Bushwhacked: Jungle Nidalee pounces into the LCS

It feels right to have Nidalee ruling the jungle like she has been in the LCS lately. According to her backstory, she was abandoned in the Kumungu Jungle as a child and evolved into a terror that strikes from the shadows and can turn into a cat. Because that's what jungles do to small children. You've been warned. But, here's the part that's probably more relevant to you: she's got an awesome set of skills that lets her clear jungle camps quickly and pressure enemy laners from outside vision range. If you've already experienced the fear caused by a spear flying out of nowhere and jabbing you in the gut, immediately followed by a giant cat beast leaping at your face, you know what I'm talking about.

Leader of the Pack

For years, Nidalee has been played in lanes, where she can safely farm and use her long-range poke to constantly harass her opponent. But big changes to the jungle and her abilities in the 2015 Season have opened up a whole new role for her. Previously, certain groups of champions -- including Nidalee -- simply couldn't clear the jungle fast enough, or safe enough, to be reliable picks. But Ranger's Trailblazer, a new early-level jungle item added this season, lets you temporarily trade some gank power for significantly better jungling to get started on the right foot. And even better for Nidalee, buying jungle items now opens the way to the Magus enchant, which gives out a huge chunk of caster stats (80 AP and 20% cooldown reduction) at a cheap price. Jungle Nidalee wasn't discovered right away, though. In fact, she wasn't picked at all in the first two weeks of the LCS, and was only banned once. But it quickly caught on after Dennis "Svenskeren" Johnsen went 6-1-9 as jungle Nidalee in SK Gaming's win over H2K Gaming in Week 3. Since then, Nidalee has been banned in 40% of games and picked in 22%.

Primal Aggression

In many ways, Nidalee represents a deviation away from the popular two-tank team comps of early 2015, represented by junglers like Jarvan IV and Vi. Instead, she offers teams more poke, more support, and crazy surprise tactics. She's not an early counter jungler to the same extreme that Lee Sin is, but William "Meteos" Hartman made it work in their match against Team Dignitas. Notice Nidalee's high damage output, despite only having one jungle item. Meteos had to prepare ahead of time for that kill, though -- and this is where Nidalee's counter jungling excels. Nidalee used the vision gained by wards to know where the enemy jungler was. Then she leaped over walls to avoid being spotted and waited in a brush. When her prey's health dropped, she threw a spear to mark Jarvan IV, and then used the movement speed buff from her passive to get in range and leap in to finish him off. These sorts of ganks are what Nidalee thrives on. Unlike other junglers, she doesn't gank lanes by jumping in to use CC. Instead, she sits outside line of sight and throws spears to wound enemies and mark them, which gives her the ability to leap onto them from far away and dish out the damage herself. It's an exciting, fast-paced, and frankly dangerous way to gank lanes early on. But it will keep your adrenaline pumping the whole time. Nidalee's guerilla tactics work in team fights too. She likes to throw spears to chunk down opponents' health during the stand-off period before fighting breaks out. Then, once a spear lands on a prime target like an ADC or a mid laner, Nidalee and her teammates jump in to initiate the fight while they have the advantage and try to burst the enemies down. Notice how Mateusz "Kikis" Szkudlarek's Nidalee stays on the outskirts this entire team fight, launching spears in for his Unicorns of Love teammates to follow up on.

Spearheading Your Team

So this sounds fun, right? If you're ready to jump in and try out jungle Nidalee for yourself, here are a few team compositions (and item builds) straight from the LCS for you to try.

• Maokai, Nidalee, Zed, Corki, Veigar
• Fizz, Nidalee, Ahri, Corki, Leona
• Maokai, Nidalee, Kog'Maw, Caitlyn, Morgana

Long-range damage dealers like Corki, Caitlyn, and Kog'Maw are great additions that let you emphasize the hit-and-run tactics that Nidalee's so fond of. You'll be able to siege towers by damaging from range and disengaging if the enemy tries to jump on you. On the other hand, dive-happy assassins like Fizz and Zed are the perfect killers to follow up on your poke damage. If you want to land a spear and dive in, ninjas and fishmen will be more than happy to follow your lead and start a bloodbath in the backline. It's wise to bring at least one champion with strong disengage, like an AoE CC, to make sure that Nidalee and the other long-range pokers don't get caught out and killed too quickly, though. Veigar, Leona, Janna and Morgana are all good picks for stopping an approaching enemy in their tracks. Whatever team comp you choose, I hope you have fun prowling the jungle and impaling enemy laners from afar. Even if you lose, landing a spear at maximum range on a fleeing enemy to secure a kill in the fog of war is one of the best feelings you will ever get in LoL. Happy hunting! Josh Augustine's favorite champion is Jinx, he's never enjoyed a Darius, and he will always go for the kill, even when he knows he shouldn't. He currently works as a game designer on EverQuest Next at Daybreak Games. He’d love to talk with you on Twitter.

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