New League of Legends Patch Focuses on “Shaking Up” Popular Picks

The next League of Legends update is scheduled to arrive on April 13th, and with it will come a shakeup of the game’s meta just before the Mid-Season Invitational. That’s at least the plan according to Riot Games with a patch preview offered to players this week ahead of the finalized patch notes to show what the plans are. That shakeup consists of buffs for some particularly divisive champions including Gwen, Yasuo, and Yone as well as some nerfs for some of the more popular picks seen in competitive play. The notes aren’t finalized yet, however, so there’s always the chance that things could changed between now and the time the update is actually live.

With that said, you can check out the patch preview below after it was shared on Twitter by Riot’s associate game designer Tim Jiang. You’ll see a total of 10 champions listed in the “Champion Buffs” category with most of those ones that have seen play in the professional scene in some way or another over the past couple of seasons.

View on X

News of buffs for champions like Yasuo and Yone have gone over about as well as players might’ve expected based on the replies to that tweet, but some have pointed to nerfs for things like Immortal Shieldbow in the past patch for justifications as to why these champions might need to be buffed. They’re certainly entertaining to watch if nothing else, so it makes sense that they’d be up for buffs before such a high-profile event as MSI regardless.

While some of the buffs may be surprising, the champions to be nerfed shouldn’t be. While Zeri’s not as strong as she was prior to her more focused nerfs, she’s still a popular ADC pick behind Aphelios and Jinx, especially in the pro scene. Similarly, Ryze, Lee Sin, and Jayce are all staple picks in pro games within their respective roles, so it’s even less surprising to seem them getting nerfed.

Rengar will get some more focused changes for his own kit following previews and different iterations tested on the PBE while a couple of items and runes will be buffed or nerfed, too. We should see the patch notes released just before the update itself comes out to detail exactly what’s changing, so keep an eye out for those ahead of their arrival.