League of Legends LXVIII: "MY PICK'EMS!" Part II: Who Didn't Get Out of Groups?

[Ashen Lilies]

Tyrant Swain's probably going to be a lot better in about 2 and a half weeks...

Edit:

Spoiler: Echo Fox vs. Whoever the hell they played

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TOP LUCIAN RIDES AGAIN!

[Dallas-Dakota]

I'm still pissed off that they're going to change Swain. I absolutely adore his kit, the versatility of the champion and the playstyle that goes around it.

I get that his image doesn't match his ''general of Noxus'' image from the Lore at all but I don't give two ****s about the Lore. I care about the champion that I've been playing for seven years now staying enjoyable to play and/or the same.


I have no desire to go around collecting ''souls'' so my ult works. Moving through the enemy team, zoning with Beatrice, snaring the whole enemy team with Nevermove and baiting people before popping Zhonya's to switch it all up afterwards and being able to focus and burst one person. That makes me feel like the battlemage on the field, the tag that Riot has given him. He has more than enough strategy in his kit to be called general. Only his E is a bit boring but 3 out of 4 still makes for a very enjoyable kit!

R.I.P.

[Ivellius]

I miss so many of the champions that were reworked. Sejuani (tremendously), Evelynn (to be fair, I haven't tried new one), Taric, old Warwick because I haven't played the new one enough to figure out how to make him work, Rek'sai, Aatrox (hate his new passive)...I've got a bunch of champions with high mastery scores that have seen reworks over the past year or so. Sure, some had problems, but most of those problems were no worse than Azir or Yasuo being in the game.

I bet original Karma would be pretty good right now.

[Olinser]

I'm still pissed off that they're going to change Swain. I absolutely adore his kit, the versatility of the champion and the playstyle that goes around it.

I get that his image doesn't match his ''general of Noxus'' image from the Lore at all but I don't give two ****s about the Lore. I care about the champion that I've been playing for seven years now staying enjoyable to play and/or the same.


I have no desire to go around collecting ''souls'' so my ult works. Moving through the enemy team, zoning with Beatrice, snaring the whole enemy team with Nevermove and baiting people before popping Zhonya's to switch it all up afterwards and being able to focus and burst one person. That makes me feel like the battlemage on the field, the tag that Riot has given him. He has more than enough strategy in his kit to be called general. Only his E is a bit boring but 3 out of 4 still makes for a very enjoyable kit!

R.I.P.

My problem is that so many champions are in dire need of reworks from a gameplay perspective, and they choose to rework a champion that, while definitely not having the best kit, has a reasonable play rate and isn't particularly high or low in win rate, and they rework him because 'the lore' allegedly doesn't match his play style. As though they haven't ludicrously altered the lore for multiple champions already *cough* PANTHEON *cough*

[Ashen Lilies]

Disagree with Sejuani, Evelynn, and Taric. Well, I didn't play the old Taric all that much and I play the new Taric still pretty infrequently and enjoy it much more than the old Taric, but I played the crap out of old Sej and old Evelynn (my second-most played champion after Miss Fortune, actually), and I still play the crap out of them now. New Sej and new Eve have much more interesting and complete kits than either of the old ones did. I'm still not quite as good at new Eve than I was at old Eve, but I feel like the stuff I already am doing is more interesting, even if it's not snowballing me to victory as consistently, and I can tell there's a lot more cool stuff I could be doing more often (I almost never ult backwards for the gapcloser, for example) and tricks it will be fun to learn, in addition to just getting more consistent and winning more often with her.

I hesitate to include Aatrox in the list, because his changes weren't really a rework, just a bandaid change to make him slightly less broken pending a more complete rework down the line - he's currently slotted in after Irelia.

We haven't seen Swain's new kit yet. He's still turning in to a bird, and I believe they still intend for him to be a battle mage. As far as I can tell, it seems more like they're reworking his lore to be more in line with his playstyle, downplaying the 'Master Tactician' aspects while reinforcing that he's a ruthless and (literally...?) bloodthirsty general who dabbles in dangerous magic, while updating the gameplay as well, rather than updating gameplay for the sake of lore. Much like the upcoming Irelia rework, their goals for the next couple of reworks seems to be "this is already pretty good, but it could be a lot better" (Irelia's kit is already functional and has relatively deep gameplay, but the execution feels like "generic fighter #27" rather than "I control my blades with my mind", which is what the goal of the rework is going to be) rather than "this is broken, so it needs to be fixed".

Edit: Source 1. Swain described as the "raven general" instead of the "master tactician", artwork has him walking through a field of corpses. Definitely a lore update for the sake of gameplay, rather than vice versa. There's another source where they explain "why Swain and Irelia" instead of more broken champions, it might have been an AMA/reddit comment instead of a devblog, I'll see if I can dig it up.

Edit Edit: inb4 "riot shill, hates negativity" - I think the LeBlanc rework is straight garbage.

[Ivellius]

I played the crap out of old Sej and old Evelynn (my second-most played champion after Miss Fortune, actually), and I still play the crap out of them now.

Sejuani was my highest mastery champion before her rework. I got frustrated playing normals on random champs and losing one day, so I cranked out two Sejuani games to get two more tokens for Mastery 7--she was the first one I got there. I really just miss the old version. I build full tank and still did way more damage than people would think, and diving towers a couple of items in was always feasible. The old ultimate was just a "you win this fight" if you landed it on people. She definitely suffered from being way too similar to Amumu, though, so whichever was better at any given moment was better to pick.

To be honest--I actually like the new version of Sejuani, too, but I think I was better with the old one.

[Ashen Lilies]

New Sej doesn't AoE murder entire teams over time like the old one did, but her single-target burst right now is actually hilarious and has exposed me to many salty flames. It's been nerfed a little bit, but the unexpected double-Frostbite* proc is still devastating and fully capable of 100-0 killing someone.

*Q-W-auto-E-walk back-R-W. It double-procs the max-health Frostbite damage (as your ult will ALWAYS apply Frostbite, even on targets that have previously been Frostbitten), and they're CC'd the entire time. Much salt ensues.

[Dienekes]

I miss so many of the champions that were reworked. Sejuani (tremendously), Evelynn (to be fair, I haven't tried new one), Taric, old Warwick because I haven't played the new one enough to figure out how to make him work, Rek'sai, Aatrox (hate his new passive)...I've got a bunch of champions with high mastery scores that have seen reworks over the past year or so. Sure, some had problems, but most of those problems were no worse than Azir or Yasuo being in the game.

I bet original Karma would be pretty good right now.

Mate I still miss old!Poppy. Now her gameplay was kinda busted, but holy **** this new one will not shut up! This naive moron with her bad hammer puns and obnoxious giggle. I will never understand why anyone decided to go the exact opposite personality with a champion and think that makes sense.

My problem is that so many champions are in dire need of reworks from a gameplay perspective, and they choose to rework a champion that, while definitely not having the best kit, has a reasonable play rate and isn't particularly high or low in win rate, and they rework him because 'the lore' allegedly doesn't match his play style. As though they haven't ludicrously altered the lore for multiple champions already *cough* PANTHEON *cough*

Here’s the thing. As much as I complain, and am oh so happy to get on the rework hate train. Especially when my main man gets brought up. I think what they’re doing actually does make some sense.

They’re trying to create a LoL brand. So all the old characters that were basically shout outs to pop culture are getting rewritten to fit their new world. Pantheon was just “Spartan on a mountain.” Shaco was “Joker” then they hinted instead he’d be more like It. And then It made a comeback and now he’s evil Pinocchio.

So they’re trying to create ways to make them unique. You want to play a dragon? Well sure we’ll give you a dragon but he’s gonna be a star dragon that’s actually like a god or something. And really just doesn’t do anything that remotely feels like something a dragon would do ourside of maybe their ult.

Swain has two aspects to him: weird bird Mage and greatest general that ever lived. Generals are generic. Bird Mages are unique to LoL. Of course they focused on the evil birds. Even if greatest general was always far more interesting than another evil Mage. Irelia is a telekinetic sword lich. That’s unique. They’re gonna play up that angle.

Unfortunately, I honestly think about 3/4 of the lore that Riot writes is crap. I don’t care about the super unique space parasite war god you made. I want to play the damn Spartan.

[Techwarrior]

Calling Aatrox a band-aid change feels incredibly disingenuous. The change completely changed his ability to zone and duel in lane, and it made his jungle ganks way less effective. Before as long as you had at least a third bloodwell, you could flash Q, into your combo and have a solid amount in your well for your passive. Now, you have a toggle passive similar to Gnar, which makes him less able to turn and engage. It's makes it really difficult to maintain your passive, which is really the only way you can effectively duel.

[Nadevoc]

I think it was a band-aid change, designed to slap a window of opportunity around his power. That was really needed. Unfortunately, it's kind of a botched attempt and lets any smart opponent play around your window of opportunity super easily.

Does Swain have a full rework coming before Aatrox? Because that's absurd

[Ashen Lilies]

Swain -> Irelia -> Aatrox. Swain's has been in development for a while.

[Olinser]

I think it was a band-aid change, designed to slap a window of opportunity around his power. That was really needed. Unfortunately, it's kind of a botched attempt and lets any smart opponent play around your window of opportunity super easily.

Does Swain have a full rework coming before Aatrox? Because that's absurd

Yes. Swain is the next rework that will be released. As far as I know the reworks are going to be Swain, then Irelia, then Aatrox.

[Techwarrior]

Why did Aatrox need a window of opportunity for his revive passive? Anivia hasn't seen any such change? He was never a dominant laner or jungler, even during devourer. The only other thing his passive did was give him a small attack speed boost, which was helpful and noticeable, but only towards the top end of his resource bar. If your resource bar was full, it was because you were jungling and spamming abilities, or you were pushing lane hard. Either way it made him exploitable.

[Olinser]

Why did Aatrox need a window of opportunity for his revive passive? Anivia hasn't seen any such change? He was never a dominant laner or jungler, even during devourer. The only other thing his passive did was give him a small attack speed boost, which was helpful and noticeable, but only towards the top end of his resource bar. If your resource bar was full, it was because you were jungling and spamming abilities, or you were pushing lane hard. Either way it made him exploitable.

Anivia passive leaves the egg completely vulnerable and easy to burst by more than 1 person, and even if they didn't burst it left them at low health. Aatrox passive left him invulnerable and dropped aggro until he regenerated - meaning he could dive towers without fear and get out with no consequences.

[Techwarrior]

Aatrox passive also left him at lower health, and he was a melee character as opposed to a ranged mage. The argument of tower diving is kind of nullified there. The invulnerability while reviving was one of the draws to his kit. Draining his bloodwell to get life back was also a HUGE downside, as you no longer benefited from his passive attack speed.

I'm not sure we see eye to eye on this. I think he needed the invulnerability because he was a melee character meant to go in. Anivia is a backline mage, so her not getting that makes a bit more sense.

[Nadevoc]

The difference is that the rest of Anivia's kit wasn't as oppressive (ignoring that Aatrox's numbers were all nerfed into suckage). She's a slow-moving zone control mage. You can dodge her Q. You can jump on top of her and smash her face in. You can simple outmaneuver her and go to a different objective.

Aatrox, on the other hand, is all about "my numbers are bigger than yours". He's melee, but with a gap-closer and a range slow and so he's decently hard to kite. You can't just stand and fight him because that's what he wants to do. So either his numbers were high enough to let him do that and he was completely oppressive, or his numbers are too low and he's worthless. Giving a window of opportunity allows him to be good but not completely oppressive, when it's done right.

Also, Aatrox could quite easily keep is resource bar full without pushing or fighting because every time you cast an ability, you reset the fall-off timer for it. I did it all the time; just occasionally toss an E into nothing, and the timer's reset.

[Ashen Lilies]

Xenik's got it on this one. Aatrox's kit meant he was either Stronger Than You or Nerfmaster Suck Town. The idea of the passive is that he's occasionally allowed to be a lot stronger, and then isn't for a little while. You can pretty reliably start an all-in from 2 bars, with your QE-third hit pushing you over the top, sort of like Ryze one rework ago. Once you hit 6 you can pretty reliably hit the full passive from nearly a cold start as well. The execution is just sort of rough in that his lack of base stats (mostly the attack speed) means he's just in a state of constant Feelsbad when he's not in his rage mode.

[Ivellius]

Xenik's got it on this one. Aatrox's kit meant he was either Stronger Than You or Nerfmaster Suck Town. The idea of the passive is that he's occasionally allowed to be a lot stronger, and then isn't for a little while. You can pretty reliably start an all-in from 2 bars, with your QE-third hit pushing you over the top, sort of like Ryze one rework ago. Once you hit 6 you can pretty reliably hit the full passive from nearly a cold start as well. The execution is just sort of rough in that his lack of base stats (mostly the attack speed) means he's just in a state of constant Feelsbad when he's not in his rage mode.

The idea of his passive isn't unique to the new version; it's just more windowed. Old one still had to fill the Blood Well (and juggled health costs to do so), and you were obviously much weaker once your revive was popped. New one is still a stat stick, but it feels frustrating to use more so than rewarding to get your passive up.

I'd feel better about the new version if it felt like there was much Aatrox could do to keep his passive running effectively. Currently it feels like if you get it going, they can just walk away for a few seconds and come back stronger than you are in lane. Jungle feels better on that front, but then it's hard to use your passive in ganks.

[Nadevoc]

The old one really didn't feel windowed except for the cooldown. It was easy to get charged up with minimal exposure to any risk, and you could super easily hold it at full bloodwell through laning phase. And yeah, there were some health costs to get it running, but they were pretty minimal and countered by the fact that you had a whole bunch of free healing just for hitting things. Him being allowed to keep the passive running was exactly the issue with the old version. Him not being allowed to is the issue with the new one. You can't fix the kit through tweaking the passive.

[Dallas-Dakota]

We haven't seen Swain's new kit yet. He's still turning in to a bird, and I believe they still intend for him to be a battle mage. As far as I can tell, it seems more like they're reworking his lore to be more in line with his playstyle, downplaying the 'Master Tactician' aspects while reinforcing that he's a ruthless and (literally...?) bloodthirsty general who dabbles in dangerous magic, while updating the gameplay as well, rather than updating gameplay for the sake of lore. Much like the upcoming Irelia rework, their goals for the next couple of reworks seems to be "this is already pretty good, but it could be a lot better" (Irelia's kit is already functional and has relatively deep gameplay, but the execution feels like "generic fighter #27" rather than "I control my blades with my mind", which is what the goal of the rework is going to be) rather than "this is broken, so it needs to be fixed".

Edit: Source 1. Swain described as the "raven general" instead of the "master tactician", artwork has him walking through a field of corpses. Definitely a lore update for the sake of gameplay, rather than vice versa. There's another source where they explain "why Swain and Irelia" instead of more broken champions, it might have been an AMA/reddit comment instead of a devblog, I'll see if I can dig it up.

This leak seems to imply a lot of skill changes, not just lore. Also, this has been confirmed by Reav3.

Oh wel, even fewer champions that I like a lot. I'm stuck with only Lux and Veigar now. I guess Miss Fortune, Nasus and Anivia are ok.
If they ever ruin Lux I'm going to quit League after 8 years of playing.

[Ivellius]

Did placements mainly because Riot gave me missions to, and 5-5 into Gold IV is pretty tolerable.

How goes the climb for others, if you want to share?

[Olinser]

Did placements mainly because Riot gave me missions to, and 5-5 into Gold IV is pretty tolerable.

How goes the climb for others, if you want to share?

I have not yet braved the wretched quagmire of salt and hate that is the reset que. I'll probably start this week after some of the worst are through.

[Ivellius]

I have not yet braved the wretched quagmire of salt and hate that is the reset que. I'll probably start this week after some of the worst are through.

This is the most fitting description, but I did actually meet some nice people. There was a duo bot named "For Rakan" and "For Xayah" in one of my games.

[Anarion]

Did placements mainly because Riot gave me missions to, and 5-5 into Gold IV is pretty tolerable.

How goes the climb for others, if you want to share?

That's actually pretty good. I went 5-5 ed: 6-4 into silver I, to my minor annoyance. Probably because I didn't play as much last season, so I ended in gold V, and now I have to fight my way back into gold.

I honestly didn't even find the games that bad. People will get angry if you mess up, but y'know, it's messing up, just ignore them and try your best going forward in the game.

[Ashen Lilies]

7-3 in placements, dropped from Gold III to placing in Gold IV.

Now I gotta figure out if I actually want to try for Plat this season or just not give a crap like I usually do (I don't even need to play more ranked games than 10 this time!)

[9mm]

https://na.leagueoflegends.com/us/fe...n-reveal-swain

Goodbye Swain you were fun but Riot didn't love you.

[Anarion]

The Swain rework is amazing. I think he looks incredibly fun to play, the aesthetics are awesome, and I look forward to trying him out!

[Dienekes]

https://na.leagueoflegends.com/us/fe...n-reveal-swain

Goodbye Swain you were fun but Riot didn't love you.

Well, huh, not the look I was expecting.

Looks like a mix of old Fabio and that general in the new Star Wars movies.

[9mm]

Well, huh, not the look I was expecting.

Looks like a mix of old Fabio and that general in the new Star Wars movies.

I just see Lucius Malfoy doing a bad cosplay of Vladimir.

[PhantomFox]

Those cheekbones say Grand Moff Tarkin to me, which I have a feeling is intentional. Also, that Q: UNLIMITED POWAAAAAH! *zap*