Jungling With Style: Define How You Play And Improve Your Gameplay
Understand jungle playstyles in order to define how you play and refine your game.
Almost as important as knowing how to play a role is being able to define your style of play. From agro to passive, there are many different play styles to be discovered as well as invented. Knowing how you play allows you to learn your limits, play to each of your strengths as a player, define your role within the team, and most importantly improve your play.
Agressive Jungling
The first and most distinct playstyle when it comes to jungling is that of an aggressive jungler. This style has many defining characteristics, one of them being their uncalculated high risk high reward playstyle. These junglers are the play makers of the game, the ones to see an opportunity and take it without a second thought. The most popular example of a player and a character with a highly aggressive playstyle is Team Impulse’s Rush and more specifically his Lee Sin. Some like to refer to his play as a solo queue style, however his aggressive nature transitions perfectly into the competitive scene and is what gives his team the advantages they gain. In order to further exemplify his as well as the aggressive style as a whole, we can look at Rush’s play against Counter Logic Gaming in this year’s North American Semi-Finals. The biggest example that comes to mind is Rush’s play on ZionSpartan in the top lane.
Breaking down this play, the first thing we notice is his pathing. At the start of the clip we notice he walks on top of a CLG pink ward revealing himself. Whether he saw the ward or not is unknown, however he keeps moving on as he sees ZionSpartan at low health and an easy kill. Secondly he comes into vision of Xmithie the CLG jungler as he walks up the river. At this point we see ZionSpartan’s Gnar making a mad dash to the tower where he feels he would be safe from a gank. What happens next is the execution of an aggressive jungler. Without hesitation, Rush ward hops in and sees the beginning animation of the Gnar hop. Not breaking stride he flashes in and ults cancelling the animation and leaving Zion unable to move. He finishes off with a Resonating Strike to secure the kill. This play is the perfect example of an aggressive player. It contained a high risk high reward tower dive, a disregard for the opponent’s knowledge of the situation, and an execution of a high mechanical play.
Calculated Jungling
The second playstyle that is frequently seen both in solo queue as well as competitive play is a calculated approach. As you could guess by its name, the calculated approach is usually a low risk high reward play style. A calculated player will take everything into account before executing a gank. Some major characteristics of a calculated jungler are the frequent use of sweepers to clear vision, the constant upkeep of knowing opponent’s summoner spell timers, and only ganking lanes that have a high chance of success (usually lanes with a high amount of crowd control in order to make the gank easier). A player who defines this style of play is Fnatic’s Reignover. His ganks as well as shot calls are usually premeditated and worked out far ahead of time, rather than reactively like an aggressive jungler would. An example to further illustrate this style is comes from Reignover’s gank during game one of Fnatic’s series versus the Unicorns of Love in this year’s EU Semi Finals. Again this play is in the top lane, however this time it is far more calculated than that of Rush’s play.
To start the play we again first must look at Reignover’s pathing. As we look at the mini-map we see he pings on his way top lane and then places a second ping showing the path in which he will come from. He chooses the route around tri bush avoiding the UOL ward and goes behind the tower unseen. One can only assume due to this choice of route that he knew of the wards placement and chose the longer path in order to give Vizicsacsi a sense of security having never seen Elise. The second part of the gank is the execution. The first thing we notice is that Huni pushes the wave forward allowing for the two to converge on Naut. Secondly we notice that Reignover steps in front of the oncoming enemy wave in order to avoid a minion tanking the cocoon. Now that they are in range, we see Huni start with his stun in order to allow Reignover to land his stun right after. We then see Huni tank turret agro perfectly as Reignover does the damage and seals the fate of Vizi.
This play was calculated so far ahead of time that the only way Vizicsacsi would have escaped is had he had wards cover all of his own jungle. This play had every characteristic a calculated jungler could want. From the ability to avoid vision, to ganking the lane with just the right amount of cc, there was little to nothing that could have stopped the attack onto top lane.
Farm Heavy Jungling
The third and final playstyle I will touch on is that of a farming jungler. This style is not as popular in competitive as it is in solo queue, however it has seen some action. We saw the formation of this style with the arrival of Cloud 9’s Meteos onto the NA scene, and then be picked up by his replacement, Hai, upon his return from retirement. This style can be characterized by its lack of ganks and abundance of jungle farm. This usually requires safe lanes in order to prevent snowballing by the other jungler, as well as a jungler who has either a fast clear or an abundance of sustain in order to continue farming (Shyvana, Master Yi, Warwick, Kayle).
The first showing of this style was during the Cloud 9 vs Enemy in week 8 of the LCS, along with the development of Sated Devourer. C9 picked Shyvana, one of the fastest clear in the game, as well as Braum, Kalista, Rumble, and Ahri all safe champions with good forms of disengage and escape. Unlike its counterparts, this playstyle does not bring flashy plays, but instead allows for high scaling as well as a clear outlook on the map and the game. The high farm game brought many advantages to Hai and the rest of Cloud 9. First off with the passive of the jungle items granting more gold on killing jungle camps, it can theoretically put you into a gold lead over your counterpart assuming the team is playing safe from ganks while you farm away. It also relieved pressure off of Hai to make plays on a new and uncomfortable role, and instead focus on the decisive shot calling and map awareness that he was formerly known for. This style is by far the most passive style of the three, but under the right circumstances can lead to the success of the team.
Each of these styles has its own unique advantages and disadvantages, with each of them catering to the type of player that plays it. Whether you love the Rush of high risk plays, prefer the Haighly passive farm simulator style, or created a style all your own, it is important that you know what you like. Knowing your style allows you to understand your limits and work out the kinks as you discover them. This allows for the constant improvement of yourself, as well as rise in rank both in solo queue and team play.
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