League of Legends (LoL) Question: Karthus jungle?

Karthus does A LOT of damage with his lay waste alone. However, if you want to do this you will need armor yellows, and defensive masteries so you don't get shredded in the jungle. You basically do not want to use your defile unless you have full mana, but even then only leave it on for a bit because it drains REALLY fast.

Spirit of the Spectral Wraith is the first buy, and zhonya's and sorcerer's shoes should be picked up after, then rabadon's or whatever items you want. Traditional ap builds like void staff etc.

It is not popular because it is a situational pick. If they have someone like akali, you are just giving the enemy team free kills (almost literally). You will want to have some kind of bruiser / tank (usually) on your team, which usually comes from the jungler, so your going to have to have a laner pick one.

Finally, you HAVE to clear your jungle, and maximize your farm. By no means should you not gank, but karthus is a late game champion and needs that gold so he CAN be that terror when late game comes around.

Snoopeh did Karthus jungle way back in S2. It was dropped when the jungle got initially buffed in S3, because the camp clears took too long and Karthus suffered too much damage. Now with the price deductions to Spirit of the Spectral Wraith, Karthus jungle has become possible again. But of course, it is a high skill-cap play to make.

I believe Azingy does Karthus Jungle. It isn't really seen because it is not standard and is very risky. Usually as a carry jungler, you either snowball the game or lose because you are not tanky. However, at High ELO, people know what they're doing. If you do it outside of that, people will flame you if they are not familiar with it.

Karthus jungle works because he has CC through Wall of Pain, and of course, Requiem to offer global damage - even if he is not ganking. Also, Karthus can steal damage after death through his passive, so even if he died during the gank, he can potentially pick up a kill to make it even.

Its very real and very viable in many team comps.

The strong point about Karthus in the jungle is the huge amounts of damage that he can put out in his ganks. Lay Waste does double damage if it only hits one target, combine that with his slow is a dead mid laner.

Whats so special about this though is that because (like mentioned above) junglers are normally built tanky with utility, the laners do not expect so much damage to come in a gank.

As for the late game, it can go either way. If Karthus has a hard time early game, eg counter jungle, it can be very hard for him to make an impact late game. However if you do manage to pickup first blood or a few kills, you will snowball harder than almost any other champion in the game.

Checkout my guide here if you want to know more :)