How to win the jungle race as Locke against Talon · Matchup data reviewed on patch 26.15
Read from Locke's seat: the race windows this plan plays for against Talon.
| Stage | Read | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Level 1 Clear | Even Skirmish | Dead-even at the first buff: Q nail volleys clear camps at range while banking marks for the first scuttle fight, while the Noxian Diplomacy bleed wins short trades at shared entrances. Whoever arrives with more HP and cooldowns wins, so track their clear and pick the moment. |
| Level 2 Skirmish | Even Skirmish | Neither side cleanly wins level 2 — the Q-W bleed burst plus wall-hop angles start fights you never saw coming, but the blink-auto mark consume chunks hard, but spending E in a duel spends the escape too. Trade only from full health; with one camp still up on both sides the first mis-step decides this, not the kits. |
| Level 3 Route | Respect Talon | Wall-hop pathing means they only pick fights when the numbers favor them, and Locke has no clean answer to it at the opening scuttle — the Q-W bleed burst plus wall-hop angles start fights you never saw coming. Ward the over-wall paths — his burst needs surprise to actually finish the job, and give up the first scuttle rather than the kill. |
| Levels 4-5 Macro | Respect Talon — Path Opposite | You lose the 4-5 duel. He wall-hops through 4-5 into lanes that have pushed, and the Rake slow closes every remaining gap — so let them have that half of the map and cash the other half faster. |
| Level 6 Breakpoint | Respect Talon's R | The R stealth burst plus wall-hops mean the fight starts when he says it does — Locke loses the straight post-6 duel. Sweep your jungle entrances — his burst needs the surprise angle to kill clean, and shift your pressure to the side of the map Shadow Assault is not on. |
| First Item Spike | Lich Bane / Shadowflame Spike | Lich Bane turns every blink-consume into a Spellblade chunk and Shadowflame sharpens the low-HP crunch. This is your strongest duel window of the game — cash it on a pick, not a coin-flip. Talon's first item is the point where the bleed rotation goes from a heavy chunk to a full kill on a squishy. |
| 2+ Items Scaling | Even Scaling — Prep Decides | Late game you are a cleanup engine, not a frontliner: enter second, blink the marked kill, and chain E resets. Every sealed soul permanently raises the totem floor — your scaling is the seal count. |
Start Red with a leash and Q the camp from max nail range — W’s grey-health refund keeps the clear honest, but full clears cost real HP, so path toward a healthy scuttle, not a fight. Talon clears fast with Rake and Noxian Diplomacy bleeds, and the wall-hops mean his path is shorter than yours.
Ranked by the race windows in Locke's plans — the jungle race carries no win-rate sample.
The full Locke vs Talon 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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No clear favourite — Locke holds 1 window, Talon 3, the rest are even.
Yes — Locke vs Talon plays as a skill matchup: the jungle race swings window to window, and the better first clear usually sets the tone.
Playing the other side? Talon vs Locke guide →
All Locke jungle matchups →
More Locke jungle matchups: vs Shyvana · vs Skarner · vs Taliyah · vs Trundle · vs Udyr · vs Vi