Support Smite solo laner have taken over League by taking advantage of the objective bounty system
Beginning with Janna top who switched to Smite and completely abandoned their roles by roaming, the tactic has made its way into pro play and is already demonstrating additional alternatives for being effective outside of Janna. Both Bard and Poppy were recently selected in competitive tournaments, and both choices won using the Support Smite approach.
Why pro players are abusing this strategy with more champions?
Support Smite solo lane take use of the new bounty system introduced around the preseason 2022. By building support items, leaving their lanes entirely and instead putting pressure by frequently roaming, ganking, and capturing objectives. As the opposing laner gains a free laning phase and expands their gold lead, objective bounties become active. This helps the other roles on the team to earn more gold by creating a false loss, and through that, securing objectives will grand more bounties.
Essentially, enchanter supports were first the preferred selection since they required little gold to be effective. New choices have made their way to the highest level of competition, with appearances in the PCS and LJL adding Bard and Poppy to the strategy.
Deep Cross Gaming’s mid laner Hsu “Nestea” Bao-Yuan chose Smite Bard mid in the PCS. Bard is already encouraged to roam in order to harvest charms, and his magical trip skill provides great mobility over terrain for ganking.
AXIZ’s top laner Yoshiki “YellowYoshi” Fujimoto used his trademark Poppy in the LJL. YellowYoshi was a well-known Poppy streamer before going pro, thus the strategy worked effectively. Poppy’s crazy CC kit allows her to provide a lot of utility even with a small amount of gold.
With the strategy dominating the meta, Riot Games intends to nerf the Support item sololane with the arrival of patch 12.4. Following their choices, both AXIZ and Deep Cross Gaming won, indicating that the nerfs are essential in order to put an end to this approach.