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Junglers Are About Personal Power in 2017
While junglers have historically played a more supportive role, lethality has changed the game.
Inori is taking a break but has been sharp in 2017
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Itemization often affects the jungle meta in a big way, and this season is no different. Gone are the days of herbivorous junglers and highlight reels of Sejuani ults and Rek’sai knockups — with lethality and jungle experience favoring the more carnivorous junglers. Kha’Zix, Graves and Rengar stand out as primary junglers in the current meta, tearing carries apart just about every game.
Junglers have evolved from glorified supports over the years, shedding wards, earning more gold and now contributing massive damage in teamfights. Junglers finally have the chance to make a more apparent impact on their own merit. A number of North American junglers have thoughts on the state of the meta and how it has shaped the current NA LCS season.
The young and restless
Inori has always been a fan of carry junglers, even when they weren’t necessarily in meta. He’s well known for destroying TSM with a full-damage Rengar build last split, handing the dominant NA hope their only loss. Fast forward to 2017 and Inori’s playstyle fits in perfectly with the new assassin-based jungle meta, but he still finds it a bit too strong.
“I really love it, but feel like it's a little too OP. I kind of feel bad for everyone else because they have to deal with junglers that one-shot you now. Of course I'm a jungler so I should be happy. It's a good chance to show your true skills, and a lot of NA junglers are really stepping up,” Phoenix 1’s Inori shares about the carry jungler meta.
Jungler damage in general represents a similar percentage of team damage compared to past splits, but the potential immediate impact is much higher with lethality taking over. Rather than slowly stack up damage numbers by spamming spells and sitting on opponents with tank items and cinderhulk, a jungler can delete one member with a handy Youmuu's Ghostblade and a single set of cooldowns. As Inori said, it’s pretty common for the enemy Kha’Zix or Rengar to jump out of stealth and absolutely murder an AD carry or mid laner. Not every player can do the job, though. Junglers need a killer instinct to maximize their impact as a damage dealer.
Once upon a time, junglers put most of their effort into managing vision control and being as effective as possible in supporting their laners. Junglers were low on the damage charts and high on crowd control (CC) and wards placed. It’s been awhile since that was the standard, but Inori sounds off on that old necessity in favor of the current meta. “Whenever you're building Sightstones all the time, I actually hate that, I despise that. I think it's stupid, I don't think junglers should be building Sightstone.” However, sheer ward count remains a viable option, even when red trinket is so prevalent. "I think if you w
Contractz is one of the youngest pro junglers
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Successful junglers in this meta, relying on that killer instinct, will be the more aggressive players naturally. Playing a careful vision game or brilliantly dividing a teamfight as a tank are still useful skills, but require more finesse — and when many top jungle picks can delete a carry with ease, it's hard to pass up that game-changing element.
Contractz believes that both types of players can be successful, but ultimately the edge remains with the aggressive-type. “I think it depends on the kind of player you are. If you’re super good at assassins and damage-dealing junglers, you’re going to thrive in this meta. If you’re more of a tank player or a supportive type jungler, it will be a little trickier to do well in this meta. But overall, I think this meta is good for junglers.”
Coming from solo queue and being an inexperienced player, damage-dealing assassins allow Contractz to leverage his individual skill while he still learns the ropes. “If I’m on an aggressive jungler, we usually come out on top and have big leads. And when I’m on a supportive jungler, it gets a little bit harder when I try to make plays. I can’t really do much on a supportive jungler; you have to play more off your lanes.” Contractz seems unsure if he’d be able to make the same impact in another meta. Generally this split, that seems to be the case among the younger North American talents, like Inori and Contractz. The meta has given the young a chance to rise.
Xmithie has years of jungling experience
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Veteran junglers sound off
Counter Logic Gaming’s jungler Xmithie isn’t shy when it comes to the topic of young junglers in the LCS and shares his theory as to why they’re performing so well. “My tinfoil hat says since they were from solo queue, which tends to be super aggressive and all about winning early game ... they excel.” Xmithie also comments on how that early-game focused style has made it to competitive. “The jungle right now is really snowball-y. So like, if you just get a random solo-kill in the jungle or you try to cheese the enemy opponent, the early game goes really fast. The guy who gets an advantage in the jungle can transition that into getting a turret, getting a dragon, or even more kills.” Being around the game for a while, Xmithie and company are still adjusting to a new, more solo queue type style.
“Usually, the veterans like me go for a slower and more steady early game. Now, we have to change our strategy so that we can play against these really aggressive early-game junglers because they always try to make plays, and they always work.” However, the League of Legends meta tend to seesaw due to constant patch changes. It’s likely that at some point, things will change and the junglers will too. Being the old-timer that Xmithie is, he knows that such plays will eventually either be punished or become less effective. “Aakadian is an example of a player who always gets the early-game play. But once those plays don’t work, the strategy falls out.”
The meta is in its current shape for a reason though, apart from lethality. Bot lanes are filled to the brim with CC as Malzahar, Ashe, Varus and many more are headline picks. Xmithie is still “learning to be more selfish,” per his words, and letting the bottom lane carry more weight. “It’s not really surprising now when the support does the most damage and AD carries are just there for CC. That enables junglers to have more pressure early game, be a carry jungler, so that when it comes to mid-game you can still make plays with the CC from bot lane.” It’s also pretty helpful that tanks can once again freely scale top lane, whether it be Shen, Maokai, or Nautilus. Junglers finally have some space to focus on themselves as other roles take on more utility.
Meteos's farm-first style was ahead of its time
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That doesn’t mean junglers haven’t focused on themselves before though. Meteos, who notably filled in for Phoenix1 recently, is well-known for being one of the first farming junglers and often being vocal about jungler priority. Meteos remarks about the jungle meta and how he emulated it in the past. “I think that the meta has definitely shifted more toward teams understanding what junglers need because from Season 1 and 2, I was one of the first players where people were like ‘wow, why does that jungler have more farm than their solo laners? Why is this guy the highest level in the game? That’s messed up!’”
But despite that initial reaction, history has been kind to him in the long run; frankly, that approach was a large part of what made him a star and a fan favorite. Carry junglers are fun to watch and emulate a more casual experience — something much more relatable to most League players and fans alike.
At the time, Meteos's style was somewhat revered as he consistently had a larger impact than the opposing jungler. He says himself that it “probably wasn’t even good back then,” but it foreshadowed the fact that perhaps the jungle doesn’t have to be condemned to a supportive style. While both styles may never distinctly exist side by side, there’s always a bit of wiggle room. Right now, it’s time for junglers to enjoy an even brighter spotlight — one where they can finally be the definite superstar.
