Getting ganked sucks. Getting camped sucks even more. It can be especially devastating in the top lane, where snowbally melee vs melee matchups are extremely common, and one side getting a lead leaves very little opportunity for the other side to come back. However, if you can avoid ganks, you can not only save yourself from falling behind, but also discourage the jungler from ganking your lane in the future. If the enemy jungler fails one or two ganks in your lane, he is likely to try his luck in another lane rather than continue to try to make a gank work on you. After reading this guide, you’ll be a slippery ungankable top laner that will boil the blood of junglers everywhere.

Warding

Your first solid line of defense against those pesky junglers is your ward coverage. You should drop your first ward around 2:00 to 2:45 in the game, depending on the enemy jungler’s champion choice. Junglers like Shaco and Kha’Zix are strong gankers at level 2, and may pay a visit to your lane as soon as they clear their first buff. Against these champions, dropping a ward at 2 minutes could save you from a level 2 gank. Against the more standard pathing junglers like Rengar or Zac, you can drop your first ward around 2:45 since they probably won’t look to gank until they have cleared 3 or 4 camps.

Your first ward for both blue and red side are marked here:

Later into the game, you have more options for wards that gain more information on the enemy jungler, especially if you can shove your lane in so you do not miss any farm while you go on your warding adventure. One of the safest options to expand your ward coverage is to ward both entrances to the top lane, placing wards in both of the spots shown above. You can do this without pushing out first, as the warding spots are so close to the lane, and it gives you complete coverage against the vast majority of junglers. You can use a pink ward for this ward setup as well, to keep one of the two bushes warded as long as you can defend the pink. If you want an even earlier warning, you can drop a ward here:

This ward is especially useful against champions like Hecarim and Warwick, who can cover ground so quickly that they can catch up to you even if you see them on one of the previous wards. A deeper ward like this is necessary against these champions.

If you are in a position to aggressively ward, you can drop a ward in these two spots (depending if you are on red or blue side) at the enemy top side buff:

Red Buff ward:

Blue Buff ward:

I’ve shown the edges of the vision that these wards provide so that you can see just how much of the enemy jungle this single ward can see. These wards give you an idea of what camps are up in the enemy jungle, what direction the jungler is going if he passes over the ward, and how long it has been since he was seen on that side of the map.

Reading your lane opponent

You won’t always be able to detect the enemy jungler before he ganks you. There are some top lane/jungler combinations with strong enough gank setup to brute force ganks even after you see the jungler on a ward. Realistically, you also won’t be able to keep your wards up 100% of the time or even look at the minimap 100% of the time. Paying close attention to your lane opponent can make up for the information that your warding line can’t catch.

One of the biggest indicators that you are about to be ganked is your lane opponent suddenly changing his behavior. Does that Nautilus look like he’s trying to line up a hook all of a sudden? Is Nasus randomly playing aggressively after farming for the last 10 minutes? Changes like these should set off alarm bells in your head and have you running for your tower.

Here’s an example of this from Viper’s stream:

The enemy Warwick starts off pathing to the side, waiting for Viper (Riven) to push the wave in. Then, Warwick suddenly activates his W, Blood Hunt, and charges Viper. The enemy Lee Sin shows up on a ward right after this, but Viper is already running for his life. Viper’s jungler counterganks after Lee Sin and Warwick chase too far, and his team comes out on top. Warwick suddenly burning Blood Hunt’s lengthy cooldown to run straight at his lane opponent was a dead giveaway that a gank was coming.

It’s also extremely important to pay attention to your lane opponent when you are placing wards. If you have to walk into warding range of a previously unwarded bush, you are in the engage range of a jungler potentially hiding in that bush. When you path towards the bush you want to ward, look at your lane opponent. If he seems to be following you towards the bush, you’re probably getting sandwiched between him and the enemy jungler.

Here’s a clip from Licorice’s stream to illustrate this scenario:

Licorice (Riven) last hits the two low health minions near him, and then paths towards the bush so that he can ward it. Watch Galio while this is happening. As soon as Licorice leaves the minion wave and begins walking towards the bush, Galio is following him. If this wasn’t already suspicious enough, Galio chooses to give up a low health cannon minion and instead follow Licorice to the bush. A cannon minion. It should be very clear at this point that the enemy jungler is in that bush.

Unfortunately, Licorice doesn’t notice this in time and takes a huge chunk of damage.

Wasting the Jungler’s Time

After reading all of the above, you’re a superstar top laner and no jungler can get past your vigilant eyes. You hop into a game and your lane is going well. You start to realize your lane opponent is acting weird and you know the enemy jungler cleared his topside buff and pathed towards your lane 20 seconds ago. To top it all off, you can see him sitting right on top of a ward in the river bush. What now?

Your objective now is to keep that enemy jungler sitting in allied vision and wasting time for as long as possible. You have to dance on the edge of the enemy jungler and top laner’s engage range and act like you are none the wiser. Farm, maybe go for a safe trade, but try your hardest to make it seem like you have no idea that the enemy jungler is there. That means no mastery emote, no “hi lee sin xd” in /all chat, nothing.

Taking it a step further, you can capitalize on this by letting your team know that you have the enemy jungler sitting on a ward topside, and a play can be made with this knowledge. Your jungler or mid laner could come up and countergank the enemy jungler. Your team could make a play for dragon or try to 4 man gank bottom knowing that the enemy jungler will not make an appearance. Macro play like this what turns the warding and awareness you picked up earlier into a busted enemy Nexus.

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