Aged like a fine egg: One ratty support pick has League fans looking for changes in upcoming patches

If you’re an AD carry player who’s been trying to climb the ranks in League of Legends, there’s a good chance that you’ve run into everyone’s favorite Plague Rat in the bottom lane—but as a support, not an opposing marksman.

Twitch has run rampant as a new favorite pick for many support players throughout the 2023 preseason. But with so many people on the receiving end of the stench, the community has quickly divided itself on how healthy the champion’s playstyle is for League as a whole.

He currently has a 50.74 percent win rate across all ranks through Patch 12.23 with over 353,000 games played, according to game stats aggregate U.GG. He has many more games played in lower ranks than in Platinum and higher, which could come from how volatile this playstyle can be when thrown into matches with better-performing summoners.

The issue with Twitch as a support comes from his need to constantly roam since the pick normally doesn’t work when traditionally laning. Instead of trying to duel with the enemy duo, Twitch leaves his partner almost completely alone while he helps out his other teammates by providing ganks and pressure around the map.

It’s a strategy that hinges on early success since those roams can either work and the team gets ahead, or they fail and now Twitch and his AD carry are perilously behind in gold and experience.

“As Twitch support, you aren’t really playing support,” a user on the League subreddit said. “Your entire goal is to become the hypercarry of your team at the expense of your ADC, which obviously shouldn’t be a thing.”

For some people, however, Twitch support shouldn’t be removed. Instead, they believe that the rat is just another pick that the player base must adapt to, like the many other metas that have come before. “It’s not like he is overtuned, [and] it’s not like there isn’t counterplay,” another subreddit user said. “Why does everything you can’t bother to deal with by improving have to be removed?”

Ultimately, Twitch isn’t getting hit with any adjustments in League’s first update of the year, Patch 13.1. But if the pick starts to see more success in higher ranks with a similar win rate, the developers might need to make some changes in the future.