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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Alistar
Alistar is a fantastic support that we rarely see any more due to the heavily favored Junglestar. The infamous cow has just about every asset you’d want to have your back as an AD carry for the bottom lane. For one, he’s very innately tanky, thus can soak blows from poke quite well. Secondly, he has a heal which after a lot of the sustain nerfs is incredibly strong given the fact it’s AoE and can help push due to trample and healing your creep wave. Alistar is possibly the most terrifying support when it comes to setting up kills. If he has flash, if you’re standing by a wall, or if he can manage the pulverize headbutt combo, you can pretty much kiss the other AD goodbye. On top of all of this, he can effectively initiate a teamfight with little to no items, making him great with 0 CS due to his fantastic ultimate. We normally either see the cow played in the jungle or banned, but don’t be surprised if you see some support Alistar action!
Blitzcrank
Ah, yes. Everyone fears the dreaded God Hand of Doom. Just one pull from this guy can disgruntle the enemy bottom lane early and can completely change the state of the game later on. The terror you rarely see in solo queue you can look forward to seeing in the World Championships. Blitz is naturally tanky and offers a ridiculous amount of utility. Even if he sits there to look pretty, he will typically apply a lot of pressure and fear to those trying to farm within his (long) arm’s reach. With long range picking capabilities, a knock-up to follow up, and a relatively strong, bursty base damage ultimate that silences, Blitzcrank can single-handedly disable or outright get an enemy champion killed before a fight even starts. Blitzcrank is not without weaknesses on a team, though..If your team falls behind and cannot follow up on your pulls..you’re in for trouble!
Fiddlesticks
Crazy, right? Not so crazy according to recent TSM invitationals along with previous tournaments where Elementz of Curse.NA has tried this wacky support. Typically, a support Fiddle will max fear, which can be applied through no use of skillshot to disrupt the enemy AD for long periods of time. Although nonconventional, I wouldn’t be overly surprised if someone had this pick up their sleeve for the World Championships. Team Solomid had no idea how to play against it bottom lane so even decided to ban it against Elementz in the North American Regionals. The Drain is too annoying to simply ignore and you have to stand far apart from your support in fear of a long duration silence. Fiddlesticks can disable you for a long time in lane if you aren’t careful! Fiddlesticks is a very niche pick no doubt, and with that being said may not be picked in the finals, but if he does, the enemy team better punish him in lane before you have an Hourglass Fiddlesticks with a magic reduction aura bringing terror to their team on top of an already farmed AP Carry.
Janna
Previously renowned as the “Queen of Supports”, Janna has fallen out of favor recently. With nerf after nerf after nerf, she is however, still seen in competitive play. With possibly the most phenomenal disengage in the game, she’s still viable with her “R” button and a good use of her tornado. Let’s not forget how much junglers appreciate her passive as well as other melee champions on the team; you can’t go wrong with free movespeed! Although she literally needs no items to be effective at her job, she doesn’t have engage potential amongst the other supports in the game. You won’t see her every game or banned like in previous tournaments, but expect her in very specific compositions in the World Championships such as “Protect the Kog”, poking, and tower sieging strategies.
Nunu
Nunu and his beloved yeti Willump have become extremely popular on the Fields of Justice as of late. Scoring one of the highest base HP’s in the game, this gives Nunu great zoning potential if he chooses to go aggressive in lane, and capability of playing passive, too. His kit is very impressive and gives everything you need in bottom lane. His Ice Blast inflicts moderate damage and slows the attack speed of the enemy AD Carry, while Blood Boil essentially gives your own carry a mini Phantom Dancer, granting bonus attack speed and move speed. In unison, together it is difficult for the Nunu lane to lose trades. On top of those two being incredibly useful all game long, You can also make substantial plays with Nunu’s ultimate, Absolute Zero. The longer it charges up, the more damage it does, and it cannot be seen in unwarded bushes, making unsuspecting victims take a large chunk of damage. It also can be used, generally, in any team fight to force Flashes or apply a massive AoE slow for movement as well as attack speed. So we’ve covered that Nunu offers amazing utility already, but he can also assist secure finishing moves on Dragon and Baron Nashor with his Consume, which is essentially another Summoner Smite. You can expect a lot of Nunu picks in the World Championships, rest assured.
Leona
Leona is extremely strong, if not, the strongest all-in champion in lane. She does, however, come with risks. You essentially are banking on kills and utter dominance in bottom lane for her relevance to stay the same later on in the game. This is not to dissuade the possibility of her being picked in the finals, though, as supports such as Krepo have shown superb dominance. Requiring impressive prowess, Leonas are set apart by mechanical and decision making skill among the most popular supports. She probably has the most CC of any champion in the game with her Ult – Zenith Blade – Stun combo, and if executed will be one of the most useful supports to the team. Whiff any of those abilities, however, and you will fall short. On top of her strong disables, Leona deals massive damage for a support indirectly with the use of her Sunlight, which can be proc’d by her teammates. I wouldn’t expect her to be a common pick in the World Championships, but expect supports that have practiced with her a ton, such as Krepo, to show domination and destruction when she is used in battle by being a very strong engage for her team at all points in the game.
Lulu
Lulu, fallen out of favor as an AP carry, is now more often played in her designed role, support. While she’s not a very common pick, she has a lot of things to add to the table and will probably be used for certain compositions. In lane, she performs a lot like Janna by shielding her fellow carry and amplifying their damage through the use if Pix for a short period of time. She also has a soft disable in the form of a polymorph. If I had to give Lulu a niche role, it’d be that tower dives generally go extremely in her team’s favor. She’s very powerful in a situation where her or her team are being dived, as she can essentially ‘grow’ herself or an ally, knocking all enemies in the air, granting her ally additional HP, as well as granting them an aura that slows nearby enemies. I will certainly not say that any team will rush to pick her, but if they are looking to punish overly heavy aggression and diminish dive potential, Lulu is an extremely valuable addition to the team.
Lux
If her laugh doesn’t scare you away from farming minions, then her slowing, damaging orb and the potential to get double snared will. Although not very common, Lux has been used with some success in the support role. If her team is doing well and seizing a lot of global objectives, she can even transition into some additional AP damage for the team by grabbing Deathcap and whatnot after gold per 10 items. Unfortunately, Lux isn’t picked often and most likely won’t be picked at all at the World Championships due to her lack of safety. Lux is extremely susceptible to ganks and most likely will be punished for getting picked unless she is played against a team with a very non-aggressive mid and jungler. With that said, she still deserves an honorable mention with a kit that allows her to shield her allies, , apply snares, and offer strong zoning potential and vision when contesting objectives. When the enemies are just about to escape, they will be blinded by a giant beam of light and most likely meet their demise from her giant laser.
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.
Taric
Although the manliest of supports has not seen much tournament play, he does have a few things an enemy should be afraid of. First and foremost, you can never sneer at the power of a ranged, targetable stun. If he manages to land it on the enemy AD carry and successfully follows up with a Shatter Radiance combo, he’ll be dealing a lot of burst damage and leave his partner melting the enemy AD as the shatter applies a strong armor debuff for the duration while buffing the Attack Damage and Ability Power of his AD and whoever on his team decides to help. Taric passively gives his AD carry an advantage with his armor buff, leaving trades in the AD’s favor by default and leaving physical attacks to pelt off of Taric’s armor. You may wonder why, with such an easy and efficient kit then, does he have trouble being picked in tourney play? Well, he punishes people out of position quite handily, but if you stay safe, pay attention to his long cooldowns, and abuse his low speed, there’s not much he brings to the table after laning phase that other champions such as Alistar or Sona do not. Expect a Taric to be picked for a strong early game strategy for winning lane if the support is not comfortable with Leona, but I wouldn’t keep your hopes up for his appearance otherwise.
Zyra
Most would state that they would have never expected this to be used professionally. Zyra has recently shown success in Korea, primarily being used by Azubu Blaze and Azubu Frost in OGN and the South Korean regionals. When you look at what Zyra brings to the table on paper, it becomes much more apparent on why this is a viable choice. Zyra is very disruptive, has decent base damage, and has pretty annoying poke to deal with. Zyra is capable of snaring a hostile target as well as placing a very large and disruptive knock-up that can cover the terrain of half a lane or an entire location in a forest fight. If that’s not enough, she can also plant sapling turrets that can add up damage onto you if you don’t engage cautiously, and can punish you if you kill her due to her passive being non-scaling True Damage. With the premier of her showing as a support in Korea from the Azubu teams, we have seen her used in many scrims across other regions as well. Perhaps in the group stages or in extremely important matches, Support Zyra won’t see the light of day due to the support pick being in its infancy, but expect someone to pull her out and utilize her to the fullest in a best of 5 or the like.
More Season 2 World Championship coverage:
Carry on regardless: Who will carry the World Championship?
They came from behind: The top junglers for the WC
Diamondz: "Koreans seem to be the most dangerous"
Stats corner: The heroes of the Season 2 regionals
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Alistar
Alistar is a fantastic support that we rarely see any more due to the heavily favored Junglestar. The infamous cow has just about every asset you’d want to have your back as an AD carry for the bottom lane. For one, he’s very innately tanky, thus can soak blows from poke quite well. Secondly, he has a heal which after a lot of the sustain nerfs is incredibly strong given the fact it’s AoE and can help push due to trample and healing your creep wave. Alistar is possibly the most terrifying support when it comes to setting up kills. If he has flash, if you’re standing by a wall, or if he can manage the pulverize headbutt combo, you can pretty much kiss the other AD goodbye. On top of all of this, he can effectively initiate a teamfight with little to no items, making him great with 0 CS due to his fantastic ultimate. We normally either see the cow played in the jungle or banned, but don’t be surprised if you see some support Alistar action!
Blitzcrank
Ah, yes. Everyone fears the dreaded God Hand of Doom. Just one pull from this guy can disgruntle the enemy bottom lane early and can completely change the state of the game later on. The terror you rarely see in solo queue you can look forward to seeing in the World Championships. Blitz is naturally tanky and offers a ridiculous amount of utility. Even if he sits there to look pretty, he will typically apply a lot of pressure and fear to those trying to farm within his (long) arm’s reach. With long range picking capabilities, a knock-up to follow up, and a relatively strong, bursty base damage ultimate that silences, Blitzcrank can single-handedly disable or outright get an enemy champion killed before a fight even starts. Blitzcrank is not without weaknesses on a team, though..If your team falls behind and cannot follow up on your pulls..you’re in for trouble!
Fiddlesticks
Crazy, right? Not so crazy according to recent TSM invitationals along with previous tournaments where Elementz of Curse.NA has tried this wacky support. Typically, a support Fiddle will max fear, which can be applied through no use of skillshot to disrupt the enemy AD for long periods of time. Although nonconventional, I wouldn’t be overly surprised if someone had this pick up their sleeve for the World Championships. Team Solomid had no idea how to play against it bottom lane so even decided to ban it against Elementz in the North American Regionals. The Drain is too annoying to simply ignore and you have to stand far apart from your support in fear of a long duration silence. Fiddlesticks can disable you for a long time in lane if you aren’t careful! Fiddlesticks is a very niche pick no doubt, and with that being said may not be picked in the finals, but if he does, the enemy team better punish him in lane before you have an Hourglass Fiddlesticks with a magic reduction aura bringing terror to their team on top of an already farmed AP Carry.
Janna
Previously renowned as the “Queen of Supports”, Janna has fallen out of favor recently. With nerf after nerf after nerf, she is however, still seen in competitive play. With possibly the most phenomenal disengage in the game, she’s still viable with her “R” button and a good use of her tornado. Let’s not forget how much junglers appreciate her passive as well as other melee champions on the team; you can’t go wrong with free movespeed! Although she literally needs no items to be effective at her job, she doesn’t have engage potential amongst the other supports in the game. You won’t see her every game or banned like in previous tournaments, but expect her in very specific compositions in the World Championships such as “Protect the Kog”, poking, and tower sieging strategies.
Nunu
Nunu and his beloved yeti Willump have become extremely popular on the Fields of Justice as of late. Scoring one of the highest base HP’s in the game, this gives Nunu great zoning potential if he chooses to go aggressive in lane, and capability of playing passive, too. His kit is very impressive and gives everything you need in bottom lane. His Ice Blast inflicts moderate damage and slows the attack speed of the enemy AD Carry, while Blood Boil essentially gives your own carry a mini Phantom Dancer, granting bonus attack speed and move speed. In unison, together it is difficult for the Nunu lane to lose trades. On top of those two being incredibly useful all game long, You can also make substantial plays with Nunu’s ultimate, Absolute Zero. The longer it charges up, the more damage it does, and it cannot be seen in unwarded bushes, making unsuspecting victims take a large chunk of damage. It also can be used, generally, in any team fight to force Flashes or apply a massive AoE slow for movement as well as attack speed. So we’ve covered that Nunu offers amazing utility already, but he can also assist secure finishing moves on Dragon and Baron Nashor with his Consume, which is essentially another Summoner Smite. You can expect a lot of Nunu picks in the World Championships, rest assured.
Leona
Leona is extremely strong, if not, the strongest all-in champion in lane. She does, however, come with risks. You essentially are banking on kills and utter dominance in bottom lane for her relevance to stay the same later on in the game. This is not to dissuade the possibility of her being picked in the finals, though, as supports such as Krepo have shown superb dominance. Requiring impressive prowess, Leonas are set apart by mechanical and decision making skill among the most popular supports. She probably has the most CC of any champion in the game with her Ult – Zenith Blade – Stun combo, and if executed will be one of the most useful supports to the team. Whiff any of those abilities, however, and you will fall short. On top of her strong disables, Leona deals massive damage for a support indirectly with the use of her Sunlight, which can be proc’d by her teammates. I wouldn’t expect her to be a common pick in the World Championships, but expect supports that have practiced with her a ton, such as Krepo, to show domination and destruction when she is used in battle by being a very strong engage for her team at all points in the game.
Lulu
Lulu, fallen out of favor as an AP carry, is now more often played in her designed role, support. While she’s not a very common pick, she has a lot of things to add to the table and will probably be used for certain compositions. In lane, she performs a lot like Janna by shielding her fellow carry and amplifying their damage through the use if Pix for a short period of time. She also has a soft disable in the form of a polymorph. If I had to give Lulu a niche role, it’d be that tower dives generally go extremely in her team’s favor. She’s very powerful in a situation where her or her team are being dived, as she can essentially ‘grow’ herself or an ally, knocking all enemies in the air, granting her ally additional HP, as well as granting them an aura that slows nearby enemies. I will certainly not say that any team will rush to pick her, but if they are looking to punish overly heavy aggression and diminish dive potential, Lulu is an extremely valuable addition to the team.
Lux
If her laugh doesn’t scare you away from farming minions, then her slowing, damaging orb and the potential to get double snared will. Although not very common, Lux has been used with some success in the support role. If her team is doing well and seizing a lot of global objectives, she can even transition into some additional AP damage for the team by grabbing Deathcap and whatnot after gold per 10 items. Unfortunately, Lux isn’t picked often and most likely won’t be picked at all at the World Championships due to her lack of safety. Lux is extremely susceptible to ganks and most likely will be punished for getting picked unless she is played against a team with a very non-aggressive mid and jungler. With that said, she still deserves an honorable mention with a kit that allows her to shield her allies, , apply snares, and offer strong zoning potential and vision when contesting objectives. When the enemies are just about to escape, they will be blinded by a giant beam of light and most likely meet their demise from her giant laser.
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.
Taric
Although the manliest of supports has not seen much tournament play, he does have a few things an enemy should be afraid of. First and foremost, you can never sneer at the power of a ranged, targetable stun. If he manages to land it on the enemy AD carry and successfully follows up with a Shatter Radiance combo, he’ll be dealing a lot of burst damage and leave his partner melting the enemy AD as the shatter applies a strong armor debuff for the duration while buffing the Attack Damage and Ability Power of his AD and whoever on his team decides to help. Taric passively gives his AD carry an advantage with his armor buff, leaving trades in the AD’s favor by default and leaving physical attacks to pelt off of Taric’s armor. You may wonder why, with such an easy and efficient kit then, does he have trouble being picked in tourney play? Well, he punishes people out of position quite handily, but if you stay safe, pay attention to his long cooldowns, and abuse his low speed, there’s not much he brings to the table after laning phase that other champions such as Alistar or Sona do not. Expect a Taric to be picked for a strong early game strategy for winning lane if the support is not comfortable with Leona, but I wouldn’t keep your hopes up for his appearance otherwise.
Zyra
Most would state that they would have never expected this to be used professionally. Zyra has recently shown success in Korea, primarily being used by Azubu Blaze and Azubu Frost in OGN and the South Korean regionals. When you look at what Zyra brings to the table on paper, it becomes much more apparent on why this is a viable choice. Zyra is very disruptive, has decent base damage, and has pretty annoying poke to deal with. Zyra is capable of snaring a hostile target as well as placing a very large and disruptive knock-up that can cover the terrain of half a lane or an entire location in a forest fight. If that’s not enough, she can also plant sapling turrets that can add up damage onto you if you don’t engage cautiously, and can punish you if you kill her due to her passive being non-scaling True Damage. With the premier of her showing as a support in Korea from the Azubu teams, we have seen her used in many scrims across other regions as well. Perhaps in the group stages or in extremely important matches, Support Zyra won’t see the light of day due to the support pick being in its infancy, but expect someone to pull her out and utilize her to the fullest in a best of 5 or the like.
More Season 2 World Championship coverage:
Carry on regardless: Who will carry the World Championship?
They came from behind: The top junglers for the WC
Diamondz: "Koreans seem to be the most dangerous"
Stats corner: The heroes of the Season 2 regionals
