Hello Apprentice Welcome to the MetaSolaray in depth Jungle Udyr guide. Written by Peak Challenger Udyr main. I have been playing League since season two, where I was actually a top main till season 7th due to Udyr just not keeping up with the rest of the meta. Frustrated, I taught myself how to jungle and while I've managed to hit Challenger in Season 9 I've striven to not want others to have to learn without the best guide on the net for Udyr. This guide includes not only the build I became known for, the Medyr build but also teach various ways to play Udyr on Twitch. This way you can find out just how much YOUR favorite build could be played by the best out there possible.

Pros → Helps teammates fall in line → Fast movement to objectives → Allows you to dip into jungle → Can protect and peel as necessary → Compliments his team late game

Cons → Does not scale as hard as others → Cannot get to backline easy → Without Aftershock, melts to a collapse → Cannot prevent burst → Hard CC completely negates Udyr

Udyr is a powerful early game champion whose greatest strength is his ease of use. Unlike champions such as Kha'Zix, Camille, Graves and so many more junglers, he’s as simple come as simple gets. With an entire kit of stat checking AA enhanced abilities, there are very few mechanical abilities to understand that you’ll need to do. Furthermore, Udyr has the rare ability to mold himself into the position his team needs, be it damage, tank, peel bot, or even a supportive enhancer for your fed carries. This champion’s flexibility of success, at even the highest tiers of plays means there is an Udyr playstyle out there for you! However adaptive he is, Udyr struggles in the mid to late game, as a champion whose scaling ends after level 9 ability wise, your ability to carry is severely dampened. Often times a snowballing lead can turn into a devastating loss. With certain champions like Zilean and Teemo completely nullifying your ability to carry or even tank, and he struggles against compositions that have peel to push him away.

Runes are one of the most diverse factors that separate Udyr’s, even at the highest elo. From the crazed speeds of Phase Rush, to the off-meta beat of Dark Harvest - so many different runes have seen optimization by high elo players, and each serve different purposes. For the purpose of this guide, we’ll be going over the runes by Tier’s to differentiate the overall value a rune brings. This list will break down by the following values: ⋆ Ease of use ⋆ Adaptability to game change health ⋆ Flow with Udyr’s Kit ⋆ Use in multiple team comps.

Press the Attack is the most consistent rune for both carrying Udyr and adaptive gameplay. Since the inception of Runes Reforged, this has been the bread and butter for the most aggressive Udyr main’s. This rune requires little personal engagement or changes of how Udyr functions as a base kit, simply amplifying the base damage of your build. Since the base damage is applied as burst, it functions to help your burst game, but the increase's % damage, not only from your own kit, but also allies, leaving it a highly diverse rune should you be forced into more tanky builds. STRENGTHS ⋆ Easiest to use rune that functions with Udyr's kit ⋆ Useful if ahead or behind ⋆ Great rune synergy with secondary tree. ⋆ Universal option WEAKNESSES ⋆ Jack of all trades, has no huge advantage. ⋆ Falls off for multiple targets ⋆ Outscaled by more offensive options in an extended duel Conqueror provides Udyr with a lot of the potential strength of a true bruiser kit when correctly applied. The early game AD and the ease of stacking cannot be matched by most other champions as your conqueror fully stacks on E > AA > Q > AA > AA >AA > AA(12 stacks) - This gives Udyr a significant portion of raw AD for his early game tiger dot and a way to sustain during even the earliest fight. Compared to Press the Attack, this rune can fully activate shortly afterwards and has the raw advantage to not only sustain you as a fighter but also swap targets if necessary allowing you to continue the snowball at top potential. STRENGTHS ⋆ Free AD applies on all Auto's, ⋆ In combat sustain allows for swapped targets ⋆ AD great for scaling tiger dots and AP for phoenix burns WEAKNESSES ⋆ Low start, takes pure auto's to scale ⋆ Useless when behind One of the rarer Keystones to this season is the Aftershock Udyr build. This rune provides Udyr with a large burst of resistances and AoE burst damage, that scales with your health and resistance purchases. Unlike every other rune in the current meta, this one provides unmatched survivability, with the access to dip into either offensive builds with Warrior Enchants, or to transition into full bulky builds with Cinderhulk setups. STRENGTHS ⋆ Good against burst champs ⋆ Strong in team fights when you absorb engage ⋆ Scales with tank + gives out AoE damage ⋆ Bulbs up shield builds WEAKNESSES ⋆ Slow burn start ⋆ Must build HP ⋆ High cool down ⋆ You must build resistances Phase Rush has come back due to the strength of Phoenix stance’s recent buffs and even the usability still remains one of the strongest A-Tier runes on Udyr. Phase Rush Udyr has the strength unlike any other rune solving his biggest weakness, his inability to stick on targets allowing you to stat check them hard with your lead and even making plays that are simply impossible on any other rune such as following behind flashes. The same strength with Tiger is applied to this rune as it’s one of the hardest snowballing runes, because once you have a lead you can stomp out the enemy. All Bruiser & Assassin Mythics are viable, Chemtank makes you a speedy engage and *nothing* else. STRENGTHS ⋆ Removes kite weaknesses ⋆ Stay on top of mobile enemies ⋆ Runes increase mobility ⋆ Reduces damage taken, easier to dodge skills WEAKNESSES ⋆ Falls off when behind ⋆ Only applies when enemy is hit ⋆ No damage is added to kit ⋆ Reliant on base damage or item build Similar to Phase Rush, this rune is all in for the early game dueling potential of Udyr. With this keystone, you outmatch nearly all champions in a level 2 duel, this is one of the few keystones with a powerful spike at level 1, making early cheeses even easier. However, as Udyr’s kit generally results in a bear stun then tiger AA’s, you will have a large drop in attack speed that can result in missed auto attacks after Hail of Blades falls off. With Hail of Blades set ups, you will be matched with next to none in terms of early game potential. Pressure the enemy jungler as soon as possible, and look for invades that can set you and your team ahead. Remember to prioritize cheaper items such as lethality to maintain this level of pressure. STRENGTHS ⋆ Strongest pre 6 ⋆ Win all duels ⋆ Apply double dots easily ⋆ Scales well with lethality WEAKNESSES ⋆ Falls off HARD ⋆ Only good for offense If you’re dead set on being a discount Hecarim, then this is the rune for you. This rune empowers Udyr’s early ganks, and often prefers a three camp clear to secure your boots as soon as possible. While you give up dueling potential with the enemy jungler, your gank potential is far greater then any other keystone on Udyr. With proper usage of Predator you’ll be able to force ganks that are normally unviable - due to champion kits - with Predator activated. Be warned that each activation gives a notification to the enemy champions you’re coming. Secure kills to lower the next cooldown of Predator and win the game! STRENGTHS ⋆ Early game ganks ⋆ Burst Damage! ⋆ Good Snowball Potential WEAKNESSES ⋆ Falls off quickly ⋆ Favors burst items/lethality ⋆ Need to end game early

Secondary Item Choices x3 : while giving you strong and ample amounts of health on your first back, does set you behind on any of the alternative setups. : has a sell back of 60 gold which can boost you to a critical buy, and gives you even more health every single back with additional stacks. For this, you’ll want to always go refillable potion as your last 150 gold spending. Don’t greed, and take the refillable route while learning Udyr. Refillable Potion should be sold when you either need the room or you need it for a powerspike. Popping the two refillables during the start of a fight can mean the difference between life or death. : Lastly the health pot and control ward is better for hyper passive players or champions like Warwick who have great kit sustain. Neither of this fits Udyr’s best use play.

So this is the most important section, Mythic items have been introduced as the game defining concept for season 11 and a lot of players are honestly real confused about what mythics to take. For the purpose of this guide section I’m going to break down each mythic, optimal legendaries that combo well with them. First we’ll cover Tiger mythics, then Phoenix. ⋆ Boots + Mythic Start - 950 Gold Boots, plus starting your build path on your desired mythic. This clear is a full camp clear + scuttle and can include even more camps. ⋆ Tiamat Optimal Back - 1500 Gold Tiamat is optimal for Tiger, and getting boots on it will allow you to completely take over the game with your EXP lead. Don’t be worried if you’re unable to get boots as only 3 camps would suffice to get it back. ⋆ Phoenix Optiomal Back - 1400 Bami Cinders with Boots is your goal here, you can even decide to go 1100 to get tier 2 boots as Bami doesn’t speed up your clear as much as more points as phoenix. Once you get this start you’ll be able to do this thing.

Tiger Stance

Trinity Force (B tier)Optimal Legendaries: Sterak's Gage, Titanic Hydra, Wit's End, Blade of the Ruined King, Black Cleaver Legendary Boon: +10% AS Trinity Force was once the item on Udyr due to being the best stat check item for the slot but was insanely priced. In Season 11 it has sadly been displaced by simply better itemization. Right now Triforce provides a spellblade that is sadly inferior to simply better options however that doesn’t mean this item is completely out of the game just yet! Triforce is best used when you’re attempting to spilt push. For Tiger stance Udyr this allows you to gain extra % AS and additional spellblades to tear through enemy towers. When it comes to dueling in a 1v1 this is the mythic for you.

Stridebreaker(A tier)Optimal Legendaries: Sterak's Gage, Titanic Hydra, Wit's End, Blade of the Ruined King, Dead Man’s Plate , Force of Nature Legendary boon: +3% MS per item Stridebreaker is a situational mythic that allows you to access champions just as Zilean, Vayne, and other kiting champions like Lillia who tend to stay just outside of Udyr’s attack range. Use this item when you are looking for far more powerful access tools to enemy champions as every legendary will make you more mobile on the map. Supplement this with BOTRK when possible as this will allow you to double stack slows, one to catch your target and another to keep them slowed as you beat them down. This item has has the flexibility to make an aggressive engage tool if you want early game control but don’t want to go the Chemtank engage route. You can also use the Ironspike whip & stridebreaker as your ‘AoE’ item to clear camps and avoid picking up a tiamat for a faster spike. For defensive itemization look at items like dead man’s, steraks, and force of nature to maintain the high mobility playstyle. Compared to others this item’s adaptability is strong and a leading class in itemization.

Divine Sunderer(S tier)Optimal Legendaries: Sterak's Gage, Titanic Hydra, Wit's End, Black Cleaver, Dead Man’s Plate , Force of Nature Legendary Boon: +5% Magic/Armor Penetration per item. The S class and new boon for Udyr whenever you are going Tiger or even Hybrid. This spellblade item provides a large investment of health that Udyr loves, spellblade that allows your damage to scale throughout the game. Add a healing based on it when used on enemy champions and this item can make even the most bruiser and tanky target in the enemy team be your personal sustain. Unlike the other mythics of tiger this item can easily be a one stop shop for Tiger or even Phoenix on the damage front and you can go full tank afterwards. Offensively you’ll want to take advantage of the % penetration using items like botrk or black cleaver to delve deeper and strike at enemy vulnerability. You can also add Death Dance once you added other sustain to stretch out the damage. However in my opinion Divine is best with a single offensive option like Steraks then adding in defensive. The more spellblade procs you can get off in a fight the better and adding items like Dead Man’s or even Wits end can give you magic damage that gets stronger due to your free penetration. This item is the go to for Tiger offensive style play.

Prowler’s Claw(B tier)Optimal Legendaries: Youmuu's Ghostblade, Blade of the Ruined King, Edge of Night, Dead Man’s Plate Legendary Boon - +Lethality Prowlers gives Udyr a ****ing Dash, with a larger range then Striders and with a +15% bonus to your damage with increased damage you will be amazed at your play making potential. Furthermore your dash WILL follow abilities such as flash to put you behind the target which can throw a lot of people off their tempo. The focus of this mythic is to win the game early with high tempo damage. Your tiger dot will simply shred people and if you accompany it with phase rush or PTA you can simply one shot anyone early game. Try to either go for pure damage early and then ease into more hybrid damage such as steraks, titanic, with an edge of night. My personal favorite combmo is prowlers into edge, into a titanic all to increase my health and burst damage. Then you can grab a steraks and then even add in more tanky items so you’re an assassin with DAMAGE.

Sunfire Aegis(A tier)Optimal Legendaries: Titanic Hydra, Thornmail, Thornmail, Randuin’s Omen , Sterak's Gage, Spirit Visage, Gargoyle Stoneplate, Legendary Boon: +5 Tenacity & Slow Resistance The damage tank item that gives you more on hit damage and AoE ramping up damage. The best part of this item is due to the recent change it has become a better option for tank heavy team comps where you still want to be beefy but don’t want to go full damage. The on hit passive scales with your AS, allowing you to dish out more damage once you’ve been in combat long enough. Adding onto it that with a titanic and black cleaver you’ll be a beefy HP sponge in the middle of the enemy team. Defensively go for items that increase your bulk and possibly even Spirit visage to make yourself the king of the jungle with sustain in combat in if you’re running conqueror. The ramped up damage means that as you move from one target to another you will burn them down harshly in an extended fight.

Frostfire Gauntlet(S tier)Optimal Legendaries: Titanic Hydra, Spirit Visage, Gargoyle Stoneplate, Black Cleaver Legendary Boon: +100 HP This is my new favorite item of season 11 and the one that helped me get to Masters the fastest. The Frostfire Gauntlet gives an insane slow field allowing you to peel in combat, but also gives Udyr a crazy 100+ hp for every legendary you complete leaving you at a bonus 400 HP at the end. This HP may seem small, but when combo’d with the burnfield HP scaling, Steraks HP scaling, GARGOYLE Hp scaling and titanic’s HP scaling on damage AND bonus AD you have a mythic that is constantly dipping in bonuses. Offensive wise stick to items that give HP and AD before you shift over into your optimal defensive items. Defense if possible combo sterks with spirit visage for a bonus 25% on that shield, then throw in Gargoyle for a 25% bonus on THAT shield and you’ll easily end up with over 3k shielding in EVERY teamfight you have both items up. Add all the armor and magic resist from that and conditioning and you have a crazy amount of bulk in every teamfight possible.

Chemtank(C tier for Tiger ONLY) Tiger doesn’t care for Chemtank as much as Pheonix, honestly I only put it up here unlike the rest of the mythics I’ve ignored just to say stick to phoenix. So uh...stick to Phoenix.

Phoenix Stance(AP TANK)

Hextech Rocketbelt(S tier)Optimal Legendaries: Lich Bane, Nashor’s Tooth, Rabadon’s Deathcap, Boots of Swiftness Legendary Boon: +5 Magic Pen Udyr-X, gotta go fast in an item. This item gives AP Udyr the run down power to catch any champion on the map when combo’d with celerity and phase rush. You WILL catch that Lucian through his flash and dash easily and will be a threat to anyone you can one shot with an E & R combo. To combo with this you’ll want nashors tooth and lich bane to give you the most damage per engage possible. Till an enemy champion gets more then 100 MR flat penetration will provide more per legendary thus allowing you to take on squishy champions. Defensively you’ll want items like deadman’s or Zhonya’s, but honestly with this build you want to spilt and avoid teamfights if possible. While you can one shot even hecarim, you can also easily die in the same combo. Your shield scales very nicely with AP.

Riftmaker(A tier)Optimal Legendaries: Lich Bane, Nashor’s Tooth, Deadman’s Plate, Spirit Visage The tank optiona nd the one you want to go if you’re going Off-Tank AP. This allows you to build up surcharge of damage and then start doing 10% true damage after being in combat for some time. This damage included with your 5% magic pen is best when used against bruisers/tanks who stack MR against you as a top laner. Offensively you want Lich bane mostly over nashors due to the fact you want heavier burst in trades. Defensively you’ll want itemization that gives you more sustain in combat, with spirit visage being a high value if you need MR. Dead man’s to get into fights along with Randuin’s to reduce damage. Thornmail of course if you’re against sustain tanks like yourself as all you need to do is apply a stun to get a 60% grievous application.

Chemtank(S tier)Optimal Legendaries: Lich Bane, Randuin’s Omen, Deadman’s Plate, Spirit Visage, Gargoyle’s Stoneplate Legendary Boon: +5 Ability Haste LCK made it popular and for good reason, this build makes Udyr an engage GOD able to disrupt and throw the enemy team into chaos with his team spreading stuns and phoenix damage early. By favoring speed you become a god of the early game, quickly powerfarming till you’re so big you overtake the enemy with an aggressive playstyle that compliments this. Aggressively lich bane is your bread and butter for spellblade + movement speed. Defensively you’ll want dead man’s plate as your first follow up as increased damage and even more engage power that will let you rush into the enemy team without mercy. Don’t be afraid to give the enemy a pounding headache of your own by rushing them down whenever it is possible.

Frostfire(A tier)Optimal Legendaries: Lich Bane, Randuin’s Omen, Deadman’s Plate, Spirit Visage, Gargoyle’s Stoneplate Similar to the Chemtank, but this one gives more HP and more peel for the front line instead of engage. Use this one when you need to slow down threats who rely on moving physically through your team such as Hecarim. Offensively you will be kind of laughable but you’re still a phoenix tank and can wreck havoc if left on a squishy for to long. Defenisvely favor more options like randuin’s to lower enemy damage output and increase up time on your shield with spirit visage. From there pick legendaries like Randuins for damage reduction, thornmail for healing.

Udyr has very few mechanics that separate beginner Udyr’s from more experienced Udyr’s. Yet even in these few mechanics, I’ve seen gold elo Udyr’s fail at these basics, and by getting a head start on the mechanics, you can begin to make them habit, and shoot through the ranks, past those who choose to not learn them. Stance Dancing: Stance dancing is the phrase used to describe swapping between stances within the five second Bridge Between timer. At 0 Ability Haste, Udyr’s abilities have a 6 second cooldown and a two second global cooldown, after each activation. Optimal Combo: Step 1 Wilding Claw Or Iron Mantle to get a stack Step 2 Blazing Stampede to close the gap Step 3 Wilding Claw once more, to begin trading with full stacks. Improper stance dancing will result in lower DPS, lower mobility, and as a stat check champion result in you losing more of your potential. A good way to practice stance dancing is in the practice tool. This will help you learn to rotate your abilities in the jungle, and a great way to make it muscle memory. The rule of thumb to follow ⋆ 4 AA's in Tiger Stance or Phoenix Stance ⋆ 2 AA's in Turtle Stance ⋆ 2 AA's in Bear Stance These are the max AA’s you can generally afford, before having to transition into another ability, to optimize your passive but minimize your spell casting. For ganks you want to prep a Tiger Stance or Phoenix Stance far away from the gank, pressing W as soon as possible for the second stack of passive, then E when you’re looking to gap close towards your target.

The very first decision for a Jungler is to identify which of the routes you wish to begin your jungle pathing and setting the tempo of the game. We will be assuming that either an invade was unsuccessful, and your team has avoided any outlier situations, for a standard start to your average game. But why should you care about optimizing your clear path?

⋆ Efficient jungle paths reduce time wasted running between camps.
⋆ They increase future gold gain and xp gain with an easy to follow pathing.
⋆ They reduce idle time, and lag time where you are focusing on unnecessary sections of the game you can pat down to muscle memory.
⋆ Set up a game plan, allowing you to focus on outplay instead of farming.


Pathing Listed below is the most common starts for Udyr, broken by stance primary.

Each clear has their own strengths and weaknesses compared to the other, each game is different and you may consider changing up a clear path to match the tempo of the game. However, some players prefer a style of start and playstyle, and finding the one that maximizes that potential is also a valid start.

Tiger Stance

Red Buff > Wolves >Blue Buff > Krugs > Gromp> Map Play Red Buff > Blue Buff >Gromp > Map Play Blue Buff > Gromp > Wolves > Raptors > Red Buff > Krugs > Scuttle > Reset/Map Play Blue Buff > Gromp > Wolves > Red Buff > Invade/Gank > Raptors > Krugs

Tiger Clears are more varied with the added mana regen on both jungle items removing one of his core weaknesses. However, this was also countered by the removal of on-hit damage plus the added armor of camps. Therefore, Tiger pathing should be more focused on optimization of your early game damage. Avoid doing Krugs till you’ve obtained an AoE clearing item such as Tiamat, Ironspike Whip, and/or Bami Cinder. Instead, you’ll want to go for 3-4-5 camp clears using blue as a start if you want to transition into invades with red. For more aggressive starts, taking red, into blue then gromp is a fast way to level 3 and force plays on the map.

Phoenix Stance

Red Buff > Krugs > Raptors > Wolves > Blue Buff > Gromp > Scuttle Red Buff > Krugs > Raptors > Wolves > Blue Buff & Gromp (same time) > Scuttle

Phoenix has gained from the changes to the meta, becoming one of the few champions who can full clear the jungle at 3:15 when using the Blue Buff & Gromp double clear. Phoenix players should aim to start at red buff, path from krugs and clear every camp on the way to blue making sure to take aim with the phoenix proc to AoE as many monsters as possible. Udyr will benefit the most with proper stance dancing, and once you secure the first scuttle you can go right back and fit in a 2nd full clear before your buffs even come close to being back. If you’re able to secure both scuttles you can actually manage to get level 6 by 5 minutes with this stance!



Priorities Once you’ve done your first back, this is the part of the game most lower elo players begin the auto pilot process. If there is anything from this guide you should take heed it is this!
Every time you return to the fountain take a moment to analyze the game state and ask yourself what the game plan is from there.

⋆ Secure Dragons / Rift Herald (High Priority)

As Udyr one of your biggest concerns should be objective control, you are one of the best solo objective champions in the game. Normally, this revolves around the early dragons and securing it from the map. Taking dragons has a two fold impact, it removes an objective for your team to lose due to misplaying, and secures an advantage for your team’s momentum. However, some dragon’s carry inherent risk than another and should be noted when attempting to secure them for your team.

#1 Infernal #2 Mountain #3[ Ocean #4 Cloud

Infernal Dragons can be used to encourage more early game combat. With the 4% increased AD and ability power you can start striving to build up a small lead. Ocean Dragon will be much more useful against bruisers and other champions that will try to kill your team overtime. Mountain Dragon will make you bulkier against burst. Cloud Dragon will make a good coaster for your drink.

In the current meta most enemy champions start on the red side of the buff, but for those who choose to start Blue Buff you have a lot of pressure to engage and win the duel. Very few champions are able to win in a straight up fight with Blue Buff vs red, as the extra damage is enough to tilt the favor into your own. Take advantage of this and look for chances to snag camps from the enemy jungler and pick a fight if you're playing with Tiger Stance. If you’re able to snag camps and win a fight against them use their back time to place vision into their jungle and find more chances to secure a lead. The same applies if they are red starters who are trying to contest a gank opportunity or invade you.

Some enemy champions will attempt to invade you, but with vision you can call your teammates to rotate or even just go fight him yourself. If possible, catch the enemy jungler in your jungle with your team for free double buffs, if this is impossible due to lane priority then you’ll want to vertical jungle.


Rift Herald A high priority on spawn, best used between it’s spawn point and 13:50. Thanks to Season 10 adjustments this is the objective you’ll want to play off a strong top laner as you can secure the first Rift Herald and then use a 2nd Rift Herald after six minutes when it respawns. Make sure to try to secure a good gank off to maximize the plates earned and you can even deny a losing lane of yours from giving up first blood tower. The new Rift Herald sadly isn’t as powerful at punching through multiple towers so you’ll have to rely on more map macro to win the game.

One great way to maximize your Rift herald on a full health tower is to take 2-3 tower plates with your allies before spawning Rift Herald. Tower defense is dependent on how many plates fell in quick succession, while Rift is guaranteed two plates and does true damage.


Gank Opportunities (Medium Priority)
You’ll want to do this on every back, analyze each of the lanes and see which lanes are pushing and the CS of both laners. Laners who are trading evenly in CS, but are neutral in kills, may require your assistance to tip the scales in your favor. Champions who are top and buy Tiamat for example, will always push towards your side of the map, if they’re someone like Irelia who has poor escapes without minions, you can begin to rotate with proper farm efficiency or even skipping farm directly to assist. Oftentimes, people choose to farm or finish a clear before going to aid their team in a fight they can turn. Farm will be there when you return, so consider the macro decision of aiding your team and preventing the enemy team from gaining an advantage.

The second part of looking for ganks is also finding your win conditions and applying it. If a Draven is 2/0 forcing objectives on his side of the map, then promptly pushing towers down with him will allow him to rotate to another side of the map. Win conditions are the best chance of your comps success, and this should be factored against the enemies win condition as well. You’ll want to avoid ganking lanes that are losing, especially if you’re not in a position of strength. The reason you want to avoid this is due to the fact that if the gank is countered, you can end up dead along with your ally, resulting in a more powerful snowball for the enemies. Play to your strengths, not your weaknesses.


Vision and Jungle Control (Medium Priority)
Your job as a jungler is to secure optimal vision and track the enemy jungler. Should you spot them, let your team know with pings. If you spot the enemy jungler in the bot side jungle ,then your top side knows they can play aggressively without being punished. Spot them going top? Then see if you can force secure the dragon. Optimal vision should be two parts, one is a Control Ward in a common path of the jungler that is outside of their usual auto path. You’ll often want to ward in the following locations:


These wards will spot the enemy jungler, allowing you to make great macro decisions. If you see an enemy jungler pathing one route, you can preemptively decide if you want to counter his gank path or force on the other side of the map.


Efficient Farm Path (Low Priority)
One of the biggest things, that while you shouldn’t be hyper focused on, this is something you need to ensure you have down to a T. A lot of people are very poor with their jungle pathing, and this results in a wayward path that is ineffective. Each non buff camp respawns after 2:00 of it’s original spawn’s death (For Krugs, only the large and medium Krug that first spawned need to die.) However if your clear is haphazard such as Raptors, Krugs, Gromp to Wolves, then your camps will respawn in this order, causing lots of wasted time moving between camps. When clearing paths, you should always try to make a linear clear when possible, and also noting when you want to leave a camp behind for later.

For example I will make a Raptor > Wolves > Gromp clear for a reset to go gank bot, secure the dragon, then clear Krugs and if enough time has lapsed, my next clear rotation is already back up.

In this current season you can actually counter gank heavy junglers by counterjungling and powerfarming. A game I played in pre-season had a 7/0/3 Nidalee vs me with 1/0/2 who I had more gold then. When teamfights started I simply outstated her and her entire team who were relying on her for the carry.


Vertical Jungling
Vertical jungling is when you and the enemy jungler will not cross mid-lane to access the other half of your jungle.

For example if you start on blue buff, instead of going to your red side you take camps from the enemy red side instead. Often times this is a situation that is forced on either jungler either via lane pressure or enemy jungler pressure such as them starting at your side of the camp and vice versa.

A good Vertical jungle can easily result in you snowballing pressure in a side lane and is often best done when you have lane priority to leave jungle camps uncleared. An uncleared jungle camp for the enemy is when one of the original monsters that spawn with the camp are still left up, usually a small wolf, raptor, or the original medium krug. This prevents the camp from respawning and thus delays the jungler even further.

Aggressive/Passive Play
In review, the best clear paths are the ones that avoid minimal backtracking. Often times the worst thing you can be doing is nothing at all. Aggressive players should favor Red buff starts and starting the snowball early.

More passive players can route the Blue buff start and begin the train with proper map control. While learning jungle make sure to use the new small camp timers to help you learn how to optimize your clears.

Scuttle Crab
Do not int for Scuttle anymore, they’re not worth it! Thanks to the increased respawn timers on your camp, higher effective clearing will net you a larger advantage over time then you will by forcing a Scuttle brawl when it’s unfavorable. This is perfectly fine to lose one or even both Scuttles to the enemy jungler if you have higher clear priority on your jungle camps. Many games I’ve won and lost by simply not having the priority I needed during a Scuttle contest. Scuttles however still have some key niches to provide both for and against Udyr.

The vision the Scuttles provide is a static seen ward that can prevent junglers like Nunu & Willump and Amumu from simply walking down the middle of the river without being seen. The problem with this ward that Udyr can take advantage of, and have against, is the field of view does not provide vision into the Dragon pit. What this means is Udyr can take a Blast Cone over the wall and directly into the pit when the enemy team has secured a Scuttle over the Dragon pit. This can blindside enemy junglers who have no idea how you got in there allowing you to secure a powerful early game Dragon and secure the map change and Dragon Soul down the line much easier.

For Tiger Udyr this is a good source of tempo as we’re unable to full clear in this season any more and still be at scuttle on time. Tiger Udyr’s clear speed is very powerful and some junglers will still try to pick fights around Scuttle due to the ingrained habit from season nine. As you’re playing the king of duels you can easily look to force a fight IF YOU HAVE PRIORITY. Before any jungle fight make sure that your laners who are closest are not being pinned to the tower as this will make them rotating to you impossible. If this happens you can get rotated on and easily hand over double buffs to an enemy laner in turn. If however you do have priority look to see if you can start a fight while pinging your intention to your teammates.

Phoenix Udyr on the other hand, wins very little brawls at level 3-4 so you should look to avoid a confrontation if possible. You have a higher burst window due to the 100+ burst from Phoenix Stance itself all coming out at once. If against aggressive junglers like Xin Zhao, Graves, Kindred and Kha'Zix it may be better for you to focus on your Season 11 clearing then to pick a fight over a contested Scuttle.

Each clear has their own strengths and weaknesses compared to the other, each game is different and you may consider changing up a clear path to match the tempo of the game. However, some players prefer a style of start and playstyle, and finding the one that maximizes that potential is also a valid start.

More varied with the added mana regen on both jungle items removing one of his core weaknesses. However, this was also countered by the removal of on-hit damage plus the added armor of camps. Therefore, Tiger pathing should be more focused on optimization of your early game damage. Avoid doing Krugs till you’ve obtained an AoE clearing item such as Tiamat, Ironspike Whip, and/or Bami Cinder. Instead, you’ll want to go for 3-4-5 camp clears using blue as a start if you want to transition into invades with red. For more aggressive starts, taking red, into blue then gromp is a fast way to level 3 and force plays on the map.
Phoenix has gained from the changes to the meta, becoming one of the few champions who can full clear the jungle at 3:15 when using the Blue Buff & Gromp double clear. Phoenix players should aim to start at red buff, path from krugs and clear every camp on the way to blue making sure to take aim with the phoenix proc to AoE as many monsters as possible. Udyr will benefit the most with proper stance dancing, and once you secure the first scuttle you can go right back and fit in a 2nd full clear before your buffs even come close to being back. If you’re able to secure both scuttles you can actually manage to get level 6 by 5 minutes with this stance!

In the current meta most enemy champions start on the red side of the buff, but for those who choose to start Blue Buff you have a lot of pressure to engage and win the duel. Very few champions are able to win in a straight up fight with Blue Buff vs red, as the extra damage is enough to tilt the favor into your own. Take advantage of this and look for chances to snag camps from the enemy jungler and pick a fight if you're playing with Tiger Stance. If you’re able to snag camps and win a fight against them use their back time to place vision into their jungle and find more chances to secure a lead. The same applies if they are red starters who are trying to contest a gank opportunity or invade you. Some enemy champions will attempt to invade you, but with vision you can call your teammates to rotate or even just go fight him yourself. If possible, catch the enemy jungler in your jungle with your team for free double buffs, if this is impossible due to lane priority then you’ll want to vertical jungle.

Invading
Whenever you’re looking for an invade, you need to consider the same things that deal with contesting Scuttles. These requirements are universal for all times of the game, and will be a general guide with notes focusing on each section of the game.

⋆ Lane priority and Lane answering: Which laner can come without losing a lot of xp and cs in their lane?

⋆ Levels & powerspikes: Who is at what level, with what buffs and are they at a powerspike?

⋆ Item builds & Runes: Who has what items, runes and how do they interact with each other?

⋆ Vision: Both vision that is denied and vision that each team has.


When invading, the most optimal route for Udyr is to avoid being seen, depending on which river bushes are warded, you can invade through these routes on both sides of the river.

When invading, you are looking to deny the enemy resources of XP and Gold, taking buffs if optimal, and leaving camps with one mob left if you cannot return in the future. This will reduce their ability to stay in the game, and by contrast, weaken their future ganks. Furthermore, should you catch them out and kill them in the jungle, you’ll set the enemy into a tilt spree and can push them even further behind.


Level 1 Invade
Some team comps are better geared for early aggression from level 1 and will often be tempted to start a five man dive. Oftentimes, this is dependent on the support selection but other champions are just as viable on early invades. Should you see these champions on the enemy team, you’ll want to prepare accordingly to counter their dive into the enemy team.


Taric, Leona, Blitzcrank, Nautilus and Lux are some examples of champions who have a strong level 1 CC and will look to make strong picks off it. The more champions who start level 1 with cc on the enemy team, like Jax, will make it more tempting and a better possible payoff for these enemy compositions.

When you see these team compositions, your best bet is to plan if your team composition should fight or flight. The flight option will take the action of the previous part, optimal vision control to avoid giving the enemy a chance to slip in the cracks and catching someone unaware. You want to do this when your team comp’s level one is far weaker such as Vayne, Zed, Renekton. Champions who need more levels to access the full power of their kit will often be better off avoiding engages.

However, should your team composition have a fighting chance, and even sometimes your coordination is enough, you can choose to counter a spotted invade by bush camping. Bush camping is forcing all five champions into the fog of war provided by a bush, and allowing the enemy team to face check into you. As Udyr this puts you in a great position of strength to double dot the first enemy you can, and put the enemy team into a panic. Champion picks that are strong counter invaders are Taric, Jax, Lux and the king of country invades, Sion. If these champions are on your team, consider stacking into a bush and turning those invades around. Be careful however for champs like Nautilus, Thresh and Blitzcrank who can throw skills blindly into said bushes and pull someone out of the early fight.


Level 2 Invade

Level 2 invades are very risky for Udyr to perform, but are also the most rewarding.

⋆ EXAMPLE - You are vs an Amumu jungle, and both junglers started Red. By placing a ward or having your mid laner place a ward at the enemy Raptors you realize that Amumu is full clearing from Krugs up.. This allows you to pressure his blue buff by pathing not directly at it but by hugging the corner to remain in the fog of war as long as possible. Amumu’s ability lvling is W > E > Q, leaving him unable to escape your lvl 2 duel. Since you both have red buff even if he Flashes, he dies to your invade. Now you not only denied him his own red buff by proxy, refreshed your own but also steal his blue buff and possibly all of his top side farm if his laners do not rotate. From here you rotate to your blue side and try to deny him from counterjungling you back.

Early game champions like Pantheon top, Lissandra mid, Lucian and Zyra bot are great early game brawlers, and will often have lane priority.

This will allow you to pressure safely, and these are the allies you should consider pressuring weak junglers like Amumu, Sejuani, Rammus and Karthus, with.

However, should you have scaling laners like Garen vs Riven, Veigar vs Lissandra you may want to ensure you have not walked over vision. If these laners respond first, you will be CC’d locked and then promptly killed. Udyr without flash and lost tempo is a quick way to lose the game.



Counter Invading
When counter invading, your job as Udyr is to take an early point in your combat stance, be it tiger or phoenix as you always should, and use it in the fountain for your first dot. Once the fight has engaged, you’ll want to target anyone closest to you to unleash a double dot. The best way to maintain order in the chaos of a level 1 fight is to ping the target you are focusing. This can have the reward of helping your team focus one person down instead of a free-for-all, allowing your team to save summoners and secure kills. Communication is key to turning these situations around, regardless of how they start!

If the same champions who threaten invades are on your team, they can also provide a strong factor to lead an invade. If you want to pressure an early enemy team composition, you’ll want to open with pings to communicate your intent as soon as the game starts. This helps players both; know the game has started, and try to coordinate strangers into a functional team for the potential invade.

When leading the invade, the champion with the CC should be up front, you - as Udyr - should be on his flank, due to the nature of your double dot kit being melee range only. Once the fight has begun, you’ll want to focus and ping a target to corral your team into a coordinated focus fire. This helps if you communicate to your team these intentions ,and secure the first blood. Avoid greeding for firstblood however, if an ally can secure it with Ignite or another early spell, saving your



Summoner Spell AdvantageFlash and avoiding blowing too many will help you maintain a lead even if you do not get a kill.
Enemy Xerath blew his Flash? Save your Flash and proceed to gank his lane ASAP - to secure the firstblood just a moment later. Remember, summoners are just as valued, as long as you do not blow an equal amount trying to get a kill you do not get.

Now, if your team was able to secure a lead and gain a firstblood, you need to learn how to press the advantage accordingly. If you have saved your Flash, try to collaborate with your teammates which summoners were used by the enemy - or ping them in chat - especially immobile champions and their Flash's. This gives you a starting strategy you can proceed to pressure and gank, allowing you to tilt them further into negative morale and snowball a lead to victory. If you were the one to get firstblood, you can back and get either Hunter's Talisman, Long Sword, or Boots. I personally advise Talisman if you won’t be aggressive till your first back, or long sword if you plan to duel soon.

As for the enemy jungler, should he have blown Flash and is weak to your early game pressure, (Think Amumu, Rammus, Nunu & Willump) then proceed to try to camp and invade on his second buff. Depending on the length and time of the invade, you can meet him at his second camp and proceed to push him further behind. For laners who blew summoners to secure the kill, but did not blow their lane opponent's summoners, such as a Riven burning Flash and Ignite to kill a Soraka, but Darius who wasn’t there, blew nothing, you’ll want to visit their lane to re-balance the scales accordingly. Summoner advantage can negate even an early cheese kill, even if they got first blood if they had no ample time to back. Any time after 1:00 that results in a kill is often times not viable to do a back for items unless you are so low that you need to back anyway.

Team Fighting
Udyr’s greatest strength of having 100% natural attack speed bonus at level 9 (70% from Tiger and 30% from Passive), high base damage that compliments Trinity Force and a kit designed to abuse spellblade mythics and his ability to disengage from foes, screaming his fool head off. One thing Udyr is not known for is his ability to teamfight, due to his ease of being kited, with many players often times choosing to open the map via split pushing over team fighting. Both methods are critical to understanding when to implement them and when to begin thinking of swapping this particular game play.

Pros → Very effective in solo queue → Funnels resources into you → Brings out Udyr’s strength as a duelist → Can snowball into other objectives → Removes Udyr’s weakness to team fight value

Cons → Denies a laner those resources → Difficult for Udyr to disengage → Puts Baron at risk when splitting bot → Team may not know how to play a spilt → Requires a tiamat, is mana intensive → Teams can find a 4v5 or a 1v2

Split Pushing
Split pushing allows Udyr to pressure lanes, with the most effective item to build being Tiamat for wave clear efficiency with Titantic being your best option due to being applied on tower hit. Combo with a spellblade mythic Tiger stance is one of the strongest spilt pushers in the game. But it pales in comparison to full Ap Phoenix Udyr due to lichbane + the higher amounts of Ap obtained then raw AD to hit towers with. Once you have nashors, lich, an AP Mythic Udyr will drop towers with just a single point in tiger. Either stance is fully capable in doing an effective spilt if given tempo to do so.

For Example drawing a Malphite to hold you is really strong for your team, as your value in a teamfight will never match a Malphite’s ult threat.

Another key aspect of split pushing is vision control, optimally your support and your team should add Control Wards. This prevents rotations from the enemy team and catch Udyr’s blind side. While Udyr is great at disengaging with his base movement speed and Bear Stance, stacked hard cc can lock you down long enough. Once you have this vision, you’ll want to pressure the tower as often as enemy cooldowns allow. If you’re running Demolish, you’ll want to try to force procs of this as often as possible, if running Trinity Force, you’re going to want to optimize using Tiger Stance and Turtle Stance for Sheen procs, leaving Bear Stance open for escape.

Early
As a jungler, you have the largest control of the early game macro calls, as we’ve already gone over warding, we’ll now move towards using early game momentum to snowball leads.

Usually one to two dragons can be obtained during the laning phase, should you have been able to cheese a dragon on spawn, and the second one if you position into it along with your team. As mentioned before, the types of dragons will help you make a game plan for success.

Rotate around the map to build a lead with one objective and look to force the next, especially if you can grab the Rift Herald . Once you’ve obtained either objective it’ll be your duty to communicate your team towards a core goal.

Often times in solo queue the main throwing factor is lack of communication which we’ll get into shortly. When using team macro you need to establish what is the means of your win condition and how to apply it. If you’re going to be spilt pushing inform your team how to play accordingly around you. Remember you are the expert on Udyr and how you work, not the other way around. Ensure that if you’re playing with objectives you communicate which way it needs to break down. If you have Rift Herald you’ll want your team to coordinate around bot lane. If an Infernal Dragon is coming up in a minute ping your tell and communicate you need to clear out vision. If you’re splitting then you’re going to want to divide the resources accordingly.

You’ll want to spilt up the map as follows -

This shows the Blue and Red team set ups


Blue side team macro is if you’ve itemized for spilt pushing with Tiamat and Trinity Force or Divine Sunderer and you’re able to win a 1v1. If you’re behind or need to protect your adc, then allow your mid laner to absorb the solo xp in a side lane.

You’ll want to set up vision in the noted locations, this allows your team to possibly bait the enemy into a bad situational call.

Map Control
Using proper Map control you can use a Herald in the top lane before calling your team to the dragon. You can then force or even stall the fight at the dragon as Rift pushes. The main goal here is to force one enemy to answer Rift making dragon a 4v5, while your team five man’s around the objective. If you have a pick comp such as Thresh, you can use the noted locations of vision denial to snag a capture kill, should the enemy overextend. Mountain Drakes quicken the turnaround for objectives, and by using it properly you can snowball quickly. The bonus is that the rift will be getting you free lane gold and with a big enough wave can even get a tower or two for free. Remember the longer the fight extends the longer someone will have to take to rotate to it.


From Behind

Some games you’re not going to be in control, lanes lost, a bad call led to you or even your entire team not having map pressure. Oftentimes this leads to teammates to begin tilting, flaming and even potentially throwing on purpose to get out of the game. However every epic comeback tale comes down to great macro plays.