Carry your Carry 2: Warding for an Aggressive Lane

If you and your carry are playing aggressively, you should expect to get camped by their jungler; if you don't get camped, it should feel like a pleasant surprise, as opposed to getting camped feeling like an unpleasant surprise.  With this in mind, it's even more important that you keep yourself well warded.

If you expect an early invade and are invading early yourselves also, you will likely need to place several wards at level 1 so that you have a very good idea of where the enemy team is.  However, since the proper places for these wards are so situational I won't go into detail about that here and instead assume that you're doing a "standard" start with no invades.

BLUE SIDE.

Place your explorer ward here at about 1:25 or 1:30 both to guard your taking double golems and also to watch for a level 2 gank from a blue-starting jungler.  If you see their team near your blue and your team doesn't want to fight (so that you don't have to go group with them) then this ward isn't necessary.  The reason for using an explorer ward is that if their jungler starts blue and doesn't level-2 gank, then he's almost certainly not going to gank for at least two minutes after taking blue, which means that the second two minutes of a regular ward will be wasted, so you should just use your explorer ward.

Ward the enemy side bush upon coming to lane (for the most part).  If you get to lane after taking doubles before they've finished helping with blue, you can walk into that bush and drop a ward in the center of it; otherwise just ward it safely from your bush.  I like to use a pink ward here if I think that I will be able to push my lane up a bit early and then camp the bush; otherwise a normal ward is fine.  Don't ward that bush if you won't make use of the ward; for example, I wouldn't keep it warded on either side in an Ashe/Janna vs Nunu/Cait matchup unless the lane starts to push towards me and I'm worried about a jungle gank---keep in mind that this is one place that can be very important to have warded two minutes from now that you won't be able to walk into after five seconds from now, and don't be stingy with dropping a ward in it if the lane starts to push towards you and there's nothing you can do about the pushing.

As soon as the jungler could be coming bot you need to start keeping a ward in tribush; that can be a pink ward, but on blue side it should probably only be a pink ward if the enemy support previously pinked it and you need to clear their pink.  When the jungler could be coming bot differs between junglers and whether you expect your red to be stolen, and it's better to be on the early side.  The other ward pictured is the way to ward river if you're scared to walk out.  Stand where I'm standing and place the ward just past the torch inside the terrain and then it will fall outside into the river.  If you do feel safe walking into the river, then a ward in front of dragon is better (I just don't have it pictured).

Warding here is important if the enemy has a jungler that can gapclose very easily through lane and you're pushed up to the tower.  When this occurs, if it's safe, just walk past your creeps and drop a ward into the bush from the lane.  If not, and you do feel safe walking into the enemy jungle to place a ward here then do that instead.  If you don't feel safe warding this bush at all, then you probably shouldn't be pushed up as far as you are unless you have very good disengage (e.g. Janna, Lulu, Nami, Zyra) or you know for a fact that the enemy jungler's ult is down and they're not scary without their ult or your jungler is very near bot and ready to counter-gank.

This is a ward that your midlane should place, and it can actually replace a tribush ward if you also have dragon warded---this is a good ward to have if the enemy jungler is stealing your wraiths or if the enemy midlane is Twisted Fate or Eve.  TF will likely want to walk here before teleporting botlane, and you can see Eve coming on a green ward placed here before her stealth kicks in.  If you do see someone approaching bot, you need to either get out, place a tribush ward, or have your midlane and jungler close for a countergank.  If you happen to chase through your jungle and have an extra ward on you, go ahead and place this ward if it isn't there already, but usually it isn't worth it to leave lane for as long as it takes to place this ward.  Warding here can be an answer to an enemy pick ward in tri if you don't have a pink yourself.

Place this ward if you're pushed up to their second turret or if your team plans to steal blue buff.  This is an excellent spot to place a pink ward, especially if you're going for the buff steal.  If you're warding to keep your laning safe, place the ward further towards wolves than I have it so that you can see as much of the approach paths as possible; where I put it is where you'd want to place a pink ward so that you can see the approach paths while still being able to see the entire bush so that you can clear any ward that they might have in the bush.  This positioning is also fine if their jungler and midlane don't have scary gapclosing and you're laning at the second tower.  This ward can be important even if you haven't yet pushed their tower, especially against Nocturne, so that you know when to expect that their jungler is about to come bot; it also lets your team have some control over their blue buff, so your midlane can push to tower as theirs is taking blue or perhaps you can even attempt to steal it.

PURPLE SIDE.

This ward is good to have if you're expecting/scared of a level 1 blue invade.  Place your explorer ward here from over the wall, as shown.  This is also a good ward spot for midgame and even sometimes lategame, and it's also one that your midlaner might place during laning if you're scared of a blue invade.  Again, you can place wards that the midlaner usually places if you happen to roam mid anyway for some reason.

Put a ward into the enemy bush when you get into lane, similar to what you do on blue side.

Keeping tribush pinked when you're on purple side is always a good idea when you have a ganking jungler or midlane, because blue side is so vulnerable to ganks from tribush when they push out.  If your lane is pushing to tower, you also want to have tribush warded unless you are Janna with all of your cooldowns up and you're about to leave lane and you're willing to risk blowing all of your escape cooldowns to get away from an unexpected gank.

Keeping dragon warded lets you see both if dragon's being taken and also if the jungler is coming down lane to gank.  It's a good ward to have on both blue and purple side.

If your lane is NOT pushing, and their jungler does NOT have a good gapcloser, then you can usually get away with a single ward placed here instead of warding both tri and dragon.  If the lane does start pushing, though, don't be greedy about saving your wards---put one in tri also.  If you can't ward here or in tri because of a pink, then just put a ward into the bush right behind me in the picture.

Use this ward if you're pushed up to their tower and expect lane ganks from their jungler.  This is also a good ward to have if you're tower diving.

Warding the enemy red can be a good idea if you're pushing to their second tower.  Keep their red and wraiths warded and you should be pretty safe.

You can stand at the back of the double golem camp and ward over the wall into this bush also.  It's a good idea to ward that way if you're feeling scared, even though you can't get the ward as deep as you might like.

This is an alternative place to ward if you're pushing to their second turret.

Ward here if you chase into their jungle during laning.  Late game, this is a very good bush to keep pinked.

These are basically all of the places you want to ward during laning.  Obviously there are times that you need your own side lane bush warded, which I don't have pictured, and if there's ever a time when you feel the need to have sight somewhere else then put a ward there.

FINAL THOUGHTS.

Keep in mind also that you don't want to be using too many wards during laning.  If you're playing passively, you should be able to get away with having only two wards---one in a lane bush and one in tri on blue side or one in a lane bush and one in between tribush and the river bush on purple side.  If you're playing aggressively and have control then you can leave out the one in their side lane bush, but then you need both river and tri warded, and if you push to their tower it's a good idea to put a ward that sees lane past their tower.  Almost never should you have more than three wards at a time unless you're so far ahead that you can push past their first turret and lane at their second turret, in which case you're far enough ahead that the extra 75 gold doesn't hurt you that much.

Try to have a sense of where the enemy jungler and midlane are.  If their jungler showed top 10 seconds ago, and their midlane just based with 10 hp, you don't need a tri ward right now.  Wait another 10-20 seconds before warding it.

If you have a teleport on your mid/top, try to get a ward to the end of their bush right before the lane starts pushing back to you so that your teammate can teleport behind them if they extend.  And if they have a teleport, anticipate this ward and buy an extra pink ward---it's worth it to permit you the security of pushing out and continuing to farm, even if you play somewhat passively due to the teleport.

Next time I'll talk about lane positioning; warding took longer than I expected it to, and I'm trying to keep the average length of posts on the shorter side.