How to play off-meta Caitlyn support like T1 Keria in League of Legends season 13

League of Legends' support role has been an experimental area for various innovators in professional play, particularly in the LCK. Players like Ryu "Keria" Min-seok, Cho "BeryL" Geon-hee, and Son "Lehends" Si-woo have a long history of trying out off-meta champions, both on competitive stages and in solo queues.

The current bot lane meta has been heavily criticized for being far too stagnant, with Zeri/Yuumi and Heimerdinger/Ashe appearing as the obvious lane picks.

Professional League of Legends players all over the world have been experimenting with every tactic that they can think of to counter first-pick viable bot lane combos. To fight Heimerdinger, BeryL has already built the Jhin support, a tried-and-true choice. Interestingly, things didn't stop there.

Keria recently chose Caitlyn support in an official League of Legends LCK match and emerged victorious with the champion in an effort to completely eliminate Zeri from the game. Despite the fact that she's a niche choice with a specific application in mind, Caitlyn is a perfectly playable support option if players understand how to play and build her effectively.

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Why pick Caytlin as a support in League of Legends season 13

Caitlyn support can be a beast if built right and strategized well (Image via Riot Games - League of Legends)

Paired with an ADC, Caitlyn can be a solid lane bully, which makes playing her as a League of Legends support quite effective in the current meta. She has a lot more utility than most ADC champions, thanks to her wide auto attack range, long-range pokes with her Q (Piltover Peacemaker), and the CC from both her traps and her E (90 Caliber Net).

In that regard, the Sheriff of Piltover is quite similar to Ashe. Fortunately, Caitlyn compensates for a lack of slows, vision control, and a global stun with some extremely high burst damage and decent lockdown.

The off-meta Caitlyn support works best when paired with an ADC who can lock down a target and give her enough time to set a trap under them, despite the fact that she already faces a lot of pressure.

For this very reason, Keria partnered Caitlyn with Lee "Gumayushi" Min-hyung's Varus. If Varus hits an opponent with his ult Chain of Corruption, it will keep them immobile for an extended period of time, which is more than enough time to set up a trap. In addition to the immense lane pressure, there's no League of Legends champion that's strong enough to withstand an all-in from this bot lane combo.

Hence, it's always advantageous to pick Caitlyn alongside an ADC, as champions like Zeri and Yuumi are quite vulnerable to early pressure because of her strong poke.

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Caitlyn support: Build and runes in League of Legends

Caitlyn's support builds and runes (Screengrab via Riot Games)

One might wonder if Keria would choose something like First Strike or Dark Harvest to pair with a full damage/lethality build, given how much poke and burst damage Caitlyn has. Instead of depending on a single large burst of damage, Keria routinely opts for Hail of Blades to give the champion some additional attack speed and more regular damage output.

Taste of Blood offers extra healing while poking in the lane and Zombie Ward is easy to stack once Umbral Glaive is built. Typically, Keria uses Treasure Hunter because winning the lane and snowballing the game are the major objectives with this pick.

Standard Inspiration Runes include Magical Footwear and Biscuit Delivery. Footwear provides some important gold efficiency, given how hard it can be to earn as a League of Legends support. Biscuits are great for mana sustain, but if one doesn't have issues with mana, Future's Market can be used instead.

With support Caitlyn, it's unlikely that you'll reach a full-build very often. Nevertheless, here are all of the specific items that are essential to her support build.

First of all, choosing a Spectral Sickle as a support item is always the smartest move. For vision control, one should go right into Umbral Glaive as quickly as possible.

Support items for Caitlyn (Image via Riot Games - League of Legends)

Beyond that, there's an important choice between Eclipse and Duskblade. If a lead is acquired in the laning phase, Duskblade is fantastic for snowballing, whereas Eclipse is a little more adaptable and offers some resilience.

Being more of a meme item, Collector can be an interesting third option. It has a base pen, a moderately high base AD, and a passive that assists in getting kills and increases gold earnings. Edge of Night and Youmuu's Ghostblade are excellent choices for lethality if the game drags long enough to farm even more League of Legends items.