Today's red post collection includes the announcement for the next Teamfight Tactics set, Fates, the next dev blog from the Summoner's Rift team on Balancing for Pro Play, new Prime Gaming LoL loot, and more!
Here's Riot Scruffy with a quick gameplay thoughts post for August 21st - "Balanced champ releases progress, Preseason followup plans."
"Disclaimer
These posts will often contain talk about future work we're doing, or planning to do, that isn't yet guaranteed to ship. The work or goals could change depending on what we discover, and projects mentioned may get delayed or even stopped. That said, I believe it’s important to share as much as we can even if plans may change.
Balanced Champion Releases Progress
We’ve been committed to more balanced Champion and VGU releases this year with faster follow up when it’s needed. With Lillia and Yone both released, it seems like a good time to check in on how we think we’ve done since we made the commitment.
Fiddlesticks - Good - Overall this was a great first try at the strategy. Fiddle released slightly underpowered and we gave him an appropriate buff that brought him into viability but not an OP state. We’ve done a few patches here and there after his released, but those were focused on feel improvements or adding interest to his effigy passive. There was a brief tank fiddle moment, but we reacted quickly and balanced it without damaging his primary AP playstyle.
Volibear - Mixed - Voli had a fairly smooth launch, and he released pretty close to balanced initially. In response to some slower winrate growth than we expected and a misestimation on our part of his value in professional play we ended up over buffing him in patch 10.11’s hotfix. At the time it looked like the right amount of power, but eventually this led to us having to repeatedly nerf him over the last few patches. Next time we will take it slower on big buffs while players are still mastering a new release.
Lillia - Great (so far) - Lillia was the combination success so far of very close to balanced on release and an effective wait and see approach. She’s a pretty nuanced and skillful champion, so even with some fairly low numbers on launch, we wanted to give the community the right amount of time to learn her. We still may need to apply some slight buffs or nerfs in the long run, but as far as launches go this is ideal.
Yone - Good (so far) - As you’ve likely seen, we recently nerfed Yone in patch 10.17. This is an expected part of the process and we’re happy so far with how close Yone has been to our targets so far. Time will tell if we need to do more, but we’re generally seeing healthy patterns from Yone with the counterplay we intended (fair counterplay can be challenging to design correctly for the assassin class).
Overall this has been a big improvement over the previous period with many champs needing extended nerfing (Aphelios, Sett, etc). I’m personally happy with the progress so far and we’re committed to improving here even more.
Preseason Follow Up Plans
This preseason’s item system overhaul is one of the largest projects we have ever undertaken. We’re expecting a lot of disruption, so we are preparing well in advance for a lot of follow up. We will have both the balance and systems designers monitoring the full range of systems in the game to see what needs tuning in the preseason and spring. Some of the important things we often look at to make sure that the game systems are in a healthy place are:
Game length - goal is no change here (happy with the roughly 30 min average and chances for 50-60 min epic games)
Snowball - our sweet spot for 15 minutes in is 40% even, 35% small lead, and 25% large lead
Laning phase duration - we evaluate this with first tower take, which is ideally around 13-14 minutes depending on the skill level of the game
Position Power - We look at the ability for each position (mid, top, etc) to carry the game and make sure that things haven’t become imbalanced
Class balance - When looking at champion balance, if we see a whole class of characters like tanks, assassins, enchanters as strong or weak it usually indicates that there is a systemic problem underneath it.
And many many more that we will be monitoring
Additionally, we’re developing a balancing framework for items like the one we use for champions to help us be responsive, accurate, and unbiased in our item balancing. This will be essential in us hitting our goals for item choice and build diversity which requires both good choice designs and very tight balance.
Thanks again everyone for playing. Stay safe out there."
Teamfight Tactics: Fates
The theme of the next TFT set has been announced! Here's the announcement on Teamfight Tactics: Fates - "A sneak peek into the world of Fates, including Little Legends, synergies, and more.":
"Ever since the Featherknights have had beaks to go wah! and ears to listen, their songs have told of a secret realm between our world and the next: one of deep magic, where stars plop down from the sky and the land takes on a life of its own.
Small (but still very fearsome) dragons with the power of storm and shadow lead great armies to defend this otherworldly plane. The largest and roundest of their kind have even been known to swallow whole worlds in a single gulp.
It is said greatness awaits those brave enough to fight alongside these beasts. So gods and mortals alike—from splendid Divines to Tormented villains, from kind Spirits to dreadful Phantasms—come from far and wide to seek their Fortunes as the dragons’ Chosen.
But tucked away in the corners of time and space, this world has been lost to outsiders for… basically forever. No one has yet discovered the mysterious glories it holds, and it seems no one ever will—
Wait, is that a portal?
The adventure begins patch 10.19. Until then, keep an eye out for the unveiling of Teamfight Tactics: Fates at the link below.
Here's the most recent /Dev from the Summoner's Rift team! Today's topic is Balancing for Pro Play - "Let’s talk about how we approach balance for seasonal Pro play and major tournaments like Worlds.":
"Welcome to the third of our four-part blog series from the Summoner’s Rift Team! Last year, we ran the Life of a Patch campaign, sharing insight on how we put together a League of Legends balance patch (here's a summary!). We're tackling a few major, persistent balance topics in more depth than we can get to through patch notes, social media, or Meddler and Scruffy's weekly posts.
Here's what you can expect:
Blog 1, late June: State of the Champion Balance Framework, with details on what we’ve adjusted since its inception last year
Blog 2, early July: Updated approach to balancing new champs and VGUs
Blog 3, mid August: Balancing for Pro play and major tournaments like Worlds
Blog 4, early September: Balancing runes and items (with a few callouts for preseason 2021)
This time, we're talking about how we balance Summoner’s Rift for the highest level of League: Pro play.
Balancing for the Regular Season
Outside of patches that major tournaments like MSI and Worlds will be played on, the Champion Balance Framework governs our approach to Pro play balance.
You’ll notice that we primarily focus on the top four regions for professional play (LCK, LPL, LEC, LCS), even though there are 12 regional leagues globally. The top four regions are determined by current Worlds seeding rules, which are a reflection of each region’s international performance (success at MSI/Worlds) over recent years.
In professional play, we focus on presence—which is the aggregate of picks and bans—as a measure of power instead of win rate. Win rate is less valuable here because the sample size on any given patch makes it a less reliable measure of power. At most, we see around 200 pro matches on a single patch, which is barely a whisper of a fraction of a percent of the amount of data we need to feel confident balancing around win rate.
We use two layers to identify overpowered champions in Pro play. Any champion that hits a presence of 95% (90% for MSI/Worlds) or higher in one patch will receive a nerf. This ensures that any spikes in champion power due to a recent buff are quickly dealt with. The second layer looks at presence over two consecutive patches with a lowered threshold of 85% (80% for MSI/Worlds). This ensures that there isn’t a small group of borderline-OP champions sitting at the top of the meta for too long.
We use 5% presence as our identifier for underpowered champions at the professional level. We’ve set it at 5% to ensure presence is not just a one-time player or champion pocket pick, but something that can be viable in multiple games.
Regular Season Champion Diversity Targets
In addition to the Balance Framework's targets, we’ve also set meta diversity targets for each segment of play. For Pro play, our current target is for 45% of champions to have 5%+ presence. We think this target represents a healthy meta where multiple strategies are viable and multiple champions can fill a variety of roles in those strategies.
Pro Play vs. Everyone Else
The Champion Balance Framework only recommends we buff a champion when they are underpowered at all levels of play. This means that absence from Pro play on its own doesn’t guarantee we'll buff a champion (though we may still choose to, if we can avoid making them OP elsewhere). Amumu is an example of a champion who typically excels in Average play but doesn’t really show up in Pro play. We’re okay with this because it’s expected that some champs are better for some audiences than others.
One of the challenges we run into when balancing for Pro play is ensuring that the changes we make don't have an overly negative impact on other levels of play.
“THIS IS BECAUSE BALANCE CHANGES MADE TO SUMMONER’S RIFT WILL ALWAYS BE THE SAME FOR ALL PLAYERS: FROM IRON TO THE TOP PROFESSIONAL LEAGUES, WE'RE ALL PLAYING ON THE SAME RIFT.”
Balancing for Worlds
Unlike the regular season of Pro play that patches every two weeks, Worlds is played on one patch over six weeks to ensure a consistent strategic playing field throughout the course of the tournament. This means the meta on the Worlds patch becomes significantly more optimized than other patches as teams hone in on and perfect the most powerful strategies and champions of the patch. In an ideal world, this also means we as fans get to experience a tournament where the meta evolves, counters are created for dominant strategies, and the diversity of champs and playstyle is abundant.
But sometimes the optimizations have too few counters. Many of you may recall Worlds 2017 where pros identified the somewhat-overlooked power of an Ardent Censer change we made at the start of the season—even after we made a small preventative nerf before the strategy truly took off. The result was a meta focused around a single strategy: protect the ADC. While some neat counters were developed to this strategy (remember Fervor Leona?), the meta was too unilaterally solidified in a safe, late-game style—which is something we want to avoid.
To combat overpowered strategies, we’ve started minimizing large and systemic balance changes during the lead up to Worlds to ensure a stable meta with multiple strategic options.
This generally means dramatic balance shifts won’t happen after the Summer Split has begun.
No 100% Presence Champions
One major goal we set for Worlds in recent years is to have no champion at 100% pick/ban (aka 100% presence) over the course of the tournament. We know that draft strategy is very important and complex at the professional level, and when a champion becomes mandatory to pick or ban in every game, it has a negative impact on how teams are able to approach the draft and champion diversity suffers. This often manifests when there is little or no opportunity for pros to play a new or VGU'd champion during the Summer Split or Playoffs, meaning we don't have data to balance these champs for Worlds.
We came close to hitting this goal in 2019, but Pantheon still made it to 100% pick/ban. Pantheon was an important learning point because his VGU had less than one patch of Pro play before Worlds. To combat situations like this, we worked with the Global Competitive Operations Team to create a new policy for new champions and VGUs:
“NEW CHAMPIONS AND VGUS MUST BE ENABLED FOR PLAYOFFS IN ALL FOUR OF THE TOP REGIONS IN ORDER TO BE PLAYABLE AT THE NEXT INTERNATIONAL TOURNAMENT.”
For 2020, that means Lillia will be enabled for Worlds, but Yone will not be.
Worlds Champion Diversity Targets
For pro tournaments, we tighten our diversity bands by an extra 5%—which means it increases to 90% in one patch or 80% across two patches—to ensure optimal diversity. This gives professional players a wider variety of ways to demonstrate their skills on the biggest stage and also leads to a more exciting viewer experience.
Our perspective on champion diversity at Worlds has evolved over the years. We've shifted from caring whether a champion shows up in Pro at all to whether they show up enough to influence the meta. Our approach now includes the 5%+ presence group because we think this is a stronger indicator of whether a champion is viable, and not just picked or banned once for a certain player or game.
In 2019, 62% of champs were picked/banned at least once, but only 41% had 5%+ presence.
For 2020, we're focusing on maximizing the number of champions that have 5%+ presence at Worlds in pursuit of our 45% of the roster goal. This means we’d like to see 67 unique champion picks with a presence in at least 5% of games.
It’s worth noting that any champion buffs we make for a tournament like Worlds are still expected to fall within the Champion Balance Framework bands for all groups of play.
In years past, we’ve been pretty aggressive with our attempts to get champions in Worlds. This has been successful in increasing champion diversity, but at times, the player pain it has caused hasn’t been worth it.
Season 8 Kha’Zix is a good example of this. We buffed the slow on his Void Spike before Worlds because we knew his utility would be the most impactful to Pro play. This made him too strong, but more damning, it made him a kiting, peeling beast, which was also counter to his champion fantasy.
Fast forward to this year, where Kha’Zix again had room for buffs. This time, we amplified his Isolation damage, which is much more true to his champion fantasy. We went a bit too far in terms of sheer power, though, and have since pulled back in patch 10.16.
Another example worth calling out is Caitlyn's buffs in patch 10.15. We had a specific goal for buffing her—more on that in a minute—but she's now on the line of becoming overpowered in regular play. She's also a champion who frustrates players even before crossing OP thresholds, so we're watching her performance closely.
Worlds Position Diversity
In addition to overall champion diversity at Worlds, we’ve also set some position targets because we think it’s important to see a healthy diversity of matchups across all lanes. In 2020, our target is to have at least 10 picks per position at a 5%+ presence at Worlds.
When looking to introduce champions into the Pro tournament meta, we want to validate that the top picks in each position have a variety of timing spikes and win conditions.
For 2020, we accomplished this by assessing the Pro meta leading up to the Worlds patch, noting which positions have fewer than 10 picks. Based on the power spikes and win conditions of the champions already present, we looked for picks we could buff into viability who would add more strategic diversity. Because of our limited opportunity to follow up on these changes, buffing individual champs is much safer than making systemic changes that affect more champions in a less direct manner. If we overbuff a single champion, our worst case scenario is that champion becomes 100% pick/ban. If we overbuff an entire category of champions via systems changes, we get another Ardent Censer meta.
Worlds 2020: Marksman/Bot Carry Diversity
The marksman/bottom lane carry position has been one of our least diverse roles over the course of the 2020 season.
When looking to create more champion diversity for Worlds 2020, we recognized that nerfing Varus to a healthier level of presence meant the position would skew much more toward mid-to-late game picks with Aphelios, Ashe, Ezreal, and Kai’Sa as likely frontrunners. So when looking for new candidates to add to the pool, we wanted to find champs who support early game strats alongside Kalista and Varus. Caitlyn and Miss Fortune were our go-to options for champions that can force pressure in lane and offer different power spike timings than the current set of top meta marksmen.
Worlds 2020: Top Lane Diversity
We also wanted to increase champion diversity in top lane for Worlds 2020. When reviewing the meta champions, we felt we had a good spread of power spike timings represented. Renekton, Jayce, and Volibear have good early presence. Kennen and Wukong are good mid-game choices. Ornn, Camille, and Kayle round out the picks as late game champions.
We considered buffing Vladimir to add him as an additional late-game option that could counter some meta champions, but we opted out of it. First, we don’t want to have “scaling to late game” as the dominant choice across multiple roles, and ADC is already at risk on this front. Second, Vlad has been sporting a solid (but not dominant) win rate of 51.5% in Skilled play for the mid lane. Vladimir is strong enough and played enough that forcing him further into the meta—especially for Skilled play—seemed unwise.
While champion timing spikes were generally appropriate top lane, we still saw a limited number of strategies. The win conditions felt like they were either 1) win hard enough early to create teamfight advantages, or 2) play an excellent front-to-back teamfighting champion who doesn't have to win early. This is why we decided to buff Jax and Fiora, both who try to stretch out teams for split pushing and aren’t great in 5v5s.
Champion Diversity Across Seasons
Our end goal isn’t to see all champions or strategies equally represented at every Worlds. We like that the pro meta evolves season over season, and that each Worlds has different sets of memorable playstyles and strategies (even if some of them are remembered more for their heels than their heroes—we're not looking to repeat 2015 Juggernauts or 2017 Censer). Likewise, we’re not forcing a repeat of Worlds 2019’s dominance of assassins and safe marksmen. The highest level of games in Pro play are already looking incredibly exciting, and we expect some innovative and hype strategies and picks to emerge at Worlds 2020.
Looking Forward
Our balance approach for Pro play currently focuses on champion power and diversity, but we want to continue to evolve. We're starting to track other stats that may be good indicators of exciting matches, like average kills per game. We’re also working on expanding our frameworks to apply to all international competitive tournaments like MSI, where our goals are the same but targets may differ to account for fewer games being played.
We’ll be back next month for our final /dev blog in this balance series, where we’ll be talking about how we balance game systems like runes and items, with a few callouts to how Pro play factors into this and some references to the upcoming item overhaul in Preseason 2021."
Nocturne, Viktor, Malzahar and Ignite - Visual Effects Updates
Here's Beardilocks with a post on Nocturne, Viktor, Malzahar, and Ignite VFX changes coming to the PBE soon:
"Hello Everyone!
Riot Beardilocks here to bring you another round of visual effect updates. Similar to the previous VFX updates we’ve made in the past (Ziggs, Thresh, Lux, etc), we're working on updates to the Visual Effects (VFX) of more champions whose spell effects are in need of some love. In Patch 10.18, we'll be releasing a VFX Update for Malzahar, Nocturne, Viktor and Ignite!
Our goals for these sorts of smaller scope updates is to improve the overall gameplay clarity of vfx whilst bringing them up to modern League of Legends standards. This means that our efforts are primarily aimed at spells which do not clearly communicate the hitbox. Our goals are not to change the art direction for these skins or champions - those kinds of changes are reserved for full Visual + Gameplay updates (VGUs).
Just like the previous ones, since these are smaller updates geared toward sprucing up some of the oldest members of the roster, they aren't in the same prioritization conversation as to how we decide who gets a VGU (where we take model, gameplay, and thematic into account too!): they do not affect any other timeline, and are simply dev passion projects.
We're looking for feedback on their VFX changes, which should be up on the PBE soon-ish. Please try them out there —especially if you're a main— and leave us your feedback once the changes are up!
MALZAHAR
VFX Update aimed at modernizing this old champion's feel while improving his gameplay readability. We also took this opportunity to get a better look at the Void thematic's VFXs to better illustrate its modern representation in the Lore.
Base Kit:
P - Reduced some of the noise from the shield. Made it a bit brighter to match other spell shields (this one also negates 99% of damage, so yeah it needs to be visible).
BA - New missiles and hit effects.
Q - New quickcast indicator to better represent its actual hitbox (yes, it's always been that large). Completely revamped the whole effect. Void spikes grow from the ground, revealing Void portals in their heart. These then dissolve into missiles towards each other, damaging enemies. Also new hit effect. Fixed a bug where the hit effect would proc once per missile, even though the damage only applied once.
W - New spawn effects. Voidlings now follow the natural Void evolution, going from white/bone color to their usual appearance, as they spawn in. Also added an idle glow on their eyes. They also have new basic attack impacts.
E - Added a beam from Malzahar to his target on cast. Completely new debuff effect, much less noisy, but still chaotic. When it propagates, a beam links the dead target to the new one. It also now spawns a little hit effect on each damage proc. Also fixed a bug where his E would go on cooldown when Malzahar's target would die during the cast time.
R - New beam, hit and AOE effects. The pool should feel more appropriate to the current Void aesthetic in the lore, rather than just "space stuff".
SKINS:
Our approach when updating skins is to respect skin pricing tiers. Unless a skin is a 1350, we will not add any custom VFX. The exception to this is for older skins who already had unique visual effects. In this case, we allow these unique VFX to be updated to modern standard, regardless of tier.
Overlord Malzahar: Overall recolored effects, since this is a 975. Went for a shadow-y feel.
Snow Day Malzahar:
P - Cleaned up and glowier.
Q - Completely revamped, with different ground indicators. Big snowballs!
W - New voidling impacts. Summon effects were good, so we left them alone.
E - Recolored beams from base, and new snowy E debuff.
R - Some more snow, and new edge on the pool. Overall cleaned up.
Battle Boss Malzahar:
Q - New ground indicator. Ships and their shot have been turned horizontally, so they match the actual hitbox.
Hextech Malzahar:
P - Cleaned up and glowier.
Q - New ground indicators. Gems are slightly bigger. Cleaned up the missiles. Added some more animation to the whole spell.
W - New voidling impacts. Summon effects were good, so we left them alone.
E - New hextech-y beams, with cleaned up debuff effect.
R - Slight cleanup and timing adjustment on the pool. Added some more hextech-y waves.
Worldbreaker Malzahar:
P - A bit glowier.
Q - New ground indicators. Made the wave shot horizontal to match the hitbox.
(Malzahar updates by RiotSirhaian)
NOCTURNE
*VFX Update aimed at modernizing this old champion's feel while improving his gameplay readability. The primary improvements were around making sure his Q is visible and that the passive clearly communicates the area of effect. Nocturne had too many colours on his kit previously, so we made the decision to unify to just two colours - red and blue.
Base Kit:
P - Added a circular effect that communicates the area that Nocturne slashes targets. The passive ready effect has been moved from Nocturne's hands to be a glow on his blades. This way it is clearer when the effect is ready, and it does not compete with the attack speed buff for space.
BA - New swipes and target effects
Q - New animated claw that should be easier to see in a busy teamfight. The darkness trail has been balanced so it isn't so overwhelming for its low gameplay impact.
W - New shield effect, with thematic darkness elements.
E - New beam and shadow effects. The timing better illustrates when the target will be feared.
R - New dash and trail VFX. The hit effect on the target does not look like it should do area of effect damage anymore.
SKINS
Our approach when updating skins is to respect skin pricing tiers. Unless a skin is a 1350, we will not add any custom VFX. The exception to this is for older skins who already had unique visual effects. In this case, we allow these unique VFX to be updated to modern standard, regardless of tier.
All skins had updates to move the Passive glow from Nocturne's hands to his blades.
Frozen Terror Nocturne:
All of Frozen Terror Nocturne's VFX were updated with the same approach as base, but keeping their winter theme.
Haunting Nocturne:
All of Haunting Nocturne's VFX were updated with the same approach as base, but keeping their spooky theme.
Eternum Nocturne:
P - Changed the glow to the blades, and gave it some high-tech lens flare effects
BA - New swipes and target effects
Q - Updated to include a shadowy claw in the centre of the ball, to help improve recognisability. Reduced overall noise
W - Reduced noise with a high tech galaxy effect.
E - Unchanged
R - New dash, trail and hit VFX. Nocturne gets an upgraded shadow tornado effect on his body when he activates his ultimate.
VIKTOR
*VFX Update aimed at clarifying this champion's gameplay, whilst also updating visual fidelity. The primary improvements were around making sure his E clearly communicated the width of the affected area. The other changes on Viktor were kept very small scope in order to deliver this in time for Worlds.
Base Kit:
BA - New trails and target effects
Q - Updated shield and beam VFX to feel more Hextech
W - Made the edges of the gravity zone slightly clearer, and unified the colour palette.
E - New VFX to clarify the hitbox, and better communicate the damage zone when Viktor has upgraded his E. Yes, it really has always been that wide.
R - Added an initial impact effect to communicate the burst of damage on initial cast.
Creator Viktor:
W - Made the edges of the gravity zone slightly clearer, and unified the colour palette.
E - New VFX to clarify the hitbox, and better communicate the damage zone when Viktor has upgraded his E. Yes, it really has always been that wide.
R - Added an initial impact effect to communicate the burst of damage on initial cast.
Deathsworn Viktor:
E - Made effect wider to clarify the damage zone
IGNITE
Updated the visuals for ignite to reduce the overall noise whilst making it clearer when targets were affected by this powerful debuff, as well as more clearly communicate when the individual ticks of damage occur.
These changes should go to the PBE over the next few days, please test them out and leave your feedback here!
"Hello Merch Fans, we wanted to update you on many changes coming this year. We are honored to make things that celebrate the game that we all love and with so much coming up for us we thought we would take a moment to share:
Price Changes Incoming!
With few exceptions we have not raised our pricing in the 6 years we have been making merch for players. Over this time we have invested more into our products (look at the difference between Gragas in Series 1 figures and Morgana in Series 3) and we have seen global manufacturing costs rise considerably over time. In order to keep investing in bringing you some of the best merch in the industry we were targeting a price increase to start this year - based on the current state around the world we have delayed this change until Early September. These changes allow us to keep investing in more things players are asking for- a few of which are detailed below - so we wanted to give you an early heads up.
New Website Incoming!
When we launched the original merch website 6 years ago we were proud of the format, but over this time we have had a chance to talk with many players about aspects of the website that could be improved. We listened and have been working to redesign the entire site and will relaunch the new site later this year - stay tuned for updates as this gets closer.
Multi-Game Merch Support Incoming!
The past year has been an exciting one with the launch of several new games, and there are several more still to launch. While many of these games share the same champions from League of Legends, fans will tell you that there are plenty of things that make their game unique and we want to celebrate those things together. We have been working on complete merch collections for all the new games including VALORANT and a schedule of ongoing drops for 2021 and beyond.
Licensing and Collabs Incoming!
Perhaps the most asked for products by players are ones made from popular brands that are sold in retail stores around the world. Our team has been hard at work to make this happen for you and we are excited to announce that we now have 40 partners working to launch products in stores and online starting later this year and extending into 2021. This will give players more options in more categories at more price points than ever before, including more accessible and affordable options and options in markets where we have historically had very little official merch available. We will be announcing partners as they launch but a few teases for you to look forward to include products from AAPE, Logitech, SecretLab, Spinmaster, IAB, EMP, and more.
Series 4 Figures Incoming!
Our most popular product line -the beloved League figures - are getting upgraded for the launch of Series 4 coming in September 2020. We have continued to not only level up the overall design, paint and detail of these figures for the new series, but every Series 4 figure bought online will now also include a custom Summoner Icon that can be displayed in League of Legends. There will also be a few special releases to mark the series including some upcoming teases on our social channels and an early preview of LED Mordekaiser.
Ranked Rewards 2.0 Incoming!
Late last year we launched another product that players had been asking for - Ranked Rewards merch that celebrated your hard work throughout the season. Customizable with your summoner name (in markets where available). We are expanding this program to other games in the future so that the end of every season is a chance to celebrate.
We have always looked to put out interesting and high quality merchandise that celebrates and commemorates a wide part of this expansive IP, on behalf of everyone here at Riot thank you for all your support through the years and we will keep listening and try to make more of what you are asking for.
The Riot Consumer Products Team"
Miscellaneous
TFT Micropatch went out to live on 8/20 with a nerf for base mech! From the TFT Twitter:
"We've micropatched in a nerf to the base Mech:
Mech Health: 2200+50% of Pilots' -> 1500+65% of Pilots'
Mech Attack Damage: 160+50% of Pilots' -> 100+65% of Pilots'
This change is now live, notes will be updated soon."
The Twitter banner also shows some different silhouettes than the K/DA skins we know of:
More LoL Prime gaming loot is now available, and a date for the next mystery shard is noted as August 27th!
Riot KamiBananinoted timings on the 10.18 and 10.19 PBE cycle:
Basically all you need to know is that we are going from Patch 10.16 > 10.18, and 10.18 will hit live whenever your region is on 02 September. 10.19 will hit PBE on 01 September (LA time).
Riot Maxw3ll noted the Lillia changes testing on the PBE this cycle would be reverted soon:
"We had a meeting today regarding Lillia balance as it relates to her balance in 10.18.
Long story short, based on the increase in Pro presence, we didn't feel comfortable giving her any buffs given that worlds is soon and we really want to make sure the meta is in a safe place. Given that she's not OP in top lane, we pulled the minion mod nerf on her Q from this patch."
So, first things first: most content should be restored to the store.
That said, things are going to be a little funky. Because of the way we had to do it, content that was released between 2017 and 2020 will be ordered in alphabetical order, even when sorting by release date. The reason for this is because when we toggled everything back on, that technically set the release date to today; since they were all "released" simultaneously, they'll default to sorting alphabetically. Not everything is back the way it was, and some content may be missing or even re-added, but that's what y'all get :P
That said: we pushed PsyOps and Spirit Blossom as well as Lillia and Yone to the top of the list since they're the most recent releases. Everything after this content will be listed alphabetically until you hit content that was released prior to 2017.
Moving forward, we're looking into future changes to the system to try and avoid this recurring.
-----
Thanks to everyone for the bug report, and thanks for the patience and understanding while we sorted this out!"
Reina Sweet noted provided a look and tooltip changes that are now on the PBE for testing, providing more clarity at a glance:
"This should be on PBE soon for all champions. :)"
The Solari devote themselves to the sun—and are blessed by its light. New Keyword—Daybreak: Bonus if this is the first card you play in a round. pic.twitter.com/LyrZhRcr0x
"We’re back and we hope you’ve clocked many hours into Act II, are showing off your Act Rank and clicking heads with Killjoy.
Consider this the “Air Shotgun” patch. Some bug fixes below, too."
Reminders
The Spirit Blossom event is running from now until August 24th! Check out new skins, chromas, loot, and more, plus build your Spirit Bonds with champions to earn rewards, and look for future skins and champions to join the festival!
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