H2K's Jankos on the jungle meta from the LCS to Solo Queue

H2K's jungler Jankos is very much in love.

He's on a new team, who just went undefeated in Week 1 of the EU LCS against both Giants Gaming and Origen, in no small part down to his ability to pressure the map and help his teammates. 2016 is looking good for him, so far.

"I love it. I absolutely love the state of the jungle, because right now you can play anything," Jankos says. "You can play APs, you can play ADs, you can play tanks. Just everything. I love that it's about early pressure again, because I'm the kind of jungler who likes to gank a lot."

He sees this as a return to form after the 2015 Season meta, which saw junglers focusing on building a tanky frontline for their teams. "The point of playing a jungler is to pressure the map. It's to help the team. So right now I think it's much better and the meta suits me perfectly. It's very fun. Especially in Solo Queue."

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Jankos proceeds to outline some of the best jungle picks available right now, and how to make the most of them in Solo Queue - or, indeed, on the EU LCS Stage. His biggest surprise of Week 1 was seeing Graves in the jungle. Sure, he pulled the cigar-less shotgunner out of his humidor for H2K's game against Giants, but not before G2's jungler Trick had already given him a good airing against Elements. "Maybe Graves [surprised me most], actually. Because no-one played him at IEM Cologne and then we see him now. It's only me and G2 and some Korean team, I think, and China maybe as well. So I think that's the most surprising pick as for now."

So why are we suddenly seeing Graves take to the jungle? "There are a couple of reasons why Graves is good," Jankos explains. "The first thing is that he never loses HP in the jungle. So he can kite the creeps and he gains a lot of health while he is shooting them and he pushes them back, as well."

Graves works well in many different team comps, particularly since a lot of people are playing team comps designed to target individual targets to quickly remove the enemy damage dealers. He's an ADC, so he's got the heavy damage associated with that, whilst still being hidden away in the jungle while the real ADC works the bot lane.

"If you are team fighting and an enemy team focuses your AD carry because they have a dive team comp and they want to one-shot the AD Carry, then you are still going to do a lot of damage so they cannot ignore you," Jankos says. "I think that's the thing. That's why he's being picked in the jungle. His damage is super high, he has no problems clearing the jungle whatsoever. You just have to keep in mind not to pick him in super-squishy comps because there's no-one to soak the damage."

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While Graves is clearly a powerful pick, he wasn't even close to the most contested jungler of Week 1. Kindred currently has a 100% pick/ban rate in the EU LCS. Is the champ really that powerful? According to Jankos, Kindred's regular bans are once more to do with the team-comp styles which are currently in favour.

"A lot of teams are playing pick comps right now," he says. "You pick her if the enemy has a dive comp and you want to defend your carries. So you have Kindred on the enemy team, it's really hard to kill anyone. Let's say you are playing Ryze, for example. You dive in, you get all your burst down until you don't have anything left but everyone is still alive."

Kindred's ult, which creates a temporary area within which no-one can die, isn't the only annoyance the champion brings to the table. They also have that heavy damage output that comes with being a marksman-type champion, along with the kitey, agile abilities that make escaping ganks difficult.

"That's the thing about Kindred. I think they're the strongest jungler early game. Let's say they meet Elise. If they Flash the Cocoon, Elise will lose. But no-one really wants to take the danger of playing against them and the fact that they bring so much pressure early game and so much damage is kind of annoying. So let's just get them off the table and go back to the normal junglers." Which explains why Kindred is being banned so consistently.

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A great alternative is Elise, who is fast skittering to the top of the heap as the go-to jungler of the 2016 Season, thanks to her early strength and great crowd control (as long as you can land her cocoon, that is). "The thing about Elise is that she's AP jungle, and you don't have that many AP junglers," Jankos explains.

"So Elise is really good when you have a lot of AD [on the team] and then you pick her because she has a bit of CC and also magic damage." Kindred and Graves don't provide much CC, but they do both have slows. However, this is being countered by the recently buffed Boots of Swiftness, which reduce the effectiveness of slows for a bargainous price of 800 gold. As a result, we're seeing a lot of players invest heavily in these anti-slow boots, already countering what little crowd control Kindred and Graves possess.

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Elise isn't the only 'old faithful' jungler we're seeing enter the Rift on a regular basis. Rek'Sai has been a solid pick since she was first released back in December 2014, through the many evolutions of meta that have happened since. "I think Rek'Sai is a champion who will always be good because she suits the jungle super well," Jankos says. "Her clear is good, she doesn't lose health, tremor sense is really useful - that's a big part of why she's picked, too. And then he has an ult which has global pressure. Her ganks are good too, because she has a tunnel and a knock up so you can combine the CC."

It's almost as if Rek'Sai was designed specifically to survive in a jungle environment. But Jankos is in two minds about whether she's really the best pick for the current meta. "Rek'Sai has global pressure and she's a tanky jungler so she can always be the front line, but we'll see. I think people need to realise that maybe Rek'Sai isn't the best choice right now. But it depends. Like I said, you can play everything! Literally everything. It's so nice."

We can't wait to see what other surprises the jungle holds in the coming weeks as the pros continue to play on and explore the new season patch.