Prior to Season 13, there was a rise of what were ‘off-meta’ Support picks that were making themselves well known in the League ladder as well as in some major regions for Professional play. The most noticeable of these was Heimerdinger, which was made famous by World Champion Support Beryl after his performance on League’s grandest stage with the pick.

In the months that would follow after Worlds, as more theory-crafters and higher ELO minds began to figure out what made Heimer so good within the Support role, the solo queue community would begin to expound upon Beryl’s reasoning behind Heimer Support and adapt Ashe into a full meta selection in the role, turning her blossoming off-role selection into something that was vastly more popular than her intended role of ADC. Ashe even became a decent response to Heimer due to her range.

Meanwhile, classic Mage Support picks were remaining steadfast and improving in win rate and presence too. Zyra, Xerath, and Swain began seeing higher presences and win rates within the Plat+ range of solo queue, and many Bot Lane/ADC Mains began to clamor for buffs for themselves and nerfs for the Support counterparts since Supports were, essentially, becoming Mid Laners that didn’t have to CS. This was a valid criticism from League’s squishiest, ever-present role.

However, months after Worlds, through an entire Preseason period, and even now with post-buff adjustments to classic Engage Supports, we’re still sitting at a point in the meta where Heimer, Ashe, Xerath, Zyra, Vel’Koz, and a few other poke-forward Enchanters are all holding strong against a comparatively small Tank/Engage class. How did we get here? And what can be done to adjust the power level of these oppressive Supports? Let’s discuss.

The Impact of Teleport in 2022

Prior to the 2022 Season start, Teleport was a massive red flag for the League of Legends meta-game. While initially scoped to be a tool utilized by Top Laners and Mids that needed extra presence in lane to maintain farm/exp income, the flexibility of the spell being able to be used on Turrets, Minions, and Wards turned it into a tool that allowed for these laners to show up to teamfights or on flanks suddenly to quickly shift the dynamics of a fight. And oftentimes, that dynamic shifting play would center itself around Bot Lane and Dragon, which would massively swing the state of Bot Lane and the course of the game.

There was a mixed response to addressing Teleport with a nerf, seeing as there was a crowd that thought that Dragon and its buffs should be addressed before the Summoner Spell should, but seemingly with a desire to keep games more teamfight focused, Dragon left the nerf zone unscathed and Teleport was restricted to only being able to be used on Turrets prior to fourteen minutes into the game. At that point it became Unleashed Teleport and functioned similarly as its old version did. However, by this point, most games, especially professional ones, have typically broken away into phases of the game where Unleashed Teleports plays are less impactful unless a scripted play comes out from a team.

The Beginnings of Carry Supports in 2022

You may be asking yourself what this has to do with Carry Support, and simply put, it increased their presence and opened the door for these picks to begin to flourish. Without the threat of a Top Laner Teleporting in on Bot Lane’s rear while they were pushed to turret, more aggressive Supports began to float forward, especially in solo queue. In Pro-Play, we saw an increased presence more ‘interactive Enchanters’ in the forms of Lulu, Renata, Karma, and Nami, all Enchanters that pair well with aggressive ADCs or are Enchanters that have tools that easily let them push the wave forward to offer Dragon Priority. Naturally, Yuumi still remained ever-present in more scaling focused compositions, but the interactivity of Bot Lane in the 2v2 tended to increase, especially since once a Marksman-Enchanter combo was locked in, a Marksman-Tank combo typically followed as, on paper, Tanks like Leona, Nautilus, and Rell, should be able to pick and abuse Enchanters.

When we look at solo queue, we can glean that some serious meta shifting was beginning to pick up. While solo queue should never be directly compared to professional play, we’ve seen over the years that, as the League of Legends player base gets more seasoned, it gets better at adapting what they see into the meta of the ladder, and eventually it came to be that classic Mage picks started to have some staggering win rates as Support due to the Teleport changes. Zyra, Xerath, Vel’Koz and others all started to shoot up, but the Enchanter picks popular with professionals also started to maintain strong presences and win rates in solo queue.

This all came off the back of not being punished for high lane aggression and shoving in Bot Lane thanks to the Teleport changes. It’s during these later stages of Season 2022 that we see the likes of Beryl playing around with Heimerdinger and soon saw Ashe’s presence at Support creeping up since her CDR build was being unlocked to be pretty freakin’ busted.

This is where we can mark the beginnings of the Carry Support style coming to the fore and, by the time that Worlds came upon us, Beryl’s Heimer was in focus, and Ashe was even being toyed with in professional play after coming in as a solo queue adaptation.

Season 2023 Changes and Life Before 13.3

The start of this year’s season was all about Tanks and trying to make them more impactful. Sweeping changes were made to tank itemization and Mythic options, all in a hope of the dynamic of pro and solo queue play seeing some shifts in the meta. However, these changes didn’t fill out as intended and, largely, the meta remained static for most of the first two months of 2023. It wasn’t until 13.3 where we saw some large sweeping changes to the scope of the Support Meta.

So, prior to 13.3, we saw some unique experimentation at Support. You could tune into pro and high-elo streamers and see them playing things like Jhin Support, Kalista Support, Caitlyn Support, Twitch Support, and even MF Support, most of which have been considered ‘troll’/ ‘off-meta’ styles of play before. However, the new inclusions of Kalista, Jhin, and Caitlyn really started to raise some community eyebrows and get people asking questions, “What is the viability behind these strategies?”

Naturally, as most experimentation goes, it feels like these things were simply experimental as none seem to jump off the page possessing a high viability at Support when you consider win rates. But the presence of these selections became quickly adopted in solo queue by the community to make their inclusions worth noting and discussing. Additionally, if you flip things over to the Mage spectrum, these guys were even improving in the vacuum of solo queue with Heimer consistently being regarded as a top-ten pick and the likes of Xerath and Zyra still holding well into those 51%+ win rate categories as well.

So, what’s the deal, why are folks trying these changes? Well, think back to our Teleport talk and how it opened up Bot for these more go-in and interactive styles of play. There’s one phase. The second phase has been highlighted to be Support Itemization. Spectral Sickle and Spellthief’s being the main culprits in this discussion. Both of these items are naturally intended for Poke/Ranged Supports to pick up. Champions like Zyra and Senna come to mind as being more naturally fitted for these items. But there’s one layer of stats/effects on the items that really bring forth the viability of these Marksmen Supports, and that's the Mana Regeneration factor.

Most traditional Marksmen items lack Mana Regen. The Mana Regeneration of Sickle and Spellthief’s allows those carries we mentioned before (Jhin, Caitlyn, Miss Fortune) to more consistently spam their abilities. And in the case of these three in particular, their abilities are great at both hitting enemy Champions but also hitting the wave, affecting the wave state and often having it shoved towards the enemy.

In an ideal world, this means that the lane that has the shove often has priority of Dragon and vision control around Bot since you can also move to place deeper wards as your wave is crashing into your opponents’ side. Your opponents can’t simply abandon the income of gold and experience from the wave to answer you, so in ideal settings, you should have priority to set the conditions that allow you to maintain your push in Bot Lane.

This strategy, as well as the lack of punishment from Tanks and Enchanters, is what allowed us to see an increased presence of these Marksman selections at support during the early phases of Season 2023. They were truly mirroring what was done by Heimer and Ashe but, in most cases, to a lesser extent.

Patch 13.3 Hits and Shifts the Meta

Patch 13.3 hit though, and the meta shifted, drastically in comparison to what was being explored. In 13.3, as the community’s beloved Phreak layed out, Tank Supports were coming into focus and were to be addressed as the primary response to the increasing presence of Carry Supports. And while the main suspects of Ashe and Heimer were the targets, these buffs to Tanks and Assassin Supports should also address the viability of the likes of Marksmen within the role.

So, Phreak gave us a video where he listed out a slew of buffs and changes that were coming to Champions like Nautilus, Rakan, Pyke, and Thresh, all of which were regarded as smaller buffs that would likely help them circumvent some of their issues they had against the upper tiers of Carry Supports and allow them to really begin punishing these matchups as they should. This should, in theory, reduce the viability and presence of the Carry picks. Additionally, we saw some changes to Annie, which while directed towards her Mid Lane potential, immediately saw her viability at Support skyrocket.

With these Pick and Burst focused Champions coming into focus, naturally, that has caused a hit to the viability of Carry Supports. This was intensified with 13.4, where some of the adjustments for Thresh that were held back for 13.3 were released. However, the hit hasn’t been as heavy as many would like. Ashe, now seemingly the target of adjustments in 13.5, has been maintaining a steady presence through 13.3 and 13.4, with the below stats showing her 13.4 win rate and presence. She sits, currently as of this writing, as the second most played Support. Notable though, at 5th and 6th playmates, Rakan and Nautilus have risen up in response to the adjustments made to them with 13.3.

Stats taken from u.gg

Where Does That Leave Us Going Forward?

Recently, it has been expressed that Ashe Support is something that the balance team finds, ‘Fine’. But, its staggering presence in pro play is what is cause for concern. So, as with 13.5, Riot aims to put Ashe herself under some sweeping nerfs to address her Support playstyle while not completely hurting her ADC viability.

In regard to the other mentioned picks, Heimer seems to be sliding downward in popularity. The more pick-focused presence of Bot seems to be a natural deterrent to his viability and both pros and solo queue players are quickly showing a disinterest in the Champion. Annie, conversely, remains steadfast. Her popularity at both Mid and Support is quite staggering between the two roles and, unless targeted by nerfs herself, will likely remain so. The other Marksmen, however, seem to be nothing but experimental cases trying to explore what was available between patch 13.1 and 13.3. While there are naturally some circumstances where you could suggest a Miss Fortune or Jhin Support, it’s likely they’ll remain in an off-meta mindset unless directly directed for Support buffs.

Overall, what’s the takeaway after this reflection of Support and how Carry Supports have floated in? Well, the takeaway is how staggeringly Bot Lane is currently dictating the shape of the meta. At least in my eyes. Naturally, the focus may appear to be on the Champions themselves with all these adjustments and experimentation, but again, I think the main culprit remains Dragon and its extreme presence in determining the outcome of games. While in an uncoordinated sphere of solo queue, I’ll generally attest that the better Jungler is what wins you the game, in pro play, it’s whoever has a dominating control over Bot. The ability to push quick and secure tempo over Dragon remains the go-to strategy, and until Dragon itself is nerfed or the long-term viability of top-side objectives is promoted, we’re not going to be seeing metas that stray away from strategies that promote advantages in and around Bot.

With all that said, that’s all I have for you today. I hope this dive into the year-long evolution of Support has been an interesting read for you, and I hope you’ve maybe gleaned some importance of your roles in Bot from it!