A double jungle strat that takes advantage of a bug with the new jungle items has been taking over solo queue in both Korea and China, with mid laners often running Smite to gain a huge advantage.
The jungle changes implemented in patch 12.22 have had some mixed reception, and Riot have already committed to tweaking how long it takes to clear camps as well as how much health and mana you gain for killing camps.
With so many systems changing all at once, there was bound to be some sort of strategy or method of breaking the new jungle companions and the items they’re attached to.
A few mechanics attached to the new and (in some ways) improved jungle items have allowed both the mid laner and jungler to run Smite with a jungle companion of their own.
Double jungle strat is game-breakingly good in Season 13
Double jungling isn’t a new concept when it comes to League of Legends, especially in the bygone times of things like the Yi/Taric funnel strat, River Shen, Smite Janna top, and other irregular and bizarre meta shifts where players bend the rules of League of Legends to the breaking point.
Now, a new strategy has arisen that takes advantage of the treat stacking passive on the jungle items. If you purchase it and then sell it, the treats will keep stacking even without the companion on you or the item in your inventory.
These treats grant 50 additional gold upon clearing a jungle camp, and you get an additional treat every minute with no cap. It’s essentially an exploit that allows players to get free gold.
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Not to mention that selling the jungle item allows players to bypass the early farm penalty placed upon junglers who try to farm via minions, allowing the player utilizing this strat to lane normally.
Korean YouTuber Rainbow Flavor put together an easy-to-understand video demonstrating the strategy with some visual aids to display exactly how to take advantage of the new items.
By the time they hit the later stages of the game and purchase their jungle item, Rainbow Flavor already had 11 treats on their passive. With each one being 50 gold, that’s 550 gold that they gained on top of the normal rewards for clearing jungle camps.
Kim ‘Doinb’ Tae-sang, a content creator and pro player in the LPL, has also been shown using this strat in solo queue. While it’s sure to be patched soon considering that this isn’t an intended way to use this item, it remains to be seen whether or not double jungling could still be a viable option without this exploit.
If you’re looking for a jungle champion to play when playing the role normally, you can find our list of the best junglers for the current patch here.