Throughout this past week, our talented team of writers at Inven Global have been ranking the top 5 players participating in this year’s MSI. We’ve ranked the top 5 laners in each role, and all that’s left, is the support role.

Inven Global’s top five supports at this year’s MSI are:

1. Cho “BeryL” Geon-hee
2. Shi “Ming” Sen-Ming
3. Norman “Kaiser” Kaiser
4. Philippe “Vulcan” Laflamme
5. Ling “Kaiwing” Kai Wing

1. BeryL - DWG KIA

DWG KIA is out to create a legacy for themselves. Their undisputed dominance started in 2020 Summer, winning every single tournament in their journey. It’s no surprise that BeryL made the top of this list; despite being overshadowed by the narratives of his teammates, much of their success should be credited to BeryL.

His level of adaptability and innovation is far above the rest. He played Heimerdinger and Cho’Gath in the 2021 LCK Spring playoffs; his ability to differentiate what works and what doesn’t clearly paid off with results. He was also praised for his incredibly vast champion pool, with even his own teammates saying over multiple interviews that he loves to experiment and has a lot of different champions he’s itching to play. His stats in the 2021 LCK Spring split, where he not only had the highest damage numbers among the support players and 388 assists, is just the icing on the cake.

Through BeryL’s continued success, he’s already proven himself over and over that he can thrive in any meta. With the item, Shurelya’s Battlesong, getting a massive buff in patch 11.8, and Lulu also receiving buffs to her kit, many fans around the world will be itching to see how he’ll bring diversity to the MSI meta.

2. Ming - Royal Never Give Up

Ming has been with RNG since 2016, and after missing out the international tournaments in 2020, he and his team are back for vengeance. He scored 173 assists in RNG’s 19 playoffs games this split, and looked like the playmaker that his team needed on engage champions such as Rell, Leona, and Sett.

While engage champions won’t completely fall out of the meta, enchanter champions such as Morgana Seraphine and Lulu (for flex potential in draft) will definitely make their appearances at MSI 2021. He’s proven himself on engage champions; how will he fare in the MSI meta?

3. Kaiser - MAD Lions

MAD Lions did what many thought was impossible; they’ve dethroned G2 Esports and became the 2021 LEC Spring split champions. While MAD Lions’ bot lane, Carzzy-Kaiser, looked very vulnerable during the regular split, they’ve stepped up their game and have shown significant improvement during the playoffs. On champions such as Leona and Rakan, he’s shown that he can push the go button for his team at the right moments. Again, the game has changed a lot since the Spring finals, so it’ll be up to him to prove that he’s able to stay in his playoffs form, and adapt to the meta.

4. Vulcan - Cloud9

Since joining Cloud9 for the 2020 LCS season, Vulcan made the jump from a young, exciting domestic talent to a bonafide North American star. Cloud9 has spent the majority of the past three splits playing at a level superior to Team Liquid, and while Vulcan has remained in the conversation of the top support in the league throughout that time, TL support CoreJJ has managed to eclipse him individually, especially in the area of roaming and cross-map plays. This rang true most recently in the finals of the 2021 LCS Lock In where TL defeated C9 3-2.

However, the ringing of that truth has become quieter and less reverberant throughout the 2021 LCS Spring Split. As C9's roster began to synergize following the new additions of top laner Fudge and mid laner Perkz, Vulcan's previously established synergy with AD carry Zven has been retained, but his coordination with jungler Blaber has improved significantly since last season. When considering that one of Perkz' greatest strengths as a mid laner is properly utilizing the coordination between his jungler and support contextualizes Vulcan's specific improvements as all the more vital to C9's success.

When it comes to international tournaments, C9 has been the beacon of hope for NA. Vulcan has proven himself in NA this Spring split. Will he continue on his success at this year’s MSI? Or will he fall short and fill the cyberspace with the McDonalds memes?

5. Kaiwing - PSG Talon

In the PCS, PSG Talon has shown a level of dominance like no other. Not only did they end their regular split with a 17-1 record, they’ve 3-0’d every single Bo5s in the playoffs and punched their ticket to MSI. They’ve clearly proven that they’re better than their competition in every role.

However, PSG Talon recently announced that their bot laner, Unified, is unable to attend MSI due to health complications (pneumothorax). Due to such, Doggo, a bot laner from the PCS team, Beyond Gaming, was loaned out to PSG Talon as a substitute. While PSG Talon’s strength in the bot lane is now questionable, the team has proven that they’re more than familiar with last minute substitutions. Nevertheless, Kaiwing will have lots of work to do to hone his synergy with Doggo.