"Don't even play ranked right now, too reliant on jungle winning the crab race"

So says a Diamond 2 friend to me when asking for advice on a particular champion for ranked.

I can easily see how that is the case.

I'm not sure how true that is at silver elo, where players lack consistency and game knowledge to really abuse the crab mechanics...

However, at a diamond+ level, absolutely I can see the problem here. It's way too easy to punish a jungler who missed the crab. And then because of that the entire team suffers ganks because they don't have a jungler who can compete. Your entire team snowballs down hill because one jungler lost one crab. That's why we have this insanity where mid thinks it's a good idea to take smite, and players are leaving their lanes in order to gank for the jungler or help them secure crabs.

It does happen that way sometimes at silver level, just not with any regularity because the players themselves are so inconsistent and lack game knowledge.

From my perspective at silver, as a jungler/top/mid player:

1. 3 minute ganks at top lane still happen with frequency. Nothing has changed.
2. Jungle can still dictate the course of lane phase. It's just less likely to happen at low elo because of low skill levels involved. They don't know how to properly punish early mistakes and they squander early leads too easily.
3. The only viable junglers are now early duel/gank junglers, which ironically only re-enforces the problem they aimed to correct. Because now you feel compelled to gank early and often to abuse the lead you've gained in the crab war. If you don't abuse that lead then you're squandering your crab advantage. There's no advantage or reason anymore to pick a farming jungler. It's all about getting those crabs and pushing that advantage as soon as possible.