Soraka vs Mel Counter Pick

Rebuttal is the skill that defines this matchup. Mel’s barrier sends enemy projectiles back to whoever launched them and blocks damage completely, so any trade into her depends on which projectiles are in the air. Starcall is not a projectile. It places a star at a chosen spot, dealing damage and slowing on impact, and it restores health to Soraka each time it catches an enemy champion. The Starchild can keep poking while the barrier is up, then turn that healing into an ally with Astral Infusion. Mel’s own kill path goes through Solar Snare into stacked Overwhelm marks for Golden Eclipse, and that combo only works if the target stays still long enough to be hit.

Both supports have a level 550 attack range and both scale with magic damage, so neither can poke the other from outside reach, and both lean toward magic resistance over armor. Mel is the sturdier body, with 630 base health and 2,313 at level 18 compared with Soraka’s 605 and 2,101, although her base armor is only 21. She also rates a five on the difficulty scale, two points above Soraka’s three. Over 407 games on patch 16.13.1, Soraka wins 63.4 percent of the time against Mel, and a sample that large makes the easy rating hard to write off as chance. The moment that usually decides it is Equinox landing on the snare’s position, because a silenced Mel has no way to follow up with Golden Eclipse.