Tracking the enemy jungler is one of the fundamentals of League of Legends. This is one of the skills that will help your rank insanely fast, and you simply must learn it.
Jungle tracking entails collecting all available information from the game in order to accurately predict the enemy jungler’s location.
My goal is to teach you all how to track the enemy jungler by breaking it up into 3 most important and easily applicable steps. I won’t bore you with things that don’t really matter and I’ll only stick to what actually works, even in my elo (Master+).
So let’s begin.
1. Tracking the Enemy Jungler’s Start
The first and most important thing when it comes to tracking the enemy jungler, is tracking their start. This can be done by paying attention to which enemy laner gave the leash. You will be able to deduce this by seeing which laners came late to their lane.
In 90% of the games, junglers start from the bottom side of the map so that both the ADC and the support can help them out. For the blue side, this means red buff and for the red side, it means blue buff.
But some enemies are more skilled and they could do a fake leash. For example, the ADC and the support could stay in their jungle to give the illusion of helping their jungler. In this case, there is some additional information you can work with.
In case the enemy has not spent any mana or HP, it is quite possible that they have faked a leash. Now, some enemies might throw a spell or damage themselves to confuse you further, but there’s not much you can do about that.
It is helpful to know that most enemies in lower elo games will start at whichever side their bot lane is. This makes sense since they want to get the best leash possible, but it makes them vulnerable to skilled players.
So if you’re playing in Iron, Silver, and Gold (and in some cases Platinum), the enemy jungler will most likely start bot side and path upward to gank top lane first.
2. Tracking the Enemy Jungler Through CS
Another powerful technique for gaining insight into the enemy junger’s pathing is tracking their CS number. Since each camp gives 4 CS, it is easy to deduce how many camps they have killed just by looking at their number when you press TAB.
For example, if you see that the enemy jungler has 20 CS when they first appear on a gank, that means that they’ve left one camp behind, either on their bot or top side.
But in most cases, junglers abandon their Krugs in order to appear on ganks sooner, especially if they need to counter-gank.
I would advise checking the enemy CS number each time they show on the map. You will most commonly see it after they have done some early ganks or if you placed a good ward in their jungle.
Here is another article I wrote if you want to learn more about warding as jungler.
And another reason why you always need to be aware of your opponent’s CS number is to keep track of their jungle pet. You don’t want to fall behind on this point since that will mean a stronger Smite for the opponent, which isn’t good for securing neutral objectives such as the Rift Herald.
3. Understand Which Jungle Camps Are Up
Trying to understand which enemy camps are up is really easy if you get good at tracking the enemy jungler’s CS.
For example, imagine you are playing again Xin’Zhao. He is level 3, and he ganks your bot lane. You can see he only has 12 CS and a blue buff. It becomes pretty clear that he has done 3 camps and went for a bot lane gank immediately.
Let’s take it a step further and imagine you started at your red side. This means that you will be in a position to invade his top side while he is showing on the bot lane. Even if his gank is successful, you will still get half of his jungle.
This is one of those things that will distinguish you from all the average jungler players in solo queue. After taking his camps, he will have no other camps to clear, and the only thing he will be able is to keep ganking or invade your jungle.
In most cases, you will find that the enemies in this situation will simply try to invade you. Knowing this information will let you prepare in advance and summon your allies to help you defend. In other words, you set the terms of the fight and control the pace of the game.
Now, my example might sound oddly specific, but it is not really. When you start applying these jungle tracking fundamentals, you will see more and more games playing out in a specific way. This will allow you to seize control of the game and win infinitely more.
Read Also: How to Carry as Jungle in League of Legends?
Conclusion
Playing jungle might seem really random at times. There are seemingly too many things to do, and it can be quite overwhelming.
But a good way to make sense of everything is to practice tracking the enemy jungler. This will make the game more systematic, and it will give you a more streamlined process to work with.
