League of Legends Patch Preview Reveals Buffs, Nerfs Planned for Worlds Update

League of Legends players received some insights this week into a particularly interesting update planned for the game: it's the first one that's focused on Worlds, the championship event uniting teams from different regions to play for the top title. The changes won't just be relegated there at the top, however, since they'll also be in place for all other players, though the patch itself is very much geared towards champions we often see in pro play based on a quick look at the plans.

Matt "Phroxzon" Leung-Harrison, the lead designer working on League's balance team, shared the preview for the update just as we've come to expect each week as changes started to get finalized and players look ahead to what's coming next. A number of champions that frequently fluctuate in and out of the competitive scene are on the docket for buffs in this next update to give the pros more champions to choose from during the early Worlds matches. For those who've been watching the pros paly throughout the duration of the current update they're on, the nerfs listed below should come as no surprise with Zeri, Yuumi, Draven, and Poppy all currently existing as dominant pick-or-ban champions.

12.16!

The first of our World's focused patches. Since some Leagues are still qualifying for Worlds on this patch, we're holding the more speculative changes for 12.17. Looking to tap down a few outliers and bump up others, with Diana nerfs to tank and buffs to AP builds pic.twitter.com/MZmfdNVEf1

— Matt Leung-Harrison (@RiotPhroxzon) August 16, 2022

While the PBE always offers insights into what the plans are for the updates, Riot Phroxzon typically shares a more detailed version of the image above soon after the preview is released to show what, specifically, is getting changed in the patch. It's likely that'll come within the next day or so if not tonight, so those who don't frequent the game's PBE testing grounds won't be without context for long.

As Riot Phroxzon noted in the tweet above, this is just the first of the League updates that'll be focused on the Worlds event. There are more to come, and for now, Riot plans on holding off of "the more speculative changes" until the next update, so don't expect anything too drastic to be added to Patch 12.16 whenever we see the full patch preview go live soon.