Worlds 2020: Rating and Ranking the Best Support at Worlds
By Josh Tyler
We break down the best support players that you will see at Worlds 2020.
5. Ling “Mark” Xu (LGD Gaming) – 83 OVR
Mark stood out in his roaming prowess when watching his play. I think he is the best support in the LPL in this regard, mainly playing roaming and engage champions like Leona (his most played champion), Nautilus, and Bard. Despite this penchant for roaming, Mark had only a 67.3% kill participation in the regular season, which was around average for supports worldwide.
Like most roaming supports, Mark has a nasty habit of dying a lot (he averaged 2.5 deaths per game in the regular season and playoffs), but unlike most he did manage to (mostly) turn those roams into positive gold and experience gains. He averaged a 100 gold advantage over his opponent in the regular season and playoffs and a 60 XPD at 15 minutes.
4. Zuo “LvMao” Ming-Hao (JD Gaming) – 84 OVR
LvMao is an LPL veteran, but Worlds 2020 will mark his first major international event. He and his lane partner LokeN have been a part of JD Gaming since 2017, but now they make their debut to the international audience.
It’s not as though LvMao has been a well-kept secret OP support hiding in the shadows of the LPL, though. He’s honestly been fairly mediocre up until this year. And unfortunately, he hasn’t really shown himself to be much more than a middling LPL support.
The only reason that he’s rated so high is that he’s put up these medicore performances against some of the toughest competition in the world. The expectation is that he will show a better form going against weaker competition at Worlds 2020.
3. Liang “yuyanjia” Jia-Yuan (Top Esports) – 84 OVR
Yuyanjia was easily a top-three support in the LPL during the regular season behind IG’s Baolan and OMG’s Sora (hugely underrated). Like most good LPL supports, he has a diverse champion pool that is primarily based around the engage supports like Nautilus, Leona, and Thresh. He has also been able to pull out enchanters like Yuumi and Lux.
Stat-wise, yuyanjia is fairly middle-of-the-road other than in one key stat: gold per minute. While it might not seem to be an important stat for supports, it actually correlates quite strongly (an 82% correlation to be exact) with the team’s win rate. Obviously, some of that is due to inflation because teams that are ahead tend to spread ambient gold by taking objectives, but yuyanjia is getting over 11 assists per game so he’s working for his money.
2. Norman “Kaiser” Kaiser (MAD Lions) – 85 OVR
A 21-year old rookie, Kaiser was the best support in the LEC by a pretty large margin. He’s above average in just about every major statistical category, but the most impressive to me is that the guy just refuses to lose lanes. Even though he and the MAD Lions were bounced in the playoffs, he still finished with an overall gold advantage after 15 minutes.
Of course, the biggest asset that Kaiser brings is his vast champion pool. I mean, this is the guy who basically innovated Sett support and he has brought out unique picks like Wukong and Pantheon. In 29 games over the regular season and playoffs, he played 15 unique champions.
Next. 20 champions that dominate pro play but suck in solo queue. dark
1. Cho “BeryL” Geon-hee (Damwon Gaming) – 92 OVR
The best support in the LCK, and the world, is BeryL. CoreJJ might be a master of vision control, but BeryL dwarfs his skill in this regard. His 3.22 vision score per minute is not just better than CoreJJ’s 3.12 VSPM, it’s better than any other support in the world.
On top of that, BeryL has one of the highest damage outputs and gold counts of all supports. His 267 GPM during the regular season is actually in line with some junglers and he averaged a gold lead of over 200 at 15 minutes during the regular season.
BeryL has always been one to innovate (see his Guardian Lux he started pulling out in solo queue last year) and this year has been no different. Sure, he’s playing the Pantheon, Sett, and Wukong, but he’s also played Poppy and Sejuani support this season. With this vast champion pool and his strong play against quality competition in the LCK, we can safely say that BeryL deserves to named the best support at Worlds 2020.