Amumu’s buff in Patch 7.7 might be a little too extreme

Patch 7.7 is arriving tomorrow, and with it the reign of lord Amumu will begin. He’s getting a buff that’s so strong it will be difficult for other junglers to compete, and the meta will be flipped on its head.

The sad mummy doesn’t have much reason to be forlorn anymore (aside from having no friends), because he’s stepping into the limelight for Patch 7.7. The huge buff will be hitting his passive, Cursed Touch, and will effectively turn it into a weapon of mass destruction.

Before this astronomical buff, the mummy’s passive lowered enemy champions’ magic resist (MR) stat, making his own spells and any ally’s magic spells deal a bit more damage. After this buff, however, it will instead cause a portion of all magic damage that hits victims of the debuff to deal true damage instead.

Amumu can apply the debuff by hitting enemies with basic attacks or his ultimate, and he can refresh its duration by damaging enemies with his Despair (W). Aside from causing Amumu’s own abilities to hit significantly harder now, this buff will move the meta like a bulldozer.

Say goodbye to the age of AD assassins, the time of magic is here

Since the big lethality and assassin update of Patch 6.24 in November, AD assassins have been running rampant through Summoner’s Rift. Kha’zix and Rengar have little competition in the jungle, and it seems like Talon has been in as many solo games lately as minions have been (every game, in case you missed that).

Well, that may very well be on its way out the door, and you can thank Amumu for that. With this newfound superhero strength, players are going to want to run magic-based teams to synchronize with his new passive. Specifically, mages that have a ton of area-of-effect (AoE) spells will be played so they can hit as many people affected by Amumu’s curse at once.

Imagine a world where Xerath, Ziggs, and, dare I say it, Katarina have a portion of their face-melting damage converted to true damage. That’s the world we’re about to live in.

This will bring so many tons of damage to the Rift that David “Phreak” Turley will start dancing in his office as soon as it goes live.

Riot help us, the control mages are back

Prepare yourselves, because you’re going to start seeing a lot more Orianna, Syndra, Brand, and Viktor in your ranked games. They were already pretty strong, but with Amumu’s help, that’s about to be amplified. Of course, this will require Amumu and his mid lane counterparts to be a bit more coordinated to fully take advantage of this new buff, which adds a degree of difficulty to the situation.

If you’re mid lane, and you find yourself squaring off against an Ahri in your lane and an Amumu in the enemy jungle, stay vigilant, because a gank will be devastating.

Assassin Amumu?

It sounds like a goofy idea. Amumu has been a tank since he joined League of Legends, so turning him into an assassin shouldn’t work, right? In Patch 7.7, that might not be the case.

His victims will take 15 percent of all magic damage as true damage, so if he builds high amounts of AP to amp up his magic damage, he has the potential to dish out some impressive damage. Of course, he will still work well as a tank. He’ll be able to just ult the enemy team, and as long as he has some more magic damage on his team, the next few seconds will be hell for the enemy team. That does require him to land a good ult, though.

Amumu’s weakness will still be his camp clear. Even with this true damage buff to the passive, Amumu will still rely very heavily on blue buff and he’ll take his sweet time making it through camps in his jungle. If you’re facing off against an Amumu, try to take his blue buff, because he’ll become a lot less threatening without it. Not having the mana to keep his Despair constantly up to clear camps can add whole minutes onto the time it takes him to start ganking.

If you’re a meta slave that loves taking advantage of the flavor-of-the-month champions, be sure to try out Amumu after tomorrow’s patch. As long as you have some AP damage on your team in any lane, there won’t be many junglers that can rival Amumu. If you’re against an Amumu, however, just grab Shaco and make a beeline for his blue buff. If you can manage to steal it, his early game will be much, much weaker.