Ranking the supports at worlds (OPINION)
- RNG Ming
- G2 Mikyx
- FPX Crisp
- SKT Effort
- TL CoreJJ
- DWG BerYL
- FNC Hylissang
- GRF Lehends
- IG Baolan
- C9 Zeyzal
- CG Vulcan
- JT Koala
- SPY Norskeren
- UOL Edward
- GAM Slay
- DFM Gaeng
- AHQ Ysera
- HKA Kaiwing
- FLA Luci
- MMM Destiny
- RY Tolerant
- LKE Venus
- MEGA Pop
- ISG Slow
Some general comments: The top 8 are all extremely close and were hard to rank (part of the reason why this post is so late in comparison to the other ones). Ming gets the top spot, as he stood out as arguably RNG's MVP for the entirety of summer split (yes, that includes Uzi). Mikyx also stands out for keeping his team safe in 1-3-1 situations and for having such high kill participation in a region where fights are so spread out and skirmishy. Crisp outplayed Ming in the finals and has also been a standout in LPL. Effort, in a small sample size, has been outstanding for SKT and outplayed his counterparts in LCK playoffs. CoreJJ gets the last top 5 spot for being the best player in NA, making very few mistakes, and for being the best player (alongside Impact) for TL internationally this year. BerYL gets 6th as he's a bit more coinflip than the top 5, but is as high as he is because his Alistar (and other engage supports in general) are unmatched, while Hylissang also is coinflip but in contrast with BerYL plays some more passive supports like Yuumi. Lehends is the lowest of the top 8 because while he is an amazing support, he faltered during LCK finals and towards the end of the split, though that could have been due to poor draft decisions placing on champs like Volibear (seriously, I still don't know what Griffin was trying to do with the pick). The gap between 8th and 9th is pretty huge - Baolan was nowhere near a top LPL support in summer. He was decent at times and did turn it up a bit for regional finals, but overall I would say he was one of the worse performing members on a slumping IG. Zeyzal and Vulcan are pretty similar in skill level. Vulcan had the slightly better regular season but Zeyzal imo had the better playoffs. Not many people watch LMS, but Koala is one of the better Tahm Kenches out there, pulling off timely devours and soaking a lot of damage for his team. Norskeren is the lowest rated support out of the 4 major regions and for good reason - he, imo, was Splyce's weakest point and the reason why they often couldn't snowball leads (or even get leads in the first place). Edward is a standout support from the minor regions - his mechanics are definitely gone but apparently he's the shotcaller on UOL, and UOL have made more correct calls than any other minor region team I've seen in the play in stage. Slay/Gaeng impressed me with their flexible champ pools and decent play, and the rest ... were not all that great (for pro players).