Glory of the Climb – Junglers: How to Win 65% More Games!
I’ve begun to notice a heavy shift in the importance of Jungler presence this Season. Something I always preached back when I was writing articles and making videos in Season 2, was that the Jungler completely dictated the pace of the game, and if you had a good Jungler you would most likely win. When Season 3 started I finally thought this trend was dead and that Junglers would basically become another laner with the increased gold from the jungle. As always, people learn to adapt and can now micromanage the jungle to be able to farm it efficiently while still keeping lane pressure. Ok, so what does this mean? What is all this about Junglers winning 65% more games?
Dragon Control and Why it’s More Important than Ganking.
With the passing of the LCS Superweek an interesting infographic was posted that showed which team won based on the objectives they completed first. In my opinion the most interesting statistic was that in 26/40 games the winning team took the first Dragon. Now, the other two similar statistics are that 24/40 teams that got firstblood and took the first tower won, however I think these are less important to look at for soloqueue. The reason I think firstblood/towers are less important in soloqueue is because these stats come from the LCS competitive scene and the current popular strategy is to 2v1 laneswap, three-man gank the one-person lane, and then kill the tower. Since 2v1 lanes are a rare occurrence in soloqueue, we will only be focusing on Dragon and why it’s so important.
Firstblood in Soloqueue is a Coin Toss.
While ganking is important as a Jungler, getting your team first blood is not going to increase your win-percentage by that much in soloqueue. You need to aim for something more convincing. We should also compare “competitive scene firstblood” to “soloqueue firstblood.” In the competitive scene, the person that gets firstblood is coordinating with four other people who he can communicate with and better apply his 400g advantage. In soloqueue getting someone firstblood is great, but there is a good chance they don’t know how to effectively apply that kind of an advantage, and they are probably not going to try and coordinate their newfound power to help the other players. It’s definitely a 50/50 thing in soloqueue and if at the end of one of my articles you didn’t learn anything more valuable than a coin toss, well then my articles wouldn’t be worth reading.
35% of Pro’s Lose After Giving Up Dragon. Imagine That Number in Soloqueue.
The 26/40 statistic stands out to me because it is a pretty convincing statistic for the competitive scene. Dragon is a nice objective but it has never seemed as game-defining as getting the first Baron (27/37 [16/17 in EU] games won), yet it yields a 65% higher chance to win the game. If the statistic is indeed consistent and 35% of PROFESSIONAL teams can not overcome a first Dragon deficit, think of how large that statistic would grow for soloqueue. In my experience, Junglers in soloqueue put too much emphasis on ganking lanes and not enough on securing Dragon. What is better: 400g for one person on your team (+200g with an assist) or 950g for your whole team? How many times have you seen a Jungler complain “You’re all pushed I can’t gank!” Instead of complaining, go buy a pink ward, clear Dragon, and then get bot and mid to help you kill it!
People Understand Dragon is Important and it Prompts Stupid Decisions.
If all your lanes are pushing, they are winning, so why not snowball their gold advantage? Also, if at any point your mid or bot lanes secure a kill GO DO DRAGON! Think of how difficult it is for the opposing team to respond in a timely fashion if you coordinate pushing in your mid and bot lanes at the same time and collapsing to Dragon. First off they have to decide if losing 6+ minions worth of gold and exp is worth stopping you. Then they have to determine if they can possibly steal it. Then they have to coordinate collapsing on you from two different sides so that you don’t 4v1 their collapsing mid or 4v2 their collapsing bottom, or 4v2/4v3 if their jungler is even in the area and is also aware of what’s happening. You are creating so much chaos for their team and creating so many opportunities for them to make a mistake for you to capitalize on. It is so incredibly difficult for a team to come back from not only losing a Dragon, but also losing one or two Champions in an uncoordinated collapse, and then that resulting in them losing a mid or bot tower because you are now four strong and pushing. If this happens and you get Dragon and a Tower, you get a combined 1700 global gold for your team. That’s a hard advantage to lose with.
Snowball Queue.
The overall point I want Junglers to take away from this is that you are an extra appendage for the rest of your team. You are four extra skills and two extra summoners for each lane, you are extra eyes on the map, and you are responsible for getting the snowball rolling. Gank lanes, but if you can’t gank for them then ward for them. If your team has wards use the vision to your advantage and secure global objectives. Don’t just sit in the jungle the whole time, farm and think you are going to carry the game. Tell your mid to push their lane while you go bottom to help them push, then collapse on the Dragon. You need to try to create situations for the other team to overreact and make mistakes so you can capitalize. If you start to adapt this into your normal ganking routine I think it is safe to say you will win 65% more games, and I would actually say even higher.
Love, Dcgreen
Previous “Glory of the Climb” Articles:
Dominion: Helping You To Win More Lanes and Games
Developing Your Killer Instincts: Why to be Aggressive in Season 3
Reviewing the New “League System”
Why Losing is Just as Important as Winning
The Stale Meta: Intro + Top 5 Junglers
The Stale Meta: Intro + Top 5 AP Mids
The Stale Meta: Intro + Top 5 Top Laners
The Stale Meta: Top 5 AD Carries
The Stale Meta: Top 5 Supports
@Chainpullz
Divide 26 by 40, you will get 0.65.
Multiply by 100, add a %.
Bam, statistic.
While this is a great article, the 65% increase in wins can be argued in solo-queue.
In addition, your assertion that it could be more important is a little iffy imo.
While all your points are valid, that one statement doesn’t seem to take into account that solo-queue players are not professional and depending on their level of play could easily squander their leads.
Thus, the benefit of taking first dragon is hard to measure precisely.
Its importance, however, is rightfully stated, as is the rest of the article.
I just needed to throw that out there.
@dudeperfect
The first blood can easier be used by the pros to put pressure onto other lanes as well since they are more coordinated than in soloqueue. The dragon gives the whole team a bonus in gold and while this is of great value in tournaments, it can be much more valuable for soloqueue for a few reasons. Solo. Queue. Soloqueue. Solo means that you are by yourself and while it is a teamgame it may not always be that easy as you might not be able to make quick team decisions. Some lanes will lose and some will win and you can’t do as much about it as you could in a full premade game. Getting dragon in soloqueue may have the effect of restoring faith of people on your team, It may give your losing lane(s) that extra gold needed for a big item required to make a comeback. The gold amount is still the same for both tournament play and soloqueue but it’s the feeling you did something successful as a team consisting of you and 3-4 random players that counts.
I see several nit-picky posts taking literal statements made by the author and turning them around on him, but it is all silly; he is not telling you NOT to gank, he is saying that if you CAN’T gank, then TAKE OBJECTIVES rather than screwing off farming the jungle. He is not saying that the FIRST DRAGON KILL WINZ GAMEZ. He is talking STATISTICS and common sense here. It’s really not that difficult to wrap your mind around. So, Chill out and learn, because this guy is trying to help people make better decisions and win more games. That’s all.
I love you for pointing this out. CLEAR logical flaw in the statement about first dragon.
@dudeperfect
Very well written. I’ve been jungling for so long now and I still remember all of the moments I realised these kind of things you are describing as they are of great importance. This is what makes a good jungler (and laners as well). Realising the worth of objectives and when it is the time to take them. This can also be manipulated in so many ways. For example. If your top lane can’t make it in time to contest dragon, he/she can put more pressure on his lane to make the enemy jungler make a hard decision wether to help his top or fight for dragon. This of course can only be done if your top laner is stronger than the opposing top wich is why early pressure can be vital for later strategies.
I’ve seen soo many people in soloqueue not realising how much a dragon or a tower really means, but it can mean so much since even a player losing his/her lane will be a little richer and a little closer to the opposing laner wich can mean that he/she can make a comeback with the junglers help even if it maybe wasn’t possible before. This of course does not apply before the laner has spent the money to get stronger items.
There’s so much that can repair a broken spirit. I can tell of hundreds of times where different players on my team basically has given up. They feel that they are so much weaker than the opposing team, and while this has been true, IT IS A TEAM GAME. Even if they might have a stronger lane or two you can always come with more people and simply outman them, push a tower and get dragon.
I feel that I may have come a little off topic but as a jungler you can have the ability to either control the game from the start or completely turn it around. However you need to tell your team EVERY thought and see if they agree or disagree. This way you will much less likely end up rushing in alone to fight for dragon or baron and you will instead be able to stay by your team and come up with different strategies.
If you want to accomplish all these things the most important thing is to TALK TO YOUR TEAM. I’ve learned that when i speak to my team, of course calmly and informatively, I have a much greater chance of winning. Of course to be able to know what to do I was reading and checking informative streams for a long time. Such as OddOne, SaintVicious, HotshotGG and a couple more that I’ve found. Many people think that streams are boring to watch because you don’t play yourself however I knew that because I learn things directly from the pros point of view I would be able to apply everything that I had learned to my own games later instead of playing a hundred games more to realise these things.
Again I may have come a little off topic but if you’re like me and wanna raise you ELO this is by far the most successful way I have found.
I pretty much completely agree with the author, really good read!
I like how you try to shift the focus to dragon and also explain why and I guess, or at least i hope, that in most cases it works out. But the biggest problem factor in my opinion in soloq is still that you can’t control how “stupid” your teammates are and for me as a silver player it is almost impossible the get my mates to actively play with me in terms of letting themself be affected by my words to such an extent, that they leave the lane, have pushed it before and we go for a dragon totally out of nothing.
Also situations like a successfull 0-2 gank on bot lane, say your bot lane died and the enemy team got two kills can completely destroy your game because it not only gives the enemy team two kills as I already said but also the control over dragon and the opportunity to kill it as soon as the game has reached the later early game stage and they’re strong enough and well, as you mentioned it, tower (bot/mid) could fall just right after that because of bot lane making a little mistake.
I think you confuse cause and effect here. It’s not “the first team killing drake gets stronger and wins the game”, but more “the stronger team gets the first dragon, extending their lead and eventually winning the game”.
What I admit is that moral is (one) key in soloQ. Getting dragon gives a big moral boost. But so are ganks. If you have the possibility to do drake, do it. But don’t force it. If you lose the fight, you don’t only give your opponents kills, but dragon too in most cases. In professional play, there are far less opportunities to gank. That’s why they need to dive at lvl 3. You don’t need to do that in soloQ. And if you play Volibear in soloQ, ganks are pretty easy too.
Dragon is high risk – high reward. Ganks are low risk – high reward. So please don’t tell people to gank less and force dragon instead (especially when there are opportunities for ganks). That’s just the ultimate bullshit to be honest…
Sorry to say, but the statement the article makes can not be backep up by evidence.
1) You cannot draw statistically significant conclusions from 40 games.
2) Regarding first blood, you assume Pros can make better use of gold advantages than soloqueue players. Then with dragon you draw the exact opposite conclusion, saying that Dragon (=gold) deficits will affect soloqueue more than professional play.
3) There’s no actual statistical evidence how gold deficits from different sources (ie kills, towers, dragon, baron) affect soloqueue differently.
=> All this article contains are wild assumptions. There’s no solid maths here anyone could base decisions on.
I hate this article. Mostly because now idiots who had no idea about how dragon control affects will will now know.
And I will lose more games because of it. *anger*.
I really liked this article, out of most of the articles you’ve written (Not that I don’t like the others, but I really didn’t even THINK about this info). I play top lane mostly, and I play with a duo partner that jungles pretty well. We are both trying to hit plat, and are pretty close, and I always try to let him know that ganking my lane is NOT important. As a top laner, I know my job is to know my lane matchups and hold my own in lane. If their jungler camps me, fine; keep up wards and farm when it’s safe. If my lane opponent kills me, fine; essentially I probably got over aggressive and got outplayed, just need to farm up. What I’m saying is, YOU are responsible for how your lane plays out, YOU are to blame if you die in lane several times, because you have every ability to ward your lane, and every ability to play safe, even if it means losing some farm. Just know that if your jungler isn’t in your lane much, they are hopefully being productive elsewhere, they are trying to get your team advantages wherever they think they can.
“two extra summoners for each lane” Smite OP in lane
This article makes a great point.
The fact of securing dragon also can bring confidence to your team. It always feels like you’ve got the upper hand when you have the objective down and the other team doesn’t.
It can even help remove a player’s tilt.
Thank you very much for this! I don’t usually jungle but when I am not ADCing I do go jungle. I find I am learning more and more about how to play and this will definitely be integrated into my game play.
I think you mean that 65% of pro teams lose after giving up dragon…