Recently, the Chinese League of Legends community discovered a significant shake-up in Suning’s roster, as SofM’s League of Legends account has gone through nearly 20 matches only playing in the support position, instead of his usual jungle role.
Some sources suggest that in Suning’s internal scrims, the lineup being tested is View in the jungle and SofM replacing ON to play support. This could very well be a new experiment from Suning’s coaching staff aimed at seeking solutions to address the current instability in SN’s performance.
This information has even been confirmed by Flandre – a close friend and former teammate of SofM. In a recent livestream, another former LNG player, Light, asked Flandre about SofM’s current situation, and the EDG top laner replied that SofM is currently having to practice playing support, and the Vietnamese player is quite unhappy about this change.
Theoretically, Suning’s coaching staff wants to leverage SofM’s game reading abilities and vision control to help the team address weaknesses in the laning phase. Although ON has been performing reasonably well as a teamfight support, his laning skills are too weak, and he also lacks competitive experience, often relying on SofM for team callouts.
On the Hupu forum, the LPL fan community is bustling with discussions about this issue. Most seem to empathize with SofM’s anger. Transitioning from a carry player to a less influential position is a hard change for a star player like SofM to accept.
However, some people are quite excited about the prospect of SofM switching to support. When he played in the VCS, SofM was known for his ability to excel in all positions. From top lane, mid lane to ADC, he has tried them all. Who knows, the “mad scientist” might come up with something clever while playing in this new position, like using… Smite as a support, for instance.