In the current Smite meta, the starter item Bumba’s Mask is the king of the jungle. It is essentially a must-buy item for junglers. However, if there was one god that could jungle without Bumba’s Mask, it would be the “Hand of Death”, Thanatos. Thanatos has a very interesting kit, and is notorious for being an aggressive early-game pick that scales very poorly into the late game. Because of the early aggression a Thanatos must provide, along with the fact that his abilities are health-based, the starter item Death’s Toll is a viable option for jungle Thanatos, as opposed to buying Bumba’s Mask. There are differing opinions throughout the community on which item is better for Thanatos, as each item has its own benefits.

First, let’s discuss the standard jungle item, Bumba’s Mask.

Bumba's Mask

The passive for Bumba’s Mask was specifically designed for junglers, as it greatly benefits most “assassin” characters’ ability to sustain while clearing the jungle. It says, “Your Basic Attacks do +10 True Damage and your Abilities +10% Damage versus Jungle Camps. You are healed for 10% of a Camp’s max Health, and if you have an ally nearby, you get the normal gold reward as if you were solo.” Along with this great passive, Bumba’s Mask also gives junglers +10 MP5, to help with all of the mana a jungler will need use between ganking lanes and farming. In summary, this item basically gives you health for killing jungle camps and passively restores your mana. All in all, it is a very good item for prolonged sustain while farming and roaming.

Now, let’s talk about Death’s Toll.

Death's Toll

Death’s Toll gives you +15 Physical Power and +90 Health. Along with these stats, its passive says “Hitting an enemy with a Basic Attack restores 6 Health and 1 Mana.” Traditionally, in the past, Death’s Toll has been the starting item for Hunters (ADCs) in the duo lane. It has never seen much action in the jungle roll simply because of how much better Bumba’s Mask’s passive is.

There are a few unique things about Thanatos which allows him to utilize Death’s Toll to his advantage. First, he has an auto attack chain that hits in a small area-of-effect (AoE) range in front of him on every third consecutive basic attack. This AoE basic attack excels with the Death’s Toll passive, as Thanatos will get +18 Health if he hits all 3 jungle minions with it. Most other jungle characters don’t have an AoE basic attack, so they can only gain a maximum of +6 Health per attack. Secondly, as part of Thanatos’ passive, he heals 10% of a minion’s maximum Health when he deals the killing blow to the minion. So, coupled with the healing from Death’s Toll passive, Thanatos’ passive provides very good sustain, similar to what Bumba’s Mask would provide. Lastly, Thanatos’ first ability, Death Scythe, also heals him for a very large amount. Thanatos will heal for 75% of the total damage dealt from Death Scythe.

So, we can see that Thanatos is able to sustain just fine with Death’s Toll instead of Bumba’s Mask. But now for the real question; what is that advantage of using Death’s Toll in the first place? Well, the answer is quite simple. Thanatos does not scale well, so it is crucial for him to have a lot of early pressure on the map, whether it be by invading or ganking. Death’s Toll gives +15 Physical Power, while Bumba’s Mask does not. The +15 Physical Power gives Thanatos a very big advantage in dueling enemy junglers 1v1 early, as well as helping to pressure his teammates lanes, as the early damage is usually too much for enemy laners to deal with.

Although Death’s Toll now may seem like the obvious choice when playing Thanatos, it still has one major disadvantage to Bumba’s Mask; Thanatos will not receive the full gold reward from jungle camps if he shares the gold and experience with his teammates. This can be a problem, as jungle camps are usually shared between the jungle, mid, and support roles. However, if you were to buy Bumba’s Mask instead of Death’s Toll, you would receive the full gold from every jungle camp, no matter how many teammates you split the camp with. If you choose to buy Death’s Toll instead of Bumba’s Mask, you MUST be very aggressive early and gain some sort of advantage from pressuring the map. If you are unable to successfully gain an early advantage with Death’s Toll, you will fall farther and farther behind in gold as the game goes on.

The Death’s Toll start has recently been showcased by Kurt ‘Weak3n’ Schray, the jungler for Melior Morior, one of the six teams in the Season 2 Spring Split of the Smite Pro League (SPL). In his match against Cognitive Gaming in week two of the Spring Split, Weak3n was able to make very aggressive plays early in tandem with his solo laner, who was playing Bastet, to which he promptly got first blood just one minute and 40 seconds into the game. This is very notable because Thanatos has never been a popular pick amongst the pro players, and to see the strength of the early game Death’s Toll build in the SPL goes to show that it is a viable strategy for an early game team composition.

The decision between Bumba’s Mask and Death’s Toll all comes down to personal preference. With Bumba’s Mask, you will get more gold, but you are giving up the early advantage and power that Death’s Toll will provide. Likewise, with Death’s Toll, you are giving up your ability to win the farming game, but you are gaining the ability to put a lot of pressure on the map, wherever you so choose. The choice is yours; can you utilize Thanatos to the max and become the Hand of Death to your enemies?