The Original Salt - A Guide to Counterjungling in Low-Mid Elo

Hey guys. I'm a Gold V Nunu main (got up to Gold I last season), who climbed up from Silver III as soon as I discovered how much I love counterjungling. I've played with Plat players before, but never in Plat elo, so this guide is focused on how to counterjungle in Gold and below. I hope you guys learn something from this, and if I missed anything or if there's anything you disagree with, leave a comment so that the people who want to use this guide get as many tips and tricks as they can!

WHAT IS COUNTERJUNGLING?

Counterjungling is the art of invading your opponent's jungle and stealing as many camps as possible. Doing so denies your opponent experience and gold, and can punish someone who ganks too frequently. This is especially true if your teammates are able to ward and position effectively to make your opponent's ganks largely ineffective, but even if the enemy jungler is 6/0, you can still come back with a pretty good counterjungling strategy.

WHY COUNTERJUNGLE?

Counterjungling is a mid-risk, mid-reward strategy. You do have some inherent risk when you invade the enemy jungle, especially with no vision, but if you are careful and ward properly you can reduce that to no risk. The reward isn't as high as getting a kill, but extra CS and denial can be crucial in turning a game around during the team fight phase.

One of the strongest aspects of counterjungling is how powerful it can be when done properly. If you take a large raptor and two small raptors, then take a large Krug, you leave two small monsters in your opponent's jungle. Now, these monsters are easily dealt with, but they give next to no gold and very little experience compared to the whole camp. Still, your opponent will have to take the time to farm them, because if he doesn't then they will never respawn and give him a full XP again.

There are other benefits to counterjungling as well. Red and blue buff are much stronger this patch, so taking them will give your team a pretty sweet advantage while denying power to the enemy. If you Smite the big wolf, you even get an unkillable ward in the enemy blue side jungle, which is pretty strong if you're blue side and you want to take dragon.

Counterjungling offers the same benefits as farm jungling, in that you get a very efficient and very thick stack of gold compared to the risk of a ganker. Indeed, one of the best counterjunglers is also one of the best farm junglers, .

WHO ARE THE BEST COUNTERJUNGLERS?

This largely depends on what you want to accomplish. If you want to blitz through your opponent's jungle, deny them CS and leave them two levels behind you, is by far the best champion for the job. His Consume easily takes large monsters while keeping you healthy for a quick escape, and the buffs all help with counterjungling. You get speed when you kill a monster, meaning you can rush to the next camp or get out of dodge. You get magic damage on-hit, based on how much health you build, which helps with clear speed, and you get increased health, which makes you harder to punish and also gives you more on-hit damage.

If you are counterjungling to not only put yourself ahead, but to catch your opponent out and duel them while they're weak, you want . She has an insane clear speed with her Burnout, and all of her abilities have on-hit effects which means that she is a terrifying duelist. The main drawback of this strategy is that Shyvana does not have a lot of burst. She needs to take time to kill her enemies, especially in the early game, and that can easily allow for someone to come from lane to back your enemy up.

Other shining stars are , , and . and are fantastic invaders and duelists, but I haven't seen them do too well at that in lower elos.

Lee Sin is a very dangerous counterjungler in particular, specifically because of how safe he is. He has the option to ward the bush behind your red, Q over the wall to check if the red is there, then hop to it. If you're fighting red and you're low, he turns on you and kills you. If you're fighting red and you're high, he Smites it and dashes to his ward and leaves. If your team is anywhere near by, he just ward dashes out with no penalty for being caught.

The main thing that holds Lee Sin back from being the best counterjungler in the game is his generally average clear speed and the sheer power he has with his ganks.

HOW DO I COUNTERJUNGLE?

I have several tips here. First, your first invasion. If you are blue side, I highly encourage you to invade your opponent's red for the first camp. You can get a leash from your top laner and it won't be a big deal. The reason this works is because there is only one person watching the red (the enemy top laner) and they usually watch it from the bush closest to the outer tower. You can circle around through the river and come up from raptors to get to red no problem. Wait in the river until 1:20, then move to the bush on the wall of red. Wait til 1:30, then move to the bush right next to red. Wait until 1:35, then emerge and you should get to the middle of the camp as red becomes targetable. Take the entire camp (you won't hit level 2 if you don't) and get out. Boom, you've denied the enemy jungler their strongest tool in early game ganking, as well as taken away some of their clear power and sustain in the jungle.

But what if the enemy is a jungler who typically starts red, you may ask? This is even better. You might think invading red against Rengar or Lee Sin is asking for a fight, but it's not. Junglers who start red don't start at the red camp itself, they start at Krugs. And unlike Gromp, Krugs puts you in a position where you have ZERO vision of your buff. You are assured that the enemy top laner won't be watching the buff because they are leashing Krugs. You have to be quick to get the camp before your opponent gets after you, and it might cost your flash, but it'll be worth it because these champions depend on red for their first clear.

If you are spotted, head immediately to your red buff so the enemy jungler doesn't just trade buffs. Ward the bush behind the red, so you can see the enemy jungler moving through the river. If they come right to red, cool, you get a free kill by calling on your laners. If they stop to clear another camp first, you take your own red and they waste their time invading. You don't care about having two reds, you care about your opponent having zero reds.

If you're red side, surprise surprise, you are just inherently at a disadvantage. I wouldn't invade until your first back, to make sure you have a Smite that helps.

The next tips are about itemization.

WHAT ITEMS ARE BEST FOR COUNTERJUNGLING?

This depends mostly on your champion, not your strategy.

, , and want . Vision is very important, and you can get an early to clear wards so you aren't punished as often. Plus, ward hopping.

, and want . These champions are tanky enough to brawl with the early game warriors but they need an extra bit of damage to make sure they come out ahead.

wants . Nunu is generally able to move around the map without caring about vision, and he doesn't want to fight if he gets caught out. Generally, Chilling Smite is just good to add a little bit of burst to Nunu's sustained damage kit.

are your boots. isn't good, you spend the large majority of your time in combat.

I'M TWO LEVELS AHEAD OF THE OPPONENT. HOW DO I WIN?

This is the tricky part. Counterjungling gets you ahead, but it doesn't help you win the game usually. However, being ahead means you can't be Out-Smited. Generally, my strategy is to control neutral objectives as much as possible. And hey, they all got stronger this patch! Baron buff lasts longer, dragons are more powerful, and the Rift Herald is a god. Take these objectives constantly, on spawn, and then go right back into the enemy jungle to keep him too weak to contest any of them. Then sit back and get carried by your super-buffed teammates.