Hey everyone and welcome.
Today you're going to learn how to play aggressive junglers.
Now, there are different types of aggressive junglers.
Today, we're specifically talking about aggressive junglers that are strong early game, but fall
off late game.
These are champions such as Elise, Lee Sin, Jarvan IV, Xin Zhao, Rek'Sai, and Gragas.
We'll be teaching you how to play this unique style of jungling and acquire massive leads
in the early game, but more importantly, how to convert those leads into victories despite
falling off.
And even if these champions aren't your playstyle, I highly recommend you watch this video anyways,
as you'll have a better understanding of how to play against them and what they're trying
to accomplish in these games.
So let's jump straight into it with a challenger replay from professional jungler G2 Jankos
playing Elise against Lee Sin.
As Jankos starts the game he chooses to start at his Blue.
This might immediately bring up questions for some of you guys.
This is because we've taught you before how valuable the Red side jungle is on the current
patch due to Raptors and Krugs being worth so much.
So why would Jankos choose to start Blue, where he's going to get less gold and experience?
Here's what you need to understand about playing these kinds of early game aggressive junglers
- farm does not matter.
No matter how well you farm you'll always fall off late game.
Instead, you have to look at farming differently.
It becomes about spending the least amount of time in the jungle as necessary, while
maximizing your time ganking.
Still, that doesn't answer our question of why he's starting Blue?
Well, where you start will be dictated by what lane you want to gank early.
In this position, Jankos is choosing to start Blue so he can path to the opposite side of
the map and gank bot early.
Let's take a look at the side lane matchups to understand why he chose this.
In top lane we have Camille against Irelia.
This can be a volatile matchup where both of these scrappy bruisers will fight each
other.
On top of that, Camille has a form of engage with her E ability to help set up ganks.
It seems like there's high gank potential top, which makes it strange that Elise would
choose start Blue.
Well let's move to bot lane to understand this enigma.
Here we have Draven Thresh against Syndra Leona.
Draven Thresh offer a lot of crowd control and engage to help set up and follow up on
ganks.
Additionally, Draven is a very snowbally champion.
We can start to see that we have two great gank options in both top and bot, but why
did Jankos choose bot?
It's because we're in a more bot centric meta currently.
As the game progresses, top lane champions like Camille will find it more difficult to
solo carry the game.
In comparison, when you get bot lane ahead, you're getting 2 players ahead instead of
1.
AD Carries also scale a lot better with supports into the late game.
So this is the first rule of aggressive jungler: you need to identify what lane you want to
gank early and start on the opposite side of it.
So as Jankos clears his Blue he's going to watch the side lanes to see where the enemy
Lee Sin is starting.
Bot lane shows early while Top lane is missing, this indicates that Lee Sin is getting a leash
at his Red buff.
This is really important and is why you need to be watching side lanes at the start of
the game to know where the enemy jungler is starting.
Since Lee Sin is starting at his Red it means he will be pathing towards the bot side of
the map, looking to gank them early on.
This is our exact gameplan and so we can anticipate there will be clash between the junglers on
the bot side of the map.
As we mentioned earlier, farming on aggressive junglers is about doing the minimum necessary.
In this case, Elise wants to hit level 3 and have double buffs before she ganks bot lane.
To do this, she'll need to clear 4 camps, which will be Blue, Gromp, Wolves, and Red.
It's not about maximizing the gold and experience, but rather minimizing the time you spend in
the jungle and getting to your key level 3 spike as fast as possible.
After Red, let's check both mid and bot, since we have the possibility of ganking both, and
see what we should do.
In mid we see Twisted Fate is pushed up and is somewhat low on health.
This is a definite gank opportunity.
If we look bot, we can see our bot lane has secured a level lead and is pushing a big
wave into the enemy's tower.
Now, even though Mid lane has a great gank opportunity, we have to remember, the enemy
jungler, Lee Sin, started Red and is pathing towards the bot side of the map.
With our bot lane being so overextended he will definitely look to gank them soon.
This is how we know we should be moving bot side and Jankos does just this.
Now, it's at this point he has two choices to make.
The first is waiting in the river brush for Lee Sin to gank in order to counter gank him.
You would do this until the Scuttle has spawned in the river, then move to take it with the
lane priority you have bot lane.
The second option is more advanced.
If we go back to when we checked bot, we could see a huge wave was about to crash into the
tower.
This is a type of gank we taught you recently called the Tower Dive.
If you haven't seen the guide yet we highly recommend you check it out.
It's titled "Learn The Most Powerful Gank: The Turret Dive"
If you haven't yet subscribed to Skill-Capped, we highly recommend you do to stop missing
out on these essential guides which help you climb faster than anything else out there.
Jankos first moves in to see if Lee Sin is on his Blue or nearby to turn the dive around.
He doesn't spot him and moves to execute the dive.
It's very important to note how Jankos likely only chose to do this because he's playing
Elise.
Elise has a unique mechanic with her Rappel ability that let's her dodge a tower shot
and reset tower aggro, which makes her one of the best champions at diving.
In the end, even though this worked out for Jankos, it was extremely close and this is
not a play we'd recommend you trying.
Instead, as we mentioned before, waiting in the brush in river to counter gank Lee Sin,
into then taking the Scuttle as it spawns is your best choice.
After getting kills, Elise takes the Scuttle.
It's at this point she has a couple of different options.
Tell me what you think is the best option.
One is to take her Raptors or her Krugs which are still up.
Two is to recall and spend the gold she has from the early kills.
Three is to take the top side Scuttle.
Which do you think is the correct choice?
The answer is take the top side Scuttle.
Remember, we want to maximize the time we're pressuring the map and minimize the time we're
farming our camps.
Scuttles can be a great way of achieving this since they're in the River and quick and easy
to kill.
They give you a way to gain gold and experience while being close to laners to immediately
gank after.
So Jankos moves to take the Top Side Scuttle and we immediately see this decision pay off.
In top lane we can see a big wave has crashed into the tower, with Irelia being a little
low on health, and Camille being overextended.
Moving to either tower dive this, or simply hover in the nearby brush to protect Camille
and possibly Counter gank Lee Sin.
So Jankos moves top after the Scuttle and he's able to help prevent the enemy Leona
from roaming top.
Afterwards, he recalls to finally spend his gold.
Now there's a new choice for you to make.
Where should you head to as you leave the base?
Well, we shouldn't head top side as we have no jungle camps there and our top laner isn't
even in lane.
If we look mid, we can see Zed is pushing a wave, we could choose to hover near his
lane for a possible counter gank.
If we look bot, we can also see it's pushing.
We also have the option of hovering near this lane.
So how do we choose which lane to move towards?
Well, there's actually two logical reasons that dictate the correct decision.
First, as you should know by now, Krugs give the most gold and experience of any camp.
If we head towards the bot side of the map, we're closer to our Krugs, which we could
take while being near bot.
Second, is that when mid laners are pushing, they're able to roam quite effectively since
they're on the center of the map.
This means, a mid laner that's pushing, can always finish pushing the wave and move to
roam with you after.
This is why it's the correct decision to head towards the bot side of the map.
So Jankos does just that, heading bot, and we can see on the minimap that Zed is roaming
with the lane priority from pushing in the wave.
This allows his team to turn around the gank by Lee Sin on his pushed up bot lane, picking
up several kills, and denying a big wave to the enemy's tower, and pick up tower plates.
We can see how little time Jankos has spent farming and instead his main priority has
been to read the map and know where he should be, then pathing in the quickest way possible
to get there.
Great, so Jankos has a big lead, but how does he close out the game before he inevitably
falls off?
Well, firstly, he's going to continue to prioritize reading the map, executing ganks, and responding
to fights over farming.
For example, shortly after as he heads top side to take the Scuttle as it spawns, again,
using the tactic of taking Scuttles to keep up in farm while being super close to laners
to gank them, he checks top lane.
He see's Camille is level 6 while Irelia is level 5, but more importantly, that Camille
is building up a big wave.
This presents a possible tower dive as the wave crashes.
Additionally, something we've taught you in several videos is the importance of tracking
Flash cooldowns on laners.
Earlier in the game, Irelia solo killed Camille, but she had to use Flash in the process.
This was at around 3:14.
Meaning her Flash won't be back up until 8:14.
If we jump back to our current position we can see it's 6:29.
There's no way Irelia can have her flash back up.
It's by knowing her flash is on cooldown, combined with her being down a level, and
a big wave building towards her tower, that Jankos knows there's a possible gank opportunity
top.
So Jankos executes the gank and gets an easy kill, denying a huge amount of minions from
Irelia.
This is a great part of learning aggressive junglers is that it forces you to practice
and improve your ganking.
Again, later on as Jankos leaves base, even though he has his Red and Krugs alive, he
see's that both players are low mid.
He ignores clearing his jungler and prioritizes immediately ganking mid.
This allows him to pick up a clean kill where he Rappels to a minion, into Flashing in range
of Syndra
This is how snowballing with aggressive junglers works.
The further ahead you get, the less you need to farm your jungle, and the more time you
can spend ganking.
However, you can't keep just going for kills as that's how you inevitably give up shutdowns
and throw the game.
With the lead you attain you need to start focusing on objectives.
You typically want to begin doing this around the 10 to 15 minute mark.
For example, with the lead Elise has given bot lane she looks to take the Dragon at the
10 minute mark.
She then moves top side shortly after to secure the Rift Herald shortly after.
Now with both Dragon and Rift Herald off the map, Jankos is free to focus on pressuring
towers.
Which you can see him do by playing around his winning bot lane, getting a pick mid,
putting down the Herald, and using the Herald to brute force down mid, taking towers, the
inhibitor, and eventually the Nexus.
Alright, that's going to do it for this video.
What do you think of this aggressive playstyle of jungling?
Let us know in the comment section below,as well as any questions you might have.
As always, good luck, and have fun, on summoner's rift.