The Rise
During his prime jungle Nunu was adept at counter jungling, able to steal away an enemies buff and set them behind all game thanks to the huge consume damage. That same consume damage also made him great at controlling important objectives like Baron. The benefits of a Blood Boiled AD carry in fast push strategies certainly didn't hurt Nunu's popularity.
The power of Nunu jungle made him an often target for bans, he ate a ridiculous 41 bans in NA and 53 in EU LCS summer split. When he did make it through a few players like TheOddOne were able to make great use of him. Despite his strengths and his popularity Nunu actually ended with a losing record in both regions, foreshadowing the problems the pick would suffer when nerfs came down.
A new kind of Jungle
All things must come to an end, and Nunu's popularity is no exception. The first hit to Nunu came with a change to the jungle intended to hamper counter jungling. Experience granted by the large monsters in the buff camps was reduced so stealing away a buff at level 1 would no longer give you a level advantage. Nunu fell in popularity though he was still an okay choice for siege compositions.
The preseason changes brought another wave of changes to the jungle hit Nunu hard. With jungle monsters now scaling to the average level of everyone counter jungling does little to put people behind. Nunu's primary strength in the jungle, was completely negated. To make things worse Nunu's favored team composition, the siege comp. became weaker as changes to turrets made it harder to safely gain a turret advantage by sending your duo lane to 2v1 the top.
The Worst and the Best
Thus we come to today, where conveniently week 3 of the LCS has given us examples of good and bad team comps revolving around Nunu jungle, and a clear indicator of why he's no longer a strong pick.
First up Alliance over in EU broke out the Nunu jungle.
Alliance's team comp with the Nunu jungle did not make much sense sadly. Lucian does get benefits to his ultimate with Blood Boil but it does little to boost his tower pressure. Malphite has absolutely no way to make use of Nunu's skills. The only bit of synergy with the Nunu pick is Kayle, but once Kayle has her Nashors tooth the benefits of Blood Boil are a lot less significant in comparison to a jungler who can make picks.
Nunu's few strengths in the team don't even get to show up. Gambit quickly forces kills against Froggen's Kayle and Wickd's Malphite setting Alliance behind. Because he can't out fight or out gank Evelynn, the lack of an early lead for Alliance instantly made Nunu a non factor. With such a weak jungler on the enemy team Gambit was able to safely expand their lead all game long.
NA had the other side of the coin when Curse brought out Nunu against CLG.
The team comp from Curse is much more set up to make use of the jungle Nunu. Every champ other than Mundo is great for sieging turrets. Jinx is already a monster at killing towers, and with Janna AD buff and Nunu Blood Boil her tower crushing just gets magnified early game. Ziggs similarly is great at sieging turrets thanks to his poke and the extra auto attack damage from his passive. Add to that the strong disengage from Nunu and Janna, and you have a team that can come together to siege a turret and then safely back away when CLG tries to engage. Curse was also very smart in what they picked this team comp into. CLG rushed out Shyvana and Renekton in their first picks, exposing a lack of hard engage that would make Curse's team comp that much safer.
For the first 20 minutes of the game Curse plays their team comp perfectly. They send their duo to 2v1 top and fast push towers. Map rotations are on point quickly securing all the outer and inner turrets, and even picking up a few kills while staying relatively safe.
At 21 minutes Curse has taken the first inhibitor tower top lane and is beginning to siege for the inhibitor. This is when Curse makes the mistake that turns the entire game. First Nien on Shyvana and Aphromoo on Lulu are seen by Curse wards attempting to flank.
Curse plays this engage attempt well, using their disengage to safely prevent the fight. On important aspect they miss though is that Shyvana did not use her Dragons Descent ultimate in the fight. Right here Curse should back away, respecting the Shyvana ultimate, and wait for their own cool downs to come back. Instead, feeling the pressure of Nunu's looming time limit, Curse moves back in to try for the inhibitor.
A relatively simple mistake, but it was enough to completely end the dominance of Curse's team composition. Shyvana and Yasuo combo their ultimates and CLG gets three kills from this reengage. The pressure taken off from CLG picking up 3 kills was enough for them to take back control of the entire game. Soon after CLG pick up the Baron and Curse are never again able to dictate the flow of the game.
Please let Nunu die
Even in the perfect comp, played to near perfection we see the weakness of Nunu jungle. He can no longer effectively counter jungle to get ahead, Nunu cannot out fight or out gank any of a dozen more popular jungle picks, and lowered dragon value makes objective control with Consume less crucial. All that adds up to Nunu only being okay in a fast push team, and even then one small mistake turns Nunu from controlling the pace of the game to dragging his team to the bottom along with him. We can only hope that our favorite teams will finally get the message, Nunu is simply not up to par. .
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