Do you know why people play Brand and Malzahar as supports?
It's because riot focuses on the aspects of these champions that make them fundamentally unappealing as mid laners and disregards everything else. Malz for example lost much of his guaranteed wave clear and guaranteed high scaling damage for a shield that only serves to make him the ultimate counter to blitz and these lightweight voidlings that no longer scale well into teamfights or even skirmishes (they die almost instantly and no longer swarm). The fact that Riot decided to give his voidlings a charge mechanic rather than making them beefier is a perfect example of unintended consequences, now the voidlings work better as simple sacrificial skillshot blockers come late game rather than consistent damage dealers.
Brand similarly lost a lot of his base damages and scaling in the mage update just so Riot could rework his old passive, which scaled well without gold, into one that scales even better regardless of gold with the important caveat that it's weaker vs high mobility champions (to get equal/more damage you have to land 3 abilities rather than just poke with W + passive), a common trait shared amongst the assassins of mid lane. So why would anyone take Brand mid when his primary asset (AoE damage) is no longer all that dependent on farm (his passive) while receiving nerfs to the scaling on his individual abilities and no additional tools to counteract his awkward mana intensive wave clear, high mobility champs or general lack of utility? Brand pre rework was already on the edge when it came to mid or support champion (hence the near 50/50 split you saw between the 10 players that actually played Brand before the introduction of keystones) but the rework really cemented him as shitty mid laner that could better do his intended job as a support with no gold.
So before you feel like bitching about Malz giving you the D bot lane, understand Brand and Malzahar players have really been given no choice by Riot and probably want to be there less than you do.
