Riot talks about including League of Legends champions like Kai’Sa and Braum in the jungle to make the role more accessible

In terms of popularity, the jungling role in League of Legends is the least favored now.

Riot plans to make the role more accessible for those who are new to jungling but want to take up the role for the first time.

Jungling in League of Legends has not been as rewarding in season 11 as it used to be in previous seasons. With the recent XP changes, more and more new players have been put off by the jungling role.

However, Riot wants to make the jungle more accessible, and in the recent League of Legends patch 11.8 update, they made a couple of champions viable in the role.

The patch brought significant buffs to Darius, Morgana, Zed, and Mordekaiser significant buffs in the jungle. There have been significant quality-of-life updates against neutral monster camps, and Darius in particular has risen to be incredibly potent in the role.

Additionally, in a blog post on 16 April, League of Legends developer Jeevun “Jag” Sidhu opened up about what the devs are planning for the jungle role in a future update.

He said,

“We saw an opportunity to ease in players to the jungle with champions they’re already familiar with playing. By doing this, an unfamiliar jungle player can just focus on learning the specifics of the role, without also having to learn a new champion at the same time.”

Kai’Sa and Braum might be added to the list of League of Legends junglers

Kai’Sa and Braum are two incredibly popular champions in League of Legends, and them being included in the jungle role can very much be on the cards.

However, League of Legends devs have some reservations regarding these two champions being tweaked to fit the jungle role.

In a recent Reddit post, Sidhu discussed the inclusion of Kai’Sa in the jungle and added:

“Her pro presence is high enough that adding flex potential would always be dangerous; in her case, it would probably be disastrous, as most of her draft responses are oriented around her lane being vulnerable,”

Kai’Sa has been one of the most picked AD carry champions throughout each of the regions, so giving her a jungle role can hamper the competitive integrity of the game.

Sidhu also admits that League of Legends devs are also aware of not buffing those jungle champions who are a bit too problematic to balance. When talking about the likes of Camille and Syla, he said:

“If we nerfed a champion out of the jungle it was probably on purpose. Maybe they were overly dominant in pro, or maybe they had an unhealthy pattern when in the jungle. Unless things have drastically changed ⁠— like updates to the kits/items/runes that were problematic ⁠— these picks are not likely to come back.”

There have been no drastic changes to the jungle role in the League of Legends PBE 11.9 cycle so far. But there is a possibility of newer champions coming to the jungle in the upcoming update.