Recently I wrote an article on crowd control, what forms of crowd control there are and a few things you have to pay attention to in relation to them. A sentence I used in the article was “CC wins games”. And I stand by what I said then, it is what can indeed win you any game; no matter how grim it looks. If you manage to lock up their carries for long enough so you can kill them while still protecting your own carries then you win. But what if the enemy has more crowd control than you? What if there's a big fight and you, as a carry, don't know how to avoid all of their lock down?

There are a few ways to avoid crowd control. If you don't get hit, you're not CC'd, right? The “easiest” way to avoid getting CC'd is to dodge the enemy's abilities. This is effective as it doesn't cost you anything to do it. However, dodging skill shots is known to be quite tricky. Sometimes you just overlook that Thresh's Death Sentence (Q) and die for it. Other times you know it's coming but simply can't get out of the way quickly enough.
But the biggest problem with dodging crowd control is that there are "point-and-click" abilities like Taric's Dazzle (E) or Nasus' Wither (W). You can juke all you want, but you won't escape the fabulosity (is that even a word? It is now!) of the Gem Knight running at you. But avoidance is not just juking – there are several abilities and items that can help you negate CC.

Several champions have skills that make them immune to some or all CC effects and, in some cases, even free them from it. Master Yi's Highlander (R) protects him from all slows for its duration, while Olaf's Ragnarok (R) prevents all crowd control for six seconds. It also frees him from any existing slows etc that are still on him. Sivir and Nocturne have their own spell shields and Morgana has one that she can even put on her teammates to prevent CC. But sometimes you already picked your champion or can't afford to pick one just due to their anti-crowd-control abilities. Then you look for other options.

There is an avoidance item in League of Legends, called Banshee's Veil. Building out of a Spectre's Cowl and a Ruby Crystal at a total cost of 2750 gold it provides a nice 450 health and 55 magic resistance. This alone wouldn't be enough to warrant the high cost but it also grants a spell shield that protects you from the next enemy spell. The shield will refresh after taking no damage from enemy champions for 25 seconds.

Additionally you will be granted 45 health regeneration for 10 seconds when the shield is broken. The crucial thing here is that spell shield. It will block literally anything that's coming at you; be it a Rocket Grab (Q) from the enemy Blitzcrank, Skarner's suppression Impale (R) or Malphite's Unstoppable Force (R). So it grants you protection from enemy engagement abilities.

The tricky thing is not to have the spell shield used up by unimportant abilities. As it's blocking the next spell, even something minor like a single tick of Morgana's Tormented Soil (W) will break it and then you have no more protection for an entire 25 seconds. But if there is a lot of very important crowd control on the enemy team this item can be an absolute lifesaver in many situations and you should consider getting it. However it's not the only item that can help you against crowd control.

An interesting mechanic that League of Legends has is something called Tenacity. It reduces the duration of most crowd control effects by 35% (affected are stuns, slows, taunts, fears, silences, blinds and immobilizes). There are three items that provide Tenacity, namely Spirit of the Ancient Golem, Zephyr and the Mercury's Treads.
Out of the three of them the only one that is actually worth building for this stat are the Treads though. The other two items are too expensive and have other specific roles to fulfill; on them it's more like a nice bonus. But if the enemy has a lot of crowd control and you need to bear the brunt of it (because you're a tank for example) you may want to consider getting these shoes instead of the others you originally wanted.

But what if you've already been hit by CC? What if you are already standing there, useless to your team, what can you do to get rid of it all and start helping instead? There are a few options available to you. The first one is Tenacity, which we've already gone over.
Then there's a summoner spell called “Cleanse” available in League of Legends. It is the only spell that is useable even while stunned, silenced, polymorphed, or otherwise CC'd. It will remove that crowd control, freeing you from whatever was holding you down and it will additionally reduce the duration of incoming CC effects by 65% for three seconds.The only thing that Cleanse can not do is free you from a suppression or a knockup. Many people will tell you to pick Cleanse when there's a Malzahar, Urgot, Warwick or a Skarner on the opposing team to counter their ultimates. This is NOT true; Cleanse doesn't help you one bit against them. However it can be incredibly helpful when playing against a team with a bunch of crowd control other than suppressions.
If there's a Leona on the enemy team and you're not confident in reactively dodging her Solar Flares (R), consider picking up Cleanse! It's an item typically seen on an AD carry (Marksman), as they're the ones that usually don't have too much innate mobility and are often the focus of the enemy's crowd control.

If you don't like Cleanse, prefer Barrier, some other summoner spell or simply thought you'd be fine against the enemy's CC then don't despair, there are options for you yet! The (in my opinion) most obvious one aside from Tenacity is an item called a Quicksilver's Sash (QSS) (later upgrades into a Mercurial Scimitar). This is such an extremely underrated item, that I originally thought about writing an entire article just on this.Not only does it give you some much-needed magic resistance (45) but it also gives you the ability to “cleanse” ANY form of crowd control. This is the only way to get out of suppresses and the like, apart from champion abilities like Olaf's Ragnarok (R). Skarner keeps dragging you into his entire team with his ultimate? Get a QSS. Furthermore it also frees you from a bunch of other stuff. Grievous Wounds, DoT's, even Zed's Death Mark (R) can't stand against this. So maybe even if the other team isn't all that scary CC-wise but has a super-fed Zed you may want to get a Quicksilver's Sash to negate a lot of the damage output that he has!
The item isn't cheap at 1550 gold, but it's far cheaper than pretty much any other anti-CC item. However, even though it only has an AD upgrade, due to the utility it provides it is an item for everyone that can't afford to be locked down. Be it an AP, and AD or anyone else.

Then there's the beautiful item called Mikael's Crucible. It's a (mainly) support item building out of a Chalice of Harmony and at a grand total of 1600 gold it provides you with 40 magic resistance, 12 mana regeneration and a passive that increases your mana regeneration by 1% per 1% of your mana that you are missing. But most importantly it provides you with an active that frees a target (allied, including yourself) champion from all stuns, roots, taunts, fears, silences and slows AND it heals the target for 150+10% of the target's maximum HP. This works with a 180 second cooldown.
So if you get this, and with the newly increased support gold you definitely have the option to, you are actually able to free your ADC / anyone on your team from enemy CC and that can be incredibly important. Imagine standing outside the Crescendo and freeing your AD from it. It can turn an entire teamfight with the click of a button. Of course you have to remember to use it. This item also clears off things like Morgana ultimate tethers, so remember that it has a lot of uses.

Generally I have been talking about the items to get rid of hard CC. Stuns, silences, polymorphs and the like. But please never underestimate the power of being able to free yourself from a slow or burn. If you have Flash and Cleanse as your summoner spells and are getting ganked, don't think “I'm slowed right now but I'll save my Cleanse. I still have Flash if needed”. The cooldown difference makes this a very wrong idea as you have to wait an entire 5 minutes (300 seconds) for your Flash to be back up. But Cleanse only takes 210 seconds! So your first reaction should be to try and use Cleanse to keep running and only if nothing else helps any more, then you can flash away.

One last thing I want to mention is that flashing before the crowd control lands on you is infinitely better than flashing after being slowed / stunned / whatever. If that Olaf is running at you, you want to flash before the axe hits you. Else you will still be slowed at your destination and your opponents will have a very easy time catching up again. Don't think you wasted a Flash just because you then didn't get hit by any crowd control at all. Sometimes you see a pro player flash away from a gank and you will think “that was a really early Flash, why did he do that?” Because it was just the right moment in order to avoid all possible incoming CC. Well, most of the time anyway. Even pros mess up :)

Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed it! Feel free to follow my twitter here and leave Feedback, it would be very welcome. I will also read the comments so leave your thoughts, suggestions and the like.