Welcome to my advanced in-depth analysis on warding and the importance of it in every phase of the game. Over the thousands of games I have played, I have seen a lot of different styles of warding from all kinds of players. Some of these styles have been great, some of them not so great. Regardless, there is always room to improve. I hope you enjoy the guide, and learn a thing or two!

Note: This guide is written from the perspective of blue side. Just reverse all the information to the other side if playing on red.

Basic Information

In this section, I am going to go over the different types of wards, what they do, and how you can use them to their highest potential. It’s not unknown that warding is an important part of the game, but it may come as a surprise of how important it is. Learning to manipulate wards can help you climb as easily as mechanics can.

The first thing we will cover is the difference between aggressive and defensive warding. Aggressive warding is important when trying to get the upper hand on your opponent. These wards are usually located in the enemy jungle to give you information on their game plan. Defensive warding is usually located in your own jungle, allowing you to react to aggression being presented on you and catch mispositioned enemies out for a free summoner/kill.

Remember though, smart movements is key when placing wards that could be dangerous. Running into the 4/0 Lee Sin is not what you want at 6 minutes into the game.

Another important topic to cover in this section is inefficient warding. An inefficient ward is a ward that could have been placed at a better time, and is essentially useless at the time of it being placed. For example, you’re blue side, their jungler is Rengar, and you trinket bot lane tribush at 3:45. This is inefficient because Rengar’s clears are both slow and unhealthy early on into the game. At 3:45 he will either be just finishing his second buff or have just recalled. This is a good 20-30 seconds wasted on the ward, if not more.

To avoid inefficient warding, understanding and memorizing common junglers clear speeds allows you to use wards to the best of their use and assures you that you aren’t placing wards too early/too late. Predicting the movements of the jungler and calculating their movement speed will help immensely as well, for that’s for a whole other guide.

Jungle

As a jungle main myself, I always find it stressful keeping up with vision control as well as ganking at a moderate level. Warding as a jungler is similar to warding as a support, you want to gather information on the enemy teams gameplan and use that information to react accordingly. Say you have a ward placed in top tri and you see their jungler, top laner, and support. You can counter this with pushing bot or taking dragon. Worst case scenario, using vision to manage the wave in a lane can apply psychological pressure and cause the enemy team to react incorrectly

Aggressive Ward Locations for Jungle:

The warding locations above are very common and effective ward locations when trying to force the pace of the game. These wards often spot junglers on their normal clear path, which allows you to mirror their movements and avoid counter ganking/allow you to counter gank them. Like mentioned earlier, always be safe when placing these wards, for they are only used in aggressive situations.

Defensive Ward Locations for Jungle:

These ward locations are important when behind or simply out-powered by the opponent. In some jungle matchups, like X vs. Shaco or X vs. Lee Sin, you may want to place your trinket in one of these locations in case of an early game invade. Like always though, these wards are entirely situational.

Top Lane

The top lane is the first lane I am choosing to cover due to its adaptability and uniqueness as a role in terms of vision and map dominance. As a top laner, is it necessary to understand what is going on at the opposite side of the map at nearly all times. Keeping points on how bot lane is doing, and where the jungler is allows you to manage the wave and create plays with your Teleport. In order to do this efficiently though, vision is essential.

As I’m sure you know, junglers love to dive top lane. A lot. Over and over again. It’s just the way the champions are designed, they are both very vulnerable but very good at diving. A very easy way to understand if you are going to be targeted early is to watch bot lane at 1:50-2:00. Watch if they leash gromp for their jungler. Usually, if a jungler (especially junglers with healthy clears like Zac or Rek’sai) starts bot side, they will target top lane to either gank or dive. Knowing this, using your trinket wisely can give you a great understanding of what is going through the enemy junglers head.

These ward locations will help understand the position of the jungler if they are on the top side of the map looking to apply pressure to your lane. Use these both aggressively and defensively.

Mid Lane

For mid lane warding and timing is everything. More often than not, mid lane is a 2v1/2v2 lane in opposed to a 1v1 like most would expect. Junglers REALLY enjoy ganking here. With that said, wards are very important to avoid getting camped and losing lane because of this, putting you and your team at a disadvantage.

Earlier in the guide, we discussed inefficient wards and how important it is to avoid them. Out of every role, mid lane is the most common I have seen that places inefficient wards. When looking at the image below, keep in mind that these locations are extremely matchup dependant, and that is why there are multiple locations in such a small area. I would go into more depth on matchups, but to avoid reptition and length, I will save that for another guide.

Bot Lane

Lastly, I am covering both ad carry and support as one unit, due to there not being a large enough difference between them. The majority of the warding here is done by the support, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t buy wards on marksman. This is a VERY common mistake that many ad players make, and often leads to a disadvantage in their lane.

For bot lane, it is rather straightforward and very similar to the other lanes. With supports doing most of the work in terms of warding, there will only be one picture attached to this section. Any of these wards can also be placed by the ad, so in any situation where an important one is missing and your support does not seem to understand, you should place it yourself.

Note: This picture does not include the wards that supports can place while roaming around the map. Supports can ward for other lanes, in which understanding the vision basics for every lane will help a great amount.

Thanks for reading! If you have any questions, feedback, or edits that you feel need to be made then please feel free to leave comment on the article or contact me on twitter @TheFallenHope.

Original Summoner's Rift Image: (http://mapskins.com/2014/06/18/new-summoners-rift-announced/)
Article Image: (Mr Meaps's Papercraft Ward; http://forums.euw.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=932748&page=1#post9444380)