Support Matchup Guide 2025: How Skill Mechanics Shape Bot Lane Counters in League of Legends
November 20, 2025
This guide was created by STATUP.GG, an AI-powered voice coach designed to help you play smarter and more confidently.
Support matchups are not a simple matter of “this champion always beats that champion.” The interaction is shaped by each champion’s skill mechanics, engage options, and wave control tools.
Hook supports can usually put heavy pressure on damage and utility supports that lack mobility. Damage and utility supports, with their poke and wave clear, can render tank supports ineffective.
Tank supports, on the other hand, excel at absorbing and countering the engages of hook champions thanks to their base durability and crowd control. This creates a cyclical matchup pattern.
However, these matchups are never absolute. Wave management, maintaining or creating a minion advantage, and coordinating summoner spells or jungle pressure can all shift the matchup.
For example, even if a damage support gets hooked, if the fight starts while their team has a large minion advantage, they can actually win the skirmish and take lane control for the rest of the game.
Ultimately, matchups are not predetermined in champion select. They are fluid and reversible depending on how the lane is played.
From here, we will break down how each champion’s mechanics create these matchup dynamics.
Xerath, Karma: Champions with strong wave clear and poke.
Braum: If Nautilus lands a hook, Braum can use E and Q to turn on him and even kill him. This mechanic applies to both hook supports and tank supports.
Rell: When Nautilus uses his Q, Rell can counter with her own Q, preventing Nautilus from applying his passive root from his empowered auto attack.
Renata Glasc: Renata is a natural counter to engage. Her W allows allies to survive Nautilus’s all-in, and her ultimate forces Nautilus into a frenzy where he auto attacks his own teammates, applying his passive root to them.
Blitzcrank: Thresh’s hook has a brief pause before it fires, allowing Blitzcrank to react and land his own hook.
Tahm Kench: Tahm Kench can counter Thresh’s hook with his ultimate. His strong one-on-one presence makes it difficult for Thresh to control the brush, which also makes it hard for Thresh to look for hook attempts from the brush.
Rakan: Even if Thresh lands a hook, Rakan can use his E to turn the fight and retaliate. He also provides more value in teamfights later in the game.
Hook supports such as Blitzcrank, Nautilus and Pyke, and burst engage supports like Leona: Nami excels at poke and sustain but is vulnerable to hooks and sudden all-in engages.
Poppy: She can interrupt Leona’s E with her W.
Rell: When Leona uses E, Rell can use her Q to block the follow-up Q.
Braum:When Leona engages with E, Braum can counter-engage with his E and Q.
Alistar: When Leona engages with E, Alistar can avoid her combo using Q and W, and he provides more value in later teamfights.
Karma, Xerath, Lux: Morgana has an advantage when she can push the wave. She struggles against poke oriented AP supports with fast wave clear who can pressure her consistently and break through the value of her long lasting E.
Leona: If Blitzcrank lands Q on Leona, he can get punished for it.
Rakan: If Blitzcrank lands Q on Rakan, Rakan can use his ultimate and punish him for it. Rakan also provides more value later in the game.
Alistar: Even if Blitzcrank hooks him, Alistar can avoid the follow up or re-engage himself, and he has strong late game value.
Nautilus: His Q has a much shorter cooldown than Blitzcrank’s and he can avoid Blitzcrank’s hook.
Nautilus, Blitzcrank: Unlike tanky divers such as Leona and Rell who can be countered with Polymorph and her ultimate, pure hook champions cannot be stopped.
Rakan: When Pyke uses Q, Rakan can reposition back, and if he gets hit by the Q, he can use his ultimate and charm Pyke, which usually causes Pyke to die first.
Rell: When Pyke uses Q, Rell can counter-engage or avoid the pull with her Q and W. She also has strong late game value.
Maokai: If Pyke uses Q, Maokai can punish him with his own Q, and when Pyke uses E, Maokai can root him with W and focus him down. Maokai also has strong late game value.
Xerath, Karma, Nautilus, Pyke: Senna needs to auto attack to reduce her Q cooldown. She struggles against champions with strong burst engage or long range poke.
Pyke, Nautilus: They can instantly deny Seraphine’s strengths in sustain and long range by forcing burst engages.
Pyke, Nautilus: They can flip Brand’s poke advantage by turning fights with burst engages.
Xerath, Karma, Lux: They can poke him from farther ranges than he can respond to.
Nautilus, Pyke, Blitzcrank: They can force burst engages and make it difficult for Milio to use his ultimate effectively.
Xerath, Lux, Karma: They outrange him with long range poke, and Milio has no ability to counter their poke with his Q. His ultimate also becomes harder to use in these matchups.
Nautilus, Pyke, Leona: They create burst engage and hook threat.
Karma, Xerath, Lux, Ashe: All of them have longer ability range and stronger poke than Soraka, making it difficult for her to use W effectively.
Pyke, Nautilus: They can negate Karma’s poke with their W, and if Karma has used RQ, they can create kill pressure.
Nautilus, Leona: Leona’s E and Q can root the champion Yuumi is on and prevent her from using W, and when Nautilus targets his ultimate, Yuumi can be hit together with the champion she is on.
Alistar: Not mainly for lane phase, but he is strong because Yuumi is very weak to tower dives.
Rakan: He can avoid Braum’s W and Q gank setup with his own E and W, which gives Rakan an advantage in early skirmish mobility.
Senna, Karma, Xerath, Lux: Their long range makes it difficult for Braum to follow up on ganks.
Bard: He can nullify Rakan’s engage by using his ultimate to stasis Rakan’s targets, and his long range allows him to pressure Rakan strongly in lane.
Blitzcrank: His hook creates burst engage threat.
Xerath, Karma, Lux: Their fast wave clear makes it difficult for Janna to utilize her movement speed advantage.
Gragas: He can interrupt Alistar’s WQ combo with his E.
Morgana, Janna: They can stop Alistar’s engage with Morgana’s E and Janna’s Q.
Poppy, Alistar: Poppy can stop Rell’s W with her W, and Alistar can stop it with his Q.
Renata: She can counter Rell’s engage with her ultimate and save allies with W.
Karma, Xerath, Lux: They have stronger wave push and poke.
Nautilus, Pyke, Blitzcrank: They create hook threat.
Karma, Xerath, Lux: They have stronger wave push.
Leona: Even if Pantheon engages with W, Leona’s base stats are better and she can counter with Q.
Thresh: He can block Pantheon’s engage with his E.
Neeko: She can use her W clone to remove Shaco’s E.
Leona: When Shaco engages, Leona can counter with her Q.
Blitzcrank, Pyke: Bard is weak in lane but has strong roaming potential. He cannot protect his ADC from hooks, and both of these champions also have strong roaming.
Blitzcrank, Rell: Rell’s Q and Blitzcrank’s ultimate can weaken Tahm Kench’s tankiness.
Soraka, Bard: Soraka’s W and R, and Bard’s ultimate can stop the revive potential of Renata’s W.
Senna, Neeko, Karma, Xerath, Lux: They have strong long range poke and can hit her from farther range than Poppy’s abilities.
Maokai: Maokai’s W cannot be stopped by Poppy’s W.
Leona: When Galio uses W, Leona can stop it with her Q.Rell: Her Q destroys the shield and weakens the passive of Galio’s W.
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