How to win the jungle race as Hecarim against Graves · Matchup data reviewed on patch 26.15
Read from Hecarim's seat: the race windows this plan plays for against Graves.
| Stage | Read | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Level 1 Clear | Respect Graves | The window at the first buff belongs to Graves: End of the Line plus knockback autos shred melees holding a buff pit. Your own line is real — Rampage spam clears quickly and stacked Q wins camp-side trades — but it arrives second here. Fight him in the open where his pellets spread, never inside a tight buff pit, then skip the level-1 crossing. |
| Level 2 Skirmish | Respect Graves | At level 2 this window belongs to Graves: Quickdraw (E) True Grit armor stacking lets them out-trade in tight jungle lanes, and True Grit armor plus point-blank double-shot autos win any close-range brawl. Fight him in the open where his pellets spread, never inside a tight buff pit. Refuse the level-2 skirmish and bank tempo on the opposite side of the map. |
| Level 3 Route | Respect Graves | True Grit armor plus point-blank double-shot autos win any close-range brawl — Hecarim has no answer to that at level 3. Smoke Screen's blind caps a kit that wins almost every close-quarters exchange on their half of the map too, so give up the level-3 river fight and answer the pressure cross-map. |
| Levels 4-5 Macro | Respect Graves — Path Opposite | Levels 4-5 still belong to Graves in a straight fight — farm the opposite side, answer their ganks cross-map, and wait for your spike. |
| Level 6 Breakpoint | Respect Graves's R | The six-spike belongs to Graves, and Hecarim's does not bridge the gap: the R execute plus True Grit armor closes out any trade he starts ahead. Respect the burst threshold and fight him in the open, never the pit. Your own ultimate is a tool here, not a trump card — spend it to escape or equalize, not to start fights. |
| First Item Spike | Spear of Shojin Spike | Spear of Shojin's passive adds bonus damage on ability hits and cuts your cooldowns further, but it grants no movement speed of its own — your speed still comes from Warpath and Devastating Charge stacking on top of it. Your camp-clearing loops get noticeably faster, letting you clear out both sides before forcing aggressive neutral pit takes. This priority shatters Graves's capacity to match your map tempo evenly. Graves' first item is a large step in raw damage — the double-shot at point blank starts removing squishies outright. |
| 2+ Items Scaling | Respect Graves Late — End Early | Graves out-stats you from two items on — stop taking straight 1v1s, close through objectives and picks, and keep the game on a clock. |
Start your clear at the Raptor or Wolf camp utilizing your Rampage (Q) to maximize early AoE clear speed without a leash. Graves has one of the fastest clears in the game — End of the Line through two camps at once means he is level three early.
Ranked by the race windows in Hecarim's plans — the jungle race carries no win-rate sample.
The full Hecarim vs Graves report continues with scuttle & dragon rules, invade windows and safety boundaries, the top-side objective fight, macro rotations and the win condition — plus the live enemy-jungle tracker that shows their start, clear and gank timers in game.
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Graves pressures 6 of the 7 windows in this race — survive the early game and scale into your windows.
Not exactly — Graves pressures 6 of the 7 windows, so Hecarim is playing catch-up and has to lean on the map.
Playing the other side? Graves vs Hecarim guide →
All Hecarim jungle matchups →
More Hecarim jungle matchups: vs Evelynn · vs Fiddlesticks · vs Gragas · vs Ivern · vs Jarvan IV · vs Jax