 kills.

The idea of split push is very important playing as shaco. When you split push that means you are all alone in a lane trying to get objectives; killing towers. What this does is that you are forcing the enemy team to defend you off as well as your teammates in another lane. This means that someone will come, most likely a tank or adc that can potentially kill you. This gives your team a chance to fight the enemy because they are missing a key player for the team and the enemy will most likely lose against your team because your team will be a solid team comp; adc, support, top, and mid to fight with vs the opponent missing an adc or tank or ap carry. If you have all your items built you can probably kill the tower as well as who ever is defending you off their tower. This allows you to push even further or even helping out your team push harder as 5.

No one is defending the tower you are trying to kill

This means you have a free objective and you just keep going until they actually do, if you see 5 enemy middle vs 4 of your teammates middle, make sure to tell them to not engage but to disengage fights so that you can get as much damage into towers/inhib possible.

Team work is the key to mid-late game. Remind your teammates to not recall in common warded areas as well river if you know someone is nearby.

Game flow.

So many games have various types of game flow, game flow. Some games you start out really well getting first blood 2nd blood etc, you basically have the moral boost and just keep winning every lane, eventually ending the game with a victory. Some games in the other hand, you'll find afk'ers, feeders, and trolling players. Don't just start raging at feeders and trying to put them down, just keep playing. This is a 50 minute video of my game going from 100% loss to a win because i did not give up.

Shaco can be played multiple ways during mid-late game. This video i play as a hard carry by split pushing and destroying their base even though they are double our kills and farm. Objectives are your key to winning.

Video parts 1 through 4 ( FULL GAME CLIP of terrible start to victory )

Play Video Play Video Play Video Play Video

FUN FACT: This skin has a bit of an advantage because of the after effect of your skills deceive and jack in the box.

There is a SMOKE that is left behind when you put a box down as well as using you skill deceive.



So during ganks, you will most likely hide behind walls and jump over it, or in a brush. You obviously have to be somewhat near the enemy because your deceive does not last forever. When you start and engage a gank using deceive many high elo players or players who know shaco are very aware of the smoke and it is very very noticeable. REGULAR SKIN AND EVERY OTHER SKIN except for Masked shaco skin masked shaco has a dark colored circle like poof, and when you're in a brush or in fog of war, it is harder to see this DARK COLOR .
But for the regular skin and every other skin, the smoke of the poof is ORANGE very noticeable in fog of war and in brushes. It is almost as if i was wanting them to know im there.

So if you did not know about this, just be aware. if Shacos in your game and you see a smoke, you better start running^^

This is your best of best friends when playing shaco. If you have this friend, you will be happy forever ^^

Jack in the boxes come super duper handy when you go ganking, ALWAYS START deceive and run to the back of the enemy that is being ganked punch him with your fist for the crit and put a jitb down so that he would have to run into the direction of the box.

There are fun ways to use these boxes too so that you cannot get counter jungled. Boxes for safety. Put the boxes down in places you think you might get countered from, pictures in "Defend your JUNGLE!"

but for the fun part, you can trap your enemy in bushes by using a easy setup.

Funny box setup video :)

Play Video

DEFEND YOUR JUNGLE

The jungle is like your house, you dont want no stranger coming into your home and stealing random things that are YOURS. Thats right! so you better time your buffs/dragon/baron!


Places boxes before you go ganking or counter jungling as shown in these pictures.






Every 7 minutes after death




Every 6 minutes after death


Blue and Red buff spawns every 5 minutes after death

HOW TO SMITE?

When you are being pressured killing baron or dragon, you will be in charge of taking the kill with smite. LOOK AT YOUR SMITE DAMAGE!!!! Always remember what the damage is before u start killing dragon or baron and look carefully at the health bar as it gets down and time it perfectly. Don't worry about dying etc unless you know you can win the team fight.

Hard and easy matchups:

Easy to Counter jungle



Jungle clear: Average
Zac doesn't do enough damage to kill you early game, with ignite you can 1v1 him if you happen to get engaged into a fight in his jungle, when he goes in passive, blob mode, remember to smite it! :)


Jungle clear: Fast
One of the easiest junglers to face when countering, he cant do anything to do except cry and stun you once, he's basically a useless minion who stands there crying free for you to kill easily with a jitb and ignite.

[champ/nautilus.png]
Jungle clear: Slow
Very very slow jungler, he might have some cc to stop you from doing much but once you remove his shield, just be ready to slice and dice him up :).


Jungle clear: Fast
Chogath has all skillshots, they are easy to dodge and when done, his cd's are too long for him to fight back when he misses them all. easy counter jungle and kill facing him.


Jungle clear: Average
This is a troll jungler basically.. lol if you see this champion picked for jungler just jungle in his jungle instead of yours rofl. 0 chance he'll kill you or outjungle you.


Jungle clear: Slow
Slow slow slow jungler, he doesn't do much early game. Easy to steal creeps in his jungle and to get out just just as easy :)


Jungle clear: Average
this jungler is pretty fast in movement but you can kill him if engaged during counter jungle.

xinzhao
Jungle clear: Average
He can hurt you pretty hard but with the use of jitb easy to kill.

warick
Jungle clear: Slow
this champion does nothiing earlygame so counter him hard!

Medium


Jungle clear: Average
His passive is really annoying, you don't want to try to kill him unless he's already low hp.

[champ/drmundo.png]
Jungle clear: Fast
You might not want to counter jungle mundo as much because if you get caught by him, he'll do some damage to you even early game.


Jungle clear: Fast
Evelynn isn't too hard to go against but he clears fast and does a lot of damage with his spikes, because of his speed she is annoying to catch.


Jungle clear: Fast
You can try to engage nocturne but he has some cc and a bit of damage at level 1-3 during early game phase, but counter jungling is still good against nocturne.

Hard


Jungle clear: Average
Hard to counter jungle because of his damage early game, he has shield and he can get away fast.


Jungle clear: Fast
You probably won't even see this guy till lvl 6, he jungles super fast. i wouldnt bother to counter him


Jungle clear: Average
Tooo too tanky and can get away slowing you.


Jungle clear: Fast
This champ is hard for shaco to do anything so i dont recommend you to counterjungle, hes tanky, fast, and can stun you to death lol..


Jungle clear: Average
Rengar is easy to counter jungle but if you engage him early game he can 3 shot you if close to a brush,


Jungle clear: Fast
This jungler is one of the hard champs to go against because he can clear so fast because his skill consume can wipe out the entire jungle in seconds.

leesin
Jungle clear: Average
Very hard to counterjungle, if spotted by lee sin, you might die in seconds because he can see you while you are invisible.

jarvaniv
Jungle clear: Fast
Does a lot of damage early game and can kill you on site if you miss deceive.


Jungle clear: Fast
This champion is kind of like udyr, tanky, fast, and can snare you. try not to bump into him :)

Falling behind is really hurtful for shaco.



Ok so as a jungler you are going to need your support to ward for you early game especially because you are playing SHACO. if you dont ward and get invaded at level one, you will fall significantly behind because shaco cannot clear jungle fast. these cases obviously happen time to time, like i said before do not panic.

WHEN INVADED AND YOU DIE


Most likely you lost that buff you got invaded in if you happen to die, so go to the other buff use your jitb and smite it, you wont lose too much hp soloing it since you smite it, get to lvl 3 with that but using jitb in ur jungle and make a quick gank asap at 3, try to succeed in that gank and get a kill or even more + minions if ur laner who you ganked decides to bank, you're already caught up then. If that didn't work go get level 4 in jungle and gank again, as shaco falling behind is easy and ganking is hard, this is why you need to force ganks and try to survive the gank without dying. This is the only way to catch up. If you fail to do this the game goes downhill for you as shaco this is the risk that you have to take, shaco has super bad jungle clear and sadly you have to deal with it if you get invaded.

TO prevent invasion and death at lvl 1


WARD!!!! tell your support to ward your other buff and the entrance to your jungle every one of them!!

wards are your second best friend :)

ask the support to ward tri-bush if on blue side
ask the support to ward top river jungle entrance
ask the support to ward the bottom river jungle entrance

BUT if your support only bought pinks: just ask your team to defend you nicely.

Other videos
Play Video

http://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/comments/10ks5k/youngmini_2600_elo_shaco_ama/ is my AMA reddit page but kinda old so ask me questions on my stream!!

but most importantly i hope i helped you guys learn my shaco ways and hope to see more shaco players out there!! It will help you get out of low elo :] getting to diamond 5 is a breeze with shaco.
If you want to see me live and play shaco all day, come watch me LIVE http://www.twitch.tv/youngmini. i answer questions and play with viewers as well<3 SHOW YOUR LOVE!

You learn a lot from watching pro players play so come watch the shaco master do work and you might learn a thing or two! Also my stream is very informative if you are kind of new to the game, it'll still be very helpful to you and everyone else who doesn't necessarily play the champion shaco.

I show off a lot of my special tricks and plays on my stream :p If there are things to be fixed on my guide please do tell me, i would really appreciate it.