There’s just something so satisfyingly exciting about being on low health while a group of 1 or more enemy champions try to run you down, only for you to juke them with your misdirection.
While technically all champions can do this with spells like Flash or simply running in and out of an unwarded brush, some definitely do it better than others, and a lot of that has to do with mobility and some sort of spell that allows them to either dash, gain a burst of movement speed, or go invisible.
So today, let’s have a look at some of the champions who excel at it, regardless of their role. But before we get to it, let’s have a look at what juking actually is.
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A Brief Introduction of Juking
To make it simple, juking simply means an attempt to escape death by leading the opponent in the wrong direction.
There are multiple ways to do this, such as escaping through different terrain, misleading them in a different brush, or simply getting away unseen. For the sake of this article, we’re going to choose champions with juke potential rather than sheer mobility.
Champions like Talon and Kassadin can easily scale terrain with spammable skills, but for now we’ll focus on other champions who have skills specifically meant to confuse, disortient, or downright trick opponents as compared to sheer mobility. That said, let’s dive right in!
1. Shaco
The Demon Jester definitely makes it as one of the best juking champions on this list. Most champions with some sort of stealth or camouflage tend to give out some kind of warning to opponents when they are within range.
Take a look at Pyke, Twitch, and Evelynn. Getting close enough to an opponent renders the stealth ineffective. This is more useful as a repositioning tool, rather than an escape tool when you’re close enough.
The same goes for Rengar. While he isn’t outright revealed, it does warn enemies when he’s close. Shaco has no such weakness, unless you do it close enough for your opponents to see the smoke from Deceive.
You could literally walk right up to them and they wouldn’t know it until you revealed yourself. On top of making him invisible, it also has a repositioning tool built-in that goes over terrain. Jack in the Box is also an important juking tool.
It makes opponents think twice about whether or not they really want to enter certain areas. It also works great when you put them in escape routes, ensuring you’ll either see opponents coming from that direction, or that you’ll have a path to fall back on if things go south.
Finally, his ultimate skill Hallucinate is an absolute pain to deal with. You can actually use it while you’re invisible from Deceive to mess with your opponents even more. When opponents see you smoke away, you could activate it and hide in the brush, making them think that the illusion is the real you, because the illusion wouldn’t be able to use a skill.
There’s really a lot you can do with Deceive and Hallucinate alone. Either way, they can be a pain to deal with in the hands of a skilled player.
2. LeBlanc
Next up on this list is LeBlanc. Just like Shaco, she is one of those champions that have been around for a really long time, so much so that some people forget she’s there. Her skills allow her to be one of the most slippery champions out there, and we expect nothing less from someone who is literally called The Deceiver.
While she is squishy and prone to being killed from chain CC, items like Banshee’s Veil should help out if you find yourself being stunned 2 times too many. She has a lot of tools under her belt that allow her to quickly maneuver away from foes.
In fact, her passive skill Mirror Image, sort of works a lot like Shaco’s Hallucinate in terms of misdirection. You could even argue it works better in terms of juking, as it makes her invisible during the duration and opponents could be chasing the wrong one without knowing.
Besides her passive, she has Distortion, which is basically what makes her so hard to catch. She can dash to a location and return to the original position within 4 seconds of casting. A lot can happen in 4 seconds.
You could simply walk away, and just before the 4 seconds is up, you recast it and hide from whoever is chasing you. If only one champion is chasing you, it is almost always a surefire way to escape, unless you’re dealing with someone with absurd amounts of consistent movement speed.
LeBlance is also great at dodging through brushes, because she can duck in and out of them for the more traditional way of juking, but shackles chasing enemy champions with Ethereal Chains. This not only helps you be aware of where they are in terms of direction, but dissuades them from following you.
Finally, her ultimate Mimic, basically gives her the ability to use any of her skills a second time in quick succession. Yes, this means either having the ability to potentially jump 2-4 times with Distortion or chain shackling the opponent (or perhaps shackling 2 opponents) with Ethereal Chains.
The flexibility it offers is also invaluable for someone as squishy as LeBlanc, but the ability to adapt to whatever situation may come your way is simply liberating.
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3. Zed
I know a lot of people were waiting for him to show up on this list, and it’s not hard to see why. Zed is one of the best juking champions out there, and on this list, he’s probably one of the most played champions as well.
Zed is known for his ability to do these crazy dives on low health, with or without Triumph as a rune. Zed’s Living Shadow is what allows him to be so slippery. It works a bit like LeBlanc’s Distortion, but he doesn’t dash right away. Instead, he can send his shadow out and switch places with it at any time throughout the duration of the skill.
In terms of juking, you could just throw it out in a direction away from where you’re headed. If the opponent follows you, you could just switch places with the shadow when they’re close enough, putting a big enough gap between you and your opponent. Zed also doesn’t suffer from the constraints of mana, so he can use it fairly often.
Zed also has his ultimate, Death Mark, and while we all know how deadly it can be, this is still ultimately a list about juking. As such, we’d like to point out that this skill actually makes you invulnerable while the animation is going on.
This means you can dodge point-and-click spells that you normally wouldn’t be able to no matter how dextrous and quick your reaction time is. Spells like Veigar’s Primordial Burst would be rendered useless.
This is also an excellent skill for opponents trying to gang up on you under tower, as it also leaves behind a shadow that you can use to reposition yourself with after the initial invulnerability. When you pair his ultimate with Living Shadow, opponents will always be guessing where you’ll be next, even without brushes around to hide.
4. Lee Sin
We’ve all seen the crazy Lee Sin plays over the years. Pick up a ward, venture into the jungle, and you’re basically map hacking. Well, not really, but you get the point. Much like Zed, he uses an energy system, so mana is one thing he doesn’t need to think about.
Lee Sin is already very mobile by default, but when fights break out in the jungle or close to a minion wave, an experienced Lee Sin will be very tough to catch. This is because Resonating Strike allows him to dash to the target hit by Sonic Wave.
It’s commonly used as an initiating tool, but don’t be afraid to use it on jungle monsters or enemy minions to either go through terrain when being chased or simply put some distance between you and your opponent.
Safeguard is another skill that helps Lee Sin effectively reposition himself. It allows you to dash to friendly units, and while that often means minions or allies – the latter being a much better option to get the shield benefit – you may also use it on wards in a pinch.
This can act as an extra set of Flash for when it’s on cooldown or you simply don’t want to use it. If you don’t feel too confident about the speed at which you can drop your ward and dash to it in a split second, you can simply put a ward down where you think you might need to dash and treat it like a checkpoint.
For instance, if you’re trying to take down an objective like Baron, you could put the ward behind his pit, just in case you need to make a quick escape or pick off opponents standing there in an attempt to steal it. You can also put a ward in the brush for quick dashes between 2 of them to annoy your opponents,
While not technically a juking skill both Tempest and Cripple can help juke around brushes. Tempest gives you vision, which basically means that you know when an opponent is at the edge of the brush.
Once you see him walking towards your brush, you could walk back to his brush and slow him with Cripple to make an escape. Dragon’s Kick is basically a bowling ball effect. If an opponent is chasing you, you could simply kick them away and continue running. This is even more effective at the edge of the brush, as they won’t see you coming.
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5. Katarina
On this list, Katarina has the highest potential for multiple charges, and a big reason for that boils down to 2 things, Shunpo and her daggers. The former is relatively straightforward. Shunpo allows her to blink to a target, friend or foe.
That gives her a degree of repositioning that not even Lee Sin has, assuming there’s vision for it. It’s also a point and click ability, so it’s fairly reliable. When allies aren’t around, she also has the option to blink to her daggers. 2 of her skills, Bouncing Blade and Preparation, generate daggers.
Bouncing Blade hits enemies before ricocheting into the ground, while Preparation just tosses them into the air. While Bouncing Blade has some degree of randomness where it lands, you can use Preparation to choose an escape route should you need it.
Now that we discussed the 2 factors, let’s see why Katarina is just so great at juking. Shunpo already has a low cooldown by default, but when you consider that the cooldown gets reduced every time she participates in a takedown through her passive skill Voracity, it goes even lower.
When you dash to daggers, it gets even more absurd as it lowers the cooldown of Shunpo by 96% at max level. That allows you to dash in and out, maybe a little too fast.
The fact that she can leave behind a dagger at her choosing, gain a movement speed bonus from Preparation, then blink to any of the daggers or opponent of her choosing, makes her very slippery in game.
6. Wukong
No matter what version of The Monkey King you are playing, you just know he’s a trickster, and it really shows. In fact, a quick glance at his abilities show you that 3 of them are absolutely excellent for juking.
Let’s start with what he’s most known for. Warrior Trickster (formerly infamously known as Decoy) is Wukong’s bread and butter. This allows Wukong to go invisible, dash away, and leave behind a clone. It’s done so seamlessly that opponents don’t often realize it isn’t Wukong they’re attacking.
Similarly, you could use that to play mind games on your opponent and just stand still attacking for a while while they’re pounding on you to make them think they’re attacking an illusion. Just make sure not to overdo it.
When they walk away trying to look for the real Wukong, you should start running in the opposite direction. You can also use it to dash towards a brush without your opponents seeing which brush you went in to.
Next up, Nimbus Strike is great for repositioning. This works particularly well for those situations where opponents know you’re in the brush and walk toward you. When they approach, use Nimbus Strike to close the gap and walk away from them.
When trying to juke between 2 or more brushes, his ultimate skill Cyclone is excellent. It’s at its most effective when you use it just before they enter the brush.
As soon as they get close, activate it, knock them into the air, enter the bush they came from with the 20% movement speed boost it gives, then do it again if they choose to continue following you.
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7. Fizz
In terms of lore, Fizz is called The Tidal Trickster, so like an aquatic yordle with a penchant for tricks. A lot of his skills are actually excellent for juking and baiting. His passive skill Nimble Fighter actually allows him to semi-juke in lane, which is particularly effective against melee champions.
He can go through units and just hide behind them like terrain if opponents chase you. His ability Urchin Strike is one of the more unique dashes out there, particularly because he travels a fixed distance.
What this means is that if you use it in melee range, he actually dashes behind his opponents instead of just blinking on his opponent like Wukong’s Nimbus Strike.
What really makes Fizz tough to catch, however, has to be Playful/Trickster. The first part involves him hopping onto his spear, and aside from being cute, it has the practical characteristic of making Fizz invulnerable for its duration.
From there you can either activate Trickster to dash away or simply slam on the ground. You can also change directions on the fly, so it’s good for tricking your opponents into thinking you’re going through terrain.
This is useful in higher elo matches where the opponents like to predict what you’re going to do. If you’re lucky, they will Flash over the terrain, and you could simply just hang back or activate Trickster toward the other direction.
Conclusion
A lot of these champions can be really tough to catch, especially in terms of jukes. Of course, there are other ways of escaping, such as through multiple vaulting like Talon, dashing away multiple times like Rakan, or simply running away really, really quickly, like Sion’s Unstoppable Onslaught (we don’t recommend using it this way, but it’s a game, so do what you want!).
So which of the champions above caught your eye? Do you feel like your favorite champion should be part of this list? Let us know in the comments below!
