So you want to become a godlike support?



WORK IN PROGRESS!!!! I'VE TO FINISH EDITING, INSERT SOME IMAGES AND CHECK SOME PARTS

Hi, and welcome to this complete guide on support role. Let me tell you that i'm glad to see you here. If you are here I think it is because you are tired of winning a game and losing one. You are tired of your teammates not recognizing your value and sucking every game.

But now you are in the right place! Everyone in the league will be happy about that, they will recognise your effort, your supportive capabilities and your ability to carry.

I hope that you are the kind of person that loves to help others shine, make plays and know that none will notice your job, but you know who are the real carry of the game, and this makes you an honorable player and person, so let me tell you....good job man.

Support is an underrated role since the beginning of League Of Legends and after the immense changes that have come from the years now it is enjoyable and has a great impact on the game like every other role. SO IT'S POSSIBLE TO CARRY AS A SUPPORT.

In this guide you will understand the correct mindset for climbing in soloq. You will understand the support archetypes and how to play with and against them. We will cover how to create an effective game plan. We will talk about warding. I'll give you some tips against every matchup. And last but not least some tips for playing support in Clash and in organized teams.

Every section is stand-alone so you can read all at once, you can read this guide in a random way or just the part that interests you the most!

As you understand we have to cover tons of things, so let's dive into it!

!DISCLAIMER: in this guide i will talk about some advanced concepts like prio or tempo. Being a general guide on support, I won't talk about those topics in depth, but I'll remind you of some useful guides to understand them better!

Who am i?

Before starting, let me shortly introduce myself.

I've been an Italian League Of Legends player since season 3 (yeah a long time ago) and in the last year and a half I'm also a League of Legends coach.

In those years of playing i've switched all the roles and now I play support. My main is Nami, followed by Senna and Rakan.

I've chosen this role because I love to help my teammates and because I love the strategic component of the game.

As a support I could help all my teammates and focus more on the macro component of the game instead of the mechanical part of the game.

In my coach experience I've helped dozens of players improve and reach their goals like gold, plat and diamond. After my coaching they all have a better comprehension of the game and developed some habits to constantly improve even without my direct help.

In this guide I'll give you all my experience and knowledge to help you become the support you would always like to be, the one that everyone loves and wants in their team!

And this is anything about me, so let's get started!

!DISCLAIMER: as i told you i'm an italian guy so there might be some grammar mistakes in this guide, hope you could be kind and patient if you find some. Thank you for your patience and enjoy!

General Overview

The first rule about being a god support is to ALWAYS take the kills.

Obviously this is a joke :^) (not true for my teammates and friends lol).

Now let's start with the real guide! The first step is how to build a good champion pool.

Champion pool

Before jumping into how to create an effective champion pool let me give an awkward truth.

It doesn't matter which champion you play.

This means that you can climb with any champion in any role if you are good at it and good at the game, in fact lots of challenger players play off meta champions and climb with them, so instead of focusing on choosing the right champion choose the one that you like to play. Obviously some champions are easier than others so they are suggested to start with to understand and focus more on the game.

To create an effective champion pool you have 3 ways.

Following the meta, becoming an OTP (One Trick Pony) or play confident picks.

Lots of players play too many champions in their soloq games. This is a crucial error because you have to put so much effort on playing your champ and don't focus on the general part of your role, like mechanics or macro.

Having a restricted champion pool allows you to focus on less champion specific things like combos, specific itemization and improve more wisely on the game in general.

Let's analyze the 3 strategy to create an effective champ pool:

• Meta:

Let me be honest with you....I'm not a big fan of the meta.

This is because in lower elo (below diamond II) and in soloq it has a lower impact on the long run. I believe in the long time learning process and focusing more on the basics of the game and the role more than the patch OP's.

Lots of challenger players are OTPs or they just don't take advantage of the meta so those people show us that you can be a great player even if you don't follow the meta. If after that you want to play meta champions anyway let me give you some tips.

Following the meta gives you the opportunity to use the strong pick of the different patches to have more impacts on your games and win more games. This may result in often seeing your pick banned because of OP on this patch.

You have to be very flexible on your play style because it may change completely from a patch to another. So if you are an expert player and have a deep comprehension of the game this strategy allow you to have always a strong pick.

I suggest to specialize on one archetype (later on this guide) and play the op's of that archetype to mitigate the downside of this strategy. This allows you to focus on just one playstyle and gives you the opportunities to improve your game even if you follow the meta's OP and change champions every 2-3 weeks.



• OTP:

Just pick one champion that you love and play only him. This allows you to focus on improving your ability with that champ and at the same time improve in your role mechanics and strategy in the fastest way. Indeed this strategy gives you a fast learning curve because you play only one champ.

But in the long run you may be bored of playing only one champ.

Also playing only one champ may put you in a situation where your champ doesn't always fit your team comp or you have to play anyway against hard counters. But having a hard knowledge of your champ allows you to play against counters in an easier way, because you have fought against them several times and you have a deep knowledge of your champ.

If your champion gets banned just dodge.

It is better to lose 3 lps and wait 5 minutes instead of playing an entire game playing someone you're not confident with and learning nothing. If it gets banned 2 times in a row (very rare unless it is an OP pick this patch) consider playing the game anyway.



• Confident picks:

This is the most balanced choice (and my favorite and suggested). This choice allows you to pick 3 different champions and play only them for your soloq.

How to choose the correct champions?

Just start from picking your favorite champion. this will be your comfort and blind pick choice. Second, pick a champion of the same archetype with a similar playstyle. Pick this one when the first is banned or if your second choice counters better the enemy bot lane. In the end choose one champion that counters your first and second choice counters. This allows you to not be counterpicked by your enemy first.

This strategy is the most balanced because you are able to fight in any situation and give you more flexibility. You have to learn 2 playstyle and are able to counter the enemy if necessary. Also you overcome the boredom of playing only one champion and usually one of your 3 champions are good in the meta.

If you are more skilled or have a good experience in the game you can choose 3 different archetypes and adapt to your team needs or you can better counter your enemy. 

Now you have chosen the way to create your champool, tried some champions and found the right one, at this point let me tell you:

Good job my friend!

The next step is to find accurate guides for your champions (you can easily find them here on OnlyGuides.com). Read them and understand exactly every part, understand the combos, the matchups and the itemization.

Then the golden rule of life!

Practice, Practice, Practice!

Become one with your champions, understand their limits and improve game after game.

Support Rules

Here you'll find some generic rules for support that doesn't fit in any other section of this guide. Let's get started with:

The Line Rule

A good rule to keep in mind as a support is the Line Rule. Here is how it works.

You have to just keep a vertical line with your adc.

This rule is so simple and effective. Following this rule allows you to be in position to both be aggressive and protect your adc in case of need.

Level 6 rule

A good tip to support is to give priority to reach level 6. Is true that after level 6 the playstyle of a support is the same. The job of a level 16

Alistar

Alistar

Cooldowns rule

This is true for every role, but in botlane especially. Every time an opponent wastes a key ability, utilize this spot to take some advantage and create pressure. It may be some free poke or an engage after a lucian waste his

Relentless Pursuit

Piercing Light

Stay alive

This seems obvious, but lot's of players have too many deaths in their games.

Some of them are inevitable, but some are systematic.

I want you to focus on the systematic one. Take a track of your death and see if there are some deaths that come from similar errors. For example I was dying too much when I was warding in the midgame, so I've understand where to put my focus to improve. I also put myself the rule to don't die more than 3 times in a game. I don't always keep my death under the 4, but it helps me play more safely and be more conscious of my games.

Mechanics

The laning phase is the most important part of the game. A good laning phase allows you to have an easier mid and late game because you start from an advantage point. So knowing and improving the main mechanics of an effective laning phase allow you to have easier games. Indeed there are some mechanics for support that improve a lot on your laning phase.



Let's see them one by one:



Trading Stance:

This mechanic can be explained by "standing on your dying minion".

You have to position yourself near your dying minion. In this position you can easily poke or engage the enemy adc or support. This mechanic is so effective because the enemy adc can't both poke you back and farm the minion if you position correctly. This put the enemies in a consistent situation of choosing to poke or farm. This mental pressure is hard to manage and it allows your enemies to make poor choices and make some mistakes. Take this opportunity to engage and kill them down. here a video that explain very well this mechanic:

• Wave management:

Why do I need to learn wave management as a support? How can I control the wave?

Those are common questions I receive when I tell a support that he MUST understand wave management. Wave management is important to understand even if you are a support, because it allows you to follow the flow of the laning phase and of the game. First of all you need to know that you can control the wave in 3 ways: Fast Push, Slow Push and Freeze.

Let's see all and understand when to use one and when not.

Fast push is when you constantly use aa (autoattack) and spell to push the wave as fast as you can on the enemy turret. This is used by default on lower elo players. In low plat and below you will see adc's autoattack the wave constantly and without interruption, this is a sign of a low understanding of wave management. This kind of push is useful after a kill, when the enemy leaves or if you need prio(cercare video youtube al posto di un link a una guida di un'altro sito) in your lane to invade or to help teammates.

Slow push is when you only lasthit enemy minions and build a huge wave. This should be the default mode on pushing waves. This state of the wave allows you to create tempo(inserire link a guida o a video youtube). In this situation of advantage you can do a recall and take advantage on your opponents, you can do a neutral objective or do a minion crash dive and take even more advantage. In fact after building a huge wave and crashing under turret a dive is so effective because if you kill your opponent you take advantage from the kill, you can take some plates and they lose the gold and exp from the minions.

Freeze is when you put the wave in a spot near your turret and you keep the wave in that position as long as you want. This technique is effective to zone the enemies and put them in a position for being ganked from your jungler or midlaner in an easy way. To freeze effectively you must keep alive 3 to 5 enemy caster minions. In this position only last hit, in this way you will keep the wave on the same spot for a long period of time.

But how can I control the wave if the adc is the one farming?

You can help in several ways. First you can use your spell when you have to fast push. Second you can put pressure on the enemies to allow your adc to control the wave with low pressure. Last but not least you can use the chat to communicate with your adc. Iknow, I know they won't listen to you for the majority of the time but give it a try, even if they listen to you 1 time over 5, in the long run it will be worth it. So pinging or writing simple things like "let's freeze now" or "push and reset" would make a change on your games.

One other good rule to keep in mind for improving wave management is that every time a wave goes under the enemy turret it will bounce back to your turret. This dance is very important and helps build some wave management strategy. It also explain why is so important to push under enemy turret a wave after you kill your opponents, indeed it give you the tempo to back, buy and return to lane and freeze. Having an advantage in exp, gold and items allows you to zone your enemies and take even more advantage. This strategy is so effective that it allows to win in some low elo games alone.

Another good strategy is to crash the third wave under the enemy turret after a slowpush and instantly reset to do the cheat recall. The wave will bounce and you'll have time to buy, ward mid and return bot in time to freeze with an item advantage.



Roaming:

Roaming is a fundamental part of being a support. The definition of Roaming is wandering around the map with the sole purpose of setting up ganks, or kills on champions, in other lanes.

Roaming allows you to take kills in other lanes and help your teammates with their opponents or you can help your jungler invade or gank or you can avoid a gank from the enemy jungler through vision or your presence for a countergank. So with effective roaming a good support player can impact all the map, from bot to top. Indeed roaming top could have a huge surprise effect on the enemy toplaner and make him tilt, if you think this is sneaky yeah it is, but knowing the psychology of your opponents and understanding when to take advantage over it is part of the game.

So....When do I have to roam?

Nice question my friend! A good moment to roam is after a recall. After a recall don't return immediatly to your lane, becouse if you are doing a good wave management you have enough time to move around the map and don't lose any exp. So after a recall go through midlane or, if you have more time, to toplane. In those positions you can gank the lane, put some vision or establish a countergank. It also depend on your archetype, some champions are better to do different things (is easier to gank as

Leona

Lulu

Another good moment to roam is for fighting for the

In fact, being on number advantage when you want to pick the herald helps a lot in putting your team in a strategic advantage. Be sure to let your adc in a safe situation and to advise him through the chat about your roaming. A safe situation could be a recall or a farming under turret against a non hard engage support. With experience you will understand well when you can leave your adc alone.

The last situation to roaming is when your adc sucks. I mean when he really sucks. So this might be a good strategy when you are so behind in botlane that you can't recover. In this particular situation it might be a good idea to roam around the map and help your other teammates to snowball and take advantage. If your adc start to flame just mute him. This strategy is a high risk high reward strategy so use it carefully and in really tough situations.

!Disclaimer: It is ok to roam toplane or midlane but be careful to don't lose too much time in doing it! Also don't let your adc alone for too much time or they will tilt and we don't want that, right?.

• Level 2 engage:

This is a crucial moment in your games. It happens only one time in the whole game and you don't want to waste this opportunity. When the lane starts you must take advantage and fight to reach level 2 first and immediately engage after that. In botlane you reach level 2 with all the minions of the first wave and 3 melee minions of the second wave. So be careful of the state of your waves and the enemy one and adapt.

Attack the minions to keep an advantage on the push and position yourself in an aggressive way to be able to engage when you hit level 2. If you are a melee champion and you have

Relic Shield
or
Steel Shoulderguards
utilize your stack on two melee minions of the second wave because they have more health and this allows you to push faster for level 2. But be careful! Don't push too much! An advantage of 1 minion and a half is enough to be sure of taking level 2 first while not being too much near the enemy turret having space for a kill. Using this mechanic correctly creates a snowball effect on your games.

If you have to pull your jungler just stop pulling at 1:36 and you will be back in time to fight for level 2.

You can also apply the same principle to level 3 and level 6 to get even more advantage.



Combining all those mechanics allow you to be a real monster during your laning phase! Don't commit the error to improve them all at once. Start on one and focus on it, then when you are confident with it go to the next one.

Mid Game

The mid game starts when the first tower falls and the team starts to rotate. The midgame is usually so chaotic, but once you understand how it works, it becomes sometimes boring depending on how linear it is. In this phase of the game you want to take as many resources as possible! And as a support it means to keep your teammates alive and establish some ambush for the enemies. So vision is extremely important on this stage of the game. Also improving our tracking helps a lot in picking enemies out of position just understanding their pathing. Having good timing and vision control over neutral objectives is essential. During mid game is a good habit to stay with your most fed allys and help him snowball even more. When going to ward remember to do it from a safe position or to always have someone that is a bodyguard for you, like you jungler or toplaner!

When should I rotate mid?

In midlane your adc is safer due to the length of the lane allowing you to not take too many risks to farm. Also the most impact comes from you! From midlane you can rotate faster to help your team in any part of the map, also you could establish more vision control in all the map and secure good vision before neutral objectives spawn. This Vision advantage helps your team snowball and take even more advantage. if your midlaner is a bruiser or an assassin that could stay alone in botlane without too much risks you should rotate mid.

When should I rotatetop?

If midlane you have a mage, you and your adc should rotate top and let the mage farm and keep the midlane. Usually the toplnaers are tanks or skirmisher so they don’t have too much difficulties in a 1 vs 2 matchup

When should I stay botlane?

If midlane you have a mage and the drake is spawning. In this scenario you want to keep pressure botlane to ensure the dragon and then rotate to another lane

Winning botlane

If you have taken the first tower usually you want to rotate midlane and siege that tower with your adc. In soloq this is not always possible because the adc or the midlaner don’t know that simple tactic. So use the chat and try to coordinate them, saying something like “take the farm botlane” or “bot are so weak they are free kill to you” may have an higher chance to help your midlaner to rotate botlane. If your adc doesn't rotate, stay with your midlaner. 

Losing botlane

If you lost the botlane and your tower has fallen you want to rotate mid anyway, but this time you let your adc alone botlane. You want to establish a more safe vision around your jungle entrance and stay near your towers. Just help your team stay alive and don’t give too many resources to the enemy team and slow down their snowball.

Mental

The mental component of league is an underestimated part of the game but a crucial one. Approaching the game with the correct mindset is essential to become a godlike player. Knowing how deal with tilting and emotions help you be more focussed and consistent on your game, being more in control on what you are doing.

In this section I might sound more technical. Also there are some exercises I suggest you do to improve your mental skills. This is only an introduction on the fantastic world of mental training. If you are interested I suggest you find some guides online to better understand this world.

Tilt

Think about your favorite pro player. He is on the stage of the worlds. The crowded is screaming. The tension is at the stars.

Do you think he is nervous? Do you think he can let this nervousness take control over him?

And the same principle applies to your ranked games. So coping with tilting and emotions is a crucial part of being a good player.

But what exactly is tilt?

It is astate of emotional distress or emotional confusion that is usually expressed in an aggressive manner. This in League is translated into playing poorly and making tons of mistakes, causing us loss streaks and lack of enjoyment. We make decisions based on anger and frustration rather than think things through.

We tilt because when we play we could go into a fight or flight state. This is caused by a threat. For example you die over and over. This causes your brain to sense a situation of danger, the oldest part of your brain activates and inhibits your logic and reason making you unable to make good decisions, like raging or flashing when you normally wouldn't. Also tilting is cumulative game over game so it could be very difficult to get over it. When you are in this state your teammates don't always understand the situation and they increase the fight or flight response through flame and pings.

Due to the fact that getting out of a high emotional state like tilt is really hard, the best way to overcome the possibility of entering this state is to be aware of it and recognise the tilt triggers.

Tilt triggers are triggers that put you in a tilt state. Those are some signals that irritate you. Everyone has his own tilt triggers. some common might be feeding lane, flame or being on losing streak. Identify your own tilt triggers and pay attention to them. Taking breaks after an exhausting game helps a lot.

In the end having a growth mindset and putting less value on wins and more on learning helps on dealing with tilt.

Growth mindset

A growth mindset is essentially when we put our growth as a player the first priority, even before winning games or gaining LPs. Who cares if you lose a game, the most important thing is to always improve and get better! Game after game, day after day, season after season. League Of Legends is a game of consistency!

Let me now introduce you to the concept of locus of control. The locus of control determines if you are proactive or passive, if you create or suffer your fate.

The locus of control determines if you take your responsibility for what happens to you (internal) or if you give them to the external world(external). To translate into a league of legends example it could be "i lose this game because my teammates sucks" (external) against "i lose this game because i didn't play the last fight correctly" (internal)

The first step to build a growth mindset is to understand that you MUST take your responsibility! So if you lose the lane it is your responsibility! If you lose the fight, it is your responsibility! If you don't climb it is your responsibility! I know this is hard to admit, in particular in lower elos. But if you do this shift in your mind you will drastically improve and have more fun in your games.

Why?

Because taking your responsibilities allows you to focus better on your gameplay and let all the things outside your control away and focus on the solutions.

If your ADC suck don't blame on it, ask yourself:

"How can i resolve this situation? Can i help my mid laner? My jungler is doing well?".

Focusing on solutions allow you to always be in control of the game and on your emotions. Questions are the true secret skill of this game, even more mechanics or macro. Question give you the opportunities to always find a way to improve, in every situation.

If you don't find the right solution the first time, nevermind! Continue searching! Once you find the right solution to a situation you have found it forever!

League is a beautiful game because it is always different, but as everything it has patterns. And you can find them in every game, so finding the right solution to a pattern helps you climb easily every time you find yourself in a similar situation.

Focus

Now, you have taken your responsibilities, the next step is to improve your focus during the game.

A good focus allows you better and faster improvement on your macro and micro game. With a correct focus you are always in control of what you are doing and help you better manage your emotions because even if you lose the game you have correctly done your specific training.

So focusing on one thing at the time helps you enjoy more and improve faster on the game, you will also reach a level where you don't care about the LPs but you only care about your gameplay.

Let's see how to improve your focus.

First of all mute everyone in the game except maybe for your adc. If you notice that your adc is toxic mute him as well. This allows you to focus more over your game and practicing your micro and macro. I know that this is a thing that everyone told you, but very few people do it every game.

Don't let take control over your emotions through stupid things.

You are playing to improve and show your value to yourself and to the league. Even if you are just playing for fun, muting allows you to enjoy the game in a better way. So mute ping and chat at the beginning of every game.

A second tip for improving your focus is to find the correct music. It means to find a playlist or a single song that you listen ONLY when you play ranked games. This will create an anchor between your focus state and the music allowing you to be more focussed and enter in this state even if you had a bad day.

I also suggest not staying with your friends in discord if you are playing soloq except for your duoq partner or if you are a team.

Last but not least you can start meditating.

Meditating?

Meditating! It is easier than you think, you just need some practice. Just sit down on your chair with your hands on your legs. Take a deep breath and just listen to your breath. Put your attention to your laughs and do nothing.

That's all?

That's all! Meditating is the art of doing nothing. It will increase your focus and give others physical benefits.

Peak performance

Always being in your perfect state and always reaching your peak performance is a dream. And this dream can become true!

Your performance in the league is correlated with your arousal. The arousal is a state of physical and mental activation. If it is low you are bored and with low attention, like when you just wake up.

As the arousal increases you become always more active and focussed like when you are doing something that you love. If it increases even more you enter an overload state, becoming stressed and anxious.

The graph will help you better understand this concept.

In league you want to be on the ridge of this curve. If you are here you are reaching your peak performance and playing in the best way possible. Also being in the optimal arousal state allows you to reach the flow state.

This is a state where you are doing everything in the perfect way possible without any effort. Also you feel time in a different way, it becomes slower and you feel really good. Like Goku's ultra instinct!

How do I reach my peak performance?

To reach peak performance you have to know yourself in the best way possible. You have to sense when you feel good and activated. So let's do an exercise to help you with that.

Think about one game where you perform really well. Think about everything.

How does you feel inside? Which emotions did you feel? which sensation did you have? the body was cold? warm? The hands were sweetened? Your mind was clear? Your heartbeat high or low? Did you feel excited or relaxed? Did you feel yourself heavy or light? how did you feel the mouse on your hand? How did you feel your finger on the keyboard?

All those questions might help you better understand your sensation and feelings when you were in your peak performance state. Taking a diary of your sensations before a game might help you better understand how you feel in a peak performance state and replicate it.

Also having a routine that you always follow before a game helps you enter in the correct state during your games.

I suggest that you don't play too many games in a row but to always take a little break after each game and a bigger one after 3 to recharge your energy and focus levels.

Support Archetypes

The first thing to improve as a Support is the knowledge of the principles and rules of being a support.

There are 5 archetypes of Supports: The Mage, The Enchanter, The Vanguard, The Catcher and The Warden.

Some champions are so versatile or have such an unique gameplay that they can fit in more than one archetype based on the runes, build or playstyle. For example Seraphine is a mage support, but you can play her in a more enchanter based game style. This is why you can find some champions in different archetypes lists.

So let's dive into the different archetypes.

For each one you will see strength and weaknesses, laning phase playstyle, core and bonus mechanics, mid game, teamfight, items, summoner spell, matchups infos and a list of those supports.

The Mage

The Mage support (also known as "oh my Gosh another autofilled midlaner") is a support that focus on poking and dealing damage.

Pros

• High burst damage
• High poke
• High AoE
• Good cc



Cons

• Low mobility
• Low utility
• High gold dependent
• Low toughness



Laning Phase

As a mage support your main goal during laning phase is to poke down enemy adc making impossible to him to farm. In this way you can allow your adc to farm in a super safe way. You want to position yourself behind your minions and take control of the bush so you poke in safety. Be careful of ganks from enemy jungler or midlaner, due to your low mobility and low disengage you could have some trouble with them. Remember to always focus on the enemy adc, killing him is your top priority!

Trading stance is essential in your laning phase. With this mechanic you can utilize your true potential on poking. Wave management then is the best way to protect yourself from ganks and to zone enemy adc putting him even more behind. Remember to utilize the level spike (in particular level 2 and level 6), engage and utilize your best combo to the enemy adc and burst him down. Your roaming isn't so effective due to your low mobility to move around the map quickly. But it is also true that you have enough damage to take down enemy midlaner or squishy junglers. So if you have lots of time before your adc returns to the lane you can roam midlane.

Mechanics Priority

Here it this the order to learn and train the main mechanics to have a major improvement:

1-Trading stance

2- Wave Management

3-Level 2 engage

4-Roaming

Teamfight

In late game and more in particular in a teamfight you can literally shine. You have reached your full build and you can burst down enemy carries with a single combo or less.

During this phase of the game you make a huge difference compared to the enemy supports. Only Enchanter could give you some trouble, but if you combo correctly enemy adc they can't do nothing. Position yourself on the backline, stay aware of flanks and if necessary position yourself as a ward for your adc so he can react in time in case of flank or bait the enemy on using anything on you instead of your adc.

Items

STARTING & BOOTS

• Always go

  Spellthief's Edge

  as starting item (if you are

  Senna

  go

  Spectral Sickle

  );

• 

  Oracle Lens

  take it when you unlock

  Frostfang

  ;
• 

  Sorcerer's Shoes

  for more damage;

• 

  Ionian Boots of Lucidity

  if you prefer more cdr and spam;

• remember

  Elixir of Sorcery

  when full build;



MYTICH

• 

  Everfrost

  for extra CC against high mobile champions;
• 

  Liandry's Anguish

  good against high health or tankiness enemies;
• 

  Luden's Tempest

  against squishy champions for more burst damage
• if you want something more supportive (but not recommanded) take

  Imperial Mandate

  



LEGENDARY

• Consider

  Zhonya's Hourglass

  as a defensive item against ad;
• Morellonomicon

  is good against heavy healing champions like

  Sylas

  ,

  Vladimir

  or

  Soraka

  ;

• 

  Rabadon's Deathcap

  is a must if you have a free spot;

• 

  Void Staff

  against tanky team or if they build tons of magic resistance;

• 

  Banshee's Veil

  is a good friend against heavy ap teams;
• 

  Mejai's Soulstealer

  if you are snowboling hard;
• 

  Rylai's Crystal Scepter

  is good for extra cc and toughness;
• 

  Shadowflame

  is good against heavy shield teamcomps;
• 

  Horizon Focus

  is good if you have high range, like

  Vel'Koz

  ,

  Xerath

  ,

  Lux

  ;
• 

  Cosmic Drive

  if you want to be more mobile;
• 

  Demonic Embrace

  if you want more toughness and Dot(damage over time);

• 

  Vigilant Wardstone

  : i don't like it in soloq, expecially on Mage supports. You want to deal damage and another slot for an utility item sucks imho. But if you like it you can build it to get a more impact on vision control, you will have some less damage but nothing too much relevant.



!Remember to check a specific guide for your champion for the right items!



Summoner Spell

• 

  Flash

  : must have in any situation. It give you the mobility you need and give you the possibility to outplay your enemy....so sadisfing;

• 

  Barrier

  : my preferite choice, it give you more defense on engage and help you bait a lot more enemys;

• 

  Exhaust

  : might help you and you adc if they have an assasin;

• 

  Ignite

  i don't like it on mage supports becouse usually you ahve more range than the ignite range, but is just a preference in playstyle;

• 

  Cleanse

  : it might help you if you are confident with it and against hard single target cc's opponent;
• 

  Heal

  : if your adc don't take

  Heal

  becouse he prefer

  Barrier

  ,

  Cleanse

or

Exhaust
just pick it;

• 

  Ghost

  : really?;
• 

  Teleport

  : nice joke lol;

• 

  Smite

  : let's go next;



Matchups

You want to pick Mage support when you think your team hasn't enough damage or have enough tanks and engage tools (or simply when you don't trust your team and want to carry it all alone).

Mage vs Warden: Usually Warden support relies on flash to do a heavy engage, so you are relatively safe. Poke the enemy adc from distance and stay behind your minions, this will prevent an engage or make it lower effective. Be aware in lategame becouse those supports usually scale really well and they protect their carrys with ease from your bust combo.

Mage vs Catcher: Catchers have hard single target cc and a decent damage, sometimes they have also some defensive tools to protect from the poke like

Morgana

Black Shield

Ghostwater Dive

Mage vs Vanguard: Poke them down as much as you can before level 3, in this scenario the first 3 levels are crucials. If the enemy support or adc has enough health when they reach level 3 they can easily engage you and kill both (and I hope this isn't the situation you will find yourself in). Always make pressure to hit level 2 first and engage on them with the level advantage. Positioning the wave near your tower and freeze alow you to stay safe from engage and scale with ease. If you and your adc's are stronger in early poke them down and siege the tower for those juicy plates. Just be care of the enemy jungler my friend.

Mage vs Enchanter: Enchanter have some shield or healing that could help their adc's with the poke, like

Janna

Eye Of The Storm

Nami

Ebb and Flow

Mage Supports:

• 

  Zyra

  
  
• 

  Vel'Koz
• 

  Lux

  
  
• 

  Senna

  
  
• 

  Maokai
• 

  Morgana
• 

  Seraphine
• 

  Swain
• 

  Brand
• 

  Xerath
• 

  Renata Glasc



The Enchanter

The Enchanter (also confused with an e-girl player) is a support that focuses on helping his teammates through shields, healing and buffs.

Pros

• High utility
• Decent poke
• High disengage
• Decent CC



Cons

• Low damage
• Low toughness
• Low mobility



Laning Phase

As an Enchanter you want to play your laning phase like if you are a Mage. This is because your base damage is really high on the early stage of a game. While the game is going on you overall damage will be drastically reduced, but don't stop poking, you will be surprised on how much damage a

Janna

Soraka

Trading stance helps you a lot during your laning phase remember to be aggressive to poke every time you can. As I already told you your damage is high early and decreases very rapidly, so don't waste the Level 2 Engage. Third comes Wave Management. A good understanding of these mechanics helps you adc scaling in safety and protect you from ganks. Last come Roaming as an Enchanter your kill potential on the other lanes is the lower, but you can help your teammates on the skirmish and trade, or just protect them from a gank. Nothing is more satisfying than landing an

Inspire

Mechanics Priority

Here it this the order to learn and train the main mechanics to have a major improvement:

1-Trading stance

2- Level 2 engage

3-Wave Management

4-Roaming

Teamfight

During a teamfight you must position yourself behind everyone else. Your job is to keep your carry safe and buffed up, while being able to throw your abilities out to either follow up with an engage or to protect other members of your team. Remember to don't isolate yourself and always stay near your allies. If they have an assassin or a bruiser that could easily flank, remember to put some defensive wards to prevent that flank or to have enough time to react. Utilize all your cc and abilities to peel for your carriers and keep them alive. Sometimes you just want to disengage with spells like

Monsoon

Tidal Wave

Hostile Takeover

Cataclysm

Items

STARTING & BOOTS

• Usually go

  Spellthief's Edge

  as starting item;
• Take

  Relic Shield

  if you think you'll have an hard laning phase and you can't poke too much;

• 

  Oracle Lens

  take it when you unlock

  Frostfang

  or

  Targon's Buckler

  ;

• 

  Ionian Boots of Lucidity

  for cdr and spam;

• Remember

  Elixir of Sorcery

  when full build;



MYTHIC

• Go

  Shurelya's Battlesong

  if your team need mobility to engage or disengage;
• Take

  Moonstone Renewer

  if you need extra peeling and for long teamfights;
• 

  Imperial Mandate

  if you want extra damage;



LEGENDARY

• 

  Chemtech Putrifier

  Is useful against hard healing champions like

  Vladimir

  , red

  Kayn

  or

  Yuumi

  ;
• 

  Ardent Censer

  is good if you have lots of autoattacker in your team;
• 

  Mikael's Blessing

  if the enemys have hard cc to counter;
• 

  Staff of Flowing Water

  good if you have to support ap champions or ability based champions;
• 

  Redemption

  good option in front to back teamfights;
• 

  Mejai's Soulstealer

  if you are snowboling hard;

• Vigilant Wardstone

  : i don't like it in soloq.If you like it you can build it to get a more impact on vision control.



!Remember to check a specific guide for your champion for the right items!



Summoner Spell

• 

  Flash

  : must have in any situation. It give you the mobility you need and give you the possibility to outplay your enemy....so sadisfing;

• 

  Exhaust

  : help you and you adc if they have an assasin and to fight in laningh phase;

• 

  Ignite

  if you need extra damage in laning phase or against heavy healing botlane;

• 

  Heal

  : if your adc don't take

  Heal

  becouse he prefer

  Barrier

  ,

  Cleanse

or

Exhaust
just pick it;

• 

  Cleanse

  : it might help you if you are confident with it and against hard single target cc's opponent, but not suggested you want to help your adc;

• 

  Barrier

  : so selfish for an Enchanter;

• 

  Ghost

  : really?;
• 

  Teleport

  : nice joke lol;

• 

  Smite

  : let's go next;



Matchups

Enchanters are usually good with hyper-scaling adcs, like

Kog'Maw

Jinx

Nami

Karma

Lucian

Caitlyn

Enchanter vs Warden: Usually Warden support rely on flash to do an heavy engage, so you are relatively safe. Poke the enemy adc from distance and stay behind your minions, this will prevent an engage or make it lower effective. From the mid game those supports are not a problem to you because they stand near their adc or follow up the engage fo their engager, so if you position correctly you'll be fine.

Enchanter vs Catcher: Catchers have hard single target cc and a decent damage, sometimes they have also some defensive tools to protect from the poke like

Morgana

Black Shield

Pyke

Ghostwater Dive

Enchanter vs Vanguard: Poke them down as much as you can before level 3, in this scenario the first 3 levels are crucials. If the enemy support or adc has enough health when they reach level 3 they can easily engage you and kill both (and I hope this isn't the situation you will find yourself in). Always make pressure to hit level 2 first and engage on them with the level advantage. Positioning the wave near your tower and freezing allow you to stay safe from engagement and scale with ease. During teamfights use your disengage tools to prevent them from engage or interrupt their engage.

Enchanter vs Mage: In the early stage of the game your poke is similar, but you have the advantage of shields and healing to win the trades. Be careful of all-ins, your strength is in the short trade scenario. In the mid to late game the enemy support could easily burst down your adc so be careful of their instant damage.

Enchanter Supports:

• 

  Janna
• 

  Nami
• 

  Lulu

  
  
• 

  Karma
• 

  Soraka
• 

  Sona
• 

  Yuumi
• 

  Renata Glasc
• 

  Zilean

• 

  Seraphine



The Warden

The Warden archetype (no meme here, everyone loves those supports <3) is a balanced type of support, they help through tankiness and utility. You could see them as a melee and tankier version of Enchanters. They fit in every team comp and are super balanced.

Pros

• High Toughness
• Decent Utility
• Good CC
• Good Disengage
• Ok Mobility



Cons

• Low Damage
• Situational Engage



Laning Phase

As a Warden you would have a pretty safe laning phase. Usually you don't want to go super aggressive, but you want to peel for your adc and scale. This doesn't mean that you don't have to take advantage of situations to engage and take a kill, but usually you have to rely on your flash to do a strong engage. So safety and scaling are key words as a Warden.

Wave Management is king in for this kind of support. It allows you to scale and protect you and your adc from ganks and difficult situations, also it gives you the opportunity to move around the map effectively. Your Roaming is quite strong, you can both help your teammates with your utility tools or setup a gank due to your strong cc and mobility. Level 2 engage gives you the opportunity to take advantage from the beginning and be safe for the rest of the laning phase. In the end Trading stance improves your gameplay a lot, making you become a constant trouble for the enemy adc, putting a tremendous pressure only by your positioning.

Mechanics Priority

Here it this the order to learn and train the main mechanics to have a major improvement:

1- Wave Management

2- Roaming

3- Level 2 engage

4- Trading stance

Teamfight

Teamfighting as a Warden is very similar to the Enchanter playstyle. You want to stay on the backline and peel for your carries and protect them from engages and flanks. Use proper warding and positioning to be aware of the flanks of assassin or diver champions. Another way is to follow-up the engage of your teammates with your mobility and hard CC to establish a great wombo combo, like with

Stand Behind Me

Glacial Fissure

Battle Dance

Grand Entrance

Items

STARTING & BOOTS

• Go for

  Relic Shield

  or

  Steel Shoulderguards

  depending on your scalings;

• 

  Oracle Lens

  take it when you unlock

  Runesteel Spaulders

  or

  Targon's Buckler

  ;
• 

  Mobility Boots

  or

  Boots of Swiftness

  are useful for extra roaming, chose the one you prefer;
• 

  Plated Steelcaps

  or

  Mercury's Treads

  for extra defenses or against autoattacker or hard cc;

• Remember

  Elixir of Iron

  when full build;



MYTHIC

• 

  Locket of the Iron Solari

  for extra shields and toughness;
• 

  Shurelya's Battlesong

  for extra engage/disengage;
• 

  Evenshroud

  if you want to go more aggressive;



LEGENDARY

• 

  Redemption

  for front to back teamfights;
• 

  Knight's Vow

  to help your carry survive;
• 

  Zeke's Convergence

  for extra damage;
• 

  Fimbulwinter

  if you are high mana dependent;

• 

  Vigilant Wardstone

  : i don't like it in soloq. If you like it you can build it to get a more impact on vision control.



!Remember to check a specific guide for your champion for the right items!



Summoner Spell

• 

  Flash

  : must have in any situation. It give you the mobility you need and give you the possibility to outplay your enemy....so sadisfing;

• 

  Exhaust

  : might help you and you adc if they have an assasin and during laning phase;

• 

  Ignite

  good option for more aggression during laningh phase or against heavy healing botlane;

• 

  Heal

  : if your adc don't take

  Heal

  becouse he prefer

  Barrier

  ,

  Cleanse

or

Exhaust
consider picking it;

• 

  Cleanse

  : not a good option;

• 

  Barrier

  : so selfish for a Warden;

• 

  Ghost

  : optimal choice...just joking it sucks on you;

• 

  Teleport

  : nice joke lol;

• 

  Smite

  : let's go next;



Matchups

You want to take a Warden with an hyperscaling adc like

Vayne

Aphelios

Warden vs Enchanter : Enchanters can easily poke you in the laning phase and due to your low engage potential it is hard to fight them. Use your flash wisely for an instant engage and take them off guard, focus on scaling. Play around roaming is a good choice so you can impact more of the map, also your adc is relatively safe against an Enchanter.

Warden vs Catcher: Your tankiness helps you a lot, if they engage you they just give you a free engage opportunity. Focus on peeling for your adc and scaling. Try to put your wave near your tower to prevent engage and to have more opportunities for kills. Try to follow their roaming to interrupt their ganks. In teamfight stay near your and and protect him from engages.

Warden vs Vanguard: Same as catcher. Protect your adc and disengage when they engage. Follow the roam to peel for the rest of your team. Put the wave near your tourret to prevent engages and to have more opportunity to make a killIn them fight just peel for your adc and disengage.

Warden vs Mage: Their poke could cause you trouble. Use offensively your flash to engage and pick them off guard. Roam a lot to help your teammates in other lanes to create a team advantage. In teamfight peel for your adc from the enemy burst.

Warden Supports:

• 

  Galio

• 

  Rakan
• 

  Braum
• 

  Tahm Kench

• 

  Taric



The Vanguard

Vanguard archetype(the love of most adc players) have hard engage and heavy kill pressure through CC and tankiness.

Pros

• Hard CC
• Good toughness
• Hard Engage
• Good Mobility



Cons

• Low Utility
• Low Damage



Laning Phase

Remember that you are a kill machine, your prime focus during the laning phase is to create pressure and kill the opponents. As a Vanguard you have anything you need to do this. Hard engage, heavy CC, tankiness and during the first levels even enough damage. To do this correctly your health bar must be full and if you are near your tourret you have even enough space to chase and kill your opponents. So be careful to not get poked too much and to take control of bushes to take the enemy off guard and establish pressure. Getting out of laning phase without any kill may cause you some troubles. Level 2 engage is king for this archetype. It allows you to take an advantage from the very first stage of the game, also

Mechanics Priority

Here it this the order to learn and train the main mechanics to have a major improvement:

1- Level 2 engage

2- Roaming

3- Trading stance

4- Wave Management

Teamfight

In teamfight you could both choose to peel for your adc or to engage/follow up the engage. Your job is to lock down a priority target and allow your team to position and kill him as fast as possible. Remember to decide your role before the teamfight starts. If you’ll go through a front to back teamfight engage or follow up the engage may be a good idea. Otherwise if they have someone that could easily jump on your adc, like an assassin or a fighter try to use your cc to peel for him.

Items

STARTING & BOOTS

• Go for

  Relic Shield

  or

  Steel Shoulderguards

  depending on your scalings;

• 

  Oracle Lens

  take it when you unlock

  Runesteel Spaulders

  or

  Targon's Buckler

  ;
• 

  Mobility Boots

  or

  Boots of Swiftness

  are useful for extra roaming, chose the one you prefer;
• 

  Plated Steelcaps

  or

  Mercury's Treads

  for extra defenses or against autoattacker or hard cc;

• Remember

  Elixir of Iron

  when full build;



MYTHIC

• 

  Locket of the Iron Solari

  for extra shields and toughness;
• 

  Shurelya's Battlesong

  for extra engage/disengage;
• 

  Evenshroud

  if you want to go more aggressive;
• 

  Sunfire Aegis

  for hard snowbolling;



LEGENDARY

• 

  Redemption

  for front to back teamfights;
• 

  Knight's Vow

  to help your carry survive;
• 

  Zeke's Convergence

  for extra damage;
• 

  Fimbulwinter

  if you are high mana dependent;
• 

  Randuin's Omen

  good against heavy crit teams;
• 

  Dead Man's Plate

  to catch enemys out of postion;
• 

  Warmog's Armor

  against heavy poke teams;
• 

  Anathema's Chains

  helps you locking down even more apriority target;

• 

  Vigilant Wardstone

  : i don't like it in soloq. If you like it you can build it to get a more impact on vision control.



Summoner Spell

• 

  Flash

  : must have in any situation. It give you the mobility you need and give you the possibility to outplay your enemy....so sadisfing;

• 

  Exhaust

  : might help you and you adc if they have an assasin and during laning phase;

• 

  Ignite

  good option for more aggression during laningh phase or against heavy healing botlane;

• 

  Heal

  : if your adc don't take

  Heal

  becouse he prefer

  Barrier

  ,

  Cleanse

or

Exhaust
consider picking it;

• 

  Cleanse

  : not a good option;

• 

  Barrier

  : you are tankienr enough;

• 

  Ghost

  : really?;

• 

  Teleport

  : nice joke lol;

• 

  Smite

  : if you like it...consider changing main role;



Matchups

Vanguard is good with early game or high kill dependent adcs, like

Lucian

Draven

Ashe

Miss Fortune

Vanguard vs Catcher: Your tankiness helps you. If they engage you they just give you a free engage. If they engage on your adc just don’t be scared and counter engage on their adc. Your Aoe and tankiness is higher so in the skirmish you are in advantage. Your roaming is slighter less efficient than a Catcher one, but you can roam and counter gank them easily. Taking your wave near your tower give you more pressure.

Vanguard vs Warden: Wardens have the ability to peel quite effectively and also as tankier as you. Engaging here becomes difficult. Try to roam a lot because your adc is usually safe against a warden and can handle them easily. If the enemy adc is alone, instantly engage and play around enemies cooldowns trying to bait them.

Vanguard vs Mage: Their poke could cause you trouble. Use the same strategy used against Enchanter. Be safe and don’t get poked too much. If you can do a proper engage you can win the trade but don’t underestimate Mage damage. Being safe and patient are keys in this hard laning phase.

Vanguard Supports:

• 

  Rell
• 

  Nautilus
• 

  Alistar
• 

  Leona
• 

  Maokai



The Catcher

The Catcher support (also known as "OMG i hope he can hit one skillshot" ) rely on high single target CC to take the enemy out of position and burst them down.

Pros

• Strong CC
• Decent Utility
• Decent Damage
• Good Mobility



Cons

• Low toughness
• Skillshot dependet



Laning Phase

During the laning phase focus on creating pressure and punishing enemies' mistakes. As a catcher you excel on picking people out of position so utilize bushes and roam a lot to pick enemies and burst them down. Being invisible to the enemy creates a phenomenal mental pressure over them. Learn to bait opponents and to find the right way to hit them with your CC. Patience is another quality you should have with this playstyle.

Roaming is your best tool. You excel in mobility and in picking enemies out of position so utilize those qualities to create an advantage for your team, in every lane. Level 2 engage helps you a lot in creating a snowball effect. With

Mechanics Priority

Here it this the order to learn and train the main mechanics to have a major improvement:

1- Roaming

2- Level 2 engage

3- Wave Management

4- Trading stance

Teamfight

During teamfight you want to follow up the engage or to engage on a priority target shutting him down immediately, think about picking an adc with

Rocket Grab

Death Sentence

Items

• Go for

  Relic Shield

  or

  Steel Shoulderguards

  depending on your scalings;

• 

  Oracle Lens

  take it when you unlock

  Runesteel Spaulders

  or

  Targon's Buckler

  ;
• 

  Mobility Boots

  or

  Boots of Swiftness

  are useful for extra roaming, chose the one you prefer;

• Remember

  Elixir of Iron

  when full build;



MYTHIC

• 

  Shurelya's Battlesong

  for extra engage/disengage;
• 

  Evenshroud

  if you want more damage on priority target;
• 

  Locket of the Iron Solari

  for extra defensens;



LEGENDARY

• 

  Redemption

  for front to back teamfights;
• 

  Knight's Vow

  to help your carry survive;
• 

  Zeke's Convergence

  for extra damage;
• 

  Fimbulwinter

  if you are high mana dependent;
• 

  Randuin's Omen

  good against heavy crit teams;
• 

  Dead Man's Plate

  to catch enemys out of postion;
• 

  Warmog's Armor

  against heavy poke teams;
• 

  Anathema's Chains

  helps you locking down even more apriority target;

• 

  Vigilant Wardstone

  : i don't like it in soloq. If you like it you can build it to get a more impact on vision control.
• 
  

Summoner Spell

• 

  Flash

  : must have in any situation. It give you the mobility you need and give you the possibility to outplay your enemy....so sadisfing;

• 

  Exhaust

  : might help you and you adc if they have an assasin and during laning phase;

• 

  Ignite

  good option for more aggression during laningh phase or against heavy healing botlane;

• 

  Heal

  : if your adc don't take

  Heal

  becouse he prefer

  Barrier

  ,

  Cleanse

or

Exhaust
consider picking it;

• 

  Cleanse

  : not a good option;

• 

  Barrier

  : no needed;

• 

  Ghost

  : it might be a good choice...in another universe;

• 

  Teleport

  : nice joke lol;

• 

  Smite

  : HAHAHAHA FUNNY;



Matchups

Catcher are usually good against squishy champions with low mobility. Also they are good with lane bullies or high burst high mobility adcs, like

Kai'Sa

Tristana

Catcher vs Warden: Wardens have more toughness than you and cna perfectly protect their adc from your engages. Their utility and poke may be boring to you. Engaging on them is a really bad idea cause you give them a free engage on you or your adc. Play around your strength and roam a lot and bait enemies to create situations to isolate and engage them and burst them down.

Catcher vs Mage: Usually you have some defensive tools to protect yourself from poke so you are relatively safe. Utilize bushes to create pressure and engage them every time you can, because of their squishiness you can burst them down easily. Be aware of roaming because your adc must be in a safe position or scenario.

Catcher vs Vanguard: They have more toughness than you and they can more easily engage you or your adc. when they engage just counter engage on the enemy adc and focus on him. Play more near your tourret and wait for a position mistake to punish them. Also if the enemy support leaves their adc alone just kill him. Roaming is fine but be aware of where the enemy support is cause he could just countergank you and kill you.

Catcher vs Enchanter: You have insanely high kill pressure on them. Just be aware of enemies poke in the early game, just wait safe for level 3 and engage with a full combo from your tourret, or if you can engage level 2. Their cc may cause you some trouble during engage, so try to bait their main spell and abuse those windows. In the mid game you can flank and kill them quite easily.

Catchers Supports:

• 

  Rakan

• 

  Pantheon
• 

  Thresh

• 

  Pyke

  
  
• 

  Blitzcrank

• 

  Morgana
• 

  Zyra
• 

  Bard

Vision

Vision is a core part of this game. As the support your job is to control vision for your team, allowing them to play at their best.

 In league every champion has low possibilities of action that increase in effectiveness due to the presence of fog of war that covers your movements from the enemies. So a proper vision allows you to gain more information and to deny information to the enemies, everything else comes from experience and probability. 

These 3 are the core fundamentals of vision in league: Warding, Vision Denial and Tracking. 

If you think of your game as a puzzle, warding allows you to see some pieces, vision denial keeps some pieces unseen, and tracking makes you imagine what those pieces are.

Before jumping into the three parts let’g get a look at the vision tools available in the game:















I'll cover the basics and I'll teach you the fundamentals to help you learn alone where, when and why to ward properly. 

Warding

Where should I put my first ward?

Great that you understand that the first ward you place is very important!

It depends on different factors like matchup and enemy jungler.

This is the best spot for the first ward even for the blue and red side. Place this at 1.25/1.30.

Placing this ward should be your default action. However there should be good reasons not to place it.

The most important should be the enemy jungler.

If it is a heavy farmer champion, like

Karthus

Master Yi

Shyvana

The other factor is the lane matchup.

If they have a Catcher or a Vanguard the enemy jungler would probably come bot, since the CC of those supports attract junglers. If the enemy support-jungler combo isn’t that scary you could keep your ward to take bush control for your laning phase.

Also if the enemy jungler starts botside and isn’t a level 2 ganker maybe you don’t need that ward.

After your first base you want to take the path through midlane before returning to botlane. This is because you want to help your midlaner in case of need, but also to establish more vision control on the river with a  control ward.

Be careful to not be taken out of position by enemies' support and jungler!

This spot is so important, it shows which team has control of the botlane river. It shows roaming from the midlaner or from the support, it shows the jungler pathing mid or bot. 

After completing your item you have more options. Now that you have more wards you must use them wisely. Focus on one area of the map where it would probably happen in the next few minutes. It may be a dragon spawning, a tower sieged, a blue buff spawning. You want to use all your wards to cover those spots in the best way possible, allowing yourself to be protected and/or to pick someone out of position. Always ask yourself why you are putting this ward and how you can use it! A good rule is to find the crossroads near the objective and put the ward there, here are some examples to setup drake:





Ok now you know the standard wards for the early game. Now things become more complicated. You need to learn two ways of warding: Dynamic vision and Deep vision. 

Dynamic vision means to adapt to the game and to the enemies' champions. So you need to understand who you are facing and think about how and from which angle they could gank you or pick you off guard. So don’t be too mechanical on where to put the wards, but always, always, always think about that ward.

Deep vision otherwise means to put wards as deep as you can without dying. Deep wards are wards that give you tons of information and help you track better the enemy team. Put those wards on the spots where people are most likely to walk and on crossroads, to understand who is going where. 

Warding against a

Twitch

Lee Sin



Zac

Elastic Slingshot



Evelynn

Demon Shade



Hecarim

Devastating Charge

Onslaught of Shadows

How many times have I seen a

Fiddlesticks

Crowstorm

Now i don't want to cover each scenario, my real goal is to teach you how to think effectivly where and when to put the correct ward.

I want to you to think how to counter those champions both in laningh phase and in mid game, then try those solutions or search for pros supports that play against those junglers and see how they counter them.

You must learn how to deal with problems and where to find solutions.

Ok, ok i’ll give you one tip for the midgame.

put this ward

This ward in the middle of the lane is so strong. every time you take down a tower in midlane replace it with a ward, especially T2. In midgame the midlane becomes a highway, everyone walks here. 

Next step to improve your warding is to establish a good vision setup. 

You can do this properly when your support item upgrades and gives you wards to place. Vision setup means to utilize all your wards to create an area where your team has control and can defend. So you utilize all your resources to gain the most from an area of the game. 

Useless to say that setup warding on the redside top jungle while drake is up is probably a waste of resources. So first of all you need to understand where the action will take place. Then move there more or less one minute before action. Then protect your vision and destroy the enemy team. 

This is an example of a good setup to siege the top tower.

Try to setup some objectives in practice to understand better where there are some good spots in different scenarios on your own.

COMMON MISTAKES

First of all is laziness. During the game you have to put so much effort in so many things. And when starting to improve it drains all your energy and focus. So it become easy that you will put some wards like this:

instead of like this:

This seems a little different but it gives you better information, also sometimes this will reduce the deep wards you’ll put on your games, because you are too lazy to make 2 more steps for a better ward. 

Another common mistake is to die for a ward. This is usually true for Enchanter players, but applies to everyone.

 It is a good habit to learn how to ward from a safe spot and to know if there might be someone where you want to ward. So ask your jungler or other teammates for help while warding, learn to ward from distance and through walls, always think that in that bush there might be an enemy ready to kick your ass. 

Those simple habits will reduce drastically your death rate, specially in mid to late game. You don’t know how many supports i’ve seen dying for stupidly walking in the enemy team for placing a ward (i was one of them lol). Then I've learned how to take advantage of this and set up ambushes when they come for setupping a neutral objective and to be extremely safe when going to set up myself. 

Lots of my friends sometimes are so happy that their <control stays alive for the whole game and no one notices it. The problem is that they think this is a good thing. But as support mains we know that we don’t need a ward on the enemy redbuff when we are playing around baron. So don’t be scared to replace your wards with other more valuable ones. just remember to go back and refill your wards from time to time,especially before objectives or teamfights.

TRICKY WARDS

Here you find a list of some tricky wards that you have to train in the practice tool to master them.

Vision Denial

Immagine for a moment your childhood. 

You were on your warm bed, your mom just gave you the goodnight. She leaves the room and turns off the light, sudden darkness surrounds you. 

A little voice inside you comes up and says “hello”, and you ask her “who are you?”.

“I’m Fear” she reply

“and why are you here? there's nothing scary here!”

“I’m here because of darkness” she says

“But darkness isn’t scary” you courageously says “is just the absence of light”

“Oh but I'm not here because of darkness itself” she deeply replied  “I'm here because of what darkness hides!”

And this is what happens every time you set up a proper vision denial. The enemy teams become constantly scared of moving or making plays.

Vision denial is the second part of a good Vision control. After understanding the basics of where to place a ward and how to effectively ward, you have just to make it impossible to do the same for the opposite support! So thinking where the enemies could have the most advantage on putting a ward is where you have to use your <sweep or <contro . This will help you have more control over the map and remove possibilities to the enemies. Remember that you have to put your <control where you can protect them, and sometimes they are good baits ;). 

The core fundamentals here is to deny vision from the enemy's most important spots and playing around the fog of war that you have created.

Tracking

Tracking is the ability to guess correctly where an enemy is without seeing him. 

It is based on probability and statistics. Like poker (but this time you don’t risk to lose lmaoyour house)

You suddenly understand that the better you set up vision, the easier it becomes to correctly track enemies. But it is also true the opposite. The better you track the enemies the better you can set up wards. I remember some games of mine where during the laning phase I didn't use a single ward to protect myself from the enemy jungler because I was perfectly tracking him.

This ability comes especially from experience and knowledge. Knowing the jungle routes are essential in the early game to correctly track the enemy jungler.

But don’t worry my friend. I'm here to give you some rules on tracking!

First of all you must know where the enemy jungler starts! To do so you have to properly cover your jungle. This is because it reduces the possible options. Then a good habit is to always look at which side lane comes late in lane, if toplane or botlane. 

And if both come late in lane?

Easier than you think, look if they miss some health or mana! This simple trick will make them lose tons of resources and lane priority for nothing.

Once you understand where a jungler starts, you must ping it on the minimap to your teammates.

Knowing the jungle routes becomes essential here. Knowing if the enemy is a ganking jungler or a farming one makes a huge difference on the timings. Also you have to consider all the possible routes he might take. 

You have to eliminate the options meanwhile, from the fastest to the slowest. Adapt your considerations if you see him ganking somewhere or if you don’t see him somewhere you expect him to be. This will reduce the options you have to consider. Always remember that people are unpredictable, especially in lower elos, so sometimes they take some random routes.

Once you understand the route he takes, just adapt your gameplan. For example if you are a

Leona

Another tip for correct tracking is this. Everytime a jungler recalls they usually go to the other side of the map. For example if you see the enemy jungler ganking toplane and recalling, you may guess he is coming bot side after his recall. 

This is because good jungler usually follow the same path on farming the jungle. So if they start botside clearing their jungle bot to top they’ll probably do it for the majority of the game.

Every time you see the enemy jungler, always remember to press TAB and check his farm. Every jungle camps gives 4 cs, so counting and tracking his cs you are able to understand how many camps he has farm and understand better his routes during the game.

If a neutral objective is spawning, probably the jungler is near.

Remember to always check plants on the minimap, usually players use scryers bloom and they don’t know you could see the effect of this plant from minimap even if it isn’t under vision.

Once you make some practice with tracking don’t make the error to think that your tracking is perfect! Tracking is always based on guessing, so there might be a possibility that you are wrong, especially in lower elos where people are unpredictable! 

So don’t be overconfident and always doubt your guessing!

Conclusion

Good job man! You are amazing! I’m sure that you are a consistent man that wants to improve, because you reach the end of this guide! I’m sure you’ll start from now to apply what is written here and you’ll immediately see an improvement!

Let me give you one last tip, read over and over this guide. There is lots of information and re-reading this guide will help you understand the support role! I’m not saying to not study other guides! Don’t give what I've written here true regardless.

Also there are lots of aspects of the game that are truly complicated and the more you improve the more you have to focus on tiny details of your gameplay. So keep studying, practicing and improving!

Before letting you go I want to give you a true thank you! 

Thank you for your patience and consistency in reading this guide! 

Thank you for having faith in what I've taught you! 

Thank you for your will of improvement and your will to become a great player! Not everyone has this power inside! But you have it and I'm sure you will reach all your goals! If you have some doubt about this guide or want a deepening just ask me on discord: Just_Poser#8434.

See ya and support everyone to win, kiss!