Lucas “Santorin” Larsen sat down with us to talk about the Jungle. League of Legends’ Jungle role is diverse, skillful, and intimidating to many. So, with Santorin to guide us, we aim to narrow down what you should be focusing on as a Jungler to improve!

Santorin: "There are many ways to Jungle successfully. But there are key things to have mastered as both a player and Main of a Champion. We’re going to start off talking about the most basic concept that I think every Jungler should have mastery of and that is Clearing."

Clearing Your Jungle

Santorin: "The biggest concept to master as a Jungler is how you clear your camps. Why? Well, a clean clear presents you with more opportunities while a bad clear robs you of those. Say you progress through your clear sub-optimally, and you end up low health because of it. In this situation you could be forced to give up on a Scuttle Crab, or even have to recall away from what would be a free gank. It messes up your time, which time is everything to Junglers. So, learning how your Champion clears and spending time studying higher ELO players that main your chosen Champion is a great way to start off mastering this concept."

The best part about mastering your Jungle clear is that it’s going to be the same way almost every time. Clearing is a PvE aspect of League, so you never really have to worry about variation on the game’s half of the situation to perfect your clear. The camps won’t alter positions, they’ll deal the same damage, they move and kite around in the same way. So, there’s no reason to not spend a good amount of time mastering this concept since every other interaction in the game isn’t going to be as readily available to you from the start.

As Santorin said, watching higher ELO mains of your chosen Champion is a great way to understand how they progress through their clears. Champions like Karthus and Fiddlesticks for example have unique ways of kiting camps and can sometimes position in fashions where they’re clearing through or starting multiple camps at one time. So, look out for the replays of higher ELO players if you’re looking for what your Champion is capable of.

Understanding Your Role and How That Role Ganks

Santorin: “The next biggest concept that I think Junglers need to understand is how their particular Champion likes to play the game. Junglers have a wide range of playstyles, and you have to adjust your playstyle from game to game to adapt to what your enemy likes to do and what your team likes to do, but some Junglers are pretty particular on how they approach their early clears.

Carry Junglers, for example, want to get through their camps fast so that they can get to ganks. That’s where they have the most impact on the game. Champions like J4 and Xin-Zhao, for example. Knowing your style of Jungler is key because if you’re on one of these Carry or Ganking focused Junglers, you don’t want to be clearing your camps over and over again. You want to be playing towards your ideal conditions and the win conditions for your team.”

Besides Carry Junglers, there are Tank Junglers! Tank Junglers like Sejuani, Maokai, and Amumu are all about being the sources of engage and disengage for their teams. Their kits are less item reliant than Carry Junglers, as their design is less about the damage they provide to a team and more about the disruption. Tank Junglers, while capable of being aggressive early via repeated and quick ganks, don’t look to transfer that aggression into kills for themselves and instead look to give it to Laners who are going to be reliable damage threats for their games.

Income for Tank Junglers is directed more towards raw defensive stats and not damage stats. But there are some Tank Junglers out there like Zac, as an example, can start early in more damage focused spaces with AP investment before switching over to being a more frontline presence through itemization. It’s always important to keep in mind how your itemization can dictate your gank pathing and playstyle in game. So, be sure you’re opting for builds that best promote the situations you’re in.

Santorin: "Similarly, there are some types of 'Carry Junglers' that have unique ways to approach carrying or have evolved over time, right? Historically a Champion like Lee Sin has been regarded as a Carry Jungler as well, but nowadays, he’s far more versatile than just operating as a solo carry. He can play that defensive role in peeling for his team or the backline diver role. This is why many higher ELO players prefer these types of Junglers that have versatile kits, they provide something for almost every game state."

Playing Towards Your Win Condition

Santorin: “The most important thing though is to consider your win conditions and gameplan around them. If your team has more scaling focused Laners who can’t supply enough damage for you as a Tank Jungler, alter your ganking plan to be one more about counter-ganking and farming efficiently until those Champions come online. As a Carry in this same scenario, things might become less about ganking your Laners and more about how much you can threaten the enemy Jungler with your 1v1 potential.

Alternatively, you may be in games where you have to take a more passive Jungler, like Karthus, and gank frequently because your enemy is all about pressuring up a lane or your lanes might have good setup to guarantee kills. Consider how hard you will individually need to commit to ganks with understanding of your role as a Jungler, and then right after consider how your ganks will unfold if supported by your team. If you feel you’re taking unnecessary risks, look for the next best play or return to your clear.”

Priority is everything for a Jungler. And for all you Laners out there, if you play Champions that synergize well with your Jungler’s Champion and can quickly shift lane priority in their favor, they’ll love you for supporting their movements around your lane. This will show them that you’re a good teammate and worth playing towards as a part of that evolving wincon that Santorin has talked about.

As far as recovering games that have gone awry? Well, it’s a bit more difficult from a Jungler’s perspective, but with your ability to get to any point of the map, you have options. Junglers have the ability to focus hard on a lane. As Santorin mentioned, identifying your primary win condition is huge. Sometimes that might come in the form of a particular counter matchup, sometimes that might come in the form of a particular objective. As a Jungler, if you play to accent that win condition, even in losing situations, you’re still affording yourself a better chance of victory.

But also be aware of how your conditions evolve as the game goes on. Sometimes your conditions might be complex like playing around a particular split pusher and giving over resources while they take away the enemy’s side lanes. Or, as a Carry Jungler, you may have to alter your approach to peel for your fed Vayne instead of diving on to their fed Kai’Sa. Knowing how you impact and shape a fight around your win condition will help you turn games around if they’ve gone off beat for you.

Santorin: "As a Jungler, you want to be playing towards your winning matchups and avoiding your losing ones, generally speaking. Your winning matchups are going to grant you priority which allows you to move safely through the river and invade the enemy Jungler with support available to you should you need to be walked out. Priority on certain sides also lets secure those objectives on that side of the map more easily. But, be aware, sometimes your win condition can evolve, so you want to be constantly evaluating who is worth playing around at any given time in relation to the map’s bigger objectives."

Closing Out

We hope these Jungle concepts help you improve your game, and we hope you’ve gained insight on how to become a more nuanced Jungler from them. Thanks again to Santorin for the insight!

If you’d like to follow Santorin across social media, you can find him at the following links:

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