So I just got the completely random idea to start writing about my experiences as support, and mentoring supports. My goal with this is to write some sort of a support-101 guide to help any aspiring support players. While writing this, I have been inspired by guides/streams by EG.Krepo and TSM.Xpecial. I would recommend anyone to check these players out!


First of all, I would like to cover the common misconception that a support cannot carry games. This is 100% incorrect. The reason people think this, is because they are simply playing too defensively, and simply assisting their carry instead of making plays themself. As a support, you are the brain of your carry. Basically, the only things your carry should worry about, is farming and positioning. As a support you are dealing with anything else. About 90% of the other things are orchestrated by the support.


That is why you are not a good support, when you are sitting back and waiting for something to happen, instead of making the plays happen. For example, I've had a few games which I played with a Leona who was standing BEHIND me all the time. Leona is a tanky support, which means that her goal is to cc the enemy and to take as much damage as possible for your carry to clean up the fight. Because of the defensive positioning, your carry will be in a lot bigger risk of getting poked or even engaged upon, because you can't directly punish any aggression because you're being too defensive. To just give an example, whenever I play Leona against Blitzcrank, I try to position just within my carry and blitzcrank, so his only attempt to hook will end up in him hitting me, allowing me to counterengage on their carry - which will end up in a won fight when you're in an equal matchup.


When playing against the same Blitzcrank as squishy support, your main goal is to make sure he cannot directly engage. In this matchup, you want to poke him as hard as you can while kiting him around in a way he cannot grab you directly. For example, when playing Janna-Caitlyn against Blitzcrank, you want to delay him with Q-W, and poke him as hard as you can and kiting him around. There will a turning point at which your enemy will realize that he's getting poked too hard, and has to turn back otherwise he'll be killed. At this point, he will be 'going to deep', which means he tries too hard to grab you, while he should have realized that this would result in him getting too much poke.


There are always some scenario's in which this is quite impossible to pull. For example, Sona is a really weak pick against Blitz because she barely has any defensive spells, she cannot kite him around that well. The best thing to do in this scenario would be to counter-engage when you have enough damage. Because Blitzcrank goes deep on you, he also 'pulls' his own ad carry with him, and this should allow for a great counterengage because you can force him in a bad position (for example, tanking lots of minion damage)


When playing the aggressive support against a squishy support, you will be looking for fast engages. If you miss your engaging spells (Leona E, Blitzcrank Q), you won't be able to do much for about 10-20 seconds because your only gap closing ability is on cooldown. There is never a point in going really deep for a kill, because it will cause you to get lots of minion aggro - lots of minion aggro = more damage taken = bad fight. So, you will have to be swift when you want to pull off a good engage. A good way to pull off an engage, is by punishing greed. Greed is not only going deep for a kill, but also for a minion kill. Usually, someone's movement paths are really predictable when they are going for a minion kill - because the computer calculates the path for him. That way, you can easily get your E-Q as Leona because he's too greedy for that single minion.


Another important thing in melee vs ranged support matchups, is brush control. As melee support you will always want the brush control, because it will give you zoning power (he doesn't know where you are or what you are up to, and give you an easy engage, or the direct possibility to completely zone out the enemy.
That is why you always want to ward lanebushes as ranged support, simply to deny them that possibility. On the other hand, that is why you can pink the lanebush you are in as the melee to get all the brush control you want.


I didn't use any bb-coding because I was being too lazy and because its more about the content. If you like these kind of blogs, please leave a comment and I'll keep working on those :)