Riot devs will continue their efforts in “widening the jungle champ pool” with League of Legends Patch 10.5.
League lead gameplay designer Mark “Scruffy” Yetter gave fans a first look at the upcoming Patch 10.5 changes yesterday, identifying a couple of unconventional champions that are being prepped for jungle play—Poppy and Brand. And while Darius and Mordekaiser received changes to allow them to jungle in Patch 10.4, they’ll be further buffed to help the cause.
Though the exact changes haven’t been revealed yet, the champions will likely receive buffs to help their jungle clear.
Riot hopes this will encourage low elo players to play jungle more since it’s widely unpopular for beginners. Placing popular champions into the jungle could theoretically cause more people to play the role.
But it doesn’t seem like the Patch 10.4 changes created any jungle standouts yet. Garen, Darius, Mordekaiser, Talon, Zed, and Gnar all suffer from subpar win rates in the jungle, according to Champion.gg. The Master of Shadows boasts the lowest jungle win rate at 35 percent, while Mordekaiser has the highest at 49 percent.
These win rates are still liable to change as players figure out optimal build and jungle paths, or with more buffs. As for now, however, the changes have been pretty underwhelming.
Update Feb. 25 3:45pm CT: Scruffy tweeted that Brand’s changes will be bumped to Patch 10.6 to “do more nuanced changes.”
