Jungle party animals bash through CS Summer Week 3
Over the past couple weeks we've taken a look at the strange and wild world of the Challenger Series. With the competition heating up, teams are flexing their creative muscles to try and gain an edge over their enemies. Last week, we saw a gargoyle descend upon the top lane. This week, we bust out our Hunter's Machetes and hike through the jungle alongside some real party animals.
The Butcher of the Camps
Renekton is your quintessential early game bruiser. Bringing tons of damage, natural sustain, and the ability to Slice and Dice (E) in and out of fights. While he's been a mainstay in the arsenal of many top lane bullies, Renekton is rarely seen roaming the jungle in search of his next meal. That all changed when mousesports' jungler Daniel "Dan" Hockley decided to lock in the Butcher of the Sands against Team Dignitas EU.
Dan had been saving the unconventional pick for the right occasion. "I tested it when the meta was becoming very set in stone for jungle, when it was Rek'Sai, Gragas, Sejuani… I was trying to find a fourth champion which fit into the top tier meta," explains Dan. "When we saw Sejuani and the usual picks into Sejuani were banned, we decided to pick it." In theory, Renekton has everything an effective jungler needs: sustain, AoE damage, and a gap closer. Not to mention he's a strong duelist, should he ever run into the enemy in the brush.
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"He is strong because he is able to have a high damage output to compete with Rek'Sai, while having enough early pressure to potentially punish the weaker early junglers," says Dan. "The early ganks are quite straight forward, provided the situation is correct. To effectively gap close I need minions which would allow me to double dash," the jungler explains.
Jungle Renekton needs that double dash in order to stun the desired target with Ruthless Predator (W). This pre-condition is part of the reason the jungle croc is so rare. "There always seems to be a champion which does the 'job' you want Renekton to do more consistently," says Dan.
Nevertheless, Dan's Renekton showed promise early on in the match, as he was able to Slice and Dice his way into bot lane lane at four minutes to successfully burn both of the enemy Flashes and their Heal. Unfortunately for mousesports, Renekton didn't quite fit with the rest of their line-up. "Admittedly it was picked with the wrong team comp," says Dan, "It didn't work because we had a poke comp which lacked hard crowd control."
While Renekton won't be selling his top lane real estate anytime soon, don't be surprised if you see him in the jungle more often. "Maybe it will appear again in a CS game, providing we make the necessary adaptations," says Dan.
Beatdown City
Many will tell you that Olaf is a straightforward champion: Run fast, throw axes, beat people with said axes, profit. As the lead drummer for Pentakill, self-proclaimed Lord of the Brocean, and heir to a well-known Freljord dealership, it's safe to say that Olaf himself would argue otherwise.
Similar to Renekton, Olaf's talents include a surprising amount of sustain and hefty damage, provided he lands his axe-flinging Undertow (Q). While he's always been a viable jungler, Olaf isn't often given the opportunity to bust out his moves in the upper echelons of competitive League of Legends. Luckily for him, Vortex's jungler Tri Tin "k0u" Lam was throwing a party in the jungle against Team Coast that required the Berserker's unique skillset of chugging Graggy's and beating people to a pulp.
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"I think he's a really strong jungler, he will win every jungle skirmish and countergank because of the Q," explains k0u.
While Olaf is strong in his own right, k0u says he picked the Berserker because of his natural synergy with Vortex's bot lane combination of Sivir and Annie. "We basically were trying to use Sivir ult, and then Annie's Tibbers and Olaf to follow up and burst someone down." Provided you have the jump on your opponent, it's an initiation that is nearly impossible to run away from as Olaf's Ragnarok (R) will enable him to sprint unimpeded straight to the opposing carries.
"Once you start snowballing with it, you just run through them," says k0u. Unfortunately for Vortex, they were on the receiving end an early snowball in this match. "We lost it in the lane swaps and then we tried to use our comp way too late," explains k0u. Even so, keep an eye out for Olaf in future speed oriented compositions like this, as once they get rolling, Olaf is chief conductor of the pain train. Woo woo!
For more fun and interesting picks, tune into Week 4 of the Summer Challenger Series this Wednesday, July 15th right here on Lolesports! And if you've missed any of the matches so far, they're always available on our spoiler free VODs page.
