Welcome championship competitors, spectators, and friends of the Fluft!
Patch 13.21 is the patch our set championship will be played on, so mark your calendars for the first weekend of November, cause we also have a very special announcement to make on the final day of the competition! Here we’re focused on making sure each playstyle is as competitive as possible ahead of our championship.
Oh, and what’s this I see? A Runeterra Reforged Learnings article where we open up about our successes and failures, and even more spoilers for our next set!?!?!
When we fixed a bug with Aatrox in 13.21, it ended up causing a new and worse bug with Demacian Elites.
Large, like the pile of Poros chilling in my lobbies.
Challenjour ⇒ Challenger
The jump from Multicaster 3 to 4 is too large compared to other traits. Multicasters have the issue of bursting boards too quickly AND they're able to do so even faster with the bonus on-attack Mana at MC 4. By nerfing the trait slightly at 3, and more significantly at 4, we’re able to slow down the pace of combat, while also making the power jump a bit less sharp. MC 3 will now be your core damage bump, while MC 4 is for allowing your other Multicasters to cast more.
Twisted Fate is the only unit we’re shipping a nerf to, and it’s pretty big. Even after nerfs in our 13.20 mid-patch update, TF continues to have the deck stacked in his favor. It’s time to reshuffle the cards. TF will also be impacted by our nerfs to Multicaster (above section), and Blue Buff (see items). Additionally, TF’s best friends are also getting lighter nerfs.
The amount of nerfs and severity of the Twisted Fate-specific nerf below may seem extreme, but so is Twisted Fate’s performance, who at two-stars on Stage 3 outplaces most comps with a two-star 4-cost.
Our AD ratio buff for Darius failed to cement him as a viable reroll carry. We’re adjusting his damage dropoff on resets to bring dunking back in style like it’s 1996 (the release of the original Space Jam film).
Miss Fortune is another reroll carry that has just missed the spot (despite marking it). We planned on buffing her already, but with our nerf to her core item (Blue Buff), we’re giving her an even buffer buff.
Even after our Nautilus buff in 13.20 to his bonus Armor and MR, players still aren’t giving him their Chain Vests and Negatron Cloaks. Instead of letting him sink to the bottom of the Guardian’s Sea, we’re increasing both his base defensive stats and his passive amplification. So go ahead and give him that tank item—he really wants it, and I’m getting a bit worried about him.
Sona and Vel’Koz are receiving smaller nerfs to account for the power they received with our Multicaster rework last patch. For more context on their nerfs, you can scroll up to the above section (TIER 2).
Ensuring all 4-costs have viable carry lines to make each playstyle competitive as we approach the set championship.
Like Miss Fortune above, Silco is getting a slightly larger buff to offset the nerf of his go-to Blue Buff. Reducing his max Mana by 5 also makes Spear of Shojin closer in power to Blue Buff for him in situations where you can only manage 1 Tear.
Econ, fast 8/9 strategies are just slightly weaker than where we’d like them to be, and that weakness mostly lies in a few of our 4 and 5-costs being a tad weak.
We’re taking away the awkward Built Different offerings on 3-2 when you likely already have a few traits active while also giving the Augment a bit more Health to feel truly built up.
Stellacorn’s Blessing has felt far from blessed for a while now, but we’re going lighter on the buff to ensure Targon/Gunner comps don’t have a Mount Targon-sized power ceiling.
The best parts of TFT are synergizing items/champions/traits and making a few champions the star of the show. Unburdened is the antithesis to that statement, and we’ve seen both player data and vocal feedback validating that. Instead of buffing or reworking an Augment that players just aren't excited about, we’re pulling it entirely and saving you the Augment reroll.
While we discussed nerfing the TF Legend Augment package (notably Pandora's) we saw that the success of the Legend was tied to the success of other balance outliers that we've nerfed in various ways, so we leaving the Augment in tact as we await the impact of our changes here.
We’re taking a light pass on Mana items since they disproportionately lead to faster combat states. Blue Buff and Protector’s Vow are meant to stand out and provide an early cast, but we're making that early cast later by lowering the starting Mana to 30 (Blue Buff is 30 since you get 10 reduction). As a final note, Blue Buff and Protector's Vow have been too strong for a while now, which means champions who use them well benefit far more than champions who have strong synergies with other items. Our rebalance here is part of a minor champion rebalancing for champions dependent on these items.
Blue Buff and Spear of Shojin are actually too far apart in power for most champions once you do the math. We’re bringing them closer together with our Blue Buff nerf, but also giving Spear of Shojin a bit more SPEAR for AD casters.
Small, like this reminder that Fluft of Poros is only available for the rest of this patch. Starting in 13.22 Chibi DRX Aatrox will replace Fluft’s banner!
Ionia 9 often leads to weaker Ionians receiving the enlightenment bonus which can be a bummer for your itemized Xayah or Ahri. By significantly raising the enlightenment bonus we can ensure that even your lowly 1-costs can become a threat when enlightened—that’s just the power of education!
Infamous, unshackled, and all too comfortable.