League of Legends Is Removing Banner of Command

The Banner of Command in League of Legends is an item that many players chose to purchase for its ability to power up a minion, making it inevitably harder to take down in-game. Drop a minion and go is pretty much the strategy here but after several patches, the team over at Riot Games decided its time to retire the item completely.

The developers took to the game's blog to very briefly explain why after so many changes they just finally decided to say it's no longer worth it. In their most recent devlog, they mentioned:

"As you might have seen we're going to remove Banner from the game in 8.12, at least for the short-medium term. It's an item that's pretty consistently been either a poor choice or, when strong, been unhealthy for the game overall. Not impossible some heavily revised version returns someday, likely in a preseason or midseason if so. No immediate plans for that however."

A pretty short and sweet update regarding the removal, but at least now we know what their plans are for the Banner of Command. They did also add on a few other aspects of the MOBA that they are looking at changing during the most recent update:

• Ornn - Continuing work from 8.12 that wasn't ready to ship.
• Ashe/Xayah - Looking at their kit specific interactions with crit, now that IE's changed.
• Karma - Likely she'll be one of the most in need of work post 8.12 heal/shield changes. Penciling her in for a look as a result.
• Pyke - Looking at whether AD purchases are appropriately rewarded, or whether he's too skewed towards building tank/utility when played optimally (open question, not a firm statement)
• Ongoing assessment of the state of bot lane.
• There'll also be a range of additional champion buffs/nerfs that happen a bit later in the cycle, so this isn't a comprehensive list. Likely includes a Trynd buff, potentially a Singed nerf.

As well as tweaks made to Rageblade that are also likely to occur, including what it should or shouldn't be according to players, "We need to talk through a bunch of stuff as a result, things like how much it should be a rush item versus a later-in-the game multiplier for on-hit builds, how much AP scaling it should/shouldn't have (does it remove distinction between AP and on-hit builds too much?), what sort of price point it should sit at etc."

Just like previous updates, these are tentative changes until the patch goes live. For now, it's a good way for players to see what the overall agenda is for League of Legends and the Riot Games crew.