The World Championships is so close that it's hard to believe and we're here to give you some insight on potential tourney picks and the viability of the supports used in competitive play. Why would you pick Taric over anyone else? Why is Sona so popular? Is there anything unconventional that's going to shine in the spotlight? Read more about the wind that sails the boats to their destination below!
With the finals up and coming this weekend, there is not much time left for teams to prepare for the finals. With the hype prior to the grand $2,000,000 tournament starting October 4th, we bring you more coverage for the World Championships by discussing the potential picks and strategies with the roster of supports that will be having the top 12 teams' backs and holding them together.
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an Excerpt from "Wind Beneath Their Wings"
Sona
To no surprise, Sona has never had a long period where she wasn’t an extremely powerful support; she really has it all. Toppling records by being the highest win rate and picked champion and decimating the statistics, Sona has sustain, a slow, the highest damage of any support in lane, a defensive aura, an offensive aura, a speed aura + haste spell, a damage reduction active, and an AoE stun which also deals damage, there’s not really anything bad to pick off about Sona besides her squishiness and susceptibility to dying from burst. If you can survive your team has by far the strongest kit by her side. Aside from, well…everything she does being good, she has some neat perks to her regarding Baron Nashor. Firstly, with the combination of her healing, Defensive and Offensive Aura upkeep, and damage reduction on baron, she reduces the threat of the battle significantly, offering small-scale Baron clears, duoing it with a jungle or perhaps 3 people on the team. She makes it extremely safe to do, and then follows up with making her team unstoppable with baron by amplifying the already substantial buffs as well as making any tower or Nexus objectives in her path easy to contest with massive regeneration and utility. With no doubt in my mind, Sona will be sought after and picked or banned most, if not, every game at the World Championship.
Soraka
The starchild is the most ‘babysit of ‘babysitters’ in her role, generally sitting back and keeping her partner healed up in both health and mana. The mana upkeep is something unique only to Soraka, which already gives her a reason to be picked amongst the variety of supports. This is not to say she cannot be aggressive by getting early levels in her Q, and auto attack harassing with her banana--..er…magical crescent blades. The ‘infusion’ spell serves a dual purpose of casting a safe, effortless and long rage silence which could effectively stop someone from using Flash or cancelling channeled abilities. Although squishy in lane and susceptible to ganks, she has a shroud of deception about her, for if she uses her heal wisely it grants a short-lived but gigantic armor buff to whoever you apply it to, meaning if you focus that target by any mishap for the duration, you’re probably in trouble. Her global heal also allows her to be the only support that can assist other lanes during the laning phase, which also makes her valuable. Although she also has a moderately strong MR aura, Soraka will, regrettably(?), most likely not have a strong showing at a tournament due to her vulnerability to strong engages and the lack of mobility in a time of dire need to be swift. She also does not have peeling potential for her squishies, but may be chosen against heavy physical teams and although she has a stacking magic resist debuff on her Starcall, she most likely will not live long enough to get several stacks on the enemy team and live to tell the tale.
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