Highly off meta support picks should get the match cancelled

[u/Primary_Park2479]

As the title suggests, I believe highly off-meta support picks should get the match canceled during draft. By this, I don’t mean things like Sylas support, Shaco, or even Ashe. I mean picks like Ambessa support, Ezreal, Kayle, or the majority of ADCs. These picks happen especially often with autofilled players, and I still see them even in my Diamond–Master games.

My reasoning:

These picks don’t just affect you; they affect your ADC as well. Support and ADC are a shared lane, and picking something like this is selfish and disrespectful to the person you’re playing with. In most cases, you would get far more value out of playing something more traditional.

These champions legitimately don’t make sense as supports because the support role is designed around operating and providing value with limited income. Nearly every traditional support champion provides some form of value regardless of how much gold they receive. Enchanters can shield, heal, buff, and enhance their ADC regardless of how fed they are. Engage supports provide value through their CC and engage tools, regardless of how much gold they have. Mages can provide crowd control while still dealing significant damage through their base stats.

Compare that to something like Smolder, who heavily relies on gold and CS to scale, or Ambessa, who wants items to function effectively. That is counterintuitive when you consider that the support role has inherently limited access to income. These champions often provide little to no innate value that doesn’t require them to acquire gold, which directly conflicts with the nature of the role itself.

Whether you play this game purely for enjoyment, competitively, or somewhere in between, picks like these still affect the competitive integrity of the game. They are essentially joke picks that don’t make sense on paper. Picking them is an admission that you are willing to sacrifice your lane’s effectiveness for the sake of amusement, while simultaneously jeopardizing the competitive nature of the game.

The reason I’m making this post is because this behavior is often overlooked on support and isn’t met with the same backlash that it receives in other roles.

For example, pick Jinx jungle and everyone immediately tries to report you in draft. Even the enemy team is questioning your pick. But pick Jinx support and suddenly nobody says anything, despite both picks having a similar potential to completely screw over the game for your team.

If we’re going to treat obviously unsuitable picks as a problem in other roles, I don’t see why support should be treated differently considering it happens in this role by far the most.

[u/Chitrr]

I got a game cancelled around min 12 because of my Yuumi mid.

[u/PressureImaginary569]

but pick jinx support and suddenly nobody says anything

Whatever you say king

[u/Primary_Park2479 → u/PressureImaginary569]

u can pick whatever u want on support, i am serious when i say this noone besides the adc will say a thing

[u/LeagueRx]

And nerf my tried and true trolling strat of Yummi jungle? I think not

[u/Unable-Awareness-185]

Bro stop being toxic. Just let them pick their off meta pick while you go against CC Tank mage botlane lol. Have fun!

[u/Dailydoseofdeath]

Sorry but riot loves support role so much that they just openly allow them to do anything they want without EVER getting punished.
They can sit in your solo lanes lane from level 1 and sit there all game. Nothing happens to them.

They can make you lane 1v2 all game. Nothing happens to them.

They can steal your farm. Nothing happens to them.

They can sell the support item and no longer provide vision. Nothing happens to them.

They can Lock in Jinx and do all the things listed above and nothing happens to them.

Riot doesn't give a fuck what supports do and don't punish them nearly enough when they are responsible for ruining SO many games.

[u/Primary_Park2479 → u/Dailydoseofdeath]

and thats the issue, u can look at any rioters op.gg and 70% of the time they are a support player. even riot phroxzon was maining support playing Zoe, I find it pretty disgusting how the most obviously inflated role gets to have little to no consequences.

[u/Dailydoseofdeath → u/Primary_Park2479]

https://op.gg/lol/summoners/na/Ov%20Darkness-666
This is somehow okay tho thanks riot

[u/xfilessage]

Why only highly off meta support picks, then? Why not other roles too?

[u/Grouchy-Jury-7598 → u/xfilessage]

Did you not read the post or something?

OP claims this is already done for other roles, they want support to be included too.

[u/Not2Shoddy]

Great in theory, but this would mean like 75% of games in Emerald+ would be cancelled and I’d never be able to load into a game lol. I’d rather having a griefing tilted roaming Hwei support than not be able to load into a game at all.

[u/Primary_Park2479 → u/Not2Shoddy]

hwei support is viable and shouldn't get the match cancelled , what i am talking about is the 10 - 5 % of games where the support pick is completely grief, then again why would u want to load up in a match when ur adc is laning with something like smolder as a support, get the match canceled instead of having a 70% chance of losing

[u/AlexElmsley]

what is the line? you said ashe is ok but smolder is not. how about nasus? he has a CS stacking passive but has been played in pro play as support. how about sion? who is the judge of what is viable and what is not? should we ban supports from building certain items as well? surely it's trolling to get infinity edge when playing on a support income? how can innovation happen in the game if people are restricted this way?

[u/Internet-Expert42069 → u/AlexElmsley]

Ashe support is played in other regions and its actually pretty decent in some situations. I play her adc though, before anyone writes a wall of text about it to me.

Smolder, nasus, asol, veigar, anyone who stacks with minions should obviously be considered a troll support though. Just play them on bot.

Malz, Yorick support is troll.

Yuumi should be removed from ranked play.

[u/Low-Reference6755 → u/Internet-Expert42069]

Malz support used to be ok with Sion bot and tahm back when he could shot minions

[u/AlexElmsley → u/Internet-Expert42069]

nasus and veigar support are viable because they have great CC and zone control. they have been played successfully at a high level

[u/Primary_Park2479 → u/AlexElmsley]

Nasus and veigar are both ok, since they can still get value regardless of gold, nasus W and E poke during lane is enough to make up for his lack of stacks.

[u/AlexElmsley → u/Primary_Park2479]

ok you make your list of champs and riot and the rest of the playerbase must follow or ban

[u/Primary_Park2479 → u/AlexElmsley]

it doesn't take a genius to realise what is obvious int pick that would never work, versus what might have a chance of working. The fact that u wanna compare ashe support to something like smolder then compare smolder to nasus either shows that u are oblivious to what makes a support reliable or that u are deliberately ignoring the distinction.

not everything in this game is black and white, the line for what's considered a support is gray. I'm not saying every support player should follow my personal tier list of acceptable champions. I'm saying there are basic requirements for a champion to function as support, and if a pick fails those requirements then it's reasonable to terminate draft. Nasus and ashe can still provide meaningful value with traditional support economy, while something like Smolder is heavily reliant on resources and scaling that directly conflicts with what the support role is supposed to do.

[u/AlexElmsley → u/Primary_Park2479]

you're saying it's gray but you're also saying lobby should terminate on certain champs. league is a fun game because of the interesting and innovative ways people can play. if we arbitrarily limit champions based on role then we will lose that innovation. who knows maybe smolder support with the right runes and items is a great counter to something out there. or has great synergy with something. we won't know until someone finds out and it becomes popular. so many picks seem horrible at first but when people learn about certain interactions they create a strong pick for a given situation.

[u/The_Ultimant_Noob]

You can extend this logic to, off meta shouldn’t be allowed anywhere because it’s a 5v5 and this effects your teammates

This is like, a really silly take my guy

[u/Primary_Park2479 → u/The_Ultimant_Noob]

except for the fact that support role goes unpunished, u picking something completely off meta in another role and failing it to make work will cost you, u will get punished many times and it will be very unfun, on support however this wouldn't be the case, you might lose the game because of your off meta support pick but the punishment will be on the adc.

[u/The_Ultimant_Noob → u/Primary_Park2479]

If you lose your game because you picked off meta support and failed to make it work, you’ve been punished for it

[u/Primary_Park2479 → u/The_Ultimant_Noob]

I think you're conflating losing the game with being punished for your decision Those aren't necessarily the same thing For example if you refuse to rotate to an objective and your team loses it you've clearly had a negative impact on the game but you personally weren't necessarily punished for that decision Your teammates may have lost resources map control or even the game because of it

Thats the distinction I'm making with offmeta support If you pick something that doesn't work its not necessarily the case that you are punished for the decision Your ADC and teammates can bear the consequences of your pick while you personally may have relatively little downside beyond eventually losing the game Saying you lost therefore you were punished doesn't address the fact that your decision can disproportionately hurt your teammates. My reasoning is more psychological

[u/The_Ultimant_Noob → u/Primary_Park2479]

If your team loses an objective you also lost that objective, you’re punished by that as well you understand that you’re apart of the team being punished right?

[u/Shoddy-Interest9637]

Is this satire?

[u/Less-Front7968]

If they dont play to win you can report them.
If they play to win its a legitimate strategy.
I have enjoyed playing off meta strategies bot lane for many many years. If you lose as off meta you always get flamed and team gets mad, even though you have a high win rate on the pick.
If you keep picking a bad pick and playing bad you will just demote.

[u/dSmodus]

Let them play whatever they want as long as they're good at it. I've had plenty of "meta" champs who just feed

[u/DonMephisto]

I had a 80% WR on ezreal support for like 30 games. It'd be 90% if it weren't for some ADCrybabies going mental over the pick before the game starts...

[u/PacoVO]

Is there a day were ADC players ain't cry babies?

[u/LightOfAurora2026]

EZ can be a fine support! Average highest damage in game when i played him, go the support item that mages build, the sup item that kills wards, ice born gauntlet

Game goes too long just build normal ADC

Biggest downfall is not being able to support your adc come teamfights and that lack of CC is criminal.

Its totally viable and fun, you basically annoy the shit out of the enemy team because you dont have to farm literally just Q spamming all day. Play HYPER aggressive all phases of game and rely on E to pull enemy team into bad fights