Support has been one of the highest-churn positions in the LCS. Only three supports have returned to their team from last year. Three of the starting LCS supports, Olleh, Poome, and Biofrost, did not play in the LCS or any other major region last year (although the last three have played in the LCS before). As a result, evaluating this current crop of supports is quite a tall task for the team at Inven Global.

Here are Inven Global's rankings of the best supports competing in the 2022 LCS season.

5: Mitchell "Destiny" Shaw — Immortals

Dread it, run from it, Destiny arrives all the same. Despite having a fairly disappointing 2021 season with Immortals, the team opts to return him to their roster in 2022, paired with a new ADC in Jason “WildTurtle” Tran. Turtle is a far better ADC than Destiny’s former partner, Raes, so that should give the support a puncher’s chance to improve his play this year.

Though Destiny is best known for his hook champions like Thresh and Nautilus (and even the Blitzcrank on occasion), his best champion in 2021 was unquestionably Rakan. Posting an 8.22 KDA and 10 assists per game in 7 games on the champion (in which IMT went 4-3), Destiny showed off his ability to find great engages. With Rakan’s escape tools as well, Destiny also posted the fewest deaths per game (1.29) on the Charmer.

4: Zaqueri "aphromoo" Black — FlyQuest

The most veteran LCS support, aphromoo has moved on to his fourth LCS organization, leaving Dignitas for the (literal) greener pastures of FlyQuest. The move reunites aphromoo with his former ADC Johnsun, with whom he was paired during the 2020 season when both were members of DIG. FlyQuest will certainly be hoping that aphromoo can spark Johnsun to that 2020 form, when he was considered to be one of the best, promising young ADCs in the LCS.

Last year saw aphromoo go through somewhat of a career renaissance. After down years in 2019 and 2020, aphromoo rebounded quite strong in 2021. His KDA jumped to 2.81 last year, up from 2.67 in 2020 and 2.51 in 2019. Although aphromoo doesn’t have any exceptional pocket picks, he really has no weaknesses either. Of the champions aphromoo played at least three times last season, he does not have a KDA lower than 2.00 on any of them.

3: Philippe "Vulcan" Laflamme — Evil Geniuses

Vulcan has staked his claim to being one of the best supports in North America, at times contesting for the top spot. However, 2021 was a slight downturn for Vulcan. Of course, that was to be expected somewhat after Cloud9 went from one of the most dominant LCS teams ever (that did not make Worlds) to a very strong team, but Vulcan also seemed to regress slightly in 2021.

As a result, and due to C9’s new direction under coach LS, Vulcan moved on from Cloud9 to Evil Geniuses. In doing so he, arguably, moves to a better position as he is now paired with one of the best young AD Carries in the LCS, Danny. This combination is poised to potentially be one of the best in the LCS.

2: Choi "huhi" Jae-hyun — 100 Thieves

It’s an incredible testament to huhi’s skill and dedication that he managed to transform from a bottom-tier mid laner into one of the best supports in the league. Part of his incredible performance is due to the fact that he was able to be paired with an exceptional ADC in FBI, but huhi has shown incredible growth and flexibility in the role.

Of course, he is perhaps best known for his ability to play off-meta supports like Sett, which fits into his style of heavy engage champions. Leona, Alistar, and Rell all made the top of huhi’s most-played champions in 2021, and he did not have a KDA below 3 on any of those picks. With 100 Thieves expected to be a top team again this year, huhi will continue to be one of those “glue” pieces who keeps this team on the right path.

1: Jo "CoreJJ" Yong-in — Team Liquid

In truth, there really was no other option for the number one selection. CoreJJ has been not just the best support in the LCS, not just one of the best players in the LCS, but one of the best supports in the world for the last few years. His understanding of vision, teamfighting, and roaming are simply unmatched compared to anyone else in the LCS. He is the face of Team Liquid, helping to lure Bjergsen away from TSM and leading the charge to improve NA’s infrastructure.

Alongside Hans Sama, CoreJJ figures to have perhaps his strongest bot laner partner ever, even better than the legendary Doublelift. Expectations on TL and CoreJJ in particular will be higher than ever this year. There may not be a player better equipped to handle it.