The baron bait is a simple yet effective macro strategy emphasizing on distracting the enemy team and forcing them to pay attention to you on one side of the map. In an ideal situation, a team will bait baron after destroying an inhibitor but it can also be used if a big minion wave has been accumulated in a side lane. The goal of this maneuver is to divert enemy resources away from protecting their structures with the threat of taking baron, while your minion waves deal damage to their base. This forces the enemy team to make a decision because in theory if your team is grouped up, then the enemy either has to send someone back to defend the base while their team loses a 4v5, or force an unfavourable teamfight without a vision advantage.

When baiting Baron, it's good to attack it until it is down to around 1/2 or 1/3 HP to keep the enemy around to try to potentially steal it before pulling off, letting the baron regen, and then starting again. If the baron is low enough for an enemy to potentially steal it, you are doing it wrong. Since your team is still running the risk of losing enough members in the teamfight to pressure any objective afterwards, let alone lose a teamfight altogether, it is important to know how to properly set up for it. This guide will discuss the proper wards and chokepoints to keep in mind for both red and blue side so you and your team can try it out in your next game.

Blue Side

Wards + Teleport Flanks

As you can see for your warding plan, there are 3 distinct layers of potential ward placements. The green circles represent the type of wards that would be pretty impossible to lay down during a baron bait since there would be enemies in the way, so these would be placed after your team finished grabbing an inhibitor or if the current game context permits it without potentially getting caught. The red circles are also wards that would be much easier to place beforehand, but many supports and junglers with sweepers are probably used to placing red wards in these areas or sweeping as they walk over them. These first 2 layers of wards are still very important however, since if the team overextends past any of them it opens up your top (and sometimes mid) laner to teleport them and get a great flank on them.

They can also be temporary positions for blue trinkets at any time. Likewise, even if the red-circle wards get swept they are still alerting you of the enemy team's presence and queues the placement of the blue circles. You will be able to see them coming but as with any ward, they also show where the enemy is not. If you don't see the enemy defending their base or walking over these wards, it might be an indicator of them rotating somewhere else, whether it be dragon or one of your own structures. Regardless of where their team may be rotating however, you just got a free baron, so good job!

Red Wards + Sweeping

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With regular wards down, it's also important to discuss red ward placement and where to sweep in general. The ward in the pit is the most important, and has to be slightly inwards so that it'll reach the back of the pit wall in case the enemy wards over it. The middle ward in the bush should be placed at the furthest ledge off to the right so it maximizes its reach towards the enemy team. The circles in the top and bottom can be played around for longer baits but admittedly is not nearly as important as the other two. The red lines indicate the two potential sweeper trails to walk over while the sweeper is active- while it is much less of a threat in lower-level games, always keep in mind that part of the reason you destroy enemy wards is to deny them potential teleport flanks.

Key Chokepoints

The concept of a chokepoint is very simple - a narrow spot on the map that an enemy is more likely to clump around while maneuvering. To keep it even more simple, if you can catch a stray squishy or engage on a team in between the 2 lines, you are in a very prime position to win this exchange and get a massive lead from this play, and most likely win the game if it is late enough. While baiting baron, if it okay to step into these "Sweet spots" to land harass on the enemy but recognize the risks of moving far up (Blitz Hooks, Nautilus Anchor, Morg Binding, etc). In a typical situation, stepping into the red area of the map will mean getting caught and dying. Do not walk into these areas unless you truly know what you are doing or have the sufficient support behind you.

Red Side

Wards + Teleport Flanks

Following the same criteria as the last warding map, it's easier to skip straight to what is specifically different about warding on the red side than its opposite. The blue circle with the blue line coming out of it shows a ward that you can place over the wall. However one of the biggest advantages blue side has in this scenario is the bush by the green part in the blue-red line- it is very easy for Blue side to safely get vision in this bush. However this does not come without its drawbacks- on blue side, the lack of hugging the baron wall means that it is harder to sweep around the area and it's harder to make a clutch steal. As you can see in this graph, the area the blue team is more likely to sweep is more compact than on the other side, even if they turn on their sweepers while running there. This leaves open more potential for teleport flanks than on the other side. However if the enemy team breaks through into the river, it becomes a do-or-die teamfight quite easily.

Red Wards + Sweeping

Due to the nature of Red vs. Blue side, your red wards will be closer to each other. The only optional one is the ward inside the pit which is to catch any cheese wards just inside the entrance, which can be swept instead. The two outer red wards will remain as points to defend in case they try to inch any wards closer, but will immediately get caught once they are in the river. Sweepers in the area should be very straightforward - clear out the river and maybe the path leading up to it.

Key Chokepoints

As you can see, depending on the context of the game there are 2 layers of viable chokepoints that isn't impossible for catching 3 people out at a time, though "Sweet Spot 2" is definitely the more feast-or-famine of the two. Staying inside the green and yellow lines is certainly the safer route, especially when your team will be forced to pull into the first Sweet Spot to drop baron agro. Therefore, the baron baits are much easier on the red side if you have a minimum of two tanky members. That way, one tanky member and a damage or support player can do baron while the other tank frontlines in front of the other team, instead of just having squishy champions face the oncoming team.

Bringing it all together, we can see that the Baron Bait is theoretically a pretty straightforward macro strategy to use - force your opponents to make a move so that they waste time around baron while your minion waves claim objectives. If you remember to put wards down beforehand and position your red wards and sweepers accordingly, the rest should be relatively easy to execute. However the main hurdles you will find are either cooperating with random soloqueue teammates, or not having a favourable team composition. However if you plan beforehand with friends, or if you are playing with teammates that are relatively good and demonstrate a reasonable understanding of the game, it isn't impossible to set up a number of favourable wards yourself and be able to type to your team the 3 magical lines of "group baron", "bait", and "drop agro when its low". It becomes even easier if you yourself are playing the tank with hard initiation. Now that you are aware of the standard baron bait, you should be more effective at helping your team prepare for barons in general, and don't be afraid to try it out with some friends!

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