The Jungle pool in League of Legends has always been one that consistently changes as patches and new Champion releases shake up the metagame. It is no surprise to say that Jungle is the role that often changes the most whenever Riot Games does big shakeups with their preseason and mid-season changes. Yet at the same time, there are always outliers that tend to succeed even after multiple patches. With Jade “Sheiden” Libut, we’ve put together a general recommendation list of Junglers that players can pick up and expect to succeed with.

Pantheon

Sheiden: “OP champ in solo queue. I think he [Pantheon] is good.”

A short but sweet explanation, mostly because Pantheon as a Champion is fairly straightforward as to why he is powerful currently in the Jungle metagame. He is quite the notorious early game menace that brings straightforward yet effective pressure when picked up in any role. In his original top lane role, we’ve seen him played as a lane bully with strong global pressure. In support, we’ve seen Pantheon’s effectiveness in strong combos where your opponent has to respect the zone where Pantheon and his lane partner can burst a single target in the early levels. In the Jungle, a lot of the same strengths remain, paired with a respectable clear speed and the simple yet versatile use cases for his kit.

To break it down, here are the reasons why Pantheon is a strong Jungler to climb with.

Pantheon’s W – Shield Vault

The main part of Pantheon’s kit that remained from his pre-reworked kit, is a staple across roles, providing a point and click stun for 1 second. League is often discussed as being a very heavily mobility creeped game, with a lot of newer kits removing their point and click options. This is where Pantheon comes in, where if you press W at the right times, there are very few windows where you can make a mistake, as well as few ways for other players to play around it.

As a Jungler, early ganks can fail simply off being outplayed by Flash or mobility. Pantheon’s W will stun even if your opponent is in the middle of a dash and usually gives enough of a window for your laner to follow up. Pantheon’s burst can mostly be piled in the window where you stun your opponent, which leaves for a basic yet powerful burst rotation. For many players, this leaves you thinking less about mechanically outplaying your opponent and focusing more on the basic Jungle fundamentals and being in the right place at the right time.

Pantheon’s Ultimate – Grand Skyfall

Global ultimates have always been one of the best in the game, primarily because they enable you to act and pressure even without being in the proximity of the opponent. Consider Champions that retreated to the Jungle like Karthus, who can “gank” while power farming by simply pressing his ultimate when needed. Pantheon is in a similar ballpark, but closer to Shen where when you commit your ultimate, you’re now participating in the skirmish, but you’re able to turn around situations by flanking. The current Jungle meta (as of Patch 25.15) is very heavily reliant on your ability to powerfarm and get ahead, and Pantheon can farm while simultaneously always threatening a gank without slowing himself down.

Zed

Sheiden: “Zed’s not bad if you have good mechanics. If you can execute the mechanics, he’s really good.”

Zed is a rather unorthodox Jungler, being a mid laner who found more use in the Jungle role similar to Karthus. As a pick, he’s strong for assassinations on carries, being one of the original high mobility assassins from the early days of League of Legends. A lot of dedicated Zed mains and highly mechanically skilled players can appreciate this pick as it gives them a lot more room to move and take advantage of outplaying opponents.

Contempt For the Weak Changes

Changes to Zed’s kit, in particular Patch 11.8, has given him a completely new life in the Jungle. It no longer has a cooldown against monsters and minions, it deals double the damage against them, and the damage cap only applies to epic monsters and has the flat damage cap increased.

To explain why this is so significant, it means Zed’s clear speed is drastically increased, as he can execute low health Jungle camps at 50% hp super quickly. But it also helps him secure high health epic monster objectives, as the moment they become half hp, Zed’s auto attacks will continually deal execute damage, making it easier to speed clear early objectives and win smite battles.

It’s a simple change that was overlooked for a significant amount of time where the Riot balancing team was introducing Champions from other roles into the Jungle. But of all the changes, Zed was one of the biggest winners, as it completely opened up his ability to Jungle effectively.

Naafiri

Sheiden: “I don’t want to say Vi. Like, if I recommend someone playing Vi, I feel bad. Vi’s just like a team thing, you know. You have to play with the team. If you go in and your team doesn’t go in, you’re lost. Am I really going to recommend a random player to play Vi? They’ll lose their minds, you know? So, maybe I should say like Naafiri.”

Context: A little seemingly out of context to start a quote about Naafiri, but in our discussion, we talked more about Vi before settling on Naafiri as a pick, as Naafiri is a lot less team dependent and fulfills that assassin initiating onto a carry fantasy in a similar manner to Vi. It was all laughs mostly because the context of playing Vi is basically that you’re entirely dependent on your team to do anything. This is especially true in competitive, where Vi is often relegated to pressing R and sacrificing herself to lock down a target. While you can play Vi more glass cannon and assassin-like, our discussion ended up leading into Naafiri as the alternative that fulfills the same style.

Naafiri’s rise to fame came from a rework that adjusted her abilities, shifting her point and click dash to her ultimate (similar to Nocturne), and giving an untargetability effect on her new W. It gave her a very versatile ability that can be used to bait out abilities, increase her attack damage, and replenish her packmates, a key part of her damage.

Naafiri’s W – The Call of the Pack

This is the one biggest increase to Naafiri’s viability as a Champion, which gave what was a very one-dimensional Champion an ability that opens up ways to outplay the opponent. For example, consider Fizz and his notorious “troll pole” (more accurately named Playful/Trickster), a lot of his power budget relies on that brief moment of untargetability into damage. It is the same for Naafiri, who now can avoid crucial abilities that would otherwise hinder her gameplan of assassinating a target. The strongest assassins in high level play like Akali and Zed are ones that have ways to outplay the opponent, and Naafiri is no exception.

On demand untargetability is also one of the key strengths for tower diving, something that was mostly exclusive to Elise in the Jungle role until now. It allows Naafiri to take tower shots and at the very last moment, juggle it around to someone else, giving more time for the tower dive to succeed. This is particularly useful in high level and coordinated play where tower diving is a staple to get ahead in the game.

Jarvan IV

Sheiden: “J4. An easy Champion [for learning Jungle], like Xin.”

Jarvan IV, or more commonly shortened to J4, is the most straightforward Jungle pick that is often recommended to new players alongside the likes of Xin Zhao. His kit is a very straightforward one that lets you both engage and peel for your team, he has small nuances with spreading his passive damage from Martial Cadence around to high health targets and generally will always have a use with his ultimate Cataclysm giving him a strong zoning and trapping tool.

Hidden Yet Easily Accessible Power

A small thing about Jarvan is a relic of his very old school style kit from the old days of League of Legends. Dropping his E – Demacian Standard gives an attack speed buff to him and his team nearby. Hitting his Q shreds the armor of the target. His W is a slow (although one of the smallest slows in the game), where most players use it for the shield. A lot of small effects that make Jarvan do a lot more than he seems, as most players are focused on when he lands his E-Q knock-up combo, or when he traps multiple players in the ultimate.

We might call it hidden, or invisible power, much like when Aegis of the Legion gave a passive armor and magic resist stat to nearby teammates. Small numbers can make the difference between securing kills and surviving, and a lot of this power is accessed simply by using his abilities, which makes for a good Champion to learn the Jungle with. You can use his abilities without much of a thought and still get that benefit, or use the attack speed buffs or armour shred and feel smart when you’ve made killing a target much faster than before.

Viego

Sheiden: “If you get a reset on Viego, you're probably going to win the fight. The ability to get a reset, it's just really fun, you're probably going to kill everyone. That's my favorite thing about him. Once you get one reset, the game kind of plays it for you.“

Viego is one of the picks that many new players get daunted by, mostly from the whole “If you play Viego, you have to know how to play every Champion in the game!” mindset. But in practice, a lot of good Viego players are the ones who make the right decisions when to go in and who to target, becoming a menace in skirmishes and teamfights because they’ve found the correct timing to burst and chain kill into possessions.

Easy to Learn Kit

While Viego seems complicated, most of his nuances come from his passive, while a significant portion of the game you’ll be playing regular Viego, a basic-attack focused melee Champion with fairly straightforward abilities. His Q deals damage in a line and makes him deal extra hits when he hits someone with an ability. His W is a charged-up stun. His E drops the black mist that makes you have camouflage (visible only to those nearby) and gives attack speed while standing in it. His ultimate is one of many big executes with a dash, similar to Champions like Pyke. While this may seem reductive, a lot of your gameplay on Viego is mostly autoing someone to death and weaving your skills between attacks when skirmishing. Viego is mostly a Champion that expresses your decision making rather than your mechanical ability, which is a key factor for improving as a Jungler.

We highlight playing Viego optimally in our Viego guide with Sheiden here for those looking to go more in depth.

Ekko (Honorary Mention)

Sheiden: “I think Ekko is OP in solo queue. Ekko you need to farm and avoid some fights early because you're kinda weak early. I think people in other elos don't even consider Ekko as a Jungler.”

We’re cheating a little, going to a 6th Champion, but Ekko is our honorary mention. Understandably, as Sheiden mentions, there will be players who will not consider Ekko as a Jungler and be upset with your pick, but Ekko Jungle has seen a fair bit of play in the higher ranks. A lot of players overlooked buffs to Ekko’s Passive – Z-Drive Resonance, dealing presently 300% damage to monsters, dating from a change as far back as 7.21 where they initially doubled the passive damage to monsters.

Strong Teamfight Potential

When we talk about a Champion’s potential, it leans more towards the effects of their abilities and how drastic it can change a teamfight. Think iconic abilities like Veigar’s E – Event Horizon (or perhaps commonly named, Veigar’s cage), or perhaps Annie’s R – Tibbers!. Abilities that warp the entire teamfight to the point where both sides have to play around it, or the teamfight is lost. Ekko’s W – Parallel Convergence is arguably one of those abilities, packing an AoE 2.25 second stun on top of a massive shield for himself if he lands it. 2.25 seconds is an eternity in League of Legends where most stun abilities typically last a second, and the notorious Morgana Q – Dark Binding is 3 seconds at max rank. In a teamfight, if Ekko lands his W on multiple key targets, he and his team have more than enough of a window to burst down priority targets, especially as Ekko leans more towards AP assassin style builds rather than the old days of tank Ekko. If you land a good Parallel Convergence, you’ve probably won the teamfight.

We also have to give the honorary mention to Ekko’s Ultimate – Chronobreak, which much like Naafiri’s W, gives a big outplay button that potentially can be used to salvage a teamfight, or completely turn it around with high AoE damage and self-healing. Ekko players often move in unpredictable and erratic ways to try to land the perfect ultimate, and this can even combo with Parallel Convergence to activate it as Chronobreak travels Ekko back in time.

Conclusion

Keep in mind that at the end of the day, this is a more general recommendation list that is aimed at a mixture of easy to pilot Champions, fun Champions, and those that give you a lot of room to outplay your opponent. Patches will change the metagame and potentially knock Champions out of the Jungle, but as of Patch 25.15 (in fact, we do have a Jungle Pantheon targeted nerf this patch as a testament to how strong it is), these are excellent picks for the Jungle to improve.

We thank Sheiden for helping us compile this list and discussing various Champions with us. If you would like to follow him, check out his socials at:

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