Analyzing a number of potential starting items for Supports in Solo Queue

Support is probably one of them most flexible positions in terms of starting items. That might surprise a lot of people but supports have a lot of room for customization depending on the goals of your team at level 1. Below are some of my favorite combinations. You can decide which is best for you but I suggest trying them all! Note that all of these builds assume you are starting with both the summoner ward and the biscuit which you will have 99% of the time as a support.

 

The classic support start looks like this: 

I literally used to start with this build every single game. It transitions well into philo stone and gives you a good spread between mana/health regen, green wards for defensive vision and a pink ward for offensive vision. It's a solid all around build that might not win you a lane, but it will probably allow you to go even at the least. The reason this build has fallen somewhat out of favor is the cost inefficiency of the faerie charm. I read a statistic the other day where it takes a faerie charm about five minutes to break even in gold value and mana regeneration with ONE mana potion. Especially with most supports moving toward picking up sightstone before philo for the free wards and additional brawling power this build isn't as effective as it used to be. 

My most common support start now looks like this:

This is my favorite start now for a few reasons. It gets rid of the inefficient item of the faerie charm and replaces it with a mana potion which as I mentioned is a much more efficient early mana item (in exchange for a negligible cost to game gold). With the whopping 130 gold I save from that exchange I go for an extra pink ward. This ward allows for SO many more mind games, and much easier control of your opponent's vision.

Think about it this way: most opposing supports will start with one or even zero pink wards. With two pink wards you can deny them two vision locations, allowing you to zone very easily from a bush if you're a high threat champ like Blitz/Thresh/Leona or a high harass champ like Sona/Lulu. It also basically guarantees your jungler will have a free ganking path if they are looking to gank your lane - either through river or lane, it's up to your discretion. Additionally this start allows you to stash a pink ward incase you get an early lane advantage and can sneak an early dragon. You can also replace the mana potion with another health pot if you're playing champions without high mana costs (Fiddle, Zyra etc). 

 

A few alternative starts:

Four green, one pink start

If the enemy jungler has an incredibly strong early ganker like Shaco, J4, or Lee Sin you might want to opt for this variation on my standard start. It trades out one of the pink wards and the second health potion for two additional green wards that you place farther away from your lane to provide yourself and your ad advanced notice of dangerous incoming ganks. You can of course start with two health potions instead of a mana potion if your champion is not particularly mana intensive or needs the additional sustain (I would do this on Fiddle, Zyra, Leona, Blitz, and Thresh in most cases. ) 

The rejuv bead start: 

This start is fairly self explanatory. It's the same as the classic start, but with a rejuvenation bead instead. I use this with champions that don't especially need the mana regenration, but might take more harass than your standard supports, typically Leona, Blitz, and Thresh. I run this over my standard support against heavier poke champs like Caitlyn, Ezreal, and Sona.

Pink ward yolomonster start:

I honestly building three pink wards at level ne had never crossed my mind until I played against an amazing Janna player who did this. He completely denied all of my vision in lane and then the opposing jungler just sat in our lane and picked up kills or forced us back continuously. This is a risky start if your team has bad matchups in other places on the map that will require our jungler's attention because the vision denial is a bit wasted, but sometimes it's just fun to show up with three pink wards and watch the other support player cry as you destroy all their wards.

The mana heavy start:

This is a very situational build that I only do in one specific circumstance - when I am on a mana intensive healing champion, have a weak early game adc like Vayne or Kog'maw and we're going up against a heavy poke lane with a support like Nidalee or Zilean. Although neither of those two are exactly top teir supports, they see some playing time and can cheese their way to victory if you're not prepared.

Since Zilean and Nidalee are essentially all about their harass potential you can negate a lot of their early game power by maxing your healing skill (something I would never recommend otherwise on champs like Sona or Taric) and simply outscaling them. This strategy is a bit difficult to pull off as it relies on your ADC to be able to reliably last hit under turret, but it's a great way to completely shut down these lanes without much jungler support.

All of these starts have their merits and weaknesses. Try them all out in different matchups and decide which one works the best for you. There are of course more variations