All Unique Support Champions Picked in League of Legends Pro Play So Far
Caitlyn, Jhin, Heimerdinger, and Ashe support? Who let them cook?
Cover-Credits:
League of Legends Season 13 has been off to a great start and the different regions in the professional leagues are currently playing the first competitive split of the year. While the League of Legends Champions Korea (LCK), League of Legends Championship Series (LCS), and the League of Legends Pro League (LPL) are hosting their respective Spring Splits, the League of Legends EMEA [Europe, Middle East & Africa] Championship (LEC) is playing its first-ever Winter Split. One common factor across all these four major regions is that the teams are locking in unique and unconventional support champions for the bot lane.
The biggest talking point of Season 13 is the narrative that the bot lane meta is very stale with teams opting to go for Zeri/Yuumi and Heimerdinger/Ashe predominantly. With enchanters like Nami, Lulu, and Yuumi significantly getting nerfed in Season 13, it looks like the pro teams have turned to a different strategy for the bottom lane. We’ve already seen attack damage carry (ADC) champions and mages filling in for the support role in this split.
Here are some of the unconventional support champions who have been picked so far in League of Legends pro play across the major regions. All the stats used in the article have been sourced from Game of Legends.
Support Ashe
Ashe is one of the earliest ADC champions in League of Legends. Over the years, she has been locked in as support rather than the carry to counter the opponent laners. The idea is that you can dish out maximum poke with Ashe and keep your enemies tucked under their turret. Initially, Ashe was picked against strong support champions like Renata Glasc in 2022. Currently, according to Games of Legends, Ashe support has already been picked 19 times. Here’s a breakdown of how many times teams picked Ashe across the four major regions at the time of writing:
LCK: 6
LCS: 3
LEC: 7
LPL: 3
Caitlyn as support in pro play
It was T1’s support Ryu “Keria” Min-seok who locked in a support Caitlyn for the first time in pro play during the LCK Spring 2023 match against Kwangdong Freecs. The reason why Caitlyn works as a support just like Ashe is that she has a big auto attack range and a longer poke range with her abilities. Additionally, she also offers crowd control (CC) with her traps and her 90-caliber net. Pairing Caitlyn with another poke-oriented ADC will ensure that the lane is always pushed out and players can easily take down objectives and extend their lead. Caitlyn support has been played thrice and they’ve all been in the LCK notably.
Jhin support to counter Heimerdinger
Cho “BeryL” Geon-hee chose to play Heimerdinger support at Worlds 2022 and is known for his off-meta picks. He was the one of first players to test Jhin support along with some other Jhin one-tricks in North America. Following this, we saw Hanwha Life Esports (HLE) Kim "Life" Jeong-min and Excel Esports Raphaël "Targamas" Crabbé play Jhin support in pro play. Jhin also offers a ton of CC, thanks to his traps and root with his E and W. His R spell also allows the team to engage in fights from afar. Jhin works against Heimerdinger since he completely outranges the mage in the lane.
Heimerdinger is a priority support
Another favorite support pick in pro play has been the notorious Heimerdinger. He has been picked 25 times across the major regions so far. Notably, Heimerdinger last received a buff in LoL patch 12.12 where the base damage and health of his turrets were increased and his ultimate cooldown was reduced. Playing Heimedinger as support allows teams to control neutral objectives like the Herald and Dragons and take them down quickly, thanks to the burst damage his turrets offer.
The major reason why Ashe, Caitlyn, and Jhin work really well as support champions in League of Legends is that they completely outrange Heimerdinger and take very less damage while clearing his turrets.
In addition to the above-mentioned champions, Azir and Kalista were also played as supports on the pro play stage. With the season just taking shape, it will be interesting to see if Riot Games nerfs these tactics moving forward and if traditional supports will take center stage again.
