It's a tale as old as time: it's 1 AM and you're in a ranked League of Legends game while you should be going to sleep, but you're on a 3-game loss streak, and there's no way you can end on a loss. It's 20 minutes in, both your ADC and support are 0/3, and they're each typing an essay in chat. Support says AD doesn't know how to lane and takes too much poke, but AD says support AFKs in lane and isn't stepping up to help contest CS. It's me. I'm the person in the ranked game.

Perhaps you're a player considering swapping to support, or maybe just a lower ranked support players trying to find out what distinguishes a bad support from a relatively good support. Either way, a common theme typically observed through supports of both types involves the preconceived notion that "supports support". This is true to an extent, but ultimately there is a tangible reason why many people say "support decides laning phase". Alongside this, there's also a reason why support counterpick is so sought after in professional League of Legends: the support is absurdly strong in the laning phase, and many supports who you think are simply there to protect their ADC are infact bigger threats in their own right early in the game. Learning the proper way to lane as support is essential to climbing: while it's good to examine each champion independently for basic support match-ups, and to an extent, even ADC match-ups between both your team and the enemy team. Generally, these things can be categorized to an extent, which is the lens by which we will be examining these Supports and how to play laning phase.

Enchanters

*Do note that there are two "enchanters" who are missing from this list, they are special cases which I will cover later.

Enchanters are quite powerful in the early game, and scale extremely well throughout the game. Their biggest con is their damage falls off fast, and since they're very squishy it can be extremely hard to get vision down alone in the mid to late game. Furthermore, it can be difficult to find avenues back into the game if they fall behind. Also, they lack hard primary engage which is characteristic of other support champions.

Enchanters should typically look to play aggressive in the early game and look to create space for their ADC by virtue of their strong poke.

Enchanter supports should position away from their ADC in order to maximize the distance being created - it's much harder for the enemy ADC and support to get in range to your ADC if you are to position parallel to your ADC. Abuse your ranged auto attacks in the early game, and look to chip away at the enemy ADC and support when they walk up to hit minions. Make good use of your abilities: Enchanters' high mana costs can frequently leave you running out of mana if you are not careful with your ability usage.

Getting level 2 on enchanters can be easy, unless the enemy support is first to lane. Enchanters have average level 2s, and it's always useful to play for the level 2 unless the enemy support is far earlier in pushing the lane. Ideally, even if you need to concede level 2, it's easy to get chip damage in while the enemy bottom lane is attacking the wave in order to mitigate the disadvantage losing the level 2 brings to you.

Overall, enchanters slot well into most compositions, but they can be difficult to lane properly with, which brings them the reputation of being "brainless" due to their solid scaling despite their powerful, and frequently underutilized, laning phases.

Playmakers

Playmaking supports are by far the most diverse set of supports in the bottom lane, to the point where the line between "tank" and "playmaking" is blurred. However, most playmaking champions are characterized by relatively weak level 1s (except for Bard and Thresh), low range, potent engage, and tools in their kit to set-up for fights. Many playmakers lack individual damage, but allow their team to safely deal damage by virtue of having some of the most powerful crowd control in the entire game.

Playmakers are some of the most match-up dependent champions in the game. What their laning phase looks like is on a case by case basis: they're typically very strong into enchanters, but are weaker into the tank supports who can look to peel playmakers off of their team, and safely disengage fights.

While initially the lane positioning for playmaking supports may seem equivalent for that of an enchanter, there are a few minute differences to account for: enchanters are typically more conscious of the enemy support's positioning, and the enemy jungler, while playmaking supports should pay attention to their own ADC, as they intend to set-up for their ADC to inflict damage upon the enemy laner.

Getting level 2 on many playmakers is difficult unless you are first to lane and are capable of abusing melee execute on the tank support items. Inversely, however, level 2 on many playmakers is very powerful: Thresh hook, Pyke stun, Leona lance (or stun) are each insanely powerful abilities that set-up for your ADC to easily kill the opposing bottom lane. The exception would be Bard who is a curious case in himself- it's very easy for Bard to get level 2, but he doesn't get as much out of it as other playmaking supports.

Additionally, playmaking supports are known for fantastic roams by virtue of their relatively high mobility, solid set-up, and decent damage - a guide on how to effectively roam as a support can be found here.

Tanks

Tank supports are amongst the weakest in the early game, and typically have the lowest damage out of any support classification. They're infamously weak to mage supports (see Huhi's Ziggs support against Smoothie's Tahm Kench) but fair relatively well into playmakers. Tank supports excel in creating space and peeling for their ADC, and provide the most amount of crowd control out of any support class. They're average level 2, but their very weak level 1s often cause them to sack wave 1 and concede level 2. This is made further apparent that tank supports' low mobility and low range makes pushing both inherently difficult, and ineffective as the closer the wave is to the enemy tower, the harder it is for the tank support to impact the lane.

Pushing incorrectly on tank supports can result in the enemy bottom lane permanently freezing near their tower, and these freezes can be difficult to break when playing this support class. In any case, be careful when blind picking these sorts of champions, as laning phase can be very difficult if you get dealt a bad hand in draft.

However, there is a silver lining to this: tank supports are exemplary at setting up dives with their jungler or mid laner.

The best way to position on tank supports is relatively close to your ADC, paying attention to the positioning of the enemy ADC and deterring threat from the enemy support. Don't get too close to your own ADC though- doing this can cause the enemy to be capable of landing poke on both you and your ally.

Typically, it's best to simply concede level 2 on many tank supports, as many of them lack tools to force the enemy off of the wave, and don't particularly benefit from strong level 2s in their own right. However, this is more general- if the enemy is late to lane, it's always best to simply take the level 2 and bounce the wave off of the enemy tower after building your own wave, but this is a more complicated and advanced strategy. Don't take an unnecessary poke for a push you're performing in vain, keeping both your and your ADC's health high is important in these sort of lanes.

Additionally, tank supports are also very good at roaming due to their high crowd control. They're amongst the safest champions to ward on come mid to late game by virtue of how irritating they are to kill, and the fact they can very quickly flip engages if their team comes to assist them. They're meatballs capable of absorbing very powerful cooldowns, and create plenty of space for their team, even if they're not particularly meta right now and are more difficult to play than some other classifications of supports.

Mages

Also known as "I wanted to play mid lane this game."

Mage supports are similar to enchanters in the regard that they are typically quite potent in the laning phase - the exception of which being maybe Morgana and Zilean- and scale more linearly than enchanters. Furthermore, they provide a lot more damage in exchange for being lacking on actual utility. They have fantastic level 2s, solid level 1s, and have a tremendous power spike at level 6, which is a common point for good mage support players to play around.

Mage supports are characterized by scaling well with both items and experience, which is quite unfortunate as supports are known for not having either of these things. However, the consequence of this, is mage supports are amongst the hardest snowballers in the role. You know the case: you get ganked early, you give a few kills to the Zyra/Xerath/Vel'koz/Brand, and poof, the lane is suddenly completely unplayable as you get orbital nuked by the enemy support.

Mage supports are one of the only supports that can conceivably justify standing behind their ADC, as they have very few tools to deter engages past their high damage. That being said, in the early game it's best to get as much mileage as possible out of your ranged auto attacks.

Playing for level 2 is relatively important on mage supports, unless you're playing against an enchanter such as Karma or Janna who can easily out trade you in the early game with relatively little consequence. Many mage supports are victims of long cooldowns in the early game, which is mitigated once you acquire your items and levels. Make sure to not spam your abilities, like mage supports you're prone to running low on mana in the early game.

The best advice I can give is to wait to use your abilities until your own minions are low and the enemy ADC walks up to attempt to farm them: the enemy ADC will need to stand still to auto attack unless they're using an ability, which presents an excellent opportunity to smack them with a high damage poke ability or combo.

Special Enchanters

These two are unique cases.

While they fit into the "enchanter" archetype in the way they play mid to late game, they genuinely don't lane like any other support in the game, and you can already see what I'm getting at: they're really, really, really horrendous in lane.

While other enchanters benefit from powerful laning phases, solid disengage, and relatively poor individual scaling aside from the utility they provide, these two benefit much more from items than other enchanters- to the point where it's practically essential to playing the game. There's a reason why Sona is the frequent beneficiary of many cheese strategies, and it's because she scales disproportionately well with items relative to other supports, making her an exemplary recipient of income.

Yuumi similarly empowers melee champions, and champions with sustain. This has led to cases such as the infamous 2019 "Garen Yuumi" lane, where Yuumi would build AP, be untargetable, and use Garen as a landing pad to launch irritating poke at the enemy.

These two have the worst level 1s amongst any champion in the game, extremely terrible push, and fundamentally cannot really play for level 2 unless the enemy team takes a year to help leash their jungler. They're also victims of very high mana costs, so spamming abilities for poke isn't really an option until items are acquired either. However, they're both the best scaling picks in their role, and when they do scale it can often lead to situations where the game is simply unwinnable for the enemy team, but they don't recursively snowball like mage supports do - kills do not lead into more kills for these two.

There is no point to showing you how to lane as these two: there's a reason why players who main these champions are the unfortunate butt of jokes within the League of Legends community, laning is not a relevant skill with these champions. While good laning can mitigate the disadvantage these champions accrue, being at some sort of disadvantage is nearly inevitable when playing these picks.

Use your tower to your strength, try to poke when possible, pay attention to your mana. If they're playing a melee support, you are in luck as poke can be easier to land. If you get engaged on or dove, you are very likely just dead. These two have some of the lowest base HP in the game, and it makes trading absurdly difficult. Your advantage is in your sustain.

Special Cases/Hybrids

Each of these are unconventional picks, typically used in competitive as "flex picks" between roles. It'd be an injustice to not even briefly touch upon them, but each of them are niche (some more niche than others) and fulfill certain stylistic holes in compositions. Galio is best described as a mage/tank hybrid with some playmaking capabilities and is a fantastic disengager.

Pantheon is a playmaker tank who excels in diving and cross map plays in particular.

Poppy is a tank who is fantastic against champions with dashes (but not blinks!) and is sometimes implemented with certain ADCs as a Kalista hard counter, who is incapable of making use of her passive or kiting while Poppy is next to her.

Swain is a typical pairing with mage bottom lanes, or with physical damage top sides, or as a carry with hard CC supports and is a fantastic disengager, and counters hard dive compositions. He's one of the best space-makers in the entire game.

Shen is a typical flex, and is both a Leona analog and counter. He's a tank/playmaker with hard engage and his global threat is irritating to play against for any team, but his scaling is relatively weird as a support. He's very good into hard engage compositions.

Shaco is a... mage support, with disengage capabilities. He's annoying, poke based, and has good mobility. He is very difficult to kill but doesn't provide much in laning phase beyond his poke.

Senna is a support ADC who is frequently paired with hard engage bottom lanes such as Sett or Maokai, she's not seen so much support anymore but it's still possible to play her. She expedites the scaling of the melee champion she plays with. She has set-up and slows in her kit (especially with glacial augment) and benefits from the souls she can collect when her teammates farm minions.

Not depicted are Gragas and Maokai who are sometimes played as support - Gragas is usually paired with Yasuo, he's a high damage mage/playmaker support who has solid CC and great disengage, but his low range and reliance on flash makes him an unorthodox and usually suboptimal pick. Maokai is a tank with solid point and click engage, poke, and can dive, but he deals low damage and is susceptible to being poked out of lane.

Each of these supports lane uniquely and are not necessarily worth going into in detail - they're not common solo queue picks, but are worth covering briefly in the context that they're pickable in the support role.

Laning on support is a vital aspect to growing your rank. It's easy to deflect blame onto your ADC for "not dodging enough poke", but it's important to learn how to properly utilize your champion's strength and create the opportunity for your ADC to carry the game. There are very few better feelings than getting into a game, and stomping an enemy bottom lane on a pick like Lulu or Soraka - a champion not regarded by much of the community as having a "strong laning phase" below higher elo, where players can reliably utilize her long range poke and high damage early levels to effectively bully opponents out of the lane. Supports are oppressive, and anyone who's laned against a capable support player knows this to be true. Since Season 4, supports have only been delegated more and more power by Riot, until today where they are one of the most powerful and influential roles in the entire game. There's no better time to become a support main than the present!