The recent League of Legends meta has brought with it some of the coolest, strangest, and most downright terrifying strategies we’ve ever seen. There’s been the gold funnel, running Smite mid on highly-mobile assassins, and the very popular non-marksman bot lane.
We’re sure you’ve seen them. They’re the Vladimir-Morgana, Yasuo-Alistar, and Heimerdinger-Fiddlesticks bot lanes that have completely dominated solo queue lately. If you had tried to pick one of these duos three months ago, someone would have dodged the queue after flaming you into the ground. Now, however, it’s the norm—and that’s a beautiful thing. Unless you’re an ADC main. Sorry about that, guys.
We wrote a small feature on just a few of the fun combos you can try when this meta started last month, but after so long, there’s just way more to dive into now. Here are seven of the strongest non-marksman bot lane combinations to play.
7) Brand with Nami
Brand is a high-damage AoE mage that can bully you out of lane before you even have a chance to react, and he’s even more deadly when he hits level six. He has some very, very distinct weaknesses, though, in that he’s extremely squishy and immobile. The secret to surpassing these weaknesses is finding a support that covers them up, and Nami fits the bill perfectly.
Nami has engage to synergize extremely well with Brand pre-six with her bubble, and her ultimate ensures that enemies can’t escape his once both Nami and Brand hit six. Her very potent heal keeps Brand healthy so that he can survive big fights and ganks despite his low health, and her speed boosts, slows, and bubble can peel for him without having to dive into the action too close herself.
6) Ziggs with Rakan
Unlike Brand, Ziggs doesn’t really have upfront burst damage. Instead, he’s an extremely long-range poking mage, much like Xerath in the mid lane. That being said, he is just as immobile as Brand, but he does have some niche mobility with his Satchel Charge. Ziggs can bully any enemy out of his lane with his poke, and when he hits six, he’s a teamfighting machine. When late-game rolls around, he can kill towers in just a few hits, but he needs to make it that far first.
Rakan is the guy to help him out, because Rakan provides a ton of survivability and peel to keep Ziggs healthy throughout the early stages of the game. When Rakan hits level six, he can use his charm to bunch enemies together for a perfectly-coordinated Ziggs ultimate.
5) Mordekaiser with Pyke
This lane is especially cheesy, because Mordekaiser and Pyke already deal a ton of damage, but their kits can work together to boost that damage even more. Pyke’s Q can yank enemies towards Morde and himself, and his E can keep them in place while Morde lays down the pain, which is something that Blitzcrank can’t do quite as well.
Unlike the usual Morde supports in Blitz and Thresh, Pyke also offers insane damage, and more importantly, he can take kills without Morde suffering any of his gold income. It’s quite the dirty combination.
4) Swain with Vel’Koz
Swain is an absolute titan in the late game. When he gets his ultimate ability, he gains the strength of two champions, because he’s just so damn powerful. He’s his own playmaker with his E, can zone an entire enemy team with his W, and his Q provides great burst. The problem, however, is making it that far, because Swain’s early damage is not great.
The solution? More damage. Swain can peel for himself and has great sustain, so he doesn’t need a tank or healer paired up alongside him quite as much as other non-marksman lanes. Pairing him with Vel’Koz instead offers high early-game poke that he otherwise lacks, and it adds some great synergy with his passive.
3) Veigar with Brand
As long as Veigar saves his baby cage, he can prevent almost any gank from coming his way, so rather than peel, he also needs someone that can make up for his extremely lacking early-game damage. With Brand as a support, he can put out enough damage at early levels to compete with high damage bot lanes. With that, if he can make it to the late game where he has 1,000 or more AP, he’ll be very hard to beat.
2) Heimerdinger and Zilean
You’ve heard of the Heimerdinger-Fiddlesticks bot lane made popular in the LCS, but have you heard of Heimer-Zilean? Heimerdinger has extreme poking potential, but a common misconception about him is that his turrets push waves really fast. That’s not true. Instead, he actually just puts up a wall, protects that wall, and freezes the lane right in front of him, so he’s countered by champions that can knock down that wall.
Zilean’s bombs cover so much ground that they can combine high-damage poke with easy zoning to keep the turrets safe, and his ultimate can keep Heimer in a fight without needing an early Hourglass, which means more turret up-time
1) Yasuo and Alistar
In our original article, we mentioned that Yasuo and Trundle is a fun combination, but Alistar is still the most versatile choice to pair up with Yasuo, hands down. He has extremely high-value peel that keeps Yasuo alive, and he can easily match an aggressive Yasuo engage. At level six, it’s self explanatory. Big AoE knock-up = very, very good for Yasuo, and the rest is history.
