Ahri

“As the new season has shaken out, Ahri is performing worse than last year and worse than she ought to. Now that she's back on high burst builds, we're reverting a nerf from her “Rod of Ages every game” phase of her K-pop career. Some artists just fall off, you know?”

Bel'Veth

“Bel'Veth is one of several AD junglers who suffered in the new season and we're here to buff her back up. We're aiming to bring up her late game in ways that synergize with squishy high attack speed builds by giving her a better payout for that attack speed and enough health to not need to buy as much of it.”

Braum

“Braum has easily become a top tier support with the start of the new season. New items like Bandlepipes have been instrumental in helping him and his allies stick onto enemies and take them down. Given that Braum is still looking quite strong even after the nerf to Bandlepiepes, we'll be looking to revert the health buffs we gave him at the end of last year and bring down some of his overall fighting power.”

Briar

“Briar lost some of her luster in the new season and as someone with ample counter-play, she deserves to win more games than she currently does. We want to make sure her lifesteal-focused durability can manifest by giving her enough health and resists to make that healing efficient and while we're here, we're also throwing top lane Briar a bone by letting her trade more efficiently as well.”

Diana

“Diana has gone to the moon due to seasonal changes, and in addition to Dusk & Dawn adjustments, this nerf should make sure her power wanes.”

Draven

“Draven's Q was initially bugged to deal less damage at the start of the season, which was micropatched within the first week. Players are also trying Essence Reaver over Bloodthirster, which currently performs worse. After accounting for all of these factors, Draven's still not doing as well as he was last year, so we're coming to prop him back up by reverting one of our preemptive pre-season nerfs.”

Build pickrate increases Increase >5%

Build	PR increase	Pickrate
	5.89%	30.14% 24.24%

View all Draven builds

Ekko

“Time has been on Ekko's side this year. We're taking a swing at both his clear speed and burst after early game to prevent him from going haywire after getting a lead.”

Ezreal

“Ezreal's been in a pretty weak spot for most players this season, especially after Essence Reaver got nerfed in the micropatch. While we think there's some winrate to be gained through players optimizing their builds, we still want to bring Ezreal more in line.”

Build pickrate increases Increase >5%

Build	PR increase	Pickrate
	12.51%	27.23% 14.71%

View all Ezreal builds

Hecarim

“Hecarim isn't doing very well in the new season so he's got a buff coming up. We're doing this by giving him a strong mid game power spike that he can use to try to run the map and get his team a lead. And even if he fails to do so, at least he's got slightly better base damage to fall back on. For those who don't want to do the math, the net result of both Q changes is a strict buff until around 225 bonus AD.”

Heimerdinger

“Slaps roof We can fit so many Arcane champs in this patch. Heimerdinger's been performing worse in the new season and he was balanced before then, so we're here to return him to his former glory. We know top lane Heimer can feel suffocating when his turrets are all setup, so we're looking to re-buff him in ways that allow him to be proactive instead of turtling.”

Jayce

“Jayce's build has bounced around a lot over time. He's been a tank, he's been (and currently is) a lethality burst mage, and he's been a fighter. We'd like if Jayce were an AD fighter, caring about both his damage output and durability to stick it out in melee once in a while. He's also still better in the jungle than in the top lane after last patch's nerf, so we're here to re-visit him. Ultimately our goals for Viktor's better half are to give him a viable fighter build and a viable but not overbearing jungle role. To achieve these goals, we're reducing his reliance on bonus AD and shifting power from his poke into his melee damage and follow-up.”

Kayn

“Blue Kayn specifically became much weaker in the new season and we'd like to fix that with some direct buffs. There's not much fancy here except that as an assassin, he should be lethal when fighting up close and personal with his targets. As a reminder, Slayer Kayn replaces his Q when transformed.”

Maokai

“Maokai has been struggling to find his place both in the top lane and in the jungle. We want to give him a little bit of extra power to find relevance in our new season by boosting hist damage”

Mel

“This changelist is intended to help lower player frustration while playing against Mel through opening up additional counterplay opportunities for opponents beyond the ban button. One big change we have is changing her reflect damage immunity to a shield which will ensure when Fizz successfully lands his ultimate she no longer completely negates the damage with a late W. We also want to make sure when you're laning against her that you can see her Q coming and dodge out of the way at long ranges like many spammable projectile spells. Both her Q and E should now be more visually clear (thus easier to dodge) and we've reduced some of the power from her reflect in some situations where her reflections resulted in unexpectedly high damage. While we believe that champion agency can yield frustrating interactions, we also believe there should be avenues for counterplay to balance that out. Frankly, we underestimated how frustrating the play-against experience for Mel would be and are aiming to improve that with this change list. And for players looking to play Mel we want her to be playable more consistently after the ban phase while making sure her core gameplay that her players have come to love isn't lost. Our goals with these changes are that more players feel they can outplay Mel in ways that match their expectations, and that Mel players can feel more skillful and that their success is a result of that skill. We expect that there will continue to be players whose main champions are highly impacted by Mel's reflection that may continue to prioritize her as a ban, but we're targeting to get her out of must-ban territory for many players.”

Build pickrate increases Increase >5%

Build	PR increase	Pickrate
	6.65%	19.5% 12.85%

View all Mel builds

Naafiri

“Naafiri's doing pretty well in the mid lane at the moment but her jungling hasn't kept up so we're giving our favorite pack of dogs more of a fighting chance with her current slow clear.”

Nilah

“Even after her micropatch nerfs, Nilah is still sooo happy (overpowered) about the new season. We're looking to bring her overall power down now that the dust has settled.”

Riven

“Riven's been crushing it ever since she discovered Axiom Arc. We like that she's swift and lethal in the early game but ultimately she's bursting down her competition too quickly once mid game arrives. Additionally, with all the extra gold and experience in the game right now, players have cited that late game fights resolve too quickly. So, all that considered, we're here to take out some of her late game burst power.”

Ryze

“Ryze has risen up the ranks this season and is due for a reduction in power. While we're nerfing Phase Rush, we're also buffing Actualizer so we think he deserves a direct nerf in this patch. With his late game damage going up and the overall game being more lethal than we'd like, we're reducing some late game damage in kind.”

Trundle

“Trundle's doing very poorly in both of his main roles and as a very straightforward champion should be much more successful than he is now. We want to make sure he's good at playing the role of the front-line juggernaut who's great at tank-busting, so we're playing up his late game sustained damage output and resilience”

Tryndamere

“After his micropatch buffs back in 26.1, Tryndamere's power level is close but not quite back to its former glory so we'd like to bring him back up to where he was and continue pushing him toward strong sustained damage.”

Varus

“Last patch's Varus buffs heavily overshot our target and has resulted in him becoming one of the game's strongest top laners as well. We're sorry for the inaccurate tuning and now that we've got more room to work with, we're looking to weaken his top lane performance as much as possible by rendering him more susceptible to all-ins, reducing his affinity for the top lane role quest, and weakening his top-specific build of AP and maxing W first.”

Build pickrate increases Increase >5%

Build	PR increase	Pickrate
	5.57%	27.92% 22.35%

View all Varus builds

Vi

“Vi certainly does not stand for victory anywhere but pro play. We'd like to make her much more successful for the average League player without indexing too hard into her strengths in tightly coordinated environments, which means we're aiming to play up her self-sufficiency and long-term brawling.”

Volibear

“We're happy that Volibear is seeing action at all levels with a new build as our signature garage sale enjoyer, but we want to make sure he's a little less overBearing, primarily in jungle. We're targeting his main build path's Q max burst without changing how it feels to get into combat, as well as his clear speed so that he has to work a little harder to show up to fights, and compensating with some AD ratio for anyone who's gotten a good deal on a Triforce or Gunblade recently.”

Xin Zhao

“Xin Zhao just can't catch a break. First he dies to Atakhan, now he's underpowered in solo queue? When will these tragedies cease? Today. They cease today. Xin Zhao buff time! Much like Vi's changes in this patch, we want to play up Xin Zhao's ability to stick up for himself and scrap with enemy champions in long-term fights.”

Build pickrate increases Increase >5%

Build	PR increase	Pickrate
	9.34%	45.44% 36.1%

View all Xin Zhao builds

Yone

“Yone's on the weaker side of the roster right now so we think he could use a buff. We know it can feel unfair to simply lose to him right clicking you during his E but we don't want him to be super bursty either, so we're pushing power into his Q, which has more gameplay around predictions and dodging.”

Build pickrate increases Increase >5%

Build	PR increase	Pickrate
	5.66%	58.23% 52.57%

View all Yone builds

Zaahen

“Zaahen was meant to have a secondary player base in the jungle and while he's great in the top lane, he's not performing well enough elsewhere. So we're delivering some straightforward jungle-specific buffs to bring him back up where he was at the end of last year.”

Zed

“We regret having jungle Zed in three of the past four patches now but players keep getting better at playing and itemizing this shadow ninja to the point where he wins more frequently today than he did before we shipped that first nerf. We're comfortable with how mid lane Zed is sitting but he's still overshadowing too many champions in the jungle. While this nerf looks very large on paper, the net impact of nerfing his jungle mod from 2.0 to 1.2 was under 1% of win rate movement, and we're looking for more than that here.”

Actualizer

“Actualizer is not looking particularly powerful and has a very painful combine cost. While we know players haven't had enough time to fully optimize the use cases yet, we're looking to give it a bit of a boost because it's not looking competitive on any champions besides a certain rune mage.”

Dusk and Dawn

“We've landed Dusk and Dawn into a spot where it has a healthy number of good users, but it's a bit too good at bursting and taking a little too much of Lich Bane's space, so we're hitting it with a slight nerf that should shift it towards more fighter-y builds.”

Build pickrate changes Change >5%

Build	PR increase	Pickrate
	17.66%	59.95% 42.29%
	5.15%	18.78% 23.93%

View all Dusk and Dawn builds

Endless Hunger

“This item is looking okay late in builds for the intended caster fighter audience but could be a bit better earlier in the game and can be awkward to build. A small change to the build path and a bit more AD should help this item really shine for the caster champions it was made for.”

Build pickrate changes Change >5%

Build	PR increase	Pickrate
	12.51%	27.23% 14.71%

View all Endless Hunger builds

Protoplasm Harness

“The current shape of this Lifeline effect ended up being a bit too sharp, where it's extraordinarily powerful for the users that can leverage the resistance scaling and somewhat unexciting for most other potential users. We're shifting some power around to make the item more consistently useful and less eye-popping in the outlier cases.”

Cash Back

“Cash Back was buffed late last year and finally has an audience of its own. However, that buff shot a little overboard. We're happy that it's turned some heads but now it's time for the rune to be balanced across its rune competitors.”

Build pickrate changes Change >5%

Build	PR increase	Pickrate
	45.20%	59.24% 104.44%
	37.74%	68.14% 105.88%
	36.84%	61.99% 98.83%
	36.75%	73.79% 110.54%
	35.10%	61.11% 96.21%

View all Cash Back builds

Phase Rush

“We think Phase Rush restricts the viable mid lane pool at the highest levels of play, as it's very easy for any ranged champion to trigger Phase Rush and escape most ganks or would-be melee opponents. Among its most common ranged users, Orianna, Vladimir, and Taliyah all have viable alternatives, and for Ryze, we intend for a direct reduction of power due to his general strong performance and an Actualizer buff in this patch. Ultimately, we are nerfing this rune for ranged champions only and retaining its power for melee users to swiftly navigate fights and skirmishes.”

Build pickrate changes Change >5%

Build	PR increase	Pickrate
	54.05%	89.31% 143.36%
	42.42%	66.34% 108.76%
	38.58%	64.46% 103.04%
	37.85%	74.41% 112.25%
	35.26%	46.52% 81.79%

View all Phase Rush builds

Triple Tonic

“Like with Cash Back, we buffed Triple Tonic strongly late last year and it's been enough to get people to switch over to their old favorites. Now that senpais everywhere have noticed me the rune, we're bringing its power level to a more balanced state, namely by reducing the eye-popping level of burst the level 6 elixir provides.”

Build pickrate changes Change >5%

Build	PR increase	Pickrate
	45.50%	61.97% 107.47%
	35.09%	69.59% 104.69%
	33.72%	57.03% 90.75%
	33.67%	56.18% 89.84%
	31.99%	32.22% 64.21%

View all Triple Tonic builds