Ranking the junglers at worlds (OPINION)

OHminus·Sep 25, 2019·1 votes·2,228 views

Preface: I watch the 4 major regions, went back and watched some of the others. Ones I did not watch: LST/LLA/LJL. Also, these are opinions.

G2 Jankos
SKT Clid
FPX Tian
GRF Tarzan
DWG Canyon
RNG Karsa
C9 Svenskeren
FNC Broxah
SPY Xerxe
GAM Levi
TL Xmithie
JT Hana
IG Leyan/Ning
CG Lira
RY Closer
ISG Oddie
HKA Crash
LKE DNK
FLA Shrimp
UOL AHaHaCiK
AHQ Alex
MEGA Lloyd
DFM Steal
MMM Babip

Some overall comments: The jungle position is certainly, in my opinion, one of the stronger positions at Worlds. Basically every top tier jungler is here. The top 3 are pretty set - Jankos, Clid, and Tian are all on a level of their own. Tarzan probably is in that tier as well but has shown he can underperform. Canyon, Karsa, Sven and Broxah make up the next tier - all really good junglers but I've seen them make a lot of mistakes as well. Xerxe is a good jungler but doesn't seem to have a lot of synergy with Humanoid, Levi is probably the best wildcard jungler in history with his aggressive plays on carry junglers. Xmithie is a bit lower here because he's a bit more passive then the top 10 and plays a lot of tank junglers, which aren't the best in the early game (also, his performance later in summer was pretty dismal). Hana is probably the best player on that J-Team roster that went nearly undefeated in LMS, and imo is slightly better than the unproven Leyan (who wavered between solid and plain bad in his games) and the coinflip Ning, who has underperformed all summer. Lira is probably the worst of the junglers from the 4 major regions, but has proven that he can be solid on champs like Skarner and J4. To round it off, Closer and Oddie are probably the 2 best wildcard junglers (besides Levi) and I was impressed by their performances.

5 Comments

III BAKURYU III Sep 25, 20191 votes

I think Jungle is one of the hardest positions( Giggity Giggity Goo) to judge because it's so dependent on their laners. Look at Svenskeren when he had to babysit Bjergsen and look at him now. Day n' Night.

Oddie should do some incredible plays but the problem is Isurus Gaming are in a tough a$$ group! I expect Ekko to be the main champ for such team/Oddie.

I love GAM but I just don't see it from them this year. People are saying FPX will go 6-0 or auto-locked 1st in their group but I honestly see J Team really giving them a show( 1-1) in groups as of right now for me. J Team are Team Liquid "lite" personally where they have strong objective focus but tend to be passive early more times than not. If they can work on their aggressive early game it could mean making it out of Groups as a potential 1st seed.
Many teams play aggressive and while some(Griffin, Team Liquid, J Team) are slower than others this isn't 2017 where GAM will surprise teams with LV 6. Nocturne . I still have 2 weeks to study them but that's just my opinion on GAM and Group B currently.

What's your opinion on Group A/ Griffin? Are they "free food"-Kelsey Moser said or what?

OHminusSep 25, 20193 votes

From what I've seen from GAM, they're hyper aggressive and play at a really really fast pace. They have bad macro mid-late but their philosophy is "fuck it. If we crush 'em in the early game we win. If we don't, we lose". So with slow teams like J-Team and potentially Splyce, I see GAM being a surprise pick to make it out since Splyce hates teams like GAM (see: Rogue) and I'm expecting J-Team to fall behind early too. The only team I see just outright winning against GAM is FPX since they can match them early and have much better macro late.

Group A is tough. Imo, G2 > Griffin > C9 but C9 somehow always make it out and they can beat Griffin in the mid game where Griffin usually falter. Griffin is in no way "free food" like Kelsey said (maybe she only watched their matches vs SKT), but they do have weaknesses and C9 can exploit them. For instance, their top lane is pretty unstable (Doran/Sword are decent, but Doran makes a lot of mistakes as a rookie and Sword is just too passive in lane), they like to prioritize getting leads through lane (i.e having cs advantage) and sometimes just have bad drafts. Their strong points, however, are their individual players outside of top and how it's practically impossible to comeback against them (think SKT 2016)

III BAKURYU III Sep 25, 20191 votes

I was thinking the same thing with Griffin where yes, they are chokers but chokers against SKT They were the #1 Korean team for a year for a reason but more times than not falter mid/late game. If anything C9 and GRF will be in a tie-breaker and if so, I'm giving Griffin the edge to make it out of groups.

Overall this should be the best WORLDS ever! Great post and can't wait for MID post as its' been a hot topic in Korea on who's the better MID and now you have 13+ to add to that chili pot discussion.

TrashCommun1tyOct 1, 20191 votes

U might be joking svenskeren > Broxah , Xerxe and Ning??? Since when? :D::D:D

OHminusOct 1, 20191 votes

Svenskeren carried the C9 team and was summer split MVP, Broxah is very good but made so many mistakes and kinda went mental boom in the G2 series, Xerxe is good but Splyce's early and mid game woes really detract from his performance, Ning has been garbage in summer and isn't even the starting jungler for IG anymore, Leyan is.

Of course, this is all my opinion, but I'm not joking.