In League Of Legends, the Support role is synonymous with being the lowest income position in the game whilst simultaneously requiring stellar macro knowledge and situational awareness. For quite some time, the prototypical playstyle for a Support player was to lane alongside the Marksman player making sure the squishiest, most volatile, member of the team could scale and become a late-game threat. Supports would only leave lane briefly to establish vision on neutral objectives and, if lucky, drop some wards in the enemy jungle.
In more recent years, however, Riot has buffed the Support role significantly by giving them access to more gold and exp throughout the course of the game. This change has transformed the position into a more roam-centric, playmaking, and jungle-esque role.
Nowadays it has become more beneficial for Support players to roam during specific breaks in the laning phase referred to by pundits as “roam timers”, in hopes of getting either their Top, Mid, or Jungler ahead. This list will run through the best Support players to ever compete on the Summoners Rift and pays homage to innovational masterminds and generational superstars. All statistical information provided in this article was obtained through Liquipedia's League Of Legends page, Games of Legends, and Leaguepedia.
10 Zaqueri “Aphromoo” Black
Aphromoo rose to prominence in the early days of professional League of Legends as the Marksman for v8 Esports before going on to play other teams such as TSM Evo and Team FeaR. His livestream spawned one of the funniest League Of Legends highlights of all time wherein, before his transition to the Support role, he picked Leona in a solo queue game and proceeded to repeatedly kill the enemy Corki, dubbing the popular catchphrase “Support is so easy dude”.
Shortly after, Aphromoo would transition from being a Marksman player into becoming one of North America’s greatest Support players. Aphromoo’s accolades include 2 LCS Championships and an MVP award. He has represented North American on the World Championship stage and continues to thrive as a Support in the LCS, currently playing for Dignitas.
9 Hu “SwordArt” Shuo-Chieh (胡碩傑)
SwordArt has one of the most fabled careers of any Support player starting his career in the LMS on AHQ Amateur before rising to prominence with the Flash Wolves alongside ex-teammate Karsa. Throughout his career, and now on TSM, SwordArt has played with some incredibly strong rosters in hopes of taking home a World Championship trophy, most recently becoming a semi-finalist with Suning Gaming in 2020.
SwordArt is known for being an extremely aggressive a player on his teams preferring to fight than play a stagnant, boring laning phase. SwordArt’s trophy case includes 2 IEM World Championships, 4 LMS Championships, and a World Championship Finals appearance. His win rate sits at 307 wins to 190 losses while averaging a 4.4 KDA.
8 Tian “Meiko” Ye (田野)
Meiko has garnered many accolades in his time competing with EDG. Most notably Meiko is a Mid-Season Invitational Champion, 2-time LPL Regional Finals Champion, 2-time Rift Rivals Champion, an Asia Games Champion, an All-Star Champion, and an LPL Champion. Meiko is a proficient tank support player averaging over a 65% win rate on champions such as Braum, Thresh, and Alistar.
His overall win rate is 446 wins to 246 losses over his 6-year career. Meiko is still relatively young at 22 years old and is currently still competing with EDG in 2021 who is currently the Second Seed in the LPL Spring Playoffs. Most notably he is known for playing alongside Deft and was the first LPL player to reach 5000 career assists.
7 Shi “Ming” Sen-Ming (史森明)
Ming is best known for playing alongside Uzi forming arguably the best bottom lane duo of all time, especially when considering their Mid-season Invitational run performance in 2018. Ming is also known for his tank-oriented playstyle usually opting to choose champs that could peel for his all-star Marksman.
Ming’s most proficient champs are Braum, Alistar, and Tahm Kench averaging a combined win rate of over 65% on those champions. His competitive record is 316 wins to 180 losses. Ming continues to play for RNG to this day where the team is currently sitting in first place on the LPL Spring Split standings.
6 Mihael “Mikyx” Mehle
Mikyx is Europe’s premier support player rising to prominence on Splyce before being picked up by Misfits and then acquired by G2 in 2018. Mikyx was initially known as being an enchanter heavy Support player, however, as his career moved on transitioned into a more playmaking-centric playstyle.
Mikyx accolades include an EU LCS Regional Finals Championship, 4 LEC Championships, a Rift Rivals Championship, a Mid-Season Invitational Championship, and a 2nd place finish at the 2019 World Championship finals. Mikyx is an anti-KDA player and does not care about trading his life in favor of his team winning team fights in the mid and late game.
5 Kang “GorillA” Beom-hyun (강범현)
Many would consider GorillA the most mechanically gifted support player to pick up a keyboard and mouse. During his career GorillA was a strategic mastermind and will be forever remembered for picking Support Miss Fortune on the cusp of losing the World Finals to SKT T1 in 2015. He is also remembered as being the definitive enchanter support player putting up insane career results with Janna, Morgana, and Nami.
GorillA also played alongside one of the best Marksman players of all time, PraY. His overall career record sits at 354 wins and 226 losses. GorillA will go down as one of the only Support players willing to pull out some crazy picks while maintaining absolute success in the most dominant region in the world.
4 Hong “Madlife” Min-gi (홍민기)
Madlife is one of those generational players, the type who are so good that their legacy is solidified more so due to their insane mechanical ability rather than their domestic and international successes. In the case of Madlife, he innovated the support role from being a passive position, into one of non-stop flashy plays and incredible maneuvers. To this day, landing a crazy, unlikely skillshot is referred to by players as hitting a “Madlife” due to the frequency at which he would hit game-changing abilities.
Madlife is most known for his mastery of hook-based champions such as Thresh and Blitzcrank, however, many forget that he also brought mage champions, thought to be relegated to the Mid Lane, into the meta with picks such as Zyra. Madlife is far from the most decorated player, however, his innovation and mechanical savviness lifespan solidify him as one of the most celebrated Support players of all time.
3 Jo “CoreJJ” Yong-in (조용인)
After a horrible year in the NA LCS as team Dignitas' Marksman, CoreJJ would move back to Korea before being picked up by Samsung Galaxy. Six months after joining Samsung Galaxy, CoreJJ would transition to the Support role kickstarting a career of absolute dominance. CoreJJ would go from being a bust, into a World Championship Winning support. CoreJJ is proficient on basically every Support champion he chooses to play, however, his most notable are Thresh and Alistar.
CoreJJ’s overall competitive record is 315 wins and 200 losses. His accolades include 2 LCS Championships, an IEM Championship, and a World Championship. He currently competes with Team Liquid in the North American LCS and has pledged himself to better the region as a whole in hopes of transforming the region into world-class competitors.
2 Lee “Wolf” Jae-wan (이재완)
Wolf is one-half of the most dominant bot lanes to ever compete in the LCK, absolutely dominating the league for the better part of 2 consecutive seasons alongside his teammate Bang. Wolf is remembered for absolutely stellar performances on a plethora of support and enchanter champions. Above any champ, however, Wolf is most notorious for his mesmerizing Alistar gameplay, averaging a career win rate of almost 77% over 99 played games.
Wolf’s trophy case includes 5 LCK Championships, 2 Mid-Season Invitational Championships, an IEM World Championship, and back-to-back World Championship wins. His overall win rate is an astounding 339 wins and 150 losses over his 5 season-long career. Wolf also averaged an above-average KDA of 4.7.
1 Cho “Mata” Se-hyeong (조세형)
Mata edges out slightly above Wolf due to his innovation of a roam-heavy support playstyle, alongside his international dominance on a plethora of teams. Mata is the definition of a playmaking-centric player oftentimes opting to roam around the map with his Jungler rather than supporting his Marksman player. Mata’s most notable champion pick was Thresh putting up an astounding 70% career win rate on the champion, becoming arguably a better Thresh player than Madlife.
Mata was also part of the most dominating World Championship runs of all time when Samsung White won the World Championship in 2014. Mata played the Support position as if he was the team’s primary carry, constantly getting his teams ahead with insane mechanical plays. In Season 9, before his retirement, Mata joined the powerhouse SKT T1 in hopes of bringing home one more Worlds trophy.
The team would unfortunately fall short in the semifinals to G2. Regardless of this single shortcoming, due to his many successes both domestically, internationally, and in a multitude of different competitive regions, Mata has more than proved himself as the greatest Support player of all time.