LoL Warding – The Ultimate vision control guide for Season 13

Never really got the chance to master the warding game in LoL? Here is everything you need to know in one of our most detailed guides we’ve created.

Disclaimer: This guide is a general rundown of warding in LoL. The vision control is highly situational so it will be changing from one game to another, so don’t follow every single detail in absolute terms. Remember that LoL is a strategic game, and as such, you are required to be creative with your plays, even the warding side of it. 

Introduction to Warding in LoL

Warding is fundamentally the way teams control the battlefield in LoL. Since the majority of the map is covered by fog of war, you want to be able to get as much clarity as possible, which will then help you set up plays and actions for your own team’s goal. Likewise, it can also be used in the opposite way: you put wards down to predict enemies’ movements and what they might want to do next.

As a result, warding is an activity that must be done by LoL players in the game to gain intel on the opponents. That said, the ward’s usage and the spots are placed are not casual, and since there is a limited amount of wards you can put on the map, it’s crucial to maximize their efficiency. But before diving deeper into that part, let’s take a look at the types of wards you can find.

Type of wards

There are four main kinds of warding items in LoL, each of which performs a different function:

1. Warding Totems (also known as Yellow Trinket or Stealth Wards)

These are the most common type of wards in League of Legends. Mainly known as Stealth Wards or simply wards, they are invisible trinkets that can only be detected and/or destroyed by Control Wards, Oracle Lenses (or destroyed immediately before it becomes stealthed).

All stealth wards have 3 health, which means it requires three auto attacks to be removed (unless you have the item Umblal Glaive).

They have a sight radius of 900 and you can only place 3 of them at any given time. If you put down the fourth ward, the first one that you placed will be removed.

Stealth wards and totem wards are basically the same but their lifespan and the gold it gives are different.

Totem wards: lasts 90 to 120 seconds (based on the average of all champion levels) and grants 10 gold and 37.2 (solo)/46.4 (shared) experience;
Stealth wards: lasts 150 seconds and grants 30 gold and 37.2 (solo)/46.4 (shared) experience.

Remember that you or your allies can teleport on any stealth ward. If the teleport channel is started, removing the ward won’t stop it.

2. Control Wards

Unlike the stealth wards, control wards are visible to the enemies (when walking near them) and stay on the map until they are destroyed. These wards have 4 points of health instead of the usual 3 stealth wards and regenerate 1 health every 3 seconds after 6 seconds of not taking damage.

They don’t have a time limit but every player can only have one control ward on the map at any time and you can only hold a maximum of two control wards in the inventory. Placing a second control ward removes the other one.

Control wards not only grant vision of the surrounding area but also reveal and disable enemy wards and reveal (only) stealthed traps like Shaco’s boxes or Teemo’s Shrooms. Camouflaged champions like Evelynn are also revealed (not constantly but on a periodic scan), so having control wards placed on the map is an effective strategy to track them.

Keep in mind, however, that champions with true stealth like Qiyana, Akali, Talon and Wukong are not spotted by these wards.

Overall, control wards are essential tools that not only allow you to get vision of an area but more importantly, disable the enemy’s vision. This is great when it comes to making certain plays or actions on the map as it will make sure the enemies can’t locate you during roams or ambushes. Every player (and not just support players) should buy control wards when it’s necessary, especially when trying to take objectives or sieging.

3. Oracle Lens (commonly known as Red Trinket)

The Oracle Lens is a trinket that upon activation, summons a Sweeper drone around your champion for the next 10 seconds. This will grant obscured vision of enemy units that are not visible. In other words, it reveals and disables wards and traps just like the Control Wards.

The main difference is that it will sweep around the champion rather than one particular area of the map. It’s usually used to either scout information regarding the enemies’ vision control or to remove it. Remember that it can also spot stealthed champions and it will tell you exactly where they are with a silhouette.

Since it’s a basic trinket item, you will be able to switch this trinket with the yellow and the blue one (after level 9). It has a 90-60 second cooldown (based on the average of all champion levels).

One thing worth noting is that switching to another trinket keeps the current cooldown if there is any. Therefore, sometimes it can be recommended to switch between trinkets based on the situation in order to maximize both warding effects.

4. Farsight Alteration (Blue trinket)

As we previously mentioned, Farsight Alteration is the only trinket that is not available right from the start of the game. Instead, it is unlocked upon reaching level 9.

It’s a ward that can be placed at a target location with a 4000-unit range that grants sight of an area (500 units) and it lasts until it gets removed. The trinket also gives sight of the area in a 900-unit radius for two seconds and champions that get spotted will be revealed for 5 seconds.

Compared to the normal yellow trinkets, the blue wards only have 1 health and grant 15 gold, 18.6 (solo)/23.2 (shared) experience to those that destroy it. It also doesn’t count toward the 3-ward limit.

This ward is best used when you want to have vision of an area that you cannot access easily by walking in. Usually bought from ADCs or top laners, it’s best placed in deep areas of the jungle or around objective fights to track the enemies’ positioning.

Bonus wards

The two wards below are only present in the game if players run the runes that allow them.

Ghost Poro: grants sight over the surrounding 450 units for 90 seconds. It is untargetable and cannot be disabled. The only way the ward is removed is when an enemy champion passes near it.

Zombie ward: zombie ward is untargetable to allies and it’s similar to a normal stealth ward that lasts 120 seconds. That said, its health is only 1 unit and it grants 1 gold.

How to master warding in LoL

Now that we’ve covered the basics of what the different wards do in LoL, it’s time to cover the most important section of the guide: how to optimize the “warding game” and gain the most value with the least amount of resources. Just like gold and experience, it’s a good habit to treat wards as important resources. In this way, you will be able to be more critical.

We will include examples of the best warding locations, taking into consideration all kinds of game states. It doesn’t matter whether you will be even, from behind or ahead, we got you covered.

Early: Level One Warding

At the start of the game, there are many different warding strategies and tactics that can be used. Some give you a small edge over the opponents, while others can be crucial to the whole flow early game.

We will be taking a look at the most common warding strategies done by players, as well as some of the basic invading and counter-invading strategies.

5-man (standard) cover

This is the most common cover which should allow you to get good info if the enemies walk past the river. The best thing about this cover is that it’s not necessary to put wards down before minions spawn since every player will be a “walking ward” for the team. By saving the ward early on, you can put it a few minutes later into the game to prevent any ganks.

Early invade vision control

For the early invade, the main goal of doing this is to either pick people off guard or to make sure you can have a deeper vision of the enemy jungle.

This will allow you to get info on where the enemy jungler will start and anticipate his pathing and ganking opportunities. Do this with team comps that excel at level one.

Late invade warding

While it’s similar to the early invade, the late game invade relies on doing that while the enemy jungler is clearing the first buff. It’s used to disrupt the enemies’ clear/pathing and put the jungler at a great disadvantage. It’s a high-risk, high-reward strategy. Make sure to take red trinket to sweep the area you’re passing through to check whether enemies know you’re going for the invade.

Counter-invade warding

The best way to protect against a possible invade by warding is to ward the entryways to your side of the jungle. The most common wards to place are in the tribush and the bushes around the buffs.

Other common warding patterns in LoL

Aside from the ones we mentioned above, there are some other typical warding patterns used by high-elo LoL players that are extremely useful.

The first warding pattern is used by junglers to scout which buffs the enemy jungler is starting on. You would usually put a ward over the wall of the buff, before the minute mark, recall, and change the yellow trinket to red trinket.

By doing so, you will have intel on whether he starts on that buff (if he doesn’t, it means he’s starting on the other buff), while also having the sweeper ready for future ganks (we mentioned how different trinkets have their own cooldown).

The other common ward is put by support players in the middle brush of the bottom lane. With teams sometimes trying to go as five men bot lane, it prevents you from getting caught. Not only that, but it will also tell you whether the enemy bot lane is trying to ambush you on level one once the minion waves arrive. Do this when facing engage supports like Nautilus or Blitzcrank.

Laning phase warding in LoL (with Examples)

How to ward Top Lane (Blue Side)

During the early game, laners will typically have less vision than in other stages of the game since you have fewer resources and the support doesn’t have access to the upgraded support item. For this reason, the goal is to maximize the amount of information you can get. Let’s begin with the top lane, from a blue side perspective.

We saw how you should be warding when pushing the wave toward the enemy turret. Now, let’s take a look at how you’re supposed to ward when being pushed in. We’ve mentioned how the objective here is to put vision to know whether enemies might come for a dive, invade your jungler, or even roam toward the mid lane or Rift Herald.

How to ward Mid Lane

Similar to top lane, it’s vital to have priority before doing any vision control. In the mid lane, this is even more important since minion waves will arrive to the lane faster. Due to having both sides of the map to ward, the mid laner is the one having the most issues with vision in the early stages of the game. It’s impossible to have both sides of the map around mid lane covered, unless the jungler or the support is helping to ward as well. Even with them, the number of wards that can be put down is still limited and not enough to ward everything.

Therefore, a usual tip is to just have one side with good vision and avoid playing on the other side of the lane (hovering towards bot with bot lane vision and vice-versa). In this way, you can maximize the value of your wards and be in a relatively safe position. If you’re able to track the jungler yourself (or with the help of your team), you shouldn’t have many problems covering the right areas of the map with the wards.

By taking into consideration the most direct ganking routes, we’ve added the most common warding patterns around the mid lane, for both sides of the map. Since the shape of the map around mid is quite similar, these tricks and strategies will work regardless of which you’re playing on.

If you’re pushing hard, it’s a good idea to have wards placed over walls in the entryways of the enemy jungle. This will not only allow you to see if the jungler is there but also understand what pathing and what rotation of jungle camps he might be doing. For your jungler, it can be a lot of important info that he can use to his advantage for counter ganks, trap or invading. In turn, the info can also be used by the side lanes to know exactly when they’re free to play aggressively, knowing that the jungler is not nearby and cannot come to gank them.

When things go wrong and you get really behind, instead, it’s possible that the enemy mid laner will always push mid and look to rotate on either side of the map to either gank a side lane or invade with his jungler. The best way to neutralize his movements is to put defensive wards on your side of the jungle to track him.

How to ward Bottom Lane

The bottom lane should be the most warded area of the whole map, thanks to the presence of the supports. Aside from the standard wards that need to be placed in the river or in the bushes, there are a lot more spots than you can imagine, and once again, it depends on what info you want or trying to get.

If you’re pushing, you want to place more aggressive wards. In this case, you can also use the control ward because you’re also looking to deny vision by disabling enemy wards. Sometimes, when enemies contest vision control, you can opt to engage or look for a small trade to gain pressure within the lane. That said, make sure that it’s worth placing it because it’s extra gold and experience that the enemies will get if they kill the ward.

Lane bushes are likewise important for trading purposes, especially when facing engage supports that can catch you off guard in a position they can’t be seen. In the past, it was necessary to use control wards to avoid getting flanked from behind by a teleport. Ever since they changed the teleport mechanic before 14 minutes (you can only use it on towers), it’s just more efficient to use stealth wards, unless you want to disable enemy vision to let your jungler lane gank.

Aside from those, the bottom side of the map has many other warding spots due to the number of bushes around it. At higher levels of play, junglers will coordinate with their laners to set up coordinated dives, invades or go for the dragon, so it’s essential to put the right vision down to read what the enemies might be up to.

Mid Game Warding in LoL

We’ve talked about how the warding should be done during the laning phase and which information you can acquire by doing proper vision control. Once the laning phase ends, the general guidelines we mentioned earlier are the same, with the exception that now we require to move the “line of vision” further up. This is because when turrets fall, we or the enemy get better access to certain areas of the map.

Blue Team General Control Wards

Late Game Warding in LoL

Aside from the basic vision patterns, late game warding is the trickiest part of the game because it requires a great understanding of your win condition. At this stage of the game, teams will likely be overextending more and more often due to the turrets falling down and the likelihood of someone getting caught is higher. Wards are getting cleared more often, so it’s crucial to “reinvent” yourself with unorthodox ward places.

For example, rather than putting trinkets in the bushes, or in the patterns we mentioned above, you can opt to ward in these places. This works best when you just want to locate the enemies and look where they’re moving, rather than trying to catch them off guard. Since they won’t expect you to put vision in those spots, chances are that the vision will remain for the majority of the wards’ lifespan.

In turn, these wards can be very powerful to execute Teleport flanks. To put it simply, you can place a stealth ward deep into the enemy jungle or the lane and once the enemies push the wave in, you initiate a fight and let your split pusher (usually top laner or mid laner) teleport and look to flank from the two sides. By doing so, you effectively choke the enemy down and force them to fight you. The great thing is that it can be performed on any point of the map, as long as there are the conditions to do it (teammates’ teleport and right flank position).

Objective vision control (Dragon, Baron)

Dragon and Baron are two vital objectives that can be captured due to the value it brings to your team. Having great vision control allows you to play your cards better and force the enemies to make more desperate plays, which can lead to mechanical mistakes or mispositioning.

Generally speaking, vision control around objectives is usually performed one minute before the objective spawns. There are a lot of locations where wards are needed, which you can find below. Always remember to possibly have control wards inside the pits to deny the vision, as well as cover potential flanks in the two tribushes. Stealth wards must be put behind the walls to check from which side enemies are looking to contest.

That said, if you’re able to raise the line of vision forward, it will become impossible for the enemies to even walk up to the objective. This is extremely effective when playing pick comps since enemies will have to respect that. If you’re decisive enough with the shotcalling, you can capture objectives without being contested.

Jungle Control Warding in LoL

There are situations where you would want to get control and information in the enemy jungle to see where the opponents are moving and whether you have the possibility to go for a pick. This usually happens when you are able to take the tier-one turrets and you can get easier access to the jungle.

The spots where you should be warding are indicated in the image below:

By setting up the vision this way, you can see the most amount of area and give little to no chance for the enemies to walk up. This vision control can also be used to block the entrance to Baron and Dragons, even though it’s pushed further up. And even if enemies will clear it, you should get good enough intel on their movements.

Vision Control when Sieging

Sieging in LoL happens whenever you’re looking to put consistent pressure on one point of the map, usually to take down a turret. Since sieging requires a bit of time, you need to make sure you are not prone to getting flanked. With that in mind, your line of vision should be in an imaginary line compared to where you’re looking to siege, and have control wards behind that to make sure enemies don’t have wards to teleport to.

How to effectively Deny Vision

The best way to deny vision is to know which bushes or spots are likely going to be warded by the enemy team. And an easy and straightforward method is by doing reverse-thinking: you quickly imagine yourself as an enemy, based on where they are on the map, to predict which spots you need vision on.

At that point, it becomes simple: take a control ward or use the red trinket to sweep out those areas and see whether you nailed it or not. On some supports and AD assassins, you will have the ability to use Umbral Glaive to quickly clear out minions, and use the Zombie ward rune to replace their wards with your own.

As a jungler or support, you always want to ask your laners whether they know if certain areas are warded: it will allow you to better set up a play and also save up time. Overall, the warding game in LoL is all about thinking strategically and maximizing the efficiency of every ward placed.

How to complete your warding quest in LoL faster(Supports)

While every role and every player shoud buy wards and place them on the map, the support is usually the one responsible for providing the highest amount of vision on the map. This is because the support items grant them the ability to store three (or four) control wards in their inventory. And since they are free and stack every time they recall, it’s crucial for them to quickly get access to the upgraded version of the support items to provide more vision and gain a big advantage when the laning phase is about to end.

Supports reach the first evolution of the item as soon as they are able to stack 500 gold on the item. Depending on which support item is bought, there are different ways to reach the threshold needed. In particular, Spellthief’s Edge and Spectre Sickle are the two that can stack a bit faster: all you have to do is consistently proc the rune by hitting the enemies when a stack is generated.

For the other support items, namely Relic Shield and Steel Shoulderguards, the goal is to last hit the minions that grant the most gold, so that both you and your bot lane duo can get the share of gold. With that in mind, the priority order should always be cannon minions, followed by the melee and lastly the ranged ones. Remember that cannon minions spawn once every three waves early on, so be aware to have a stack ready. Additionally, unless you are forced to clear out the waves, you shouldn’t “waste” a stack on the ranged creeps.

Once you get to 500 gold, the item will be automatically upgraded, but only one ward will be ready in your inventory. To get the three wards, you will have to recall and they are going to be added to your inventory. So a smart move is to always wait the item to evolve before recalling to get items. The same happens when the support item is fully upgraded, which happens upon reaching 1000 gold, and it will grant 4 stealth wards after that.

Sometimes, you might consider picking up the Vigilant Wardstone, especially if you have the urge to put more control wards down. The item not only increases the capacity from 2 to 3 control wards, but most importantly, it will allow you to put two of them on the map at the same time. If you have spare gold to spend, I would recommend getting it as a fourth or fifth-item slot.

This is the end of our LoL warding guide! It was a long and extensive rundown but we hope you were able to learn a few things on how to ward like high Elo players and pros. If you’re lookign to learn the basics and fundamentals of the game, check out our other guides on kiting and counters!