How to make friends and destroy fools as full AD Jarvan IV

When Apex Gaming signed Jeon "Ray" Jiwon as their starting top laner, many North American League of Legends fans were probably not too familiar with the Korean prospect who had spent the last two years in China's LSPL (the secondary league in the region). But after two weeks of excellent play on what looks like a playoff-contending team, he's quickly becoming a household name for League fans (and a must pick-up in your fantasy league).

TheScore's Kelsey Moser wrote an excellent retrospective on Ray's career so far, calling him "one of the most obviously gifted players to grace the [LSPL]." One thing Ray was known for was his play with Jarvan IV, particularly his tendency to build the champion with full attack damage rather than any defensive stats.

In his 26 games in either the LSPL or in the LPL promotion series, Jarvan IV as Ray's most-played champion, with a 5-2 record and an average KDA of 5.03.

For anyone who saw Ray's amazing performance on Jarvan IV in Game 2 against Team Envy Friday, that will come as no surprise. And neither will this, from Moser's piece about Ray's career in China:

No, Jarvan IV wasn't meta at the time, but Ray built a purely AD Jarvan IV and split-pushed across the map to split and confuse the opposition. If a teamfight arose, he would dive after the enemy team's AD carry and eliminate him with AD Jarvan IV's burst damage. Regardless of what happened to Ray after that, his team would win the fight off the play.

Sound familiar?

When he locked it in against Shin "Seraph" Woo-yeong's Irelia, a top-tier top laner playing a top-tier champion, former Team Dignitas coach Barento "Razleplasm" Mohammed knew what was up.

oh my god it's Ray's full AD jarvan

— Raz (@Razleplasm) June 11, 2016

Well, here's about how it went.

You can watch full highlights of the game here.

Want to know how to do that in your ranked games? We're here to help.

The runes:

Usually, Jarvan IVs bring attack damage reds, magic resist blues, armor yellows and attack damage quints. Ray does not do any of that, instead bringing armor penetration reds and quints, scaling health yellows and scaling CDR blues.

The armor penetration is key, as you'll see with his item build later, as it allows Jarvan IV to basically negate the starting armor of squishy targets like the enemy AD Carry.

The masteries:

Here's the Mastery tree Ray used, with Thunderlord's Decree as the Keystone. This differs slightly from Champion.gg's most frequent mastery page (which has Vampirism, Sorcery and Bounty Hunter instead of Natural Talent, Fury and Oppressor), but the key is Thunderlord's, which will augment your burst damage.

The build:

Ray built Doran's Blade first, an aggressive move (Corrupting Potion is more popular), and then built Youmuu's Ghostblade, Duskblade of Drakthar, Ravenous Hydra and Maw of Malmortius. This gave him 1) basically every flat armor penetration item in the game 2) a speed boost with Ghostblade to jump on targets 3) guaranteed execution potential with Duskblade and 4) protection against magic damage dealers with Maw.

The ability order:

Ray started at level one with a point in Jarvan IV's E, Demacian Standard, before maxing Q (Dragon Strikes) then E then W (Golden Aegis).

The combo:

If you're looking to destroy an enemy carry, just find them and press E --- Q --- R --- auto attack on them, and use W if you need the extra defensive boost. If they have flash, wait until after they use it to use your ultimate. They should be dead by the time you're done.

Do pick against: Champions without a way to escape your ultimate, like Cho'Gath, Nautilus, and Ryze. Besides your lane opponent, also pay attention to the opposing AD Carry or any other squishy targets: someone like Sivir or Ashe is perfect to jump on or destroy.

Don't pick against: Teams with lots of dashes, especially in your lane opponent (Ekko, Riven, Tryndamere) and at ADC (Lucian and Tristana can make you sad by jumping out of your ultimate.) Also, don't pick it against Vayne -- she can stun Jarvan IV against his own wall and tumble out of it herself.