Rumble and Udyr are crowned the best champions for the jungle in the LCS, according to the best League of Legends players in North America.
The League meta is constantly evolving with no two champions being viable between patches. However, with the first two weekends of the LCS concluded, two champions reigned victorious in the jungle. Rumble and Udyr were recognized as the two most powerful champions for the role by different jungle mains.
Rumble has traditionally been played as a top or mid lane champion with the occasional pick going to the jungle. That began to change as Riot Games tweaked Rumble to perform better against jungle monsters, increasing his clear speed. After patch 11.10 dropped over two months ago, Rumble became the third most picked champion for the jungle according to OP.gg. That number has decreased as Riot Games has lowered Rumble’s damage to jungle monsters in previous patches.
Udyr, on the other hand, has always been known as a jungle champion. However, Udyr has not always seen playtime in the professional side of League of Legends such as the LCS. Udyr has been a great tool to overpower enemies in solo queue but hasn’t seen much LCS time until recently. According to OP.gg, Udyr topped off at the ninth highest picked jungler back on patch 11.08. Now on patch 11.12, Udyr has dropped down to 30th highest picked jungler. Despite the lack of presence in solo queue, Udyr has been crowned one of the best jungle champions in the LCS.
LCS pros reflect on Rumble and Udyr
In the second weekend of LCS there were seven different champions picked to play in the jungle across fifteen matches. Out of those matches, Rumble was picked nine times. Xin Zhao had the second highest pick rate in the jungle, being selected eight times.
“Rumble is the best jungler in the game right now,” TSM’s jungler Mingyi “Spica” Lu said. “Udyr is dropping [in pick priority]. I think right now the jungle meta is pretty diverse and that we’ll see a lot more picks in the future.”
.@EvilGeniuses collect Dragon Soul after fourty minutes! #LCS pic.twitter.com/T2TYU4xCRH
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When asked the best champion for jungling was in the current meta, often players would credit Rumble and Udyr. However, Udyr was only picked four times out of the fifteen matches. Even so, players still thought that he was considered one of the top junglers in the meta alongside Rumble.
“It depends on who is playing,” stated Evil Geniuses jungler Dennis “Svenskeren” Johnsen. “Right now in the jungle you can play so many champions. It also depends on how good they are at the champion. For me, I would probably pick Udyr but some people don’t like to play Udyr at all.”
