League of Legends is seeing new funnel strategy, where top laners are picking Janna with Smite

Apparently, there is a new funnel strategy in League of Legends where players are investing in a top lane Janna pick and then providing her with Smite.

This latest trick exploits the new bounty system in the game and the recent changes that hit Janna a couple of days ago.

Objective bounties in Season 12 add additional gold on objectives for the losing team, allowing teams that are behind to have a more reliable way of coming back into the game. The Janna-Smite mechanic utilizes this very system to create a funnel strategy and snowball the other lanes by sacrificing the top lane.

On the surface, it seems like a very risky maneuver to pull off. However, in the latest episode of The Dive podcast, LCS casters and analysts Isaac “Azael” Cummings Bentley, Mark “MarkZ” Zimmerman, and Sam “Kobe” Hartman-Kenzler talked about just how viable the strategy is in Season 12.

Additionally, Janna is not the only support champion that can pull this off. The casters feel that enchanters like Karma can perfectly fit the role.

---

How does League of Legends’ Janna top with Smite work?

To pull the strategy off, players usually start by gaining a few levels into the support champion and then look to abandon the lane as much as possible. This entails keeping interactions with the top lane opponent at a minimum.

It’s primarily a roaming strategy, and during the early part of the game, gamers will need to invade the enemy jungle and steal away camps to put them in a deficit and mess with their jungle pathing.

Then, after going back to the lane, they invest a few more levels into themselves and start to roam the map with the jungler to help snowball the other lanes.

This not only helps the other lanes have a much easier time in the game, but it creates a deficit in the top lane, allowing the enemy top laner and turret to accumulate bounty, courtesy of the new system. This bounty is then cashed in after a good rotation and funneled into the carries in the game.

This League of Legends strategy, when played right, can create large bounties across the map that the teams can cash in and snowball the remainder of the game.

However, the top Janna with Smite is a bit difficult to pull off and should be avoided in lower elos, where there is hardly much coordination amongst the team members. It works quite well in the higher ranks, and it will be interesting to see if any professional teams will be willing to pilot it in the LEC, LCS, LPL, or even the LCK.