"Pink wards are worthless and Evelynn a perma-ban!"

At least this is what I have been hearing in a few soloqueue games and in various conversations here and there. Now I disagree with this statement and I actually think pink wards are quite powerful right now. I accept that Evelynn is strong, but there are options to play against her aswell.

I'll give a quick recap of what changed vision-wise in the pre-season patch and then I will go over the effect that has had on the earlygame, certain champions and the overall flow of the game. A point I will be paying special attention to is the value and effectiveness of the changed pink wards and stealth champions right now.

A pretty obvious change is probably the one to vision (pink) wards. They are now visible at all times and have five hit points. They live indefinitely until killed and also only cost 100 gold now, which is 25 gold cheaper than before. A ward limit of three stealth (green) wards per person was introduced and works similarly to the Sightstone mechanic – every time you place a fourth ward your oldest ward vanishes in return. You can also only carry a maximum of three green and two pink wards, but while you can place all three greens, you can only place a maximum of one pink ward at a time, per player. Furthermore Oracle's Elixir has been removed from the game.

Most notably though, three kinds of trinkets have been introduced to the game. One of them provides free wards (Warding Totem), one of them disables and reveals enemy wards (Sweeping Lens) and the third one functions like the summoner spell Clairvoyance, revealing a target area (Farsight Orb). As the trinkets won't play a major role for the topic at hand I won't go into too much detail here though. Check this article for more information on them.

How have these changes affected the game? First off there's a lot more vision at level one. Trinkets become available after 90 seconds so with many people buying the Warding Totem trinket there are a bunch of free wards around. With minions spawning earlier and the first blood bounty reduced as well, level one aggression has diminished and become riskier. Ganking has become a tad more difficult. People suddenly have wards around at random times, depending on when they decide to use that trinket. There's a neat little trick for junglers though to see if there's a ward; if you mouse over an enemy's trinket you can see if they placed a ward or not. If it does say 1/3 or something similar it is up to you to figure out where that ward is, but you can be sure there is one.

Many people don't realize how good the Sweeping Lens (clearing trinket) is though. Most often it is used to clean out and kill wards which is ok. But using it disables the wards in the area. While watching the area where the trinket is used the enemy currently will see the animation, but the minimap will remain unchanged. This means if you use it early enough (before entering the ward's sight radius) you can pass through a ward completely undetected. It's something many have not realized or utilized and can have a great effect of surprise for ganks. However if you attack the disabled device or ward you will become visible.

Warding towards the mid and lategame has become the responsibility of the entire team. Supports still bear the brunt of this job but now they can only have a maximum of four wards out at a time (three greens, one pink) and sometimes that's simply not enough to supply the necessary vision. So everybody has to chip in and with the warding trinkets it works surprisingly well. Rarely is there a game now where I want vision in a bush and there's absolutely nobody with a ward.

Wards also survive until the three minute lifespan a lot more often now. With Oracle's Elixir removed from the game there are really only the Sweeping Lens and vision wards left as means to clear out enemy wards. Pink wards are most often only used for this if you're planning to take an objective right afterward or want to facilitate an imminent gank. The Sweeping Lens has a cooldown of three minutes which is pretty long as well, so in the end there will be a lot more overall vision on the map if you keep warding, simply because there aren't as many clearing mechanisms as there are warding mechanisms.

Does this mean vision wards are useless? Not at all. They simply have to be used very differently compared to before. In season three a pink ward was an alternative option to a green ward that cost 50 gold more but provided true sight. It had the same characteristics and the same “placing style”. It brought about certain stipulations like having to place any ward (especially pinks) inside a brush rather than outside of one because else it could get counter-pinked far too easily. Now with the brush and ward changes it can actually be much more beneficial to ward outside a brush because that may give you more vision of more areas (e.g. new blue buff bush).

The “placing style” for pink wards needs to change though. Why don't we re-evaluate them for a second. They are no longer a substitute option for a green; instead they are a different “species” of ward, with its own characteristics. Eternal life (until killed), true sight and five hitpoints. Tanky little things. See it another way: a green ward costs 75 gold, so 25 gold a minute. As soon as your pink ward lives 4 minutes, it has paid for its cost of 100 gold. If you kill an enemy ward with it, a certain amount of that gold is already shaved off. So the goal is to place your pink wards in inconspicuous but still helpful spots. You will still want to generally place pinks in brushes as that makes them harder to spot. But generally the brush above the red buff is nice, tribrush is useful, especially on blue side to facilitate jungler ganks but one of my absolute favorites at the time are the small bushes in the middle of the river near midlane. This position is often overlooked by junglers when ganking, provides a lot of vision of the river and is a crucial spot to have vision in for both dragon and baron fights. Generally when you're running through that brush you either want to gank right then or you're running away or you're trying to kill someone. In all three scenarios you will not have the time to stop and hit that ward five times, meaning it keeps on living.

Which brings me to another important point. Those five hitpoints are often overlooked and underrated. Of course you can't expect a pink ward to live very long when you place it in the middle of the enemy team. But if you put it somewhere like the aforementioned riverbrush, those five hitpoints suddenly become a lot. If you're running by that ward you will almost never have the leisure to chunk it five times. Instead you may be able to get one hit in, keep running and forget it later. But if you don't forget, hitting it once is not a bad thing. You can whittle it down and after the fourth or fifth time of running through that bush you will finally be able to take it down (congratulations!).

The pink wards are also beautiful baits. You can place one and due to them being visible and easily accessible there are many people that simply can't leave them alive; they have to kill them immediately. You lie in wait with the rest of your team and those 100 gold were a worthwhile investment very fast. And if they don't fall for it you have just gained vision. In all honesty, I like the new pink wards. They're not the same as before and never will be again but I believe that in due time they will find their place in the playstyles of the pros as well as the average players.

Finally since it's in the title, I have to mention Evelynn. She is definitely extremely strong right now. You will find her in the top tier of most season 4 jungler tier lists and sometimes even in mid lane lists. Pink wards are admittedly very weak against her and without them in place she is free to go wherever she likes. There is very little counterplay to her as a laner other than play defensively and do not go for risky fights! I cannot stress this enough; if you don't know where Evelynn is on the map, think three times about taking that 2v2 fight in botlane. At least make sure your jungler's close.

She is pretty weak to early invades and not having a blue buff hurts her considerably. Furthermore she is really vulnerable to counterganks. When jungling against an Evelynn, try to invade at level one, then attempt to read her jungle path and make sure you rush there as well. No detours, no waiting for level five; just get there. If she shows up, easy countergank and possibly an easy first blood. If she goes elsewhere you still have a perfect gank setup yourself with no danger of her showing up.

I hope this was interesting to all of you, if you have any feedback, please leave it in the comments below, I will read them all. You can also follow my twitter here; I will be casting LoL on weekends and do a few other LoL related tweets. Have fun on the fields of justice!