Confessions and ramblings of a "Mage Support"

You know me. I'm the guy who picks brand, vel or zyra in every support game I play. The opposing team groans because I deal silly amounts of damage. On my team, I earn groans because I'll swipe kills right and left if given the chance--sometimes that's intentional, mostly not.

I know its not a healthy style to play; it strips out a fair amount of the utility from support, and forces the players to build team comps differently and forces the devs to rebalance the champs used (not that they've done much of that). With that in mind, remember that support is the least popular role in the game. Don't believe me? Go in to play a game and support is a 50% faster que time (fill is faster, than normal as well, because you're also going to end up as support most of the time).

Now, how I ended up playing support is perhaps an unusual story. I started out with playing mid, with Twisted Fate a long time ago, but eventually bounced around to top and jungle. Then, I made the mistake of playing with my brother. He and his friends each had several times the in-game time as me, so they shunted me off to the spot they figured I would be the least detrimental. If you guessed support was where I ended up, you guessed right. But, I was playing with friends, so I suffered through it with a forced grin.

Unfortunately, after I started talking to them about potential flaws in the game and how to improve them, they responded by booting me from their group and I realized they never really gave a damn about my place in their group.

So, I went back to solo que, but the damage was done; my support roster was larger than my former groups. So, I had to stick with support. I rebelled a bit, naturally, tried playing mid again, but the Yas/Zed tumors were too malignant.

Now, the first season I did ranked, I got into silver and ended in S2, next season I got 4 afks in my promos and ended up in B2. There in bronze, I learned firsthand how thankless and powerless support really is--this is where I started playing vel support. I skipped ranked the next season and then got placed into B5 this season.

Holy hell. I was pissed, confused and ready to literally torch some server towers. I had watched bronze, I had read about bronze, I knew the whole stigma of actually being in bronzed but I had never expected it to be quite as...disappointing. Adcs were terribly inconsistent; one game you could get somebody who really belonged in gold or silver and then you'd get somebody who would cs so badly I would want to weep. An as a support, I would get blamed. Adc wanders alone and gets jumped? Jg walks into a bush I warded with a yas inside? Walking to lane and see my adc run into a 3v1? Blame the support.

And the regular strategies of jumping to another lane or roaming around? Not really a thing that works in bronze and would only net you more abuse.

I eventually said 'to hell with this' and bought Brand; good power, cc and that wonderful passive. Teammates would whine, and I probably caused a few people to leave champ select but I was past caring; with the mage support, I could actually make a difference.

You see, I learned a few things:

1. You can't trust your adc to be decent.
2. You can't trust your team to be competent.
3. You can trust in your abilities.
4. 'Actual' supports can't change the course of a game if their team is made of idiots.
5. CC is good if you can back it up.
6. Being support is the most thankless task in the game.