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Dark Horses - Jungle Gragas

Riot··2 votes·78,664 views
We're used to seeing Gragas dominate the mid lane and occasionally go top, but recently we've also seen him roaming around the jungle. Here's how to add a little more rabble-rousing to your gank routine.

Carousing from camp to camp

Jungle Gragas advantages

Gragas's abilities are surprisingly useful in the jungle. You can use Gragas's E (Body Slam) to dash through walls and jump from camp to camp faster, and it applies area-of-effect damage and stun to help you quickly clear camps without taking tons of damage. His Barrel Roll (Q) reduces enemy movement speed and applies area-of-effect damage, giving you good camp clear rates. Also, Drunken Rage (W) was changed in Patch 5.5 to deal more damage to neutral monsters. The icing on his cake is the Explosive Cask (R) which is great for both setting up teamfights and ganking solo lanes.

Gank early, gank often

Gragas is very mobile (for a guy his size, anyway), which means that when he's in the jungle, he's got plenty of opportunities to gank. Before level 6, he already has a stun and a slow. From level 6 onwards, his ult gives you the chance to break hard-to-gank positions and even open up tower dive opportunities. Plan on your top lane ganks to be more focused on pushing out the enemy laner compared to his bot lane ganks, where he can be more aggressive and engaging with Explosive Cask.

Can build to take damage - or dish it out

Gragas will always have a big impact on teamfights due to his abilities, which means that you can build him to tank damage and still stay relevant later in the game. However, Gragas' abilities also have nice AP ratios, so you can choose to build offensive items and make him more fragile, but his cask won't be the only thing exploding here and there.

Go home, Gragas

Watch out for mana usage, aggressive enemy junglers

Gragas needs a strong early game in order to stay relevant later on, and his impact will be most noticeable after you build Cooldown Reduction and Ability Power items. Also, you'll need to be conservative with your mana usage; Gragas spends a lot of mana to clear camps, and if you don't save some, you won't have an effective presence in lanes. This dependence also makes it hard for him to deal with aggressive junglers like Lee Sin or Rek'Sai, who can make your life miserable by contesting your camps and starting duels you'll have a hard time winning.

Needs a good initiator

Gragas relies a lot on his teammates to make plays by tackling out-of-position enemies or forcing fights. Lissandra, Maokai, Leona and Blitzcrank are excellent teammates for our keg-draining friend.

Powerful tools take practice

Gragas has a lot of useful tools, but they've got pretty steep learning curves. A poorly-placed ult can help the enemy tanks dive your own backline. Hitting your own barrels can also be hard, and it takes a while to learn exactly when to use your Body Slam to get in (or out) of a fight. Always keep your mana at an average level so you can gank or move around the jungle if necessary.

You can add Gragas to your champion pool for 553 RP (30% off), and his Superfan Gragas skin for 525 RP (30% off) from March 26 until 23:59 PDT March 30.

250 Comments

Misys139 votes

Isn't it odd that a drunken, raging, fat man isn't good at starting fights?

rebound210 votes

Well done sir. Well done.

Enflame16 votes

And his title is "The Rabble Rouser"...

General Keith38 votes

Oh, but a certain Sun Warrior who hates fighting and surrendered one of the most important battles of her life is great at starting teamfights. Good logic Rito

T RexHasLongLegs6 votes

Good at starting. Bad at finishing, all about that /ff

jbs98415 votes

Leona isn't French.

D2Vincent8 votes

And yet the one french(ish) champ can dance around and win the game...actually that makes a smidge of sense..

FloozyGod17 votes

Or a ninja tank, because that makes sense

hi im jantzen4 votes

you meanRammus

lookatmeseeks49 votes

I feel like all these dark horse articles are troll picks that just happened to work out.

Unintelligence 23 votes

it aint troll if rito aproves

dior67219 votes

I played Brand support as riot approved and all called me troll and I said report me if you want, it's riot approved

googlemuffin9 votes

never underestimate the power of the Brand support

NarraYoretra15 votes

Fiddlesticks is better.

Fiddlesticks ~ "You can't milk those!"

sinkillme7 votes

it is only troll when the person just dont do what he is supposed to do. i played Vi, Wukong, Panth, support and people always say im a troll. but we win the lanes cause i let the adc farm and do what im supposed to do as a support

Icy Auron8 votes

Urgot's always been best top lane, but the others, yes. I agree.

Kayana Koe2 votes

It's techically a "Break the Meta" article.

nomeensno2 votes

Honestly I don't see it as break the meta; Gragas jungle was popular for awhile, Urgot top has always been good, and relatively common- same goes for brand support. In fact in the weeks leading up to the brand support Dark horses article, I was seeing brand support all the time. What these articles feel like, are things rito thought was cool, and want to see people play more often. It would be like doing a, oh I don't know, "Dark Horses: Pantheon mid" article.

Icathian Creed2 votes

They are promoting Strategic Diversity

ModifiedxHuman8 votes

If it's stupid but it works, it's not stupid.

GetToTheLantern25 votes

River Shen Next Please.

McSleuthBurgur35 votes

It would have to be Diver Shen (diversion, it's a great pun shut up) and toss him in a scuba suit

rebound220 votes

You mean Diver Sion? It's not exactly pronounced the same way, but the spelling is spot on.

NarraYoretra9 votes

WHYNOTBOTH.PNG

Nabakaron5 votes

Man... having to log in just to click upvote on great ideas that will end up taking money out of my pocket and giving it to riot is some BS

Gawrsh2 votes

I had to upvote this too.

Cerberagon17 votes

Rito must also make a dark-horse bot lane duo Vi and Sion.... You don't need wards cause you already HAVE ViSion.

Gawrsh4 votes

I had to log in to upvote this. This needs to be made.

Fycus4 votes

no one cares that you logged in to upvote

Desiratus12 votes

Had to log in just to downvote this.

leafboom8 votes

QUIET NO ONE MUST KNOW

Inférnal8 votes

River Bard ? You can actually get EXP from the passive.

ActuallyArrow23 votes

So you wanna get drunk with AP? Boy, you should know what you're building for Baby do you dare to drink this? Cause Gragas is coming at you like a dark horse Are you ready for, ready for A drunken storm, slurred words Cause once you’re his, once you’re his There’s no going back

Aeadar14 votes

Gragas Q Doesn't slow AS anymore -_-

Didn't they see patch 4.5?

Taylor Brown29 votes

They never stated that is slowed AS, they stated that it slowed Move Speed, please do read the phrasing before criticizing.

Lt Cuddles12 votes

This was actually meta at one point...so uh...nothing to really see here, I guess...

revliledpembroke11 votes

Gragas? Dominate the midlane? I think the last time I saw a mid Gragas, I think Kassadin still had his silence.

How Do You Meta9 votes

Damn it, now I am going to have to expect Jungle Gragas again as well as someone from the LCS doing it and then having to permaban him in ranked when everyone magically turns into a Jungle Gragas main to follow said LCS god that did well with it. I still think there are a lot of other better choices for a ganker than Gragas though such as Maokai who just needs to be in range of someone to snare them, Sejuani who has an AOE stun/slow/knock up that is more reliable, Vi who just has to be within 40,000 units of someone to initiate, Fizz who just right clicks an HP bar away, etc, hell I rather would have a Taric jungler.

The irony of my username though.

A E S T H E T C9 votes

Gragas jungle has been a thing for a while,where have they been

honorspell8 votes

so have the other dark horses. i would slowpoke meme this but i dont want to.

BadOhmbre8 votes

I was slowly getting out of elo hell with this.Rito ruined it, rip. Gragas

Antroid7 votes

When are they going to do ADC TwistedFate ? He has his own stun and deals bonus MAGIC damage every four auto attacks. Dueling potential is high, DPS is high, movement is low, AOE is low, wave clear is high. He is pretty much an ADC.

Not Diamond7 votes

Because it's basically Vayne but shittier.

Sir Zix A Lot 6 votes

Leona jungle pls. ;)

Xavkul2 votes

1st one they did sir

darkdill14 votes

No, there is no Dark Horses: Jungle Leona. Search for it, you won't find it.

The first one they did was Support Brand.

Jofeyy5 votes

Jungle Braum trust me with cinderhulk hes so op

Merclick4 votes

No, not all of these are trolls, but out of the positions and champions chosen by the creators of "Dark Horses", this is probably the worst, invading early and stealing his blue can render him next to useless as the enemy jungler ganks and invades harder, maybe even picking up a kill on Gragas in his own jungle very early into the game.

TheTankSummoner10 votes

You mean just like every other jungler that has mana issues early? haha i mean you clearly havent tried this. This "dark horse" has been a thing for like a year. It isnt god tier but its more than viable.

ExoDus Kata3 votes

Shen summoner 11 item 3707

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