Players will learn the best jungle champions to climb with in Solo Queue Season 15. Each class of jungler will include several S-Tier champions with explanations of their playstyle. Players will understand the roles, counters, and overall strategy for all champions mentioned.
The current meta for jungle revolves around Champions that have fast full clears, consistent ganking tools, and are able to skirmish and apply pressure throughout the game. I’ll be breaking down each class of Junglers for Solo Queue and explain what the goals and strategies should be.
An S-Tier Jungler can effectively generate leads through either clearing faster than other Junglers or having strong kits to snowball the early game. They have high carry potential and can be used across multiple elo brackets for success. These Junglers are the most consistent for climbing and can fit into a multitude of team compositions. My S-Tier Junglers include Xin Zhao, Jarvan IV, Nocturne, Diana, Zyra, Hecarim, Trundle, Amumu, Dr. Mundo, Nunu, Talon, Qiyana, and Volibear.
My S-Tier skirmishers include Xin Zhao, Jarvan, Trundle, and Volibear. These Champions all have great early game skirmishing ability and can generate leads for their team through smart jungle pathing and ganks. Their kits are easy to understand, allowing the player to focus on the game rather than landing key abilities and perfect combos. Pick these Champions when your team lacks frontline, engage, or early game power. The primary counters for these skirmishers are marksmen and kiters which include Graves, Kindred, or Nidalee. These Champions are difficult matchups because they can abuse a skirmisher’s lack of range.
I would recommend playing these Champions regardless of skill bracket because of their strong carry potential and consistency. When playing these Champions focus on pressuring the map through ganking and fighting for objectives in the river. The goal is to generate leads for your team and play towards the strongest member. Make sure to track summoner spells as well because these Champions thrive against players without flash or escape abilities.
My S-Tier fast clear Champions include Nocturne, Hecarim, Zyra, and Diana. The goal of these Champions is to sequence through camps efficiently while ganking and taking objectives in between. Their focus is primarily on farming to generate a lead for themselves versus ganking and falling behind in levels. These Champions tend to spike hard on 1-2 items which is when you should be using your lead to pressure the map.
Champions to watch out for when picking these farm-heavy Junglers include early game Champions including Xin Zhao, Lee Sin, Rek’Sai, and Elise. These Champions want to pressure the map early through ganking or invading and can punish a farm heavy playstyle. Establish early vision when versus these Junglers and communicate with your teammates on their location.
Although these Champions have the ability to fight early and gank, their strength lies in out pacing the enemy Jungler through their fast clear speeds. This style of Jungling requires patience and composure as the enemy Jungler may choose to gank your teammates while you’re focused on farming. Keep a strong mental and understand that your win condition involves hitting item spikes and levels to eventually outscale and take over fights.
My S-Tier tank Junglers include Amumu, Nunu & Willump, and Dr. Mundo. These Champions focus on farming, building tank items, and providing frontline and crowd control to support their team. Tank Junglers take on a more supportive role of jungling through fighting with your team and peeling for your carries. Pressure lanes that have leads and avoid the ones that have fallen behind.
These tanks are susceptible to being invaded early game and outscaled by tank shredding Champions. I would avoid picking tank Junglers into Champions such as Kindred, Trundle, and Bel’Veth. These Champions can invade, outscale, and shred tanks with ease, making the matchup extremely difficult.
My S-Tier Assassin Junglers include Talon and Qiyana. These Champions thrive at getting picks around the map and killing enemy carries. They have extreme burst damage and excel at speeding around the map making plays. Assassin Junglers prefer to farm early game and spike off 1-2 items during the mid game. Although assassins are considered the most difficult out of the jungle classes, their ability to take over a game and snowball make them extremely rewarding to learn.
Avoid picking assassin Champions into enemy tanks/disputors such as Sejuani, Poppy, and Zac. These Champions build extremely tanky and have heavy cc to disrupt squishy assassins. They are hard to kill at every stage of the game and can’t be bursted.
For lower skill brackets, there are Champions more effective to climb with based on their easy to learn kits and mechanics. For example, a Champion such as Jarvan IV functions very similar to Lee Sin in that they are both active, high tempo style Junglers who enjoy skirmishes and lots of ganking. However, Jarvan’s kit is easier to execute in that he only has 1 combo with easy-to-use abilities. Lee Sin requires complex knowledge of combos such as ward jumping, insecs, and Flash usage which takes an extreme amount of skill to execute consistently.
If you were to play Lee Sin in these skill brackets, your focus would be on executing perfect combos rather than understanding the game state and playing the map correctly. My biggest tip for this elo is to play Champions whose kits require less thinking so you can focus your attention on the important parts of the game.
For players ranked emerald or higher, I would recommend playing 3-5 of the S Tier Champions to climb with. I would also be comfortable with at least 1 Champion in each class of Junglers which will allow for more flexible team compositions. Have at least one AP Champion as well to fit into an AD heavy composition. Stay away from mechanically difficult Champions such as Lee Sin and Nidalee until at least high diamond or masters. Although these Champions are effective at what they do, the skill ceiling is extremely high and difficult for players primarily focusing on climbing.
The best Junglers for Season 15 include Champions that are most consistent at either pressuring through ganks, skirmishing, farming, or providing frontline/crowd control. Skirmishers excel at generating early game leads through gank pressure and objective control. If you prefer high tempo constant fighting, I recommend playing one of the S tier skirmishers.
The strength of fast clearers and farmers is building an advantage throughout pacing the enemy Jungler and scaling into the mid and late game. If you enjoy the hard carry playstyle, I would play these types of Champions. Tank Junglers are best for providing peel and engage for the team through their crowd control. Tank players enjoy frontlining for the team and setting up big plays.
Finally, assassins are able to burst carries on the enemy team and excel through vision control and map movement. If you enjoy the high-risk high reward playstyle of snowballing a game, I’d recommend playing one of the S-tier assassins. Each style of jungling has their S-tier Champions, and it’s up to you as the player to decide what time of gameplay you enjoy most!
