http://i.imgur.com/C36jj.jpg?fb

You Support Summoners these days, with your free gold and special items and passive gold gain and whatnot. You have so much money to throw around that you take Morgana and Annie bot. Why, they're mages! They belong in mid! Less o'course your carry's taking mid, which they did back in my day. That's "A-D-C" in your crazy lingo, mind you. As though there were another kind of carry. "AP Carry"? What in the vast blackness of the world-devouring Void dimensions does that mean? Ha! Contradiction in terms. "AP Carry". What's next? You're gonna start wanting to be called "Support Carries"? Damn political correctitude, that's the problem. Next thing you know, you'll be demanding that we call tanks "Health Carries"!

Used to be that Supports didn't have two gold pieces to rub together. You'd see a Support with Boots of Speed, and you'd call 'em "fed". "She has boots at 20 minutes? That's a fed Janna alright," we'd say. Now you've got so much gold you don't know what to do with it. An embarrassment of riches, and believe you me, it's an embarrassment alright!

Y'see, the good old-fashioned Support Champions—

—yeah, them—they've all been shoved to the sidelines by Leona and Thresh. (The Solari and the Shadow Isles have Champions now, eh? What's next, a Champion from the Fyrone Flats? This modern inclusiveness nonsense will be the death of the League, you mark my words. This nonsense with Shurima has me so mad I don't even read the Herald anymore. Angries up the blood. Now, the JoJ, that was a real newspaper!) So where was I. Traditional supports. Right. They got real good at doing their thing with no gold, but now there's so much gold that all these other Champions are one-upping them right and left. Something should be done. Why, I ran into Summoner Morello the other day, from the Riotous Fists Clan, the one who's in charge of all the energy balancing runes on the Fields. And I gave him a piece of my mind! Sometimes those Rioter types, they can be squirrely. You've got to be persuasive. The best way is to tell them stories that don't go anywhere until they ask you to please just tell them what you want.

Soft! That's what you all are!

You know, the League of Legends used to be a place for tough-minded people who could make do with what they had in front of them. Not a fancy magical college for lazy aristocrats with good grades! Why, none of us thought the League would last more than a week before Demacia and Noxus tore it apart again. Practically a suicide mission, taking the Summoner's Oath in those days. And the stipend, you could hardly afford to eat on that! I see all you fancy younguns going to the Heart of Gold across the way from the Fields, buying your ThaumaKola cocktails and Bandle City Juiceboxes and fancy glowy elixirs. When I was your age, all you'd get was a past-its-prime Demacian ale or some Bilgewater rotgut with a toothpick-skewered slice of lime bouncing around on top like a seasick sailor clinging to driftwood! And we sure drank plenty of both in those days. Why, there was a High Councilor who came in one day, yellin' and yammerin' about that damn Jarvan III and Boram Darkwill, and what he'd like to do to the both of 'em, and we gots to drinking, and—

—where was I? Oh, that's right. So I used a teleport spell to go over to Mount Gargantuan, which is what they called Mount Targon in those days. I had an Elixir of Fortitude tied to my belt, which was the style at the time. There was still a lot of interference from the Rune Wars fallout in those days, and you took your life into your hands every time you tried a teleportation. I'd take a swig from my Elixir of Fortitude to steady the nerves before I started the invocation. I had one tied to my belt, y'see, because that was the style at the time.

Hey, this is Gameplay and Balance, cut it out with the lore stuff, Summoners don't even exist anymore

Well that's the kind of soft-headed thinking that I expect from you lot! HA! Too much Ionian philosophy in the curriculum these days. Back in my day, we Summoners knew we existed. Now you've got Summoners openly asking whether they truly "exist", or if they're just reflections in a mirror universe. I'll tell you, Reginald Ashram never would have stood for that kind of nonsense, make no mistake. Never should have let those crazy Ionians in. Not that I've got anything against Ionians, mind you. Terrible shame, that invasion. But Ionian professors at the Institute? No wonder you're all so damn philosophical and metaphysical. Most of you can't even cast a damn Revive spell, but you're worrying about whether or not you exist. Fah! We had real problems back in my day.

And so pampered. Take Deathfire Grasp, for example. Oh, boohoo, a few Summoners who clearly didn't have what it takes to be a Summoner went a little funny in the head after invoking it. And maybe there were a few minor stabbings and immolations. Well, they aren't around to get crazy anymore, eh? Problem solves itself! But no, this liberal nutjob Kolminye, she sends good ol' DFG to the Black Archives. Ha! I thought you were supposed to be protecting Runeterra from destruction, not worrying about idiot acolytes who shouldn't have passed their Judgments in the first place! Summoning is a hard job that calls for hard people. Pledging our lives to protect Runeterra from total destruction, getting in between Demacia and Noxus and what-not, and saying we weren't even going to use rune magic to do it—that's what I call HARD MODE. You've gotta be tough! While some Champion's grandstanding on the Fields, getting all the press, getting all the admiring crowds of young lords and ladies, taking some of 'em on a "tour of the Institute", if you catch my meaning, heh heh, while they're all doing that, why, a Summoner's more often than not waist-deep in mud in Kumungu trying to wrestle some crazy lich into a dispelling circle with no more than a null-magic mantle to keep the death curses off! That's how it used to be. We did the dirty work, and we didn't mind it, no-sir-ee! Even when we came back to the Institute with one arm in a sling and a case of thaumatoxic fever and found a line of Champions whining at us to do their homework, find some artifact or spell to help 'em raise six kinds of madness out in the rest of Valoran.

And these discussion boards! With the little arrow-runes that get all glowy when you look at 'em funny. Back in my day, we had one forum board, and the only sorting that happened was, you pulled one board out, and you wrote something on it, and you left it on top and walked off, so the next Summoner saw it first. And it worked fine! Now you think arrows are going to tell you what to read! HA! Taking orders from arrows. That'll be the day. Sure, there were little + and - sigils, but we didn't fuss about with them too much.

Support Summoners! The softest of the soft!

Used to be that Supports had to use their wits. And we did! We'd put wards damn near everywhere. Maphacks, we'd call 'em. Haha. There was a song, you know:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kamr4rZe_W0

Catchy tune! Not like this "Get Jinxed" nonsense you kids listen to these days. Warriors? HA! Real Warriors got assists with no items.

Now, don't you get me wrong. Supports needed more gold. We fought on those old forums, without the damn arrows everywhere, to get you new kids more gold. We need five goldstreams for five Champions, we said! Now you've all got more gold than you know what to do with.

Traditional Supports could use a buff, if you ask me!

Now, we all agreed at the time, if you add a fifth goldstream, well, you're going to have to buff traditional Supports. Or else you'll just have Annie going bot every match, or some kind of nonsense like that. And sure enough, that's what happened.

When's the last time you saw Soraka or Taric on the Fields, eh? No respect for the early Champions, from back in the old days. Just Leona and Thresh all the time. And you've got the Riotous Fists Clan, Meddler and that bunch, going on about ratios and itemization and that kind of modern nonsense.

And another thing—

—eh? What?

Hmmph. Looks like Leona needs some backup on the Fields. The irony isn't lost on me. Well, Summoner's Oath and all that. But just remember: you're all soft! SOFT!