Analyzing the holy trinity of supports

In this interview, Patoy first mentioned the holy trio of supports, Sona, Thresh, and Lulu. Recently, Patoy stated that the holy trio has changed into Sona, Thresh, and Nami. 

The first holy trio: 

Note: these three champions were chosen on the 3.8 patch

Sona: Ever since the beginning of the support/ADC meta, Sona has always been one of the strongest picks. In terms of poke with Hymn of Valor and powerchord, she can deal more damage than the AD, and her heal ensures everyone is at 100% before a teamfight, and that little bit of poke that becomes negated is a huge factor right before a teamfight. But what really makes Sona shine is her teamfight presence with her ultimate; an AoE 1.5 second stun is gamechanging, and either a great followup to an engage, or can be used as an engagement on its own. This all shows both in competitive play and her having the fourth highest winrate in Solo Queue. 

 Thresh: Ever since the release of Thresh, and his surge of popularity in Europe and Korea, Thresh has been the (damned) king of supports. In terms of lane control, engage, and utility, Thresh is all you could ever need and more, showing his strength in both solo queue (50% win rate) and competitive play. For Patoy to pick Thresh as one of the best supports is a no-brainer, even with the constant nerfs, he simply offers too much.

Lulu: For a very long time, Lulu was picked as a top tier support, and Patoy choosing her here reflects this, even though it has since changed. Similar to Sona, Lulu excels in her ability to trade and poke, dealing more damage than the ADC with her passive and Glitterlance ability dealing tons of damage. Her ultimate also is a great follow up to an engagement, using Wild Growth on the champion that does the initial engage for a good extra bit of survivability, and more importantly, CC. Lulu also offers some healthy single target CC and a disgusting 80% slow, and this led to her being a strong competitive pick for a long time. 

HOWEVER

The holy trio has changed. 

On patch 3.10, Patoy recognized that the holy trio had changed. Instead of Lulu, Nami had taken over in terms of viability. So why? Well, ever since her release, most people have recognized that she was never as strong as she needed to be in order to become a competitively viable pick.

Riot recognized this, and a constant stream of minor buffs, and then a huge buff in 3.7 that increased the duration of her aqua prison stun made Nami a scary pick, especially in the Korean scene. On the other hand, all of these champions have an ability to engage a teamfight, Sona's Crescendo, Thresh's Death Sentence, and Nami's Aqua Prison. Lulu doesn't have a hard engage like that, excelling more in the laning phase and using her single target CC during a teamfight, and thats why we've seen her fall off and replaced by Nami. 

Furthermore, Patoy had this to say about Lulu: Lulu was replaced due to Lulu not fitting in with any teams recent comps as it's skillset isn't very threatening when not playing with or against assassins. Lulu being strong against Assassins is very clear, Lulu's Polymorph ability, with its single target 2.5 second CC is incredibly strong, only Fiddlesticks offers more in terms of single target CC. This helps Lulu excel against assassins, and with assassins, Lulu's wild growth and shield helps anyone out of a sticky situation, and this is why we saw lots of Lulu in the first split, assassins like Akali, Zed, and Kha'Zix were strong and dominated the meta. 

So now the next question is how doese Nami fill in then support shoes that Lulu left? Well in terms of what they provide for your team, Lulu and Nami are fundamentally rather similar, mainly in terms of excelling in trading with your enemy. Most importantly, they both excel in giving their ADs autoattack enhancers and using either shields or heals to win trades. But as I mentioned, Lulu has difficulty engaging a fight, and her lack of AoE CC put her behind other top teir supports. 

But what about damage?

Lulu rose to popularity by being a lane bully, and her e-q combo doing huge damage against a squishy enemy in the early laning phase. And what should be a surprise to no one, Lulu does deal more damage then every other support in a straight up brawl, except Sona with her powerchord up. This matters a lot, and pushing an enemy out of lane can cause a lane, or even a game, to snowball in your favor. Nami on the other hand, can't even touch the damage that Lulu puts out. However, while Lulu has damage, Nami has the Crowd Control advantage, and has the teamfight power. 

So what now?

Well, this isn't to say that only these three champions are viable. Lulu is still a strong lane bully and can be used to shut down an enemy hypercarry, and is a huge counter to the very popular Vayne. Fiddlesticks has the strongest single target CC ability in the game (Terrify for 3 seconds), and is even better than Lulu against assassins. Blitzcrank is good against a non-mobile team, and Alistar is the best counter to Blitz. So the holy trio of Supports isn't the only supports you should play, they're just the strongest, so experiment around with what works for your playstyle and team composition. 

Riot Blitzcrank: WWUTH7UJFDL9PW