Trinkets for supports and why you're probably using them wrong.

Keep in mind, what you are about to read are my opinions, and are in no way factual. I am typing this because I enjoy analyzing the ever-changing meta that league goes through, and I like to come up with logical strategic ways of playing the game that might give my team, or at least my playing an advantage.

I'm here to talk about trinkets, and why supports (and junglers) aren't using them to their full potential. I love the new trinket system, I think it's arguably one of riot's best ideas when it comes to this new patch. It really adds a new strategic level of play to the game that was previously reliant only on playing skill.

One of my favorite roles, especially in this new meta is the support role. Riot really has done a lot to mitigate the lack of gold income from creeps and kills. While it's not perfect yet, it's a step in the right direction it just needs to be fine-tuned a bit.

Trinkets are a very new aspect to the game. Originally, I thought of it as an extra summoner spell, but now I'm thinking of it more in the way of adding something to your champion's kit. Of course, right now you have three different trinkets, you have the:

: which allows you to see through the fog of war close by to your location. : which allows you to place an extra ward for a very short time : which allows you to disable and see invisible units

Of course then you have the upgrades which allow more distance for sight, a longer vision ward (or a longer pink ward) and the granting of a limited time Oracles.

Here's how the ideal trinket system works: support gets green or blue trinket (depending on the champion) Jungler gets red trinket (for killing wards) everyone else gets the green trinket.

Usually people buy these trinkets at the beginning, and then leave them untouched for the rest of the match. I believe this is wrong, at least as far as the support role goes.

For me, here's how I do things: I start with a support item, which usually leaves me enough money for another ward and a couple of pots, and I start with the green trinket. I then coordinate with my adc that they will first place their green trinket at either river or tri, and then when that runs out, I will either place my trinket (green) or I will place my main ward (if I already used my trinket in an in lane bush).

starting this way means that you can stay in lane with vision LONGER than if you were to just place one ward, or one trinket there.

Then I move on to building my items. I'll usually first focus upgrading my income item to tier 2, then I work on getting a sightstone.

Here's the important part

Once a support gets sightstone, they should immediately sell their green trinket and get either a red or a blue depending on which champ they are playing. How I make this decision follows:

If you are a champ like blitz or thresh or lux you should seriously consider getting the blue trinket for seeing enemies in a bush and pulling off a surprise play. this gives you a serious advantage for securing kills or kililng an enemy if they try to flash past a wall.

If you are any other type of champ, you want to focus on lane dominance: that means getting a red trinket and making sure that the enemy doesn't have any wards where you could either get ganks from or you could be hiding.

Also as a note, red trinkets for blitz or leona or thresh are good if you are still in the laning phase and want to remain hidden within bushes, so think about that.

Either way, once you have your sightstone, keeping a green trinket is pointless. You can now place three wards with the first, cheaper sightstone, and that's the max amount of wards you can place anyway, so why waste the space on a trinket that you aren't really going to use?

During the lategame, most supports, as well as the jungler should have the red trinket and upgrade it all the way. This is your replacement to oracles, and it's immensely helpful for making the map more secure, and keeping vision control over objectives such as dragon or baron buff.

If you have already figured this out, good for you. Honestly this is less of a guide, and more of an opinion, so if you feel that you have a BETTER idea, please I encourage all feedback! The reason for posting this is to possibly help form the meta from what it is now (example: the support getting one trinket that remains unused for the duration of mid to late game), to something more intuitive and advantageous. I don't claim to know everything, however and I'm far from a professional player. Even so, I encourage everybody to give this an attempt and see how it works for you guys! GOod luck on the fields of justice everyone!