Hey there, Master Fledgling here.
A quick, interactive post: Name a support or two you play to good effective that aren't normally seen! The rules are that you MUST build a support item and sightstone for it to be a sensible pick, as well as a cheap-ish core build -- meaning if the champion needs massive farm or items to be useful, they're probably not a good idea. My current support in test is Hecarim, with his core looking like this:
Cheers all,
-MF
Does Orianna count as an alternative support? Because she's great to break out every now and then
I often have good success with support Lux - mostly when laning with a poke-heavy ADC. My boyfriend and I like to go Ez + Lux.
I honestly don't get why 
are or were all legit supports at some points but Lux isn't and people get their panties in a twist when I pick her. Like, wtf is your problem? Double snare, shield for the whole team, AoE slow that provides vision, AoE snipe that has decent base damage and provides vision, long range to safely poke in lane, passive made for poking.
Even the ult - what, you can accept Annie and Brand's ults, but not hers? You think I'll keep it to KS you? I'll blow it as soon as I bind them so they're an easy kill for you.
You're welcome.
Always get:
(pinks as needed ofc)
Items that I often work with (order and whether or not I get them depends on the game itself):
Struggling:
/ 
as needed to help the team, 
because struggling means less gold, and less gold means less items, which means less CDR, and Lux has longish CDs
Winning this fucking game:
(if didn't build Crucible)
Support..
I'd try it.. if given the chance..
This would be for the soul puropse of gettng stuns/slows off the enemy allowing your team to clean up. Shadows will reveal enemies and slow them for your team to get them. Captain would be because when you press E you move quickly so your team can move quickly
Zohnyas for E into enemy team.. Ult use active and they'll follow captain to jump upon your stunned enemies.
ZZrots make good for keeping a lane pushed if your team easily forgets it.. hint hint top lane.. Also minions spawned from your zzrot will give you gold when they kill minions allowing you to earn money.
Heimer scale so well with hp5, he need nearly nothing else to be a decent support tank. And if they ever blink an eye, you now got a tower and promoted full Carry
Play Zilean. If you can play Zilean correctly, you'll be winning majority of all of your games as a support. I'm not gonna go into in-depth details here though. Easily getting promoted by playing him.
is a pain in the ass bot lane, playing him as AP support gives him the ability to box up bushes and poke with E.
this guy can just be played anywhere, he has great damage poke and sustain and his ult is ridiculous on your adc
hohohoholy shit
has been fun as support. I've only done it in normals though. Just start spell thiefs and then build him how you would in mid lane. Keep hitting the enemy ADC with your space STD and then at lvl 6 just initiate with your ult while your ADC shoots them in the face.
Galio count? normally build pretty tanky ap mostly standard support items. His ult can win games and his harass is decent early if you land your Q's.
Maokai is sort of a meta pick, but I still like him a lot. He can use coin or relic start depending on how you want to play the lane (coin allows for sapling poke while relic provides amazing sustain for self and ADC), use sapling to check bushes, has snare and knockup, and AoE damage reduction. His passive charges extremely quickly with 4 people using spells, which gives him tons of sustain, especially combined with relic shield. He can peel pretty well with his snare, knockup, and slow at close range, and long-range slow.
His weakness is that his MR is 30 at all levels. Enemy mid roaming and/or enemy mage support is his main weakness. He also lacks any defensive steroid pre-6. Maokai basically plays like a Leona, but with weaker all-in and a lot more utility.
Maokai support has really low skill floor since he doesn't have that much mechanics, but he has a pretty high skill cap. You can dodge burst with snare, which requires a lot of practice. In addition, using sapling at the right time is important because it has tons of utility with high CD. You can slow an enemy pursuer, check bush, block enemy's escape path in an all-in, create a choke point, etc. This spell also allows you to delay rushing sightstone. You should still build sightstone early, but you can upgrade your gold income once or get boots before getting sightstone.
As far as off meta supports my go to is Anivia, especially with a Vayne.
Your can also do Volibear support too.
or
IMO sleeper op support. Just poke with barrels, and disengage until you and the adc hit 6
Oh oh oh, i really cant listen to proven advice,
I really want to be different, i really need to troll everyone, Then i will either quit the game bcuz they are all noobs but me, Or i will stop playing my stupid support picks and pick viable ones.
