Support is a fairly flexible position in terms of champion selection, rune choices, and masteries. Specifically speaking about champion choice, there will be meta picks, and we’ve seen different game patches run through Morgana, Nami, and more recently Janna as the Queen of Supports, but as they get nerfed or just fall from favour a sense of opportunity returns; to try out old picks or new, to be brave and play people that don’t see enough daylight. One of these champions is Braum.

I feel Braum’s defensive kit has a place in the mix, even if he were to be a semi-regular pick just like Thresh and support Morgana. The reason is that he is a logical choice for suiting certain tactics and matchups. If you take a prepared approach to your choice of support then you deal with the following questions: do I want to go aggressive or are we (the bot lane) playing passive? What is it I bring to the team – heals, shielding, roaming potential, crowd control? Who am I against and what would be easiest or best to play to prevent them taking a lead over us?

Braum Champion Spotlight, courtesy of League of Legends

Why isn’t Braum viable?

He is viable, just not the most optimal. Braum is not a weak support champion but at the moment others offer more to the team in terms of ease of play or reliability. With the future release of Patch 5.5 and the item ‘Bami’s Cinder’ expect to see a lot more tanks played, including Braum!

What makes other supports more preferable?

Leona and Annie are the primary two support options in EU and NA because they offer hard hitting crowd control with their AOE stuns. The aggressive potential is high risk, high reward and a lot of people find it fun to play. Going in hard isn’t always the best option, and a strong pick and ban phase can take these away from you or even be picked up against you, but in that event then you consider playing smart with the likes of Braum, Morgana, and maybe even a Zilean.

Think about it: Braum is a tank, Leona is a tank. The latter is easier to lane with, easier to control engages with (especially in solo queue), and easier to play because you take the initiative rather than being reactive. It’s easy to understand why you would pick her ahead of him. It’s the same for Annie. She offers bursts of damage, the threat of a ranged stun, and the bigger threat of a level 6 Flash/Tibbers combo to dish out painful levels of AOE damage whilst stunned up.

In terms of pro team play, the style has been to aim to dominate early and then leave the ADC to free farm a little while the support goes off roaming, helping to pressure across the map as early as possible. In the case of Leona and Annie both are able to roam and assist with a gank in the mid lane or the jungle with their styles. Thresh, Morgana, and Blitzcrank all have these abilities to roam and gank and catch or trap an opponent, which is something that Braum just cannot do as reliably.

As was said before, Braum is about disengage and protection; he’s there to extract you from the bad situation as a primary purpose. His passive is handy, and fun to time and execute well because of the potential for a few seconds to really hand out the damage onto your opponent, but it’s just so much easier and more reliable to lock someone down with Leona or Annie than doing so with the moustachioed man and his four-hit passive stun.

An example of the early 'Braum' concept art, revealed recently by Riot Games at PAX East.

Is Braum competitive with rivals?

Almost. This falls under why he’s viable but not preferred. Braum’s issue is that yes, he’s fantastic at bulking up, but this takes time. If it goes well you’re present for the mid game but badly and it’s the late game. In comparison, others offer the same or more in terms of scaling as tanks or damage sources and they don’t struggle early game.

The unfortunate truth is that Braum is a weak laner unless played with skill because ranged supports can dish out a lot of damage for no return and most other champions can safely help shove a minion wave. This means Janna, Sona, Lulu, and Morgana can all just happily poke away to trigger their Spellthief’s Edge tributes off Braum and rack up gold income at the expense of his HP and his ADC’s lane threat, which gives the opponents the power to dictate where they want the minion waves to sit and when to push or draw in.

This is all part of Riot’s plan though; offering a tank that isn’t so impactful early but can be a game decider late on if you play the champion and the team composition right to earn your way to late game. It’s also not entirely bad for Braum as he does deal well with the all-in nature of both Leona and Thresh, and a good Braum will have the reactions to intercept a Morgana binding or a Lulu Glitterlance with positioning or the ‘W’ leap.

What have the pros been doing? Why isn’t he being picked up?

Different regions have different mindsets, so we’ll explore the big three of Korea, EU, and NA.

Braum, like Graves oddly, has been of little interest in Korea. The region known for brave trend setting picks in the past with Zyra and Karma, or quirky picks like Sejuani/Gnar at support, has had but a fleeting interest in this tanky assistant. Braum was selected for six games in the first month of the LCK league and only one of these matches was a win. In the few weeks since there has been no selection of Braum at all.

In comparison, Braum has been more popular in the West but still nowhere near the global popularity of Leona, Annie, Thresh, or Janna. In North America there have been seven Braum picks, with four wins, and in Europe there have been only three but two of these games were wins. The general trend is either 0-16-14 masteries or 0-9-21. The former is favoured by the likes of Krepo, Aphromoo and Jree, compared to Madlife, Xpecial, and Gleebglarbu for the more utility style choice. Everyone has their own preference to masteries so go with what works for you. I personally run 0-9-21 for the increased gold income so I can itemise quicker, as well as movement speed quints and HP/resistance runes, but in seriously explosive matchups I will switch to the tankier mastery page.

The most common partnership by pro players has been with Corki, though people have tried Tristana, Jinx, and Graves too. Ideally someone like Sivir should be picked for her spell shield and speed-boost ultimate, though Lucian (double auto) and Caitlyn (long range) are fantastic too. Kalista’s ultimate synergies with Braum well and his protective nature suits her quirky movement/farming style but the staggered nature of her engages can lead to drawn out fights rather than burst encounters and this could make Braum useless once his shield has gone and the stun passive has been used.

Flash engage video guide, by former player and coach Aranaea

Why the difference in Braum picks?

You’d think given Braum’s Flash/Q mechanic (like Vi formerly had) that a mechanically-capable region like Korea would love the showy, bold front-lining of Braum but alas, it has not appeared. The reason is that Korea likes lane swaps. Every other region does this too but tactically they see it as safer to pick Sivir or Corki to cope on their own better than the likes of a Graves would, and then to let the support duo roam with the jungler for ganks or counter-jungling. As such the utility and buffing from a Janna or Nami is very popular still, as are the obstructive natures of Thresh and Morgana. Leona – like Kalista – is only a recent rising choice in the LCK thanks to the preferences of EU and NA and the demonstration that sometimes a straight fight beats teeing up individual picks.

Why should anyone take Braum?

Teams – especially with assassins in or against them – need tanks. Survivability is a big part of League and we see plenty of squishy champions just evaporate in a split second when the damage really begins to ramp up. On paper what you have in Braum is a fantastic tank. Some might argue that “The Heart of Freljord” is an off-tank because he can’t farm up of his own accord to lead the way, which is fair, but the point still stands that his whole style and purpose is to get beefy; prioritise Face of the Mountain, get the usual Sightstone for HP and vision, Frozen Heart or Locket of the Iron Solari (or both), Mobility Boots to carry your hefty frame around… simply build big and ride out the punishment while being a nuisance with the shield, the stun proc passive, and meatshielding in front of your team.

Braum was lauded on release because of his quite spectacular knack for disengaging. The E ability, ‘Unbreakable’, is a fantastic shield to block and soak attacks. It’s not a complete projectile deflection like Yasuo’s Wind Wall but it does reduce damage coming from the direction the shield faces and obstruct said projectiles. So, in the event of a Caitlyn ‘Ace in the Hole’ a Braum will take the impact and receive decreased damage, while a Vel’Koz ult (which appears simultaneously in a line) will breach a Yasuo wall but be weakened by the Braum shield; significantly reducing the damage past that point so it’s less devastating to himself and allies behind him.

You can be successful with any champion but the meta is there because it is a trend of what tends to be more successful than most. Braum isn’t one of those champions at the moment. He can achieve plenty with his kit and the right player playing him, and he offers a lot to a team, but he takes time, practice, and it’s difficult to claw your way back into a match from a losing position.

I’ll keep playing him because it’s fun, but if I really wanted to try hard for LP in Ranked I’d do what the pros do and choose other supports like Leona and Thresh because ultimately they have a better track record of facilitating early leads and snowballing your team to victory. Braum is not a ban target at the moment though, so if you can take away Annie and prevent being dumpstered then you’ve got a fighting chance.

As a reward for reading this far, why not have this funny and slightly rude video highlight of Complexity vs LMQ in last Summer's North American split. Be warned though, LMQ are mischievous boys...

Video courtesy of TunDroG