New season. New Meta? New Junglers.
4:44 PM 02/12 2014 As a new dawn starts on the rift, new champions rise to take the place of others and rightly claim their fame to game in the institute of war, however before we get to the new season the last season review is in order. In the finals for the Season 4 LCS world championship, it was Samsung Galaxy white that dominated they represented the best this year and wrought havoc throughout the LCS, The meta mid-laners were Syndra, Orianna, Zed etc. While other teams had a harder time adjusting to a more utility-based meta others caught up with it. Orianna being a fought over pick in quite a few matches due to her devastating effect (which was the main reason why zed was meta IMO) Lulu and gragas were seen at the top-lane and are great additions to any match. Anyways big changes to the jungle should extend outward and change the way we play and hopefully change how lanes respond to ganks with the champions they pick. I want to know what new plans are being formed in the back of our minds as a summoner - right now Warwick and Shaco are pretty common picks in the jungle for two different reasons and I believe that they represent something Iconic for the next season if things go the way they keep going
- Shaco can still clear his buff really quick and apply early jungle pressure - allowing him to steal your buff while you're weaker from the new more-devastating jungle.
- Shaco has really good early ganks and after he steals your red/blue he might be coming to a lane near you while your jungler still has no pressure on the map. These are just some reasons why Shaco has always been good but these changes are magnified this season. Zix can't get out there quite as early as he used to and bugs might be squashed in the jungle. However warwick represents something other than a early ganking strategy and is strong for a different reason.
- Warwick heals and heals and heals and heals. Yes he doesn't take that much damage and has great lvl 6 ganks ,also he can be one tanky wolf. Sorry but shaco might have to burn more to clear this big wolf.
- He does as-before-mentioned get tanky (hopefully) however with most of his impact being mid game maybe people will go with some better team-picks instead of just picking Warwick because he is OP.
So here we have two different types of junglers - the sustain jungler who becomes tanky and the Early game - high damage - assasin jungler. Also there is a straight tank jungler that might be efficient but we can forget about the champs right now and move on to How does this affect the way I play? I mean if you are playing against shaco - you buy pinks. Against warwick? abuse his early game. Take that time to push more aggressively, however that's not all it could affect. what if their jungler is warwick and you are against ziggs. His early game is pretty good so you may have a hard time, this is how it affects us and changes the way we play. We pick new champs to hide the weaknesses of our composition. The META this season will be more accepting of different types of play. I mean of course the popular picks will remain that way (hopefully) but other champions we love that have been shunned will come out and more comps, MORE GAME-PLAY VALUE. The scuttle-bug should be taken early to reduce the amount of wards your team has to put out on the map and certain junglers are really good at killing it and others are good at stealing it, essentially though if you kill it you get 35 gold that's 5 more than what you get for killing a ward, and why not? it represents a ward, more than that it has a speed buff to get us to lanes a little faster making our roams more effective (hopefully) and control of the dragon + baron. What do you guys think this season will adapt into and who do you play in the new jungle? (other than shaco and warwick) the poll is there just to give some ideas