Which supports stand poised to rule League of Legends following the Patch 9.7 adjustments?

With no big systemic changes to the League of Legends support lineup in Patch 9.7, other than some tweaks to a few runes, there wasn’t much of an expectation that our tier list would be altered. Yes, Pyke and Leona got buffs and Morgana got nerfs, but how meaningful would those be?

We once again bring you our tier list, made up of aggregated data from eight other sites to give you our best estimation of the average opinion of each champion in League of Legends. What do the data and the opinions of experts have to say about the supports in Patch 9.7?

The tier list

S tier: Thresh, Morgana

A tier: Nami, Soraka, Janna, Sona, Pyke, Lux, Fiddlesticks, Zyra, Zilean, Lulu, Blitzcrank, Bard

B tier: Taric, Brand, Vel’Koz, Leona, Nautilus, Xerath, Alistar, Rakan

C tier: Galio, Karma, Neeko, Braum

D tier: Tahm Kench, Veigar, Shen

Rising champions

Rakan (C tier to B tier)

Rakan has been steadily getting buffs for a while now, most recently in Patch 9.5. As a result, he’s crept up our tier list little by little. Now, finally, it seems those buffs have started to pay off and make him at least a viable support pick. However, while a couple of tier lists have the Charmer rated A or B tier, at least one didn’t rank him at all and most have him rated C tier.

Falling champions

Galio (B tier to C tier)

Galio didn’t get hit with any nerfs in recent patches, but he’s continued to fall down our tier list all the same. He is still rated as an A tier champion by the Proguides tier list, but most of the other tier lists we audited list him as C tier or lower.

Nami (S tier to A tier)

I hesitated to even include this one because Nami is just below the cutoff for being considered S tier. Unfortunately, she was probably undone by op.gg rating her as C tier for some reason. In my opinion, though, she’s still an elite support.

Soraka (S tier to A tier)

Soraka also fell from the S tier down to the high A tier, just barely missing the S tier cutoff. Unlike Nami, though, it wasn’t one errant ranking that dropped her. More than a few tier lists have ranked Soraka as B tier.