A long-forgotten LoL champion is enjoying the spotlight in 2 roles thanks to recent buffs

Riot Games offers League of Legends players tons of flexibility when it comes to champions fulfilling different niches around Summoner’s Rift. But sometimes, a champion ventures too far from their original intended path and needs a bit of help to get back on track.

Xerath was an unexpected but welcomed addition to the buffs that accompanied League Patch 13.14, which officially hit the live servers last week alongside the release of the long-awaited Soul Fighter event. Among these changes—the first major ones to the Magus Ascendant since last year’s controversial durability update—were buffs to Xerath’s passive that offer him better mana sustain, as well as additional casts of and power to his ultimate.

Thanks to these simple yet effective changes, Xerath’s presence in the draft phase has increased drastically across not only his more typical appearance in the support role but also back in his intended mid lane position—an area Riot was hoping these changes would benefit immensely. Xerath now sits at a 52.66-percent win rate in the mid lane specifically according to League stats site OP.GG, an eight-percent increase from where the Magus Ascendant sat just one patch ago.

Xerath’s long range as a mage has allowed him to flourish as a poke champion, though primarily in the support role where he can better manage his mana alongside his lane partner. Yet thanks to the changes to his passive, Xerath is now capable of unleashing more than just a barrage of auto attacks on his opponents within the mid lane, allowing him to scale to the point where he can unleash up to seven ultimates in a single cast.

At the same time, and just as Riot predicted within the patch notes for Patch 13.14, Xerath’s prominence in the support role has also increased—which is particularly useful for the poke mage in a meta of engage champions. To compensate for this, however, a slight adjustment to lower his mana was included within this patch to ensure he can’t just spam spells freely. But overall, these net buffs have done little to hinder the champion.

Despite this drastic jump in win, pick, and ban rates, Xerath does not appear on the patch preview for the upcoming Patch 13.15, which is expected to release on Aug. 2. This patch will, however, be addressing existing balancing issues with champions like Aatrox and Kaisa, as well as welcoming new skins from the Soul Fighter cast into the game.