League-of-legends – a “control jungler”

league-of-legends

I was playing with a Shyvana jungler earlier today. Our mid complained about not getting any jungle ganks, to which the Shyvana player replied, "Shyvana's a control jungler, she doesn't gank." I've never heard this term before, so needless to say I was puzzled.

Throughout most of the games I've played, jungling usually involved a lot of lane ganking, but apparently control jungling involves something different. What is "control jungling" and what attributes are useful for "control jungling".

Best Answer

A control jungler is one that maintains map control. Control junglers such as Shyvana are those that can easily counter-jungle, leaving the enemy jungler underleveled and underfunded. This in turn significantly decreases the potency of an enemy jungle gank.

Control junglers thus require a high degree of mobility. The ability to quickly move between camps, to be able to run to clear a ward and then return to safety quickly, and to be able to easily get in position for a countergank is important to control junglers. Shyvana, for instance, has her Burnout ability, which allows her to quickly cover large distances.

Another important aspect of a control jungler is control over map visibility. Shyvana in particular is good at this because she is innately tanky, making Oracle's Elixir a slightly less risky purchase. She also clears wards extremely quickly thanks to her Twin Bite ability.

To sum up, a control jungler exerts pressure over the enemy jungler while maintaining a map visibility advantage. A good control jungler requires mobility, fast clears, optionally a degree of tankiness, and the ability to quickly clear wards.

Just off the top of my head, I guess some examples aside from Shyvana would be Lee Sin and Udyr.