League of Legends: Top five Supports on Patch 10.1

League of Legends Season 10 is in full swing and the meta finally beginning to take shape. Here are the top five supports on Patch 10.1.

Supports are often overlooked in League of Legends, but in the right hands they can become solo queue heroes both in lane and in team fights. Patch 10.1 has reimagined the role with a bunch of old and new faces showing their faces in the bottom lane.

However, it’s the familiar faces that have risen to the top and taken over the support meta during preseason and the first week of Season 10. High base HP, tanky stats, and a plethora of crowd control options are the go-to on the current patch, meaning you’ll have to get used to seeing a constant rotation of Nautilus/Leona/Thresh in solo queue and competitive play over the next few weeks.

That being said, the support item changes on Patch 9.23 combined with the focus on duo-queueing to the higher elos during early season ranked games means a few enchanter supports have made their way to the top ten. Nevertheless, if you’re a support main looking to quickly climb the ranked ladder, tanks are the way to go.

Here are our top five support champions on Patch 10.1:

5) Blitzcrank

Needless to say, if you see one of the top three champions on this list available in solo queue, lock them in. However, if you’re less comfortable on those options or the enemy team has banned all three out, Blitzcrank is a decent alternative.

Two forms of heavy crowd control, tanky base stats, and a devastating Rocket Grab to pick off enemy champions all mean Blitz has all the tools available to be successful in the current meta.

While he’s less versatile than other support champions, the Great Steam Golem can definitely single-handedly win games if in the right hands and in the right match-up. This is evidenced by the champion’s 51.84% win rate on Patch 10.1, even with a relatively high 8.9% pick rate.

If you’re looking to climb in solo queue with Blitzcrank, remember to constantly threaten your bot lane opponents with a potential Overdrive-Rocket Grab. If bot lane plays aren’t available, dip into fog of war and look to roam towards mid or join up with your jungler to pressure the map early on.

4) Nami

Nami is the only non-tank support champion on this list, but she definitely deserves her place. It’s impossible to ignore the Tidecaller’s incredible 53.88% win rate on the current patch, particularly when 15.9% of supports are picking her (the second-highest of any support on Patch 10.1).

This high priority placed on Nami can be explained by the combination of enchantment skills and useful crowd control in her kit, the best of both worlds.

Now if you’re looking to duo with an ADC in ranked, Nami can make plays with Aqua Prison and Tidal Wave while also buffing a marksman using Ebb and Flow and Tidecaller’s Blessing during team fights.

It’s important to remember that there are several crowd control heavy champions in the bot lane meta right now, so keep your distance during the early game. Abuse your range advantage to poke your support counterpart down, but be wary of an engagement at all times as a single landed hook or stun could lead to your death.

3) Thresh

Unsurprisingly one of the most popular support champions in the game, Thresh, takes his place in the top five of Patch 10.1 while boasting the highest pick rate (22.9%). Even with this huge player base, the Chain Warden still maintains a positive with rate of 50.29%, proving that his following is not the only reason for his top five placing.

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We’ve already established that tanky stats and crowd control are the keys for a successful support champion in the current meta, and Thresh has them both in abundance. There is one hook, one stun, one knockup, and two slows in Thresh’s kit illustrating just how lethal he is if he can land a single Death Sentence on a target.

In a similar vein to Blitzcrank, permanently threaten your lane opponents with a hook or Flash-Flay in the early game, or roam towards the mid lane if they won’t budge. The difference between the two champions is in the late game when Thresh can endlessly peel for his ADC partner while also finding picks with his Q, while Blitz is less useful in this regard.

2) Leona

Part two of three in the current never-ending support cycle is Leona, the Radiant Dawn. If you thought Thresh’s kit was annoying, then just wait until you face Leona in lane.

What separates Leona from Thresh isn’t just her much superior win rate (51.31%), but also her ability to start fights from range with a well placed Solar Flare in the late game. This aspect of her kit is what makes her unique in the current support champion pool and can warp the game state as opponents keep extra distance in order to avoid being stunned during important stages of the game.

When playing Leona, try to match up with a similarly early aggressive marksman and engage as frequently as possible. If you land a Zenith Blade on a squishy ADC then it’s basically a free kill provided your lane partner can provide the damage required to burst the enemy down.

You can use any early advantage to pick up an early Boots of Mobility and roam the map, looking for plays across multiple lanes with Solar Flare.

1) Nautilus

The Titan of the Depths has been at the top of the support tier list for what feels like forever now. Six months of Nautilus bottom lane has surely got to get boring at some point, balance team?

Once again, Nautilus boasts a positive win rate of 50.88% and a pretty high 14.9% pick rate on Patch 10.1. However, the most notable solo queue statistic involving Naut has got to be his 35.4% ban rate, suggesting that the player base are finally bored of seeing the champion in their games and are begging the balance team for nerfs.

The champion is unkillable thanks to his base stats and can lock you down for up to 2.6 seconds if he lands a Dredge Line at any point in the game. Not only that, his incredibly long-range Depth Charge can kick off a fight in a similar way to Solar Flare, so players have to permanently keep their distance to prevent an enemy ambush.

In short, if Nautilus is open in solo queue, it’s probably wise to pick him on the current patch.

What’s your favorite support champion on Patch 10.1? Do you think the support meta needs a shake-up? Let us know in the comments, on Facebook, or on Twitter!