To the surprise of absolutely no one, the 2023 League of Legends preseason did not get off to a perfectly balanced start.
From the return of Chemtech Drake, Rod of Ages, and Spear of Shojin, to the addition of jungle pets, the changes that kicked off League’s new season threw a lot of things out of whack, and six junglers are getting buffed in a B-patch less than 48 hours after the preseason buffs first hit.
Matt “Phroxzon” Leung-Harrison, the lead designer working on League‘s preseason, previewed the patch 12.22b changes in a tweet on Wednesday.
Ivern, Kindred, Amumu, Maokai, Rammus, and Shaco are all receiving buffs of some kind. They are all sitting at below a 49 percent win rate through an admittedly small sample size of less than two days, per Lolalytics. But clearly, this was something the team wanted to nip in the bud before a relatively long patch cycle of three weeks before patch 12.23 due to the American Thanksgiving holiday, at which point Phroxzon had previously promised “a lot more polish.”
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Shaco’s monster-specific damage buffs are back after being unintentionally excluded from the original 12.22 build, and champions with unique jungle clearing methods, like Ivern and Kindred, are receiving some help. Specifics on that help will come within the next day or two.
It’s not clear exactly when this B-patch will drop, but given the aforementioned release of 12.23 a week later than normal on Wednesday, Dec. 7, look for it next week.
