League of Legends lead gameplay designer Jeevun Sidhu has shared the expanded preview for the game’s next update, Patch 11.19. With it come plenty of changes just in time for the year’s most prestigious professional League tournament, the World Championship.
“This is the second of two Worlds-focused patches,” Sidhu said on Twitter. “Given that we won’t have any more opportunities to change the game, we aimed quite conservatively here.”
Traditionally, Worlds is played on one single patch throughout the entire tournament. In total, upwards of 80 to 100 games are usually played on average without Riot implementing a single change throughout the event’s duration.
This year, the most notable archetype of champions to be given buffs ahead of Worlds will be assassins. Patch 11.19 focuses heavily on solo lane roaming champions, with names like Akali, Fizz, Gwen, Qiyana, and Sylas all receiving buffs ahead of Worlds.
Fizz presents an intriguing case, in particular, considering the champion was buffed extensively in Patch 11.18. The champ will see those changes reverted in time for Worlds considering they were a bit too strong on the current patch. As a compromise, Fizz will receive a slight reduction to the cooldown on Playful/Trickster (E).
Akali and Gwen are both seeing their base health regeneration stat increased in 11.19, while Sylas’ health and mana regen will both be buffed in the patch. As for Qiyana, she’ll continue to receive hearty buffs to her jungling capabilities. Her damage dealt to monsters from Edge of Ixtal (Q) is being increased by 25 percent.
Related: Riot plans to nerf Ryze, Varus, Sona, Soraka, and Kennen in League Patch 11.19
Apart from assassins, top laners, in general, are receiving extensive buffs as well. In fact, top laners make up half of the champions receiving buffs in Patch 11.19. Aatrox, Cho’Gath, Poppy, and Mordekaiser are all set to see some of the cooldowns on certain abilities reduced, while champions such as Sion and Renekton are receiving buffs to their sustainability and survivability in teamfights.
Patch 11.19 will easily go down as the most important patch of the year since this season’s League World Championship will be played on it. Riot is notorious for implementing game-altering patches ahead of the World Championship, but in recent years, the developer has taken a step back from implementing any drastic changes to the game ahead of international events.
At Worlds 2021, that philosophy is set to change slightly since many of the game’s positions—particularly the jungle—will have their champion pools upended ahead of Worlds. Champions including Zed, Qiyana, and Talon, Gragas, Sejuani, and others were all buffed at the jungle position sometime during the last two patch cycles.
Still, professional players should have plenty of time to grow accustomed to the changes coming to League because there’s a two-week grace period between the implementation of Patch 11.19 on the live servers and the start of the World Championship.
Patch 11.19 is set to release on Sept. 22, according to the official League patch schedule. The World Championship begins on Oct. 5.
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