Evelynn is now the number one jungler in Korean solo queue

Evelynn’s rework was two months ago, but she didn’t start off very well. As players took their time figuring her kit out, her winrate plummeted to one of the lowest in-game, with many calling her update a failure. Well, she’s been steadily climbing the ladder since then, and now, she’s the best of the best.

In Korean solo queue, she’s at the very top of the jungle ladder after passing Rammus, who was nerfed last week in Patch 7.24b, according to League of Legends stats site OP.gg.

So what exactly caused her to go from one of the worst champions to the absolute best?

For starters, no one really knew how to play her. The most common complaint that surfaced regarded her stealth. Players complained that not having stealth until level six made her early game far too weak, and that she didn’t really feel like the old Evelynn as a result. In the weeks that followed her release, though, they started to get a grip on her new playstyle.

She doesn’t play like the old Evelynn, because she isn’t the old Evelynn. Her damage isn’t sustainable, and her ultimate isn’t a teamfight monster anymore. She excels in positioning herself where no other champion can to pick off victims one at a time. If there’s more than one victim, too much crowd control, or she can’t kill her mark in under four seconds, she has to run—unlike before.

Once players realized she is, at the core, very different than what they were used to, her winrate started to gradually climb. The new rune system helped out tremendously, too.

With tools like Celerity, Waterwalking, and Relentless Hunter, she can close in on her victims much faster than before to bridge the small window of time that they can reveal her from stealth before she reaches them. Both Electrocute and Predator have amped up her damage respectably, as well.

Now that she’s on top, though, it isn’t too far-fetched to assume she may be nerfed in the future, but luckily for her, it seems that she’s right in the sweet spot of strong but not quite OP. She’s only outperforming other junglers by a pin needle margin, so it would be hard to justify hitting her with nerfs without addressing other junglers at the top, like Sejuani and Shyvana.

If you decide to try her out now that she seems stronger, be wary of how difficult she may be to learn. She jungles, ganks, and positions unlike any other jungler, but after you get all of that down, she’s extremely fun.