Welcome to the Jungle - Runeterra Labs

This is a guide for the Legends of Runeterra lab, "Welcome to the Jungle". It includes the special rules for this game mode, an overview of the jungle monsters and the buffs they grant, and some constructed decks that are especially effective.

The Rules

Quote From Lab Description

Time for a little…field research!

Get right into the action with one of three preconstructed decks, or run wild with one of your own!

- Both players have Vulnerable, Immobile jungle monsters on their board.

- Killing your opponent's jungle monster grants you a powerful buff spell.

- Killing a jungle monster also spawns another in its place next round. Watch out—the new one may be even stronger!

If any of the following are in your deck, they'll be replaced with a low-grade Mk1: Wrenchbot to maintain scientific integrity:

Culling Strike, Shadow Fiend, Atrocity

Notes:

• You can choose either a constructed deck of your own or "Quickplay!", which will randomly assign you one of Riot's premade decks
• Both players start the game with a allied 1|4 Crimson Raptor. Each time they die, they are either replaced at the start of the next round either with an identical jungle monster or the "next tier"
  • If you have a full board of 6, the jungle monster will automatically override your weakest unit, obliterating it
• Each round, the player on defense also receives a fleeting 1 mana slow "Jungle Invade" spell. This spell functions like Single Combat except that it can only target the enemy jungle monster and non-jungle allies.
• When a jungle monster dies, it gives its opponent a fleeting 0 mana burst spell that offers their choice between 3 boons.
  • The strength of the boon is proportional to the size of the jungle monster.

Jungle Monsters

The jungle monster tiers are

1. 1|4 Crimson Raptor
2. 2|6 Ancient Krug
3. 3|8 Rift Herald 
4. 6|12 Baron Nashor

Tiers 1 - 3 will give you a fleeting 0 mana burst speed that lets you chose 1 of the following 3 options, where X is the tier level:

• Give all allies in hand and in deck +X|+X
• Gain X empty mana crystals and draw X cards
• Heal your Nexus for (X+1) and summon an allied follower
  • Tier 1 = 3|4, Tier 2 =  4|6, Tier 3 =  6|10

Baron Nashor gives "Hand of Baron", a fleeting 0 mana slow spell with Rally and Give all allies +3|+3 and Overwhelm this round. It is intended to be a "finishing" spell.

Strategy

In general, the short-term investment of killing off the jungle monsters is worth the long-term benefits they provide -- just be careful not to gain "tunnel-vision" and ignore the rest of your opponent's board.

Be careful managing your hand size and staying under the maximum limit of 10 cards. The fleeting Jungle Invade is created before you draw, so if you already have 9 cards in-hand at the end of an attacking round you're going to burn your top deck. You can also run into disappoint if you go to kill off a jungle unit only to fill the 10th spot in your hand with a Gem from a Mountain Goat or Mentor of the Stones mid-combat -- the reward spell will get burned.

Decks

If you choose "Quickplay!", you'll be randomly assigned one of the following decks:

• A Diana + Leona Targon/SI focused on Daybreak and Nightfall
• A Lucian + Kalista Demacia/SI deck focused on death synergies (Dawnspeakers, Rhasa the Sunderer, etc)
• A Zed + Lulu Ionia/Frejlord deck focused on support and deck-buff (Starlit Seer, Omen Hawk, etc)

Here are some hot constructed decks for dominating this lab.

When We've Seen Welcome to the Jungle