You might be using the Control Ward wrong - League of Legends by taylortilts

You might be using the Control Ward wrong

It should go without saying that you should basically never do an objective without a Control Ward in the pit if the enemy team is ready to contest. Vision denial makes map movement dangerous and fights disadvantaged, but I won't go into why vision denial is good because that part should be obvious.

The point of this post specifically is the underrated role the Control Ward plays in this. It's not just a 'permanent' ward. As I smurf through low elo I've noticed I average around 6-9 ward clears a game depending on length while nobody else in the game even reaches 2. Sure, not everyone takes sweeper but everyone does have access to the strongest item in the game: The Control Ward.

The vision denial on a Control Ward isn't just a nice bonus feature, it's the main strength of the item. If you're not using them aggressively to dominate hotly contested areas of vision you're not getting full value out of them. It's a misconception that the value of a Control Ward increases with how long it stays on the map, especially if it's not providing you with much information.

Common advice for supports is to grab a control ward and put it somewhere deep, leave it there and collect information. I disagree with this completely, and outside of the first 10 minutes of the game it's not how the pros use them and it's not how you should use them either.

You'll often see pros use a Control Ward as, quite literally, a second sweeper. Immediately denying a trinket ward the enemy just put down in vision of them. If you see someone place a ward, immediately denying it is a guaranteed advantage because:

1. If they placed the ward there, it's because they needed vision of that area exactly at that moment. They no longer have it.
2. Their trinket is now on full cooldown, and the entire duration of the ward was negated leaving them visionless for an extended period of time
3. 10 Gold! If you used a Control Ward to clear it, you just brought the cost of it down to 65 gold which means it's created even MORE value!
4. You have established dominance

Using your Control Ward also leaves vision behind for you and creates a known point of weakness for the enemy that they will feel compelled to contest; they take time to clear. Let's be honest, how many of us have given our lives for a pink? Warding is all knowledge and mind-games after all.

One argument against sweeping I hear often is that "Nobody wards in low elo" which is blatantly false, every player has access to a free item that provides vision and they will use it throughout the game. As long as you have the knowledge of what the enemy would want to see at any given moment, your Control Ward drops will reveal an enemy ward.

The most effective way to use the Control Ward is to move it frequently as the objectives of the game shift. There's always something being contested, if you have a Control Ward there you're immediately 2 steps ahead which facilitates winning skirmishes. It's not enough to have vision, you have to remove it to. Pay 75 gold and accomplish both at once.

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