In a surprise twist from the Riot Games developers, Azir, one of the most popular mid lane champions for League of Legends competitive play, is going to be nerfed on the eve of the 2023 World Championship.
With Worlds 2023 right around the corner, League Patch 13.19 is one of the most crucial balance patches of the season—it’s the update the event will be played on.
We did receive a first look at the patch yesterday, courtesy of Matt “Phroxzon” Leung-Harrison, but further details unveiled today have revealed Azir will quietly be taking Ziggs’ place in the list of planned 13.19 buffs, nerfs, and changes.
Riot’s reasoning, Leung-Harrison explained, is that Azir has benefited too much from several meta effect buffs. To mitigate that—and hopefully, avoid a what would be Azir-heavy event—the developers are nerfing his Conquering Sands (Q) ability.
His Q ability will have its cooldown increased for two seconds, meaning it’s now scalable from 14 to six, depending on how many points are in it. While it won’t affect too much, considering most players max Arise! (W) before Conquering Sands (Q), players will have to make slight adjustments in the laning phase and teamfights.
Azir was seen heavily at the 2022 League World Championship as he was one of the three most-picked champions by teams such as DRX, Gen.G, and DFM. Across the event, he had a 50 percent win rate, which isn’t too bad considering he was played 48 times.
This year we’ve seen Azir in League pro play quite often across the regions in various splits. However, he wasn’t played once at the 2023 Mid-Season Invitational in London, which is surprising given his pick rate at Worlds the season before.
We could still see League pros picking up the Emperor of Shruima on the Worlds stage, but he may not be quite so prevalent after these Patch 13.19 nerfs.
Published: Sep 20, 2023 01:05 am