Why I always buy tracker's knife

When the tank meta came out, I was excited. I didn't have the mechanics or the knowledge to play carry junglers, so I thought I could climb by brainlessly spamming maokai. And for a period, it worked. Maokai had enough cc with bramble smash and twisted advance to make an early gank successful, so I would always go botside buff --> wolves --> topside buff and gank mid or top. Tanks were very easy, and I thought I was hot stuff because I could press w + q. But soon enough, I realized I was doing something wrong. Mobile jglers like Kayn and Warwick would either gank before me or make my life a living hell since I could not fight them. Also, people who played tanks themselves would outplay me hard, knowing where I would be and countergank or gank one of my pushing lanes while I farm. I tried blaming my team, and due to my toxicity, I got suspended for 14 days.

After taking a break from League, I tried to become less toxic. I switched roles between top and jungle for a while... but I still failed a lot. Since I could not really play top lane, I returned to jungling again. I still did the same things and won some and lost some, so I tried changing things up. Since Maokai and tank junglers had reliable cc, I thought skirmisher's sabre and stalker's blade weren't really necessary. So I bought tracker's knife. I bought it every game. At first, I just casually warded random places, so they did not help at all. But this week, I focused my early pathing entirely on warding. I would even rush the two buffs and ward the topside buff to see where the jgler would be. After warning the lane that the jgler is likely to gank, I would do a camp to hit lvl 3 and then pressure a lane or farm if my lanes were hard to gank. Then I rushed tracker's knife immediately and warded up one side of the jungle and tried to keep track of the other jungler. At times it worked, at other times it didn't.

Recently, I played against Xin Zhao. Since he would rush level two or three to gank a lane, I went double buffs then warded the topside jungle. After Xin showed up, I counterganked him and my mid (Lux), support (Rakan) and I were able to neutralize him early as he tried to gank bot and was caught in the river. After that, I had a more effective kit than Xin for teamfights, so we were able to win the game before twenty minutes.

I am only Silver 1, so my experience is probably laughable to most League players. But through this experience, I was finally able to realize why pros treasure tracker's knife so much. I am not comparing myself to pros--rather, I think in solo queue low elo junglers should always buy tracker's knife. I think many of us are not as mechanically adept like the high elo players, so we have to think smarter to outplay the opponents, not through mechanics. I am abusing Maokai a lot, but I think tracker's knife is the best jungle item for those who can't really carry but want to climb.