How to Jungle in League of Legends: Pathing, Ganks and Objectives That Win Games

The jungler touches every part of the map. You decide which lanes get help, which objectives your team contests and where the enemy is allowed to farm safely. That influence is exactly why jungle is one of the best roles for climbing — and why a jungler who makes good decisions can carry games even with average mechanics.

This guide covers the core jungle skills in the order they matter: planning your clear, choosing ganks, tracking the enemy jungler, and controlling objectives. Stain is a jungle main — Master Yi is his champion — so this is the role StainBoost knows best.

What Your Job Actually Is

A jungler has three jobs, in this order:

1. Stay up in farm and experience. A jungler who falls behind can't gank or fight for objectives.
2. Create advantages where they're cheap. Ganks, counter-ganks and invades that are likely to work — not every possible play.
3. Turn advantages into objectives. Dragons, Void Grubs, Rift Herald, towers and Baron win games. Kills on their own don't.

Most low elo junglers get this backwards: they look for kills first and farm when nothing else is happening. Flip it, and you'll immediately win more games.

Planning Your First Clear

Your first clear should end where you want to be. Before the game starts, look at the lanes and decide which side of the map you want to play on:

• Lanes with crowd control and kill pressure (stuns, roots, knock-ups) make ganks easy.
• Lanes likely to push early on the enemy side create gank opportunities, because the enemy laner stands far from their tower.
• The side with the first objective you care about — usually dragon for bot-side plans, or grubs for top-side plans.

Start your clear on the opposite side, so you finish next to the lanes you want to play for. A full clear gets you to level 4 or so with good gold; a faster partial clear gives you an early gank or the first scuttle crab at the cost of some farm. Champions that scale with farm, like Master Yi, usually want the full clear.

How to Choose Good Ganks

If a gank doesn't pass most of these checks, farm instead. A failed gank costs you camps, experience and tempo; a full clear costs you nothing.

Tracking the Enemy Jungler

Knowing where the enemy jungler is lets you counter-gank, invade, and take objectives on the opposite side safely. You can usually work it out:

• Watch the leash. At the start, see which side the enemy laners help on — that's often where the jungler started.
• Count the clear. A jungler who starts bot side often appears near top side, or at the top-side crab, a few minutes in.
• Look for missing camps. If you see an enemy camp is gone, you know they were there recently.
• Use your laners' wards. Ask for river vision and ping when the jungler shows up.

When you know where the enemy jungler is, play the opposite side: take a camp, a crab or an objective there, or gank the lane they can't reach in time.

Objective Control

Objectives are where jungle leads become wins. The general rule is the same for every one of them: prepare before it spawns.

• About a minute before an objective, recall if you need items, then path toward it.
• Ask your nearby laners to push their waves first, so they can move with you.
• Ward the entrances and clear enemy wards around the pit.
• Take the objective when the enemy can't contest it — after a won fight, or when the enemy jungler is shown on the other side of the map.

Dragons stack up toward a soul and give lasting bonuses to the whole team, so even early dragons are worth contesting. Baron is the strongest tool for ending a game, but also the most common place for a winning team to throw — always take it with vision and with the enemy dead or far away.

Common Jungle Mistakes

Champions for Climbing as a Jungler

Pick a jungler with a clear plan and stick with it. Carry junglers that farm well and win fights late — Master Yi is the classic example — are excellent for solo queue, because they don't need their lanes to be winning. Our best jungle champions for low elo and the Master Yi build guide go into specific picks, runes and items.

Keep Climbing

Good jungling is a combination of everything else in League: wave states, recall timing and staying calm when lanes are losing. The wave management guide and the guide to tilt are the natural next reads.

Want a jungle main to take you to your goal rank? Every StainBoost order is played by Stain — Challenger and the #1 Master Yi on the Middle East server — on ME, EUW or EUNE.