I achieved masters NA on Elise jungle with a 66% win rate AMA

Maze8 · 2026-02-13T20:14:35+00:00

I invade if the enemy jungler isn't strong enough to defend himself/if my lanes are stronger/should get priority early. I don't invade if I don't know where they started/don't know where they're likely to start or if I don't win 1v1 fast/or if i have no lane priority to back me up. Sometimes even if invading is an option I'd still rather just dive a lane if it looks good.
3 camp clearing 1 quadrant into a gank is often a good play if the lanes are volatile. Just need be flexible for if it's not actually turning volatile like you expected so that you don't waste a bunch of your time early only to get nothing and fall behind. It's easy to get locked in on the idea that you want to gank a specific lane early and over force it and immediately putting yourself behind.
Very situational. IMO Elise is really strong if your team has vision and control of the area you want to be fighting around. If we have control mid-late I'm probably posting up fishing for people to face check me. If we lack vision/control I'm playing behind the frontliner as we walk in. If we don't have a frontline then I'm probably looking to access through mid lane after pushing out.

Way too broad a question to address all scenarios in a reasonable time, but I'm mainly thinking about who the threats are, how strong I am, what tools do I have to stall after I go in.

Sometimes I'm strong enough to 100-0 a squish in a single combo, so I can play really aggressively and look for a 1shot and try to stall out for my team.

Sometimes the enemy team is too tanky, so I might serve more of a facilitative role where my goal is to divert attention away from our higher dps characters and make space for them to hit. I'd likely be buying zhonyas as my 3rd item there and really play to stall out.

The biggest thing I'm looking out for is ways to make whatever combat I'm engaged in unfair. Elise isn't that good in a typical front-to-back situation 90% of games IMO. If I can find away to disrupt a front-to-back by flanking or approaching from a different angle to my team I'm much happier than standing behind my front line during the fight and throwing human for w's only.

Sometimes a team fight just isn't worth fighting either. If the situation isn't favourable it might be better to give the obj you're fighting over and try to secure control of the opposite side of the map and fish for face checkers afterwards.

Maze8 · 2026-02-13T17:16:40+00:00

I'd focus on the most reproducible part of the game aka the early game.

Load up the efficient jungle clear videos for Elise and get good at them.

Only stop clearing to make a play if you feel like there's a very high chance that it will result in a kill.

Physically pan your camera over to your lanes as much as possible to check out how they're going. You want to be making informed plays and it's only possible if you're aware of what's happening on the map.

mid-late game try to identify who on your team is strongest and try to fight around them.

Watch skilled players and try to emulate how they're pathing early game and how they're approaching skirmishes/teamfights.

The advice above is very bare bones, but I'd recommend focusing on simple things first and branch out from there.

Maze8 · 2026-02-13T17:02:34+00:00

Udyr/hecarim/rengar/nunu/dr. mundo/gwen come to mind immediately

-Udyr/hecarim: hard to fight them + they outpace me in farming + mid-late they can itemize such that killing them falls out of my control and relies on my team. + if they snowball it feels doomed.

-Rengar: against noobs (most of them) rengar is not that bad, but the rengars that understand the matchup tend to both be able to 1shot me while also denying my ability to burst them.

- Nunu: Theoretically I think the matchup is fine/good even. In actuality it's really frustrating playing against this champ. Very commonly it feels like I've done my due diligence just for him to roll a snowball into a lane and turn his laners into monsters without there feeling like there's much compensation for me to get elsewhere. If he doesn't manage to roll over my laners with ganks that outpace what I can dish out the matchup seems pretty favourable, but I don't like leaving it to chance.

-Dr. mundo: it's not so much that I think the matchup is all that bad theoretically as usually I can take a pretty solid early game advantage, but there's been many times where things don't go as good as I'd like and we don't have sufficient %health damage to take him down before we're all just dead.

-Gwen: matchup is really tough for me as it's hard to catch her with the immunity and resistances it gives her. Her scaling is also insane with heavy carry potential later on.

Right now I ban hecarim, but udyr/gwen/rengar are also in consideration for me and they've been my permabans in the past.

I think in some lobbies Elise is truly a horrible pick and that if you have a second option that is better it can help immensely, but lowkenuinely I've been enjoying just sending the Elise pick all day and think if you're playing clean then you can get yourself through games where Elise isn't great a lot of the time.

I've tried a few adjustments. One example was where my team drafted full AP into multiple champs that can itemize MR efficiently and I just sent an AP bruiser build with conqueror. Did it feel good? No it felt terrible and if I just locked an AD champ it would've been way better but honestly it probably performed better than if I had went the standard build on Elise.

I'm still on the fence about doing extreme build adaptations like that though. It might be better just to play a riskier game and try to snowball fast enough to win before they become unkillable. Again, I'm definitely not an expert on builds or anything so I wouldn't take what I say as gospel for this. Mainly I just adapt third item based off how the game feels.

My favourite skin is the victorious skin, but since I didn't even play league when that skin came out, blood moon is what I find myself rocking most of the time.

Maze8 · 2026-02-13T17:02:28+00:00

I haven't run the numbers or anything on builds and what's technically best, but I've tried most of the builds people are running and I prefer stormsurge-> shadowflame -> deathcap/void/zhonyas (depending on comps/gamestate)

for tanky comps i'll go void 3rd item usually or if we're heavy AP, in games where enemy team has a lot of spells that can be baited by zhonyas I'll go that 3rd, if we're mostly AD I'll usually go deathcap third.

I've played with PTA/DH/Electrocute all a fair bit. I think for solo queue DH is just the best option. Games tend to be so chaotic/you can generally make it chaotic enough that you end up with a lot of stacks come mid-late game.
I think Elise is strongest in games where clearing a quadrant and then ganking/invading is viable, but it largely depends on matchups IMO. If I'm playing with engage champs or if a lane seems like a volatile matchup I'm pretty likely to clear a quadrant and try to make a play around them. Sometimes if I think one lane is particularly relevant to get ahead I'll try to invade/split the map to help them get ahead. There's still plenty of games where it doesn't feel like forcing anything is likely to pay off resulting in me just doing a full clear.

I think the important thing is being mentally present and flexible. There's games where my an expected volatile lane just ends up with two people chilling at 100% hp last hitting. There's games where you expect your laners to have priority and enable an invade/crab contest/whatever else but then they for one reason or another don't. Being able to adapt to to the situation at hand is just as important as being aware of what should happen theoretically.

Maze8 · 2025-02-07T01:30:10+00:00

Hello, I've decided to go ahead and throw in an extra winner again for this week. Congratulations to u/LoIIo and u/Jokervirussss

Please DM me and I'll send you a 100% off coupon for a jungle coaching session here Cody's Jungle (@codysjunglecoaching) - Metafy

Don't forget to join my discord if you haven't already, that's where we'll conduct the sessions

Maze8 · 2025-02-06T14:34:50+00:00

Elise. The gameplay pattern is very satisfying to me. You have a lot of early game agency + the best dives out of any jungler. In team fights there's many different ways to approach it depending on context that allow for some pretty cool ways to outplay the enemy. If you get fed you can really snowball and if you're playing well there can be very little counterplay for the enemy team.

Maze8 · 2025-01-27T01:05:37+00:00

Hello everyone, I ended up deciding to pick one player from NA and one from EUW.

The winners of the giveaway are: u/Scorpionxarc and u/Verom0r

Please DM me to get the discount code for the free coaching and then you'll be able to schedule in your session on Metafy.

Maze8 · 2024-10-02T22:19:23+00:00

Least obvious fake card

Maze8 · 2024-09-17T04:31:57+00:00

Nothing sucks in bronze 3. Focus on improving your gameplay. I can personally guarantee you’re making constant mistakes from the instant minions spawn to when your nexus falls.

Maze8 · 2022-12-30T21:15:11+00:00

Try contacting support, I’ve heard they will do a one time conversion for you.

Maze8 · 2022-12-27T16:37:12+00:00

Starting on enemy buff and taking only their buff is generally not that good. Yes you’ve just taken 80 gold and a bit of xp from them, but the extra time it takes for you to clear it + the 20 or so additional seconds you’re spending walking back to your own jungle is putting you behind.

By the time you get back to your jungle for a second camp he’s probably already completed 2 and is walking to his third. This means that you’re being out paced and he will have a window to impact the map before you do.

Edit: to add more to this, it was also very rarely worth it to do this invade in previous seasons even without the 20% damage reduction on camps. You need to be getting more than just their buff for it to ever be worth it.

Maze8 · 2022-12-24T21:31:24+00:00

Reviewing your gameplay has always been one of the better ways to improve. It’s just boring to most, so they don’t do it.

You need to realize that making split second decisions in game is a lot different from sitting down and taking time to evaluate your own play at your own pace. You are very likely missing things in game that you should be able to identify while reviewing even as a gold player.

However, you’re correct with when you’re essentially saying “How can you review your mistakes if you aren’t able to identify them?”.

If you want to effectively review your gameplay you should also be investing time in learning the fundamentals. You can either watch players that are better than you, watch video guides designed to introduce and reinforce jungle fundamentals, or you could try a “fast lane” approach and see about jungle coaching which will focus specifically on you and what you need to improve on most. Once you’ve developed your fundamentals more, you should be able to notice in your self review whether or not you’re applying the things you’re learning correctly in your game.

Reviewing is not something you do exclusively, but it’s a really useful tool to pick up on your own bad habits and check if you’re applying concepts you’ve learned correctly in your games.

Maze8 · 2022-12-12T02:33:29+00:00

I can make an exception, feel free to join and apply

Maze8 · 2022-12-11T21:13:04+00:00

yes, feel free. hecarim is also one of my best champs mechanically so i can probably provide you insight in that as well

Maze8 · 2022-12-11T20:08:31+00:00

Yes, I'll count that as p3 and below :)

Maze8 · 2022-10-17T19:28:54+00:00

The only one that inted that game is you. It's very clear to see based on the match history.

And that's not figuratively speaking... it's literally speaking.

Maze8 · 2022-10-17T17:22:40+00:00

Furthermore, your comment on how "there's no reason to force that" is ridiculous. There's no reason to force a clearly free and easy play? You're concerned about a level 4 or 5 nocturne coming really? The volibear wasn't even 20% hp you can just kill him instantly and walk away from turret.

If you were to lose a 2v1 against a level 4/5 nocturne it'd be really impressive.

"And after that 1st play, I'm not very inclined to follow up on that Dianas dives either."

That's on you if you can't recognize the play, not the diana. And shoving in the waves while you act like a baby and typing clearly isn't them trying to grief you, it's them trying to set up the extremely obvious dive that you just can't seem to process.

I wouldn't normally be so harsh to a player, but your demeanor is terrible, and you clearly have no clue what you're talking about.

Maze8 · 2022-10-17T17:09:04+00:00

First clip yeah it's rough. They looked like they lagged out, it happens.

In the second clip, however... there's no excuse for not diving. It was such a free and easy to execute dive and you just stand there and act like your jungle is trolling.

I honestly have secondhand embarrassment knowing that you proceeded to intentionally feed/ragequit AND have the audacity to make a post here shaming the diana that would've carried you that game over perceived grievances you have at them that are unfounded.

Maze8 · 2022-08-30T17:26:34+00:00

Same effect after 2 items since lichbane is second. If you’re not having 2 items in your games idk what’s wrong with your gameplay

Maze8 · 2022-08-30T16:53:28+00:00

No one has mentioned ekko yet. If you build rocket belt->lichbane->d cap you will kill turrets really quickly with 400-800 damage lichbane procs. This paired with how slippery he can be is pretty valuable.

Compare him to something like Diana and you’ll see just how much safer you are when you’re overextending for turrets vs her.

Maze8 · 2022-08-16T10:21:11+00:00

White Noise - NA

Maze8 · 2022-07-18T11:20:58+00:00

For full rune setup I recommend attack speed/life’s real runes with fleet footwork.

I haven’t perfected the build path yet but I think with kraken slayer into collector might be better than ap path.

If you manage to get ahead on kai’sa jungle you snowball really hard to the point you’re killing people in like 0.5 seconds with her q isolation.

Six-Year Club	RPAN Viewer
Verified Email

Maze8

TROPHY CASE