KaSing's Vision Quest

Vitality support KaSing has strong views on vision. In the first three weeks of the EU LCS 2016 Season he placed an average of 14.5 pink wards per game, more than any other EU LCS player. His race to cover the entire Rift in mini-Barad Durs is born out of a tightly held belief of his that good vision wins games.

His focus on Vision Wards in particular is what's most intriguing. Why so many in one game? It's not that his opponents are so good at removing them from the map, but rather that KaSing likes to keep repositioning them in order to gain a greater advantage. Pushing them further into the enemy jungle, or pulling them closer to your base as the need arises. They're also a great way to distract your enemies and keep them in place while they deal with your pesky pink deliveries.

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"Right now pink wards are 75 gold and I think that's a big difference," KaSing says. "Right now the way pink wards work is that, if you place one on the map and then you go back and you buy another two, technically you have three pink wards in place. Because you can refresh the first one, or if they kill it you can replace the first one. If they kill that, you can place another one again, which provides control. By making sure they have to stay there to clear it for five seconds, that's a lot, and I think people underestimate this part of a support, or of Vision Wards anyway. If everyone gets one or two, it's perfect."

Support players aren't the only people who can keep their opponents busy with a bit of ward farming, but KaSing reasons that it can actually be a better use of gold than building items.

"Anyone can do this, but especially in the support role because back then the gold was just like for items or other tanky stuff, but that doesn't really benefit anyone else apart from yourself. I think that pink wards are seriously undervalued. They're really cheap. 75g for five seconds of someone's time is really important. That's the reason why I prioritise pink wards the most," he explains.

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But of all of the trinkets available, blue is definitely not the warmest colour. The Farsight Alteration, KaSing reasons, is not a very smart purchase for most players. Their best use is for checking on the enemy team's movement towards Baron and Dragon. The LCS is no place for those super-fragile blue wards. One hit from the enemy and they're gone, unlike the much more resilient pinks. "I think right now, blue trinkets are going out of the meta except for on AD Carry. Maybe on mid lane, too, but I think that mid laners should have normal trinkets, because mid laners can move between the sides and ward anywhere he wants," KaSing says.

"I think blue trinket is only important on AD Carry because once AD Carry is in the mid lane, you can check to see if they are doing Baron, which is really safe to do, or you can use it anywhere you want. Let's say you're pushing a lane up by yourself, then you can use a blue trinket behind you or in a bush in front of you, just to see if they are in there."

The loss of stealth wards from the shop during the 2016 preseason means that yellow trinkets are much more important than they once were. Again, it's about keeping your enemies busy trying to clean up your mess, or relying on the fact that they won't be able to. "If your team is ahead, those yellow trinket wards will pretty much always stay on the map. Because you're ahead they can't face check it, they can't clean it properly, they can't efficiently do anything about it," KaSing says.

"Whereas blue trinkets, once you place it they can just come in and clear it and you're in the same stalemate again. With a yellow trinket, they have to clean it with a pink ward or a sweep and most teams only use one or two sweepers, max. By having these trinket wards people won't really know that you have vision there. Then you either use this vision to either make a flank, or a TP play, etc. Then you win the game like that."

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Simple as that. As for those sweepers, more is better, and KaSing believes they're being underutilised in the LCS. "Sweeper has a long cooldown of one minute, within that time let's say you sweep one batch of wards and then they come in and place wards again, you can't sweep it again for another 60 seconds," KaSing says. The solution? More sweepers! "By only having one, you have one sweep. With two people with sweepers, it's much more efficient and because of the pink wards, you can just refresh the pink wards again, where you want, because you already have one on the map and two in your inventory. You always get control on any objective you want, provided you play the map right."

The vision game is a complex business, but put enough effort into it and it'll start paying dividends. At the very least, your team mates (and your Elo) will thank you for grabbing a few pink wards every now and then. Maybe not 14.5 per game, but who knows, doing so could get you into the LCS just like KaSing.