The winners and losers of League of Legends Patch 13.4
Sad days for some champions.
League of Legends season 13 is already in full swing and we can safely say this is shaping up to be one of the more exciting and turbulent rides in the past couple of years. Although Patch 13.4 is mainly focused on trimming down the presence of power picks in pro play like Azir, Jax, and Maokai, there are still more than enough changes Riot Games has in store for us.
The highlights of Patch 13.4 are, beyond any shred of doubt, heavy-hitting nerfs to ranged supports and snowballing. On the other hand, Patch 13.4 is the beginning of what seems like a scaling and teamfight-oriented meta with more than one example of shifting a champions power from the early game to the late game. Aside from that, Patch 13.4 winds down the experience gained for kills and nerf runes that promote snowballing, namely Treasure Hunter.
With so many changes to unwrap, we better start breaking down the winners and losers of the latest League patch.
Winners of League Patch 13.4
Image via Riot Games
Although Patch 13.4 has introduced countless buffs to champions like Senna, Aphelios, Veigar, and Viego, this time around we wont have any specific champion standing out in the bunch as a clear winner since these buffs are far too small to have a major influence on win rates. Instead, Patch 13.4 will reshift the meta in an entirely different directionscaling. With nerfs to experience gain per kill and Treasure Hunter, scaling champions like Jinx, Kayle, and Senna can rejoice as they will have more room to safely scale to the late game.
Patch 13.4 is particularly good for scaling junglers because if we pair the snowballing nerfs with jungle buffs like jungle companion damage increase and base heal from monsters, we might see scaling AP junglers like Lillia, Karthus, and Nidalee make a return as they wont struggle to stay alive in the wilderness of the jungle.
An honorable mention here is ChoGath as this neglected champion will have more armor and damage at his disposal starting with Patch 13.4.
Losers of League Patch 13.4
Image via Riot Games
On the losing side of Patch 13.4, we have snowballing champions, namely mid lane assassins like Zed and Talon that will have more trouble now translating their early game lead into a win. Although mid lane assassins are the main offenders of abusing snowball, other champions that are dependent upon early leads and fall off later in the game will also struggle to find wins. Champions like Renekton, Darius, Lucian, and Draven definitely wont be happy with these changes.
Related: Will Patch 13.4s item nerfs be enough to kick ranged supports out of the LoL meta?
Ranged supports are also unhappy with Patch 13.4 as their support items as it will take them a while longer to fully stack support items and they wont have an abundance of mana as they used to prior to the patch. On top of that, tank supports have, the second patch in a row, received buffs and most likely wont let ranged supports get away with poking them that much.
One unlucky jungler that has already been the star of patch notes nerfs for a while now is now officially out of the game as the final nerfs to Udyr hit the live servers. This time around, the devs nerfed his base stats, Wildling Claw, and Wingborne Storm even more and this most likely means you wont see Udyr anytime soon.