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Photo via Riot Games

Zirene showcases a League exploit that involves swapping trinkets

Sometimes the simple things in League of Legends are the most effective.
This article is over 5 years old and may contain outdated information

Former League of Legends Championship Series analyst and color caster Aidan “Zirene” Moon has shown fans a trick to help them make the most out of their trinkets.

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Zirene showcased the exploit on his stream. He found that the most optimal strategy as a jungler is to swap trinkets throughout the game. He said that if you’re contesting Baron and your yellow trinket is on cooldown, you should be going back to base and switching to Oracle’s Lens (red trinket).

After you’ve changed your trinket, you should position yourself around Baron. Sweep the area several times, wait for the Oracle’s Lens to be back off cooldown, recall, and finally, swap back again to the yellow trinket.

Normally, if you were just using the yellow trinket and warding the area, it would take around six minutes and 30 seconds to place two wards. With this strategy, however, Zirene proved that you could place three wards and sweep two times.

This bug has been an issue for a while. Multiple threads on Reddit have called it out over the past two months.

This method requires recalling back to base, which could be detrimental to a late-game scenario, but it does have its merits. As well as the potential it has around Baron, it can also be used in early-game situations, such as allowing junglers to more efficiently take advantage of the jungle, creating a safe path for themselves, and protecting laners from the river.

For example, the tactic has the potential of acting as a barrier of protection from counter-ganks. It also allows you to lessen the chance that your laners will be caught overextending. You’d usually be able to either sweep the river or a brush a couple of times, but now, you’ll be able to do that and buffer your laners with wards.

The reason this exploit works is because of the differential in cooldowns between the yellow trinket and Oracle’s Lens. The yellow trinket has a cooldown of 240 seconds, but Oracle’s Lens can’t share this same cooldown. When changing to Oracle’s Lens after using a yellow trinket, the cooldown will change to 90 seconds. If you wait 90 seconds for Oracle’s Lens to come off of cooldown and then immediately swap it again, another ward will appear. It appears as if the game is confused by this interaction and is acting, instead, based on percentages.

This may not seem like a groundbreaking technique, but preventing a kill in the early stages of a game or securing vision in preparation for Baron has huge implications. Something this simple could be game-defining.

Although jungling has gradually become a more aggressive role with the means to hard-carry a teamfight, its ground roots are support focused.

SKT’s former jungler Bae “Bengi” Seong-woong is a prime example of this. In season three, the pro player acted as a tool of protection to allow the focal point of his team, Lee “Faker” Sang-hyeok, to carry the game from the mid lane.

If you properly utilize this trinket technique, you’re doing your team a favor. It may not be noticed by your teammates in solo queue, but if you prevent a gank or secure Baron in the later stages of the game, you’ll know that your role was vital to securing the win.

Correction March 18 10:25am CT: Zirene did not discover this trinket swapping technique.


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Jerome Heath
Senior editor
Jerome has been in and around the gaming industry for the last eight years, and he's not going anywhere anytime soon.
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