Hey everyone and welcome.
A common piece of advice I'm sure you've heard before is to play around winning lanes instead
of trying to help losing ones.
However, that's easier said than done.
What exactly does playing around winning lanes look like and how do you execute it?I can
promise you it doesn't look the way that you think it does.These are the questions we'll
be answering in this video using the replay of the professional jungler Crush who plays
for the Korean team SANDBOX.For those of you who don't know, SANDBOX is making headlines
as they're a new team in the LCK who's currently dominating the veterans of the league.They're
currently in 2nd place and are the only team to take a game off the undefeated powerhouses
Griffin.Alright, enough hype, let's jump into it with SANDBOX Crush playing Kha'Zix against
Camille.He starts the game getting a leash on his Red Buff.
Take note of the godlike vision his teammates have provided him in the bot side of the map.This
is because he's facing Camille.
Early aggro junglers such as Camille, Xin Zhao, and Pantheon like to take a path where
they do Red into immediately ganking a side lane or mid.This is why they've warded brush
behind Red and the bot side tri brush - this prevents Camille from landing early ganks
on these lanes.However, champions with dashes such as Camille, Graves, or Jarvan IV can
hop over the wall to avoid these wards and then either gank from the river or steal a
blue undetected.I just wanted to take a moment to highlight how this specific pattern of
wards completely locks down and nullifies early aggro jungle paths.Sure enough, Camille
was trying to be sneaky and hopped over the pit, but the ward in the river spotted her
going for Kha'Zix's blue.As a response, he immediately invades Camille's blue to equalize.While
doing this, he see's Camille on the bot side Scuttle, which means he needs to secure the
top side Scuttle as compensation.During this time, Camille moves to gank mid.
However, Crush decides against counter ganking and instead moves top where he's able to gank
and secure a kill.This can seem like a strange choice considering
that top lane was pushed and didn't look very gankable.At the same time, Syndra was full
health and had minion advantage, making it a tempting counter gank.This highlights the
jungling philosophy of SANDBOX Crush.
He focuses on lanes that are winning using a very specific technique: checking health
bars.Let's go back to the start of game, but this time with our teammates health bars visible.We
can see Sylas taking damage, at the same time, we can see Sylas and Viktor's icons overlapping
- indicating that they're trading.When this happens, you want to physically move your
camera as a jungler to check the state of the lane.In this case, you can see Sylas won
the trade and is currenlty winning lane.Then, once Kha'Zix is finishing blue, we can see
Sylas take significant damage.
Once again, we move our camera to check the lane.Wow, things have changed.
Now Sylas is losing lane.This is why Crush doesn't bother ganking top after taking Blue
and instead does Scuttle.While doing Scuttle, we see Sylas' health drop again with icons
overlapping - indicating that they're trading.If we check the lane we can see that Sylas is
ahead in both health and minions.
I wouldn't go so far as to say he's winning the lane in this position, but he's definitely
close.Instead of counter ganking mid where everyone is full health Crush realizes that
it's much more impactful to a gank a lane that's low on health and on the brink of losing.Additionally,
he uses a really nice tactic a lot of junglers that need level 3 have been recently utilizing.Kha'Zix
has killed 3 camps, his Red, Blue, and Scuttle.
However, you need to kill 4 camps to hit level 3.Most players wouldn't have ganked top in
this position since they're level 2.
However, by waiting in the brush you can soak minion experience.
Speficially you only need to soak 2 minions.This let's Crush hit level 3 and execute this gank
on a low health target, making for an easy kill.Afterwards, he helps Sylas push the wave
in as he's too low to do it himself, Camille is on this side of the map, and Viktor has
teleport to teleport in and freeze the wave if he doesn't.Now you understand the technique.
Watch your teammtes health bars while paying attention to icons overlapping on the minimap
- these two things signal a trade.Then move your camera to check to see if the enemy is
low on health and whether your teammate is winning the lane.
If they are, then look to execute a gank.With this in mind, let's keep our teammates health
bars visible on the right hand side while jumping ahead 1 minute in the game.At this
point, we see both Janna and Sylas take damage while the bot lane icons are overlapping.
Let's check the lanes.If we look top, we can see Viktor is both ahead in health while also
having a minion advantage.Wait a second, shouldn't Sylas be winning the lane as we ganked for
him early and got him an advantage.Here lies the misconception of playing around winning
lanes.
It's not about who SHOULD be winning it's about who's CURRENTLY winning.In solo queue,
teammates skill and knowledge of matchups can vary greatly.
This is why constantly checking the state of the lanes with your camera is so effective.Now
let's look at bot lane.
Wow, Draven is losing this lane hard and he definitely shouldn't be.We would have never
known this unless we physically moved our camera to check.We now know to ignore top
and move to attack the vulnerable bot lane.After picking up the mid lane farm, Crush does exactly
this, and starts moving towards bot.With a big wave building up, tower diving is a great
option as Killing Draven would deny him the entire wave.So he begins moving bot lane for
this tactic.
However, Draven was forced to recall anyways due to the threat and so he dives Morgana
instead.Although he trades 1 for 1, this is still worth it as he denies all of this experience
and gold from the enemy Support while letting his teammates freely gain turret plating.Now,
after Crush respawns and moves back on to the map we see once again Syla is low on health.If
we check his lane, we can see Viktor is as well.
On top of that, a wave is building and pushing towards Viktor.Again, we want to use the exact
same strategy we used on bot lane: dive Viktor under tower and deny the big wave from him.That
being said, Crush does a nice little optimization in the meantime of picking up the nearby Gromp
to help him keep up in farm.He then executes the gank, gets a kill, and once again denies
the enemy a massive wave setting them behind.If we fast forward a minute to when Kha'Zix is
handing off blue to Syndra we can see bot lane trading and gaining a health advantage.This
health advantage gives them control of the wave and we once again know exactly what to
do: dive them on the big wave.Crush picks up an easy kill on Morgana into zoning Draven
from a ton of minions at the tower while securing turret plating for his team.Alright, we went
over a lot in this replay so let's recap.Kha'Zix started the game with his teammates setting
up key vision to shut down early game junglers.This spotted the Camille invading his blue and
so he invaded her Blue to equalize.While farming Crush uses the technique of checking his teammates
health bars and icons overlapping on the minimap to indicate that he should move his camera
to check the state of the lane.This helped him identify that Viktor was low on health
and gankable.He then used the tactic of waiting in a brush after killing 3 camps to soak 2
minions of experience to hit level 3.This let him skill into his Leap ability and secure
the kill on Viktor.Afterwards, he uses the same process to analyze winning lanes that
are gankable.This allowed him to see that his bot lane had won significant trades, this
led him to execute a dive that would deny a big wave from the enemy.After this, he now
notices Sylas is back to winning trades and getting Viktor low while a wave is pushing
towards him.He makes sure to counter jungle the enemy's Gromp in the meantime so he's
not giving up too much farm in the process.He then executes the same kind of gank, resulting
in Viktor's death and denying him a massive wave.He continues to scan the map with the
technique mentioned earlier to identify that his bot lane was once again winning trades
and got the enemy low.He follows that up with a fourth gank to kill Morgana and zone Draven
from another huge minion wave.With this simple and straight forward technique he was able
to achieve massive advantages for his laners four times in a row, which led to his team's
victory.Alright, let us know what you think of Crush's jungle philosophy in the comment
section below as well as any questions you might have.As always, good luck, and
have fun, on summoner's rift.