Articulating my thoughts on Patch Changes and how they Affect Rosters

Let’s talk about Patch changes.



One of my favorite aspects of League is the incredible ecosystem of power. In simple, everything is connected, so if you see a change in the patch notes that hits a specific champion or item, things that are not highlighted are also affected. This seems fairly obvious, but for those that have never considered it take this extreme example:



Zhonya’s Hourglass is completely removed from the game.



Obviously, the plain text is that a major Ability Power item is no longer available. So, who does this hurt? Firstly, the Ability Power mages that use this item as a core in their build or powerspike. Secondly, who does this empower? Assassins. Particularly, Attack Damage assassins like Zed.



Why? Because Zhonya’s Hourglass is often the immediate build-path as an answer to Zed’s lane phase physical damage (due to its ingredient armor stats), and all-in counter potential due to the Stasis effect on the active Hourglass to dodge Zed’s Ultimate Death Mark proc.



But the Patch Notes will just say: “Zhonya’s Hourglass is removed from the game”. Sometimes accompanied by a brief explanation or insight into the change.



Now, that example is incredibly obvious an easy to work with, but this happens every Patch. Some changes incredibly subtle over-time. It’s my favorite aspect of League of Legends because I believe it empowers adaptability and creativity and can reward a completely different vein of preparation.



So, here’s where some debate gets inserted:



“Another big issue with random patch changes is the effect on roster moves. C9 may have replaced meteos just as the farm meta comes in.”

-@ryantang20



Link to the original tweet: https://twitter.com/Ryantang20/status/619300373195403265



Analytically, I believe Ryan makes a fair point. If the jungle over-haul does empower herbivore style of jungling, it’d be unfortunate timing for Cloud9 to lose Meteos who is famed for his power-farming style and being able to hard-carry late game from the jungle.



Similar events happened in the Season Four World Championship run for StarHorn Royal Club. Lucian was disabled in NA/EU LCS due to his rework but enabled in LPL. StarHorn’s Attack Damage Carry, Uzi, abused Lucian’s power on the Patch shift and went on an absurd rise in standings, qualifying themselves for the World Championship.



I would, analytically, make the observation that the Patch or the Meta shifted into StarHorn’s favor and their success was incredibly dependent on that occurrence.

What I disagree with is the idea implied that that “random patch changes” are unfair or an “issue”. Even in the StarHorn case where you can make a valid argument that because Champions and restrictions are not globally applied it’s unfair that StarHorn got to abuse this power longer than anyone else internationally. Although, I personally still don’t view it as an issue or unfair because it was domestically balanced across LPL – every team had the opportunity to deny or play the power pick of Lucian.



Fun fact: Lucian was banned every game of the final between StarHorn Royal Club and Samsung White.



Link: http://www.gosugamers.net/lol/tournaments/4731-2014-world-championship/1246-playoffs/4736-single-elimination/matches/56272-samsung-galaxy-white-vs-starhorn-royal-club



Patch Changes are integral to competitive League of Legends. I’ll use mostly LPL examples because that’s the region I’m familiar with:



Sivir is incredibly powerful in the LPL Meta. Why? She empowers teamfighting due to her On the Hunt Ultimate and its ability to augment her team’s hard engage or disengage through aura movement speed. Likewise, and more important to the current iteration and evolution to the LPL meta, is her wave clear and siege potential with her auto-reset on Ricochet (W) and its subsequent bounces through waves. Teams now use Sivir’s Ultimate to not only assist in prepping position for teamfights, but simply to outmaneuver across the map to abuse her insane clear and siege on unguarded Turrets.



Why is prioritizing Structural Objectives (Turrets) over Monster Objectives (Buffs, Dragon, Baron) more important for the majority LPL teams? Because Structural Objectives give global gold and are not timer dependent.



Fun Note: Another aspect about Sivir is that she empowers both playstyles of being Monster Objective Focused and Structure Objective Focused.



So, that’s the baseline working LPL Meta:



Laneswap Sivir to siege first Turret. Itemize Infinity Edge rush if you’re going to fight 5v5 for the initial Dragon so you can have the crit battle stat for advantage – but since standard practice is to trade Outer Turret for First Dragon – Attack Damage Carries will itemize flat Attack Damage with Infinity Edge ingredients: Pick Axe and B.F. Sword, then complete their level 2 Berserker Grieves instead of completing the item. Why? You cannot crit a Turret, so the more cost efficient build for pushing down Turrets is to quickly upgrade your boots for the Attack Speed bonus, likewise the movement speed upgrade will help you quickly rotate to open sieging Turrets.



I’m going to be bold and claim that OMG and EDG were the first LPL teams to identify this style. Majority thought OMG would become a pseudo StarHorn Royal Club with the acquisition of Uzi, but upon the benching of Gogoing, Loveling, and Cloud – OMG took a peculiar turn: Priority picking Sivir or Maokai every game, initiating a laneswap, and then pushing down every Outer Turret as quickly as possible before transitioning with an absurd Global Gold buffer into teamfights.



OMG took a player often considered one of the most elite mechanical Attack Damage Carries of all time, and made him into a PvE farmbot. And it was incredibly effective for the first part of the Split.



Now what happened is that as the Patch and Meta shifted with the release of Ekko, uprising of…Ryze, and the transition away from tank junglers and hard engage into more bruiser style and mobility, OMG started to become exposed.



See, as hard-engage supports like Alistar became priority and Cinderhulk made most supportive roles and tank tops incredibly difficult to burst, control mages edged out assassins because you needed to rely on getting through your cooldown rotations quick to chip down instead of burst. Cool-Down Reduction items like Morello’s were empowered and core because they allowed more rotations through spells.



Now, Janna is on the rise in LPL because she acts as a soft-counter to the hard engage teams were bringing, using her Monsoon Ultimate to reset fights as well as continuing to empower quick rotations with her Tailwind Aura Passive and siege with the added Attack Damage augmented on her Eye of the Storm Shield (E).



The problem? Amazing, the new support for OMG, hasn’t shown successful competitive results on disengage supports like Janna. Statistically, he’s only relevant on hard engage champions like Nautilus. Effectively, the Patch or Meta of the hard engage supports hid Amazing’s weaknesses. Likewise, Xiyang – being a role swap from Mid – was able to hide his inexperienced champion pool with Maokai priority in first rotation.



When Sivir and Maokai are removed from OMG, as first demonstrated in their LPL match against King, OMG struggle to emulate their previous Structure Focused style on other picks and look much less refined.



As the Meta continues to shift back towards assassin play (which subsequently hurts Attack Damage Carry players because of the obvious target on their backs) OMG will have to adapt and change their style. Their most recent game where they subbed North over Uzi and gave Cool Ahri to synergize with Loveling’s Nocturn for assassination on the backline illustrates this idea.



So, instead of considering Patch Changes as detrimental to team’s rosters and exclaiming: “lucker dog! The patch shifted into your predisposition way of playing”, examine and appreciate the Elite teams that are able to adapt quickly and efficiently to the ever-changing Meta.



And again, it’s not incorrect to be able to point and say: this team is strong because the patch made them strong. That can analytically be entirely correct. In fact, if you examine the history of Elite Teams, World Elite, SKT, Samsung White, Ozone/Blue, OMG, Fnatic – all of these teams had moments of brilliance when their strongest player or most unique attribute was magnified by the current Meta of the time.



But there are also reoccurring teams that sit at the top: TSM, Cloud9 (until recent) SKT, Najin, OMG, EDG, FNC – so, what is it about these teams?



Either these teams go through extreme roster swaps, or they have legacy players with massive and flexible styles or champion pools. I tend to favor the idea that being Meta Resistant is more on the Player’s back than the Club or Team and that the team's find success because they insert these players in timely fashion for results.



But that’s the difference between a good team and an elite team. Adaptation. And that’s entirely controlled on the Patch aspect of League. Without, there would never be this competitive hurdle or test. So, it’s wrong to imply that Patch Changes are unfair to rosters.



If Gragas is the most powerful jungler and your player cannot play Gragas he’s not an elite player.



There are entirely valid arguments to be made about the timing windows in which these patch changes effect the competitive landscape and what would be best on competitive integrity; but that isn't my scope of discussion.



Just articulating the idea that Patch shifts can hide players weaknesses and one of the most important and defining attributes in the difference of a good player to a great player to an elite player to the best, is that they can play everything are immune or quick to adapt to the changes.



After-all, Faker plays anything.



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