The League of Legends World Championship patch arrived a couple of weeks ago, and it brought with it some pretty intense changes to the game’s meta. The patch that arrives this week, Patch 8.20, does the same, but it’s much more geared toward solo queue rather than pro play.
Patch 8.19 was all about buffs, buffs, and more buffs. It was designed to welcome mostly weak champions back into the pro meta. This week, though, tackles some pain points that average players deal with, rather than issues the few players competing in Worlds do. Oh, and Ezreal’s update is here, too. Did we forget to mention that?
Here is the list of this patch’s most important changes, pulled straight from the patch notes.
1. Ezreal update
Ezreal’s update isn’t nearly as extreme as most recent champion updates in the last year or so. Rather than a total redesign of his personality, lore, and abilities, it’s mostly just visuals. His personality is definitely tweaked, but it’s more refined than totally changed, and his lore went along with it.
He did get one ability redesign, and that’s for his W, Essence Flux. Instead of a generic little sparkle beam, he now slings out a ring of energy that expands and wraps around targets. When he hits the target with another ability, the ring detonates. It can be cast on objectives, too.
2. Champion changes
This is the largest portion of the patch, and it’s bound to make a lot of folks happy. Some of the champions on this week’s hit list have been extremely irritating in the eyes of solo queue players for quite a while, some even for months. Included in the list are Graves, Ahri, Evelynn, Jhin, Nami, and Sion, with Jhin’s arguably being the most extreme. Expect some shifts in the meta, but nothing too crazy.
3. Dark Harvest
There’s only one rune nerf on the agenda for 8.20, but it’s a big one. A few patches ago, Electrocute, the most powerful Domination rune in the game, was nerfed. Then, players in both pro and casual play scrambled to find an answer for high burst damage dealers, mostly in the jungle. Many tried out Predator and many tried Dark Harvest. Predator worked for many, but the others all used Dark Harvest.
This patch brings a sizeable nerf to Dark Harvest’s bonus damage at all levels. This means that its effectiveness will be lessened in a big way, and the only real option for burst damage dealers in the jungle will now be Predator. We don’t even think that Predator is terribly strong, when in fact it wasn’t used at all a couple months ago. It’s more so that the other options are so weak that Predator has risen up, resulting in an overall very unimpressive rune path as a whole.
4. Skins
Dragon Trainer Heimerdinger – 1,820 RP
Infernal Amumu – 1,350 RP
Hextech Malzahar – Crafting exclusive
