How to win the jungle race as Nidalee against Locke · Matchup data reviewed on patch 26.15
Read from Nidalee's seat: the race windows this plan plays for against Locke.
| Stage | Read | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Level 1 Clear | Nidalee Favoured | Max-range Javelin poke decides who enters the scuttle fight healthy. Locke can make it awkward — a stacked nail string into the blink-through consume deletes half a health bar — but not before either of you has a second camp down. Trade, then walk away with a camp and a chunk of their health bar. |
| Level 2 Skirmish | Nidalee Favoured | Pounce-reset cat clears let you out-tempo and kite the slower kits. The margin is thin: the blink-auto mark consume chunks hard, but spending E in a duel spends the escape too, and one slow camp on your side hands the window straight back, so keep the trade short. Fight him at full marks-zero and punish the ten seconds after his blink — E is his only exit. |
| Level 3 Route | Nidalee Favoured | The spear-hunt-pounce execute pattern wins any fight you start at range. W's grey-health refund makes his short trades cheaper than they look — full clears cost him real HP, so this is an edge and not a blowout — take the level-3 river fight only with the HP and cooldown lead. |
| Levels 4-5 Macro | Even — Farm & Track | Levels 4-5 vs Locke are a tempo war — he wants quiet farm into his 6; tax his camps, keep his marks off you at contests, and bank the gold lead his weak duel hands you. |
| Level 6 Breakpoint | Respect Locke's R | Locke wins the breakpoint outright — the Purgatory totem turns any low-HP skirmish into a chain of executes and blink resets, and Purgatory executes anyone who fights below the floor inside his totem — 'almost dead' becomes dead. Leave the totem zone above the threshold and kill him while E is down — his execute can't chase, then trade objectives cross-map until your items land. |
| First Item Spike | Lich Bane / Shadowflame Spike | His Lich Bane spike is real: the blink-consume chunk one-shots chipped squishies. Respect the first-item window, then note his E is still a one-way door — punish every spent blink. Locke's first item makes the mark consume hit for a real chunk, which is when the blink stops being a poke tool. |
| 2+ Items Scaling | Respect Locke Late — End Early | Late-game Locke scales with his seal count, not his items — deny executes and his floor never rises. Focus him when E is down and never let "almost dead" linger inside Purgatory. |
Standard start — his level-1 clear is ranged but mana-hungry and his duel is honest at best; you dictate the early tempo, not him. Locke clears at range with Ritual Nails and banks marks while doing it, so his first scuttle arrives with stacks up.
Ranked by the race windows in Nidalee's plans — the jungle race carries no win-rate sample.
The full Nidalee vs Locke 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 — Nidalee holds 4 windows, Locke 2, the rest are even.
Yes — Nidalee vs Locke 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? Locke vs Nidalee guide →
All Nidalee jungle matchups →
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