Happy Friday! Since we still have yet to hear an announcement on the starting Dignitas Bot Laner, I’m skipping ahead to Support for the 4th Power Ranking. Thanks again to the incredible response I’ve received from the League community thus far.
Similar to Jungle, I think it is really difficult to make an argument based solely on statistics when considering Support. When one of his most notable plays of the season was suicide flash onto a Caitlyn trap to save his ADC, preventing a 700g shutdown, it seems silly to take Aphromoo’s KDA too seriously. CS/Minute is entirely useless, gold generation is mostly team dependent, and damage share from the Support position is going to be decided by champion select much more than gameplay.
That isn’t to say that statistics are completely useless. Vision Score/Minute clearly plays a key role in a Supports success, as does Kill Participation %, First Blood %, and First Blood Victim Rate. I will base any of my statistical comparisons off of primarily those metrics, as well as mention any notable anomalies in other standard metrics.
As an additional aside, I got a few pieces of feedback around my use of clips from the NA in-houses. I just want to clarify: Those clips are never a driving factor in my decision making, I am including them because they are the only public direct comparison between some of our LCS and Academy players, and are the only ‘competitive’ matches on Season 11 patches. I also think they are fun and a lot of people have not gotten the chance to see them.
S Tier — MVP
1. CoreJJ — Team Liquid
There is no doubt in my mind that CoreJJ is best Support in the LCS. He’s coming fresh off of a Summer Split MVP performance, and led Team Liquid to the best North American performance at worlds. CoreJJ is a natural leader on and off the rift, an incredible decision maker/shot caller, and a literal world champion. He passes the eye test, his statistics and champ pool are amazing, and he is praised by analysts, players, and others in the industry. I know he isn’t considering an analyst, but I think current GM for 100T, Papasmithy, put it elegantly on a recent episode of Bevvies with the Boys:
To take a quick look at his stats from Summer 2020, CoreJJ sat clearly at the top of the standings:
- 1st in Vision Score/Minute (3.15)
- 2nd in Kill Participation % (72.1)
- 2nd in First Blood % (38.9)
- 6th in First Blood Victim Rate (5.6%) — 3 way tie
I know there are going to be some people who are going to rate SwordArt more highly than CoreJJ, but I strongly disagree. I expand on the comparison more while looking at SwordArt later in the rankings, but we can’t forget that the two Supports actually went head to head in the group stages of the 2020 World Championship. After watching each of these games I came to three conclusions:
- Suning clapped TL in the draft by baiting the Twitch/Rakan pick and then clapped them with Draven, and
- CoreJJ outperformed SwordArt in the 2nd match
- It is really hard to come out of these matches with a meaningful conclusion based upon how one sided the early levels were.
In the first match, the game was pretty much doomed for CoreJJ and Tactical at level 2 when Broxah showed in the top lane and SofM helped to push the TL Bot Lane off of roughly 4 waves of minions. The Draven pick is something that no one in NA would have picked, and it was one of those games at Worlds that truly seemed to be decided by draft. In game, there wasn’t anything that CoreJJ or Tactical could have done to change the lane phase other than to have orchestrated Broxah to not leave them in a 2v3 bot. Honestly, after watching the replay, I was impressed with the TL bot lanes patience to not die to the Draven/Leona/Nidalee combo until almost 10 minutes into the game, when CoreJJ narrowly gets killed.
The second game was a much closer match, and CoreJJ secured the early lead for TL with his play making at level 1 on Bard:
SwortArt struggled to have an impact this game (to his credit, he was on Tahm Kench), meanwhile CoreJJ was able to make play after play after play on Bard. It’s hard to do a real comparison of CoreJJ and SwordArt based on those two games due to how lopsided the start of each of the games were, and I am incredibly excited to see additional head to heads between these two players in 2021.
CoreJJ was clearly the best support in the region at the end of 2020, and I think he deserves the chance to defend his title against SwordArt directly before taking it away from him. Again, this is in not the reason that CoreJJ is the 1st ranked Support in the LCS, but here are some of my favorite plays I’ve seen from him in the NA in-houses:
- Pantheon Double Kill
- Early invade versus Spica
- Killing Tactical
- Flash 3 man taunt on Seraphine
- Some sweet plays on Thresh
A Tier — Proven Talent
2. SwordArt — TSM
SwordArt is an amazing, historical player, with an incredibly storyline, but who is also clearly passed his prime (and that isn’t an unpopular opinion). I’m going to talk through some of SwortArt’s statistics from LPL Summer, but there are a few important things to note about differences between the LPL and most of the other major leagues. First of all, there are 17 teams, meaning that placing 5th in a positive stat in LPL is a lot better than 5th in LCS or LEC. Secondly, there are a lot more games, with some starting Supports playing 41 games in summer rather than the 18 in LEC and LCS. With that in mind, let’s take a look at how SwordArt place in LPL Summer compared to the 20 Supports that played at least 16 games:
- 9th in Kill Participation % (68.9)
- 8th in Vision Score/Minute (2.61)
- 11th in First Blood Participation % (24.4)
- 13th in First Blood Victim Rate (9.8%)
Let’s be clear: statistically, SwordArt was a slightly above average support in the LPL. Support statistics are limited, and this does not account for the intangibles, such as his 8 years of professional experience, his team leadership, and his in game shot calling, but there is no doubt that he was shadowed by the likes of LvMao, Baolon, and ppgod. Suning had a hell of a run at Worlds, but SwordArt was more of a focus for the narrative than his gameplay. He has a few tendencies that are detrimental, one of which may have even cost them game 3 in their series versus DWG:
Had he simply flashed away immediately instead of eventually dying and indirectly causing Angel’s death, DWG would not have gotten baron right then, and Suning may have been able to win what was a close game 3 until that point. This trend of overextension and over aggression is shown all throughout LPL Summer and Playoffs. Let’s take a look at this game during regular season where Suning takes on the recent world championship team FPX:
SwordArt gets hit by Lillia, and then doesn’t respect her ultimate and continues to walk forward to try and get the cannon minion. Even with flash, stopwatch, and Angel’s heal available, SwordArt walked up too far and it was not possible to save him. A similar trend happens two more times this game in the jungle, and around baron when he walks up to kill a ward and gets caught out again.
His over aggression shows again several times versus LGD in game 2 of the Regional Qualifiers, when he goes too aggressive on xiye mid, ints into the entire LGD team in mid, and engages too aggressively around dragon. Something to note about all of these plays is that SwordArt does not die as the result of a teamfight. He dies because he made a mistake in his own positioning, and over judged his ability to engage or clear vision. He makes these same type of mistakes versus Top Esports in the Semi Finals as well, more than once. This is a tendency that SwordArt will need to fix in NA if he is to be considered the greatest Support in the region.
All of that being said, most of these clips are against literally the best teams in the world, and SwordArt was a great signing for TSM (was he worth $3 million a year? Probably not, but that isn’t the topic at hand). SwordArt is known for his in game leadership, and speaks good English (not as well as IgNar or Huhi, but certainly better than many of the Eastern players that have been in NA for years and found success such as Impact, Huni, and CoreJJ). SwordArt was good all Summer for the LPL, occasionally having his pop-off games as well and eventually taking Suning to the 3rd seed out of the LPL and into an incredible Worlds run.
3. Vulcan — Cloud9
Vulcan had a great Spring Split, and a not so great Summer. It’s hard to pin down exactly who is responsible for the collapse of Cloud9, but it was likely a combination of all their players and coaching staff, with Vulcan being no exception. That being said, Vulcan makes a good case as the greatest true North American Support of all time, with only Aphromoo as a serious contender. It may be strange to think about now with the insane size of off season deals this last month, but Vulcan came in to 2020 as the most expensive player in LCS history. Since then, it is pretty clear to Jack Etienne and Cloud9 that he was worth it. Vulcan put on a clinic in his first split with Cloud9:
Vulcan is a clear in game leader for the C9 Squad as well, consistently being one of the loudest and most level headed voices in their comms, and willing to make daring calls like this backdoor to end the game versus Team Liquid:
With all of that said, Vulcan did struggle a bit during the Summer split, in what would eventually be the greatest collapse of a North American team of all time. He struggled to get things done in the early game, and lacked in his ability to provide vision control on the map, both shown clearly through his statistics in LCS Summer:
- 10th in Vision Score/Minute (2.34)
- 7th in Kill Participation % (67.6)
- 8th in First Blood % (11.1)
- 6th in First Blood Victim Rate (5.6%)–3 way tie
These stats were much better in Spring 2020, where Vulcan was 1st in the League for First Blood participation rate at Support, but we can’t ignore the most recent split. We will never know exactly what caused the fall of C9 in Summer, but plays like this certainly would have added on to an already tilting team...
With Perkz and Fudge coming into the roster, this is a great opportunity for Vulcan to reset and work with Perkz to provide leadership to this very promising Cloud9 roster. I have full confidence that he will be able to return to his dominant performance that he showed in most of the 2020 season.
4. IgNar — Evil Geniuses
IgNar is my favorite LCS players to watch. Not only because I had the honor of playing a 4v5 with him in Solo Queue (though it was a great experience to see just how good he is first hand), but because he knows how to make plays that no other North American support can:
Most known for his ability to find holes in the enemies line of vision, IgNar can always find a way to create a flank and surprise the enemy team with his positioning. (Side Note: If anyone can find the play of IgNar on Rakan hiding around Raptor pit for 30 seconds before engaging, please send me it so I can add it!). This flank on Leona shows exactly what I’m talking about, CLG did not expect the FlyQuest Support to be so far separated from his team:
IgNar is famous for his plays on aggressive engage supports such as Rakan, Thresh, Blitzcrank, Leona and Alistar, leaving his mark on the League of Legends universe during his incredible performance in Misfits vs SKT in 2017 (one of the most exciting Bo5’s of all time). His statistics from Summer 2020 show clearly his ability to get things done in the early game, and his ability to control the information provided for his team around the map:
- 2nd in Vision Score/Minute (3.08)
- 3rd in Kill Participation % (71.4)
- 1st in First Blood Percentage (44.4)!
- 3rd in First Blood Victim Rate (16.7%)
- Only Support Solo Kill of the Split
I am truly excited to see if IgNar is able to organize this Evil Geniuses team to success in the upcoming split. I will be watching out for IgNar’s early roams towards Jiizuke in the mid lane to unlock the Italian Stallion to his full potential, as well as orchestrating aggressive early plays with Svenskeren in the Jungle. If there is any player that can bring Jiizuke and Svenskeren back to their peak play, it’s going to be IgNar.
B Tier — Aurelion Sup
5. Huhi — 100T
Huhi had a fantastic Summer Split, and it was his first full split playing Support in the LCS. I don’t think anyone really expected it to work as well as it did, but Huhi and FBI’s aggressive laning made the duo one of the most dominant bot lanes in the league. Huhi even supports FBI like a pro off of the rift. When it came to the Golden Guardians abilities to make plays on the map, Huhi was usually the one leading the charge.
Despite moving from the Mid Lane, Huhi has developed a comfortably sized champion pool playing 9 different champions in both LCS Summer and Playoffs. He found success on less traditional LCS Support picks such as Morgana, with a perfect 3–0 record on her over Summer and Summer Playoffs. Huhi was one of the few LCS Support players to pick up Sett Support in the Summer, giving Golden Guardians another potent flex pick. Overall, I was really impressed with the width of his champion pool given his short professional career in the Support position. He found success on other ex-Mid Lane picks such as Lux, making one of the most clutch Support plays of the split:
Huhi also had a great split statistically, finishing Summer:
- 3rd in Vision Score/Minute (2.96)
- 1st in Kill Participation % (73.8)
- 3rd in First Blood % (33.3)
- 5th in First Blood Victim Rate (11.1%)
Overall, I am super excited to see what Huhi and FBI can do in the bot lane this year, especially given how strong the 100T roster is looking. To finish his section, here is a great bonus play during the NA in-houses casted by an up and coming casting talent — tristencasts.
C Tier — Signs of Success
6. Aphromoo — Dignitas
Aphromoo had quite the resurgence last year, and as of now it’s unclear if it was largely because of his skilled lane partner in Johnson, or if Aphromoo is entering another peak. Coming in to 2020, Dignitas might have been the worst looking roster on paper, so their 8th place finish, although bad, was an overperformance. The highlight of Dignitas, win or loss, was consistently their bot lane of Aphromoo and Johnson. Some of his plays from this split really brought me pack to the old days of his dominance:
Despite being on the 8th place finishing team, Aphromoo was able to retain a fairly healthy stat line over the course of the split:
- 5th in First Blood % (26.3)
- Perfect First Blood Victim rate (0%)
- 8th in Vision Score/Minute (2.38)
- 9th in Kill Participation % (61.7)
It’s unclear as of now who Aphromoo will be laning with at the start of 2021, but I hope he finds another rookie talent like he did with Johnsun in 2020 (or Sneaky). So far, the Dignitas lineup is not looking like one of the stronger teams in the league, and their ability to win will again rest primarily on Aphromoo’s shoulders.
7. Destiny — Immortals
Most of you probably first heard of Destiny when he joined Origen for the start of LEC Sprint 2020. Some of you may remember him from Worlds 2019 Play-ins, where Destiny was the starting support for MAMMOTH, playing alongside Fudge, Babip, Triple, and K1ng (all of whom have since made their way to LCS or NA Academy). That MAMMOTH team ended up putting on a good showing, going 2–2 vs both Clutch Gaming and Unicorns of Love, before losing out in the first Tie-breaker vs UoL.
Destiny and Origen came out with a bang in Spring 2020, winning their first 3 games in a row and eventually finishing 3rd in the Regular season and 4th in Playoffs. I loved this Live AMA that the Origen staff and Upset hosted where they talk about their “Moneyball” approach to picking up Destiny (starts at around 10 minutes in). However, Origen completely collapsed in LEC Summer, and Destiny was eventually replaced by Jactroll, who was not considered a great Support himself. Though they won their first two games with Jactroll, Origen went winless the remainder of the split while Destiny watched his team finish 10th from the bench.
Destiny isn’t a bad player, but he certainly had a bad showing in his recent split in the LEC. He struggled to find wins on meta picks such as Thresh, and didn’t adapt to new picks in Summer, such as Sett, Pantheon, or Karma. Overall, Destiny looked confident on Nautilus and Tahm Kench, and not a lot else. Coming in to a weak looking Immortals team, Destiny will need to step up this split to prove that his is still capable of professional play.
8. Diamond — FlyQuest
Unlike most of the other positions (Top, Mid, AD), Diamond is the only Support player to be coming out of the NA Academy this Split, playing for the winning C9 Academy team. Diamond is coming from a good split in that league, and is joining Flyquest alongside his Academy teammate Palafox, as well as the main rosters top laner Licorice.
Diamond has a wide champion pool, playing 10 different supports during his 18 games in Academy summer, with most of his games on the hook trifecta of Nautilus, Thresh, and Blitzcrank. Statistically, he was a bit underwhelming when you consider that he was on the best team in the league:
- 8th in Kill Participation % (62.1)
- 7th in Vision Score/Minute (2.40)
- 7th in First Blood % (23.5%)
Diamond did have a fair amount of mistakes that I expect to see out of the rookie in his first split in the LCS. Here, we see him getting caught out in what should have been a very difficult gank, using his flash late and dying without using his exhaust at all:
A similar mistake happens here, when Diamond gets caught out and fails his flash when attempting to escape. That being said, the word of mouth around this guy has been really good, and he looks good in Academy games. He’s also been a fun player to watch in the NA in-houses. With all of the other new Supports in the LCS coming from other regions, rather than Academy, it will be interesting to see how Diamond matches up against them.
D Tier — Proving Grounds
9. Smoothie — CLG
Here’s something crazy about Smoothie, he has played in every LCS split since NA LCS Summer in 2015, making him the 5th longest running LCS player still in the league (1st Wildturtle, starting in Spring 2013 with the inception of the LCS, 2nd Aphromoo and Pobelter, both starting in 2014 Spring; 4th, Impact). As a side note, it’s pretty incredible that 3 of the 5 longest running LCS players find themselves on CLG this year.
Over the last 2 years it seems that Smoothie has had a gradual decline in his level of performance. Peaking during his years on Cloud9 (as many players do), his Summer Split on TSM in 2019 and then both splits on CLG have been underwhelming. There’s no getting around that CLG had a terrible 2020 (sheesh haven’t we all), and Smoothie was a big part of that. I don’t think he is a bad player, but with his recent performances my expectations are higher for almost every other Support in this list coming in to 2021.
For what it’s worth, Smoothie did outperform his teams placements slightly when you look at his statline:
- 6th in Vision Score/Minute (2.46)
- 5th in Kill Participation % (70.6)
- 6th in First Blood % (15.8)
However, based on the eye test, I can’t think back to a single time that Smoothie seriously impressed me in the most recent Summer Split. I re-watched a few CLG games to find a highlight, but it got depressing pretty quickly. CLG is looking like a stronger roster right now than they did in 2020, and Smoothie has a big opportunity to step up.
10. Newbie — Golden Guardians
If you haven’t heard of Newbie, he is one of the two players to come to the LCS in 2021 from the Latin American League (LLA), along with Josedeodo. Newbie has been competing since 2015, but his professional career really kicked off when he joined All Knights for the start of the 2019 Season, receiving the most MVP performance rewards of any Support player in the league in both the Closing and Opening Split. Destiny helped lead that AK roster to a regular season win in LLA Closing 2020 (The Summer Split equivalent), with a fairly good stat line (This is an 8 team league):
- 4th in KP % (72.4)
- 1st in Vision Score/Minute (2.95)
- 6th in First Blood % (22.2%)
- 4th in First Blood Victim rate (11.1%)
Playing mostly tank or engage supports, Newbie found success on Braum, Nautilus, Leona, Bard, Thresh, Tahm Kench and Rakan. Despite not making it to worlds in 2020, in many ways Newbie was actually more of a star than Josedeodo in the LLA, receiving the most MVP of the game awards of any support player for 4 splits in a row, while Josedeodo didn’t place top 5 even once.
Regardless of his domestic success, the LLA is a much weaker region than any other regions that the 2021 LCS Supports reign from, and Newbie will have to prove his talents against them before he can claim a higher ranking.
In Closing:
Support is always a difficult role to assess, since much of their responsibilities exist outside of what we see on the screen. Players like CoreJJ and SwordArt are known for being in-game leaders and having incredible minds for the game, but without the word of mouth from other players/coaches, or the occasional mic check, it’s hard to know this as a viewer.
With new Supports coming in from the LEC, NA Academy, LPL, and LLA, it will be exciting to see how each of their gameplay and styles match up with each other. There are several notable LCS supports missing from last split (Zeyzal, Hakuho, Biofrost), and these new players will need to step up to show that they deserve to keep their own spots in the LCS.
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If you made it this far, thanks for reading! Saturday the 12th at 7:30 EST, I will be hosting a live talk show with @DMedicii, where we will be talking through our different Power Rankings, and doing and overall ranking on the players in the League. If you have an opinion, and want to share it, please join us on my Twitch (https://www.twitch.tv/lowsmith) at that time!
