Weird Picks #3: Jungle Zyra

The third segment of Weird Pick Wednesday is here, featuring as requested, Jungle Zyra! A slightly diverse selection, she's still very easy to execute as a jungler if not as a meta pick. Check out the full details inside!...

Introduction

As a classical support and mid lane champion, mages like Zyra rarely find themselves fighting wild raptors and golems in the depths of the jungle. Especially so after the "soft-leash" changes, ranged champions have more trouble than ever clearing the jungle with their weaker than average defenses and high base cooldowns. However, Zyra does surprisingly well in the jungle!

How it Works

With a standard set of AP runes/masteries and a standard R->Q->W->E skill set, Zyra can clear jungle well with a leash at first camp to get to level 2. Afterwards, by kiting camps and utilizing her plants as tanks, she takes relatively little damage.

Effectiveness

As an extremely squishy champion with a heavily skillshot reliant slow snare, Zyra is not for the faint of heart and rightly off-meta for that reason. Never ever gank a losing lane or if you suspect the enemy jungler is waiting to counter gank.

For the most part, she plays very similar to Amumu. After she gets liandries, she's essentially a higher damage, ranged version of Amumu with a slightly delayed AOE CC. Early game she's fairly weak and relies on her one skillshot to gank.

Pros

All in all, she provides a TON of damage through her base skills, extraordinary AOE CC/catching abilities, and AP damage for teams that are very AD heavy.

Cons

Picking support Zyra usually leaves your front line looking pretty non-existent, and is very hit or miss on early to mid game jungle pressure.

Conclusions

Jungle Zyra is a very fun role to play, but somewhat questionable in effectiveness. It's currently viable simply because of her extraordinarily high damage output as long as the enemy team isn't keen on large scale organized jungle invades,. However, as far as pure utility goes on paper, I don't think her skillset is worth bringing into the jungle at the moment.

What do you think? Want to see someone else in particular for this series? Comment below!