Analyzing 5 Junglers From Different Regions Who Won 2019.1 Split
It’s safe to say that different regions have different play styles, but how does it differ in the big picture?
I was watching SKT Faker’s stream the other day and thinking about how different is the play style in each region. Starting with the picks, it’s not everyday that you see a Taliyah/Pantheon botlane or even a Riven being picked in competitive games. That being said, I started looking for any website with statistics from the game, and that’s when I found Oracle’s Elixir. Seeing all the numbers gave me the urge to try and see how these little differences would affect the big play for each position, and so I did.
I gathered information about 5 of the greatest championships and their respective champions and tried to show how different (or not) do they play.
- LCS — Team Liquid
LEC — G2 Esports
LCK — SKT Telecom T1
LMS — Flash Wolves
CBLOL — INTZ e-Sports
I started with the junglers because I think it is the most versatile position. They have to farm their jungle, gank, secure objectives, give/take vision, and they have the ability to accelerate or slow down the game.
Picks
As I said, the picks are something that always makes me think, and that’s where I started. Everytime I see something unusual, my attention is immediately turned to that player and I want to see everything he can or can’t do in a high-profile game.
So, of course in some leagues they have more games, but I don’t think it will be relevant in this matter. Anyway, we can see there really isn’t that big of a difference between the picks, except for a Zac here, an Evelynn there, but the usage rate really stands out.
We can see that, while Bugi goes for burst damage champions, Shini opts for champions who can take some more damage, Jankos and Xmithie seems to be more balanced players, and Clid is whatever Lee Sin and Jarvan are.
Jungle Control
To have control of the jungle is perhaps the most important role of the jungler. Knowing the time of their camps, having vision on the enemies, stacking objectives, while being constantly asked for ganks, is too much for one person to deal.
In the first graphic we can see the number of objectives secured by each jungler in matches(Drakes, Baron, Elders).
Xmithie clearly stands out in this subject, while Shini is not doing so good in avoiding his enemies to get the objectives.
The other 3 players seems average.
Although it is mainly the support function, placing and taking wards is a big part of being a jungler.
We can see that Shini and Bugi are failing big time in the ward matter, and maybe that explains why they give away so many objectives.
On the other hand, Xmithie isn’t the top warder by far, so we can probably assumethat his support, or the whole team, is doing a great job.
And then there are Clid and Jankos, who succeeded in the ward game, but are not the top in objectives, with Jankos being in the bottom 2.
Map Presence
As a jungler, you have to be omnipresent. You have to farm, kill drakes, baron and gank the three lanes at the same time. It’s not an easy job, but somebody has got to do.
Since you’re not God (or mulekinn) you can’t do all of those things at the same time, so you have to give one up.
It’s clear that, while Clid and Jankos have the highest KDA, both are the worst on jungle farming.
On the other hand, Bugi and Shini have the worst KDA, but are top 2 on monsters killed.
Even though he’s not the best in any of those matters, Xmithie stands out being a well balanced player.
Game Length
The jungler is the one who makes the people dance. He can accelerate or slow down the game as he wishes, changing the rhythm anytime he wants.
The first 15 minutes are probably the most important moment in the game. You can make no mistakes. It’s the time to get the most advantage you can and don’t let the opponent do the same.
We can see that Shini is who gets the most out of the first 15 minutes, clearly focused on farming. But that doesn’t seem to help him finish the game earlier.
Jankos doesn’t farm that much, and given his amount of gold, we can assume that he succeed on ganks in the early game, and this gets him the first turret and to finish the game early.
In this aspect, Xmithie is clearly the worst. He’s average on farming, but low on gold, what gets me thinking his ganks are not really the best, resulting on him being the latest to get the first turret and game.
Budi and Clid seems to be very reasonable in the early game, getting them to an average score on the turret/game times.
I’m not bold enough to say who is the best jungler, but I think we can have a little idea based on the graphics.
This whole analysis was made using Python's Pandas, Numpy and Matplotlib.
Any question or suggestion you can reach me here or on twitter.
You can find the code used in this analysis here.
