New season, new beginnings. And many of you may be looking to swap roles next season to keep the game fresh, try the new items, to push your skills as a League of Legends player, or maybe you’re a new player trying to get in on what you need to be successful in Ranked. Well, I’m here to give you an idea as to what you need to focus on mastering to better prepare yourself for endeavors.

This time we’re starting with my preferred role of Support, so let’s jump right in! Here are the concepts you need to master to be a great Support player!

Positioning and Matchup Knowledge

You may have thought this list would start with warding, and don’t worry I’ll get there. I instead want to start with what I feel is the MOST important skill for Supports to master in positioning. So, what does positioning well actually do for you? Positioning well manages the flow and pressure of the lane. Which can create several lane states that allow for windows of opportunity for yourself and your opponents.

Say you’re positioning has generated even pressure, meaning your opponents aren’t entirely zoned off, but they don’t feel comfortable enough to take an all-in fight against you. This means you’ve established a space that allows for your Carry to farm effectively and you’ll be in a position to respond to ganks or sudden engagements onto your Carry.

If your positioning is aggressive, especially if you’ve already established a lead or are playing with higher kill potential over all from a deadly lane duo, you can begin to zone your opponents away from ways and experience entirely allowing you full priority over the lane. Priority will force your opponents to step into your zone of control for resources leaving them open to be engaged upon, while also preventing them from effectively roaming should a fight break out near your lane.

Passive positioning can lead to your opponents dictating the tempo, but it also has its place in certain lanes. Scaling duos often have to concede control as they’re looking for certain power-spikes that often come late in the lane phase or beyond. And passive positioning does often lead to your opponents shoving into you, thus allowing you to stall the wave outside of your turret, or farm safely from underneath without worry of a fight.

Positioning well also increases your overall income and allows you to complete your Support Quest faster, leading to quicker vision that can be applied onto the map. And as we’ll discuss later, vision is information with control over the tempo of the game itself, so you’re going to want to maintain neutral or even dominating pressure against your opponents to generate your Quest income quickly. Passive play typically means later ward coverage.

Great positioning also creates opportunity for engaging onto your opponents for kills. Through poke or threat alone, if you can zone your opposing duo away from each other while maintaining a close distance to your carry, you’re giving yourself the best opportunity to put out maximum damage onto whatever target you choose to dump your damage onto. Split targets means split attention and potential miscommunication in dueling situations. But, if you’ve out-positioned your opposing Support and forced them to play back while their ADC is forward, for example, then you and your Carry, who is still positioned close to you can put 100% focus onto the enemy that you start the fight on.

So, where exactly should you be positioned? Well, that all depends on your Champion choice and matchup, so let’s break those down first. I like to think of the Supports in a Paper-Rock-Scissors like triangle where one another one, but never both. (At least ideally that’s the way the balance should be, but there can be outlying Champions that break the mold.) So, what do those matchups look like? Mages > Tanks > Enchanters > Mages. Why is it this way?

Well, here’s a simple look at how the generalized class dynamics should play out:

Mages should best Tanks in most situations due to their abilities to poke, CC, and zone Tanks away from themselves and their carries. Positioning is the largest factor here since Mages can position just outside of most Tanks' range.

Tanks meanwhile should best Enchanters who lack the same damage and that Mages have allowing them to utilize their engage tools to kill their extremely squishy targets. Enchanters typically have shorter ranges and have to commit harder to harass or CC, often times this leads them to wander into a range that Tanks can take advantage of.

Enchanters beat out Mages due to their abilities to shield and heal the damage that Mages apply. Their mitigation tools essentially stifle Mages from dominating the lane despite the typical range differences between the classes.

At least this is the way things should shake out in theory. There are naturally subclasses within each of these sets of primary classes and depending on the subclass that your particular Champion embodies, you might find great success in the matchup that theoretically shouldn’t be in your favor. Morgana as a Battlemage has great matchups into Tanks due to her ability to mitigate their engage tools entirely with Black Shield. While Leona can outlast Mage poke due to her Eclipse Shield and turn the lane in favor once she hits level six allowing her to enter a Mage’s range uncontested with a sweet-spot ultimate and Zenith Blade.

Again, I must reiterate that things are very matchup dependent at the Support position, but classes do have a general rock-paper-scissors style design to them. It’s important that you familiarize yourself with the matchups that your select Champions are strong or weak against, and know how to punish and mitigate accordingly. So, depending on your class and your newfound knowledge of the matchups, you can get an idea where you can be positioned to maintain effectiveness.

Tanks are naturally going to want to gain control of the brush in lane and play as forward as they possibly can. Tank Supports, be they engaging Vanguards or more defensive Wardens, want to set the edge of pressure so they can dive directly onto the most vulnerable opponent in the lane.

Enchanters will play closer to their carries as their tools are suited for protection, and without excessive mobility in their kits, they can’t escape should they position forward. So, you’ll be playing close to the vest and focusing on mitigating and poking when your opponents look to last hit vs. poking due to your excessive range advantage. This closer range to your carry also eliminates situations where your opponents can aggress onto you in isolation, and if they do take the fight onto you, your carry will be near to lay down damage in return and potentially turn the fight.

Mages, again I’ll say things are primarily matchup dependent, but your range advantage over both Enchanters and Tanks can allow you to play further back to poke safely. Or, like Tanks, you can set the edge to generate CC and poke pressure on your primary target for combo pressure with your Carry. But, your high damage capability early does allow you to poke separately from your Carry, so don’t be afraid to be a little aggro especially to stack your Manaflow Band and push your Quest.

Now that we’ve got an idea where to position our Champions, let’s talk about where to position our wards!

Adaptive and Anticipatory Warding

Before we get into things, I want to make another small disclaimer, there are no 100% correct locations to ward every game. There are many default locations that work as catch alls for most games, but with League’s high mobility creep adapting vision is important if you’re wanting to control the tempo of the game. Especially as you climb the ranks and players become far more aware of typical behaviors.

Here's a graph of Bot-Side that shows the prime warding locations. Red Dots are your High Priority points which cover River, Tri, Dragon, and one for lane to allow for lane control. The Blue Dots are more adaptive positions and can cover for invading Junglers or Roaming Assassins.

In games where you’re dealing with Champions that are looking to roam, or even are facing Junglers that have unique gank pathways, it’s best to optimize your vision for where you expect them to be, not just the default. And sometimes this means extending away from your lane as a non-roaming Support to lay down that coverage. Zac, Kayn, Pyke, and Talon are all excellent Champions at circumventing conventional warding locations, so my recommendation is to coordinate with your lane partner on where you’re going to place your pinks to catch them in their act.

Take for example you’re playing blue side and the enemy Mid you’re facing is a Talon. With his unique wall-hopping passive, he can easily hop over the Krug wall and be behind your turret for dive, or if it’s another Assassin they can easily take the blast cone over make a similar move.

So, what’s the response here? Anticipation. Have your pink ward placed either in the backside curve brush of Red Buff (one of our Blue Dots on the Map) to catch the movement into your Jungle and have your eyes glance there every two to three seconds. Then have your Carry’s pink ward be placed in the Tribrush to act as final flank ward.

Warding, as mentioned, controls the tempo of the game through knowledge. And if you can sus out and prevent your opponents' plans before they even come to fruition, you’re stifling their tempo and thus generating your own over the entire game. So, keep your wards adaptive and occasionally varied if they start to feel out your common spots throughout the game.

Ward Timings and Roam Timings

Ward Timings and Roam Timings can be clumped together, but I like to separate them into two different definitions since the intention behind the roams are entirely different.

Ward Timings, as the name implies, are seconds where you can break away from your lane partner and put down vision for your team. Your intentions are to avoid conflict and instead prep for bigger fights through vision control, or to set up that anticipatory vision we spoke about earlier. Oftentimes, pathing on these roams is very defensive in nature and doesn’t involve over-extending. You’re like a turtle poking your head out of your side of the Jungle to drop a ward before withdrawing back and making your way back down to your lane.

Roam Timings, or Gank Timers if you’d prefer, are similar windows but on this roam you’re looking to anticipate and call out an opponent's pathing or punish their lack of awareness by catching them overextended. Pathing for these roams is generally very aggressive and mirrors Jungle gank routes. Ideally, you’ll want to coordinate with the lane you’re ganking to have them shadow your efforts and set things up for you to come in. Or in the worst case scenarios, help you if the enemy susses out your movements.

So, when do we look for the windows of opportunity? Well, there are several moments when you can look to move away from your partner:

- When you’ve successfully frozen your lane, and your lane partner is in a safe position to 2 v. 1, or can easily back-pedal away from the pressure that your opponents might apply if they sus them to be alone.

- When you’re returning from base, this is a great time to establish vision or even look to gank a lane. Oftentimes, players default to a mindset of ‘go back to lane’ so, if you’re respawning or returning from recall. Take an assessment of what lanes are extended, what Summoner Spells have been called, and what the objective timers look like. If Dragon is a minute or less away from spawn, it’s a great time to either establish vision, or look to gank Mid. If you can shove out or kill the opposing Mid Laner before the Dragon spawns, then you’ve created an easy 4v3 for your team which should allow for an easy Dragon secure.

If your Champion isn’t a strong ganker, then establishing the vision around the Dragon by setting pinks or clearing out your opponents' vision can create pick situations and cause your opponents to hesitate when approaching. You’d like this vision to be more forward than it is neutral (or simply in river), so don’t be afraid to vigorously ping out for assistance when establishing the vision control before the objective spawns.

- When your Carry isn’t in lane, it’s an excellent time to roam. If your partner has backed, and you’re not ready to reset yourself, take advantage of your healthy nature by making the move around the map. First, ask yourself what it is you wish to accomplish on the move, is it to Gank or to Ward. Make clear your intentions via pings or chat, and start moving that way. Supports accomplish very little on their, and unless you’re Mage with more expensive items to build, it’s best to break away and get vision control or gank pressure down instead of hugging lane all by yourself.

- When you’ve zoned and feared your opponents from interacting with you. If you’re a dominant lane combo, like Caitlyn-Morg or Tristana-Leona, you’ll often get a ton of respect from your opponents which can lead to them conceding the lane pressure to you. When you’ve got control of the tempo like this, you can make moves away from your partner to get deeper vision into the enemy Jungle or to cover those tricky angles and Dragon like we talked about earlier. But be warned, this is risky if your opponents feel it out. Take the time to establish lane vision control first, before moving and getting other vision down. You want to always leave the impression that you’re just waiting in the wings for your opponents to slip up and return their engage.

With all that said, there’s one final short point that I want to get into that I think is important for EVERYONE (regardless of role) to be able to execute.

Be Adaptive With Your Champions

One of the biggest adjustments I’ve made to my play, that’s ultimately been for the better, is diversifying my Champion pool. You’ll not find me preaching one-tricking in this guide by any means. With League getting shaken up by the new items, I think counter picking and adapting is more important than ever, and you want a decent pool of Champions to pick from.

So, I encourage all Support mains to have one of the three standard Archetypes down. Tank, Mage, and Enchanter. After those, look to have a blind pick Champion or a Champion that you’d be comfortable to out-play any matchup in. Finally, after your comfort blind pick I usually suggest picking up a roaming pick. If you get trolled or end up with a Draft where you feel like you’d be ineffective regardless of counter, picking a roaming Support like Pyke, Bard, or Pantheon can allow you to adjust your goals and get others on your team fed if your lane partner is playing poorly or is something silly like ADC Amumu.

Closing Out

That’s all there is folks! To give a TL;DR you want these skills down pat to be a great Support player: