League of Legends is home to around 200 champions having unique abilities that set them apart from the rest. Abilities that, when used together, can wipe out a whole team or end the game with a single blow. Aside from damage-dealing abilities that can potentially one-shot your whole team, another thing you should look out for are crowd control abilities.
Although not all crowd controls have the power to eliminate you, you’ll surely not want to catch any of it. Sometimes, getting hit by a well-timed Morgana's snare or a Nautilus hook can be followed by another CC or by a devastating attack from your opponents, resulting in your team’s screen going grey.
Crowd controls shine best, especially when you and your team can synergize well. Hence, one should know how important and how much impact your abilities can have in team fights. Each one has its own unique affects, and it's crucial to be aware of those impacts to actually pull off insane plays and bag some kills with it.
Here’s everything you need to know about Crowd Controls in League of Legends and how to counter them.
Also related: How to Mute Chat and Pings in League of Legends
Different Types of Crowd Controls in League of Legends
Airborne
When a unit is airborne, the target cannot move, attack, cast abilities or use any active item or summoner spell. This can be in a form of Knock aside, Knock back, Knock up and Pull. Like stun, it is an immobilizing effect that also interrupt channeling abilities.
- Removal: Cleanses except for Milio’s Breath of Life, Cleanse, Mikael’s Blessing and Quicksilver.
- Example: Malphite’s Unstoppable Force (R)
Blind
Blind is a CC that only Teemo can cast. When under this effect, your next basic attack will miss, however it will not stop you from casting it unlike Disarm.
- Removal: Cleanses except for Mikael’s Blessing.
- Example: Teemo’s Blinding Dart (Q)
Cripple
Cripple is best against marksmen and anyone else who heavily rely on basic attack and attack speed. It is a type of crowd control that reduce attack speed of the target for the duration.
- Removal - Cleanses and Master Yi’s Highlander.
- Example: Nasus’ Wither (W)
Disarm
When disarmed, a unit is unable to cast basic attacks for the duration. However, the target is still capable of casting abilities and other items.
- Removal: Cleanses except for Yone’s Soul Unbound and Mikael’s Blessing.
- Example: Lulu’s Whimsy (W)
Disrupt
Disrupt is a CC that only affects and disrupts channeled abilities and charged attacks. In comparison to Silence, disrupted units can still cast abilities.
- Removal: Cannot be removed because it is instantaneous.
- Example: Camille’s The Hextech Ultimatum (R)
Drowsy/Sleep
Drowsy is a crowd control effect that applies slow before falling asleep if the drowsy effect isn’t removed by any cleanse. On the other hand, when a unit is asleep, the target will be immobilized and will lose its ability to control its movement, cast basic attacks and abilities and use active items and spells.
- Removal: Cleanses, taking damage (except from persistent damage, minions, and small and medium monsters)
- Example: Zoe’s Sleepy Trouble Bubble (E)
Berserk
Maybe friendly fire is allowed in League after all? Berserk is a type of CC that is only introduced after the arrival of Renata Glasc. Berserk is a forced action type that drives a unit to attack a nearby unit regardless of it being an ally, enemy or neutral. However, it can be removed by cleanses. It is also worth noting that units that are affected by Berserk can only attack visible units.
- Example: Renata Glasc’s Hostile Takeover
Charm
The target unit is forced to move towards the caster of Charm.
- Example: Ahri’s Charm (E)
Flee
Flee on the other hand is quite the opposite of charm as it forces the target to move away from the caster of the spell.
- Example: Fiddlesticks’ Terrify (Q)
Taunt
Taunt forces the unit to perform its basic attack on the source or caster of the Taunt instead of anyone else. This is basically the reason as to why only tank champions such as Shen, Galio and Rammus have the ability to taunt opponents as they’re most likely to survive those attacks.
- Example: Galio’s Shield of Durand (W)
Ground
A unit affected by Ground loses its ability to dash, blink or use any movement spell, item or abilities. This is best used against champions with high mobility like Katarina, Irelia and Lee Sin.
- Removed by: Cleanses except for Yone’s Soul Unbound and Mikael’s Blessing.
- Example: Singed’s Mega Adhesive (W)
Kinematics
A target affected by kinematics is dragged to a unit or location.
- Removal: Removed by leaving the source of area of effect.
Nearsight
A target affected by Nearsight has their sight radius reduced. For the duration, true sight does not reveal opponents outside the radius.
- Removed by: Cleanses with the exceptions of Yone’s Soul Unbound, Cleanse and Mikael’s Blessing.
- Example: Graves’ Smoke Screen (W)
Root
When rooted, a unit is tied to the ground and immobilized. While under this effect, the target is unable to move and use mobility items/abilities.
- Removal: Cleanses
- Example: Lux’s Light Binding (Q)
Silence
Silenced units cannot cast abilities and active items, but can do basic attacks. Polymorph on the other hand is a kind of silence, that turns them into a critter which disallows the use of abilities and basic attacks.
- Removal: Cleanses except for Yone’s Soul Unbound
- Example: Soraka’s Equinox (E)
Slow
As the name suggest, slowed targets has their movement speed reduced. However, their movement speed cannot go below 110 movement speed. Its strength can be reduced by Slow Resist.
Example: Ash’s Volley (W)
Stasis
Stasis essentially disables a unit for a few duration being unable to cast abilities, basic attacks, spells, active items. Ultimately, a unit under stasis becomes untargetable and invulnerable.
- Removal: This status cannot be moved unless they die.
- Example: Bard’s Tempered Fate (R)
Stun
A target that is stunned cannot control its movement, cast basic attacks and abilities, and activate items and spells. Suspension on the other hand is rather similar but pretends to be airborne.
- Removed by: Cleanses
- Example: Annie’s Pyromania (P)
Suppression
Suppression is an immobilizing effect that is quite identical with stun as it makes a unit unable to cast basic attacks and abilities and use active items and spells. Most often though, this is a channeling ability or the caster is also incapable of moving during the suppression.
- Removal: Cleanses except for Cleanse and Mikael’s Blessing.
- Example: Malzahar’s Nether Grasp (R)
How to counter crowd controls in League of Legends
With the large number of currently existing types of crowd controls in League of Legends, awit can be difficult to keep track of them all and figure out how to disable them. Therefore, it is also crucial to get an understanding of these impacts and the measures that can be taken to mitigate them.
Tenacity
One of the worst things that may happen to you in League of Legends is to fight against a strong CC combination. A barrage of stuns, snares, and knockups will fall upon your team, rendering you helpless until your eventual demise. Annoying, isn't? Fortunately, there is a way to shorten the duration of a crowd control and that is by Tenacity.
Tenacity reduces the strength of crowd controls which saves you from having to stay under the status effect for the full duration. Therefore, higher tenacity means you’ll only be CCed for less time. The duration though cannot be reduced to 0.3 seconds. Tenacity can be increased using the following:
- Elixir of Iron
- Iceborn Gauntlet
- Mercury’s Treads
- Mosstomper Seedling
- Silvermere Dawn
- Sterak’s Gage
- Garen’s Courage
- Milio’s Breath of Life
- Legend: Tenacity
- Unflinching
- Cleanse
- Chemtech Blight
Tenacity however does not reduce nor has impact to airborne, drowsy, nearsight, stasis and suppression.
Crowd Control Immunity
A unit can have an immunity to different crowd control; total CC, displacement, slow, cripple and more. When immune, a certain crowd control spell cannot be applied for the duration, but does not negate the effects of any such spell currently in effect.
Spell Shield
Spell Shield is a shield that is mainly used to block a single CC. After negating a spell, the shield will automatically break and will not be able to block another CC.
- Sivir’s Spell Shield
- Nocturne’s Shroud of Darkness
- Banshee’s Veil
- Edge of Night
Cleansing Spells
Most crowd controls except for Stasis can be removed by Cleansing spells after getting hit. There are plenty of cleanses that can remove existing status effect/cc and a few examples include Cleanse (Summoner Spell), Quicksilver Sash, Gangplank's Remove Scurvy, Olaf's Ragnarok, Mikael's Blessings and Milio's Breath of Life.
That concludes our guide about Crowd Controls in League of Legends. Wanna check out your in-game stats and performance in League of Legends? Make sure to check out League of Legends Stats Tracker.
