League of Legends: 5 tips to track the enemy jungler

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League of Legends. Photo courtesy of Riot Games. /

If you’re whining about getting camped in every game of League of Legends, we’re here to help you stop blaming your jungler and instead learn to track the enemy jungler!

Tracking the enemy jungler is one of those skills that seem daunting when you’re new or inexperienced to League of Legends. As you play more, though, being able to track the enemy jungler as he paths is important because it enables you to anticipate his ganks and realize when you can or cannot play aggressive in lane. But how do you do it?

There are three key ways that you can track the enemy jungler, as we’ll explain below. If you are a jungler yourself, you should be very familiar with these methods because one of your biggest jobs in the early game is to know where the enemy jungler is at all times. Even if you’re a laner, though, knowing what to look at when you see the enemy jungler can be a great way to help you climb!

1. Track his start

For veterans of League of Legends, this should be fairly obvious, but I’ll repeat it for less-experienced players. The enemy team will give you a free indication of where the enemy jungler is at the start of the game by revealing who leashed.

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“Leashing” means helping the jungler do his first buff (90% of the time either blue or red buff), meaning the outer lane (top or bot) is going to help the jungler damage that buff. If you pay attention, you’ll usually see one of those lanes walk to lane a bit later than the other two, indicating that they stayed with the jungler a bit longer to help leash.

So the enemy bot laner walks into lane, but you don’t see their top laner? Congratulations, you know that the enemy jungler started top side!

Now, some smart players might try to fake you out by not showing until the absolute last second so it looks like they leashed when they didn’t. In that case, check their health and mana. If both are full, it means that champion didn’t take damage from a jungle camp or expend mana on a spell, making it unlikely that they leashed. You can also look at how they walked into lane to make sure they came from the same direction as the buff (if the top laner appears late in lane, but he walks out of the lane brush, he probably didn’t leash).

Okay, so you know where the enemy jungler started, but how am I supposed to know where he went next? And what about junglers who can do their first camps without a leash, like Shaco? How do I track them?

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