How to play jungle in League of Legends

Naerlyn Published February 3, 2026

Jungle is the most diverse role in League of Legends. Ganking, farming, predicting the enemy jungler’s movements: junglers have to play three games of chess at once. At the same time, teammates often blame them for everything that goes wrong. To avoid that, here’s how to play jungle, LoL’s most rewarding and punishing role.

LoL jungle for beginners: The basics of jungling

In League of Legends, every player goes to a lane. Except junglers, who live between them. LoL’s jungle is filled with neutral monsters that the jungler will farm for gold, experience, and other buffs.

To help them farm, they have access to a unique monster clearing item as well as the Summoner spell Smite. The item increases the damage dealt to neutral creeps and the rewards received from them, and Smite is a heavy damage spell that can’t (initially) be cast on champions.

Learning when to Smite is a core part of how to be a better jungler. Image Source: Riot Games

The early game: The first clear

Most of the time, junglers want to start the game by “clearing their jungle”. This means starting at the Red or Blue buff, taking all monsters on that side of the map, then doing the same to the other side.

The “first clear” ends at around 2:45 to 3:00, based on the champion. Afterwards, the next step is ganking the nearby lane, recalling, or fighting for the Scuttle crab, the peaceful monster waddling through the river.

How to play jungle LoL: Farming, ganking, taking objectives, or invading

A jungler’s role in the game boils down to these four aspects. The three-minute mark is the first time that choice really comes into play. The whole difficulty comes from the fact that there isn’t one good answer, it’s all situational with up- and downsides.

• Ganking: The concept that best rhymes with jungle (although maybe not in English). A jungler ganks a lane by arriving from the river or lane bushes and tag-teaming the opponent. With the numbers’ advantage, this will most of the time force the opponent to lose great amounts of resources (or even their life) while presenting low risks.
• Farming: No risk, low reward, but reward nonetheless. Junglers need to farm to have resources. While farming one camp will never yield major outcomes, it’s always going to be better than dying while attempting something greater.
• Invading: Invading (going into the enemy jungle to take their camps) presents the most risk while the rewards are low for the most part. Fighting over a Scuttle crab is similar, but more important.

As for taking objectives, there’ll be a deeper dive on that, but it’s not an option after the first clear either way.

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How to be a better jungler, and avoid Viego’s judgemental stare. Image Source: Riot Games

How to be a better jungler: Decisionmaking as a jungler

When should a jungler farm?

Time is money. For junglers, this is meant literally. By default, a jungler could spend their entire game clearing their jungle, recalling, and repeating the process. There are usually better plays to make than that. However, this means that every action a jungler takes costs farm, as it is time spent not farming.

So every action has to be thought out to make sure it will pay off. In conclusion, a jungler should farm:

• Whenever there is nothing better to do,
• Whenever there is too much to farm.

When should a jungler gank?

Ganking is how a jungler will have the most impact over a game. These have an easy payoff and decisively set the laners ahead. The impact of ganks is usually measured not by whether a gank was successful, but by which jungler was able to gank the most.

However, some ganks can be bad. Failing to make the enemy laner lose anything only results in a small time loss. Dying or causing the allied laner to die is the main risk. There is also the possibility of the enemy jungler being there to counter-gank, creating a 2v2 or 3v3. These are all risks to assess before planning for a gank.

It’ll always be better to not help at all than to be a negative contribution.

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Dragons are a core aspect of how to play jungle in LoL. Image Source: Riot Games

When should a jungler take objectives?

Neutral objectives (Void grubs, Dragon, Herald, or Baron) give powerful rewards. However, it takes time to kill them, and either team can deal the final blow.

Going for an objective requires assessing:

• Which team can mobilize more members to the objective,
• Whether a fight can be won,
• If the objective is safe to secure.

Attempting to take an unsecured objective is the easiest way to lose a game. When in doubt, these are the guidelines as the first steps to play like the best junglers in LoL:

• If the bot lane is dead, Dragon is safe.
• If the top and/or mid lane is dead, Void Grubs or Herald are safe.
• If most enemies (including the jungler) are dead, Baron is safe.

With these in mind, happy jungling!

Read also: LoL Champions tier list (current meta)

Featured Image Source: Riot Games