Hey everyone.
For the first time ever, we'll be showing you a guide that's a core part of our system
at Skill-Capped which helps you climb faster than everyone else.
Each week, we set our users on a mission to try out our high level strategies and then
we analyse their replays that they submit to Skill-Capped.
Then we provide custom solutions for carrying your games in all elo brackets.
These guides are exclusive to our website and they're usually dependant on viewers watching
the original strategy guide to understand them.
Recently we analysed how Jankos plays to his winning lanes.
Today, you'll get to see how we analyse skill-capped subscribers attempt to play around their win
conditions in the jungle alongside common mistakes low elo junglers make.
Let's get into it.
Our first replay comes from Gold elo with Sejuani against Rek'Sai.
Alright, let's begin by analyzing the lane matchups in order to understand our win condition.
In bot lane, we have Jinx Morgana against Sivir Nautilus.
These are two ad carries that are looking to scale up and impact team fights towards
the late game.
Both have safe long range wave clear and it definitely isn't a volatile matchup.
In mid lane we have Sylas against Ahri.
For those of you who don't know, Sylas has really good waveclear at level 1 due to his
passive, which gives him an AOE auto-attack after he uses an ability.
This matchup is favored for Sylas, which can be confirmed by looking at the matchup stats
at op.gg.
In top lane we have Jayce against Riven.
This matchups is very volatile.
Jayce will be able to lane bully from range early on, but eventually will be outscaled
by Riven once she starts getting her core items.
So to summarize, we can ignore bot, we want to make sure mid can win his matchup 1v1 by
possibly counter ganking when needed, and the bulk of our early game focus should be
around securing Jayce a lead in the volatile matchup top.
You start the game at your Blue.
I want to take a moment and explain why this is incorrect.
One thing all junglers should realize is that the vast majority of the time the enemy jungler
will start at his Red Buff - especially when they're blue side, like Rek'Sai is, since
they can also get a leash from their bot lane.
By starting at Red yourself, you can open with Red, into Krugs, into possible gank top,
into Scuttle.
This will let you hit level 3 off of these 3 camps.
From this, you can invade Rek'sai's Blue buff with your level 3 power spike.
Usually in this position, the enemy jungler will start Red into Krugs, then do the Scuttle
on the bot side.
By invading the Blue you likely cause vertical jungling, which would be ideal in this situation
as it would isolate Rek'sai on the bot side of the map where a low priority matchup resides.
In turn, you would have complete control of the top side, where the volatile Jayce Riven
matchup resides.
The cool thing about doing Red into Krugs into Scuttle and then invading the Blue in
this position is that if the enemy Rek'Sai doesn't enter into vertical jungling and instead
tries to defend his blue, you'll have lane priority in both top and mid early on as they
both outpush their respective laners in the early levels.
On top of that, you'll be level 3 from doing the Red into Krugs route, where there's a
chance the enemy Rek'Sai won't be level 3 to defend her Blue Buff.
So you start Blue and then do Gromp.
I think smiting the Gromp in this position is a bit greedy, let me explain.
The Red into Krugs route is one of the most popular routes right now.
We know that Rek'Sai started Red since top showed early and bot lane was missing, which
indicated a leash bot.
This means, if you go for the bot Scuttle, there's a good chance you'll be contested
by Rek'Sai as she comes off her Krugs.
Saving your smite for this fight over Scuttle is more important than increasing your clear
speed on Gromp.
Once you then move to the Scuttle you make another mistake, you aren't pushing the Scuttle
towards mid lane.
Again, we know it's highly likely Rek'Sai would do the Red into Krugs route.
We need to shove this Scuttle away from the bot side where Rek'Sai would be coming from.
Sure enough, Rek'Sai shows up, and should have actually stolen this Scuttle as she has
Smite up.
This would heal her to full health, let her hit level 3 to your level 2, and engage a
winning fight on you.
Even though you didn't get punished for your choice of opening route in this game, it's
definitely something that you'll find higher elo players will as you begin to climb.
Now, after taking Scuttle, you move to take your Wolves.
This is unnecessary.
When you do Blue into Gromp into Scuttle, you can actually hit level 3 off of 2 lane
minions.
It's better to transition gank through mid lane here, soak 2 minions to hit level 3,
and then take the top side Scuttle.
This would actually set you up to do an invade on Rek'Sai's blue afterwards.
This requires a bit of specific knowledge combined with map awareness, but Rek'Sai has
a tendency to sit around 50-70% of her maximum health during her route.
Since she wasn't able to kill a Scuttle to help with healing, it's very likely she'll
be low enough on health for us to win a 1v1 against her when we invade.
On top of this, if we look at your lanes, we can see Sylas has lane priority mid and
Ahri is completely out of mana.
If we look top we can see Jayce has lane priority.
So you could have transition ganked mid, soaked 2 minions of experience to hit level 3, taken
the top scuttle, into invading Rek'Sai's blue side jungle with the lane priority you had
in top and mid.
This would push Rek'Sai out of her top side jungle and prevent her from completely impacting
the top lane matchup for the entirety of the early game.
Instead, when you take Wolves and then Raptors, you allow Rek'Sai to take the top Scuttle
for free.
Then after Red buff, you make a great heads up play, recognizing the opportunity to lane
gank top, which gets turned into a winning counter gank for you.
You also do a great job not pushing this lane in this position.
We can see that Riven actually has 1 more minion than Jayce and so it's pushing back
to Jayce.
Additionally, if we look at where the next minion wave is positioned, we can see it's
going to get to the lane relatively fast.
If we push in this position there's a good chance we won't be able to do it fast enough
and the next enemy wave will catch the current wave right outside the tower, where Riven
can teleport in, and then set up a temporary freeze.
Our next replay comes from Gold elo with Kindred against Jarvan.
Once again, let's start by analzying the lane matchups in order to understand our win condition.
In top lane we have Ornn against Fiora.
Ornn isn't the type of champion to snowball early or carry late game.
On top of that, Fiora will inevitably outscale Ornn and be able to 1v1 him regardless of
how far ahead we get him.
For these reasons, it's best to ignore this matchup completely.
In mid lane we have Ahri against Vladimir.
This is a pretty even matchup.
Our main hope would be that Ahri gets ahead enough so that she can start pushing in Vladimir
and roaming around the map with us.
In bot lane we have Vayne Brand against Varus Morgana.
Vayne is a late game carry and Brand can offer some early lane bully potential.
However, Varus Morgana can be somewhat safe since Morgana has her spell shield to deal
with Brand and Varus out ranges Vayne and has better wave clear.
To summarize, you want to focus mid lane to get Ahri ahead so that can she can push in
Vladimir and roam around the map.
You also want to focus on bot lane since Vayne offers late game carry potential.
You decide to start Red, which is correct in this position.
We don't want to start Blue as we want to ignore top lane.
Additionally, if Jarvan starts at his Red in this position, we increase our odds of
vertical jungling and isolating an important matchup bot lane for us while Jarvan would
get the less important top lane matchup.
You do Red and then immediately head to the Scuttle.
This is a bit too aggressive in my opinion.
I think opening with Red into Krugs is a more efficient choice.
You'll still be able to fight over the nearby Scuttle after Krugs.
Also, you moved through the pixel brush top side to head to Scuttle, which you never want
to do as it's often warded early on.
Instead, move through the bot lane tri brush as it's less likely you'll be spotted in a
ward.
It also gives you the option of doing an early level 2 gank on bot lane while you wait for
the Scuttle to spawn.
You can see how inefficient this route is as you're stuck waiting around for the Scuttle
to spawn while standing on top of an enemy ward.
Despite this, Jarvan takes a losing fight and you get his flash.
There are several reasons why this is a losing fight for Jarvan.
Firstly, he's taking Hail of Blades as his rune instead of the much more standard Electrocute.
Secondly, you can see he used his Smite to kill Gromp.
He saw you in the early ward and he should have saved his smite if he intended to fight
over Scuttle.
Thirdly, he chooses to engage when your W is still active.
He should have waited for it to expire.
Now you know Jarvan is low on health and has no flash.
Smiting this Scuttle here is a bit unnecessary.
You can have just auto-attacked it down giving yourself more healing from your the lifesteal
on your Hunter's Machete.
You then decide to invade Jarvan's Wolves.
This is a huge mistake.
Right now Jarvan is very low on health and doesn't have flash.
You should be transition ganking mid into invading his Red.
This is another reason why you shouldn't have used smite on the Scuttle as you'd want it
up for the invade on his Red.
As you can see, this choice to go for Wolves actually allows Jarvan to get a Scuttle despite
having no flash and being low on health.
On top of this he was even able to take his Red afterwards.
This was an opportunity to completely shut down the Jarvan and take complete control
of the early game.
Our third replay comes from Platinum elo with Vi against Volibear.
In bot lane we have Ezreal Soraka against Caitlyn Blitzcrank.
Ezreal and Soraka is one of the most passive lanes.
We want to ignore this matchup completely as there's no snowball potential for us.
In mid lane we have Yasuo against Veigar.
This matchup is volatile as Veigar can counter Yasuo with his cage, but a good Yasuo can
outplay and snowball against a Veigar through good use of his windwall and dashes.
In top lane we have Kennen against Singed.
Ranged lane bullies against Singed are extremely volatile.
Kennen has the potential to snowball early and completely shut down Singed or Singed
can get through the early game by proxy farming into then proxy farming post level 6.
This a unique situation that requires specific champion knowledge so pay attention.
When you're facing a Singed, especially when the Singed is against a lane bully like Kennen,
they will try to proxy farm the first 3 waves into then recalling and purchasing a Dark
seal or Corrupting Potion.
You want to start Blue in this position, scouting your jungle and denying Singed from being
able to proxy farm.
You want to do Blue, Gromp, into the top Scuttle.
This way if the enemy starts Red you'll be in position to counter gank.
At the same time, if the enemy does Blue Gromp into Scuttle on the other side of the map
then you can invade their red and enter into Vertical Jungling where you'll aim to isolate
the important top lane matchup.
Instead, you're now in an awkward position where you do Red into Wolves, into Scuttle
into Blue where you can't really impact top lane at all due to Singed's early proxy farming
strategy.
Our fourth replay comes from Gold elo with Udyr against Pantheon.
Our top lane matchup is Nasus against Shen.
Shen doesn't snowball early or carry late game and Nasus needs time to scale.
We don't really need to impact this matchup as Nasus should be able to slowly win it on
his own and instead can let them farm it out.
In mid lane we have Lux against Twisted Fate.
Both will be looking to wave clear from a safe distance.
Our main priority will be to make sure that Lux doesn't get ganked when she pushes and
gets control of the lane as she needs to push in order to contain Twisted Fate.
In bot lane we have Draven Alistar against Sivir and Janna.
Draven Alistar are very aggressive snowbally champions in lane.
This lane should be your main focus.
You decide to start at the enemy's Red which is a bad idea.
First of all, late invading into the Red like this is extremely risky as the enemy should
have a pixel brush ward down to spot you or at least the enemy should be watching the
ramp to spot you.
Pantheon who's starting Blue, can simply move straight to your Red Buff afterwards and initiate
vertical jungling, which let's him isolate and control the important bot lane matchup.
You can see this opportunity when you move to gank top after Red.
It's very easy for Pantheon to invade your Red and split the map in half vertically.
Instead, you get lucky, as he decides to gank bot where Draven is able to outplay and trade
1 for 1.
Another thing you should realize is that by starting at the enemy's Red you made it so
that your bot lane didn't have to leash whereas the enemy bot lane did have to leash.
This often results in your bot lane getting an early push advantage.
This is risky in this position as Pantheon, a strong level 2 jungler, can then look to
gank the pushed bot lane.
In general, it's better to start on the same side of the map as the lane you want to influence
due to the prevalence of vertical jungling.
Alright so that wraps up this guide.
What did you think of this content type compared to our usual high elo analysis?
Let us know in the comments!
Thanks for watching and have fun on summoner's rift!