Before I start, most of this is from the perspective of Blue side team but can easily be mirrored for Red side. One of the big differences is that bot lane now has the risky invade because their opponent laners can collapse through tri bush and cut them off.

Level 1

There isn't many strategies to do at level 1 in soloQ, but with certain champions an early ward in the enemy jungle can be extremely beneficial. Some things you want to keep in mind are early invade junglers that would love to have knowledge of where their opponent is starting so they can meet them at another camp in a couple minutes. If you have say a Lee Sin on your team I'm sure they would love if you warded Gromp if you're a support, so he can see if the enemy is starting Blue, helping bot lane with Gromp, or if the enemy started red side so Lee Sin can go meet him at the Blue Buff.

There are other instances of early game champs loving early wards before creeps spawn, a non jungle example would be Blitzcrank. If you have or are against a Blitzcrank always be ready for an invade. To defend against a Blitzcrank get your laners to use their trinket wards on jungle entrances.

These two wards are my personal favourites for the early levels, though they are risky if the enemy team has gap closers or hard CC waiting at the camps. Be especially careful while warding the red at level 1 because the top lane can easily collapse on you through the tri bush and mid can collapse upwards from behind red, while warding blue has an escape right behind you and low chance of anyone roaming up or down to you.

Levels 2-6

There is not much warding to be done in these levels other than the occasional river ward to make sure you don't get ganked. If you notice you are being camped quite a bit, always keep river and tri bush warded. Invading solo as a support can be scary sometimes, you should ask your jungler to help you invade to get deep vision at this level and tell your ADC to play safe for a bit. Most junglers can easily take on a support, considering the meta picks right now.

At this point in the game you most likely don't have your Sightstone, so you have to look for wards that will cover the most ground to get the most out of them. A little trick you can use is take whatever your ward button is on off quick cast, if the target indicator is green it's in the bush, if it's blue then it's out of the bush and you'll miss. You can use this to your advantage by getting a ward to the very edge of a bush and becoming much more worth it then just carelessly throwing one in the middle of a bush.

There are a couple good wards for the bot lane to quickly throw down and get a good amount of information besides the ones in the pictures above. If you're confident in your map awareness you can just ward the jungle exit near dragon and stump any ganks the enemy jungle can bring, and make sure to always ping if you see the enemy jungler on any wards, people miss things on the map even if they are constantly looking at it.

If you see the enemy jungler far away from your lane you should try to force a trade if confidence is high. There is never a better chance to go for an all in, which is why you should always bring attention to where the enemy jungler is. Another way to take advantage of deep wards is objectives. If the jungler is top, it could make for a very easy dragon, dragon bait to get a couple of kills, or the jungler can go to a lane to pressure a dive/take a tower and punish the enemy jungler for showing himself.

That's what a lot of this part in the game is about, junglers making moves and counter moves trying to punish each other. If you are a laner gaining deep vision in the enemy jungle it is amazing information for your jungler to play off of even if he's not a good jungler.

Levels 6-13

This is the part of the game that is extremely important, known as the midgame, transitioning into late game. This is where you will try to build a wall of wards, and push it up into the enemy jungle with assistance. If your supporting, try to keep consistent wards down, placing them where you've noticed the enemy paths a lot. Once laning is over warding becomes much more dynamic as your not just defending your lane, now your defending your team if you're grouping.

Grouping mid is a classic strategy, if you feed your lane just go mid and tell people to group! Seriously though, you should always have a strategy in mind about the wards you will be placing at every stage of them game. There are multiple ways to place wards around mid game. You can plop all your wards down in one area and gain vision of a whole jungle side, place wards sparingly and only use one at a time, or do a line of wards and cover a couple flanks, entrances, and camps even to try and think ahead of the enemy once you see their patterns.

With these you can see most of the jungle paths, and that's just using the 3 wards from the Sightstone and a Pink Ward. If you had assistance from your team you could easily cover a huge amount of space and make it almost impossible for the enemy team to do things un noticed.

Here is where you can do great things with vision to gain great advantages over your enemy team. For an example, if you see a couple people around bot lane with the blue wards, you can 5 man rush a Baron with most teams if you're unseen. There will be more on that later.

Most of these wards will be hard to achieve if your team is behind, as you'll most likely get collapsed on in the opposing jungle. If the game is even, you can shine. There are so many options for catching people out in every elo, all it takes it a Pink Ward/Sweeper and good team coordination(the hardest part in League of Legends). In the case your team is behind, the members of the other team will not be expecting a team in their jungle so if you can try to move in to execute a 5 man bush gank using your Pink Ward/Sweeper to clear out the bush.

If your kill bush is executed well, and you catch someone you can instantly turn and pressure objectives such as Dragon, Baron, or even 5 man push a turret and dive if the opportunity is there, completely turning a game around with one vision play although very hard to pull off. Remember to remind your team to buy pinks, even if they put them in your jungle at least it will be information about where the enemy is not. Great spots to do these kill bushes are right around jungle pathing areas, try to avoid using the lane bushes unless there is someone split pushing. Catching a jungler opens up Barons and Dragons even more than just a laner or a puny support.

Warding in the mid game is a great way to carry your team to a victory, you can be creative and maybe a little bit risky. A couple things to keep in mind during the mid game are to always ping enemies you spot on wards and ping objectives you think you might be able to take. Have a Pink Ward down as much as possible defensive or aggressive depending on the situation and remind your team at least once to buy a pink and upgrade trinkets, and of course keeping a mental note of the enemy jungler paths if you can and planning around it.

Levels 13-18

At this point, most games have been decided and there is only so much you can do. You are either winning and have constant vision of the enemy jungle, losing and having to put all of your wards in your own jungle, or the game is still undecided and fights are going back and forth. You will most likely be the soul warder late game because your teammates have no room for wards.

In the case of a stale lategame, just having 3 wards and a pink ward can only do so much as a support, obviously a jungler with Stalker's Blade would help, but don't count on it. You're going to want to keep wards up as much as you can and always be ready to adapt to what you need and where you need wards.

Just follow some of the tips from before and you should be fine, if you stick with your team it will come down to engaging or picking someone in their jungle due to lack of vision, again where you should be shining. Always be ready to turn on objectives like Dragon and Baron late game as you can likely burn it down very quickly if there's a lapse in enemy vision around the area, or you see someone very far away.

Final Thoughts

Warding is important, getting deep vision in the enemy jungle is crucial to the success in a lot of games. Also remember to not get greedy with warding, if you have no idea where the enemy jungler is it's not wise to solo invade to get a ward down because there's a high chance you will pay for it. Instead, ask your jungler to help, or ask him to invade by himself and either counter jungle or just check if camps are up, because that's all the information you need to tell at least what side of the jungle the opposing jungler is on.

I hope this helped you in some way to understand deep warding better and makes you more aware of your surroundings in game!

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