Friendly Reminder about the Control Ward

is a PERMANENT WARD. (Assuming it's not killed and you don't place another one.)

Why is this important? As a permanent, but visible ward, you can put it in your team's zone for extra control. ALL GAME.

Good spots near you? (This is for Blue side, mostly mirrored for Red.)

• Top lane > tri-bush behind tower or around bend of ramp opposite of Herald/Barond (prevents ganks/dives in some cases, also a good back-up teleport spot in some cases, in the case of by the on-ramp, allows you to spot jungle invades.)
• Mid > bush next to Raptors with view of raptors or bush on wall opposite of your tower (helps prevent jungle-invades and some ganks)
• Bot > Bush next to Krugs
• Jungle > By YOUR buffs, creates a brief delay so you can spot if they're being stolen OR at any of the lane spots. Go wild. All these spots are good for anyone who has the gold to spare.

Somewhat good spots: (Generally what I'd refer to as "contested spots")

• Bushes behind Bramblebacks.
• River bushes.
• Near Epic Monsters (Dragon, Rift Herald/Baron)
• Bot Lane, Blue-side Tri-bush.

Bad spots:

• Enemy jungle.

Here's the reasoning: In your jungle, they prevent some ganks while creating more safety for your jungler and you. At these locations, the enemy who finds them, is out of their way to find them. This means more moments of opportunity where you can hopefully abuse bad placement. The contested spots are okay for various reasons, such as Dragon control, however, these areas often have enemies scouting them for reasons, which means your ward is free gold to them OR you need to actively defend it. As a permanent ward, the enemy will only find them at these spots if they're actively in that locale or learn the pattern themselves. More map vision also usually means more map control.

Here's the other things you should know:

• If you lose a tower, your "zone" of control drops back. The enemy has more points of ingress as your towers go down into the jungle which really just means that your control ward is less safe, thus might need replaced more, costing you more gold.
• Stealth champs don't give a crap about your control wards.
• Higher Tier gameplay definitely needs to utilize contested locations more often for aggressive control tactics. So these locations are for average-to-mid tier gameplay usually. Though ultimately, these can't really be wrong even in most high-tier gameplay.