League of Legends: Top 3 Support champions on Patch 9.23

Support players are now well adjusted to their Patch 9.23 item changes, so here are the top three support champions in League of Legends right now.

The preseason patch saw the 2v2 bottom lane receive experience nerfs and are weaker as a result, however, support players have a new item system to distract themselves with on Patch 9.23. Old school League of Legends was about forcing supports to spend all their gold on wards, but now the game is entirely different with support items no longer costing gold at all.

In the grand scheme of things, these item changes had very little impact on the role in itself and therefore the champion pool remains almost entirely the same. Crowd control tanks dominate, mages lag close behind, and healers are nowhere to be seen. With that in mind, here are the top three support champions on Patch 9.23:

Leona

If you want crowd control on your support, is there any better option than Leona? A stun on Shield of Daybreak, a root on Zenith Blade, a stun and slow on Solar Flare, what more could you ask for?

At a 51.62% win rate, it’s clear that solo queue players rate Leona’s utility highly and are using her to full effect to gain an advantage in the bottom lane on Patch 9.23. In fact, she’s rated so highly in the current meta that 17.4% of champions selects see the champion banned out in order to avoid her endless chain of crowd control.

Ultimately, if you’re to grab Leona in preseason, it’s all about the early game. Queue up with an early game marksman, such as Draven or Lucian, and constantly look to engage on the opposing bot lane for some free 2v2 kills. Obviously, pay attention to the position of both junglers before blindly fighting, but otherwise, you should be able to burst down an enemy carry by simply walking up to them and applying layered crowd control.

As for the later stages, Leona’s Solar Flare is key to setting up picks and starting team fights. If your team is grouped up and you see an enemy carry in a tricky position, don’t be afraid to press R and kick off a fight, then peeling for your AD Carry with crowd control on attacking bruisers and assassins.

Nautilus

If you want crowd control on your support and Leona’s banned, then just lock in Nautilus instead. While Doinb showcased the champion’s capabilities in the mid lane during the World Championship, support is the role where Nautilus truly belongs.

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Your role on this champion is simple: Find enemy carries with your Q – Dredge Line, stun them with your Passive – Staggering Blow, slow them with your E – Riptide, and apply a knockup with your R – Depth Charge. By the conclusion of this seemingly endless chain of crowd control, the enemy player will have either been killed multiple times or completely disconnected from the game out of frustration.

If you’re concerned about dying while applying this CC, don’t be. A combination of innate resistances, item resistances, Aftershock, and W – Titan’s Wrath will ensure that it’s near impossible to take you down both in lane and during a team fight.

All in all, Nautilus is the ultimate support champion armed with a tonne of CC, tanky stats, and enough damage to trade effectively in the laning phase. On Patch 9.23, the champion has a 52.06% win rate and isn’t set to receive nerfs in the next patch. So if there’s one support champion you should learn between now and Season 10, it’s definitely Nautilus.

Senna

It comes as no surprise that Senna is in a broken state just two weeks after being added to League of Legends. It has become commonplace for new champions to sit at ridiculously high ban rates (59.4% in Senna’s case) immediately after their release until they’re hit with the first batch of nerfs.

But, that doesn’t mean you can’t abuse how overpowered she is!

At the moment, you don’t just carry the laning phase with Senna, you carry the entire game as she can often be found out-damaging her marksman partner due to her extremely high DPS provided by Absolution and Piercing Light. This undoubtedly depends on her ability to achieve a gold lead in the early stages of the game, but with stunningly powerful abilities like Last Embrace and Curse of the Black Mist in her kit, this is no problem whatsoever.

In lane, focus on rooting enemies with Last Embrace while also collecting souls to increase your attack range, crit chance, and bonus attack damage. In the mid and late game, continue looking for stuns, but also look to continuously apply DPS to the enemy team with auto-attacks and Piercing Light.

If you master Senna in the short period of time remaining before her upcoming nerfs, you’ll fly up the solo queue ladder in no time. Her ability to dominate the laning phase with high base damage and long-range roots makes building early gold advantages a breeze. Add that to her excellent late-game damage output, even from the support role, and it’s near-impossible to lose games on the champion in her current state.

Have you found a way to deal with Senna? Is there a specific counter you use against League’s newest champion? Let us know about your solution in the comments!