Hi! I am a Shaco AP Support enjoyer since multiple seasons and have over 3 million mastery points on shaco (EUW), most of them as support. I know most of the bot matchups pretty well so i want to share my knowledge about the champion. :)

I chose shaco as my main champ because of the unlimited options of making plays, trolling and confusing the enemies. Most of the other champions are so one dimensional and straight forward which i dont like that much and it gets me bored pretty fast. So Shaco AP is the way to go for you when you think that you want a champ that is really hard to master and where you can learn something new about the champ even after hundreds and thousands of games.

The Guide will be updated and extended soon. I hope you enjoy my contribution to the world of playing a niche pick like shaco support.

Feel free to contact me if you have questions or recommendations about this guide/shaco support gameplay.

If you want to have fun => YES! Definitely!

If you want to climb the elo ladder => Shaco Support isnt a good pick for climbing, so if that is your intention there are other roles and other champs that are much better. This is due to several (2 :D) factors:

1) Shaco Support AP isnt good in low elo because your teammates wont realise the value of what Shaco Support AP does. So you will get flamed often (sometimes already in champ select) for picking Shaco Support (mostly by your adc). Sometimes your adc will go afk just because you picked Shaco Support and he thinks that it doesnt work (he doesnt know Shaco AP is mid/lategame scaling). Most low elo players just only know burst dmg and they will ping you in teamfights when you will not facechecking the enemies. They wont realise that you secured the dragon/baron with your ten boxes placed long before the fight started and distracted the enemies 5 times with your clone gameplay. You need a good mental health or you have to mute the chat before you start the game. In addition Shaco Support AP is team dependent. You can rarely solokill the enemies (due to lack of gold), you need your team to interact with your boxes and playmakings, which will rarely happen in low elo, because low elos dont realise the value of your boxes and dont know the limits of plays, so often they wont engage or, in the other direction, overextend.

2) The thing is that Shaco Support isnt a good pick in high elo either (which you wont reach anyway, see 1 ;D, due to the fact that high elo player know what they are doing. They know how Shaco works, they use wards and oracles and will adjust to the Shaco Support playstyle, which can make him useless sometimes. The biggest enemy of Shaco is vision, and the vision of your enemies will be much better when you face high elo enemies. The introduction of the plants in the jungle that grant vision extend this problem even further. You have to play him almost perfectly to make him a viable option in high elo.

Before early game starts

1) Even before the first minions occur you can have an impact on the game that you should definitely use. After you spawned in base and bought your starter items run immediately to the following position to place a box there to hinder/slow down the enemies possible invade and install vision (blue side):



or for red side:



2) After that you can place a box at around 0:48 (if you bought spellthief, otherwise at 0:50 at your junglers starter camp (most of the times blue camp/ask your jungler where he starts). Therefore no picture is needed. =)

Then you have to make a decision:
a) You can support your jungler even further by placing a second or maybe third box (this at the second camp the jungler will do)

or

b) you go to your lane (its a little bit risky, especially without flash, but its my prefered option) and wait till around 1:12 to place a box at this place (yellow circle) (blue side):


or there (yellow circle) (red side):



After that you wait till your box is available and place a second one in the bush (dark circle in both pictures). Now the early game starts.

Patch 13.6

In my opinion Patch 13.6 will favor Shaco Support due to the nerfs of Yuumi and some adc items. So yuumi isnt (probably) an instaban anymore so you can ban lulu/senna. Unfortunately the announced zeri nerfs were canceled. Also the (small) veigar nerfs are welcome, so maybe he doesnt get picked as apc anymore.

All other nerfs/buffs/adjustments doesnt affect shaco directly.

Patch 13.7

Zeri, veigar and annie nerfs are welcome. Kalista and alistar were buffed but i havent seen both of them that often after that.

If you build morellos or other items that apply grievous wounds you will now apply griveous wounds even if the dmg you dealt was completely nullified by a shield. This is an indirect buff if you build this item as shaco ap.

Patch 13.8

Rakan nerfed, Ezrael, Janna, Kog Maw, Leona buffed. Janna isnt the best matchup so we should hope she isnt picked that much. Cosmic drive was reworked, passive mr stacks arent triggered by boxes. Still a good item for shaco.