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New meta: No jungler. I am having success with River Leona.

iTaLenTZ··5 votes·770 views
  • So everyone is experiencing 4-5 man ganks botlane and losing tower within 3 minutes.
  • Overall the jungle is harder to clear and less rewarding since you lose pressure and smite buffs are gone

So to solve this I came up with playing River instead of jungle. The concept is easy. You start with Targon and take Teleport/Ignite with Smite and clear ONLY the first buff closest to toplane. Then you make their toplaners life miserable by either killing him or forcing him to back and use TP. After that you clear the crab and move to midlane, do the same thing, then take crab and go to botlane.

  • Take a tanky champ with CC/high zoning and kill pressure. Leona, Blitzcrank, Tahm those kind of champs.
  • Buy gold efficient items. Don't buy jungle items you are not clearing the jungle. Relic shield is amazing. It gives you and your (toplaner) teammates lot of early gold advantage
  • Sightstone is amazing. Its invaluable to know where their jungler is at all time to imply high pressure.
  • Drown your enemies with high pressure. While the enemy jungler is farming you are outnumbering them in every lane making your opponents tilt
  • The plant at river and the crab give enough sustain + Targon. You also gain vision.
  • Snowball the game to victory within 10-15 minutes
  • Lots of lane presence and map vision
  • You take TP so when you are toplane you can still have botlane and dragon control

Because I am 2 vs 1 toplane and give my toplaner early advantage I force their jungler to either come top or lose that lane. But because he is busy clearing the jungle he can't come because he is low. A) He is either taking both buffs and clearing jungle, B) He is ganking botlane. So in both situations they are losing toplane. In case of B I have TP in case botlane needs help so we can't lose early botlane. If their jungler doesn't adept and keeps farming the game is won within 10 minutes.

Cons

  • Teammates who can't adept and instantly start flaming for not playing meta
  • Teammates who aren't capable of maintaining high pressure without taking too much risk.
  • You need to convert your snowball into victory. Take towers and drakes when you can. Group up and close out the game.
  • Team synergy: Strong early champs are the best. Don't pick champs who need to scale.
  • Getting reported by salty enemies for destroying them by not playing meta

I have won 5 out of 6 games already doing so.

Edit: I won 2 out of 3 ranked games in low Plat.

16 Comments

Jo0o5 votes

I like the idea a lot, actually. In theory, at least.

How do you keep up with farm and experience if you don't get early kills, though? You're farming the jungle significantly less, and Targon's will only let you freely tax so far. The strategy seems very all-in on snowballing the game early, and if you fail to do that, catching back up is going to be harder than it would have been for a more traditional jungler.

But hey, keep breaking the meta. I love stuff like this.

iTaLenTZ1 votes

I just won another game. Even though my early wasn't that good because we didn't get any kills I did made top and mid having to back and gave both my sololaners an advantage. I fell a bit behind in gold and exp but I was still useful because of my CC and tankyness. Tank items are very cheap overall compared to all the other items in the game. I don't really rely that much on gold. Its like a secondary support role where you trade your jungler for stronger sololaners. And when midgame starts I already shared 1K gold with my sololaners. That is really a lot let that sink in. Its like farming the jungle but also giving that gold to your teammates.

LordGeovanni1 votes

exactly you dont have to steam roll you just have to make sure your enemies fall behind

Jo0o4 votes

Kinda unfortunate that this is getting downvotes without many accompanying opinions.

Honestly, I doubt this sort of style will replace junglers, but it's important to at least consider off-meta strategies when they're this well-reasoned.

Ad Vitam Aeterna1 votes

You're having success in normal matches, I wouldn't put any stock into that. Try it in ranked.

Ad Vitam Aeterna1 votes

You're having success in normal matches, I wouldn't put any stock into that. Try it in ranked.

iTaLenTZ1 votes

Sure I will. I am only Plat 5 0 LP now so it shouldn't be that hard.

LordGeovanni1 votes

whats the difference besides that you are wagering points. and that people make themselves play worse when they see something they arent used to which actually says nothing of your play style and alot of people mental foritude

Ad Vitam Aeterna1 votes

Lol, it's a well know fact people don't try hard in norms, it's why you see people complaining on the boards and reddit that they are matched against plats/diamonds as bronze/silver players. I had a Plat 1 account in ranked that was matched nonstop with Bronze/silver players in norms. That is why success in norms with a certain "new strategy" won't usually become successful in ranked games where people are actually going to try hard and punish you for not playing optimally.

LordGeovanni1 votes

Though i do know people dont try hard in normals i believe that you should try hard in all games as that is where the entertainment is supposed to come from in a competitive game by trying hard and over comming the challange. but in my experience people dont exactly try hard in ranked either its only about 10% 14% change for me in the amount of people who try to actively win game rather than the ones who just want to stumble into a win.

Ad Vitam Aeterna1 votes

You play in bronze though so yeah, it wouldn't be much different than norms. OP is Plat 5 so ranked for him will be a lot more tryhard than a norm.

LordGeovanni1 votes

I play with a bronze rank verus golds and silvers and in norms and aram the occasional plat

Ad Vitam Aeterna1 votes

I just went through your op.gg, the highest you get matched against are Silver 5's and that's in normal games, where people aren't going to try hard anyways. In the one ranked match you have played you are against low bronze players.

Dracocrash1 votes

Seems innovative, but I think a jungler can do exactly what you're doing and more.

Also who said jungle is less rewarding.

Truly Prideful1 votes

Roamers used to be popular a long time ago, generally Alistar and Eve. It can be effective, but is really risky. If you don't manage a successful gank you're going to put your solo laners at an exp disadvantage from siphoning their exp. Junglers like Lee Sin or Zac could give you some issues once they realize what's going on as well.

That said, have you tried it with Bard? His map mobility would allow for more clever gank pathing and you get some free exp / movespeed from chimes. He has low cooldown CC like Leona and good synergy with TLD which you'd have for each gank. Your allies would appreciate the freebie health packs as well.

jaymc11301 votes

All I see described is you playing the jungle role properly for the most part (designated ganker) and applying the kind of pressure a good jungler should provide. Only difference is a GOOD jungler like myself would ALSO be able to out farm any one on both teams below diamond level while doing this.

https://i.gyazo.com/219e4f31f11552062df24e2f30d5cc6f.png

Only player in the game to outfarm me was my my high diamond duo GP.

Literally what you describe in the OP here is the proper way to play jungle minus how to properly farm. Its a less effective version of how to play the jungle correctly. At least you were spot on in determining that assisting the lanes as a jungler or "swing man" is more important and influential than farming like a noob Trick2G wannabe.

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