Most teams on ranked games involve a jungler. It gives the team three advantages over non jungling teams:
- More team experience - a solo laner and a jungler will be a higher average level than two players in a single lane.
- More team gold - same as experience, the solo laner can last hit more minions and if your jungler is killing dragon then the benefits can be quite large.
- Ganking potential - freedom to gank any lane, forces players to be more defensive, makes teams spend more money on wards.
In my opinion, if the enemy has a jungler, a great idea is to pick an anti jungler. Someone with steal, shaco, eve are ideal. This can be even more effective than having a jungler on your team too because:
- Killing the enemy jungler usually means you can pick your enemy off when they are extremely vulnerable - easy first blood
- Stealing a buff early can totally ruin a junglers pace, giving your whole team the advantage
The downsides are:
- You are behind enemy lines, a predictable anti jungle/first blood attempt will have the exact opposite effect of what you had hoped for.
- It the jungler is a higher level than you, you are going to have a hard time countering them.
- You will probably struggle in lane if you get killed in the enemy jungle, putting you at a huge disadvantage.
Now the questions I want to know are:
- Is it really worth the risk?
- What are the best characters and set ups to be using for counter jungling?
- What are the best methods of countering an enemy jungler?