In League of Legends there is one specifc role that can easily make or break their own team depending on what champion they play. That role is the jungler. To start off the jungler is not responsible for winning the game, carrying their team or even ensuring a particular lane doesn't lose. For a team to be succesful all lanes including mid, top and bottom should be able to hold their own without leaning on the jungler. However, across many different ranked leagues this is still expected. While that is not the topic of this article, it is still important to remember that people can be selfish and expect a jungler to help them out in every way possible, all the time. The jungler's job, in my opinion, is to ensure objective control, take advantage of over-pushed lanes, maintain vision of the opposing jungler and many other things not associated with winning someone's lane for them.

So something that has become very popular discussion-wise within many different skill levels is what kind of jungle to play. Some players may look to the professionals to see what they are playing to find out what champions are good and other players may look to champions they know and try to make it work. Whereever you look to in order to figure out what champions work in the jungle, there are two major things to consider: carry or tank? This requires more thought than just your usual champion selection. This decision involves considering risk, reward, team composition, play style and comfort. While champions that are being played in the jungle during a certain patch may change when a new patch comes along, these principles are things to always be considered regardless of season or patch.

Risk

With picking any champion whether it be a tank or a carry there is always risk to be considered. A carry needs to be able to output a decent amount of damage to help their team succeed in fights and securing objectives while a tank needs to able to use crowd control or high sustainability to take damage and protect their carries.

The risk in taking a carry jungle can vary depending on whether playing with a team or playing solo. Playing with a team you risk your carry jungle not getting the farm or kills he or she needs to become an effective carry. This may happen due to being counter-jungled or effective warding from the opposing team. Playing solo, however, can prove even more risky because your top laner may not build to be the tank your team needs leaving your team tank-less. Your team may also not be able to capitalize on your carry and you may fall off simply due to poor team play.

However, playing a tank jungler and carry jungler alike takes longer to build and requires more farm or kills to be on par with the rest of the team. The risk of playing a tank jungle is that your team may not have the damage due to lanes losing or playing poorly to where your tankiness is only attempting to save players who don't out damage their counterparts from which you can't actually protect them. The risk in choosing the right or wrong champion is ultimately losing the game but considering what risk you run with a specific champion is important because the rewards may not outweigh the risk.

Reward

While both carry and tank junglers are viable they are also both rewarding in their own respects. Very similar to the risks there are certain things to consider when determining the reward. Some of these things we will go more in-depth later on but for now we will go over the basic rewards of having a carry or tank jungle. Playing a carry jungler successfully can put you in the position of carrying your team to victory by being strong and providing great ganks while securing objectives.

Playing a carry jungle successfully can also help you to counter jungle the other team, causing them to fall behind and you to have greater lane presence. Playing a tank jungle can provide the front line your team needs in order to survive and win team fights thus hopefully winning the game. You can also provide the crowd control and the objective control your team needs to stay ahead or at least have vision to counter play. Bottom line, the reward of playing either kind of jungle can greatly improve your chances for winning the game but much of that depends on what your team is lacking.

Team Composition

Team composition is extremely important when picking a jungle champion. Picking based on team composition can be the difference between winning and losing a game. The current meta recommends every team having a tank or a front line to protect their carries. In order to remember the importance of team composition let’s imagine a game at about the 35 minute mark and nobody on your team has a player over 2000 Health. Unless your team is able to catch someone or have insane crowd control you will not win a drawn out team fight.

Making a decision to play a carry or tank jungle can come down to simply what fits within your own team and making up for what it lacks or adding to its strengths. There are many champions who are very versatile and are great for any team composition and at the moment that includes Lee Sin and Elise. However, team composition is not always in your control especially if you are first pick. Nonetheless, picking highly versatile junglers helps out a lot. Ultimately team composition is important because you cannot realistically win on your own, you need to consider your team and what champion could really make the difference.

Comfort

The one thing that everyone likes and everyone desires at some point is comfort. Whether the physical comfort of a soft bed or the emotional comfort from a friend we all want comfort is some way. Comfort allows us to be relaxed of stress, keep from panicking, have confidence and so many other things. Every player has a unique play-style in League of Legends. While each champion may define much of one’s play style there are still things like positioning, communication and lane presence to define a jungler.

Knowing your own play style is very important when making a champion selection no matter the type. For example, if you like to have a lot of lane presence then you would prefer more gank heavy champions who have some crowd control and a gap closer. Your play style combined with your comfortable champions, if it fits within your team composition, can make a very enjoyable game. You aren’t worrying about what to build or alt-tabbing to look at a guide, you aren’t playing outside your realm of experience and you are complimenting your team.

The reason I talk about comfort is because if you were to play with a champion you are uncomfortable with or have little experience with, maybe because it is a great counter pick or your team urges you to play a certain champion, you risk playing a game not at your full ability.

At the end of the game it may not matter what champion you play due to a troll, someone having a bad game, being outplayed and everything else that you cannot control. However, considering the risks, rewards, team composition, play style and comfort can help you in all the areas you CAN control. Perhaps it is unreasonable to remember all of those but even considering one or two during champion selection you are bound to work better with your team, thus hopefully resulting in a better game. Best of luck!