The best junglers to finish your season’s solo queue climb

Jungle mains have had a blast in the jungle during recent patches, and there are still a lot of strong junglers to climb with before the year ends. 

Since the 2021 preseason hit the live servers, junglers have been sitting at the best win rates in the game and gotten a lot of attention from Riot. It started out with a lot of strong tank junglers, but after recent nerfs the meta has shifted. Now some newly strengthened junglers are helping players climb the solo queue ladder and giving squishy laners another headache. 

Here are some junglers to consider when climbing solo queue in the last days before Season 11 kicks off. 

Is Ivern a good jungler?

Ivern has made a return to the meta and is now the strongest jungler in the game as of patch 10.25. The most recent patch brought back Ivern to Summoner’s Rift as a very viable pick. The Green Father got a buff on three of his abilities, making his cooldowns significantly lower, and gave his Daisy! (R) some extra base attack speed. 

The buffs have made Ivern’s win rate skyrocket in just one patch, as he is currently sitting on a 53.74% win rate in Platinum rank and above. For comparison, Ivern’s stats weren’t even tracked on patch 10.24 because he wasn’t even played enough. This is an unusually big jump for a champion in such a short amount of time, but it seems that Ivern is back for real. 

Not only is Ivern currently the highest win-rate jungler, but he is also sitting at the third-highest win rate among all champions in the game. Time will tell if Riot is going to slow down Ivern in Season 11 because for now, the peaceful jungler is carrying on Summoner’s Rift. 

Olaf is running over squishy opponents

From a friendly jungler to a Viking who strikes through all enemies in sight. Olaf is currently the second-strongest jungler in the game with a 53.30% win rate. This is after a nerf to his Undertow (Q) slow and Vicious Strikes (W) attack speed in the small patch 10.25b. 

Even with these nerfs, Olaf is a terror in the jungle and very few champions are currently able to deal with him in the early to mid-game. The state of Olaf is without a doubt too strong, especially because his only real weakness seems to be his late game. But since he usually pops off early on, the game has a high chance of ending before Olaf’s poor scaling becomes a factor. 

The Berserker is building Goredrinker as his Mythic item, which basically makes Olaf an unkillable monster with a lot of healing. Until Riot comes through with further nerfs to Olaf and a buff to Grievous Wounds to slow that healing, he will likely continue to dominate Summoner’s Rift. 

Healing junglers are dominating solo queue

For players who like junglers with a lot of healing, this is the right patch to go all-in on solo queue. As of patch 10.25, junglers with lots of healing such as Fiddlesticks and Nunu & Willump are doing great. Both champions are sitting at a 53% win rate, making them great picks to carry in the jungle through obnoxious healing and CC. 

The healing champions in general have had a great time since the preseason hit, such as Swain in the bot lane and Nami as support. The healers have now also taken over in the jungle, as Riot won’t do anything about it before patch 11.1. 

At the start of Season 11, Riot already announced that they will be buffing Grievous Wounds significantly. This might be able to tone down all the healing and make Fiddlesticks and Nunu more balanced options. For now, they are great picks in solo queue and have a high chance of winning. 

How do you counter Olaf?

Countering Olaf can be hard since he does well against hard crowd control through his Ragnarok (R). The biggest strength of Olaf is his early to mid-game, which leads to his weakness being the late game. Countering an Olaf in the most effective way is to shut him down in the early game, so he never gets to snowball. A weak Olaf entering the late game will usually be easy to kite and burst down before he gets to do a lot of damage.