Laning Phase

Freezing the wave in League of Legends is a strategic technique that involves maintaining the minion wave's position near your turret. This can be a powerful tool for controlling the lane and denying your opponent farm. To freeze the wave, last-hit minions and only attack when necessary to keep the wave closer to your turret. Below is a diagram of how many minions are needed in order for the wave to freeze. For example, if you want the minion wave to freeze as close to your turret as possible (the green section) you would need 3 enemy ranged minions to be alive, meaning if you have 3 allied ranged minions, you need there to be 6 enemy ranged minions. By freezing the wave, you can achieve 2 things. First, you can put yourself in a safer position, generally the less distance between your turret and yourself, the safer you are as it is difficult for the opponent to kill you under the turret without also dying themselves. Freezing the wave also puts the enemy in a much more vulnerable position, allowing you to set up for your Jungler to come and help you get a kill, giving you a lead.

Playing in coordination with your jungler is crucial during the laning phase. By communicating and timing your actions together, you can set up ganks, invade the enemy jungle, or secure objectives. Working with your Jungler can be a very effective way to generate leads for not only yourself but also the rest of your team as the Jungler can use the advantage you helped them gain across more of the map than you can.

Recognizing and playing around the enemy jungler's presence is vital for laning success. Not respecting the enemy Jungler can turn what should be a very easy lane for you into a prison where you have no choice but to give up resources in order to not give unnecessary kills to the enemy. The easiest way to avoid the enemy jungler is effective ward placement. By placing wards, you are able to give your team vision and information on the movements of the enemy team. This information can be useful if an enemy is spotted in the vision. Not seeing the enemy can also provide just as much information. If your team has heavy vision on one side of the map and still has not seen the enemy jungler, it can usually be safely assumed that the jungler is on the other side of the map. Below is a map with some useful ward spots marked. The spots marked in black tend to be useful ward spots throughout the entirety of the game. These spots are often at the entrances or exits of the jungle, as if a team wants to make a play for either an objective or to catch an out-of-position ally, they usually have to do it by leaving the jungle through these spots. These also help provide some security when placed on your half of the map as they will let you know if the enemies are invading your jungle. Spots marked in blue are indications of potential ward spots you can use when your team is ahead. These are done from the perspective of Blue side, so all of them can be mirrored to the other side if you are playing on Red side. These positions allow you to get information earlier due to them being deeper on the enemies' side of the map. The reason you usually need to be ahead to make good use of these spots is that it can be quite dangerous to put wards here if you are even or behind in the game since the enemies can easily collapse on your position for a free kill. The spots marked in red are warding spots that should primarily only be used during the laning phase. These provide a way to help protect yourself from enemy ganks without the risk of losing too much by leaving lane for too long.