Botlane synergy makes laning easier and gives you and your ally more of an opportunity to win lane. In season 8, we will expect to see more champion diversity compared to the ending of the current season. In the late part of season 7, the bot lane was dominated by Supports who could rush Ardent Censer and carries who benefitted from them. This left bot lane’s champion picks to be rather stale and repetitive.

Before choosing which champion to pick and what synergy to look for, it is important to have sufficient knowledge of both champions and who you're against. This will allow you to counter most matchups. Having knowledge of all the champions available in the bottom lane is ideal as you can know the extent of their damage, their potential, and when they are strong.

There are many different reasons why you should pick a champion that has good synergy with your laner. In most cases, it would be better to pick a champion that has synergy with the other to work and ferment. Synergy isn’t everything - you can win lane without having good synergy but having two laners that work well together can often make the whole laning experience more pleasurable and easier to play.

There are a few different types of synergies to look out for when picking your champion. Note these are not the only types of synergy.
• Follow Up
• High Early Game Damage and Poke
• Protection and Peel

Carries that can follow up their Supports engage is one way of having good synergy. This is because they can either follow up with poke, autos or layer their abilities to cause multiple chains of CC. Supports who have high amounts of CC such as Rakan, Blitzcrank, Thresh or Alistar benefit from playing with an ADC who has follow up because they can chain CC and grab kills early. ADC’s that have this sort of follow up are Caitlyn, Varus or Draven. These lanes are very strong and can often snowball quickly when ahead.

The second type of synergy is laners who have high damage and can abuse enemies with poke and autos early. Champions such as Karma, Brand, Zyra and Vel’Koz will abuse you early. When matched with an ADC who can also poke such as Caitlyn or Lucian, these lanes are incredibly frustrating for the enemies to play against. This is because both Support and ADC can constantly dish out damage and makes this a high kill pressure lane.

The final example is Protection laners. Not every ADC is an early game king and some will need a little hand to survive. Champions who are not very strong early will need protection with help from the Support. Champions that benefit from peel supports are Twitch and Kog’Maw. Supports that can speed them up, heal them, or shield them generally do well. However, when playing one of these lanes you will often have to just farm and you will not have the strongest early game. These duo laners will build for the mid and late game team fights, while sacrificing their early game. The job of these protection supports are to keep your ADC alive for as long as possible.

Now I’ve told you what synergies to look out for, here are some example champion synergies:

5) Xayah and Rakan
Xayah and Rakan are one of the best synced champions in the game. If you didn’t know, these champions were designed for each other and their abilities both benefit one another. Rakan is a very good support in general however he is much stronger when he is paired with his lover. Rakan’s E is Battle Dance, and if Xayah is the target of Battle Dance the range is increased. This is just one of the ways they have champion synergy. This allows him to engage and save her from a further distance and also get to his lover's side quickly. These two are good together because Rakan can engage and Xayah can follow up with her long-range abilities to possibly snag a kill. Her W can root targets which will layer CC on the enemies. This ticks one of the main boxes when you look for champions with synergy - the ability to follow up.

4) Kog’Maw and Lulu
Lulu’s Kit is the fantasy of most ADC’s. Kog’Maw is one of the best champions to benefit from Lulu’s Kit. Lulu has early game power that can abuse enemies and give her ADC the protection that they often need. Kog’Maw is not very strong early, and sometimes the wrong support can make his early game harder. Lulu is a very good champion as she can poke the enemies off her carry, she can shield her partner and can also speed him up. These 3 things alone help him survive in the early game and will benefit him deeply in late game team fights. Lulu is a great champion in general, however matched with someone who gets most of their damage through long ranged auto attack and poke such as Kog’Maw makes this bot lane synergy incredibly strong.

3) Caitlyn and Karma
If you’ve ever played a more defensive ADC and Support combination then you would know how hard it is to lane against this duo. Caitlyn has the range of a missile and Karma has the poke to make anybody want to ragequit. Karma is a very strong lane bully with insane amounts of early poke damage. Caitlyn also has lots of range and poke damage. This duo lane is incredibly hard to play against because of the consistent amount of early game damage they can deal. These laners will poke you out of lane and make you play under tower. The champions synergise well because of their consistent poke.

2) Varus and Janna
Even with nerfs in the ending of Season 7, Janna is one of the strongest supports around because of her kit. When paired with an ADC who has poke abilities and strong wave clear/auto-attack damage, it can often be frustrating and difficult to deal with. Varus is a champion that picked up momentum in the late stages because of Ardent Censor being strong. He is still really good when matched with a peel support such as Janna. Janna’s E buffs any champion who consistently auto-attacks. They do not really synergise well on paper, however in game they are strong because she can buff his already incredible kit. This makes laning against them frustrating because while your damage will be ignored due to her shielding power, they will still be able to dish out tons of damage in return.

1) Draven and Leona
Draven is the type of champion that likes to abuse the enemies and fight often and when matched with an early game support such as Leona who wants to fight too, this lane has potential to rule the map. Leona is an incredibly strong champion because of her high amounts of burst damage and crowd control. Draven loves a champion that can hard engage on enemies such as Leona. Draven has the possibility to follow up with her engagement because of the champion’s kit. Draven in general is one of the strongest lane dominant ADC’s around and being paired with another lane dominant champion such as Leona makes this a very dangerous lane to play against. Draven can easily snowball this lane and become a monster late game.

While synergy isn’t everything, having a strong lane will allow you to comfortably win lane and win game! There are many other champions that have good synergy and the ones listed are only a few examples. Every patch the meta changes and more bonds are created between champions.

Next time in champion select, try to pick a champion who would synergise with the champion your ally has picked!

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