While I'm trying to discuss the idea in a serious way, I don't feel that it's viable - I'm using the theorycrafting as a tool to better understand why the current meta works the way it does. I know the basics (AP mid because scale better with level, 2 man bottom for dragon control, etc) but there are subtleties there that I would like to understand better.
So, to repeat, I'm just theorycrafting a bit. I'm aware that this probably isn't viable, but at the there's probably something I can learn from looking at the idea seriously.
1. Advantages:
- Increased Dragon/Baron security/kill speed
- Increased ability to invade enemy jungle (if enemy jungler starts blue, the jungler clearing YOUR blue can invade their red immediately and likely before the enemy jungler notices/retaliates)
- Junglers could be less reliant on Smite
- Faster leveling for bottom lane while solo
- Junglers can "camp" lanes without getting as far behind
2. Disadvantages
- "Jungler" activities become a lot more transparent due to normalized lane presence
- Less experience and/or farm for top lane
- More reliance on mid lane for ganks
- Mid lane becomes more vulnerable to ganks
- Bottom likely to be a 1v2 lane at least 25% of the time
- 1 less offensive summoner spell for team fights
- No "support" role (Alistar can do blue and move to bottom for Purple side) or reliance on leash
- Less dragon control - harder to get a 3rd body to Dragon, since there's a 2nd person hanging around top lane
- Top lane could easily become more pushed than desirable
3. What would be the best "split" for the junglers?
- [Blue+Wolves] and [Red+Wraiths+Little Golems] seems to be the best potential split
Overall, I don't see it working against the current metagame outside of a dedicated team composition. You'd need someone like Morgana, who is difficult to gank and can farm fairly well under pressure, mid. You'd need a carry with a decent early game bottom, someone that can hold their own in a 1v2 lane without falling too far behind in CS.
The main drawback I see is information - that the junglers wouldn't be able to do anything without tipping off the enemy. The instant they set foot away from their lanes, especially if they do so at the same time to secure buffs, it becomes clear what they're doing - this makes it simple for the enemy to establish approximate timers on your jungle's buffs (and easy to set up ambushes). If either jungler leaves lane, middle lane gets a nice tipoff early on that something may be about to go down. Dragon control would suffer by having 1 person glued to top lane - if they leave to go set up at dragon, the enemy gets alerted. If they don't, then you're down 1 body for dragon control.
So yeah. Any angles I may have missed with this, or other things to take into consideration? Any examples of a double jungle setup being done at any significant levels of play, and what worked/failed?
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