TI9 got off to a strong start with several dramatic back and forth games. During the event we'll try to look at one specific area of the game after each day of play. In this post we'll look at some examples of how teams warded and played around their vision.

The first two examples come from the last series of the day, LGD vs TNC. Around 14 minutes into game 2 LGD is in control. They've placed vision to spot entrances to both jungles. This way their Sven can farm safely on the right side of the map and the other heroes have a lot of information to base their moves on.

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LGD spots TNC's Gyrocopter under their wards on the top side of the map and smokes after him. Knowing that TNC is likely to try to help, straight after the kill LGD rotates to the bottom side of the map to collect bounties and runs straight through the Radiant jungle towards mid lane, knowing fully with their wards that the jungle is clear. This results in another kill and the mid tower.

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Just moments later a TNC player gets caught on the same ward. LGD smokes there again, but because LGD lose clear vision on their target they don't go too far in and avoid losing anyone even with TNC there ready to respond. With LGD showing 3 heroes top, Armel on the Arc Warden thinks he is safe to farm bottom. But LGD still has their deep wards on that side of the map and they kept Lion and Leshrac in the area ready to hunt any individual TNC heroes down.

As a contrast we can look at the first game of the Alliance vs Chaos series. After 27 minutes Alliance looks to be in a decent position. The game is by no means over (and in the end Chaos managed to win), but with Troll Warlord just finishing up a Satanic Alliance is looking to take a commanding position in the game.

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The only ward Alliance has on the map is a fairly defensive one near the bottom rune. Their ward near the Roshan pit was dewarded moments before. Chaos on the other hand has 3 defensive wards and they seem to be fully ready for an engagement on their side of the map.

While Alliance clearly wants to make a move, they have little information to go by and end up simply playing together and going for a tower push. While the team finishes the Tier 1 tower iNSaNiA places one of his wards on the lane for later use (similar to the wards LGD had used) but the team walks near the Radiant shrine without any vision where Chaos is getting ready to set up a trap.

When and where teams place wards and how they end up utilizing them is always an interesting thing to follow. As we saw in the clips, a well placed ward can be the difference between team movements looking swift and smooth or terribly awkward. Exactly where the wards are best placed always depends on the hero lineups and the game state. For example in LGD's case they had a lot of kill potential even with 2 heroes, so placing those wards around the map and playing quite split up was appropriate.