All League of Legends preseason changes delayed for later patches

The League of Legends preseason officially started on Nov. 16. With the new preseason hitting the live servers, we’ve seen loads of changes made to junglers and solo laners to switch up the stale state the roles have been in for years now. Although jungle camp changes, incredibly strong tank items, objective voting, and the return of the Chemtech drake already shook up the meta to its core, there are still a couple of promised changes that weren’t ready for the wide League community with the preseason patch.

The delayed changes that were supposed to go live with the preseason patch are ward previews, loadout changes, Archangel’s Staff and Seraph’s Embrace, and pick order swapping. Although Riot Games probably has valid reasons for delaying these changes for later patches, these new features will definitely lack testing. So, it might result in these changes going into the upcoming season unbalanced or in a poor state. 

So, let’s take a look at all these changes that were set to release with the preseason patch but didn’t for one reason or another. We’ll also tackle the reasons why they were delayed (if known), and reveal when these changes might go live.

All League of Legends preseason changes delayed for later patches

Unlike previous preseasons which introduced substantial changes to systems like item shop and elemental drakes, preseason 2023 has been heavily focused on bringing the dream of practical League to life. 

In other words, instead of implementing a series of changes that would need balancing and tweaking in the future, this time around, Riot focused on making the necessary changes that would help new players find their way in this mystery of a game. On top of that, the devs looked to fix ongoing behavioral issues like dodging and target inting happening on a regular basis in high Elo. There are a couple of changes left to go live with later patches, like ward previews, loadout changes, Archangel’s Staff and Seraph’s Embrace, and pick order swapping. 

Ward previews

During the Champions and Preseason 2023 video by Riot, which launched on Aug. 12, the devs showcased an entirely new feature coming to League—ward previews. Ward previews are a new feature that will show you the exact position where the ward will be placed when you try placing them. According to game designer and Surrender@20 mod Spideraxe, ward previews are delayed until next year because the devs still need to polish this feature. When asked if this means the feature will come in the first quarter or earlier, Spideraxe replied: “I believe early next year, shouldn’t be too far out.”

Loadout changes

Imagined as yet another quality-of-life feature, loadouts in League will work as preset rune pages that you’re able to pick up during the pick-and-ban phase. On top of that, presets will offer the best possible Summoner spells for your champion, taking into consideration both your and the enemy teamcomp. These presets will probably use the data from high Elo games and recommend you the best keystones and Summoner spells based on that. Similar to jungle pathing, loadout will most likely be updated every patch to help players keep up with the meta. 

As mentioned in Spideraxes’ tweet talking about ward previews being delayed, loadout changes are expected to go live with Patch 12.23 on Dec. 7 if everything goes according to the plan. Unfortunately, Riot nor the developers revealed the exact reasons why was loadout pushed to the next patch. So, we can only assume they devs wanted to further polish this feature and ensure it was working as intended. 

Archangel’s Staff and Seraph’s Embrace

Archangel’s Staff and its evolved version, Seraph’s Embrace, have been in a poor state since the item overhaul with Patch 10.23. In fact, the items felt so bad on mages that champions like Orianna and Ryze rather bought Manamune, an AD carry edition of the item giving bonus AD. Over the seasons, Riot tried and tried to bring the item back to relevance, but the best they devs could do is to make the item at least usable. 

During the preseason, the balance team was toying with buffing the item by increasing its scaling and removing bonus health. Since the player base was extremely dissatisfied with all these changes, Riot reverted all these changes. Matt Leung-Harrison, lead designer on the League team shared that the devs weren’t happy with how Archangel’s Staff and Seraph’s Embrace panned out, so they are making additional changes that will leave the item in a decent state. Unfortunately, we don’t know any other details regarding the item, let alone the release patch. So, you’ll have to sit and wait for this one for a while.

Pick order swapping

The draft phase, especially in pro play and high Elo, has an immense impact on how the game will play out. In fact, it’s so important that players, more often than not, dodge games if they are forced to first pick a champion that doesn’t complement their teamcomp. 

To reduce the amount of dodging in high Elo, Riot imagined pick order swapping that allows you to swap the order of picking a champion with your teammates. Although this normally has the greatest impact on the high-Elo games, it could also help one-tricks to not pick their champion into a losing match-up. On top of this, top laners, which love to counter-pick, will now have more control over their match-ups to not end up CSing under their turret and eventually dying to a gank. 

Although pick order swapping was supposed to go live with the preseason patch, it was delayed for an unknown reason. According to Chris Roberts, producer for League, it should appear on PBE any day now. It’s still being tested internally, and, thankfully, it’s been performing really well. Although Roberts didn’t reveal the exact date when we will see pick order swapping on PBE or live servers, hopefully, we’ll see it in the game by the end of the year.