TL:DR
- Play Jhin comps.
- Rebels are a bit less strong, but probably the third-best comp.
- Protector Mystic is probably really bad.
- Galaxies is dropping and your games should be a bit faster.
Game Changing
- Galaxies are releasing. At the start of every game, you can have one of three Galaxies, or none at all. You either get two Neeko’s Helps, a carousel with only four-costs, start with 25 extra health or have a normal game.
- The odds of seeing a special carousel, like all defensive items for example, has been reduced by 12.5 percent if I did the math correctly. (The two normal starts went from a total of 52 percent to 58 percent).
- Darkstar has been reworked. Now, when one Darkstar champion dies, every Darkstar gets 25 AD and AP at three, and 35 at six. Since Jhin and Shaco scale with AD, 25 AD does not equal 25 AD. This is an insane buff to every Darkstar comp that runs either or both of those champs. Darkstar Jhin and Darkstar Mech will be the two best comps, probably by far. Rebels is getting nerfed, the five-costs are getting nerfed, and Protector Mystics is getting nerfed. The more I think about it, the more I’m convinced this will be disgustingly strong. Oh, and Darkstar buffs the other champions as well which is somewhat relevant on Lux. Did I mention they also buffed Sniper?
- Ziggs requires 12.5 percent more mana to ult. Would you believe me if I told you this was the most impactful nerf to Rebels of the patch? If we look back to my last article, we’ll notice Ziggs and not having a point of weakness are big strengths for Rebels. This nerf fixes both. Since champions get 10 mana every auto attack, Ziggs is essentially getting a 25 percent nerf to his mana, not 12.5 percent. This effectively reduces his ultimate damage by 25 percent, and even further reduces the strength of Luden’s and Morello on him. Rebels players won’t be able to blindly winstreak as a result of this and that’s fantastic news.
- Aurelion Sol does 16.7 and 14.3 percent less damage at levels one and two. This isn’t the game-changing part. He also now targets completely randomly, meaning his damage will be way more spread out instead of bursting your frontline. This is pretty huge lads.
- Champions whose ultimates proc on-hit effects, like Irelia and Ekko, now trigger Statikk Shiv, Guinsoo’s and Runaan’s. I was already building Hurricane on Ekko, so this buff is sick!
Major
- At level eight, there is a 14.3 percent lower chance to get a five-cost champion. This is an attempt at preventing everyone spamming level eight as fast as possible, but we’ll see how impactful it is. Also at level eight, one-costs have a 7.7 percent higher chance of appearing.
- You have five less seconds per planning phase. This should shave a few minutes off your games.
- Mana-Reavers now get the ability of four Mana-Reavers. This means every attack increases the target’s mana cost by 40 percent. I’m assuming this doesn’t stack, but it’s a cute buff if you have Thresh and another Mana-Reaver.
- Mystic gives 16.7 percent more MR at two and 12.5 percent less at four. This is an excellent balance change as I frequently splash two Mystics and it feels pretty weak. Also, Protector Mystic may be dead because of this, but it’s not certain.
- Sniper does 25 percent more damage. Did I talk about Darkstar Jhin comps yet?
- Cait takes 26.7 percent less time to ult and resumes attacking more quickly after ulting. I’ve lost many early rounds because of her ult. This is more major than people may think.
- Darius has 15.4 percent more health. Contrary to popular belief, this champion actually sucks. Look at any challenger stream and they’ll say the same. Giving him more survivability is the play, and a risky one at that. I’m sure Riot’s getting a ton of hate for this buff. Good job on doing the right thing in the face of adversity Riot!
- Xin Zhao requires 20 percent more mana to ult, but deals 14.3, 10 and 7.1 percent more ultimate damage. Although this may seem as game changing as the Ziggs nerf, Xin is a melee champion, meaning he takes damage. So, although it’s a pretty hefty nerf, I don’t think it completely kills the champion nor does it kill Protectors.
- Ezreal requires 25 percent more mana to ult for the first time and 4.1 percent every time after. You just throw this champion in with Jinx and get winstreaks. It’s an excellent nerf I wasn’t even thinking about.
- Gangplank requires 16.7 percent more mana to ult after his first cast and does 30.8 and 29.4 percent less ultimate damage at levels one and two. The major problem with GP is his first cast is way too easy to get off. You can literally put a tear on him and put him as your sole frontline unit. That role should only be reserved for tanks, not one-shot damage dealers. Without AP and as a level one unit, this is a huge nerf, but level two, or with AP items, he should function pretty much the same. And if you got two ults off, you would’ve won the fight anyway, so I think that change is completely meaningless.
- Warmogs regenerates 25 percent more health. That’s a lot of health bro!
- Miss Fortune now properly turns when she isn’t hitting any units. Did someone say Miss Fortune isn’t working as intended?
Minor
- Six Blademasters have a 9.1 percent higher chance to proc. I’ve seen six Blademasters being a good comp to eventually pivot away from; could be good.
- Four Brawlers have 6.6 percent less health. This is borderline irrelevant.
- Kassadin requires 20 percent less mana to ult. He has solid synergies, so he may be more viable, but I’m not really certain how impactful this will be. I’d really like a reason to make him level two, but we’ll see.
- Soraka’s ultimate requires 16.7 percent less mana and heals for 16.7 and 11.1 percent more health at levels one and two. I rarely see this champion, and I have a feeling this won’t change much, but maybe the buff to two Mystics will prove me wrong. She definitely seems like a great temporary unit until you find Lulu, but I don’t think I have a reason to run her over Lulu, Sona or Karma.
- Vel’koz requires 12.5 percent less mana to ult. I’ve seen this champion probably less than 10 times. Sorcs are getting a buff also, but it isn’t visible, so I have no idea what to tell you about this buff.
- Wukong has 11.7 percent more health. There is a Jhin variant that runs him, and he is a really bad unit considering he’s a four-cost, so this should put him in line with other champions of his tier. At least he’ll be better than Soraka.
- Ekko got really small nerfs to his ultimate damage. I don’t care to math this out because it’s dwarfed by the buffs to his itemization.
- Lulu attacks 5.9 percent more slowly. It did feel she got her ult off a bit too quickly, so this is a nice nerf. Good job.
- Miss Fortune requires 16.7 percent more mana to ult after her first cast and does 14.3 and 12.5 percent less damage at levels one and two. Something something, same reason the GP nerf isn’t too big, something something, she still crits with Valkyrie. Also, she has less attack speed I guess.
- Morellonomicon and Redbuff deal 10 percent less damage. Overused items; good nerf.
- Statikk Shiv deals 6.7 percent more damage. I think I’ve seen this item less than five times in set three. With the changes to on-hit, we may see it played a bit more, but I don’t think so.
- Lucian’s ult now properly counts toward Blaster attacks.
Insignificant
- When leveling up champions, items bounce off based on what items are equipped to the champion on board instead of being random. I haven’t run into this in set three, but had a handful of situations where this would’ve been relevant in set two.
- Xayah attacks 6.7 percent faster. Xayah isn’t a champion, but rather a caster minion with longer range. As such, this is almost irrelevant. If you get enough gold and a bad enough shop, then maybe this applies, but I’m pretty sure the champion combining thing is more important.
- I’m required to say the last sentence was exaggeration. Xayah is a fine champion who’s trying her hardest.
- Zoe does more damage at level three and ults more times or something. I’ve seen this unit even fewer times than Xayah, so I’m not even bothering with mathing this out.
- Sorcs are supposed to be getting a buff, but it isn’t listed anywhere. Not sure about this one chief.
Compositions
The comps are probably going to be the same, just with their strength flipped. Please note that the invisible Sorcs buff could heavily affect this.
Darkstar Jhin
Play this comp. Also, I'm required to tell you that the three most popular items are IE, Hurricane, GA. I disagree, but I'm only D$ at the moment.
Darkstar Mech
I have no idea how to play the comp. Just go seven and get a level three Shaco is what I've been told. Darkstar's OP.
Also, I've been told by an anonymous source that Bloodthirster, RFC and Shojin are the three best items on him, but I think he's a liar, so we'll just go with my items.
Rebels
This is still probably one of the best comps unfortunately. You can also stack AP on Kayle if you're forced to by the way.
Cybernetics
Do you like winstreaking? Well, I got the comp for you!
Put Red buff on Lucian and enjoy winning all of stage two.
Put random items on everyone else, either Thief's Gloves or IE, GA on Irelia, stack Ekko, and put a random AP item on Kayle. Enjoy!
Brawler Gunslingers
I've seen this comp a few times and heard of it, but it literally had a zero percent first-place rate in top-10 Challenger, so I didn't include it. However, it does seem promising, and could be a good choice if you randomly get a bunch of Lucians and Ezreals early.
Also, I subbed out Vi and Malphite for Thresh, Wukong as I think those champions will probably serve you better in the late game. I'm not 100 percent sure about this as I've never played the comp, but it should be pretty good as I used basically this frontline in one of my Jhin variants.
