Skip to content

I now know why NA Jungle is the reason why NA is the worst region.

Low Effort··5 votes·1,231 views

My name is Low Effort and I dance between Diamond 5 and Diamond 2. Not the best, certainly not the worst. I am an Marksmen main who's skill is focused primarily at positioning in teamfights, so my early game is rather weak. As a result, I generally require 1 to 2 ganks early on in order to actually be viable pre-25 minutes. But I have recently run into a reoccurring theme that has been intriguing me: the "anchor" theory. i have watched Korean vods and listened to European junglers and, in each situation, I find that the anchor theory is not a thing in any region other than NA.

What is an "anchor"? It's a concept that our own trashy NA jungle mains believe in where they focus and camp a single lane that contains an assassin or a strong bruiser who can, potentially eliminate the opposing marksmen in a later game fight. However, from my experience, that just means that, unless you win by a certain point, you are putting everyone else on your team behind and you will eventually, regardless of the scaling of your champions, LOSE THE END GAME. This leads to a lot of blame on the jungler. "He didn't gank me once in lane, he didn't apply pressure anywhere and we lost all dragons". And then it's considered your fault that you went 0/3 in lane due to numerous ganks and roams from the opposing jungler and midlaner. But it's ironic: when I play jungle, although I'm not skilled at the routing and ganking, I find myself winning the majority of games since I follow the Korean and European mentality of "OPPORTUNITY". This means you don't endlessly gank one lane. You gank one lane and let it snowball by itself. And then you see bot lane is pushing up, so you gank that lane and get them a kill. Even though I'm a terrible jungler, the fact that I help all lanes get ahead makes it so I win in numerous situations.

This is a message I give to all NA junglers: if you are losing a game and one of your lanes is begging for a gank and then blames you for losing, guess the frick what. It's your fault that you lost.

I'd love to hear what other players think in regards to this because I have never heard anyone except for junglers argue my point on trashy NA junglers being the bane of our region.

Thanks for reading guys. I'd love to hear what you think down below.

31 Comments

Warhammer Titan5 votes

if you are losing a game and one of your lanes is begging for a gank and then blames you for losing, guess the frick what. It's your fault that you lost.

Top laner feeds darius 20 kills "GANK ME PLEASE" - Automatic Junglers fault

Low Effort1 votes

Not exactly friend haha.

Warhammer Titan1 votes

Most games you lose are a team effort, where everyone could have played better. Its not fair to always blame the jungler

Low Effort1 votes

Read what I said again. I did not indicate that the jungle is always the problem. I am stating that the Anchor theory is the problem. I apologize if you misunderstood my intentions.

PeelDpotato2 votes

It's a combination of some junglers not creating pressure and some laners not reading lane pressure correctly.Your idea is inherently flawed as it assumes everyone jungle main does this, and by extension, always loses which isn't the case.Also you're a platinum player, and have never been in diamond dummy.

Low Effort1 votes

I decayed, unfortunately, friend. But I don't especially see how that is relevant to the topic.

PeelDpotato1 votes

[{quoted}](name=Low Effort,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=aIkxTXPs,comment-id=00010000,timestamp=2017-06-02T02:44:51.544+0000)

I decayed, unfortunately, friend. But I don't especially see how that is relevant to the topic.

https://na.op.gg/summoner/userName=low+effort Because you can go to your tier graph proving that you're a liar. If you lie about your elo why would I take anything you post as truth?

Low Effort1 votes

Once again, I decayed. And once again, still irrelevant to the topic.

PeelDpotato1 votes

[{quoted}](name=Low Effort,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=aIkxTXPs,comment-id=0001000000000000,timestamp=2017-06-02T03:27:20.910+0000)

Once again, I decayed. And once again, still irrelevant to the topic.

It takes 28 days to decay. At no point did your account hold any rank within a D2 to D5 rating, which in itself would have a time window. The tier graph literally tracks a week to week map. You didn't decay and you're a liar. You are lying to try to give your argument more merit by trying to appear more skilled at the game than you are which is sad. If you had been in diamond you would realize the overall map awareness is slightly better much like any tier to tier comparison. If you are stuck at your elo and want to climb it's your responsibility to make better decisions that contribute to you climbing and ultimately getting better. You don't have the competitive experience to judge the current state of the NA LCS scene and neither do I. At least I'll admit it.

General Esdeath 2 votes

To be honest, I feel this is partially true. I hate the "I only help winning lanes" mentality because

A) If they're winning they don't need you, just watch for a chance to counter gank B) In lower elo there's no guarantee your winning lane will carry, in higher elo the enemy laner that's behind knows how to play safe and call pings to stop roaming.

Low Effort2 votes

I appreciate your agreement xD I feel like a lot of people took this post of mine as a hatred of junglers, but it is more on the dislike of junglers who care more about their own success than the success of a team.

General Esdeath 2 votes

Pretty much, it's a bad tactic like what I called the "TSM tactic" of ignoring top lane as they get pushed in and dived over and over.

JhomasTefferson2 votes

Sometimes, no ganks are appropriate. If every lane is losing, and you fear getting 1v2'd or counterganked, your best bet is to ward objectives and farm up. Defend towers if their jg shows or one of the laners roams to help push one down, or if your laners die, but, in general, passive play is sometimes the way to go on it.

Sometimes, the best thing to do is play around the winning lane. If your brand mid gets a kill early, snowball that shit. Camp it. Ideally brand will carry the game. Now, in this situation, if the enemy overextends in another lane, of course you're gonna want to gank there, but, don't try to force plays anywhere but mid, or whichever lane is fed.

Sometimes, your jg may be counterjungling and shutting down the enemy jg, not giving too much attention to lanes unless a juicy opportunity presents itself, while a laner is getting absolutely deep dicked by his lane opponent who will probably turn and kill the jg who tries to help his feeding teammate Darius Teemo Brand come to mind.

Sometimes the jg can't gank because the laner who he'd gank for is too low and would probably be killed as soon as he engages to start the gank, leaving the jg to 1v1 a fed laner.

Sometimes junglers just can't get into your lane cuz you're right at river. That leaves you safe, but, it also leaves the enemy laner safe too depending on what side of the map youre on. The lee sin or hecarim might be able to dive around thru their tribush and tank a tower shot or two, and fiddle zac can jump over the wall by blue side tribush, but, not every jg can. You as the laner will either have to let them push or push into their tower when your jg is on your side of the map and ping for a countergank or ward up and play passive to try to get the lane to rebound and then freeze by your tower.

And, sometimes, it's absolutely on the jg, like you said. This is just from my perspective as a jg main. Sometimes they just get outganked and dont do anything anywhere else on the map, just farm up and ignore stuff.

Low Effort3 votes

Once again, im not saying that jungle is the problem. I apologize if you saw it as that. I'm simply pointing out that the anchor theory is a flaw in the NA style of games. I don't think that a jungler ganking 1 lane 9 times is a problem. I am just stating it is a problem if he ganks 1 lane 9 times and the other 2 lanes 0 times. Fair?

JhomasTefferson1 votes

I get that, i'm just saying sometimes you shouldn't gank certain lanes. Sometimes, ganking that one lane 9 times and the other 2 zero is actually a decent idea.

edit: you're right about anchor theory kinda though. Sometime's it's best to hedge your bets and help other lanes. Against an all ad team, you might better help the malphite top than the zed mid, even though zed will be able to delete the enemy adc if fed. Malphite might be a better investment overall. Helping both would be good, but, sometimes, you can only help/save one, and you have to decide early. I think anchor theory sounds kinda shit, and i dont like it either. That said, i haven't heard of it till now.

Low Effort2 votes

I continue to run into it, which is why I made a post about it xD I certainly love the feedback and conversations I've been able to get into thanks to the topic, though. It really helps my mindset when I hear from junglers how they view ganking and pressure. Additionally, I can agree that you shouldn't "gank" certain lanes. That doesnt mean you cannot apply pressure nearby or clear wards for them. I count that as an aspect to the ganking. Fair?

Doozku1 votes

Zed is actually a pretty good counter to AD stacking teams because of his ultimate changes, but that's beside the point.

Puttyblo2 votes

You seem to forget that KR in general has a much better lane phase + in general top lane compared to NA. This indirectly makes junglers naturally face problems.

If you look at vods of d+ KR games the top lane macro compared to NA is night and day pre 15- mins. This creates a lot more consistent play on the junglers end. What NA does have compared to KR is much better mid-late game macro. HOWEVER jungling is heavily early game centered, so that doesn't matter too much in the world of jungling.

It's honestly pretty rare in KR for Riven to lock in into their hard counter and then go 0/10/1 in lane, and it's because that player will basically sign themselves up to be permanently shamed. You can see this pretty regularly even in Cowseps stream where he's regularly trash talked and flamed just for picking Yi and he basically has to power gank nonstop or they'll instantly bm the fuck out of him. What this does is create a lot more opportunities for junglers to do things which makes them stand out a lot more.

In Korea if I go on someone as say Kindred . . . that person is 80% chance going to get locked down and die, and then they'll pretty much outright win the lane from there on out. In NA my top laner will probably just twirl around under his turret then flash into enemy turret and die stupidly 8 times, even in D2. So, if you really want something to complain about. It's the fact that our top lane is literally a meme across the globe.

Low Effort2 votes

Fair enough, good sir. Top lane is a problem as well xD I more meant to shed light on the jungle problems more than pinpoint top lane issues, though. I can certainly agree on all you said though.

WalkingInACircle2 votes

I follow the Korean and European mentality of "OPPORTUNITY"

YES.

Me too, on the rare occassion I jungle. Ganks are generally the most effective thing a jungler can do, and should be done when they will be successful. Not as a plan to camp one specific lane but across the map to exert pressure everywhere. But before even this, you have to get junglers of the mindset that ganks = good. Cuz lots of NA junglers give that same weak crap: "its not muh responsibility to do things".

BigBellBrute2 votes

SKT's jungler camps one lane on several occasions and they've done alright.

Darth Sidiouss1 votes

Opportunity is the key word to follow when playing jungle you have to seize and recognize EVERY fking opportunity and most of all plan ahead of potential threats. Jungle is just so important in winning right now its crazy. Thats how i became a jungle main i got so sick and tired of my jungler wasting OPPORTUNITIES that i always saw.

As far as ganking goes EVERYONE has to understand you cant be everywhere at once and even if you know where the enemy jungler IS you CANNOT always be around as you have your own gold and exp to acquire as well as success in ganking a lane. Counter ganking is good but can come at a price from other enemy rotations. The problem is communication such as your allies not knowing when your going to do a specific clear in route to a specific lane or not knowing just HOW delayed the gank will be. If the laners know your a good jungle already its much easier for them to read your movements on the map and their patience as well.

If you feel like your jungle is holding back your games consider mastering the jungle lane.

Low Effort1 votes

I didn't mean to imply that the jungle is the problem in all my games. I simply state that in any situation that a lane becomes completely ignored by the jungler, it BECOMES the junglers fault that the particular lane is losing. Fair?

Darth Sidiouss1 votes

I wasn't saying that either but i personally dont touch a feeding lane unless i know im strong enough to make it better than worst, if i cant i try to heavily pressure any existing wound else where and if i cant win off that i just accept defeat or a miracle

Low Effort1 votes

I feel like my definition of a gank is being misconstrued here. By "gank" i mean either showing yourself near a lane, clearing a ward, applying pressure, or attempting to kill. You can never step into a lane but give them a significant amount of help by simply showing to the lane that, yes, you are nearby and, no, they cannot all in your teammates. By "ganking", I'm including the pressure that showing gives to a team. Fair?

TonsOfGains1 votes

First off, I'm just going to point out the fact that if you can't hold your lane despite your teammates (jungler included) failing their supposed responsibilities left and right then you're not carrying. If you can't contribute beyond your own weight, or even meet your own weight, then you don't deserve to rise above the level you're at. This is the fundamental nature of the ranked system.

Second, I'm going to point out that you're likely losing due to your egotistical attitude and not your jungler. As a team game where you're playing alongside REAL people, you should expect that each human being will contribute in whatever way they believe is best. Your jungler has every right to determine what he/she can do best for the team, whether that's farm the jungle all game or gank only one lane. Keep in mind that it is in your biased experiences where you fail when the jungler doesn't babysit you. In the jungler's biased experiences, they succeed whenever they use the so-called "anchor".

Thirdly, as someone who has consistently played every role except support for the past 8 years and only switched to jungle in the most recent 2 years, I can tell you that winning your lane is much easier than carrying the team from the jungle. The bare minimum in your job as a lane is simple, especially a two-man lane - don't die. An extreme example I always refer to is that if you maintain distance, focus on farm and avoid taking damage it is virtually impossible to successfully gank you (unless of course, you don't belong in your division). That's it, it's simple. On the other hand, a jungler is faced with constant decisions - gank, farm, objectives? And each of those objectives come with sub-decisions - which lane? Which camp/route? When?

Lastly, if you take a look at my profile and replays you'll find that my duo (brother) and I do not belong in our current division. Our climb rate and performance each game demonstrates that. Further, our strategy involves myself ganking his lane more frequently than others. He's actually helping me with a research project where we're quantifying the relationships between different explicit metrics in in-game performance. One of these is the snowball effect. The gist of the research so far is that each point of gold above the average results in exponentially better performance. Therefore, snowballing one champion/lane while leaving the others to fend for themselves is most likely to yield the best results. All that needs to occur is that the rate of income for the one ally is greater than the rate of death of each other lane individually. That's not much to ask.

EDIT: If anyone would like more info about the research and its rationale, feel free to reply to this comment about it.

Low Effort1 votes

I dont want to say that it is this particular mentality of yours that keeps you in Bronze 2, but I'm also not saying that it is not. League of Legends is a team game and your entire post indicates that you do not especially believe that. I apologize if you took what I said as a stab at you - it was not meant for that. Additionally, I never said babysitting. I meant a single gank throughout the course of a game.

TonsOfGains1 votes

The decision to gank or not gank is not black and white. By ganking one lane, a jungler is being a team player by assisting the teammate who they believe will carry the game. This is analogical to team sports where certain positions have the role of scoring while others have the role of setting up those opportunities. And by choosing not to gank, a jungler may be choosing not to further contribute to a loss despite the fact that you don't see it that way. Ganks, ultimately, CAN fail. What's to make you so certain that your already failing lane won't be the destination for a failing gank? That, in turn, opens the gates to all sorts of questions about who takes the inevitable blame. It's simply easier for everyone if you can hold your own lane.

I have no mentality besides my mentality as a quantitative analyst. I play LoL to spend what little time I get with my younger brother as well as to extract numbers to crunch - which is my true hobby. My statistics say that I climb one division every two weeks, which would mean I would be Silver I now except I haven't played in 4 weeks. My statistics also say that I was placed Bronze III due to being paired with my brother and had more than half of our placement matches with leavers. Further, my statistics say that a large portion of my losses are due to AFK's while the remaining losses were simply team mismatches where my brother and I outperformed the average of our team. Lastly, my statistics say that there are 5 champions who I can play if I intend on guaranteeing a win, however that would generate some spuriousness in my data so I avoid basing my picks on that.

I don't intend to claim that I can play better than you as our current statistics demonstrate that you're a better player. What I do claim is that logic and statistics negate your theory or assertions.

Low Effort1 votes

Statistics indicate that, at the level of play in which you currently reside, you can hypothetically alleviate your rank. However, that does not include the fact that as you increase in rank, the skill and capability of your opponents also increases. That is the fallacy whenever someone states that they can carry due to the numbers of their current games.

Also, ganking is black and white. You either gank or you do not. Ganking does not indicate getting a kill or even showing in lane. It means clearing a ward or making your presence known. If you don't apply the pressure necessary, whether you are ahead, behind, or just getting by, then you are not doing your job as a jungler correctly.

Please note that I do not mean any of this as a direct shot at you. I enjoy having analytical conversations concerning the nature of League with other individuals. All I am doing in my previous statements is disagree and share my personal opinion with the matter.

TonsOfGains1 votes

This is what I alluded to earlier regarding "opening the gates". Your second paragraph is written as if you could quantify each decision and action in some denominated value such as gold. It is written as if you know for a fact that the benefit of making your presence known has a quantifiable gold value which exceeds clearing a camp or getting a kill in another lane. The reality is, unlike the way that kills or deaths in a lane is easily quantifiable, each decision from the jungler comes with an opportunity cost in the vast number of other decisions the jungler could have made - whether that's pushing another lane, gaining a kill, clearing a camp, or presence in another place.

You're right about my analysis being quite short-sighted. It wasn't intended to imply anything about where I believe I should be ranked. It was simply to point out that one cannot climb if they do not play.

I understand and appreciate that. I'm also enjoying the conversation we're having as your personal opinions and statements are also valuable concepts to take into consideration and learn from. It's probably why I haven't downvoted all your posts.

More from Gameplay

More by Low Effort