Jungle has always been the most influential role in League of Legends. A jungler has the ability to be present everywhere at all times, while other roles are bound by their lanes. This allows good junglers to exert extraordinary amounts of pressure and carry most games alone.
If you want to climb higher than you ever have in season 13, look no further. I will break down all the steps I took on my journey to Master tier. Understanding these will seriously improve your gameplay, and there is a huge chance you will surpass me if you grind hard enough.
Here are the things you can expect to learn from this article:
- All the new changes in Season 13
- How clearing jungle will make you a more efficient player
- How to look for gank opportunities
- How to find win conditions
- How to understand laners
- How to choose the right champion
These are essentially all the things you need to learn to become a top 1% jungler. Since it is a lot of information, I would recommend bookmarking this page and reading it a few times until everything sinks in.
Season 13 Changes
Season 13 has brought many changes to jungle. Riot has introduced jungle pets and several features to make the role more beginner friendly.
Jungle Pets
The jungle pets come as a replacement for previous starting items. They start out as eggs, and they go through two evolutions before hatching.
The first evolution comes after getting 20 so-called treats, which is equivalent to 20 killed camps. This evolution increases the smite damage from 600 to 900.
The second and final evolution comes after collecting 20 more treats, increasing the smite damage from 900 to 1200.
There are three jungle pets to select from:
- Gustwalker Hatchling – This pet gives huge amounts of movement speed boost after leaving a bush.
- Mosstomper Seedling – This pet gives a shield after killing a camp and when out of combat.
- Scorchclaw Pup – This pet deals damage equivalent to 4% of the target’s maximum health, and it also applies a decaying 30% slow.
Chemtech Drake
Despite getting removed in the last season, Chemtech drake still found his way back to Summoner’s Rift in season 13. The objective was completely stripped of its soul passive, and the only thing that remained was its look.
Slaying Chemtech dragon in season 13 gives all players a permanent increase of 5% in tenacity, health, and shielding. Getting a Chemtech soul gives all players 10% increased damage and damage resistance when below 50% health.
Finally, the change I like the most is the Chemtech map. The updated map features Blast Cones that have double the range of normal ones, Honey Fruits that give much more HP as well as a shield, and Stalker’s Bloom which now has an additional circular radius and which gives movement speed towards revealed enemies.
Leashing Range Update
Even though jungle is arguably the most influential role, not many people were queuing up to play it. I always assumed it has something to do with the high learning curve and it being
much different from other lanes. Judging by these new changes, Riot seems to agree.
There are two adjustments Riot has made. They updated the map to reflect the leash range of camps, and they added large visual HP indicators on top of each jungle monster. These make it much easier for new players to pick up the role, but they also remove some amount of skill expression.
Scuttle Timer
There is also a small change done to scuttler. Instead of spawning at 3:15, the green leaf now spawns at 3:30. This is a small change, but it changes the way the early game is played out in jungle.
The champions that had fast full clears are somewhat less effective because of this change, because now, even the champions with slow clear speeds can get to scuttler just in time.
Clearing the Jungle Efficiently
Now, after being familiarized with new jungle changes, it’s about time to get started on the real stuff. The first thing I need to highlight is the importance of clearing the jungle efficiently.
Learning to optimize jungle clear is essential since it will provide you with much more time to work within the game. Shaving off just a couple of seconds from your clear can open up so many opportunities for ganks, counter ganks, and invades.
I would recommend looking up clears on YouTube, then practicing them before each gaming session. This will serve as a good warmup, and it will also help you perfect the clear, which will significantly improve your gameplay.
Looking for Gank Opportunities
Ganking is the thing you will be doing the most as jungler, and it makes sense to make it one of the main priorities for improvement.
To become good at ganking and finding good gank opportunities, you will need a mix of experience and continuous attention.
There are several things to consider when ganking, but it mainly boils down to which lanes you want to get ahead and which lanes are the most gankable.
For example, in some games, you will want to get a certain champion ahead because you understand their carry potential. Ganking them will be ideal, but in some cases, it will not be possible. The enemy they are laning against can be too fed, or they can be too hard to gank. In this case, you will need to look for the second-best option.
Usually, the lanes that will be the most gankable are the ones with the most ally CC. It is not hard to see how ganking ally Morgana and Ashe is easier than ganking Yuumi and Sivir.
Now, after figuring out what lanes you want to gank, you will need to know when to gank them. The easiest way to figure this out is by looking at lanes you are pathing towards while you are clearing camps. This also highlights the importance of clearing well, if you have clear automatized, you can shift your attention to looking for good ganks.
Find Win Conditions
I have briefly touched upon win conditions in the previous section, but since win conditions are a huge topic themselves, they require to have a section dedicated to them. Win conditions are essentially in-game objectives that need to be satisfied in order to win a game.
Now, every game of League of Legends will have different variables. There will be different champions, different players, and different objectives spawning. These are all some of the factors we will be considering when looking for a win condition.
The best way to understand win conditions is to list a few game examples:
Game 1:
Imagine you are playing against a team full of tanks, and you have Vayne on your team. It is clear what the win condition here should be. Getting the Vayne fed will provide such a strong advantage for your team since she has really strong tank shredding properties.
You can also see how this would apply if you found yourself in a similar situation. For example, you are playing against many tanks, and you have a Yi. The most reasonable thing is to funnel as many resources as possible to Yi.
Let’s take this a step further and imagine a Mountain soul is coming. The enemy team is full of tanks, and they want to take the soul to get all the resistance-boosting properties. This presents a win condition for them, and it would be highly beneficial for you to stop them from taking it.
Game 2:
You are playing Kha’Zix, and the enemy is playing a bunch of squishy champions. In this case, you will present a serious threat to the enemy team, provided you have enough resources to stay ahead.
The thing you will want to focus on is generating as much gold as possible. This means you have the ability to let a dragon or two slide if they are uncontestable and take heralds instead. The herald will give you 200 gold for killing it, and it will give you an additional 350+ gold when you use it to destroy a tower and its plates.
This advantage will be enough to dominate enemies. They will not be able to fight you, and they will not be able to take anything when you are around.
Game 3:
You are playing with a smurf on your team, and they have an astronomically high win rate. No matter what they are playing, you can ignore the rules of the game and focus on helping them. These guys will usually be that much better than anyone else in the game, and they will do the most with the lead you give them.
This is not too consistent and replicable, but it is a good example of thinking outside of the box. It really shows that anything that can get you closer to victory can be your win condition.
Learn How Laners Think
Learning how laners think is another essential thing to know for every good jungler. When you understand laners POV, you will be able to make much more informed decisions and influence the game more.
Here is one example from my recent game in D1:
I was doing my raptors when suddenly, two consecutive “an ally has been slain” messages appeared, indicating my bot lane had died to the enemy bot lane. I quickly hovered over the minimap to see gain more information about the horrors that had just occurred.
Now, I noticed that the enemy bot lane is low HP and that there is a huge wave of ally minions left on the lane. I know that they want to shove the wave and recall, and that gives me enough time to drag myself there and kill them both.
The situation played out exactly the way I thought it would, and I was able to score a double kill, which served as a good moral boost, and gave me a huge advantage later in the game.
If I did not know how laners think, I could have assumed they would just recall, and I would have missed a great gank opportunity.
Now to find these openings, you will need to be well-versed in lane fundamentals. I would recommend reading this article about wave management.
Also read: How to Effectively Slow Push and Freeze Lanes in League of Legends
It will allow you to understand what laners are attempting to do just by looking at their waves, which will help you adjust your play accordingly.
Find a Good Champion
There are two routes people opt for when they are picking a champion for their ranked journey. They either one trick a champion or play many champions with a focus on meta ones.
One Tricking
While both strategies have their pros and cons, many other high elo players and I found that one tricking champions simply has the best returns on investment. Hell, even Bruce Lee famously said, “I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times.” I do not think he had League of Legends in mind, but you can see how the principle applies.
One tricking a champion will simply give you give a consistent edge over opponents. You will always be able to accurately calculate fight outcomes before engaging, and the effect will compound, leading to a huge increase in rank.
Additionally, you will not need to focus on the inner workings of the champion, as you will have them absorbed and automatized. This will open up more brain bandwidth which you can spend focusing on improving other aspects of your play.
A small downside of one tricking is that you will sometimes be left in situations where your pick is not ideal. This lack of versatility can hurt your games at times, but I do not think it has a big effect overall.
Playing Meta Champs
Other than OTPs, we have people who opt for playing a more diversified style. These players will often play many champions, primarily focusing on those that are currently strong.
There are many upsides to playing many champions. It keeps the game fresh, allows for creating an advantage by playing overpowered champions, and gives the player more ability to respond to different kinds of enemy compositions.
When listing all these benefits, it would seem like this playstyle is advantageous to being a one trick, but in practice, it rarely seems to be the case. Most players who get really high elo, (Diamond 1+) usually do so by playing only one champion initially.
When it comes to choosing between one tricking and playing meta champions, I think the best option lies somewhere in between. If I were to restart my LoL ranked experience, I would learn to play one champion to its full potential, and then I would start adding more picks for better versatility.
Also read: Top Season 13 Junglers
Conclusion
Jungle in season 13 has shifted to a more beginner-friendly direction, and many changes were implemented to make the role have a lower entry barrier. The camps have range indicators now, scuttle spawns later, and the role is much more simple overall.
The most fundamental things have remained, however, and it is unlikely these will ever change. For example, clearing well is important as ever, and so is being a great ganker. The importance of win conditions and understanding laners can not be understated either.
If you are looking to improve in season 13, you should just work on these skills. They have helped me reach Master, and they will undoubtedly do the same for you. All it takes is some patience and a little practice.
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