Ask a Shaco Main - Chinese Jester - Completed

We’re excited to welcome Chinese Jester to kick off June’s “Ask a Champion Main!” This Shaco main’s been playing League of Legends since Season 2 with over 5000 Shaco games.

He’s brought with him a wealth of info on juking, flanking, and dominating the jungle as the Demon Jester.

UPDATE - This AMA is officially closed but Chinese Jester will be checking in periodically tonight and tomorrow to answer a couple more of your questions.

Thanks for all of the great questions and a big thank you to Chinese Jester for hanging out!

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How did you get into League of Legends?

I was in my junior year of high school and discovered it just before Summer break began. I had just begun watching Justin TV and saw incarnati0n’s Fizz (Jensen). Originally, friends in my physics class introduced me to the game and I thoroughly enjoyed how competitive each game was.

Where do your Summoner names come from?

My Summoner name “Chinese Jester” comes from the fact that I am Chinese and Shaco is a Jester. However, originally when I began playing League it was “BDMeta”, because of how much Shaco would backdoor in the old days. My second name change was YouMatter, as I got more into charities.

What got you hooked on playing Shaco?

Since season 2, Shaco has been a champion that would solo carry games and have high snowball ability. This resonated with me, because I have always been very critical of myself to play properly. If I mess up I deserve to lose, if I don’t play a perfect early game, I don’t deserve to win.

Additionally, Shaco was streamed a lot by EUW junglers at the time, so it was quite popular.

Who is your go-to champion if Shaco gets banned?

Elise is currently my go-to champion if Shaco gets banned. Originally in season 4-5 I would get banned out in 80%+ of my games so I would play Elise or dodge. However, Thresh is pretty fun.

If you could describe Shaco’s playstyle in a sentence, what would it be?

Shaco must read and understand every enemy and ally to create logical aggression.

What runes and masteries do you run on him?

For runes, the standard page is AD quints, AD marks, Armor seals, and AP blues.

For masteries I run 12/18/0, picking up Sorcery, Double-Edged Sword, Natural Talent, Oppressor, Savagery, Assassin, Merciless, Dangerous Game, Precision, and Thunderlord’s decree.

What is Shaco’s core item build?

Shaco’s core items are Youmuu’s, Mobility boots, Duskblade, and Infinity Edge (IE). Youmuu’s and Mobi’s give you what you need to pick and flank throughout the game, while Duskblade and IE give you the damage to burst.

What are Shaco’s easiest matchups? What are his toughest?

It’s hard to name specific easy matchups for Shaco without taking into account team composition:

• Immobile enemies of any sort are good for Shaco. AD’s such as Twitch, Jhin, Ashe, Jinx are simpler to play against. Personally, I like playing against early game junglers such as Elise and Lee Sin, because Shaco has tools to outplay these champions. For example, a 0 ping Shaco should always be able to Q or W Lee Sin Q, Q Lee Sin’s E, and R Lee Sin’s R.
• Shaco’s toughest matchups are Twisted Fate, Reksai, Lulu, Janna, Kayle and Kindred. Twisted Fate and Reksai essentially stop Shaco from moving as freely as he would want to. You’re not allowed to move deep into dangerous territory against these champions that can spot you and trail you in invisibility.
• Lulu, Janna, Kayle, and pretty much anyone that stops you from one-shotting essential backliners are hard matchups, because you have to wait for them to expend their important defensive skills before you enter for a pick.
• Kindred is a ranged AD jungler so she’ll always have the range advantage in 1v1ing you in the jungle as well as an ultimate that stops you from bursting an individual.

What is Shaco’s main job in laning phase? What about Teamfights?

Shaco’s job in the laning phase can consist of two different approaches:

1. Snowball a particular, or all lane matchups. This allows for early first tier turrets, into map control, into objectives. From this point you just start stealing jungle camps, and out gold them until the game is over.
2. Neutralize the enemy jungler. If I am stopping the enemy jungler from visiting lanes that should win naturally then it’s a net win.

Teamfighting scenarios with Shaco are very unique. Step 1 is to check if they have hard engage. If the enemy has hard engage you must either trust your team to play around that engage or play with your team, meaning no split pushing. Things such as peel skills, waveclear, and items such as Zhonyas make this decision simpler. If you decide to split you must be aware of objective rushes such as Baron. Never go bot side split pushing if they can rush baron leaving your team in a 5v4.

If you decide to group and teamfight you need to check for the following:

• Press Tab and see all pink wards. You can never enter the fight if they have someone holding a pink ward, if you Q in, they put it down, you get turned on and die.
• Have an angle of some sort. From the left, right, behind, somewhere creative that is clear of enemy vision using sweepers/pinks. Ideally, you also take into account enemy camera control to avoid getting your smoke seen.

If these conditions are met, you should wait for your team to engage, then you will move into the backline, backstab, Tiamat/Hydra (if you have it), E then auto for thunderlords. This will kill backliners TYPICALLY.



If you believe there are enemies in transition to the teamfight location, you must read the map, and figure out if you can pick them off at red, blue, a camp, as they’re walking down the lane.

Shaco’s “teamfight” starts before a teamfight even begins.

If someone is playing Shaco for the first time, what is the most important thing to bear in mind?

You will get flamed. If you have even an average early game, other players will think you’re “behind,” because you’re playing Shaco. If you have a perfect early game you can still lose and get flamed, because Shaco isn’t a late game champion. Shaco’s late game isn’t HORRIBLE, it’s just not great.

Even then, if you go 4/0/3 in the lane phase by killing laners and the enemy Graves jungle sweeps up the cs when you push it to the turret and that results in them having 4x your cs, you will get flamed mid game, because the Graves is more useful. However, through all of this, you have to be level headed and make the most proper play you can.

What are your favorite ways to juke opponents with Shaco?

1. Walk one way and Q the other way. Pretty simple.
2. Walk one way, turn to a direction, then Q a different direction. The enemy may think you turned and Q’d late, so you may have“revealed” the direction of your Q.
3. R and auto the enemy or stand still, move your clone away.
4. R to go over a wall (about 40% of the time using Directional Input.)

How do you make the most out of Shaco’s Jack-in-the-Boxes?

You can use Shaco’s Jack-in-the-Boxes for a lot of things:

1. Initial clear speed
2. Vision defense/offense. Defending your laners from jungle ganks by leaving boxes in tri-brushes, river brushes or offensively leaving them in the enemy jungle for vision
3. Placing them behind in ganks to block off escape routes
4. Placing boxes to peel for your backline (I believe 2 boxes near each other still stop things like Malphite ult, credits to Pink Ward).

AD Shaco or AP Shaco?

I play exclusively AD assassin Shaco. Even though I believe bruiser Shaco has a higher win rate, I don’t play it, because you’re essentially a worse Lee Sin imo.

AP Shaco is fun, but you need an early game transition item such as Tiamat or Youmuu’s. It’s not my playstyle, but it works.

Have you played Shaco in other roles outside of Jungle? How did that go?

I’ve played Shaco Top, Mid and Support. Shaco Top is actually not bad, your split is almost the best in the game, you just need to get through lane phase.

Shaco Mid sucks and Shaco Support also sucks. If you wanna use 20% of your mana every time to Q E someone or put a bunch of boxes down and hope your cheese works, feel free.

What’s your favorite Shaco skin?



Asylum, he’s upside down and as crazy as a jester should be. But, we all use Masked Shaco due to the white Q smoke.

What’s the best Shaco play you have ever pulled off?

I don’t have a clip, but it was in Season 4 I believe. A Syndra player (maybe Mancloud? Not sure) is chasing me through bottom river, because I have 20% HP so I run towards my first- tier bot turret. Their AD Draven flash auto’s me as their Syndra flash R’s me. I R to dodge the damage as well as steal Draven’s axe (if you ult Draven axes they disappear). I proceed to Q back, kill the Syndra, and my team grabs the Draven.

Thanks for taking the time to chat with us! If readers want to reach out, where can they find you?

You can find me at any of the links below:

• Twitch
• Twitter

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