Surrender at 20: Red Post Collection: End of Year Prestige Shop, Ask Riot, New TFT Champions & Items in 10.1, & more!

Today's red post collection includes details on the end of the year Prestige Shop, this week's Ask Riot on preseason & Aphelios, Leona and Karma plus new & updated items set to join TFT in patch 10.1, and more!

Continue reading for more information!

Universe Update: Sett, the Boss

PBE Preview: Mecha Kingdoms

12/11 PBE Update: New Champion Sett, New Mecha Kingdoms + Dragonslayer + Guardian of the Sands, Skins & Much More
Night & Dawn Event: New Skins, Chroma, Loot & Much More

The End of Year Prestige Shop is Open!

As mentioned previously, the end of year Prestige Shop is now open! This shop features many items for 1 to 50 prestige points including summoner icons, prestige themed ward skin, emote, & icon, and several previous jackpot bags from previous events!

"The end-of-year Prestige shop is open! Here's the list of items on offer in addition to the 2019 Prestige Point skins:

PROJECT 2019 Jackpot Bag - 50 PP

Contains 3 skin shards of the same tier (750 RP, 975 RP, 1350 RP, or 1820 RP) and 1050 Orange Essence

Revel Grab Bag - 50 PP

Contains a 520 RP skin shard, 750 RP skin shard, 975 RP skin shard, 1350 RP skin shard, and 1820 RP skin shard

Arcade 2019 Jackpot Bag - 50 PP

Contains 3 legacy skin shards (one guaranteed 975 RP or higher) and 1520 Orange Essence same as the project 2019 jackpot bag

Prestige Ahri Animated Emote - 25 PP

Prestige 2019 Ward Skin - 15 PP

Prestige 2019 Icon - 10 PP

Golden Trials 2019 Icon - 5 PP

Arcade Star Icon - 5 PP

PROJECT: Reckoning Icon - 5 PP

Worlds 2019 Prestige Points Icon - 5 PP

Hextech Key - 3 PPA

30 Orange Essence - 1 PP

2019 Prestige Points expire February 3 2020, 13:00 PM PT so use 'em if you got 'em. This is a few days later than the previously-announced January 31, 11:59 PM PT date.

Early 2020 Prestige Info

You'll be able to pick up 2020 Prestige Points from Masterwork Chest bundles starting January 15, 2020 with the first event of the year. The 2019 bundles will still be available at that time, but the 2020 versions will have updated visuals to make it clear which year's points you're purchasing. 2020 Prestige Points will expire January 28 2021, 13:00 PT.

As previously announced, all 2020 Prestige event token skins will be returning at the end of the year for purchase with Prestige points, but won't grant their original event borders OR the gold Prestige point border. We'll be back in January with a list of champions getting Prestige skins in the first half of 2020. Until then, happy blinging!"

You can find the Prestige Point items in the client by clicking on your Prestige Points in your loot tab!

Ask Riot: Preseason & Aphelios

Check out this week's Ask Riot - topics include "Why’d you make Omnistone? How do Elemental Rifts affect champion win rates? Aphelios’ mastery curve?"

Today it’s all about the gameplay.

Do any champions have a much higher or lower win rate on different elemental rifts? Like does Rengar have a higher win rate on the ocean one?

A
In general, champions don’t have significant winrate swings based on the elemental rift (the most significant cases are 1% change). We think this is ideal because the different rifts create fresh layouts to play around, but don’t swing the game too heavily for or against one team.

As an additional balancing factor, the elemental rifts that create tighter, darker, maps great for ambushes (ocean, mountain) are paired with buffs that boost defenses. In the end the effects mostly cancel out.

Rengar, who we all thought might be insane on Ocean actually is slightly worse on that map. His best map is Infernal, likely from the damage buff synergy with his bursty kit. But even for Rengar his worst map is -0.25% and his best is +0.31% so it’s really more about how you play it, not which map you get.

RIOTSCRUFFY

Lead Gameplay Designer

Q

Why did you make Omnistone?

A
Let’s start with why we removed Kleptomancy. Klepto had two identities: give you consumables to play around and give you gold long-term. By the end of Season 8, it became pretty apparent that neither of these strengths were impactful enough that you would ever consider this rune on any champion other than the few that could proc it way more than anyone else. Therefore in Season 9 we decided to try to focus on one of these identities and broaden it so that someone other than Ezreal and Gangplank would consider it when presented with the ideal situation.

Consumables in League are pretty bland for gameplay (they’re just stats or regen in some form or another), so we tried out Klepto as the greed farming rune that granted you a gold advantage. While it definitely hit the strategic layer of “take this to punish boring farm lanes,” we feel that experience is just a bit too miserable for opponents, as it mostly just made range mismatch lanes really punishing.

Without existing consumables we were happy with—and because we were unwilling to keep Klepto as an economy rune—we knew we needed to do something larger scope.
The first step was to explore and see if we could actually create cool, short-term bonuses: If we aren’t limited to existing consumables in League, can we come up with satisfying gameplay? Iterations in that space ended up reasonably fruitful. At one point, the rune granted you one of five possible buffs every minute that had explicit strengths, such as “Amb(r)ush: Gain a damage and haste buff when you exit a brush,” and “Conquest: Deal bonus damage to objectives.” But we generally understood that buffs like this were too complex for the rune system. Granting other keystones was a natural step from there—it’s lower complexity because it’s not actually introducing something new to learn while giving players the opportunity to make clever choices.

Beyond that, Omnistone is also more of an exploration into a “player style rune” rather than a “champion rune.” We know some players will find it fun to play with, but we also know that this kind of mini-game isn’t for everyone. Ideally it’s a viable rune that no one feels pressured to take. It’s not quite hitting that bar right now, but luckily we patch the game regularly. Keystone and champion tuning has become really intertwined in a way that often limits the player choice we’ve always wanted with runes—here’s to hoping Omnistone can break that mold.

RIOT CAPTAIN GAMEPLAY

Associate Game Designer

Q

What do you think Aphelios’ mastery curve will be like?

A
A great question, with some debate! But first, let’s talk about mastery curve. Meddler has spoke a bit about this in past “Quick Gameplay Thoughts” posts, but here’s a refresher:
Mastery curve is a measure of how much a champion’s performance increases based on the number of games one has played as them. We tend to care about how much this changes over 30 games to represent experienced players and 100 games to represent master players.

Certain champions grow a LOT on their journey to becoming experienced (Zoe and Azir grow by ~11% win rate in 30 games, for example). These sorts of champions tend to have challenging to execute patterns with a high chance of failure— as you get reps on it and reduce your failure rate, you gain extreme returns quickly. Other champions have larger error margins, so don’t grow as much (Varus and Brand, for example, grow by ~2-4%).

After 30 games, most champions’ performance starts to plateau and additional games mean less and less. Some champions, however, continue to grow significantly past this point, occasionally even beyond the 100 and 200 game marks. Very subjectively, I think this is where the real “mastery” happens. The first 30 games are “learning the ropes” and mostly reducing one’s error rate. Then, once you get the basics down and stop making errors, the next 100 games is when you start to really master the champion and begin to leverage every possible part of their kit.

Some champions have a steep 30 game curve but a flat 100 game curve; others have the opposite. Let’s get into some more examples to illustrate how these differ. I include the 30-game and 200-game marks here, to really illustrate the difference:

Renekton grows by 4% in his first 30, and another 4% in his next 170.

Anivia grows by ~10% in her 30, but only another ~2% over the next 170 games.

Rengar grows by 8% in his first 30, and then another 7% in his next 170!

So, with all this in mind, let’s go back to Aphelios. As we’ve said many times, he’s very hard to play, so the subject matter experts predict that he will grow by ~10-12% in 30 games, and another ~4-5% by 100 games. This puts him at just about… the steepest mastery curve in the game.

But like I said, there’s some debate here! Personally, I expect his first 30 to move quite a bit less than those projections because I believe his propensity for failure is significantly lower than the other champions in that high-mastery camp; if you just play him like a traditional marksman, you’ll still find some success. However, fully understanding every weapon and how to master the order and plan ahead or react appropriately is a very difficult skillset that will continue to pay dividends for a lonnnnnnngggg time. That’s why I believe he will be one of those champions that continues to grow past 100 and 200 games, and I expect there he will differentiate himself as the most challenging champion in the game to fully master!

RIOT STASHU

Game Designer

Have a question? Click on the button below, sign into your League account, and ask away.

We’ll do our best to read every question, but we can’t guarantee they’ll all get answers. Some questions may already be answered elsewhere, and some won’t be right for Ask Riot. This isn’t the best place to announce new features, for example, and we might skip conversations on issues we’ve talked about in depth before (though we can clarify individual points).

We are listening, though, so keep asking. We’ll make sure your questions are heard by the Rioters working on the stuff you’re curious about."

TFT Update: Savage Twilight

Get ready for a new TFT element and two new champions in 10.1 with this look at Savage Twilight with Riot Jag and Riot Beernana:

"Leona and Karma are bringing the power of the moon to Teamfight Tactics. As Lunar champions, they’ll continuously protect and empower their allies. They'll hit live servers with patch 10.1.

Here's how they work:

Lunar

(2): Every 7 seconds, your team gains 20% Critical Strike Chance, 20% Critical Strike Damage, and 20% Spell Power (Stacks up to 4 times).

Moonlight transforms unit durability into a win condition for team comps that are built with drawn out battles in mind.

Leona

Skin: Lunar Eclipse
Cost: 1
Origin: Lunar
Class: Warden
Ability: Lunar Eclipse

Leona reduces all damage by 35/70/105 for 5 seconds.

Leona is the frontline unit for the Lunar trait. She’s especially strong when deflecting lots of small instances of damage, so she should be quite sturdy against Summoners and low-threat units like other Wardens or Mystics. She’ll help buy the time you need to get the Moonlight blessing on all of your allies.

Karma

Skin: Dawnbringer
Cost: 3
Origin: Lunar
Class: Mystic
Ability: Inspire

At the start of combat, Karma tethers to her closest ally. Karma shields the tethered ally (or a random one if the tether is dead) for 5 seconds, absorbing the next 200/350/500 damage. While the shield holds, the ally receives 50/75/100% bonus Attack Speed.

Karma is top-tier at protecting and enhancing carries, so think carefully when determining her placement. With Karma on your team, you’ll always know where your star is—standing right next to her. "

TFT: What's Coming for Items in 10.1!

Here's Llord Llama on the dev corner with more information on upcoming item changes and additions aimed at patch 10.1!

"TL;DR: We’re hitting the items in TFT - adding some new ones, and updating others.

Hi everyone! In this post we're talking about the items we're updating in patch 10.1. Our goals were threefold:

Address some problem items that promised fun payoffs but had a lot of trouble delivering.

Help some items scale through the game by linking their power to the user’s star level.

Give more exciting gameplay to tanky champions.

Here's the list:

Last Whisper REPLACES Repeating Crossbow

Last Whisper: When the wearer inflicts a critical hit, the target’s Armor is reduced by 90% for 3 seconds.

In theory, Repeating Crossbow had a clear fantasy with huge upside. In practice, there was just too much downtime as it from champion to champion. It also couldn’t jump to a champion who was already full on items, which meant it tended to avoid your carries rather than boosting their stats even more. This also played especially poorly with Set 2’s elemental hexes, which consume an item slot.

So, we’re creating a new item: Last Whisper. When its user scores a critical hit, the target’s Armor is massively reduced for a few seconds. This can let your whole team, not just damage dealers, chunk down a formerly-tough target.

Bramble Vest REPLACES Thornmail

Bramble Vest: Negates bonus damage from critical hits on the wearer. When the wearer is hit by a Basic Attack, a hail of thorns hits nearby enemies for 80/120/160 magic damage (increases with the holder's star level and can only damage once per second).

Thornmail is a great example of an item that’s fantastic on one champion (Braum) and bad-to-awful on everyone else, because if it’s balanced around broad playability, it will become horribly overpowered on Braum (or any future champion who’s all about big mitigation).

Rather than tweak Thornmail, or nerf it into oblivion, we’ve decided to replace it. Bramble Vest combines a bit of Phantom Dancer with a saner version of Thornmail’s damage-to-attackers. It’s also our first star-scaled item; the damage from the thorns depends on the wearer’s star level.

Titan’s Resolve REPLACES Phantom Dancer

Titan’s Resolve: When the wearer is hit by a source of damage, they gain a 2.5% stacking damage increase (stacks infinitely).

Phantom Dancer received a significant change in 9.24, but since we ultimately wanted Bramble Vest to fill the anti-crit, anti-assassin role, giving tanks some opportunity to hit back made a lot of sense - especially on an item that grants Attack Speed. Since Bramble Vest renders Phantom Dancer redundant, we created Titan’s Resolve (aka “Leona’s Revenge.”) You want this item on champions who will take a lot of hits and stay standing to reap the benefits of a huge pile of Titan stacks.

That’s it for the new items. What about item updates?

Iceborn Gauntlet

Old: Creates a zone of ice that expands when the wearer Dodges, slowing enemies' Attack Speed by 25%.

New: After casting a spell, the wearer’s next Basic Attack freezes the target for 1.5 seconds.

Iceborn Gauntlet promised a wonderful dream - cover the map in a layer of ice and chill the enemy team into helplessness wherever they stood. But the visual overlap with Frozen Heart’s effect felt bad and was visually unclear with varying the magnitude of the slow. Additionally, any item that triggers from Dodge will have some extreme cases (Jax for example) that make it difficult to balance.

We hearkened back to our League of Legends roots, and gave the Gauntlet a freeze effect on basic attacks. Ezreal can finally feel good about matching the glove to the rest of his outfit like he does on the Rift.

Quicksilver

Old: Prevents the next crowd control effect applied to the wearer. Refreshes every 3 seconds.

New: The wearer is immune to crowd control effects.

Quicksilver’s value was hard to get a read on, and the timing of its refresh could make it feel useless when it was needed most. Not anymore!

Frozen Heart

Old: Reduces the Attack Speed of nearby enemies by 40%.

New: Reduces the Attack Speed of nearby enemies by 40% (stacking increases the radius of this effect).

Attack Speed drives so many gameplay dynamics in Teamfight Tactics that allowing it to get debuffed to very low levels has many knock-on effects: slower rounds, too-broad usefulness against enemy auto-attackers AND casters, etc. A radius increase will help Frozen Heart stacking remain relevant without turning TFT into NURF mode.

Locket of the Iron Solari, Statikk Shiv, and Luden’s Echo now scale based on the wearer’s star level

It’s OK for items to fall off in the late game after conferring an early advantage, but we’d like to be able to control this better, and we’d also like to avoid the buyer’s remorse that comes with building an item that “everyone knows” becomes unacceptably weak once the game has gone a certain length.

Ionic Spark

Old: Whenever an enemy casts their Ability, they take 90 true damage.

New: Enemies within 3 hexes that cast a spell are zapped, taking magic damage equal to 200% of their max Mana.

Ionic Spark was an indiscriminate item: it hit the whole board, so no positional play could provide an escape, and it affected all casters equally. The new version now asks players to decide how to deploy it: on the frontline, where it will help burn the enemy frontline but miss the casters in the back? Or on assassins, where it might help kill the squishy casters earlier? Also, the fact that Ionic Spark treated big and small spells the same was a little strange, so now the damage depends on the spell’s mana cost.

Enjoy the rest of the year, and I'm excited to see all the screenshots of the biggest Titan’s Resolve stacks when 10.1 goes live!"

Optional username update prompt is back in-client

Here's Riot Schmiot with details on the optional username update prompts returning to the client:

A few weeks back we paused the in-client Riot Account Update prompt when we ran into delays getting email notifications out along our originally-planned timeline. We know that this rollout created some confusion – needing to change a username isn’t fun for anyone – and we’re sorry for that. This change is necessary prep for launching our future games, and getting this done now will make your first experiences with those games much better down the road.

Now that most players have received an email if they need to make a change to their Riot Account, we’re going to start rolling out in-game notifications for players that need to update to globally unique usernames (you can find out more about why we’re doing this on the Riot Support FAQ.

These pop-ups are going to be dismissable for now, so you can skip it until you’re ready to make the change before it becomes non-dismissable in January. Also, now that most players who need to make a change have an email listing their accounts, it should be much easier to figure out if you’re blocking yourself with a name in another region (or a PBE account), or if it’s another player entirely.

We’ve also updated the Riot Support FAQ with more details, some additional context, and a few tips that might help out.

For those who already changed their usernames without the email needed to make the decision, Riot Schmiot noted:

"We’re working on an update that will let you make that swap yourself early next year, so if you have both accounts, you'll be able to make the swap then. Expect to hear more in January."

Check out the Riot Support FAQ for more information.

Miscellaneous

Over on the LoL subreddit Bellissioh noted we'll be seeing a new Twitch skin sometime in 2020- "This is correct. No “Lunar Revel” themed skins in 2020. There will be a Twitch skin in 2020 though."