Alberto “Crumbz” Rengifo has reinvented himself multiple times. But whether as a coach or desk analyst, one thing about Crumbz has remained true -- he knows his jungle. While in Chicago for the Quarterfinals, I had the opportunity to sit down with Crumbz and talk shop about this World’s jungle meta.

This interview was conducted by Amanda Stevens after game two of SK Telecom versus Royal Never Give Up.

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Amanda Stevens: So, the meme is that you are the prophet. How are your predictions going this time around at Worlds?

Alberto “Crumbz” Rengifo: They’re terrible! My predictions have been ass; especially the ones on screen. Especially for the group stage. The only thing I got right was the first one for Counter Logic Gaming against G2. I really did think CLG stood a shot but I didn’t want to do intangibles because I want to try to stay away from the whole “oh, mysticism, prophet” and actually provide quality analysis. So, I’ve been deviating from predictions and trying to focus on analyst.

Amanda Stevens:  Tonight’s match is probably a wash. We’re probably looking at an SKT 3-1 win over RNG. But we have two more Quarterfinal matchups remaining -- ROX Tigers vs EDward Gaming and H2K versus Albus Nox Luna. Starting with ROX vs EDG, who do you think is going to win that one?

Alberto “Crumbz” Rengifo: I really think that ROX versus EDG will probably result in a ROX victory just because I think [EDG] is playing Tong “Koro1” Yang in the top side. I mean, Koro has not been practicing, right? There is a reason he was not playing the split before and they put Chen “Mouse” Yu-hao in. I don’t think he’s going to be a miracle worker. And ROX did look better towards the end of the group stage and you can still consider them the number one contenders even though SKT has shown so much and looks amazing. But I do think ROX will win 3-1. It might be 3-2 because I do think this is the closest of the quarterfinal matches, so we could also see an upset.

Amanda Stevens: Okay, then what about H2K versus Albus Nox Luna? It’s going to Albus Nox, right?

Alberto “Crumbz” Rengifo: I would hope so. Honestly, last night we kind of trolled around with our pick ‘ems. So, I actually put H2K Worlds Finalist just for fun. But I do think they’ll just beat Albus Nox just because I think they laned really, really well. Especially their bot side. I know Vladislav “aMiracle” Scherbyna” is a fine player but when H2K focuses so much on the laning  phase, especially Konstantinos “Forg1ven” Tzortziou and Oskar “VandeR” Bogdan, I don’t think Albus will be able to bleed out slowly. I think they’ll just cut ‘em and wreck ‘em that way.

Amanda Stevens: What do you think of the jungle meta this Worlds? We have Elise and Nidalee always banned, which leads to the remaining jungle picks to be a choice between Olaf, Rek’Sai, Lee Sin, and the occasional Skarner. What is your opinion on those four remaining jungle picks?

Alberto “Crumbz” Rengifo: I think the meta is quite stale and boring, to be honest. Especially because what happened when they removed Gragas from the equation, being the only AP initiator in the game, all these other picks become incredibly viable. In the top side everyone can play Kennen and Rumble very easily because there is no Gragas. Gragas would completely obliterate those picks and the lack of him makes other lanes be able to play other styles and other picks. But for the jungle itself.

The fact that it’s always Rek’Sai/Olaf or Olaf/Rek’Sai and the other champions aren’t really fun, especially to watch. I’m kind of disappointed by that. And Nidalee is almost always banned as well. I do wish that Nocturne had received a stronger buff and could have impacted the jungle more. But it’s just the way that the jungle is. You can not get away with playing all these other weird ass champions if you are giving up early pressure. Early pressure is the name of the game.

Amanda Stevens: So, what do you think of the Zac pick? William “Meteos” Hartman brought it out versus Samsung Galaxy and it worked a little bit. But that was also because Samsung picked losing lanes. But it also worked out for Kang “Blank” Sun-gu in game two. So, is Zac an actual viable pick or is he more of a ‘we’ll see what happens” pick?

Alberto “Crumbz” Rengifo: Zac is definitely very viable but very difficult to play because now there are a lot of top laners picking Poppy. You can not play Zac into Poppy even though Blank did run Zac into that matchup. RNG did kind of troll in the level two with Olaf invading, and they ended up giving up like three kills from it. So I think that game is kind of an outlier. But if you play Zac and [run] into things like Syndra or Karma who can speed everyone away, it’s really tough to find an engage. And you have to save Zac for that last pick, if you do you might be able to make it work. But again, you’re giving up that early pressure. And I think if you pick it, you’re kind of saying, “Oh, I think your jungler is a shitty early game jungler and I’m going to be able to outmatch you.”

Image from Crumbz' Twitter.