Poppy comes to mind as one of League of Legends’ most versatile champions, able to slot into multiple roles with her ever-trusty hammer. She brings a powerful form of engage, one of the strongest teamfighting abilities in her Keeper’s Verdict, and at present one of the few sources of anti-dash lockdown in the form of her Steadfast Presence. With Jonah “Isles” Rosario, we’ll go through the tricks of a seasoned pro Support player so you can add Poppy as a powerful Support Champion in your arsenal.

A Brief History

Although ancient to the League of Legends scene, some may remember the notorious original Poppy, a fairly unpopular yet unorthodox pick that shocked audiences in pro play when picked up. The old Unicorns of Love team back in the age-old days of the EULCS brought out the pick piloted by Vizicsacsi, who remained one of the premier players of the champion even after her rework. A significant amount of Poppy’s kit post-rework actually remained intact, translated into a more modern style of Champion. No longer was she singling out a target to remain untouchable from other Champions, but now physically removing champions by sending them flying into the air away from the team fight.

Poppy as a Support has popped in from time to time, mostly experimental within the solo queue ladder, but found its way comfortably within the pro scene with meta shifts. With the popularity of engage and dash-heavy Supports like Rell, Leona, and Rakan, Poppy finds herself comfortably in the bottom lane as a tool of denying the other team’s ability to create plays. Poppy also comes with the added benefit of drafting flexibility, with Poppy appearing regularly in top lane, jungle, and Support.

What Makes Poppy So Valuable in High Ranks and Pro Play?

Isles: “I think Poppy is generally more popular in high elo, because the skill floor to play Poppy well is a bit higher. Poppy's early game has high damage, has synergy with popular champions like Taliyah and Azir, and has a lot of utility later [against] high-dash comps. Even when there aren't a ton of dashes to block, she still has the ability to ult people out of teamfights, which gives her a bit of an X-factor. But to use all these tools in tandem, to get the most value out of Poppy, it's definitely not an easy task, she has a higher skill floor than most simple CC Supports.”

To break down why Poppy is primarily more of a pick within the higher levels of play, much of her power stems from understanding when she is a powerful pick, and the ability to navigate quick decisions with her versatile kit. Of course, she is notorious for having one of the few anti-dash abilities in the game, which oftentimes are some of the most popular and frequent Champions in the meta game. But as a Support, Poppy’s job revolves around skirmishes, especially around terrain where she can lock down targets.

Poppy can find very difficult angles to dive, both with her innate tankiness and ability to keep more difficult to dive Champions like K’Sante or Ambessa from escaping. Taking advantage of terrain comes down to recognizing areas where you know you’ll be able to stun and lock down targets, as well as small micro movements to position yourself and your opponent to a spot where you can slam them into a wall with Heroic Charge. When you’re playing Poppy, you create zones where your opponent can no longer walk towards without risking being stunned into the wall. It restricts enemy Champions in a way that forces them to move predictably on paths that make it easier for your team to play around.

For example, your opponent may be fleeing from a gank, which is oftentimes the fastest route to a safe zone like the tower is closer to the walls. By simply being present, your teammates can land their abilities more easily because your opponent has to keep in mind of being slammed against the wall during the gank. This applies similarly to situations in the jungle, where a lot of players might slightly edge themselves towards the wall when retreating, which Poppy can get free Heroic Charge stuns off of. Even in the middle of wide areas like the river and in lane, there are areas like the bushes and inside of the Baron & Dragon pit that are no longer a safe zone for the enemy Champions to hover around. All of these zones are places that high-level players keep in mind when fighting Poppy, but it also comes to their detriment because they try to actively avoid standing in those zones. At the same time, your teammates can position their abilities to force your opponent to step into zones for Heroic Charge

How about for the average player?

For the average player, a lot of their opponents may find Poppy a difficult lane opponent if they are not prepared to punish her weakness of lacking range. Oftentimes, you can get away with a cheesier style of gameplay, focusing on easy picks where your opponent will make more positioning mistakes. In our discussion about Poppy with Isles, he discusses the options for runes, mentioning how Poppy players can take Hail of Blades or Electrocute as a more lethal build for the early game. This combination puts Poppy in a squishier position than normal, but a more effective trading pattern where you can very easily threaten a kill from full health. High levels of threat in laning are a fun playstyle that is very compatible with a more volatile solo queue game.

If we consider the previous advice about the zones Poppy creates, it also applies for the average player. Most players will, to varying degrees, play around the stun, but oftentimes in the middle of a fight, they’ll forget due to trying to dodge other abilities, or get too greedy and position for more damage/safety. A lot of small mistakes happen especially in the average game that Poppy capitalizes on, giving the Poppy player a lot of opportunities for Heroic Charge.

As a Support pick, Poppy is not necessarily a super complex Champion but relies more so on your ability to recognize situations for when you need to use Heroic Charge as a peeling ability or as an engage. Players familiar with champions like Alistar will find Poppy’s kit fairly similar in how you use your kit effectively.

What to Build as Poppy Support?

Isles: “When you're playing Support, there's always like Locket, Knight's Vow, and they're much better than Zeke’s in my opinion. It's more popular since Poppy doesn't rely on haste too heavily, so she'll build movement speed items like Dead Man’s Plate and Trailblazer. These items are not very stat efficient, but Poppy's utility often relies on being in the right place at the right time, so having more movement speed to navigate the map more quickly and just make Poppy more annoying. She's a very hard Champion to kill with extra movement speed. So, people typically look at Trailblazer and Dead Man’s as the most popular items. After you buy it, it usually goes back into traditional items, so Mikael's, Knight’s Vow, Locket, Redemption occasionally on third item, maybe Abyssal Mask.”

To sum up Support Poppy, movement speed is king, which is typical for Supports but generally very suited to the role Poppy plays as a Support where you want to be creating angles and pressuring the map. The faster you are as Poppy, the easier it is for you to give your opponent less time to react when you go missing, less chance of escaping your flanks, and have an easier time engaging and retreating when needed. You’ll also be able to go more deeply into the enemy side of the map to ward faster, which many Supports may struggle with normally because they lack the same pressure and safety Poppy provides.

Trailblazer’s movement speed effect that buffs teammates who follow your path, increases your own movement speed, and slows when you hit them with an autoattack. Take advantage of speed items.

The items Isles suggests are the more traditional Support items that you might find picking up depending on your situation. Mikael's will be for situations where your teammates need a cleanse but can’t easily slot it into their build path. Knight’s Vow for giving extra tankiness to your high damage dealing carry. Redemption comes in clutch in its versatility, where you can use it to top off your teammates from poke, add a tiny extra bit of damage for bursting down a target, and generally zoning your opponent with the potential for a turnaround in that zone.

You might consider why Isles does not recommend heavily going into ability haste, as many Support items often come with haste and tend to appreciate lower cooldowns. However, with Poppy you’re often using your abilities once or twice within a fight and usually aiming to end the teamfight in that play. For example, if you lock down an enemy carry with Heroic Charge, you’re oftentimes dumping your rotation and retreating because your job is done, and the locked down carry is usually dead. Poppy’s ultimate is in a similar vein, where it is more than likely not coming up until the next teamfight. Compared to Enchanters who often rapidly use low cooldown abilities to continually protect their carries, it is a very different style of play and build path.

When to Pick Poppy?

Isles: “If Poppy is not really strong in the game based on the Champions you're playing against, and [you are] without synergistic champs like Anivia, Azir, or Taliyah, it can be difficult to navigate fights later on. Poppy is definitely strong when people early pick Champions like Kalista or Ambessa, top laners that Poppy can solo lane against, it opens up the opportunity to pick Poppy early because she can play in different roles. I do think Poppy is like, to some degree, conditional in pro play, you don't just first pick Poppy, but you might need only one pick on the enemy team for Poppy to be good against to be able to pick it. But oftentimes, you end up having more value because meta Champions rely on dashes. Mobility in league is just good.”

While many of us may not reach as far as professional play, we can take into account Isles’ advice when Poppy is a powerful pick for Support. Of course, in solo queue games, players can play nearly any Champion because there is a lot of variance and lack of coordination, opening up angles for even the most oddball of team compositions even as you climb higher. However, if you see angles where you have Champions that you can deny (think dash-heavy Champions that especially rely on their mobility to play the game like Ahri or Lucian), or with synergistic teammates like Isles’ suggests, you’ll simply have an easier time. When your teammates see your Poppy picked into a dash-heavy enemy team composition, they’ll have more opportunities at punishing their opponents positioning where normally they’d be safer. If you have synergistic teammates, more often than not they'll give you openings to use Heroic Charge effectively.

But perhaps the truest advice is that mobility in League is just good. While we have had releases like Hwei and Mel who are fairly immobile, we also often get Champions like Ambessa or K’Sante who dash so many times in their kit that you’ll always have a chance to use Steadfast Presence. Some Champions like Zac arguably cannot play without their singular dash, and having the ability to deny their mobility can win you the game outright. Investing in Poppy as a pick to practice is more than likely to pay off well as Riot Games releases more mobility-heavy Champions and is unlikely to rework her fairly popular kit.

What’s the Difference between Playing Poppy in Support and in Other Roles?

Isles: “I definitely do think that top lane Poppy has more options to stick on ADCs and be annoying. They can utilize item passives like Fimbulwinter procs or Sundered Sky procs to keep dealing damage and sustaining. I definitely think support Poppy won’t want to take the brunt of enemy engage necessarily, definitely a more peel-y style is more necessary. It depends on the comp, it depends on your Champions and theirs, both Top and Support will do a similar role.”

What it comes down to is that lack of gold econ that many Support players will be well familiar with. Poppy, especially if we go by the previous advice of focusing more on movement speed and cheaper support items, will often be too squishy in the later stages of the game to soak damage. Poppy Support is more limited to effective use of her abilities rather than utilizing high-cost items that laners and junglers have access to. Your gold early on is typically better spent creating angles for your team to be dealing the damage and enabling you to catch out targets.

Isles: “It can be difficult to navigate fights later. It kind of just depends. Obviously not great at solo engaging fights, but if you end up at a drake fight, and you have to do something, Poppy has that X-factor, if you can't engage, but if you can knock someone away or two people at the start of the fight, that fight might be able to start on its own. You definitely have to pick your angles, leverage other factors that supports don't have to, but you'll have opportunities to flash-E someone into the wall or look for ultimates. Typically in solo queue, people make a lot of mistakes, so it's not as difficult as it might sound at times.”

Keeper’s Verdict is the X-factor of Poppy, a game-changing ability that can single handedly win you skirmishes and teamfights.

Poppy’s X-Factor is that she has the agency to create favourable situations for her team regardless of her gold economy. Her ultimate, Keeper’s Verdict, is infamous for winning teamfights by sending primary targets away long enough to finish off the other team. Perhaps you might find it difficult as a Support to get too close to the enemy carries because of your Support economy not giving you the tankiness you get from Top or Jungle. Instead, you can also use Keeper’s Verdict to send away threatening front-line Champions as you peel for your carries, or simply as a follow up to the small window where you can approach enemy carries. As Poppy, you have a large variety of options with your kit in approaching skirmishes and big teamfights, which across roles is fairly consistent.

Conclusion

Poppy is one of those Champions that is likely to remain a staple within both the professional leagues and in solo queue. A respectably high damage Champion with loads of impactful crowd control options, able to play multiple roles and always have ways to change fights through her ultimate. As a Champion, she’s not too complicated to understand her kit, but needs a player who can quickly adapt and decide when and how you want to use your abilities, whether as a peeling tool or a lockdown option. Her role versatility also potentially opens you up to playing her in other roles more comfortably.

Thanks to Isles for his time in discussing Poppy in the role of Support. If you would like to hear more of Isles, follow him at:

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