This season, there have been a range of changes to Summoner’s Rift that have changed the way we play around the jungle; all along the river there are key objectives for players to focus on for their team’s success and, now more than ever, a capable jungler is required to best traverse the land between the lanes. "Rotations" are the term given to the movements that you make around the map to gather information, secure objectives and lock down kills, and nailing your rotations are vital for playing in the jungle effectively.

We had the opportunity to bring on our very own king of the jungle, Matthew “Akaadian” Higginbotham, to give his expert advice on jungling at the height of competitive play in the hopes that we all might learn a thing or two about rotations in Season 10. Let’s dive right in!

What’s the Meta with Jungle?

In the jungle, the mighty jungle, the meta is constantly evolving as the state of the game changes from patch to patch. Right now, the standard build order for junglers begins with Hunter’s Machete or Hunter’s Talisman, leading into either the Warrior, Cinderhulk, or Runic Echoes enchantments. Machete is usually favoured by auto-attack focused junglers, while Talisman is more beneficial to spellcasting junglers.

From there, your build becomes as varied as any other champion in the game, and should change based on the particular match you’re in. Junglers should also maintain a strong focus on vision in the game, swapping over to a Sweeping Lens as required and allocating a certain amount of their income to Control Wards consistently through the game.

As for the champion meta in the jungle, we threw it over to Akaadian for his input.

Akaadian says, "I think the single most punishing champ right now is Olaf. I ban him often in solo queue as he’s so easy to play, clears his jungle really quickly, and doesn’t take a whole lot of skill to fight with. He also counters a lot of different champions overall, and you need to think about whether your champion can play well into an Olaf because if your opponent can play him well then he can just run you over. The second is tied between Pantheon and Lee Sin; they’re both strong for different reasons, Pantheon is incredibly strong at level 3 and Lee Sin is very versatile and can gank a lot."

Early Game for a Ganker

There are many different points of interest across Summoner’s Rift for a jungler, and if you’re being outmaneuvered in the early game you may quickly feel the win slipping further and further out of reach. There are numerous ways for you to exert your dominance in the early game and Akaadian was more than happy to share his insight when it comes to securing First Blood.

Akaadian explains, "If you want a First Blood and you’re playing a champion that can do something at level 2 (which most champions can), kill your Red Buff and then plan your farming route, something like Red > Blue > Gromp, and just look at your lanes constantly. Literally just use your eyeballs and see how your lanes are playing, so say I’m running towards my Blue Buff and I see my Bot Lane fighting then suddenly I can be a part of that play and I get a kill or two for free."

Beyond First Blood, you can control the game by controlling the map; finding pockets of vision across the Rift is essential for tracking the movements of your enemy and acting accordingly. Akaadian’s take on this reinforces the importance of vision control even in the beginning stages of the match.

Akaadian adds, "In the early game you’ll always want to get one Scuttle Crab, or else you’ll be behind. So try to get one of those on your first round, then past that make sure that you keep vision on Dragon to make sure that the enemy can’t just get it for free without you getting something in return. A lot of the time I’ll even path by or near the Dragon Pit at 5 minutes so that the enemy jungler doesn’t just get to do it for free, since it’s very easy to solo early in the game."

Counter-Jungling the Competition

Diving into the enemy team’s jungle is a great way to put yourself further ahead while knocking the enemy down a peg. When counter-jungling, you aim to interrupt the opponent’s jungle path and put yourself in a stronger position, so confident movement and observant reactions are key. The first and most basic thing you need to consider is the strength difference between yourself and your opponent; things like items, health, Runes, and the jungle matchup itself all play a huge role when it comes to a big jungle brawl. If you’re counter-jungling, you have to expect a fight to break out at any moment, as all it takes is one well-placed ward by the enemy to catch you by surprise and send you back to the fountain. When you can’t guarantee a fair fight, Akaadian suggests you strongly encourage your teammates to give you a helping hand.

Akaadian says, "If you’re going to counter-jungle and there’s a chance that it’s going to be contested, I *always* spam ping assistance on the laners nearby. I’ll firstly check to see if they’re pushing or not, and if they are then I’ll spam ping them, then myself, then on the way to wherever I want to go. If you ignore priority, like some people do, then you’re just going to die and look like an idiot and flame your teammates instead of realising it was a bad thing to do."

Having this information is one thing, but the next step in the learning process is beginning to understand when the ideal time is to execute a counter-jungling move. Akaadian previously pointed out the importance of “using your eyeballs” when playing proactively as a jungler, and that advice continues when talking about signs that it’s time to invade.

Akaadian explains, "The easiest tell is to just look for when they show on the map, see how much CS they have and which buffs they have at that time in the game. So let’s say you’re Blue Side, you’re in the River killing the Scuttle Crab and the enemy jungler ganks bot with 12 CS and Blue Buff; you can assume that Red Buff is up, so you can just run into their jungle and take it. I think a good rule is whenever you see the enemy jungler on one side of the map, just run into their jungle on the other side of the map or go for a gank on one of the other lanes."

Hot-Takes with Akaadian

In many situations in League of Legends, it’s incredibly difficult to tell what the optimal play is before your opportunity passes. There are many micro-decisions that can be made easier if you have a clear vision before the time comes, though, so we’ve got Akaadian’s expert advice on some topics of discussion in the League of Legends community.

Is it better to use Rift Herald for securing Turret Plating Gold or to knock down a Turret after Plating has fallen?

Akaadian: I mean the most common scenario for taking Rift Herald is when your Bot Lane is winning, so you’ll get them to swap into Top Lane while the enemy Bot Lane is still Bot-side and then use the Herald to race them. With the Herald you can definitely take two turrets while they can only take one, and you can push their Top in while they have Bot control if they don’t come to fight you. That being said, plates did just get buffed from 120 gold per plate to 160, so I think it’s pretty much always better to take Turret Plates now, especially if you can take a few plates off first before you use it so you can give yourself a whole load of gold super quickly.

Assuming both teams are even in gold, if the enemy is sending 5 people to Dragon early in the game is it better to contest it or back off and trade for Rift Herald?

Akaadian: It really depends on the champions in the game and what vision you have. If the enemy top laner is going to give up his lane to go to the Dragon and you have a split-pushing Top Laner like Fiora or Camille, then it’s usually just better to let them take it and push their lane instead. If there’s a disparity in teamfighting power, let’s say you have a Fiora Top and the enemy team has a level 6 Ornn that walks down to fight Dragon with his team, you probably shouldn’t fight that because your Fiora really wants to scale for late game.

What are the biggest differences in Jungling pathing on the Red Side vs. the Blue Side?

Akaadian: So if you’re on Blue Side, the enemy Bot duo will sometimes try to cheese your Bot Lane in the Tribrush, and it’s the same for Top if you’re on Red Side. Basically if they just stand there and get the first hit on your team, they’ll often just end up taking a chunk out of their health and move on to bully them in lane, but if they want to keep playing aggressively then you can take advantage of that and get an early gank on them to farm them for free. That’s probably going to make the biggest difference in your early jungle route, as you’ll want to keep an eye out for that.

Following the tips and tricks outlined in this guide, your performance in the jungle will improve as you improve your awareness and impact on the games that you play. We’d like to thank Akaadian once again for giving his insights on Jungling in Season 10 of LoL and encourage you all to cheer the team through the future!