I called it. Didn’t I call it? Totally called it. Huge news week! Vainglory Update 2.0 1.14 is coming this week and with SEMC at Pax South over the weekend, we got a ton of reveals to look forward to.

VGL Finals

The first VGL Qualifier tournament wrapped up this weekend with fantastic semis and finals for EU and NA. Just in case you haven’t watched the live stream or replay yet, this will be spoiler free but you can always check the

VGL First Qualifiier Results Team Secret (previously Media Pixels Esports) takes the first EU Qualifier in a commanding 3-0 sweep over Rebel Tigers and Gankstars Sirius beats Alliance to go undefeated in the NA Qualifier. Congratulations to all teams, these were truly excellent matches.

Team Secret

if you want. We are rolling right into the Second Qualifier tourney next week so you hardly have to take a break from professional action!

EU Esports staple, Team Secret, has acquired Media Pixels Esports (VGL EU Autumn Champions) marking another big move in the professional scene. EU especially has been jumping at the chance to bring strong teams into organizations, increasing Vainglory’s ever-growing foothold in the world of professional Esports. Congratulations to both Team Secret and Media Pixels for this mutually beneficial move!

Draft Slow Roll Out

In an effort to test the waters of Draft out in the wild, SEMC has announced that Draft mode will initially only apply when full 3-player parties are matched against one another. To be more specific, if a three person team matches against solo queue players or even a two-player team with one solo, the game will revert to blind pick. This gives teams and guilds an opportunity to practice draft as a team and SEMC a chance to monitor its effectiveness as the system currently stands.

Jungle 2.0

Possibly the most impactful of all new changes coming to the Fold will be the rework of the jungle. If you have any friends who don’t normally read the patch notes, tell them this is mandatory. Creeps are stronger (Jeff and Marty are benching mad weight now), but also grant more xp and, in the case of the healing camps, additional healing and energy regeneration. Another big change will be the Switzerland status of the gold miner as no matter who captures him to steal his gold, he will always remain neutral and therefore ready to attack anyone who comes for his haul. This very well can change the entire jungle meta going forward, and as a guy who supports a lot, I feel the pain of those who have a carry in solo queue that didn’t get the message.

Kill Bounty Change

The scaling of kill bounties has been hugely impactful on late game comebacks. Getting in upwards of 700+ gold, depending on how far behind you are, can mean the difference of an infusion or tier three item to get back in the game. While there has been some outcry that these payouts are a bit too big, the consensus is they have been an effective balancing change to prevent total domination. In order to improve on that further, SEMC has scaled the bounties down just a bit from 8% of gold deficit to 6%. This will still be a boon if you can clinch a kill when losing, but should getting us one step closer to providing that perfect balance a MOBA needs where skill is the number one commodity.

Death Timer Change

Another great balancing change, especially late game, is the slight rework of death timers. While timers at thirteen minutes have been pushed back about 4 seconds, there is a new system in place that immediately reduces your timer if one of your turrets is destroyed. This 15% reduction per turret is taken off the total death timer, not what is remaining. So, if you only have ten seconds left till respawn and one of your turrets fall, you will spawn immediately.

More Kraken!

You’re going to see more Kraken, that is a fact. She will now respawn after three minutes rather than four. This will most certainly end games a little quicker across the board. Another interesting change is that Kraken is now a little weaker against Weapon Power and slightly more resistant to Crystal Power. What this means is Ringo is going to be able to stutter step that big girl down more quickly, while it may take Skaarf a little more than he’s used to. Again, tell your friends that think patch notes are for fools, this can be big.

Fortified Health

In what seems like an attempt to streamline character development and balancing, SEMC has decided to adjust the defensive capabilities of a handful of heroes by granting them fortified health when they use specific abilities. Adagio, Skaarf, Rona, Blackfeather and Phinn join Reim in getting fortified health instead of the armor or shield they commonly had when abilities were triggered. Stay tuned here at BrokenMyth.net for a detailed breakdown.

Breaking Point Rework





This favorite of Kruls, Blackfeathers and late game supports everywhere is now going to work a bit differently. The biggest thing to keep in mind is that if you build Breaking Point as your only offensive item, you will not be doing much damage at all. You need to have damage to deal damage. On the plus side, abilities can build stacks now, so some heroes can build stacks with terrifying speed in a team fight and deal more damage than ever before.

Confirmed Hero Changes

As of this writing, here are the changes to heroes that have been mentioned on the Pax South Dev Streams. Thanks to Paperlucky at the Vainglory Forums for assembling these notes. My initial impression is SEMC knows who you think is too strong (Blackfeather) or too weak (Petal) and wants that sweet sweet equality.

Lunar Map

Freaking beautiful, nothing else to say.

Lunar Celebration

We were blessed with a bountiful holiday celebration of cards and double glory and the benevolent souls at SEMC are topping themselves with the Lunar New Year in conjunction with the next patch. This celebration seemed geared toward getting you the 8 heroes necessary to play draft mode as the glory is following like never before and a yet un-detailed hero sale will start on February 2nd and go through the 13th. If nothing else, just logging in once a day during that time will get you 4,900 glory!

Ozo

I can’t imagine saying a kit didn’t look like fun, but this one is straight up Bangarang. The Monkey King is somersaulting into the Fold on February 3rd for ICE early access and his play style is promised to be fun and different with both weapon and Crystal power builds. I haven’t been this excited for a talking primate since I was a kid and saw Congo.

Ozo Lore: “Showoffin'”

The first installment of the Ozo saga takes the reader to a very different place from the sprawling and intense story of Reim. We get our first look at the Carnie world since Ringo and are introduced to arguably the most eccentric hero Vainglory has seen. Ozo appears playful but far from daft as he entertains his band of ragamuffins and teaches a very subtle lesson to the townie boy that wishes to join the Carnies. I’ve already written 100K words of Ozo fan fiction that Oscar Wilde said was full of “spleen shattering hysterics” and so the Royal Order of Authors of Redbank New Jersey had no choice but to seal my manuscript in a vault a mile underground to protect the public.

Red Lantern Koshka





Seasonal skins are such a delight with a new patch. You never really know who may show up and what they’ll be wearing but it’s never a let down. Red Lantern Koshka arrives with a really fun bit of lore depicting a none-too-surprising relationship between her and Ozo. If there’s anyone that can keep up with the new great ape, it’s our favorite almost cat. As far as this splash art from new SEMC artist Zinna goes, 10 out of 10 minion ears! There’s a reason we often see Koshka from the same angle, I just can’t remember what it was.

Fury Rona Lore

Gritty fits Rona’s personality perfectly. Her search for Maggie through the junkyard hints at the society that once was and those details are eerily similar to our little world. Of course almost all skin lore is non-canon, but it still makes you wonder if there may be a correlation between The Fold and Earth. I don’t have cold hard stats to back this up, but I’m getting the impression that lore is starting to flow faster from the pen of SugarVenom. Three this week? Thank you very much.

New Hires

SEMC unleashed another flurry of new employees on the public this week with announcements of Bluberryz and DonJon as project coordinators. Also extremely talented artist VainShame is joining the ranks as a Editorial & Marketing art lead. None of these are surprising as they men have been valuable to SEMC for a while now. SEMC has grown from a company of 20 to almost 50 now, probably just to grind guild fame easier 😉

We mentioned the arrival of Team Phoenix, and their growth has been pretty constant in a few short weeks. They’ve filled out an impressive player roster and now have hired DragonBorne (formally of Team Vertigo) as a Stream Coach and Analyst. He’s a sharp guy who most certainly has a future in the VG professional scene.

Map Bug

Team Snow posted on Twitter about a unique map bug they discovered. In short, this blind spot by the snowman causes your opponents to lose the ability to target you. Not sure if this will persist into the new Lunar Map but just a heads ups regardless.

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Alright that finally does it, I think, I hope. May the Year of the Monkey bless everyone with ape-like reflexes as they try to nail Ozo’s multi-tap skills. See you next week all you Ozo ringers and Red Lantern Koshka skin bling-blingers. (Okay that one is a stretch)