Wildcard: Unicorns of Love's Twisted Fate jungle

Riot·12/10/2014, 9:31:25 PM·1 votes·36,781 views

Unicorns of Love stunned everyone with a new jungle pick this weekend at IEM San Jose. The pick caught Team SoloMid complete off guard and helped propel UOL to a 2-0 victory over the North American champions. Kikis had shown previously that he was unafraid to bring unique champions into the jungle, reviving champions like Kayle and Wukong, but no analyst could have predicted we’d see Twisted Fate in the jungle. Based on UOL’s success with Twisted Fate, many junglers may be itching to race off into solo queue and try out the next “meta-breaking” trend. However, before you do, take a moment to find out exactly what makes Twisted Fate strong, and why you may want to leave him to the professionals.

Always Pick Gold

Twisted Fate’s Pick A Card ability is one of the most versatile spells in the game, allowing area damage and mana return when needed. However, one of the most essential tools to the jungle TF is the gold card -- a long range targeted stun. The key to a successful gank with any champion is landing that first crowd control effect, and with Twisted Fate your opening stun can never miss. Having a ranged, targeted stun also allows you to initiate fights more reliably for your team. Most people bring Elise into the jungle because her Cocoon locks down a priority target better than most jungler crowd control. Imagine having a Cocoon that cannot be blocked by minions or front line champions. The moment you are in range of a priority target, they will be stunned and your team can go in.

Now I’m Over Here

The next big part of Twisted Fate’s jungling toolkit is his ultimate ability, Destiny. It allows him to quickly teleport across long distances allowing for a plethora of unique gank opportunities. The best way for opposing laners to avoid ganks is to see the enemy jungler coming.By taking that away from the enemy team, you have given your laners an advantage just by existing. The other part of Destiny also gives jungle Twisted Fate a huge leg up over the enemy jungler. When activated, Destiny reveals every enemy champion for the duration of the ability, eliminating the chance for opposing junglers to surprise you with a counter gank.

Practice Or Be Punished

Succeeding with Twisted Fate relies on your ability to manipulate the soft resets of jungle camps. By standing in the right spot, monsters will charge at you and then run away, only to turn around and come right back up to 10 times before resetting. Twisted Fate is an extremely squishy champion with no self-healing abilities whatsoever. He also has no escapes, which makes him very vulnerable to counter jungling. The only way for TF to be successful is to avoid taking damage and keep away from enemy junglers.

Come A Little Closer

What makes Twisted Fate such a popular mid lane choice is his ability to poke from far away with Wild Cards. As a jungler, TF is forced to run an attack damage/attack speed build utilizing on hit effects. The Devourer enchantment and items like Wit’s End work well with his Stacked Deck ability, which applies bonus damage to every fourth attack. Unfortunately, without any real damage on Wild Cards, TF is forced to stay in auto attack range in order to remain relevant in team fights. His attack range is very short for a champion that relies on standing still and attacking. The moment your flash and gold card are down, you are a delicious target for the enemy front line. You cannot fit a Zhonya’s Hourglass into this build, and so the moment the opposing team catches you, you will be dead every time. Being effective in team fights means expertly weaving in and out of the fight as your stun becomes available. You will also be completely reliant on the rest of your team to keep the focus off of you while your cooldown resets. Before choosing Twisted Fate, make sure the rest of your team has the tools to keep you safe in between gold cards.

One Trick Pon- er, Unicorns

With only one game to use as reference, it is hard to know exactly how strong jungleTwisted Fate can be. The Unicorns of Love were a largely unknown team coming into this tournament, and they were able to surprise TSM. Everything in this one game worked in favor of UOL. Kikis spent countless hours working with his team to ensure their debut of Twisted Fate would be a success. He also had the advantage of a full team that had worked with the pick several times before. The Unicorns of Love all understood the strengths and weaknesses ahead of time. While it may seem like a fun break from the norm, this may be one surprise pick that is best left to the professionals.