Jungle Ekko is making a comeback in the next patch

Jungle Ekko might be the flavor of the month jungle pick when the next League of Legends patch hits, according to the latest string of PBE updates.

Jungle Ekko fell to the wayside last year when Riot lowered almost all of his base damage but raised his AP scalings. After all, he was designed as an AP assassin and he had been turned into a utility tank. Well for many, Ekko being a tank was the only way to viably play him in the jungle. When tank Ekko was killed, jungle Ekko went with it.

Well, it looks like it’s coming back—but he should remain an AP assassin this time around, meaning he’ll rival Elise and Evelynn in the AP jungling department.

His passive, Z-Drive Resonance, will now deal double damage to monsters, significantly boosting his camp clear speed—which is already not too shabby. Whether or not this change actually goes live in the next patch is unclear, but it looks like Riot is dead set on boosting his jungle power. This is the third iteration of an Ekko jungle buff on the PBE this past week.

The first one doubled the passive damage to monsters, just like the current PBE version does, but that was removed and another buff was added to replace it. The second iteration removed the internal five second cooldown from the passive, but only on monsters and minions. Yesterday, that buff was also reverted, and the first buff was added back in. One way or another, jungle Ekko is coming back.

The patch should go live next week.