Tournament VoDs: Week 5

type='html'>R1G1: Blitzcrank-Graves vs Thresh-Urgot
R1G2: Taric-Graves vs Leona-Tristana
R1G3: Janna-Caitlyn vs Leona-Draven
R1G4: Leona-Ezreal vs Thresh-Varus
R2G1: Blitzcrank-Sivir vs Taric-Caitlyn (The recording skipped about 30 minutes here, so this is somewhat into the match already.)
R2G2: Lulu-Caitlyn vs Sona-Ezreal
Finals: Blitzcrank-Miss Fortune vs Lulu-Caitlyn
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Botlane Tournament VoDs: Week 12

type='html'>My stream:

R1G2: Vayne-Taric vs Ezreal-Lulu
R1G4: Varus-Nami vs Graves-Taric
R1G6: Miss Fortune-Sona vs Caitlyn-Taric
R1G8: Miss Fortune-Sona vs Ashe-Lulu
R2G1: Draven-Leona vs Caitlyn-Nunu
R2G4: Draven-Taric vs Tristana-Janna
R3G1: Draven-Tresh vs Graves-Blitzcrank
R3G2: Tristana-Taric vs Quinn-Sona
Finals: Graves-Thresh vs Quinn-Sona

Zarikai's stream, Its PJ casting:

R1G1: Caitlyn-Lulu vs Ezreal-Sona
R1G3: Varus-Thresh vs Ezreal-Sona
R1G5: Varus-Thresh vs Quinn-Sona Part 2
R1G7: Twitch-Janna vs Miss Fortune-Lulu

Thanks Tippani for compiling <3


SNSS today!  And I'm in the middle of writing a thing about leveling Lulu's skills early on, hopefully should finish that tomorrow.
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Botlane Tournament: Week 7 VoDs

type='html'>R1G1: Leona-Tristana vs Taric-Miss Fortune
R1G2: Leona-Ezreal vs Blitzcrank-Caitlyn
R1G3: Sona-Miss Fortune vs Varus-Lulu
R1G4: Janna-Draven vs Nami-Miss Fortune
R2G1: Alistar-Caitlyn vs Sona-Ezreal
R2G2: Soraka-Miss Fortune vs Sona-Corki
Finals: Leona-Ezreal vs Janna-Tristana

Half-bracket this week, since I was casting another event ahead of time and so didn't have time to do a 16-team bracket.  I'll announce this Wednesday whether there will be a tournament this coming Saturday; I might have to take off one week to write a couple final papers, and I'd rather cancel this for a week than cancel the SNSS right after bringing it back.

I've also been updating my Sona guide, so check it out!  (Change log at the bottom, below the charts section)
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NA SNSS VoDs: 21 April

type='html'>ARAM
Novice Game
Intermediate Game
Various Game
Advanced Game
ABAM

If you played or watched, please fill out the feedback form here!  I'm especially looking for feedback on whether the various game is a good idea, especially if you played in it.

And of course thanks Tippani for compiling the list of start times.
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Heimer's VU Will Not Launch With His Kit Rework, Riot Talks Various VUs, Rank Decay Explained, Fixing High Ping, Chow Time

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Botlane Tournament VoDs: Week 9

type='html'>R1G1: Sona-Ezreal vs Twitch-Thresh
R1G2: Alistar-Varus vs Leona-Draven
R1G3: Nunu-Vayne vs Lulu-Cait
R1G4: Leona-Caitlyn vs Blitzcrank-Graves
R2G1: Leona-Caitlyn vs Lulu-Miss Fortune
R2G2: Nunu-Caitlyn vs Taric-Tristana
Finals: Leona-Tristana vs Lulu-Miss Fortune

VoD is split into two parts for this week because I bluescreened in the middle.  Thanks to dajjbomb for compiling the entire list for me!!

My excuses for not doing this myself last week (and also the general lack of posts recently) are that I've been (gasp) playing League.  And also I was casting another tournament Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday nights (VoDs here, here, and here).  And also SNSS.

I'm casting for LRSS now, so you might be able to find me streaming on their streams (here and here) sometimes.  If you don't know what LRSS is, I definitely encourage you to look it up---it's a great opportunity for bronze/silver/maybe gold players to play competitive games, and they're casted, which is always awesome.

And finally, I'll leave my thoughts about the Nami buff (her ult base CD being reduced from 140 seconds to 120 seconds at level 1)...WOW!!  She's going to be pretty good against Sona now.  And less bad against Lulu...a LOT less bad against Lulu.  It also makes MF/Nami a strong combo, because their ults now have the same CD.  The range buff is also going to help; I've definitely missed ults by like 100 range more times than I care to remember.
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PBE Updates explained, Morello on Janna/Aura items, Xelnath examines Rengar, Future Caitlyn and the new Rotation and Sale!

 

 

Riot releases Context notes on the recent PBE changes we’ve seen, explaining each of their decisions (links to each are at the bottom of the article), Xelnath shares his thoughts on Scarizard‘s proposed Rengar tweaks, Morello… Read more…

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PBE: Golem Spirit Nerf, Morello on Poppy/Karma/TF/Jungle Issues, New Rengar buffs, Fog of War problems and Nami art!

 

 

PBE‘s getting updated with buffs to Aegis and Locket and a nerf to Spirit of the Ancient Golem, as well as the updated Champion Roles, Rengar‘s getting a damage amplification buff, Morello discusses an upcoming Poppy… Read more…

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Lyte on Player Behavior, Matchmaking, Permabans and Tribunal-related Systems, Designing Item Icons & Reworking Champion Visuals, WCC Ticker Pre-order, New Rotation and Sale!

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PBE: Nerfs to Vayne and AP Lucian, Xypherous on Phage, Arcane Helix, LoL’s New Site, Update to Olaf’s Kit and the latest Sale!

 

PBE Update featuring the jungle changes mentioned by RiotPwyff, reverted health gains on Spirit of the Ancient Golem, some harsh nerfs for Vayne and the death of AP Lucian, community questions regarding the recently implemented Undo Last Purchase… Read more…

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Mercy Vote: Anti-AFK System, Update to Galio, Lyte on Positive features, Visual Overhaul for Summoner’s Rift and the latest Sale!

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PBE Update: Karma/New TF Passive, Rioters discuss Olaf, Rengar and Warwick, Champion Roles Reassessed and New Sale!

 

 

New PBE Update brings changes to Karma and Twisted Fate‘s Passive as well as a brand new feature – an Undo Last Purchase button! SmashGizmo discusses Olaf’s Combos and possible improvements, Morello reviews the state of Warwick… Read more…

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Patch 3.10 – Big Changes to Elise/Master Yi/Ryze/TF, New MR Items, Jungle Nerfs // Rioters discuss Skarner and Rengar!

 

Preview of Patch 3.10, featuring massive changes to Elise, Ryze and Twisted Fate, Master Yi’s reworked kit, nerfs to jungle camp timers, new death animations for Spirit Guard Udyr, new Magic Resist items… Read more…

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New Free Champion Rotation (Season Three: Week 24)

type='html'>

This week's champion pool is kinda boring...it is free Karthus week though, that's always interesting...might want to try out Leblanc or Akali this week.

• Corki - 3150 IP / 790 RP
• Graves - 6300 IP / 975 RP
• Jayce - 6300 IP / 975 RP
• Karthus - 3150 IP / 790 RP
• Malphite - 1350 IP / 585 RP
• Malzahar - 4800 IP / 880 RP
• Olaf - 3150 IP / 790 RP
• Soraka - 450 IP / 260 RP
• Volibear - 6300 IP / 975 RP
• Zed - 6300 IP / 975 RP

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Official Patch 3.9 Notes

type='html'>Check out the official Patch 3.9 notes below!

Nerfs: Hecarim, Kayle, Kennen, Nunu
Buffs: Corki, Malzahar, Shyvana, Ziggs
Tweaks: Brand, Draven, Jayce, Leblanc

Champions

Brand
Pillar of Flame

• Mana cost reduced to 70/75/80/85/90 from 70/80/90/100/110

Conflagration

• Mana cost increased to 70/75/80/85/90 from 60/65/70/75/80

Pyroclasm

• Mana cost reduced to 100/100/100 from 100/150/200

---

Corki

A common Corki complaint is that he feels extremely mana constrained by the cost of Phosphorus Bomb. However, after looking at his abilities, Phosphorus Bomb needs to be expensive to balance out its lack of counterplay. So we instead reduced the cost on some of his other spells to make mana less of a constraint overall.

Valkyrie

• Mana cost reduced to 50 from 100

Missile Barrage

• Mana cost reduced to 20 from 30/35/40

---

Draven

We lowered the early game damage output Draven got from his passive since it wasn't adding much in terms of satisfying gameplay. Unfortunately, to get the numbers right, we realized we would need to reduce his passive damage to a point where it would be even less satisfying. We instead opted to rework Draven's passive altogether into something that reinforces his current gameplay, something so… Draven… even his opponents will feel begrudged to applaud: Welcome… to the League of Draven.

League of Draven (New Passive)

• When Draven catches a Spinning Axe, or kills a minion or monster, he gains one stack of Adoration. When Draven kills an enemy champion, he consumes half of his Adoration stacks and gains 3 gold per stack consumed. Draven loses half of his Adoration stacks upon death.

---

Evelynn

Agony's Embrace

• Fixed a bug where the Sated buff and visual effect appeared when Evelynn hit only spell-shielded targets (visual change only)

---

Hecarim

Rampage

• Mana cost increased to 24/28/32/36/40 from 25

---

Janna

Monsoon

• Fixed a bug where the buff icon countdown didn't properly match the 4-second channeling time

---

Jayce

By increasing the cooldown on Jayce's Acceleration Gate, we can keep his Shock Blast + Acceleration Gate combo impactful while toning down his poke and disengage potential. In addition, since later in the game not every Shock Blast will be accelerated, we've increased the base speed of the ability to make it better as a standalone skillshot.

Shock Blast

• Basic missile speed increased to 1450 from 1350 (Accelerated Shock Blast missile speed remains the same)

Acceleration Gate

• Cooldown increased to 16 seconds from 14/13/12/11/10

---

Kayle

Righteous Fury

• AoE effect no longer affects towers

---

Kennen

Yordle-made shurikens seemed a little too sharp and pointy, so we've tuned down some of Kennen's early game lane harass given how much teamfight potential he has.

• Base Attack Damage at level 1 reduced to 50.5 from 54.6

Mark of the Storm

• Mark duration reduced to 6 seconds from 8

---

LeBlanc

LeBlanc's Mimic was less a decision point and more of a tool to one-shot someone with Sigil of Silence. These changes aim to make Mimic equally interesting with other skills. For one, Mimicked abilities will now deal their own base damage instead of amplifying the base spell. This means players will be able to use Mimic in more creative ways at level 6, rather than saving it for Sigil of Silence. Additionally, Sigil of Silence will now deal less damage up front but more damage on detonation in order to better promote LeBlanc's multi-skill interaction.

Mirror Image

• The Mirror Image will now attempt to run instead of standing still

Sigil of Silence

• Mana cost reduced to 50/60/70/80/90 from 70/75/80/85/90
• Damage changed to 55/80/105/130/155 (+0.4 Ability Power) for both initial impact damage and mark detonation damage
• Impact damage was 70/110/150/190/230 (+0.6 Ability Power)
• Mark damage was 20/40/60/80/100 (+0.2 Ability Power)
• Silence duration reduced to 1.5 seconds from 2

Distortion

• Cooldown now starts on cast rather than after returning to your Distortion
• Mana cost increased to 80/90/100/110/120 from 80
• Fixed a bug where Distortion was visible in the fog of war

Ethereal Chains

• Slow duration (and time until root) reduced to 1.5 seconds from 2
• Root duration changed to 1.5 seconds from 1/1.3/1.6/1.9/2.2
• Cooldown increased to 14/13/12/11/10 seconds from 10

Mimic

• Mana cost reduced to 0 from 100/50/0
• All mimicked abilities now deal their own base damage instead of amplifying the base spell's damage

Mimic: Sigil of Silence

• Now deals 100/200/300 (+0.65 Ability Power) damage once on impact and again if the mark is detonated

Mimic: Distortion

• Cooldown now starts on cast rather than after returning to your Distortion
• Now deals 150/300/450 (+0.975 Ability Power) damage on impact

Mimic: Ethereal Chains

• Now deals 100/200/300 (+0.65 Ability Power) damage once on impact and again if the target is rooted

---

Malzahar

Call of the Void

• Now correctly grants vision on the entire line path
• Damaged targets will now always become visible

Malefic Visions

• Will now jump when active on a zombified champion (i.e. Karthus, Kog'Maw, Zyra, etc.)

---

Master Yi

Double Strike

• Fixed a bug where Guinsoo's Rageblade wasn't properly giving 2 stacks

---

Morgana

Dark Binding

• Fixed a bug where Dark Binding wasn't properly snaring stealthed Champions

---

Nasus

Siphoning Strike

• Bonus damage now displayed as a buff on Nasus

---

Nautilus

Dredge Line

• No longer travels through some walls

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Nunu

We've reduced the overall damage of Consume to prevent it from outsmiting Smite at rank one.

• Health per level reduced to 96 from 108

Consume

• Damage reduced to 500/625/750/875/1000 from 600/700/800/900/1000

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Orianna

Command: Protect

• Orianna now gains a passive range indicator that shows the range at which The Ball will return to her when attached to an allied Champion.

---

Pantheon

Spear Shot

• Fixed a bug where Spear Shot was not scaling with bonus Critical Strike damage when hitting an enemy below 15% Health

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Riven

Broken Wings

• Fixed a bug that made it possible to chain more than 3 strikes

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Shen

Ki Strike

• Fixed a bug where the visual effect wasn't properly appearing at the start of the game

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Shyvana

We're repositioning Flame Breath as a core tool for objective control and faster jungle clear, while also emphasizing its use as a “burn down” ability to be followed up with auto attacks against tankier fighters. We've also fixed a long-standing bug with Shyvana's Burnout where it wasn't scaling with attack damage while in Dragon form. This fix - along with her increased fury gains and reduced fury decay – will help her in late game teamfights. Lastly, we've moved the descriptions of her previous passive effects to their new ability tooltips to help centralize information.

Fury of the Dragonborn - Remade. All Fury of the Dragonborn effects have been moved to their respective abilities.

• Dragonborn - Gains 5/10/15/20 Armor and Magic Resist. These bonuses are doubled in Dragon Form.

Flame Breath

• No longer reduces Armor by 15%
• Now passes through all units hit instead of stopping at the first
• Debuff duration increased to 5 seconds from 4
• Damage reduced to 80/115/150/185/220 from 80/125/170/215/260
• On-hit magic damage to debuffed targets changed to 2% of the target's maximum Health from 15% of Flame Breath's damage (12/18.75/25.5/32.25/39 + 0.09 Ability Power).

Burnout

• Fixed a bug where Burnout wasn't scaling with attack damage when Shyvana was in Dragon form

Dragon's Descent

• Passive Armor/Magic Resistance component removed
• Passive Fury Gain increased to 1/2/3 per 1.5 seconds from 1/1/1
• Fury decay while in Dragon Form reduced to 5 per second from 6 per second

---

Thresh

• After initially using Death Sentence the tooltip will now describe his Death Leap ability

---

Twitch

Hide in Shadows

• Fixed a bug where Twitch could revive in stealth when Guardian Angel or Chrono Shift was active on him

---

Vayne

Final Hour

• Stealth from Final Hour will now properly be broken upon launching a basic attack

---

Zac

Elastic Slingshot

• Fixed a bug where aiming could preemptively break the targets' spell shields

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Ziggs

We wanted to make it easier and more rewarding for Ziggs to use Satchel Charge offensively, whether by detonating it immediately or leaving it as a threat on the battlefield to zone opponents. We also wanted to make Satchel Charge noticeably easier to use for players with moderate to high latency.

Satchel Charge

• Can now be reactivated while in flight, causing the Satchel Charge to detonate on landing
• Missile speed increased to 1750 from 1600
• Increased knockback distance to 400 from 350
• Cooldown now starts when Satchel Charge is cast, not when it detonates

---

General Champion Notes

By constantly shifting between forms as they move about the map, certain champions have been artificially accelerating their access to fully stacked Tear items (Muramana and Seraph's Embrace) without using their mana.

The following abilities no longer count as a spellcast for the sake of items like Tear of the Goddess, Sheen, etc.

• Elise's Spider Form / Human Form
• Nidalee's Aspect of the Cougar
• Jayce's Transform: Mercury Hammer / Mercury Cannon

---

We've normalized the hit delay on a few spells that had slight discrepancies between when the spell was cast and when it would take effect.

The following abilities have had their hit delay normalized:

• Brand's Pillar of Flame hit delay normalized to 0.625 secondsLeona's Solar Flare hit delay normalized to 0.625 seconds
• Swain's Nevermove hit delay normalized to 0.875 seconds
• Veigar's Dark Matter hit delay normalized to 1.25 seconds

---

Exhaust

• When used on a CC immune champion, it will only display "Can't be slowed"

---

Disconnection

• Summoners that disconnect while CCed will now properly run back to base

---

Items

In order to alleviate some of the gold pressure on supports as they push for vision dominance, we've made some changes to how the Oracle's buff works as well reworked the rewards for killing wards. First off, Oracle's Elixir no longer expires upon death, meaning players can be more aggressive with Oracle's, rather than just passively clear warded areas they know to be safe. Secondly, the gold from destroying a ward is now distributed between both the player who kills the ward AND the player who, whether through Oracle's or placing Vision wards, granted vision on that ward.

Wards

• Vision and Sight Ward are now worth 30 gold, up from 25
• Wriggle's Lantern Ward is now worth 20 gold, up from 15
• The reward structure for killing wards has been changed to the following:
• The killer of the ward gains 50% of the ward's base gold value
• Nearby allied champions with Oracle's Elixir, or allied champions that placed Vision Wards nearby, split 50% of the ward's base gold value
• Sightstone and Ruby Sightstone now display the number of placed Ghost Wards in their inventory tooltips

Oracle's Elixir

• No longer expires on death
• Duration reduced to 4 minutes from 5
• Invisibility detection radius reduced to 600 from 750
• Now displays the radius of the detection effect to the buffed player

Oracle's Extract

• Invisibility detection radius reduced to 600 from 750
• Now displays the radius of the detection effect to the buffed player

---

Tear of the Goddess and Manamune were stacking up far too quickly given their low cost, so we've increased the cooldown per charge. On the other hand, Archangel's Staff is a top tier item and requires a higher gold investment, so we wanted to reward players who choose to invest in charging their Archangel's Staff faster.

Tear of the Goddess

• UNIQUE Passive - Mana Charge
• Cooldown per charge increased to 4 seconds from 3
• Updated the tooltip to clarify its actual functionality

Manamune

• UNIQUE Passive - Mana Charge
• Cooldown per charge increased to 4 seconds from 3
• Updated the tooltip to clarify its actual functionality

Archangel's Staff

• UNIQUE Passive - Mana Charge
• Mana gained increased to 8 from 6
• Cooldown per charge increased to 4 seconds from 3
• Updated the tooltip to clarify its actual functionality

---

Previously, champions whose attacks applied a secondary source of physical damage (we're looking at you Jarvan), could unintentionally gain additional stacks of Black Cleaver's shred with one hit. Characters like Shyvana or Renekton that can apply multiple basic attacks at the same time will still stack up shreds as normal.

Black Cleaver

• Can no longer apply more than one stack of Armor Shred in a single basic attack

---

We've made Maw of Malmortius' passive bonus easier to understand at a glance. Now Maw will grant its maximum AD when the shield procs, so players will know exactly when they're at peak power.

Maw of Malmortius

• Attack Damage increased to 60 from 55
• Magic Resist increased to 40 from 36
• Passive now grants 1 Attack Damage for every 2% of missing Health, up from 2.5%
• Passive now capped at 35 Attack Damage, down from 40
• Fixed a bug where the cooldown was not properly resetting when upgrading from a Hexdrinker on cooldown

---

Wooglet's Witchcap

• Fixed several unintended interactions with champion abilities and the Stasis active

Zhonya's Hourglass

• Fixed several unintended interactions with champion abilities and the Stasis active

---

Maps

Summoner's Rift

We've made some changes to death streaks in order to address strategies where repeatedly dying to lower your kill bounty could be used to gain an advantage. We know this may affect games where people are not intentionally dying, and we'll continue to monitor this.

• Death Streak gold values have been reworked to be in line with pre-Season 3 values.
• Examples:
• A player killed three times in a row without resetting is now worth 220 gold (previously 182 gold)
• A player killed six times in a row without resetting is now worth 112 gold (previously 62 gold)
• Minimum kill value of a champion increased to 50 gold (previously 15 gold)

---

With Patch 3.9, we are setting a new precedent by making separate, map-specific balance changes to certain champions. The intent is not to reach a balancing cadence similar to Summoner's Rift, but to address some egregious balance outliers to improve the overall player experience. In this patch we're toning down Kassadin on Crystal Scar and Singed on Twisted Treeline. If this approach proves successful we'll follow suit with additional tweaks where necessary.

Twisted Treeline

• Singed
• Armor per level reduced to 2 from 3.5 on Twisted Treeline
• Insanity Potion cooldown increased to 120 seconds from 100 on Twisted Treeline

Crystal Scar

• Kassadin
• Riftwalk cooldown increased to 9/8/7 seconds from 7/6/5 on Crystal Scar
• Riftwalk range reduced to 600 from 700 on Crystal Scar

---

Howling Abyss

• Added new item: Orb of Winter
• Recipe: Rejuvenation Bead + Rejuvenation Bead + Negatron Cloak
• Total Gold Cost: 2080 (combine cost: 1180)
• +70 Magic Resist
• +20 Health Regen per 5 seconds
• Unique Passive: Grants a shield that absorbs damage. The shield will refresh after a short period without taking damage.

---

Game Interface

• Fixed a long-standing bug where Attack-Move and Move commands could trigger while typing in chat
• Fixed a keybinding issue where some modifier keys could not be used with certain keys and mouse buttons
• Significantly improved performance when purchasing item upgrades

---

League System

• Added the ability to spectate players and teams in challenger tier via an option in the leagues menu
• When viewing teams in the Leagues tab, clicking on a team will now show a list of the team's top players

---

General

We worked with the Player Behavior team on a smaller change to remove all latency (ping) displays except your own. After looking closely at the data, it seems that showing pings during loading can add toxicity to games before they even begin. Ultimately we came to the conclusion that removing the ping display on champion load screens would lead to a healthier community overall, so we acted on it.

• The load screen now includes Summoner Icons
• The progress bar has been removed due to space constraints
• The ping of other Summoners has been removed

---

• The rune page has been significantly reworked to provide a more responsive experience:
• Filtering out all runes of a given type (such as Marks or Seals) will cause it to turn grey, indicating that it's empty
• Reverting the changes in the runebook no longer changes which is being edited
• It's now possible to open more than one rune type at a time in the rune inventory
• Right clicking or double clicking to rapidly add runes doesn't require waiting for the animation to complete
• Shifted the rune slots slightly to reduce certain gaps
• The scrollbars have been made more responsive and easier to click
• The dividers between effects in the stats pane now scale down when the scrollbar appears
• Dragging a rune into place no longer highlights slots near the drop target
• Rune combiner animations are simpler and less CPU intensive
• Rune combiner filters are now more consistent with rune page filters

---

• When Smart Cast Range Indicators are enabled, the keybinding for Self Cast Spell (ALT by default) will activate the ability immediately on key press, rather than on key release. This matches the behavior of abilities which are innately self-cast, such as Sivir’s Spell Shield.
• Added tooltips and visual indicators in the client to more clearly convey which game modes, maps, and types are locked for new and low level players
• PVP.net will now automatically scale itself down to 1150x720 or 1024x640, whichever is most appropriate. The most common desktop resolutions that will see their experience impacted are:
• 1366x768
• 1280x768
• 1280x700
• 1182x864
• Logitech hardware support can now be disabled by adding "LogitechSupport=0" to the "General" section in your game.cfg

WAT NERFED?!

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Lucian, the Purifier Teaser Released! ZenontheStoic Chats

type='html'>Earlier today Riot released what could only be a continuation of the leak that was seen earlier in May regarding the "Gun Templar".

Official named Lucian the Purifier, he may be our next male AD carry, but none of his skills have been official released yet...check out the teaser below!

When we took up these weapons, we accepted our mission with pride. Rid Runeterra of evil, they told us. Slay the corrupt. Send the filth of the world crawling back to the hole it crawled out of. Not just anyone can wield these weapons. You need a pure heart. A fearless mind. An inner light that outshines all the darkness in the world. Once I had that light. Now I'm not so sure.

Everything changed. We knew our mission was greater than ourselves. The enemy was not who we fought, but what we fought. Evil. The Shadow Isles? Just another mess to clean up, just a bunch of ghosts. They were abominations, but nothing we hadn't put in the ground before. Until the day we faced him. Until the day he ripped her from my life.

Now my enemy has a name. She wouldn't want me to come after her—she knew the risks. But I can't forget her. I won't forget her. I'll hunt down the bastard who took her from me and send him straight to the grave.

Twice, if I have to. 1

---

Meanwhile, ZenonTheStoic took to the German forums with a few more tidbits on the new champion!

Q: Wasn't the Gun Templar released a while ago? What do you think about that?

A: We have no idea of how the leak happened , it is also important to remember that the concept has changed slightly since this drawing again, so I was particularly unhappy with the leak. He has raised expectations that are out of date 

The kit we will reveal when Lucian goes on PBE. But since we Leaks like here, where the first letter of the skills (in English): 

Passive: L 
Q: P 
W: A 
E: R 
R: C 

Q: What are Lucian's CC abilties?

A: Lucian has NO CC skills. Not even a Slow...Nothing

Q: What role will Lucian play as?

A: He will likely be played as ADC

What do you think about the new champion? Any ideas what the rest of the letters of his abilities might be? Comment below!

1 League of Legends Official Report

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Champion rework: Master Yi, the Wuju Master

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We're reworking Master Yi in the coming patch. In addition to new sounds, voice over and spell effects, the Wuju Master is also getting a kit overhaul to combine his popular AP and AD builds into a single cohesive playstyle. Check out his reworked abilities and read how the kit plays out below.

Abilities

Double Strike

Master Yi strikes twice on every fourth consecutive basic attack, with the second strike dealing reduced damage. If Master Yi leaves combat, the counter on Double Strike resets.

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Alpha Strike

Master Yi leaps forward and strikes up to four enemies, dealing physical damage to each. Alpha Strike can crit to deal additional physical damage and will deal bonus damage to minions and monsters. Basic attacks reduce the cooldown on Alpha Strike.

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Meditate

Master Yi channels for a short duration, healing rapidly. Master Yi heals more the lower his health. While channeling, Master Yi takes reduced damage from incoming attacks. This damage reduction is less effective against turrets.

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Wuju Style

Passive: Increases Master Yi's attack damage by a percentage.
Active: Basic attacks deal bonus true damage based on Master Yi's attack damage. The passive bonus is lost while Wuju Style is on cooldown.

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Highlander

Passive: Champion kills reduce Master Yi's basic ability cooldowns. Assists reduce basic ability cooldowns by a smaller amount.
Active: Increases Master Yi's movement and attack speed while granting immunity to movement impairing effects. While active, champion kills and assists extend Highlander's duration.

Gameplay

In lane

The changes to Meditate and Alpha Strike make Master Yi a more dynamic fighter in lane while rendering him less frustrating for his lane opponents. Since Alpha Strike prioritizes nearby units instead of striking randomly, a skilled Master Yi player can carefully aim his attacks while a canny opponent can avoid damage through careful positioning. Meanwhile, the cooldown reduction from basic attacks allows Yi to Alpha Strike more often, and the bonus minion damage helps him clear waves and maintain lane pressure. Also, the changes to Meditate make it a more potent option in emergency situations, but prevent Yi from simply spamming it to top his health off every time he takes damage.

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In the jungle

To compensate for reduced early game damage on Alpha Strike, we've made the bonus damage to minions and monsters guaranteed to smooth out his jungle time. The cooldown reduction he gets from basic attacks should also allow him to Alpha Strike more often, allowing for a more consistent clear time. Also, since Double Strike now deals less damage more frequently and requires Yi to stay in combat, it should be harder for him to queue up a double attack, then come tearing out of the jungle to score a massive burst combo onto an opponent.

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Late game

As the action edges into late game and the team fights begin, the changes to Highlander start to shine. The new passive gives Master Yi the ability to stay alive in rough situations by lowering the cooldown on Meditate and Alpha Strike. The true damage on Wuju Style gives Master Yi the freedom to initially focus tankier targets while waiting for the right moment to open up on vulnerable targets. Then, when the time's right, he can open up with Alpha Strike and punish the enemy team's more delicate back line. Meanwhile, the changes to Meditate increase its lifesaving potential when he's under significant focus fire, and the added damage and crit on Alpha Strike help it scale to keep up with his basic attack damage in late game scenarios.

Overall, the changes should help Master Yi play more consistently by combining the sustained damage of his AD playstyle with some of the nuke-and-juke utility of his AP build.

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New Free Champion Rotation (Season Three: Week 23)

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Check out this week's champion rotation!

• Katarina - 3150 IP / 790 RP
• Kennen - 4800 IP / 880 RP
• Kog'Maw - 4800 IP / 880 RP
• Leona - 4800 IP / 880 RP
• Nunu - 450 IP / 260 RP
• Riven - 6300 IP / 975 RP
• Teemo - 1350 IP / 585 RP
• Trundle - 4800 IP / 880 RP
• Varus - 6300 IP / 975 RP
• Wukong - 4800 IP / 880 RP

This week's very top lane heavy with Teemo, Kennen, Wukong, Riven, and Trundle in the mix.

Strangely, we're also sporting two AD carries, Kog'maw and Varus.

Personally I'll probably be playing a lot of Leona as I think she's probably the most fun support at the moment with her multiple CCs and innate tankiness.

If you like being sneaky, try out Teemo or Wukong; they can both be invisible for a short period of time.

Excited for this week's rotation? Comment below!

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Riot Chats About League System + Promo Series Expirations

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TLDR; Earlier today Riot took a minute to reflect on the switch from MMR to the ranking system (but mostly to give themselves a pat on the back) and also explained that there's a new promo series expiration (28 days after entering the series)

OFFICIAL POST BELOW

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CHATTING ABOUT MMR/LEAGUE SYSTEM
Hey Summoners,

Wanted to address some of these concerns. Now that we’re well into the season we can share some data with you about how the League System has changed the landscape of ranked since it was released. Month for month ranked participation increased as much as 2x over the same time periods last year while dodge rates dropped to about half. The number of leavers / afks in these games also remained well below most other queues. In other words the number of new ranked players and existing players who participate in ranked games is greater than ever before and the quality of the games improved. Ultimately we think this is the best measure of how successful a game type is but for the sake of looking at this vs. the old system we can look at the pros and cons of each:

LEAGUE SYSTEM 

In what ways is leagues better?

• All players have immediate achievable goals once they’re in a league and have frequent opportunities to feel competent as they progress.
• All players are divided into smaller leagues typically including some of their friends making progression feel more meaningful.
• Players are punished for queue dodging in a way that makes more sense in terms of progression. Again this reduced dodge rates dramatically.
• Promotional series create spikes in intensity which make the overall experience more fun and rewarding to participate in.
• The system shields players from ladder anxiety once they’ve reached a new tier and has some protections in place to keep them from instantly falling out of a division once promoted.
• Losing while still not a great experience is overall less punishing.

In what ways is leagues worse?

• Currently players can’t drop tiers, which causes some players to get to their target tier for the season and stop trying.
• Because league placement and MMR are not tightly coupled matchmaking appears to do funny things in some cases, leading players to believe they’re being matched unfairly when this is not the case.
• League point gains swing slightly more than MMR gains and in some very fringe cases places can earn 0 LP for games.


MMR

In what ways is MMR better?

• MMR gives a very accurate representation of your global position at any given time and it’s easy to see that you’re always being matched up against the correct opponents.
• The system is very fluid and players don’t have as much slack as in leagues to not try as hard once they’ve reached some threshold.

In what ways is MMR worse?

• There is no mechanism in place to properly punish dodging. Specifically if you try to lower a player’s MMR when they dodge, you’re marking them as a worse player, but this isn’t really true. This makes matchmaking much lower quality.
• You are seated into a very massive spectrum of players with no real meaningful sense of position (ie. rank 120,503 is less meaningful than rank 10 in Malzahar’s Captains)
• The system itself sets no obvious achievable goals for players and you never really get the sense that you’ve done something special by being involved.
• Because of the way the distribution grows over the course of the season players are heavily incentivized to participate late in the season but not before that.
• Losing is very punishing and you’re never shielded from a string of losses. 

Overall when we weigh these two systems against one another even without the empirical data leagues is clearly a better system for players and the one we’re more in favor of. That said it’s not perfect and there are some areas that we want to improve on.

What do we want to improve?

• Far and away the biggest issue we want to address is the case where players can’t drop out of a tier once they’ve obtained it. It’s very likely that next season we will allow players to drop out of a division if they’re at 0LP and far below the MMR threshold for the tier they are in. This should solve a few issues, namely the trolling that happens once players reach their target tier and the issue where players get very small LP gains after being at 0 for a long period of time.
• The issue where players receive 0 LP in some cases when being at 99LP we’d like to fix by just instituting a minimum LP gain of 1 instead of requiring the player to be above the required MMR to get into the target tier though we’re monitoring the MMR of players in this tier closely to understand the consequences of that decision should we implement it next season.

Socrates

TL DR: Overall the Leagues System has had a measurable and consistent positive impact, and while it’s not perfect we feel that it’s superior to MMR as a framework for us to work with and improve upon in the future.

Source

Promo Match Changes

Hey Summoners,

We made some changes to the way a promotion series can expire over time. Read below for an explanation:

Short summary: Last patch we released a change to the league system to fix a behavior that was extending players promotion series beyond the expected time amount. From the day you enter your series, you now have 28 days to complete that promotion series or it will be automatically ended.

Context: With the latest ranked play update, players now have a 28 day time limit from the day they qualify to complete their tier / division promotion. Previously we had allowed players to extend the series for an indefinite amount of time. Players who fail to complete their promotion series within 28 days will be removed from out of their series, where regular LP decay can be applied.

This change was to address an unintended behavior that was causing some players to have a promotion series that could run almost the full duration of the season. We've applied the update retroactively to all players currently participating within ranked play.

Unfortunately we failed to properly message this change within our official patch notes, and some players may have already been affected by it. This announcement is to provide clarity if you've been automatically failed out of your promotion series and were wondering why. We apologize for the inconvenience as we strive to make ranked play a more consistent and dynamic experience overall.

Source

Aren't you glad I put a TLDR; at the top? What do you think of the changes? Comment below!


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