One of the best-known champions in League of Legends is Jinx, popularized through the hit-animated series by Riot Games, Arcane. In this article, you will learn everything about her abilities, passive, rune setup & mastery choices, summoner spells options, playstyle basics, and more!

The long-range hyper-carry Marksman champion leverages her range, paired with fast movement, to thrive in team-fighting environments. With the League of Legends World Championship ending, the preseason is about to kick off; now is the perfect time to start practicing for the upcoming League of Legends year. Let’s get right into everything you need to know about Jinx, the Loose Cannon.

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Jinx’s abilities & passive

Let’s see now all abilities and passive of Jinx in League of Legends. 

Jinx’s passive - Get Excited!

This is the key reason for Jinx’s team fighting strength. With the current importance of objectives in League of Legends, nearly all large team fights occur around them or after one of them is taken down. As such, Jinx often gets the ability to reposition to safety, making it much tougher for the enemy team to reach you. As Jinx is far more reliant on her basic attacks than most Marksman champions, your team must be capable of protecting you to ensure you can deal the most damage. 

Q - Switcheroo! 

This ability stands out as one of my favorite League of Legends,  as it defines Jinx as a champion. There is a lot of room for skill expression with Switcheroo! due to Jinx’s very low initial mana pool. As such, switching between the long-range and short-range forms is vital to controlling the lane phase. You become far more vulnerable to the enemy team if you run out of mana at a bad time. 

Jinx’s W - Zap!

Jinx’s W - Zap! remains the most basic part of Jinx’s kit. The main strength of the ability is the range of Zap! as it allows Jinx to damage and distract enemies from a safe distance. In addition, you should use Jinx’s W to check various brushes and dark areas around the map, as any enemy hit by Zap! is slowed and revealed for a short time. 

E - Flame Chompers

Jinx’s main defensive option is “E - Flame Chompers!”. Jinx can launch these traps at a short range, briefly cutting off an area of attack. Throw them in front of your enemies, and quickly trying and escape is often the game plan for you when you find yourself a bit too far forward on the map. However, don’t think you can only use Flame Chompers! as a defensive tool. With the large movement speed buff from your passive, you can also catch up and block off their escape. 

Jinx’s ultimate R - Super Mega Death Rocket!

Jinx’s ultimate is one of the most exciting abilities in League of Legends. The global-range ultimate is tough to master but often catches people off-guard. Whether you catch someone shopping during their recall or if you use it to try and steal an objective, there is always the moment when your team holds their breath to see if you can turn the game around in a blink. While it is slightly tougher to steal objectives after the 11.9 patch that capped the damage at 800 against Monsters (Previously 1000, with Smite being capped at 900 damage), there is always a chance to steal that dragon or Baron to keep the game going. 

Jins best rune setup & mastery choices 

In the current League of Legends meta, Jinx players nearly exclusively use the primary runes, as seen above. The only flexibility is in the secondary runes, where some players use Secondary Inspiration with Magical Footwear and Biscuit Delivery instead to gain slightly more strength during the laning phase. The most common situation you opt-in to this extra laning strength is if you are against very strong early-game champions, such as Karma. 

Jinx summoner spell options

By far, the most popular summoner spells for Jinx are the combination of Heal and Flash. Aside from Heal and Flash, there is a good argument for using the summoner spell Exhaust in place of Heal, most commonly with your Support player taking Heal instead. The situation in which that is preferable is during games against a strong melee-assassin champion like Fizz, Zed, Vex, or against strong Top lane Fighters like Fiora or Jax. 

Another summoner spell that is certainly worth consideration for higher-rated players is Cleanse. I say this because Cleanse’s power improves with players' reaction time, making it less effective on average for newer players. The spell is very specific to certain opponents, as not every team has unavoidable CC or spells that you need to cleanse to escape. A great example of a champion against which Cleanse is vital would be Leona, due to her various in-lane and long-range abilities that are hard to avoid or escape otherwise. 

Jinx primary itemization options 

Due to Jinx’s reliance on basic attacks and the Lethal Tempo rune choice, the most commonly used Mythic item is the Kraken Slayer. The synergy between Jinx’s fast attacking and inherent attack speed buff from Switcheroo! make this the clear highest damage choice. In addition to the Kraken Slayer Mythic item, Jinx, like most Marksman champions, want to prioritize reaching their Infinity Edge power spike. 

For those unfamiliar with the Infinity Edge, the item is effectively a damage steroid once you meet the 60% critical strike chance requirement. The item increases the damage dealt by critical strikes by 35%. With 20% from Kraken Slayer and an additional 20% from the Infinity Edge itself, players must build one other item alongside the infinity edge to meet the requirement. As such, most commonly, players build their Mythic first, a flexible item second, with the Infinity Edge third. 

The flexible item is often one of four options, with the most popular choice being the Phantom Dancer for increased mobility. The other three options include the Rapid Firecannon, Lord Domenik’s Regards, and the Runaan’s Hurricane. 

The Rapid Firecannon provides extra range for additional poking opportunities. Runaan’s Hurricane is the least popular but helps improve Jinx’s wave-clearing abilities, though that is rarely an issue. Last is Lord Dominik’s Regards, an item that helps you fight through a strong frontline due to increasing damage against higher health targets and the 30% armor penetration. 

Alternative item choices for Jinx 

Aside from the Kraken Slayer Mythic item, some players choose to use the Galeforce Mythic item instead. However, as the damage output loss is incredibly severe, I wouldn’t recommend this. The main use case where the Galeforce may be worthwhile over the Kraken Slayer is at the lower ranks of League of Legends, where it can function as an additional “save” to reduce the impact of any mistakes you may make throughout learning to play Jinx. 

Starting items & boots for Jinx

Jinx’s starting items are quite simple. The most common option is to use the traditional start with Doran’s Blade and a potion. The alternative of Longsword with three potions is a better choice against poking champions like Karma, Heimerdinger, and the like. 

For boots, Jinx should only use Berserker’s Greaves, in order to deal as much damage as possible. The most common time players purchase the Berserker’s Greaves are during their first recall or after their Kraken Slayer mythic item is complete. 

Jinx’s playstyle basics

Your role as Jinx in League of Legends is to stay in the back and stay safe. The longer you are alive in a fight, the more damage you get to deal. Jinx takes over team fights by cleaning up and chasing people down with Get Excited! Before your passive is active, you should often prioritize repositioning and safety over everything else. After your first kill or assist, it is game on, and your opponents better get out quickly before they are all in the death chamber!

Throughout your League of Legends match's early stages, Jinx wants the game to be stable, as her strongest point is after the three-item power spike we discussed earlier. While getting a kill, a tower, or even an early objective is great, these aren’t nearly as important as a consistent income. Please remember that before you repeatedly throw yourself at the enemy, as my teammates did in preparation for this story.

A great tip for everyone looking to add Jinx to their arsenal of champions is to consciously think of which players on the enemy team are a threat to you and what CC options they have to lock you down. Waiting out certain cooldowns and ultimates before you get involved can completely change the course of a team fight. To reiterate, getting caught is the worst thing that can happen to you. You can’t deal damage when you are dead. 

Matchups & lane partners for Jinx in League of Legends

Learning your matchups is vital for any role in League of Legends. Part of that is knowing who and when you are strong, and how you can mitigate your weaknesses. If we take Jinx as an example, there is a clear difference in her win rate against certain types of Marksman opponents. For example, Jinx performs significantly better against short-range Marksman champions like Vayne, Kalista, Zeri, and Samira. Leveraging the long range of Jinx’s rocket form allows you to control the lane phase against all of these champions, making it much tougher for them to pull off their all-in attempts successfully. 

Similarly, Jinx lacks a lot of mobility in the early laning phases, making her more vulnerable to champions with CC and the ability to start fights. For example, champions like Amumu or Blitzcrank make your laning phase much tougher to play, as they can start a 2-vs-2 fight at almost any time. As such, it is no surprise Jinx performs best with champions with strong defensive and disengaging tools, such as Lulu and Janna. 

All the available skins for Jinx 

With Jinx’s popularity also comes a whole heap of fantastic skins to use. A total of seven skins for Jinx are currently available for purchase, including the legendary skin Star Guardian Jinx first released in 2016. In addition, to celebrate the release of the Riot Games animated series, Arcane, Riot Games freely gave the Arcane Jinx skin to all players alongside several other Arcane-themed skins. 

Aside from these, Jinx also has access to a Mythic skin, the Prestige edition for the Battle Cat Jinx skin. And two currently unobtainable “seasonal” skins for the Christmas and Valentine's events; Ambitious Elf Jinx and Heartseeker Jinx. 

Ready to play Jinx?

Now that you got all this knowledge about the Loose Cannon Jinx, why not try it for yourself? With G-Loot you can track all your League of Legends stats, and make your GGs more rewarding thanks to our daily Missions and weekly Leaderboards. 

We also have other exciting articles for you like the best competitive settings for League of Legends, or a brief history of modes and maps if you are into League of Legends lore.