5 Best Bot Lane Duos in League of Legends Patch 8.12

For the past few League of Legends patches, the meta has been absolutely ridiculous. With the nerf to marksman base stats, and critical strike items, ranged AD Carries have not been as useful as other champions that are now replacing them. These new bot lane champions are quite odd, but they are proving useful, even in Korean ranked games.

5. Brand and Sona

Mages are the new cat's meow, and Brand is no exception. With good range on his abilities and some crowd control, he is hard to lane against. If his support happens to be Sona, you might as well dodge. Brand has no mobility in his kit, making him an easy target. Sona helps remedy that with her Song of Celerity, not to mention they make for a crazy poke composition. 

4. Ezreal and Nami

Despite the marksman nerf, it didn't hit Ezreal very hard because of his reliance on abilities -- he doesn't really rely on crit to succeed. He is also very mobile, putting him now far ahead of champions like Ashe. 

For his support, Nami has always been a tried-and-true option. Although there was recently a nerf to support items, her healing hasn't been nerfed, whereas shields are, giving her a leg-up. With both champions now coming back into the meta, it's a great duo for players and their friends to hop on to.

3. Yasuo and Alistar

Another classic combo is now conveniently packaged in the same lane. The goal of the lane is for Alistar to camp bushes and bully out laners to let Yasuo farm until he hits level six, then all in with a knock up and ultimate to win lane. 

But how is Yasuo meta with the huge nerf to crit items? This is because of the massive power Conqueror gives. It allows him to get huge amounts of damage in team fights simply by building attack speed items. With this cheese lane combo, players must beware.

2. Irelia and Lux

With her support aside, Irelia has truly become a great ADC. By being able to secure minions easily with her Bladesurge and keep up stacks of Conqueror, most people are too afraid to even try and take creeps of their own. Now, when Lux comes into the picture things get interesting. By using Binding Light to lock down enemies, Lux can let Irelia charging to clean up the kills.

1. Lucian and Braum

When players think of classic combos there are a few that come to mind, but none can compare to this unstoppable duo. Despite being a marksman, Lucian is meta partly because he can abuse Conqueror with his passive and keep it stacked up. Braum's job is to zone out enemies and spam Winter's Bite to get his passive started. After that, Lucian just has to follow up and easily finish off his enemies after they get stunned down. Out of all the meta picks on this list, this is certainly one of the hardest to go up against.

I wanted to give an honorable mention to Mordekaiser and Blitzcrank, who make a great duo. Mordekaiser's ability to take people from full health to zero is crazy, and with Blitzcrank to hook in enemies for the final kill, they make for a great combo. But with the gears of this new meta turning, there are bigger fish in the ocean.

Photos courtesy of Riot Games