How to jungle in League of Legends: the fundamentals

Plan your clear before the game starts

Your first route through the jungle decides where you stand when the first fights break out. Plan it in champion select: finish your clear next to the lane you want to play for — an ally with crowd control, or an opponent who will likely push — and start on the opposite side.

After that, every camp is income. Clear quickly, then ask what the map offers: a lane to gank, a Scuttle Crab to contest, an objective to set up. If nothing is worth it, keep farming: a jungler who wanders between lanes without a target falls behind the one who farms. Go back to base when you have gold to spend and nothing to play, not halfway through a route that leads to an objective.

Track the enemy jungler

Half of jungling is knowing where the other jungler is. Every time they show — a camp missing, a gank in a lane, one of their wards — work out where they can be next. A jungler seen top cannot be bot a few seconds later: that is your window on the other side.

It is also the first thing your laners need from you: “Know where their jungler is before you push your lane.” Ping where you saw them last, and ward the entrances they use to reach your side.

Before you take their camps, check where they were seen last: “Before invading, check their jungler’s last known side.” An invade works when they are far away and your nearby lanes have priority; it fails when you walk into all five of them.

Gank the lanes that can win

A good gank is chosen before you walk into the lane. Look for three things:

• An enemy pushed into your laner’s half of the lane. They are far from their tower, with a long way to run.
• A laner who can follow. Crowd control, damage, health: your ally has to be able to fight with you.
• No trap. Their jungler seen on the other side, or at least not nearby; their Flash already used is a bonus.

Gankademy’s rule sums it up: “Gank an enemy pushed up into your half of the lane, with a laner who can follow.” Walk in through the fog rather than past a ward, and ping before you arrive so your laner is ready. A failed gank costs you camps and time; one that forces a Flash or a recall can still be worth it.

Be where the enemy jungler goes

When you can guess where their jungler is heading, be nearby. A counter-gank — arriving while they gank one of your lanes — often turns a lost fight into two kills for your team. Even without a fight, standing next to a threatened lane can save your laner a death.

If you can’t get there in time, go the other way: take their camps or an objective on the opposite side. Trading across the map beats arriving late to a fight you can’t win.

Play for objectives

Dragons, Baron and the other neutral monsters are where games are won, and the jungler decides most of them. Take them when your nearby lanes can move first — mid and bot pushed before Dragon — and when the enemy jungler is far away or dead. Before a contested one, ward its area and keep your Smite to finish it.

When the enemy starts an objective you can’t contest — a player down, no vision, lanes pushed in — don’t walk into it. Gankademy’s rule says what to do instead: “Can’t contest their objective? Take one on the other side of the map.” A tower, camps or another monster: something your team takes while theirs is busy. Our wave management guide shows how pushed lanes set up an objective, and the vision guide where to ward around it.

After a fight, check before you commit again

Junglers often die right after a good play: a kill top, then a second dive, an invade, an objective at half health with no information. Gankademy’s rule names the moment: “Play paid off? Check the map before the next commit.” Count who is missing, look at your health and your Smite, and take what is safe — a camp, a reset, the next wave for your laner. The same goes before you engage: “Before you engage, check your team can follow. If not, wait.”

With Gankademy

Gankademy measures one jungle habit straight from Riot’s match data after every Summoner’s Rift game, for free: GANK, your ganks before 14:00 — a kill without dying is kept; a death, or only an ally down, is missed. It is one of 22 principles: until your own games show enough, your three missions come from your role’s fundamentals, and your debrief, about a minute after the game, says which ones you kept.

In game, Gankademy never shows timers, enemy positions or anything the fog hides: tracking stays your job (what it never does). After the game, when you ask for an analysis, the coach you pick judges each decision with only what your screen showed, and the film names the enemies your minimap showed — never where an unseen enemy was. See the film.

Questions