You can run as far as you like or try to recall as fast as you can, but a Shockblast is always one second away from turning your screen grey.
League of Legends’ 100th champion might not be the most played mid laner at Worlds, but he could be the most dangerous. With a mid-game power spike that favors players and teams that can take ahold of a game early and close it out, Jayce is a champion not to be taken lightly.
The One Man Siege
While Jayce isn’t as strong as he used to be with changes to his kit and Tear of the Goddess, his early to mid game still pack a wallop. From the get go Jayce can hold his own again against any of the popular mid lane champions in lane, poking endlessly with his Shockblast while he sits back and farms. His opponent might gain the upper hand at Level 6 when Jayce is left without an ultimate to counter with, but Jayce doesn’t necessarily need to pick up an early kill to get rolling.
While a solo lane kill would be nice to get some extra gold, Jayce’s immense poke makes him a monster for setting up fights around the dragon pit. If a team can grab control of the river and the surrounding bushes, the enemy team has almost no chance to contest. With Jayce dealing out more damage in the early game than his foes, a walk into the fog of war could mean a Shockblast to the face and a follow up attack that leaves your team down a massive gold lead.
The team that has brought out the most strength of Jayce has been Samsung White. With two masters of gaining vision control in Mata and Dandy, Pawn -- a player many consider the best Jayce in the world -- has free reign to line up his long range shots from the shadows and chunk down members of the opposing team to half health in no time.
The King of the Mid Game
If things are going well for Jayce, around the 24-25 minute mark he’ll be close to completing Muramana, have a Last Whisper and Brutalizer for more attack damage and armor penetration and Lucidity Boots to make sure he can keep mashing combos until the other team surrenders. A Jayce player, if not down in the early game, should be in control of his destiny at this point.
Pawn, already with the advantage of several kills, shows off exactly why Jayce can be so deadly when he hits his power spike. He waits for Looper to engage on Maokai to pull the three members into an enclosed space. He then gets the all important Shockblast onto the main target Ryze and jumps into melee stance to finish off two members. Great Jayce players know exactly when to take To the Skies!
While Jayce can duke it out with the best of him, there are times when it's better to avoid a fight altogether. Sometimes the best thing to do with your mid-game power spike is to simply take objectives. Alongside a Lucian or Corki in the mid-lane role, the mid game becomes a total nightmare for other teams to handle.
Here, Cool shows us that patience can be a virtue on Jayce. With a big lead and everything going their way, he could decide to follow his gigantic Shockblast that shredded four members -- but he doesn’t. He just steps back with wards protecting him, sitting in a safe place and basically telling White Shield it is a checkmate situation. Already down in gold, objectives and power, the only way White Shield could have come back is with a sloppy fight.
It’s tempting to throw caution to the wind and try out all of Jayce’s fancy kill combos, but Jayce is much more than a kill-hungry monster. His versatile kit and strong mid-game make him an amazing pick in both siege and aggressive teamfight compositions. Need someone that can do it all? Jayce is your man.
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