Soo... I've thought and tested alot about this lately, but still I'm not sure what could be the best bet.

I've been playing the jungle position alot now, because I think that you have the most controll over the game (atleast at laning phase).

My favorite junglers are Nocturne, Alistar and Shyvana.


So when I see one or more lanes like this: Graves(Caitlyn/Corki/Sivir) + Soraka bot, Renekton/Olaf/Cho'Gath/Malphite top, Galio/Mordekaiser/Morgana mid

I think in this case counterjungling is always the best you could do. (Shyvana, Mundo, Skarner, maybe even Nocturne)

But when I see lanes like Olaf(my team) vs Akali/Ryze/Gragas top, Vayne + X bot, LeBlanc/Veigar/Ryze/etc mid, I usually feel that trying to snowball the lanes with heavy ganks and camping with 3 gold items + oracles + alot of wards is very very nice.

What I'm basically doing there is: wolves->blue->gank bot/top, mid, top/bot, depeding where the jungler of the enemy team is ofcourse, and also how the players react to the ganks (90% of the time they ATLEAST use their defensive summonerspell, to get away).

If there is nothing to gank yet, I go on with wraiths, wolves again, considering to do wolves/wraiths of the enemy jungle.

Stats of my jungle Alistar: Boots + 3 Pots start, 0/19/11 build for the most movement speed possible, Mercenary mastery for 24 extra gold on assist(could also consider getting Sage(40 bonus exp per assist/kill) which means something like 0/16/14). And runes something like: red->magic pen, yellow-> flat armor, blue-> flat spelldmg, big->flat spelldmg for boosting your early/mid, where you lack survivability and of course: junglespeed.

The start of Alistar jungle isn't too heavy if the enemy team is expecting the ganks. But some more time into the game this gets tricky.

Now let's say there were some not so successful or even no ganks at all.
What I do now is getting my 3 gold items + roaming boots. Also I start getting pink wards to counterward mainly top and mid, sometimes even bot.

If one lane has a hard time without me I just camp with my 1 to 3 gold items + the 2 gold per 10 of my masteries. Also I start warding the enemy jungle a bit, depending on how the lanes are going, and consider going on doing wolves/wraiths and getting blue/red for mid/top.
So I really pressure 1-2 lanes hard (constantly pink warding, a bit later oracles, destroying their wards)+ the jungler of course(warding his jungle/gank routes, freezing his jungle speed), who needs to react to this, which, in my opinion, is a nice strategy against fast junglers. From then on I start just getting tanky items (randuins(thornmail), maybe warmogs, frozen heart, aegis, shurilyas... you know the drill).

So what do you people think?

This post was edited by KirkHammett on May 7 2012 12:59am

Other good replacements for Alistar are also Singed and Nautilus btw. (both tanky, hard to kill because of their skillset, probably best ganks in the game, not too item reliant in their role)

This post was edited by KirkHammett on May 7 2012 12:48am

I think this was a good read.

halp wheres the tl dr version

Thank you good sir.




Well the topic title basically is the question that is discussed here.

i suppose if ur lanes are doing well by themselves its better to shut down their jungler, but if they aren't its better to help them get the upperhand

and u can't forget about drag/baron ofc, if ur losing those it gets harder for all the lanes.

nice name

This is quite true, but dragon happens usually at level ~8-12, depending on the laning phase, elo, etc. Baron even later.

What I'm talking about is the laning phase, where the jungler (for me) has the most control. Dragon and Baron need to be secured of course, blue buff doesn't matter too hard because you can pressure the mid champ if he's too aggro.

Go with junglers who can do both.

Nocturne, Lee Sin, Udyr, Skarner, Rammus

All very viable

uhhhhhhhhhhhh