We all have a love-hate relationship with crowd control (hereafter referred to as CC) effects in League of Legends. We love it when it gets applied to an enemy champion, but we absolutely hate when it gets applied to our champion. Due to CC's inherent dual nature as a bane or a boon, having an accurate grasp on the different types of CC mechanics in the game and exactly how these different types restrict your champion's movements and abilities can be the deciding factor when it comes to locking an enemy down for an easy pick or escaping a dangerous situation by just a thread. Within this article, crowd control is broken down into the three categories of soft, hard, and hybrid, and the different types of CC within these categories are clearly defined. Additionally, a summary is provided at the end that discusses ways to reduce or cleanse these CC mechanics from your champion, whether it be through utilizing items, choosing your masteries, or playing a specific champion.

Soft CC

This category of CC is considered the weakest. While all types of CC under this category will impair your movement or ability to use auto-attacks/spells/abilities to some extent or another, they still allow you to retain some amount of control over your champion. Using summoner spells and movement abilities is generally allowed more often under the effects of soft CC. For each CC type, at least 3 examples (if possible) of champion abilities are provided, along with items where appropriate.

-Slow
Probably the most abundant type of CC and the most frequently applied, slows will always impair your champion's movement speed for a short duration, and in some cases, your attack speed as well. While certainly annoying, you still have full control of your champion's movement, and can still auto-attack and use all abilities and summoner spells. Slows also do not interrupt any spell cast by your champion. Some examples of slows are The Box (Thresh R), Riptide (Nautilus E), and The Equalizer (Rumble R). Additionally, you can be slowed by ITEMS such as Randuin's Omen and Rylai's Crystal Scepter, as well as red buff.

-Blind
The most annoying type of CC for auto-attack based champions, this type of soft CC only affects your champion's ability to use auto-attacks. While the duration of a blind persists, your champion will miss ALL auto-attacks, no matter what or who you target. However, your abilities will still hit, assuming you land them. Examples of blinds include the infamous Blinding Dart (Teemo Q), as well as Blinding Assault (Quinn Q).

-Silence
This would be the annoying CC for the ability based champions in the game, as silences block the casting of abilities, in addition to the Flash and Teleport summoner spells. Silences will also interrupt channeled abilities, including the aforementioned Teleport. That being said, your champion's ability to move or auto-attack is not impaired by a silence. Examples of silences would be Decisive Strike (Garen Q), Call of the Void (Malzahar Q), and Static Field (Blitzcrank R).

-Snare/Root
(NOTE: Due to their similarity and often ambiguous terminology, snares and roots will be described together for the purposes of this article.) One of the stronger kinds of CC in this category, snares/roots prevent your champion from moving or using Flash, but you still have free reign to auto-attack and cast other abilities. For example, this is why you will see an Ezreal still be able to Arcane Shift after being hit by Morgana's Dark Binding. This kind of CC punishes champions without escape or gap closing abilities far more heavily than those who do. A couple of other examples of snares/roots are Flame Chompers (Jinx E) and Twisted Advance (Maokai W).

-Polymorph
Last but certainly not least, we have the strongest CC in this category. Polymorph is an ailment that is unique to Lulu's Whimsy, as no other ability in the game applies this CC. It is also by far the strongest kind of soft CC, as it prevents all auto-attacks and abilities (including Flash), interrupts channels, and reduces your movement speed. However, despite how strong this CC is, it is still considered a "soft" CC, as you can still control the direction in which your champion moves.

Hard CC

This category includes the far more restrictive types of crowd control. While all of the CC defined as "soft" CC allowed your champion to maintain some form of control in terms of movement or abilities, "hard" CC tends to remove ALL forms of control over your champion, and are some of the hardest effects to cleanse or survive. All types listed within this category, as a general rule, prevent all movement, abilities, channels, and auto-attacks by the champions affected, including their use of Flash and Teleport (other summoner spells may still be usable). Now that I've intimidated you, let's dive into the exact descriptions of the different types of "hard" CC.

-Stun
Where slows were the most abundant form of soft CC, stuns are easily the single most prevalent type of hard CC. As mentioned in the preface for this section, stuns prevent your champion from moving, attacking, or casting abilities. Some examples of stuns include Enchanted Crystal Arrow (Ashe R), Ki Burst (Riven W), and Wallop (Gnar W).

-Knockup
In addition to preventing all attacks, movement, abilities, and the use of Flash and Teleport, knockups also cause your champion to become airborne on the spot. This "airborne" effect is particularly brutal, as it is unaffected by CC reductions and can't be cleansed or removed. Going airborne can also interrupt dashes, which in some cases may ruin the only chance of escape a champion had. Some abilities that inflict knockup include Unstoppable Force (Malphite R), Un-burrow (Rek'Sai W), and Glacial Fissure (Braum R).

-Displacement
This particular type of CC, for the purpose of simplifying this article, includes any effect that forcibly moves your champion from one position to another. This would include all knockbacks, knock asides, and pulls. Similar to our other hard CC effects so far, you cannot attack, move, etc. while under the effects of a displacement, and the three kinds of CC mentioned here all apply "airborne" as well, along with the negative effects this condition applies as mentioned in the Knockup section. A few examples of displacement (there are far more) include Headbutt (Alistar W), Emperor's Divide (Azir R), and Explosive Cask (Gragas R).

-Fear/Flee/Terrify
Okay, so there's a lot going on with this one. In addition to restricting your champion like hard CC typically does, fear has several additional effects to take into consideration. When the fear is first activated, the affected champion will be locked in place very briefly. After this, the champion runs DIRECTLY AWAY from the source of the fear WITH REDUCED MOVEMENT SPEED. Essentially, fear also applies a slow. However, champions who are immune to slows upon application of the fear will simply run away from the source at NORMAL SPEED. Examples of fears include Terrify (Fiddlesticks Q), Unspeakable Horror (Nocturne E), and Onslaught of Shadows (Hecarim R).

-Suppression
This kind of CC is particularly nasty. Again, it applies the typical hard CC effects, but in this case, it prevents the use of ALL summoner spells, not just Flash and Teleport. On top of that, the duration also can't be reduced via CC reduction, similar to airborne. There is only ONE way to get out of this CC, which will be discussed in the final section of the article. Thankfully, there are relatively few instances of suppression in the game, those being Nether Grasp (Malzahar R), Infinite Duress (Warwick R), Impale (Skarner R), and Hyper-Kinetic Position Reverser (Urgot R).

-Suspension
Suspension is visually similar to a knockup, and due to making the champion airborne on the spot, also applies the effects of airborne, allowing it to interrupt dashes. However, the key difference to note with suspensions is that they ARE compatible with CC reductions and they CAN be cleansed or removed. Examples of this intricate CC type include Aqua Prison (Nami Q), Tectonic Disruption (Vel'Koz E), and Last Breath (Yasuo R).

-Stasis
CC in its purest form. Stasis blocks any and all actions for affected champions, including the use of all summoner spells. It interrupts dashes and channels, and makes the target invulnerable and untargetable. Most importantly, stasis effects CANNOT be removed or reduced by any means in the game whatsoever. The pair of champion examples include Tempered Fate (Bard R) and Frozen Tomb (Lissandra R). It should also be noted that a stasis effect can be applied to yourself through the use of the item Zhonya's Hourglass.

-Taunt
Taunts are similar to fears due to their interaction with a source. A taunt forces a champion to attack the source for the duration. However, without vision of the source, the champion will just stand still. Additionally, taunts immediately end if the source is killed. All of the usual hard CC effects apply too. Examples are Shadow Dash (Shen E), Idol of Durand (Galio R), and Puncturing Taunt (Rammus E).

-Charm
Just like Lulu's polymorph effect on Whimsy, Charm is unique to a single champion in the game known as Ahri. It combines some elements of taunt, as the affected champion will stand still without vision and is freed when Ahri dies. However, the difference is that Charm simply forces the champion to MOVE toward Ahri, rather than attack her. The affected champion also moves toward Ahri with reduced movement speed.

Hybrid CC

By "hybrid" CC, I am referring to abilities that can inflict more than one type of CC on either a single target or a group of champions. Typically, these effects are applied based on the duration of a spell, or based on the position of the champions hit. To show exactly what is meant here, think of Soraka's Equinox (silences all champions in an area, then roots all champions in the area after a duration) or Leona's Solar Flare (stuns champions in the center and slows the rest). LeBlanc's Ethereal Chains would be a single target example (slow that becomes a root after a duration).

Cleansing and Reducing Crowd Control

Now that you've been educated about the precise effects of all these different kinds of CC, what can you do about them? There are various ways within League of Legends to counteract most types of CC, which I'll describe here as a way to summarize everything that's been said in the article.

-Play a specific champion
There are some champions in the game who have abilities designed to counteract CC effects. For example, Alistar's Unbreakable Will and Gangplank's Remove Scurvy both remove all CC affecting those champions at the time they are used, while Morgana's Black Shield can absorb CC effects on the shielded target while the shield persists.

-Choice of summoner spells
While Flash may be unusable under hard CC, it can help you when most kinds of soft CC are applied. Flash may prevent further slows from being applied, or keep you from taking extra damage while snared/rooted. However, Cleanse is extremely powerful when it comes to removing CC from your champion. Using Cleanse will remove all CC effects EXCEPT airborne, stasis, and suppression, while also reducing the duration of incoming disables by 65% for 3 seconds.

-Mastery points
In the Defense tree, there are a couple of masteries that can help you against CC. Swiftness will reduce the effectiveness of all slows by 15%, and Tenacious reduces the duration of all CC effects by 10% (at least, those that can be reduced).

-Items
Mercury's Treads, Zephyr, Moonflair Spellblade, and the Elixir of Iron give your champion Tenacity, which provides a 35% duration reduction to stuns, slows, taunts, fears, silences, blinds, polymorphs, and immobilizes. Keep in mind though that Tenacity DOES NOT stack. Activating Mikael's Crucible will cleanse all stuns, roots, taunts, fears, silences, and slows from the target, and also provide a small heal. Finally, Quicksilver Sash and Mercurial Scimitar can be used to cleanse ALL debuffs, including those pesky suppressions.

Unfortunately, there are no ways to remove or reduce the effects of stasis or airborne, and while suppression can be cleansed via a Quicksilver Sash, there are no ways to reduce its duration. Luckily, all other forms of CC can be dealt with in some form or another, usually through the use of Cleanse and the items mentioned above. Whether you're a newer member of Summoner's Rift or a veteran of solo queue, I hope that this article has helped to clarify something relevant about CC for you. Armed with this knowledge, you should no longer have to ask yourself "Why couldn't I (insert action here)?" after a misfortunate death. Now get out there and lock down your enemies (and maybe bring some oranges with you too).

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