Red Post Collection: /Dev on TFT set 1 and 2, Universe Updates, and more!

[Added Wukong Update- Now In Active Development!]

Today's red post collection includes /Dev blogs from Riot Mort on TFT set 1 learnings and details on Set 2 changes, Universe updates, and more!
Continue reading for more information!

• Red Post Collection: Quick Gameplay Thoughts: 10/18, /Dev: Let's Talk About Urf & More
• 10/18 PBE Update: Annie-versary Skin Bio & Fanart Loading Screens
• Patch 9.21 SR & TFT Notes
• 10/22 PBE Update: TFT Set 2, Preseason 2020 Testing & More!

Table of Contents

• Wukong Update- Now In Active Development!
• /Dev: TFT Set 1 Learnings
• Teamfight Tactics: Rise of the Elements 
• Universe Updates
• Miscellaneous
• Other Games
• Reminders

Wukong Update- Now In Active Development!

Here's Riot Lutzburg with a thread on upcoming Wukong work:

"Hi everyone, 

It's been a while since Meddler first spoke to you about a potential Wukong update, which eventually made its way to the PBE and got a lot of positive feedback. As you may have seen last week, we’ve been hard at work on our big Pre-Season update. Now that we’re wrapping it up, we’re taking the opportunity to finish what we started with Wukong. It’s taken longer than we wanted it to, but I'm happy to announce that I'm helping push Wukong’s update across the finish before the end of this year. 

We want to take this opportunity to improve Wukong and give him some new tools to succeed in Season 10 and beyond. These tools will include alternative build paths that focus on higher durability, and new ways to capitalize on Wukong’s tricky nature. Since we have a lot of other projects underway, and since Wukong fans have been waiting so long, we want to ship this update at its current scope as fast as possible. 

For context, here's my plan for tackling the update:

• Reconfirm the direction of the changes (both internally and with Wukong players)
• Determine what (if any) mechanics changes need to be made
• Balance the change list with the help of our SR and play test teams
• Find and/or build suitable visual effects that we feel meet our shippable quality bar
• Fix about 25 bugs created as a result of these changes

And here's a high level look at the biggest changes:

• P- Wukong gains a large amount of resistances when near 3+ enemy Champions. In addition, he gains bonus attack range on his next basic attack after using any ability
• Q- Physical damage reduced, but deals bonus magic damage that also heals Wukong. Passively, Wukong and his clones add stacking marks against their target, increasing the damage they deal by a percentage
• W- Wukong now stealths and dashes to a nearby target location (leaving behind a clone), and can be used to jump small walls. The clone lasts a few seconds and can't move but will attack things close to it for 50% damage (applies on-hit effects)
• E- now creates clones that also dash towards nearby targets, masking the real Wukong's target. The clones are considered units and can intercept spells and be targeted
• R- can now be canceled early by using another ability

Why these changes? 

Our goals are to open up additional play styles for Wukong without invalidating his glass cannon lethality build, while also modernizing his kit to have more options and flexibility. One of these styles leans into a more tanky, extended team fight bruiser archetype. The extra durability and sustain can let Wukong survive in fights for multiple spell rotations, giving him more chances to outplay his opponents. This is especially fun given the new focus on being a "trickster" Champion. With his new clone and dash mechanics (and the ability to hop walls), Wukong players can now engage in a more cerebral and diabolical style of fighting it they wish to. 

Want to help? 

If you're a passionate Wukong player or top lane main, I want to hear from you! Let me know what parts of this change list excite you and/or concern you. Just know that we had an extensive feedback period earlier this year, and my job is largely to push this change list across the finish line, so please don't expect a massive overhaul to what's being proposed above. 

-Lutzburg"

/Dev: TFT Set 1 Learnings

Here's Riot Mort with a /dev blog on what was learned from TFT set 1 - "Champion balance, randomness, rate of changes, disables, counters, and more."

"Teamfight Tactics has been out for a little over three months now, and we’ve nearly reached the end of our first set. Time has flown by so fast, and we can’t wait to show you what’s coming in Set 2: Rise of the Elements. But before the new set hits PBE, we wanted to discuss some of the things we’ve learned in our first three months and how we’re taking those learnings forward into the future. 

We’re going to go pretty in-depth today, so here’s a quick summary:

• We want to keep random effects in positive and controlled spaces.
• You can hold us accountable to higher standards of balance so that a wider variety of comps can win in any given patch.
• We’re aiming for less frustrating and fewer overall disables.
• We’re going to have more soft counters than hard counters, especially between traits.
• Rate of change was overall a bit high, so expect B-patches to only be used to nerf strong outliers.
• Bugs are bad, and we’re going to take more time to make sure we deliver a game with less issues.
• We want getting 4th place or higher to always feel like a win, so we’re changing it so you always earn LP for a top-half finish. 

Good Random vs Bad Random

Randomness is always going to be a hot topic when discussing TFT. At a high-level, Set 1 reaffirmed to us that TFT is about how you play around the randomness presented to you through the store, item drops, and various effects in game that cause variance. We still strongly believe that utilizing randomness in the correct way creates a wider variety of experiences, which leads to more replayability. In addition, one of the ways players can express skill is through knowing how to adapt to the many possible outcomes that can occur. 

That being said, we certainly learned a lot about where inserting variance worked and was received well and where it wasn’t. 

For example, two-piece Imperial (most commonly with a Darius and Draven) was a very random effect that boiled down to a coin flip on whether or not your most important carry would do double damage. We found this fit into acceptable random because you opted into the risk, and it was fairly easy to predict the possible outcomes. 

The counter proposals here are Phantom and Hextech, which were our most controversial traits. Many players had a very real negative reaction to their most important champion losing all three of their items or being set to 100 HP with nothing they could really do about it. Phantom in particular did achieve our goal of creating exciting moments and chances for you to win fights you might not normally win, but it did so in a way that was likely too costly for the overall experience. 

So as Set 1 went on, we made improvements by moving towards more controlled randomness. For example, we revamped the item distribution system so that the outcomes were more controlled than before while also opening up a wider variety of potential outcomes. We saw this lead to a more fair and more exciting experience. We did something similar with Thieves Gloves, where instead of simply giving the champion any random two items, we created an extremely controlled list and limited where the power can show up at various stages in the game. Again, we believe this led to positive results. 

With all that said, we’ll be continuing the trend of trying to keep random effects in positive and controlled spaces in Set 2. 

Champion Balance & Design

Honestly, this section could be an entire article by itself. Our understanding of what makes a good champion in TFT and what balance qualities they should have has increased exponentially since TFT launched. Let’s try to keep it shorter and discuss some of the most key things we learned though. 

Trait tax shouldn’t be as severe: We saw pretty early on with champions like Fiora, Lissandra, and Mordekaiser that having champions who were intended to be bad because they enabled very powerful traits just didn’t pan out. It also limited the types of comps people were willing to run since it meant having to use these less-than-ideal champions. Few people enjoyed having to carry around a bad Mordekaiser just to enable Phantom. It’s okay for them to be less powerful, but not to the degree we launched with. 

Even bad champs should have a fantasy: Champions that weren’t the obvious powerhouses were and still are bound to happen—this is fine. But those champions need something to aspire to in the right conditions. Katarina was the best example of this: When given the right items, she could carry the game for you, despite being generally weak. Three-star Veigar was another big one. We aim to create more examples like this in Set 2. 

Champions shouldn’t be overloaded: Certain champions simply had too much going on in their kits in Set 1. Pantheon’s spell had a stun, AoE percentage health damage, and a built-in Morello. Akali’s spells only cost 25 mana and were allowed to crit without a Jeweled Gauntlet. Shyvana got a free Dragon’s Claw from her trait, a free Red Buff on her autos, tons of AD, and a burn effect. In all of these cases, the champs had more effects and rules than they needed to. We’re going to keep this more in check for Set 2. 

One last note worth bringing up is that balance wasn’t as good as it could’ve been across the patches. We learned that even something as small as 0.05 attack speed or 50 starting HP can make a huge difference. Over the course of Set 1 we tried a variety of tactics—such as nerfing multiple aspects, a single aspect in a big way, or a single aspect in a small way—and we learned what works and what swings things too far. So in Set 2, hold us to an even higher standard for balancing the game so that a wider variety of comps can win in a given patch. 

Disabling Effects

We already knew this going into TFT, but abilities that disable your champions are perceived to be less fun. When designing abilities in League, we’ve seen a pretty visceral reaction when they cause a loss of control or inhibit your ability to perform expected actions. In TFT, Glacial initially had some very strong reactions from people who said it was no fun to have your army just frozen in place. However, we knew that this was acceptable because we need disabling abilities in TFT as outlets to damage, otherwise the game simply becomes who wields the biggest damage cannon. 

That being said, there are a couple areas we know we can improve on. For starters, we looked back and agree that we ended up with too many disables. Demon, Glacial, Hextech, Phantom, Hush, Cursed Blade, Swordbreaker, Zephyr, Leona, Ashe, Sejuani, Gnar, Kennen, and more… it was too easy to get your army in a state of “I don’t get to play.” Because of this, we will be aiming for less disables overall in Set 2. (Important here, we said less. Not none) 

We also learned what types of disables worked and what types didn’t. For example, pre-changed Demon was extremely painful, since it prevented most champions from ever living out their fantasies. Once you got hit once, it was probably over since you lost ALL your mana. New Demon and Hush worked much better—while they did disable you, there was the hope that they’d wear off, or you could still gather enough mana to cast your spell. Predictability also played a big part here. Zephyr ended up in a good spot even though it disabled a character for six seconds (a much stronger effect than Hextech) because it was predictable and could be played around. You can expect to see more disables like these in the future. 

Hard Counters vs Soft Counters 

Early on in Set 1, we believed that having hard counters was the best design choice for TFT. Dragons had 100% magic immunity as a hard counter to spells, Grievous Wounds blocked 100% of healing as a counter to healing effects, and Wild/Rapidfire Cannon made your attacks undodgeable as a counter to Yordles. (Poor poor Yordles.) In all of these cases, it led to some pretty extreme meta situations where the things being countered were considered to be not viable options by many players. Yordles in particular pretty much always struggled to find a good spot, even with the introduction of Mittens. 

In all of the above cases, we saw much more success when we pivoted to a softer counter. When Grievous Wounds became 80% heal reduction (which is still REALLY strong), we saw healing effects being used more, leading to a wider variety of viable strategies and builds, since players could still get some value from Bloodthirsters and Hextech Gunblades. 

There was also the case of “general counters,” which we define as something that is just universally good against everything. Noble became a general counter when it swapped from giving armor to giving armor and magic resist. The only way to counter Nobles was the new Void trait, which had the same quality of being just generally strong in all cases. True damage as a whole fits this as well. General counters are usually too good, and we’re going to be moving away from them. 

When Set 2 launches, you will notice that the traits are more in the soft counter space. In addition, we’ll be making some changes to the items as well to shift them into a soft counter space in a future patch after Set 2 launches. 

Expansion Content in Set 1

With Set 1, we released quite a few pieces of what we call “expansion content,” which is stuff that expands the set beyond its initial launch state. This included: 

• Twisted Fate in 9.14
• The four Hextech champions in 9.16
• Pantheon in 9.17
• Item system revamp & Neeko’s Help in 9.18
• Kai’Sa and Sparring Gloves in 9.19 

From what we saw, there were some pretty clear takeaways. Having a big piece of expansion in almost every patch contributed to the feeling that the rate of change was too high. In addition, the smaller drops like Twisted Fate and Pantheon were much less successful at generating excitement, where as the larger drops like Hextech and the item system revamp did a much better job. 

As for champions, we learned that…

• The 50 champs we launched with was a bit small, especially in the 1-cost area. When we launched Twisted Fate, we swapped Elise to a 1-cost, which led to a better early game state, but TF himself was also a bit of a disappointment at the time.
• Adding a new trait was very exciting (ignoring the quality of Hextech itself), though ramping from 51 to 55 champs was a very large change to the feel of the game. It was immediately noticeable how much more difficult it was to two- and three-star champions.
• Adding the two 5-cost champs at the end was probably not great, since the change in difficulty in chasing legendaries changed so dramatically so quickly. Noble was the biggest victim of this, with Kayle going from a pretty reliable chase to almost luck based—which was a pretty big nerf to the trait. We want legendary champions to be exciting capstones to late game builds that feel great when you find them. If they’re too difficult to find, then you stop trying to chase them.

With all that in mind, for Set 2 we are going to try shipping less total content patches, but each one will be larger. Our current thinking is 3-4 content patches over the course of the set. Our goal is for each of these drops to bring an exciting and meaningful change.  

B-Patches & Rate of Change

One of the things we dealt with a lot in Set 1 was, “What is the right amount of change for the game?” Early on we had B-patches and hotfixes out of necessity—we had to address things that needed to change very quickly, including bug fixes and rougher early designs. However, we saw some frustration with this, with some players feeling like it wasn’t worth investing in the game and learning the meta: Why invest deeply in the game if it was just going to change in a few days? 

One of the key contributors to this was the size of the B-patches, which sometimes changed as many as 15-20 parts of the game in a single patch. We felt this was just too much change for most players to deal with. 

So in the second half of Set 1, we moved away from B-patches. We drew a hard line that unless it was a major game-breaking issue, we weren’t going to hot fix it. (For example, we did not hotfix Void-Assassin in 9.18, but we did hotfix Titanic Hydra in 9.19.) We learned that there were positives to this approach in that we would see the meta shift as the weeks went on, and players began to make counter comps to the popular comps. We want to see more of this. However, this method wasn’t without frustration either, as any time something was even slightly off balance (Void-Assassin in 9.18, Infinity Edge in 9.19), engaged players were stuck with it for two weeks, leading to what felt like a stale meta. 

Based on what we gathered from Set 1, we’re going to take a different approach for Set 2. The first patch of Set 2 will likely have a bigger B-patch to resolve any post-ship issues, but after that we will limit B-patches to be extremely small and only for nerfing strong outliers. This allows us to deal with some of the most extreme cases while slowing down the overall rate of change. Hopefully this will lead to a more stable Set 2, but also a less stuck one. 

Bugs!

This one is a bit of an obvious learning, but we want to discuss it because frankly it’s very important. Bugs are bad. We shouldn’t have bugs. Due to the rapid pace of building TFT and the content in each patch, we didn’t hit the quality bar we would have liked to, which led to days of ranked being disabled, hidden exploits, and other not great experiences. 

We still have a long way to go to get everything up to the bar we think you should expect of us. But we’re committed to getting there. One thing we’re doing in Set 2 is taking a little more time to QA when we add new content. Delaying the new items from patch 9.18 to 9.19 was a step in the right direction, as it allowed us to have far fewer bugs with the new items (though admittedly we still didn’t get them all). 

For Set 2, expect us to take our time to make sure we do a better job at delivering a game with less issues. 

Other Things We Learned

There’s a lot more we can discuss, but this is a long article, so let’s wrap up with a few final learnings. 

With traits, we found that adding the extremely unlikely chase options—like nine Blademasters and nine Sorcerers—created some extremely exciting moments for players to chase after and some memorable moments when you managed to nail it. Watching a Karthus one-shot an entire team with the nine-piece Sorcerer bonus was a personal highlight for me! We’ll continue to add these types of chases in Set 2. 

We also learned a lot about player damage and game pacing. When we launched, games were over far too quickly and it was almost impossible to make it to late game. After some adjustments, we ended up in a state where late game was all that mattered because the early game wasn’t doing enough. The relationship between available resources and player damage was also important, as when we added the new item distribution system, we saw a shift back to quicker games. While we learned a lot here, we don’t think we’ve gotten to the ideal state, so we’ll be making more adjustments to the pace of the game as we continue into Set 2. 

Finally with our Ranked system, we’ve seen some things that work and some that don’t. We’re going to continue to make adjustments to the system as we move forward, but one change coming in Set 2 is that, no matter the conditions, getting 4th or higher should feel like a win. Losing LP when getting 4th (or in extremely rare cases, 3rd) feels real bad. So we’re changing it so that no matter what, you can’t lose LP if you place 4th or higher. 

So there ya go. We learned a lot in our Set 1, and we’re so excited for you to get your hands on Set 2: Rise of the Elements!"

Teamfight Tactics: Rise of the Elements 

Riot Mort also provided a full rundown for TFT set 2 - "Teamfight Tactics is out of beta and we're rotating in a brand new set of champions!"

"Teamfight Tactics’ beta is over and the elements are rising in season two. As our first new set, Rise of the Elements fully replaces the champions, origins, and classes you played with during beta. 

Here you will find all the information you need to hop into the Convergence and start exploring the new set. TFT has evolved, but your goal’s the same—can you adapt to new strategies, abilities, effects, and interactions to build a team and defeat your opponents? 

Get ready for Teamfight Tactics: Rise of the Elements, coming in patch 9.22! 

Elements 

This season champions represent elements rather than origins, but the rules are the same. Deploy multiple unique champions with the same element to unlock powerful trait bonuses! Copies of the same champion all benefit from their elemental bonus, but only the first counts for determining how many unique champions you have deployed, even if your copies are different star levels. 

Each element has its own unique bonus: 

• Crystal
• Skarner, Taric, Ashe
• Deploying multiple Crystal champions grants them a maximum limit to the amount of damage they can take from a single attack or ability hit.
• Desert
• Renekton, Sivir, Azir, Khazix
• Deploying multiple Desert champions reduces the enemy team’s armor. The reduction increases if more Desert champions are deployed.
• Electric
• Ornn, Volibear, Zed
• Deploying multiple Electric champions causes them to damage adjacent enemies whenever they critically strike or are critically struck.
• Glacial
• Warwick, Volibear, Braum, Ezreal, Olaf
• Deploying multiple Glacial champions grants their attacks a chance to stun their target, increasing with more Glacials.
• Inferno
• Zyra, Diana, Varus, Qiyana, Kindred, Annie, Brand
• Deploying multiple Inferno champions causes their abilities to temporarily ignite the ground beneath their targets, damaging enemies standing in the fire. Damage increases with more Inferno champions.
• Light
• Nasus, Vayne, Jax, Aatrox, Soraka, Yorick
• Deploying multiple Light champions causes them to, on death, heal other Light champions for a percentage of their max health and grant them attack speed for the remainder of the round (stacking with multiple Light champion deaths). Heal and attack speed increase with more Light champions.
• Steel
• Rek’Sai, Nocturne
• Deploying multiple Steel champions causes them to briefly become immune to damage when they drop below 50% health.
• Mountain
• Taliyah, Qiyana, Malphite
• Deploying multiple Mountain champions grants a massive shield to a random ally at the start of combat.
• Ocean
• Vladimir, Thresh, Syndra, Qiyana, Nautilus, Nami
• Deploying multiple Ocean champions periodically grants allies mana. The amount increases with more Ocean champions.
• Poison
• Kog’Maw, Dr. Mundo, Twitch, Singed
• Deploying multiple Poison champions causes their damaging attacks and abilities to increase the mana costs of their targets’ abilities.
• Shadow
• Malzahar, Kindred, Veigar, Sion, Master Yi
• Deploying multiple Shadow champions causes them to deal increased damage for the first few seconds of combat, as well as for a few seconds when they score a takedown. Deploying more Shadow champions causes all of them to deal increased damage when any of them score a takedown.
• Wind
• Yasuo, Qiyana, Janna
• Deploying both Wind champions grants your team dodge chance.
• Woodland
• Maokai, Ivern, Neeko, LeBlanc
• Deploying multiple Woodland champions causes one of them to randomly create a clone of themselves (including items) at the start of combat. 

Classes 

A champion’s class describes how they fight and functions similarly to their element, conferring additional trait bonuses based on how many unique members of that class you have on your team (duplicate champions don’t count here, either): 

• Alchemist
• Singed
• Alchemists can move through other units and never stop moving.
• Assassin
• Diana, LeBlanc, Qiyana, Nocturne, Kha’Zix, Zed
• Assassins sneak across the battlefield at the start of combat, placing themselves opposite from where they started.
• Deploying multiple Assassins grants them critical strike chance and increased critical strike damage, increasing with more Assassins.
• Avatar
• Lux
• An Avatar’s element is counted twice for trait bonuses.
• Berserker
• Renekton, Jax, Volibear, Dr. Mundo, Sion, Olaf
• Deploying multiple Berserkers grants their attacks a chance to deal damage in a cone behind the target. The chance increases with more Berserkers.
• Blademaster
• Yasuo, Sivir, Aatrox, Master Yi
• Deploying multiple Blademasters grants their attacks a chance to hit extra times, increasing with more Blademasters.
• Summoner
• Zyra, Malzahar, Azir, Annie, Yorick, Zed
• Deploying multiple Summoners increases the health and duration of their spawned allies, increasing with more Summoners.
• Summoners’ pets benefit from Element and Class bonuses, but don’t count as additional units toward activating higher levels of those bonuses.
• Druid
• Ivern, Maokai, Neeko
• Deploying two Druids grants all Druids health regeneration.
• Mage
• Vladimir, Taliyah, Syndra, LeBlanc, Veigar, Brand
• Deploying multiple Mages grants them a chance after casting an ability to cast it again. This chance increases with more mages.
• Mystic
• Soraka, Janna, Master Yi, Nami
• Deploying multiple Mystics grants all allies magic resist, increasing with more Mystics.
• Predator
• Warwick, Kog’Maw, Skarner, Rek’Sai
• Deploying multiple Predators causes their attacks and abilities to immediately kill low-health enemies.
• Ranger
• Vayne, Varus, Ezreal, Kindred, Ashe, Twitch
• Deploying multiple Rangers periodically grants them a chance to gain a burst of attack speed, increasing with more Rangers.
• Warden
• Ornn, Nasus, Thresh, Braum, Nautilus, Malphite, Taric
• Deploying multiple Wardens grants them armor, increasing with more Wardens.

Champions 

Tier 1

• Diana
• Inferno
• Assassin
• Flame Cascade: Diana shields herself for a few seconds and creates three flame orbs that orbit her. Orbs explode when they contact an enemy, dealing damage.
• Ivern
• Woodland
• Druid
• Triggerseed: Ivern shields the lowest-health ally for a few seconds.
• Kog’Maw
• Poison
• Predator
• Living Artillery: Kog’Maw launches acid that damages a random enemy.
• Maokai
• Woodland
• Druid
• Sap Magic (passive): Whener Maokai is damaged by an enemy spell, his next attack heals him.
• Nasus
• Light
• Warden
• Fury of the Dawn: Nasus temporarily enrages, gaining bonus health and damaging adjacent enemies each second for the duration.
• Ornn
• Electric
• Warden
• Lightning Breath: Ornn breathes lightning in a cone in front of him, damaging enemies and increasing their chance to be critically struck for the next few seconds.
• Renekton
• Desert
• Berserker
• Cull the Meek: Renekton damages adjacent enemies and heals himself for each enemy hit.
• Taliyah
• Mountain
• Mage
• Seismic Shove: Taliyah erupts the ground under a random enemy, knocking them toward her if ranged, or away if melee.
• Vayne
• Light
• Ranger
• Silver Bolts (Passive): Vayne passively deals bonus true damage every third attack based on the enemy’s maximum health.
• Vladimir
• Ocean
• Mage
• Drain: Vladimir damages a target enemy, healing himself for the damage dealt.
• Warwick
• Glacial
• Predator
• Infinite Duress: Warwick pounces onto the lowest-health enemy, stunning and damaging them. Applies on-hit effects.
• Zyra
• Inferno
• Summoner
• Rampant Growth: Zyra spawns two untargetable Flame Spitters on random hexes at the edge of the arena, which attack the nearest enemy. 

Tier 2

• Braum
• Glacial
• Warden
• Unbreakable: Braum raises his shield toward the furthest enemy, reducing incoming damage from that direction and blocking projectiles.
• Jax
• Light
• Berserker
• Counter Strike: Jax gains 100% dodge chance for the next few seconds, then briefly stuns and damages adjacent enemies.
• Leblanc
• Woodland
• Assassin, Mage
• Ethereal Chain: Leblanc sends a chain toward the nearest enemy, stunning and damaging them after a delay.
• Malzahar
• Shadow
• Summoner
• Shadow Swarm: Malzahar creates a portal that spawns minions. More star levels, more minions.
• Neeko
• Woodland
• Druid
• Blooming Burst: Neeko throws a seed at a random enemy that explodes three times in a larger and larger radius.
• Rek’Sai
• Steel
• Predator
• Furious Bite: Rek’Sai bites her target, dealing true damage.
• Skarner
• Crystal
• Predator
• Crystalline Exoskeleton: Skarner shields himself for a few seconds, gaining bonus attack speed while the shield holds.
• Syndra
• Ocean
• Mage
• Hydro Sphere: Syndra conjures a Hydro Sphere at a target location that damages enemies.
• Thresh
• Ocean
• Warden
• Deep Sea Passage: Thresh throws his lantern to the lowest-health ally, shielding them and nearby allies for a few seconds.
• Varus
• Inferno
• Ranger
• Piercing Arrow: Varus charges and fires an arrow, dealing damage to all enemies in a line.
• Volibear
• Electric, Glacial
• Berserker
• Thunder Bite: Volibear bites his target, dealing damage. Thunder Bite instantly kills enemies below a certain amount of health, fully restoring Volibear’s mana.
• Yasuo
• Wind
• Blademaster
• Last Breath: Yasuo instantly appears next to the enemy with the most items, attacking them multiple times in rapid succession and knocking them up for the duration. 

Tier 3

• Aatrox
• Light
• Blademaster
• The Arclight Blade: Aatrox slams his sword in a circle in front of him, damaging enemies hit.
• Azir
• Desert
• Summoner
• Arise!: Azir summons an untargetable Sand Soldier near a random enemy that attacks whenever Azir attacks.
• Dr. Mundo
• Poison
• Berserker
• Adrenaline Rush: Dr. Mundo spawns a toxic cloud around himself that damages adjacent enemies and heals himself for the damage dealt for several seconds.
• Ezreal
• Glacial
• Ranger
• Ice Shot: Ezreal fires a shard of ice toward the lowest-health enemy, damaging the first enemy hit and applying on-hit effects.
• Kindred
• Shadow, Inferno
• Ranger
• Wolf’s Frenzy: Lamb tumbles away from her target while Wolf bites them, dealing damage.
• Nautilus
• Ocean
• Warden
• Depth Charge: Nautilus sends out a depth charge that seeks out the furthest enemy champion, knocking them up and stunning them for a really long time.
• Nocturne
• Steel
• Assassin
• Steel Blades (Passive): Every three hits, Nocturne’s next attack is enhanced, damaging all adjacent enemies and healing him for a portion of damage dealt.
• Qiyana
• Inferno OR Ocean OR Mountain OR Wind
• Assassin
• Edge of Ixtal: Qiyana dashes to the side of her target and throws a blast of wind through them, damaging and stunning enemies it passes through.
• Sion
• Shadow
• Berserker
• Decimating Smash: Sion smashes an area in front of him after a delay, knocking up and damaging enemies.
• Sivir
• Desert
• Blademaster
• Ricochet: Sivir’s attacks temporarily bounce to nearby units.
• Soraka
• Light
• Mystic
• Equinox: Soraka temporarily calms an area around a random enemy, damaging enemies and preventing them from gaining mana while inside.
• Veigar
• Shadow
• Mage
• Primordial Burst: Veigar blasts an enemy with magical energy, dealing damage. Instantly kills enemies at lower star levels than Veigar. 

Tier 4

• Annie
• Inferno
• Summoner
• Tibbers!: Annie summons Tibbers onto a nearby hex. Tibbers attacks nearby enemies while active.
• Ashe
• Crystal
• Ranger
• Ranger’s Focus: For the next few seconds Ashe gains attack speed and her attacks fire a flurry of arrows, dealing bonus damage.
• Brand
• Inferno
• Mage
• Pyroclasm: Brand launches a bouncing fireball, damaging enemies hit.
• Janna
• Wind
• Mystic
• Monsoon: Janna knocks back enemies in a large area and channels for a few seconds, continuously healing nearby allies.
• Kha’Zix
• Desert
• Assassin
• Arid Assault: Kha’Zix briefly becomes stealthed, becoming untargetable and causing his next attack to critically strike.
• Malphite
• Mountain
• Warden
• Unstoppable Force: Malphite throws himself toward a random enemy, damaging and knocking up nearby enemies when he arrives.
• Olaf
• Glacial
• Berserker
• Berserker Rage: For the rest of combat, Olaf gains a large amount of Attack Speed and Lifesteal for a few seconds and becomes immune to crowd control.
• Twitch
• Poison
• Ranger
• Spray and Pray: Twitch temporarily gains infinite range and his attacks become piercing bolts that fly through their targets to the end of the board, damaging all enemies they pass through.
• Yorick
• Light
• Summoner
• Shepherd of Souls: Yorick blesses several of his lowest-health allies, reviving them as a Minion of Light when they die. More star levels, more targets. 

Tier 5

• Master Yi
• Shadow, Mystic
• Blademaster
• Meditate: Master Yi becomes untargetable and significantly heals himself over a few seconds. After channeling, his attacks temporarily deal bonus magic damage on hit.
• Nami
• Ocean
• Mystic
• Tidal Wave: Nami sends a massive wave toward a random enemy, damaging and knocking up enemies it passes through and granting allies it passes through bonus magic damage on hit.
• Singed
• Poison
• Alchemist
• Poison Trail (Passive): Singed passively leaves a poison cloud behind himself that damages enemies who stand in it.
• Taric
• Crystal
• Warden
• Cosmic Radiance: After a delay, Taric and all nearby allies become invulnerable for a few seconds.
• Zed
• Electric
• Summoner, Assassin
• Living Lightning: Zed creates an identical clone of himself behind his current target, copying his items as well. This clone can also cast Living Lightning. 

Tier 7

• Lux
• Electric OR Inferno OR Glacial OR Crystal OR Wind OR Woodland OR Steel OR Ocean OR Shadow OR Light
• There are ten copies of Lux in each game, one of each of the above elements.
• Once you purchase one Lux, the other Luxes will become that element when you see them in your shop.
• Avatar
• Final Spark: Lux fires a giant laser that deals massive damage to enemies hit and restores mana based on enemies hit. 

ITEMS 

Items increase your champions’ base stats and can upgrade into stronger items that provide unique effects. In PvE rounds, each monster you defeat has a chance of dropping an item. In Draft rounds, every draftable champion comes with an item equipped. You’ll always see basic items early on, but as the game progresses, you’ll have a shot at upgraded items. 

There are nine basic items: 

• BF Sword: Attacks deal more damage
• Recurve Bow: Attack more often
• Needlessly Large Rod: Abilities are stronger
• Tear of the Goddess: Begin combat with some mana
• Giant’s Belt: Gain health
• Chain Vest: Take less damage from basic attacks
• Negatron Cloak: Take less damage from abilities
• Sparring Gloves: Gain dodge chance and critical strike chance
• Spatula: Provides no stats, but upgrades into various rule-breaking items! 

Equip items by dragging and dropping them onto your champions (be careful, this can’t be undone). If you equip a champion with two basic items, those items automatically combine into an upgraded item, sharing the same combination of stats as its components. Every pair of basic items creates a different upgraded item! 

Upgraded items can buff your attacks and abilities, grant unique effects, and even change the properties of your champions! New classes and origins means new spatula items, here’s what’s new: 

• Spatula + BF Sword: Assassin
• Spatula + Recurve Bow: Blademaster
• Spatula + Needlessly Large Rod: Inferno
• Spatula + Tear of the Goddess: Mage
• Spatula + Giant’s Belt: Glacial
• Spatula + Chain Vest: Warden
• Spatula + Negatron Cloak: Light
• Spatula + Sparring Gloves: Berserker 

Element of the Game 

Each Rise of the Elements game will randomly feature one element: Inferno, Ocean, Mountain, or Wind. The element of the game can be tracked in the center of the carousel, and has a few effects. 

First, Qiyana’s element corresponds to the element of the game. Second, the Dragon encounter now features the Elemental Drake that corresponds to the element of the game. Finally, the element of the game controls the new Elemental Hex mechanic. 

When you load into the Convergence, one random hex will be imbued with the element of the game, buffing the champion that starts combat on top of it each round. When the game reaches stage 3-1, a second Elemental Hex is created. The same hexes are chosen on all eight players’ boards. 

Elemental Hexes grant the following effects:

• Inferno: Gain attack speed for the duration of combat
• Ocean: Start combat with additional mana
• Mountain: Gain permanent health that stacks between rounds and remains even if the champion is moved off the Elemental Hex
• Wind: Gain dodge chance for the duration of combat

Note that Elemental Hex buffs take up an item slot. If a champion with three items starts combat in an Elemental Hex, they won’t receive the buff."

Universe Updates

The universe was updated with a new story in the High Noon Gothic universe, and an older story featuring Cassiopeia was tweaked!

With Hell Before Them - By Jared Rosen

"June 7th, 1868 

The caravan has delivered me unto Dust. 

It is a listless and dead-eyed town, as likely to be swallowed by the desert as any other two-street this far south of the rail line. I recall it was once something quite spectacular back in the days of the Great Expansion, but now there is little left save a filth-encrusted saloon and a handful of sunken homesteads. The people’s faces are weighed down by a certain heaviness—they look to me for some measure of salvation, but I am not a true angel, and I cannot answer their prayers."

[Read With Hell Before Them here!] 

The Shedding of Skin, the Cassiopeia color story, was tweaked!

Miscellaneous

• Riot Report: Episode 2 - Summoner Showcase and Rise of the Elements

• The Good, The Bad, and the League: 10/4 - 10/18

"Your semi-weekly dose of server problem-os, NA League news, and other! (Moved to Mondays for easier updates) 

Worlds has some interesting teams moving to knockout stage, TFT set 2 is on PBE and...oh yeah, we had a 10 YEAR ANNIVERSARY announcement for League (and a bunch of other games, nbd). 

Follow-Ups:

• Mac voice still not working properly Bug grouped with other Mac bugs

Ongoing

• Transfer service goes down (9/21 - 10/9) PS notifies the NOC that players are getting errors when attempting to transfer between Europe and Oceania (Not 100% failure rate, but not 0% either). This has been fixed as of 10/9!
• TFT Match History intermittent (9/26 - 10/9) TFT match history goes live on all regions, and reports start to filter in over the next day that TFT matches aren’t always showing up in match history. This has been fixed as of 10/9!

Server Stuff:

• RP fulfillment issues causing players to not get RP (10/4, ~7 hours) An alert pops stating a few players redeemed codes, but didn’t get RP. Investigation by payments team found a rounding error with decimals (pesky little things it seems). Players get their RP and the code causing the error is fixed server side.
• NA is unavailable due to extended HW maintenance (10/7, ~54 minutes) NA is unavailable for longer than planned from a hardware maintenance. Final QA takes longer than expected, which caused the platform to open for players later than our original plans.
• Players are unable to checkout with PayOn (10/7, ~2 hours) Automated alerting notices that PayOn processing is having problems. Payments team uncover that the problem isn’t on Riot’s side. PayOn processing is disabled until PayOn resolves their issue, which they do quickly after being notified.
• Misconfig leads to players unable to login (10/8, ~4 hours) Player Support notifies the NOC that there’s a spike of players unable to login. NOC investigates login queue and discovers part of the system is having problems. Network engineers divert traffic away from an affected node, which enables players to log in again. Once the login queue is gone, engineers begin to fix the affected node and then transitions traffic back onto it again.
• Honor goes down (10/8, ~93 minutes) Automated alerts notices that Honor rewards are down to 0. Investigation shows a changelist step was done out of order (pushed early) causing the problem. A correct config is pushed out, resuming rewards correctly.
• Free to play champion rotation not updated (10/15, ~104 minutes) Automated alerts notify the NOC that champion rotation isn’t pushed properly. NOC manually sets config changes to enable free to play champions for this patch, and gets the automated config updated to work properly with the next patch.

Game Stuff:

• Games in progress killed by accident (10/7, ~4 hours) The NOC notices various views aren’t updating with data, and rioter reports filter in that players are stuck attempting to reconnect in a TFT match. Investigation leads to a series of config updates taking place, which also incorrectly targeted NA servers instead of PBE servers. The config updates are paused, and all affected players have to endure a ghost game until they can queue up again.
• TFT traits not displaying or triggering in-game (10/9, ~34 hours) Player reports filter in that players aren’t getting TFT synergies with proper numbers of units. TFT team identifies that preemptive code changes shipped for future patches caused the issue, and a fix rolls out via a micropatch once being approved by QA.

Morgageddon"

• Play with a Pro! - "Fans will have the chance to play games of Summoner's Rift and Teamfight Tactics with LCS pros as part of the extended League of Legends 10-Year Celebration."

Other Games

• Legends of Runeterra's first preview patch is now over, look for further testing next month!

[1] Servers are going offline, but this is just the beginning for Legends of Runeterra. On behalf of everyone at Riot, thank you to the players for playing, the streamers, YouTubers, and creators for capturing amazing moments, and the viewers for supporting this new community.

[2] We're coming back on November 14th. We'll have news and updates on all of our channels over the next few weeks leading up to the next preview patch. See you in game again soon.

• Look for more from League of Legends: Wild Rift in the future, but for now they are going dark to continue work on the game:

[1] Hey everyone! It's been super fun getting to reveal League of Legends: Wild Rift to the world, but we're gonna go dark for a while as we get the game ready. We'll post here when we have larger updates for alphas and betas in the coming months. Thank you all! See you soon!

Reminders