Introduction

 Hello and welcome to my comprehensive warding guide. As everyone knows, warding is a very unpopular aspect of the game for most people. Countless games are played where nobody ever buys a ward. Countless games are played where the support is the only one buying wards while getting yelled at that he doesn't ward enough or wrong places. People know that warding is important but consider it annoying. But why is that so? One approach could be that most people just don't know anything about warding besides those things some players place at random places. To give those people an insight what warding actually is and how it is executed properly, I wrote this guide. I hope you enjoy it.

Why warding?

 Why would I want to ward?

The answer to this question is very easy: Warding wins games!
To know where the enemies are at any given moment is a very important matter throughout all stages of the game. Wards provide the additional map awareness to get that information constantly. Where is the jungler trying to gank? Where are the missing enemies heading to? Having or not having information about the whereabouts of your enemies makes a huge difference. It allows you to tell when to go back, when overextending isn't that risky, when you are getting counter-jungled, when you can gank, if buffs/dragon/baron are still there to name a few. Without wards, you would just play a guessing game which is not only inaccurate most of the time but also very risky for your sole goal in this game: Winning.

 

General Ward Spots

 These are not all potential ward spots, but the most important ones. Keep them in mind.

 Warding early game

Warding mid game 

Warding late game 

Counter warding 

As your team will most likely not be the only ones placing wards, warding itself becomes a competition of information. Cutting off information leaves them more vulnerable overall to ganks, counter jungling and buff stealing.
Counter warding itself has two kinds in LoL. Clearing by walking around using oracle or actual counter warding by placing pink wards at spots where you don't want to have enemy wards. This section will only cover the latter, as clearing with oracle is pretty easy if you can manage to not get caught and know the most common ward spots.

There are only three real spots where you want to get rid of enemy wards that much that it's actually worth it to buy counter wards: Baron, dragon and the bot lane tribush.

Final thoughts 

Warding is not just an annoying thing you have to do in order to not lose. It's another aspect of the game where you can outplay your enemies and have fun (especially counterwarding at bot lane). Getting a gank off, escaping ganks or stealing Baron are just a few of the satisfactions good warding can give you if executed properly.

And remember: Warding is not the support's job alone. Everyone can and should ward the spots he has to care about. It is not the support's job to go all the way to top lane and place a ward for the top laner. It does not have to be his job to counter ward dragon, the jungle player can do that too. Everyone can afford wards that are worth 3 or 5 last hits.