The winners and losers of League of Legends Patch 13.1

How do you recognize a League of Legends player? Are they taller and thinner than Fortnite players? Or are they just louder than other gamers? The biggest telling sign you’re dealing with a League player is that you won’t see much of them mid-January since they’ll be too busy reading the first patch notes of the year and tirelessly grinding to get back to their rank after the reset. 

Patch 13.1 introduced Jax’s mid-scope rework, much-needed nerfs to bruisers and tanks, and buffs to mages. Aside from that, the patch focused on toning down the general power creep of bruisers and tanks, especially with Jan’Sho the Protean and dominant rune choice—Legend:Tenacity, and helping mage brothers our with more than just a handful of buffs to Rod of Ages, Seraph’s Embrace, and Horizon Focus.

So, let’s take a look at which champions Riot Games blessed with this patch, and which champions were doomed to scrape the bottom of the barrel until the next patch comes around.

Winners of Patch 13.1

Although the balancing team had a clear idea of what was the ultimate goal of this patch, when you read the 13.1 patch notes, you might notice the changes are all over the place, and truly reflect the state of the game post-patch notes. Still, we have obvious winners and losers with Jax being one of the clear winners of the patch. His mid-scope update, which once again tapped into his mixed damage fantasy to allow him to become a late-game raid boss, added more AP scaling to his kit. Thanks to this, Jax moved from the C tier on stats site U.GG to the S+ tier with the champion now being at a 50.47 percent win rate in Platinum and above. From what we’ve seen so far, Jax now has more damage in his kit, the freedom to choose various builds, and ways to express his skill. Unfortunately, Jax still doesn’t have a real weapon.

Another champion that is a clear winner of Patch 13.1 is Jayce. Not only did this patch buff his base AD, but his To the Skies! And Lighting Field also received generous buffs. This means that the dev team are trying to give Jayce more power in melee combat to help him dish out more damage in these trying times when tanks and bruisers just mop the floor with all of us. Paired with previous buffs to Lighting Field and Transform Mercury Hammer, we might actually see Jayce once again bully tanks and bruisers without any gap closers.

Lissandra has never been one of Riot’s favorite champions. That’s why the champion had a 48.62 percent win rate in Platinum and above. Today, Lissandra is one step closer to being a meta champion with a win rate of 50.29 percent. For such a bump in win rate, Lissandra can thank the balancing team as they increased her base Health Growth, slow from her Ice Shard, and reduced the cooldown of Ring of Frost. The buffs to Rod of Ages and nerfs to Tenacity also helped Lissandra rise in prominence as the true queen of the mid lane.

Shaco never was and never will be a loved champion in League due to the sheer nature of his kit being the epitome of deception. So, after being meta for five seconds in 2022, Shaco spent the large majority of the year hanging out with the worst champions in the game. Now, with his recent buffs to Deceive and Two-Shiv Poison, Shaco might hang around the cool kids a while longer, or at least when Reddit decides they had enough of him.

Losers of Patch 13.1

For losers of Patch 13.1, you might have expected to see tanks and bruisers on this list with Jak’Sho the Protean and Tenacity nerfs, but in reality, we’ll see them running the show on Summoner’s Rift, unless they were specifically targeted with nerfs like Aatrox, K’Sante, and poor Rammus. In fact, Rammus was so heavily hit with these nerfs that Riot needed to buff the champion with a mid-patch update to not leave him in an atrocious state. Still, Rammus’ era of tyranny over AD carries and other AD champions has come to an end with the devs nerfing his favorite item—Jak’Sho the Protean, Legend: Tenacity, and the interaction between his Defensive Ball Curl and Jak’Sho. 

Another unlucky soul on this list is Aatrox, who aside from Tenacity nerfs, got additional nerfs. So, not only will he now do less damage with his passive, the champion will heal less and will struggle to catch champions when he pops his World Ender. Still, these nerfs most likely won’t stop pros from picking him as a safe blind pick.

The last champion who got the short end of the Patch 13.1 stick is K’sante. Just like any other bruiser and fighter in League, K’Sante’s durability was hit with nerfs to Tenacity and Jak’Sho. On top of all of that, K’sante’s base movement speed, passive, and Path Maker were hit with rightful nerfs. Despite these major nerfs, K’sante is still expected to be on the strong side, but now, it will feel that you can kill this champion.