Vision is one of the most important parts of League of Legends. Whether you're in Bronze or Challenger, people play better when they know exactly where their opponents are and what they are doing or plan to do. Being on the receiving end of a surprise attack can be devastating, especially in solo queue where co-ordination is less likely.

What makes warding an interesting mini-game is the battle that your team has against their team. It’s a war of information that allows you to make the best possible decisions, and the constant struggle for that information is paramount to macro plays that you and your team make throughout the map. As such, having wards that can properly provide you team vision that are not easily contestable or are not likely to be cleared out are invaluable tools to ensure you can rotate effectively and secure objectives and kills.

An immediate thing to note is that you shouldn’t feel like it is necessary to have wards in bushes. In fact, you can glean more information in some cases, and make your vision more difficult to scout and clear out as sweepers and vision wards will focus on being inside places like bushes and neutral objective pits. Another thing that avoiding bushes can get you is information on key intersections of the map which will help you better understand the movement of opponents and their intentions.

Blue side wards

The way that the map is laid out on the blue side makes it very difficult to ward every nook and cranny in the jungle. As such, blue side wards are a luxury to have and are difficult to place in deep positions. There also aren't many bushes to get vision from, in comparison to the red side jungle, meaning that warding bushes isn't as much of a need.

This ward is incredibly useful in signaling jungle side transitions by the enemy jungler and deeper mid lane roams in the early game. The most obvious and quickest path between red and blue side jungle, this ward will pick up on when you can be aggressive and when you have to play on the back foot knowing that the jungler has moved on. It also allows for your own jungler to move into their red side for similarly deep vision if they move outside.

This ward is abundantly useful on the blue side to scout movement onto your sidelane. It can easily identify when an enemy jungler is getting aggressive towards your bottom lane, through noticing movement towards the scuttle crab, blast cone, and into the lane either through the path upwards near their tier two tower or the tribush near their tier one tower. The ward debris next to it is the ideal placement if getting gromp vision is more important. This is only the case in instances when the blue buff is off the map, as you can still clearly see the remainder of the intersection.

This ward is more of a mid to late game option, ideal for when your team is setting up for a rotation onto a side lane tower or neutral objective (Baron on red side, Dragon on blue side). It catches initial rotations for individuals running straight to the objective from the base and is rarely ever swept away, making it a valuable ward for its duration. In combination with the above wards, it gives you full blue side jungle control.

Red side wards

A great offensive ward with added value the closer to the center of the intersection that it gets, this ward is incredible for scouting out red side jungle activity and movement to the top lane, river, and mid lane. This ward is one of the ideal wards to scout red side ganks and, when used in combination with a vision ward in the mid river bush, can cause complete safety on that side of the map for your mid laner.

This was an emerging ward in the metas where laneswaps were frequent strategic options for teams. The ward had the ability to scout lane assignments for a laneswap from the Raptors bush and deeper Blast Cone areas, meaning you could use just one ward to figure that out instead of teams that normally used two, making it a more efficient vision option. The ward still fulfills the same concept outside of laneswaps, granting you obscene amounts of vision on two key intersections of the enemy entering their red side jungle.

The Blast Cone Plant on the red side is also a convenient marker for an amazing ward which tracks movement from the jungler between the mid and red jungle sidelane. It also has the added benefit of scouting out Blast Cone usage in order to defend against sneaky ganks and blue side jungle invades. Vision Wards covering Red Buff and Baron ramp will also not catch this ward at all. Your own wards in those places will make Red Side jungle well covered for your team.

Neutral Objective Warding

Neutral objective warding can be incredibly tricky. While you want to ward around the objective, you want to avoid potential baron sneaks, meaning warding the objective entrance is also a key part of defense and reactionary play, especially when stretching the map through your macro play and sidewave management.

That way, you have an immediate sense of whether they've pushed to the objective or not. In the situations where you don't have control over the Baron or Dragon pits in any meaningful way, this is a great ward that doesn't get affected by vision wards inside the pit. Vision is fully covered in the important parts of the river with a ward in the suicide bush. This ward is especially useful when you don't have access to the scuttle crab.

An example of the ward at Dragon

An example of the ward at Baron

Defensive Wards

This ward is an incredibly useful laning ward on the bottom side of the map, and is ideal for red side bottom laners due to its scouting ability. If you find difficulty gaining enough control to actively ward the blue side bottom tribush, this ward is a viable alternative that also can avoid the range of vision wards placed in the river bush in most instances. It catches jungler movement towards the sidelane through the tribush or river.

Our first vision ward discussed, only because vision wards can and ought to be used inside neutral objectives or in bushes to scope out wards in the area. This ward, normally used on the thicker river wall, prevents the usage of wards that catch mid lane rotations to a sidelane, collecting blue, or jungler pathing to gank mid.

Conclusion

All wards here are great ways to gain information on what your opponents are planning to do and where they are planning to move. However, the absolute most important part about warding is actually collecting that information. So the biggest lesson that can be imparted here is to actually actively check and pay attention to your minimap in order to scout out what is going on and actually make informed decisions.

Gabriel Zoltan-Johan is a news editor for theScore esports and the head analyst for the University of Toronto League of Legends team. His (public) musings can be found on his Twitter.