Everyone hates dying to ganks.
It's incredibly annoying when you're winning lane and the enemy jungler happens to be there
to crush your dreams of being the MVP on op.gg's match history.
You know that you should be tracking the enemy jungler, but that takes way too much effort.
Yea, there's really smart strategies like counting their CS whenever they show up on
the map to know exactly which camps they've farmed.
That way you know exactly which route the enemy jungler is on.
But...you just got home from work or school.
That sounds annoying, and pro laners don't even do that.
Why should you have to learn something so tedious?
Well, we're here to tell you that jungle tracking doesn't have to be hard.
With very little mental effort, you can keep track of the enemy jungler during the early
game easily.
Surprisingly, with just the basics you'll be out-tracking every Challenger player in
the replays we'll be going over later in the guide.
To get into things we first have to cover pathing.
There's no way you can track the enemy jungler, if you don't understand what their goals are
in the first place.
Junglers generally fall into 1 of 2 archetypes: Ganking or Farming
Ganking junglers such as these tend to want to clear 3 to 4 camps early on to gank as
quickly as possible.
The earliest most of them can do this tends to be at around 2 minutes and 30 seconds.
So, if you're playing against a ganking jungler, you may want to consider placing a ward in
the river at around 2 minutes and 20 seconds just to make sure you don't run into them
as they're ganking.
Ganking junglers also have the option of doing Red, raptors, into krugs to level 3 gank the
same side of the map they started on.
We figured this is worth mentioning, regardless of how rare it is nowadays.
Not only that, but it's spotted by the same 2 minute 20 second ward you should be placing
against ganking junglers anyways, so....it's not something to even think about that much
anyways.
As for farming junglers, they tend to do the same route most of the time.
They'll usually clear most if not all of their camps.
Most farming junglers that are played tend to be able to finish that by 3 minutes and
15 seconds.
Why that specific timing?
Well, that's when scuttle crab spawns.
If they can't clear by that timing, they're generally weaker on a tier list, since they'll
be late for the scuttle spawn.
Their goal is to hit 4 off their full jungle, kill scuttle, and only then will they look
to gank.
Keep in mind that both types of junglers can very obviously follow the other's route.
A farming jungler can go for a quick 3 camp gank if they feel like it, and a ganking jungler
could also full clear their jungle.
There's nothing preventing them from doing so, but what we've outlined is the strategies
they tend to gravitate towards.
But one thing they do both follow is repeating their route.
If you've watched plenty of our laning content, then you're probably away of how much we emphasize
maximizing how much farm you get.
Gold and experience are crucial to your success.
That is no different for junglers.
They also want to be as strong as possible to carry.
Which means they do something very predictable most games.
You see jungle camps level up as they get killed.
You don't have to learn the exact numbers behind this, but each time you kill a camp,
it'll give more experience afterwards.
Camps respawn after 2 minutes and 15 seconds right now.
Which means that around the 4 minute mark, junglers tend to start repeating the route
they initially took.
Ideally, they'll be killing the camps as they re-spawn along that route.
All you need to know is that this ensures that they maximize the farm they're getting.
You probably have a major concern right about now.
Skill-Capped, the enemy junglers in low elo just play randomly.
There's no way to predict someone who doesn't know what they're doing.
Settle down Mark Twain.
Yes, 20 to 30% of the time in low elo, the enemy jungler is going to do something really
random and dumb that you couldn't possibly predict.
But if the enemy junglers are always suboptimally pathing in your games, then you don't need
to track them nearly as accurately.
Generally all that means is that they're under leveled and have no idea what they're doing.
But at a certain point, you will play against players who do know how to path and play decently
well.
And now, we'll be covering some examples so you know exactly how you can predict their
early movements.
Okay, with the basics down, let's cover 3 different high elo replays of players not
properly taking the time to track the enemy jungler.
They'll get tougher as we go on, with the third being a bit tricky to solve.
See if you can appropriately track the enemy jungler with the information given.
Get all 3, and you'll have better awareness than most of the Challenger players we'll
be reviewing.
Alright, here's example one.
From Jinx and Sona's POV, we can see that although the enemy support Shaco was instantly
in lane, the Jhin arrived a bit late.
You should have also spotted that the enemy Fiora on the minimap was instantly in lane.
This very likely means that the Jhin leashed for his Xin Zhao jungle.
If you don't know, Xin is a gank heavy jungler.
With this knowledge you should be able to easily answer this.
Which 2 laners should feel the most threatened early on by this start, and around which time
should they start playing safe?
Hopefully your answer was that Kayle and Sylas should beware of a gank shortly after 2 and
a half minutes.
Remember, ganking junglers clear from buff to buff and usually Gromp to hit 3.
Which means Xin is top side ganking really early.
This may be the simplest question here, but somehow this high elo Sylas died to an incredibly
obvious gank anyways.
Not only was he playing way too aggressively at a bad timing vs a gank heavy jungler, but
for mid lane specifically, he was standing on the wrong side of the lane.
He should know that Xin can only come from top side, since he'd clear from red to blue.
Which means all Sylas would have to do is stand on this side of the lane, where he could
easily walk away from a top side gank.
Again, this is more of a mid specific tip.
The more important thing to focus on here was Xin's pathing, which Sylas most definitely
wasn't aware of.
Okay, let's move on to our next example.
This one is slightly trickier than before.
Last time we used the knowledge of a leash to inform us of where the enemy jungler would
be.
But there's certain junglers that can very easily go without a leash a lot of the time,
like the enemy Elise can do this game.
We can see on the minimap that both Riven and the enemy bot lane were in lane instantly.
With no information as to where Elise started, you might be left a little lost.
But this will often be the case with jungle tracking.
Sometimes you'll have no information to work with.
That being said, making educated assumptions about their pathing is what will make you
an expert tracker.
Think about it for a bit, and let's switch the question a bit this time around.
Which lane do you think has a very little chance to be ganked early on this game?
The answer was bot lane, as Elise ended up going top this game to score a slightly sketchy
kill on the Sett, but a kill nonetheless.
It's easy to make assumptions about where a jungler is pathing if you just think about
their goals.
Elise is a ganking jungler.
Of course she'll want to path towards the highly volatile melee vs melee lane that's
going to be brawling it out the whole time.
It's basically a guaranteed kill to path this way usually.
Meanwhile, the bot lane match up was Ezreal Karma vs Ziggs Senna.
That's about as un-interactive as it gets.
No ganking jungler would ever want to visit that lane immediately.
But that's for ganking junglers.
As for more farm heavy junglers, they tend to want to path towards lanes with early lane
priority.
For example, a Caitlyn and Morgana would be something that a Karthus would path towards.
Remember, farming junglers want to full clear and then get scuttle crab most of the time.
You can very easily assume they'll path to the side of the map that will most likely
be able to help them in the river, if they get into a skirmish with the enemy jungler.
Let's finally get to our last example.
Like we mentioned before, this one is a bit tricky.
Here is all the information you're going to get.
Darius at the start of the game sees his opponent instantly in lane, whereas the enemy bot is
no where to be seen, likely leashing for their Udyr jungle.
Alright, here's a hint in case you didn't know.
Udyr is a farming jungler.
Based on what you've seen, let's fast forward 4 minutes.
With no other knowledge, could you tell us if Darius is free to play as aggressively
as he wants right now, or whether he should be scared of a potential Udyr gank?
Take a moment and pause if you really want to think about it.
Welp, that horrible trade definitely doesn't help since the correct answer is that he should
have been playing safe at this moment in time.
Sadly, he barely goes down.
He probably would have lived here if only he'd been playing slightly safer, but how
could he have known that Udyr was coming with simple jungle tracking?
Remember our very early point about what junglers want to do?
They tend to path towards their respawning camps to maximize their farm and exp gains,
especially farming junglers.
Udyr started at red this game, and at the 4 minute mark he was predictably heading back
to his Krugs to kill them as they respawned.
It generally takes about a minute to full clear all the way up to top, and that puts
Udyr up here at around 5 minutes and 30 seconds.
It's actually not all that hard to predict this, and Darius should definitely have been
able to.
Here's an easy way of thinking about it.
This is great info if you ever lose track of a farming jungler.
Remember their starting route.
It takes about 1 and a half minutes to full clear their jungle.
Then they have about a minute to do scuttle, gank, or recall, before they have to go back
to the respawning camp.
It takes them another minute and a half to clear, and then they get another minute to
do scuttle, gank, an objective etc.
Continuing to apply it to the same Udyr game, you can see that he's still following the
trend.
At around 7 minutes, he's predictably pathing bot side to farm his respawning camps.
The diving enemy bot could have definitely known he was here.
The last thing to remember is that this type of tracking works for about 3 of their jungle
clears, before the game gets super chaotic and their pathing becomes jumbled up.
But for the first 7 or 8 minutes of the game, you can actually reliably know exactly where
a farming jungler is most of the time, since their goals are just so obvious.
Yea, maybe not all the time against low elo players, but it can be a good reference to
give you a vague idea as to where they might be.
To wrap things up, try to keep in mind that the best way to track an enemy jungler is
always going to be through vision and scouting your minimap constantly.
Knowing exactly where they are is 100% better than trying to guess at it.
But with the tips from this guide, you should be able to always have a vague idea as to
where a jungler might be to avoid ganks, even if you and your team don't have perfect vision.
And remember, if you want to improve fast and get the rank you've always wanted then
check out skill-capped.com, Link in the description below.
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As always, we'd like to thank you for watching and catch ya next time!