Pyke has a new passive on League’s PBE—and it’s basically Relic Shield

Riot Games is piling on the Pyke changes on the League of Legends PBE.

The latest change to hit the test server targets Pyke’s passive, adding a whole new layer to the champion. If there’s an ally nearby, Pyke will execute minions and wards and grant that gold to the ally instead of himself with Gift of the Drowned Ones. On a 50-second cooldown, this closely resembles the popular support item, Relic Shield.

This update is on top of the “very very” experimental changes Riot made to Pyke on Wednesday, April 27. Those changes, while tentative, gave the champion an “infinite execute threshold scaling” on his ultimate every time he executes anything from “any source.” 

As the wording suggests, Pyke’s new passive would theoretically increase the threshold of his ultimate as the game progresses, making the champion more of a late-game threat. On the live servers, Death from Below scales from an execute threshold of 250 health at level six to 550 health at level 18. The changes made to Pyke’s passive and ultimate would likely exceed this damage threshold by a sizable amount. In other words, Pyke will be able to execute enemy champions with far more ease.

If these changes were to be implemented, they would presumably have a positive impact on the champion’s win rate in the support position. Pyke is performing well in the mid lane with a 52.5 percent win rate in Platinum and above, according to stats site U.GG, but only has 49.66 percent in support, making him one of the worst-performing champions in the role.

These changes are highly tentative and may never see the light of day. 

This article includes affiliate links, which may provide small compensation to Dot Esports.