The most interesting aspect of jungle Katarina is how quickly she went from the darling of Saintvicious' imagination to the garbage heap. She is the best, most recent example of what happens when players get caught up in an idea without thoroughly testing it.
It's too soon to definitively call Katarina a terrible jungler, but she currently suffers from several debilitating problems. She is fragile to the point where she can't start boots without an extremely specific rune page, and even then she won't be in a position to gank after her first clear. Even Mundo and Shyvana, well known for often starting Cloth Armor, can start boots. Katarina also has no clear build, as AP items are expensive and largely out of the question for a jungler. Finally, she is reliant on her lanes to provide crowd control for ganks and team fights. Without solutions to these issues jungle Katarina is simply bad.
All of this would have been known by Saintvicious and the community if they had simply tried to jungle Katarina on the PBE. Yet, without having done so, many players were forecasting her coming preeminence. The combination of spammable movement speed boosts and a gap closers is certainly unique, but ganking is only one facet of jungling. Failing to cautiously consider the implications of Katarina's lack of sustain and verify her potential through tests lead to Saintvicious' disappointment and dramatic reversal.
It's a shame jungle Katarina hasn't worked out as her playstyle would have been fairly fun and unique. However, she serves as a useful example and reminder that theory and experience must be tempered by each other.
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