Monday Musings: Support Meta Shifts

As a support main watching LCS evolve from a fairly static Sona/Janna support status to this strange and wondering mixture of Nautilus and Kennen supports, I can't help but look back and reflect how diverse the champion pool has become.

Introduction

As a support main watching LCS evolve from a fairly static Sona/Janna support status to this strange and wondering mixture of Nautilus and Kennen supports, I can't help but look back and reflect how diverse the champion pool has become.

Yet, as someone who likes to stay one step ahead of the "meta" and find the next "OP" before it becomes a mainstream ban, I can't help but want to look even deeper at the possibilities. However, first, what makes a "good" support?

What Makes a Good Support?

1. Good map control
• Free sight, built-in bush checking, etc.
2. Crowd control
• Self-explanatory
3. Effective killing power with low gold
• Gets your team kills; or
• Keeps enemies dead so teammates can free farm and take objectives
4. Effective tanking power with low gold
• Blocks skillshots for team, meat shield to minimize effectiveness of enemy damage
5. Superior mobility
• Roaming power and ability to ward/outrun enemies

Any combination of these, or simply a massively overpowered version of one is sufficient to make or break a support.

For example, Blitzcrank was for a brief few months, considered the best support. Although his "obvious" utility was his hooking power, Riot simply target nerfed his mobility, instantly dropping his win rate to under 50%.

Strangely Meta Supports

As mentioned before, strangely enough Kennen and Nautilus seem to be the new "meta" supports on the pro scene. Meanwhile, there are definitely a few support "under the radar" that may simply need a minor buff on one of the 5 points above to push them into the strong territory.

Possible Future Supports

• Galio - With his superior movespeed, high damage reduction, and AOE CC, a few mana buffs on any of his skills could easily put him into strong support status.
• Jarvan IV - Multiple CCs and a strong gap closer/armor reducer, J4 could possibly be placed into support status if they nerfed his damage and lowered his mana costs.
• Malphite - Strong sustain via his shield and relic shield, Malphite could easily become a popular support with his poke, initiation, and aspd reducing skills.
• Poppy - With complete invulnerability, Poppy is essentially the strongest diver in the game. A small movespeed buff to her already fast skills would put her on top.
• Rammus - Similar to Leona, Rammus would be a very "all-in" type of champion that focuses on superior mobility, but has a better point and click CC. He just needs a slightly bigger range on his powerball AOE.
• Volibear - This guy is already a very strong support since his damage simply scales with health, a fairly standard thing for supports to stack nowadays..
• Warwick - Strong sustain, team attack speed, and a single target CC make him a possible support, the only issue is that his ultimate is easily interrupted by the multitude of CCs bot lane. If they made his CC uninterruptible and nerfed his damage to compensate, he could potentially someday see himself as a support. (Somewhat of a longshot"

Other Meta Shifts

Another meta shift I potentially see is the whole Exhaust/Ignite support meta. I think that it's possible that if the power of jungle items continues to be dominant, we might even start seeing smite/cinderhulk builds on supports as well. That could be interesting.

What do you think? Any other meta shifts you see coming on for supports or any other roles? Comment below