Overview

In the current meta, the mid-lane mage is one of the most important parts of a strong team composition. With the prevalence of tanks and defensive items, assassins have become less of a threat. Instead, the constant, heavy magic damage and crowd control that mages supply have become a staple in most games. However, not every mage performs the same from game to game. Picking the mage with the best tools for the job can make or break your ability to carry a game. While this can be tricky at times, splitting the various mage champions into four main categories- Control, Battle, Burst, and Artillery- can make it easier to narrow down which mage you should choose. This particular post will be focused on control mages, explaining what they do and when to pick them.

Control the Enemy, Control the Game

Control mages excel at dictating the pacing of skirmishes and teamfights with wide, area of effect crowd control and large amounts of utility. They typically supply a high burst of damage in their initial combo, followed by a lower stream of constant damage over multiple rotations of their basic abilities. In addition, at least one of their spells tends to be almost entirely utility, in contrast to burst and artillery mages who have four damage focused abilities. While they are not the best at instantly killing off a single target or incinerating the enemy team in one combo, their ability to control a battlefield ensures that every teamfight begins and ends on their terms. Because of their focus on hindering the enemy team and empowering their own, control mages are best suited to team compositions with a high-scaling marksman and a third damage threat from either the top lane or jungle.

A well-played control mage can completely take over a teamfight or skirmish that involves three or more members of both teams. Most control mages have abilities than can hold the enemy team in one area or split the enemy apart when well positioned, such as Anivia’s wall or Cassiopeia's poison field. The wide zones that these mages control can shape the battlefield, limiting enemy movement and shutting down their ability to fight back as their team systematically rips them apart one by one. As such, control mages should be focused on setting up the best possible situation for their team to be in. This involves peeling for or shielding their carries, shutting down enemy engage attempts, and pulling the trigger on teamfights. Control mages are the best type of mage for starting a teamfight, although their ability to follow up on allied engages is just as strong as other mages.

Orianna is a perfect example of a control mage, with her ability to control teamfights through maneuvering her ball. Enemies are constantly forced to play around the position of her ball, repositioning themselves to avoid Orianna’s threat zone. However, if Orianna can overlap the positions of her ball and the enemy team members, she can quickly unleash a storm of AoE crowd control that will allow her team to follow up for a quick teamfight victory. Even if the teamfight goes wrong, and Orianna wants to disengage, she has a shield, team speed up, and AoE slow to ensure that her team gets out with minimal casualties.

An example of how Orianna can set up a teamfight for her team to follow up can be seen in the video below.

Although the video is a bit old, it is still clear how heavily Orianna influenced the outcome of that teamfight. When she saw that all five members of the enemy team were grouped up, she seized the opportunity to position her ball into the perfect spot to encompass all five members in her threat zone. With a single cast of her ultimate, she instantly won her team the teamfight by setting up the perfect opportunity for all of them to follow up. While not a perfect example of how a control mage can carry through manipulation, it nonetheless demonstrates how strong dominating a zone can potentially be.

Examples of control mages are Anivia, Cassiopeia, Lux, Orianna, Taliyah, Viktor, and Zyra. While some of these champions may also have traits of other styles of mages, their primary role in fights tends to focus on creating zones that enemies cannot or should not enter.

Countering a Control Mage

Control mages struggle against enemy teams with very strong diving champions, such as Zac and Hecarim. A strong diver on the enemy team can prevent the control mage from starting a fight on their terms and can force them to waste valuable zoning abilities on staying alive. If the control mage is unable to start a fight on their terms, they are effectively neutralized until the teams separate and they have time to breathe. Control mages also rely very heavily on ward coverage and vision. If they do not know where the enemy team is, it becomes near impossible for them to properly control the pace of a fight. As such, control mages may not be the best choice against a heavily diving or flanking oriented enemy team composition.

A second struggle control mages may face is their reliance on allied champions to deal damage. Whereas a mage such as Brand can singlehandedly kill most of the enemy team, most control mages rely heavily on their allies to back them up when their zone control tools are on cooldown. If a control mage is placed on a team where they are the only damage threat, it can be difficult, if not impossible, for the control mage to deal enough damage to win the teamfights for their team. Because of this, control mages should usually be paired with an extremely high damage marksman such as Twitch, or be placed on team with a third damage threat in the jungle or top lane.

Itemization on Control Mages

Although your build and build order should vary depending on the progression of the game, most control mages prioritize items that further expand on their crowd control and playmaking abilities. Taliyah, for example has high damage and area of effect on her combo, but relies heavily on limiting her enemy’s movement in order to consistently land all of her abilities. As such, a common rush on Taliyah is Rylai's, which allows her area of effect damage to slow multiple enemies for a large amount so that she or her team can effectively follow up. Orianna, on the other hand, relies on frequent usage of her abilities to pressure a wide zone around her. A common rush for Orianna is Morellonomicon, which gives her the cooldown reduction and mana she needs to spam her abilities.

While not every control mage can make use of the same items, a control mage player should prioritize items that complement their playmaking abilities over items that simply provide raw damage. Damage items are important, but a control mage’s main goal should be to manipulate the battlefield to best suit their team, not to deal as much damage as possible at the expense of their team.

Conclusion
Picking a control mage can turn you into a powerful playmaker who will dictate the rules of every engagement until you lead your team to victory, flag raised in hand. While you might not do the most damage in every fight, nor be the strongest carry who can 1v5, you can rest easy knowing that you were the central support behind every teamfight victory. With a strategic, team oriented play style, you can be the key to finishing the game in a clean, organized, and controlled manner.

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