Why is Riot pushing Ekko into jungle?

Honestly Ekko's Kit kind of screams jungle in the first place.

The Q while ok for laning really shines in clearing the tightly packed jungle camps, his W is kind of shit in lane, but pretty good for ganking, and the E is great for Catching during a gank.

While he was designed for mid, they made a pretty decent jungle kit in the process.

Because riot doesnt give a fuck about anything. Kayn lane is not allowed or his designer throws a tantrum. Cancer ekko should be played jungle so he even gets buffed in a way to let him jungle. Bruiser nidalee is not cool so she gets nerfed until she can only jungle which she doesnt do in a healthy way either mind you whenever she is good. GP is not allowed midlane so he gets send top to be a Q spam bot. Lane kha zix was genuinely fun and i can't remember him being broken but back then i was some gold 5 scrub who barely gave a fuck about balance unlike today so maybe i can't remember it being op?

Riot is just biased and plays favorites whenever possible. Just look at todays patch, nothing fixed. Aftershock dmg gets nerfed the moment adcs cry about being killed by leona and alistar. People complaining about shield stacking on adc? Better buff guardian shield. Toplane is still a mess and riot doesnt do ANYTHING to help? Well riot just continues to not do anything except nerfing bruisers by nerfing klepto, the only option to deal with tanks and have impact on a game, MASSIVELY. Aftershock buffed for toplane tanks since the dmg really wasn't the problem but the flat resistance. Rip jax trying to cheese a maokai in the first minutes who will now auto lose from the beginning.

Please note: Riot does anything to please fuckin botlane, IMMEDIATELY in one patch changes items, runes to make support more "fun" and buff botlane and bring things that feel shitty down like aftershock tanks 1v1 adcs (which btw they should absolutely do early in the game, especially the "hypercarry" cancer that is spammed currently) but if toplane is a meme for half a year now after three months without a keystone or even a rune path they are "testing" something they can't tell us about but they are DEFINITELY doing something, well maybe. So either you main a riot approved champion, then you can be always meta, played in multiple roles and have success everywhere. Unfortunately lissandra is not a riot approved champ so i guess go fuck yourself.

Dat jump to Lissandra.

AHEM:

We’re okay with Ekko going jungle when he does so in a healthy way (read: as an assassin, not a tank). However, when we last changed his passive we made it a tad harder for AP Ekko to succeed in the jungle. This change comes to make Ekko a bit more viable in that role with as little risk as possible to his solo laning characteristics

We've already seen Ekko Jungle in the past but the changes to kill his Tank playstyle also harmed his Jungle potential. With Riot's apparent change in thought process of being more open to more champions in more roles, seeing this opportunity to return Ekko to the Jungle as an option is great. More diversity without needing to cripple his laning potential like they did Nidalee.

And that should answer your question. Riot has seen Jungle Ekko. They know what they like and don't like about it. He gets his pass. Jungle Lissandra however would sit in the grounds of speculation and "hey who knows", so maybe it's a route in the future but really the only answer is "hey who knows".

Also should mind Zyra and Morgana being looked at as options of more champions being introduced to the Jungle, once again because the playerbase has been experimenting with it and Riot acknowledges them. Consistency so far.

Pft, whatever. Jungle Nami is where we all know the meta should go.

Ekko is a kit that leaves a lot of versatility. It seems Riot's new direction this season is to not pigeon-hole champions to one lane/role. This could perhaps play a part in that.

I'd like to Jungle with Taliyah :D

That would make more sense with my old name

Cause of his kit.