Wards are a necessity in any Conquest game in Smite. They provide Vision control, allowing you to keep an eye on objectives and have the ability to set up and prevent ganks. Wards aren't expensive items, with the base ward only costing 50 Gold and the sentry ward being 120g. These wards are especially needed in Middle Lane where the jungler and mid laner are forced to stay together for much of the early game to not lose pressure and farm effectively in the current meta. I am addressing this ward mostly to mid laners, however junglers can effectively use this placement if they trust their mid to cover other warding areas they as junglers would usually provide.

There are key places where you can ward to hopefully prevent ganks from the enemy jungler when he decides to rotate, the most common meta warding areas are the entrances to Middle Lane at the Mid Harpy pits as these places are where most junglers and mid laners rotate from to gather farm and set up their ganks. The top side of these wards being the "aggressive" wards so you can hopefully set up ganks and stop the enemy's and the bottom side being "defensive" wards, so you don't get ganked yourself.

Meta Wards

However, there is one flaw with the aggressive wards: they require you to go through Mid to get tracked by the ward. So any sensible jungler can just go from underneath their tower and around the buff camp to get their ganks, meaning that if your teammates doesn't have vision, they are more likely to die and you will have no idea about it until it is too late. This is a waste of those wards meant to prevent this scenario from happening, meaning you just wasted at least 50g. However, there is one ward that can do the job of these two aggressive wards.

Mid Lane Ward

You may have seen this ward in SPL and not understood what it was there for. After all, it seems to be a waste of gold at first glance. But the Mid Ward is a win-win situation for the team placing it. The ward covers the entirety of the Mid Lane's width so you can see every rotation out of the lane and the direction they are heading. This ward does the same job the two aggressive wards do, but does it cheaper and more effective if your team has the necessary ward coverage.

Generally, if you are buying aggressive wards to counter a jungler's rotation, they will have that area covered with either a ward or a sentry, so you'll need to sentry that area to deny them vision. Whereas the Mid Ward will always be a regular ward, so instead of needing to spend 50g or 120g to place aggressive wards on both sides of mid, you only need one 50g regular ward. It's even better for your team if the enemy team decides to sentry that ward to deny that vision, as your enemies will get no benefit out of the sentry besides the first 50g.

This ward does have a few setbacks to its traditional counterparts though. Since you don't have vision on their side of Mid Harpies, you don't know if their jungler or mid is attempting to gank you from those choke points. So you'll need to play slightly back or risk dying. Its other large setback is that you may only place one other ward, which will most likely go to one of your Mid Harpy entrances. This leaves the other entryway open for the enemies to come through.

Now the Mid Ward isn't going to cause your team to win games. It'll only stop the enemy jungler and mid from being able to rotate out of Middle Lane without you knowing, which is an issue most people (including myself) have where you back to base, having a teammate die and call you out on it. This ward prevents that in the most productive way possible. However, the rest of your team still needs to ward in order for this placement to get most of its effectiveness since you have very little jungle actually warded from Mid yourself. I would only recommend this ward if you trust your team to be able to look at their mini-maps and ward for themselves. Otherwise, I would still recommend the traditional wards. So, if you are in comms I would go for the Mid Ward every time.

So if you are behind or need to play passive, I would suggest going for the safer and more traditional warding placements and hope the rest of your team can ward for themselves. The Mid Ward is meant to save you gold, but you lose more gold if you or your team dies from the lack of actual vision. Also the ward has little bearing if the enemy team has leaps which can go over walls, or they decide to be passive and only rotate out of the bottom side of their towers which nothing can prevent except for those deep wards which are the riskiest to place.

So I wish you all happy hunting with your new vision control and hopefully keep yourself and your team alive.

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