The Kayle and Pyke nerfs in Teamfight Tactics are long overdue

Multiple overpowered champions are set to take a dive in power when Teamfight Tactics’ 9.15B patch goes live today, but two of the most important nerfs are to the Pirate Assassin, Pyke and the Noble Knight, Kayle. These two nerfs have been long overdue and will no longer terrorize the early and late game as much as they used to. 

Pyke has been a problem since the game was released. His ability to stun entire teams with a single ability has proven extremely powerful. This was especially true because of Pyke’s cost. Since he only requires two gold, players had access to him early and could acquire him on the first Carousel of the game. No matter what, a Pyke with items equipped such as Morellonomicon in the first few PvP rounds is a one-way ticket to the top of the leaderboards. 

His two second one-star stun has had half a second shaved off and is now down to 1.5 seconds with his two-star and three-star stun durations dropping from 2.5 and three to two and 2.5 respectively. He will remain strong, but half a second is a long time and Teamfight Tactics is at times a game of inches. Pyke won’t be able to put the entire team out of commission for as long. It both reduces his survivability and the ability of his teammates to try to close out an early advantage in a teamfight. Don’t expect him to disappear, but it might just be easier to collect him on the Carousel. 

The second major nerf is to Kayle. As opposed to Pyke, Kayle’s five cost means she appears well into the game —a time when her ability is sorely needed. Pure invulnerability isn’t found anywhere except on Kayle’s ability, and players’ propensity to load her up with attack speed and mana items to speed up access to her ability means that she can be popping Divine Intervention five or more times in a fight. Naturally, this means her priority is huge and with only 10 of them available in the champion pool per game, that makes her even more valuable.

Kayle has been nerfed by increasing the mana it takes to trigger ultimate from 100 to 125. That may not seem like much but it is easily enough time for an enemy carry to throw an attack her way that shuts her down. Because her ability targets herself as well as allies, she can indefinitely keep herself alive as long as she’s continuously attacking, so making it harder to get the ability off means she won’t have as much of an effect as she currently does. 

Both of these champions are omnipresent in the game’s evolving meta, but the tuning of what made them so strong opens the door for new compositions to shine. The game never sleeps, however, and as today’s patch goes live intrepid players will conjure up a new set of synergies and champions that will let them rule the Convergence.