Since the start of the new season, League of Legends players have been hunting for the next broken builds and champions to use in solo queue and beyond—and three weeks into 2024, this has been found in the form of double support items in the bottom lane.
Luckily, Riot Games is already cracking down on this new tech in Patch 14.2, bringing heavy-handed nerfs on stacking support items, hopefully reducing its efficacy when used among multiple champions. Additionally, the developers are planning nerfs for Bloodsong, one of the five support item upgrades that were added for the new season.
In season 14, Riot added a new support system to remove the option to buy a specific type of starter item at the beginning of a game, and instead, introduced the World Atlas as the universal starter item for all supports. As the game continued on, however, players would be able to choose one of five upgrades once they were able to complete their 1000 gold quest.
Once players discovered the potential of double support item stacking, the solo queue scene began to spot multiple instances of the exploit in their games. Bottom lane duos were able to rack up a ton of gold through the item alone, while also providing vision for their team to the point where it looked like “maphacking.”
This new combo was even used in T1’s latest matchup against Gen.G when superstar AD carry Gumayusi bought and wielded the Bloodsong support item as Lucian. They eventually won that game, although the talented marksman only had four assists by the time the Nexus exploded. Even still, the fact that professional players were choosing to pick up this strategy was concerning since it would lead to the rapid usage of the strategy across the world.
Patch 14.2 is scheduled to drop on Wednesday, Jan. 24, so if you’ve been dealing with support items across multiple lanes, you won’t have to worry for too long.
