Mathu’s Musings #1: Why Duo Mid Should Be A Thing
Why teams are sleeping on duo mid and why it should be seen as the correct way to play League.
In the early wilderness days of League, marksmen champions originally went mid to soak up more gold and xp – since mid lane is shorter and has more access to resources over a prolonged period of time. This ushered in the era of assassin mids, who were categorical counters to marksmen because of their short burst pattern that enabled them to whittle down marksmen reliably before going in for the kill with a full ignite combo. This caused the single greatest meta shift in League to this day, where marksmen went down to bot lane with their supports while assassin mids were popularized before the emergence of control mages.
However, 10 years later, given how much we know about League of Legends and the most successful teams of all time, I do not think this was the correct choice. The Jungle/Support synergy is a huge part of professional teams’ success, because those two roles, without as much need for resources as their laning counterparts, have much more impact in the early stages of the game. Ever since Mata revolutionized support play and won the World Championship in Season 4, pairing the support with the jungler has been a huge indicator of teams’ success worldwide.
Instead of sending marksmen to the bottom lane, in retrospect, our early League ancestors should have sent the supports mid lane. Adding an extra body in mid would not only severely limit the impact that assassins would have against marksmen, but it would also move the support in closer proximity to the junglers. This would enable the roaming power of the Jungle/Support duo much quicker, allowing teams to accelerate at an even faster pace than they do now!
Obviously, professional teams aren’t really paid to innovate so they have not caught onto this tactic quite yet. But give it a whirl in your Flex/Clash games and see how easy it is to stomp through the early game and tilt the crap out of the enemy jungler with repeated jungle invades as well as much more powerful ganks!
