The jungle position is a crucial pivot point. Junglers need to be incredibly flexible because in any given game they might be called on to: babysit their laners with defensive pathing and vision, attack the early game with aggressive ganks, take on a playmaking role with pick-off and teamfight initiation, or farm up selfishly and carry with damage. Ironically, despite spending so much time in the fog of war, a jungler has no place to hide when their team fails as they are often among the first to be blamed.

RELATED: How has the role of junglers changed in the new meta?

The North American LCS is home to a wide range of talent, from home-grown players to international imports. Based on my assessment of each jungler’s performance so far this split, I’ve ranked them from weakest to strongest.

Criteria

Rankings like these are always somewhat subjective, so here are my personal criteria for developing this list. When I’m evaluating a jungler, I look for a few different things.

Value: How important is the jungler to their team’s success? Do they actively produce wins, or are they mostly along for the ride while their teammates do more of the heavy lifting?

Versatility: How well can the jungler take on different roles, from supportive to aggressive styles, from gankers to team fighters, from carries to tanks?

Game Sense: How well does the jungler understand their role in each game, and what their priorities are at any given time?

I won’t necessarily discuss all of these things for each player, but hopefully these criteria give some window into my thought process.

Note that these rankings do not take into account how the players have performed in past seasons. Statistics are presented for each player (all of which can be found at OraclesElixir.com), but the rankings are based heavily on the “eye test,” and the stats are only used to support that analysis.

The Rankings

Unranked: Echo Fox’s Jonathan “Grigne” Armao. Team Liquid’s Galen “Moon” Holgate.

11. Kevin “Zentinel” Pires, Phoenix1

KDA KP DTH% DMG% WPM 1.9 68.3% 18.2% 15.6% 0.70

Champions: Elise (4), Kindred (4), Rek’Sai (3), Graves, Hecarim, Nidalee

It’s somewhat unfair to include Zentinel on this list, since he was just serving as a substitute for Phoenix1 while they worked out visa issues for their starter, Inori. But since Zentinel put in 14 games, his performance seems like fair game for this list. Unfortunately, that performance was pretty underwhelming. From mechanical mistakes to suboptimal lane prioritization, Zentinel showed that he still needs to develop as a player if he wants to make his way back into the LCS.

10. Lee “ShrimP” Byeong-hoon, Apex

KDA KP DTH% DMG% WPM 2.6 67.8% 24.9% 18.3% 0.61

Champions: Rek’Sai (7), Nidalee (4), Elise (3), Evelynn (2), Gragas (2), Kindred (2), Lee Sin

ShrimP has a playmaker’s mindset, which in this case is a polite way of saying that he loves to sit way out in front of his team and get killed a lot. A high death share like ShrimP’s can be okay if it’s coming as a result of creating positive action for the team, but in fact, ShrimP has the lowest kill participation on his squad. He also has the lowest ward output of all NA LCS junglers, despite playing a champion pool that features plenty of room for Sightstones. These shortcomings are hard to overlook, especially since his aggressive tendencies aren’t paying off as explosively as they did back in the Challenger Series.

9. Rami “Inori” Charagh, Phoenix1

KDA KP DTH% DMG% WPM 2.6 81.8% 21.9% 14.1% 0.69

Champions: Hecarim (2), Olaf (2), Kindred

After being sidelined by visa issues, Inori made his debut with Phoenix1 this week. Inori says his goal is to change Phoenix1’s fate, and they desperately need him to turn in some strong showings if they want to climb out of the cellar. The early signs have been middling, leaning toward unimpressive. Inori has yet to do anything to make himself stand out and convince Phoenix1 fans that he’s going to turn the team’s fortunes around. We need to see a lot more.

8. Anthony “Hard” Barkhovtsev, Echo Fox​

KDA KP DTH% DMG% WPM 3.1 61.9% 15.3% 13.4% 0.69

Champions: Rek’Sai (5), Gragas (3), Olaf (3), Elise (2), Graves, Hecarim, Kha’zix

I had high hopes for Hard this split, following a pretty decent spring performance. Unfortunately, Hard seems to have hit the dreaded sophomore slump. He’s had a few strong gank games, but there have been too many games where he just doesn’t do enough and falls behind in CS. When that happens, he has a tendency to completely fade away as he struggles to find enough farm to be relevant. Hard’s teamfighting is pretty good, and now and then he brings out some solid mechanics, but those strengths aren’t consistent enough to outweigh his current weaknesses. More focus in his champion pool might help. So too might Echo Fox’s recent coaching change. Hopefully Hard can find the right ingredients to live up to his potential.

7. Kim “Procxin” Se-Young, EnVyUs​

KDA KP DTH% DMG% WPM 3.4 72.9% 21.8% 18.9% 0.69

Champions: Graves (6), Elise (4), Nidalee (3), Rek’Sai (3), Gragas, Kindred, Olaf

Last split, Procxin caught my eye with his ability to create plays and be aggressive, though he lacked some discernment about when to attempt those plays. This split, Procxin has begun to develop more of a filter on his decision-making, which is a positive, though there have still been some brain-dead moments that have cost his team. Procxin has struggled with his teamfighting and initiations at times, but he has been a good piece of the puzzle in EnVyUs’s macro-focused style and has had enough big games to keep hope alive that he can grow into a more consistent, well-rounded player. As a side note, Procxin’s priority on picking Graves borders on inexplicable, especially given that he’s only 3-3 on the champion.

6. Lucas “Santorin” Larsen, NRG eSports​

KDA KP DTH% DMG% WPM 5.2 80.0% 11.7% 16.6% 0.84

Champions: Rek’Sai (6), Gragas (5), Nidalee (4), Elise (3), Graves, Kindred

Santorin usually has a good idea of what he’s supposed to be doing on the map, based on his team’s and his opponents’ composition, but while he rarely makes active mistakes, he often falls short of fully executing his game plan. Santorin has always had a reputation of playing too safely, and his very low death share and resultant high KDA, show that he hasn’t gotten over his risk-averse mentality. He struggles to be creative or lead his team’s success through individual play, and that’s a shame, because NRG might look much stronger if Santorin and KiWiKiD could work together more consistently to set up the carry potential of their laners. Overall, Santorin is a solid jungler, but he needs to develop a killer instinct to push him over the top.

5. William “Meteos” Hartman, Cloud9

KDA KP DTH% DMG% WPM 7.6 71.2% 16.6% 15.3% 0.84

Champions: Rek’Sai (12), Kindred (4), Elise (2), Gragas (2), Olaf

In his heyday, Meteos was the consensus best jungler in North America. That was before the import doors swung wide open and before he took a split-and-a-half hiatus. His comeback hasn’t exactly been the return of the king, but he’s been solid in a secondary role, mostly providing ganks, vision, and secondary engage. On the negative side, his team fighting has been inconsistent, especially on Kindred, and he sometimes positions too far forward when invading or moving around the map with his team which leads to some unnecessary deaths. Those mistakes, along with a lack of primary playmaking and a relatively shallow champion pool, hold Meteos out of the upper echelon, despite his impressive KDA and WPM.

4. Jake “Xmithie” Puchero, Counter Logic Gaming

KDA KP DTH% DMG% WPM 3.0 69.2% 20.0% 17.8% 0.69

Champions: Kindred (7), Elise (5), Rek’Sai (4), Gragas (2), Graves, Nidalee

Xmithie has showed big-game ability this split with some very impressive carry performances. He has been relatively consistent, and when he does make mistakes they are rarely egregious. In too many games, though, Xmithie is simply mediocre and does not get very much done. Some of the blame for his occasional weak games falls on his team’s poor play — including some soft individual showings by some of his laners — but Xmithie has to own up to his own shortcomings and continue to improve on his ability to be a more active leader in creating wins for his team.

3. Dennis “Svenskeren” Johnsen, Team SoloMid

KDA KP DTH% DMG% WPM 4.5 66.3% 24.7% 15.8% 0.86

Champions: Rek’Sai (12), Gragas (2), Graves (2), Nidalee (2), Elise

Svenskeren isn’t one of TSM’s primary playmakers. He has the dubious distinction of having the lowest kill participation and highest death share on his team, a circumstance he shares with ShrimP, of all people. But Svenskeren does a pretty good job of contributing to his team through vision and supportive pathing, and performs well when he can be the second man into a fight. If Svenskeren could develop into a more reliable initiator, improve his farming efficiency (especially in the early game), and tidy up the random deaths that sometimes creep into his play, he would give his team more versatility, which would help TSM look like a more believable international threat.

2. Josh “Dardoch” Hartnett, Team Liquid

KDA KP DTH% DMG% WPM 3.4 71.2% 21.6% 20.2% 0.62

Champions: Olaf (5), Elise (2), Nidalee (2), Rek’Sai (2), Graves, Kindred, Lee Sin, Rengar

Everywhere Dardoch goes, something happens. A lot of those things are good for his team; some not so much. The high-risk style Dardoch embraces is rare and exciting, and in a league like the NA LCS where good playmakers are hard to come by, Dardoch's skill set and ability to manufacture wins is very valuable. That said, Dardoch’s poor vision control is hard to excuse — please stop buying red smite on Nidalee — and his all-in attitude isn’t the right approach for every situation.

Dardoch is immensely talented, but his aggression is somewhat binary, and a double-edged sword. If he can learn to rein himself in a bit more and add a more robust supportive element to his game, he could be North America's best jungler. For now, he still has a few rough edges to smooth out.

1. Kim “Reignover” Yeu-jin, Immortals​

KDA KP DTH% DMG% WPM 5.0 75.5% 18.1% 17.0% 0.80

Champions: Rek’Sai (8), Olaf (5), Nidalee (3), Graves (2), Gragas

Reignover was a deserving MVP in the 2016 spring split, setting a very high bar for himself to live up to. So far this split, Reignover hasn’t run over his opponents quite so dominantly, but we aren’t here to measure Reignover against himself; we’re here to measure him against the other NA junglers.

Reignover consistently out-farms his opponents (he leads all NA junglers with +5.9 CSD@10), while often also out-ganking them, out-teamfighting them, all the while keeping up the pace on the vision game. Reignover drives his team’s success, both as a stabilizing anchor and as an enabler for Huni’s chaotic aggression, and also as a playmaking threat in his own right. Shutting down Reignover has proven to be a full-team task—just ask TSM, the only team to beat Immortals so far. Reignover really is the complete package, and continues to be the best jungler in the NA LCS.

Tim "Magic" Sevenhuysen runs OraclesElixir.com, the premier source for League of Legends esports statistics. You can find him on Twitter, unless he’s busy giving one of his three sons a shoulder ride.